With great fanfare Lindsey's dad went to the hall closet and brought out a fancy lei made of eighty-eight precisely folded dollar bills interspersed with red and gold paper. He gently placed the garland around Yun Yun's neck, careful not to muss her hair.
"Wow!" everyone said, gathering around.
"These dollar bills are too crisp," Yun Yun immediately complained. "They're jabbing me!"
Confounded, Lindsey furrowed her brow. Didn't Chinese people love crisp, brand new money, fresh from the bank? Of course! Everyone preferred that their money hadn't been previously passed from the Chinatown branch of Bank of America to the palms of
bock gweis
and then back again into
tong yun
hands. Crisp money was de rigueur when folded into red envelopes at New Year's, Red Egg and Ginger parties, and on birthdays. To complain about such a thing was nonsensical. And these bills on the lei were extra special. They came straight from the Bank of Canton and had been folded like origami at a special shop. The bills were so new that Lindsey could smell the ink from where she was standing. How ludicrous that her grandmother was complaining about money being too crisp.
Other aunts, uncles, cousins, and extended family eventually arrived, and as they all chatted away, Lindsey took particular notice of her grandfather, Yeh Yeh, who silently shuffled in and parked himself in the corner. Lindsey had once overheard her dad say Yeh Yeh looked great for his ninety years, and that he looked the same as he did as a young man. While this was true, it was only because Yeh Yeh had always looked old. Lindsey once saw a picture of him as a younger man, and even when he was forty he looked eighty. He always wore the same dusty overcoat and woolen cap, his downtrodden, unassuming demeanor remaining unchanged over the years. Tonight he quietly blended into the furniture, and sat fused to his chair like a shlumpy Rodin sculpture.
Lindsey also noticed that Auntie Geraldine's daughter, Sharon, had arrived with her husband, Hanley. After Lindsey took their coats they made their way to two folding chairs a safe distance from Uncle Elmore. The three sat in awkward silence for a while and watched
Saved By The Bell
. The canned laughter was interrupted only by the periodic sound of fingers sifting through Chex Party Mix.
Lindsey hovered between the kitchen and the hallway, secretly eyeing her cousin. Sharon was exactly what Lindsey never wanted to be: one of those Chinese girls who never spoke up, never offered an opinion, or complained about anything. When they were kids, both Lindsey and Sharon had dreamed of being writers and artists, but these days Sharon was an accountant for a mortgage firm. She'd always loved reading books like
Pride and Prejudice
and
Wuthering Heights
, and had planned to write her own Heathcliff-humping romance someday. Lindsey wondered what had squelched her cousin's creative inclinations. Had she been sucked into the invisible, Chinese math vortex? Lindsey imagined that such a thing existed, a cultural force that made most Chinese people more interested in making money than art. Or maybe Sharon was simply more practical than Lindsey, who at present was juggling two low-paying jobs, one as a step-and-fetch-it go-pher at her former grammar school, and another as a museum gift-shop clerk.
After having quit
Vegan Warrior
, Lindsey had been out of work for two months before landing her job at St. Maude's. She'd taken the second job working evenings at the museum to pay off the credit cards she'd abused while unemployed. Even though he'd offered, she didn't want Michael to have to pay for everything, and plus, she was deluded just enough to think that her noncommittal career choices qualified her lifestyle as "artistic."
Knowingly swimming against the tide of Chinese expectation, Lindsey wanted a little more fun out of life than just practical dollars and sense. She knew that if she was ever to be considered a good Chinese person, she should be scrimping for a rainy day, but she frittered away her earnings on CDs, DVDs, three-dollar chai lattes, and sparkly Hello Kitty lip glosses that required constant replenishing due to the fact that she missplaced them at a rate of two per week. Somewhere deep in her psyche was the firm belief that 24-hour entertainment was her right as an American, and she had the debt to prove it.
She sometimes thought about how so many Chinese families had pulled themselves up from poverty by sheer ingenuity and thrift, building laundry, restaurant, or real-estate empires from practically nothing. They went from sweatshop workers to engineers and surgeons in one generation, but for Lindsey and third-generation spawn like her, their forefathers' struggles seemed like ancient history. To them, opportunity had nothing to do with political or religious freedom, but was more about downloading music to their iPods and potentially getting a chance to star on a reality TV show. They thought little of spending thirty-two dollars for four ounces of peppermint foot cream or $450 to see Madonna. A sweatshop to them meant Bikram yoga, and Chinese Laundry was a brand of shoes. Jimmy Choo was more of a household name than Hu Jintao, and "Asian Rut" was just a Morrissey song.
