Rent a Boyfriend - Gloria Chao Page 0,72

lot of Asians don’t like it if your material doesn’t match their experience, and non-Asians sometimes just don’t get the joke. I’m lucky to have enough fans in the area to fill this tiny club—and don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for that—but I’m still struggling. This road isn’t easy, but at least it’s getting better. The beginning was the hardest. I wasn’t used to being alone. . . . I was busing tables . . . working odd jobs here and there. I knew my parents would be so ashamed that I was washing dishes, but after about three months, I stopped caring. Actually, they’d still be ashamed of me now, doing this, but . . . ” She shrugged and meant it.

“God, I’m so glad I’m past that,” she continued. “Now I have regular work with an improv group, I teach some comedy classes at the local community college, and I bartend at this club the nights I’m not onstage. The checks are infrequent and pretty small, but it’s enough to get me by. I don’t need much—just a roof over my head and distance from my mother.”

“I’m sorry it’s been so hard for you.”

She gave me an appreciative nod. “Thanks. You know, it’s cliché, but you really can’t put a price on happiness. And don’t worry—it won’t be as hard for you as it was for me. I know you have plenty of options—more than I did. You were always the one my mother compared me to. . . .” She mimicked her mother’s heavy accent. “Mei got straight As last semester. Mei is in all honors classes. Mei poops golden nuggets.”

I cringed. I remembered Mrs. Chu and her stern face with perpetually pursed lips, like she was always constipated. Out of all my mother’s friends, she had scared me the most. “Sorry about that.”

Ying-Na shook her head. “It’s not your fault. I will never be good enough for her. It took me nineteen years to realize that, but once I did, things got easier. It sucks—I mean, she’s my mother—but once I stopped trying so damn hard to be someone else, I started to enjoy life. Being alone was hard, but better than feeling shitty about myself all the time.”

“That’s the eventual goal—to enjoy life.”

Her face turned down with empathy. “Do you need anything? A job?”

“I actually have one. I’m teaching dance, just two classes for now, but I’m hoping to add on a few.” It wasn’t enough, but that plus the financial aid that would kick in when I turned eighteen would hopefully get me through.

Ying-Na clapped her hands together in excitement. “I’m totally there! Save a spot for me!”

“Maybe I can fill my class with sympathetic Asians who want to get me off the streets.”

She laughed. “I’ll spread the word. We Asian-Americans need to stick together. No one else understands the shit we have to deal with.”

She pulled me into another hug. She felt like my jiějie. A dirtier, foul-mouthed older sister.

Voicemail from my mother

Mei? It’s me. Can we meet at Bertucci’s? We need to talk.

CHAPTER 26

AFFAIR 2.0

MY MOTHER STARED AT THE scratches on the Bertucci’s table. There hadn’t been any sleuthing for friends today. From the moment I saw her in the parking lot, I knew something was different. She radiated sadness. I drummed my fingers on my lap, anxious for her to tell me what was going on.

She took a breath. “Bǎbá saw on the GPS that I went to Bertucci’s. We fought.”

Meaning he yelled and you cowered in a corner, I thought to myself.

“I fought back.” My mother’s strong voice shocked me as much as her words. “I stood up for you, Mei. I told him I still wanted a relationship with you. I had to. I didn’t want things to end like with you and Nǎinai. With Xing and Nǎinai. And now”—she took another breath—“Bǎbá’s not talking to me anymore.”

“Thank you, Mǎmá.” My voice came out a husky whisper. I sniffed, very unladylike, but she didn’t reprimand me. She was busy muffling her own sniffle.

“Mei, I raised you how I was raised because I thought it was the only way. But your words the last time we met”—she patted the spot over her heart—“I heard them. I ask myself, what if things could be different? I never considered it before. Then I thought about my childhood. I hated when my mǎmá—your wàipó—gave away my toys. Or told the neighbor her daughter was better than me. Or scolded me no matter