But still, something in Lindsey's bones told her she should be saving money. After all, Chinese people had an ancient tradition of financial know-how. Back when the Phoenicians were busy dyeing swaths of drapery purple, the Chinese had already invented the abacus. And while the Greeks were busy perfecting the gay bathhouse, the Chinese were pinching pennies instead of each other's bare, Adonis-like rumps.
Speaking of money, the few times Yun Yun had deigned to speak to Lindsey in recent months, it was simply to tell her, "Make money now, play later." Lindsey had nodded obediently, but in her heart she didn't think that having a little fun before the onset of cataracts, arthritis, and support hose was too much to ask. As she looked over at Yun Yun now, she saw that her grandmother was meticulously trimming Kleenex squares in half with a pocket-sized pair of scissors, then daintily refolding and stashing the tissues up her sleeve for later use.
It occurred to Lindsey that Yun Yun had probably never had a day of frivolity in her life. She wouldn't know fun if it hit her in the head like an airborne whoopee cushion. As Lindsey stared for a moment longer, she nearly felt sorry for her grandmother until she saw Yun Yun glance Sharon's way with a sneer. She muttered, "Useless, good for nothing!" Lindsey took in the whole scene, watching her cousin visibly shrink as if a small pillow in her soul had been deflated. Lindsey sighed. Yun Yun wasn't the kind of grandmother who inspired spontaneous hugs.
Truth be told, Lindsey and Yun Yun had never gotten along well. Her other grandma, Pau Pau, had been playful and indulgent when Lindsey was small, but Yun Yun had been exactly the opposite, cranky every Christmas, Arbor Day, Groundhog
Day, and holiday in between. Lindsey had tried to reach out to Yun Yun in the past, but had always struck out. Every time she asked her grandmother how she was, Yun Yun just stared at her blankly as if she hadn't heard anyone talking to her. Even though Yun Yun could speak passable English, she usually spoke Chinese around her grandchildren to passive-aggressively punish them all for not learning Chinese.
Yun Yun used to scold Lindsey's parents incessantly for her rowdy and unladylike behavior. From the adults' Chinese conversation, Lindsey always recognized a few choice words like "lazy."
"misbehaved," and "no respect." Yun Yun was critical of practically everything about her—if her hair was messy, if she took second helpings of any meal, or if she showed her teeth when she laughed. All the while, Yun Yun would gesture and point at Lindsey as if she were a flea-bitten chihuahua in the corner. Lindsey came to think of her grandmother as the antithesis of everything she wanted to be, which back then happened to be a combination of Malibu Barbie and Evel Knievel.
These days, Yun Yun irritated Lindsey most by pretending that Michael didn't exist. She never said hello to him, even though she saw him at least once a month at family dinners. Nor did she ever thank him when he routinely re-treaded the back legs of her walker with fresh tennis balls. Yun Yun acted as if romance and its entanglements were a waste of time, and Lindsey had once even overheard her say to her dad, "Why get to know flavor of the month? He probably dump her next week."
Perhaps Yun Yun's own marriage had been arranged, or life hadn't worked out the way she wanted. Lindsey wasn't sure what her grandmother's problem was. All she knew was that it was difficult to be around such a bitter person, especially one who routinely spat at the television. Yun Yun was addicted to watching programs about bachelors and millionaires, but all the while she spewed comments like, "Stupid oaf, but lots money," or "Big tits leave no room for brain."
Lindsey speculated that her grandmother, like other viewers, enjoyed the vicarious thrill of watching bitchy phonies having the last shreds of their dignity ripped from them like a flimsy bikini. But Yun Yun acted like all love was doomed, and seemed particularly unable to accept that Lindsey had found happiness somewhere between a Guandong village matchmaker and
ElimiDATE
. This lack of matriarchal approval silently gnawed away at the tightrope wire upon which Lindsey's self-esteem was precariously balanced.
Speaking of relationships, Lindsey was now quietly observing Sharon and Hanley. Maybe Sharon thought her husband as dashing as Mr. Darcy, but to Lindsey, Hanley was a cross between Tony Soprano and a porcupine, sitting there with his prickly hair, Matrixed-out leather coat, and poofy white sneakers that looked like small minivans. She recalled how Sharon hated sports, but hadn't protested when Hanley took her to the Handball Hall of Fame in Tucson, Arizona, for their honeymoon. What would be next, Big 5 Sporting Goods at the local strip mall for their anniversary? Lindsey wondered if that's what marriage did to a person: made a girl happy to live in a ticky-tacky suburb where early-bird dinners at the Hungry Hunter and John Madden football commentaries passed for a night on the town.
More guests trickled in. As Lindsey shuffled around the room replenishing the hors d'oeuvres, she eavesdropped as her dad, Auntie Geraldine, and Uncle Elmore squabbled about whose turn it was to clean Yun Yun and Yeh Yeh's house.
"I have a bad back," Geraldine complained.
Elmore laughed in her face. "Then lose some weight!"
"How long has it been since either of you went over there?" Lindsey's dad asked.
There was a long pause as they looked at one another. Lindsey just happened to glance up from a tray of cocktail weenies when she overheard her dad say, "You two are good for nothing. Lindsey and I will take over this month and we'll see what we can do."
Elmore and Geraldine went their separate ways. Lindsey, already trying to formulate an excuse in her mind, caught up with her dad.
"I know, I know," he said before she could protest. He offered, "Tell you what, I'll give you a hundred bucks if you go over there this week, okay?"
Lindsey thought about her credit cards. "Okay," she said, then went off to find Michael.
An hour or so later they were all feasting on Mrs. Owyang's cornucopia of 1950s Betty Crocker delights such as chicken and cornflake hash and her famous Imitation Crabmeat Puffs. Everyone complimented Lindsey's mother on her cooking, except, of course, Yun Yun, who sprinkled the meal with contradictory complaints such as "too salty."
"not enough
may tsing"
"not fluffy," and "too airy." People pretended not to hear Yun Yun's gripes, but at the far end of the table, Lindsey watched her grandmother intently.
Throughout dinner, Lindsey overheard the birthday girl fire a few shots at unsuspecting civilians. Addressing Kevin, Yun Yun said, "Why you have no girlfriend? I guess no girl want to go out such short man." A few moments later she said to Sharon, "Why you marry such
fay-jei
? Fat and lazy, just like you." To Lindsey's mother she said, "Turkey dry. You want me choke?"
To distract everyone from the awkward silence, Uncle Elmore signaled for Lindsey and Belinda to bring out the dessert. The two retreated to the kitchen where they found a sheet cake from Chinatown, the kind with the whipped buttercream roses and translucent gel icing. They lit the candles with Belinda's Zippo, then carried out the unwieldy sheet cake, each grabbing a side as it sagged under its own weight. Everyone looked up and started to clap when they saw the candlelit confection, and began to sing "Happy Birthday."
Across the table, Yun Yun was unsmiling with a sour expression carved into her face as if she was actually pondering where all the terrible noise was coming from. A few stragglers, including Lindsey, joined in on the last lines, but by the end of the song Yun Yun seemed more pouty than delighted. In a halfhearted attempt, she succeeded in blowing out only three candles, while managing to evenly distribute a mist of spit all over the strawberry shortcake, simultaneously spraying melted candle wax across the entire surface of the cake.
Michael went into the kitchen to help Mrs. Owyang retrieve utensils, paper plates, and ice cream, while Lindsey used the edge of a plastic knife to scrape the wax and spittle off the cake's top layer. Slicing through the wobbly sponge filling, Lindsey looked up when Michael returned and asked him, "What ice cream flavors are there?"
"Hmm," he said, examining the tubs. "Tin Roof Sundae, and something called Hopscotch… which looks like a vanilla and orange sherbet checkerboard." - .
"I think my parents shop at the time-warp Safeway," she replied as she continued to portion out thirty squares of cake while Michael scooped. When they were done, Lindsey watched Yun Yun dab whipped cream onto her tongue with a plastic fork.
"Tastes bad," Yun Yun said.
"It's good!" said Lindsey's mom.
Yun Yun tossed away the plastic utensil and began an inspection of her presents.
"Who wrap this? So much tape… who want such thing with so much tape?"
When Lindsey was done serving the dessert, she put aside her strained feelings toward her grandmother and tried to think of something to honor the old woman on her special day. Lindsey said to her dad, "Hey, let's bring out old photos of Yun Yun when she was younger. Do we have any?"