There’s a girl who stares at me in my classes. She thinks I don’t notice her, but I can feel her eyes on the back of my head, burrowing into my brain. The first few times she did this, I didn’t mind. Whenever I try to catch her eye, she looks away and pretends to stare at something else. However, there was only so much I could tolerate before I snapped.
She was in all of the advanced classes, which meant she was in every one of my classes. That adds up to a lot of staring.
I decide to confront her after English class. Between the Shakespeare readings, I gather the courage to speak to her and run possible lines through my head. I cut out all the “sorrys,” knowing full well I didn’t do anything wrong. In the end, I keep it simple.
I follow her outside the classroom, catching sight of her telltale braid. My hand shot out, grabbing her elbow.
“Listen,” I say, getting straight to the point. “Please stop staring at me in class. I don’t know who you are, but it’s very rude and annoying.”
She looks at me, eyes empty and innocent behind her steel-framed glasses. I half-expect her to deny the accusation, but she merely smiles.
“Did you know that we’re the only two Chinese students in the entire school?”
The question catches me off guard. I release her arm.
“What does that have to do with anything? Will you please stop staring at me in class? It feels weird.”
Her smile falters. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to make you uncomfortable. Let me buy you something to eat after school. Where would you like to go?”
That was how I ended up after school in Chinatown with Yuey Wang. When I first saw her name on the top ten list, I didn’t know what to expect. But somehow the wiry girl buried beneath the Two Bridges uniform fit the moniker perfectly.
We order two bowls of noodles in a small restaurant near my family’s apartment. I ask for hot tea instead of two glasses of cold water, choosing a traditional beverage for Yuey. Unlike me, she didn’t grow up in the United States, a distinction only made obvious by our different accents.
I break apart the wooden chopsticks and dig in. My bag of pastries and the meager school lunch portions left my stomach growling.
Halfway through my noodles, Yuey asks about my family. She wants to know what kind of Chinese I am and judging by the look in her eyes, she already has an idea. Indeed, if I tell her the truth, she would easily discern my socioeconomic status. I vaguely answer that they own a business before clumsily deflecting, bringing up the school rankings.
“You’re number two among the top ten. I’m kind of jealous, being beneath you in fourth.” I say this in Mandarin, making sure not to use my family’s dialect to give away where they were from.
She waves away my compliment. “Oh, it’s nothing. School is much harder in China. I used to spend all night studying back in Shanghai. If anything, I’m mad that I’m in second place instead of first.”
We laugh at the remark. “I just wish I wasn’t fourth.”
“You were third last year, right? I think that Korean girl only beat you by a few points. If you study harder this year, you can take my spot easily.”
I shrug, pretending Natalie’s spot above me didn’t irk me. “I’ll try harder.”
“You never went to school outside of the U.S., did you? If you did, you could have easily climbed to first place. I’m not sure why your parents would diminish your potential by keeping you in school here.”
I shake my head. “Staying here for school helps their business.” This was technically true, but probably not in the way Yuey pictured it.
She takes off her glasses, wiping the steam from the hot noodles before setting it to the side. “I get it. My family wants me to help them expand their operations to the U.S. They’ve got their hands in luxury goods distribution and real estate. What was your last name again?”
“Ng. Why?” My voice betrays none of the caution I feel giving my answer.
“Oh, I’m familiar with your family. They’re also in distribution, but I forget what the exports and imports were.”
“They didn’t tell me. They’d prefer to give the business to my brother.”
I surprise myself with how smoothly the lie comes out. It didn’t matter that “Ng” was a common last name among Chinese people. If there were a rich Chinese family with that last name, I would not deny any connection so long as it hid my status as a scholarship student.
“You’re not missing out on much. The one-child policy means that I’m the only heir to the Wang business. All of the numbers and meetings are so boring.”
Financial security and inheritance were hardly boring to me. But it was interesting what my peers took for granted.
“What would you rather be doing?”
Her eyes shine with possibilities. “What a dangerous question to ask. I wouldn’t be in school or America. There’s barely anyone like me here.”
“That’s not true. There’s me and …”
My voice trails off as I try to remember the other Chinese students at Two Bridges. There were a few upperclassmen and a handful of freshmen. But in our year, it truly was just me and her.
“Your friends don’t have to be Chinese. They can understand you and be like you in other ways.”
“They’d understand me more if they were Chinese.”
I resist the urge to slam my head against the table. How did someone so stubborn live for as long as she did?
We finish our food and wander through Chinatown. I fish out a couple of dollars for two packs of gai daan jai, asking for mine to be covered in chocolate syrup and Yuey’s to be drizzled in strawberry. As we bite into our egg waffles, I’m struck by how my new friend may be the only person who could appreciate this dessert in the same way that I did. Maia and Ainsley would like the treat if they were here, but they wouldn’t love it as much as they did street foods from their respective cultures.
Yuey buys us bubble tea, insisting we need a drink to wash down our dessert. “I wouldn’t want to get yeet hay,” she says knowingly.
I didn’t believe in yeet hay, but I sip my milk tea and chew the tapioca pearls anyway. My mother told me all the time that I would get “bad air” from snacking on chips and fried food. The worst thing that’s ever happened from that was a minor nosebleed. I had to drink herbal tea for a week straight to “cool down” my body after that incident.
We pass by fruit stands and fish markets, pausing by cheap jewelry stalls. Yuey and I linger in the neighborhood, not wanting to leave anytime soon. But my mother called me and then Yuey’s phone rang and I recognized the worried tones of another strict parent.
As I walk Yuey back to the train station so that she could go back home to the Upper East Side, an old woman stops us, thrusting a catalog of fake luxury bags in our faces. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be targeted by someone like her, but something about our uniforms and Yuey’s accessories signaled to her that we were the kind of girls who may like that sort of thing. These bootleg goods were normally sold to tourists and on slow days like these, also to fashionable young ladies like ourselves.
I expect Yuey to brush her off so we could keep walking, but she stops and takes the catalog. I hover nearby, my feet still pointed to the station.
“LV, Gucci, Chanel. I can get you a good price for all of them,” the old woman says, tilting her visor toward us.
Yuey points to the Chanel Boy Bag. “Show me that one.”
The old lady leads us to a closed storefront. She lifts the metal grating and we crouch, following her into the dimly lit room. She takes off her visor and digs through piles of plastic packaging. Finally, she grabs a black crossbody bag.
Yuey inspects the bag, paying particular attention to the Cs of the Chanel logo. “Do you have one with silver hardware? The gold metal makes this one look fake.”
“It’s all real,” the woman insists. “But I have silver too.” She digs through another pile, handing her another bag.
Yuey opens the bag, checking the lining and the quality of the leather. She slips the metal chain over her head, testing its strength.
“How much is it?”
“Five hundred,” the woman replies.
“I thought you said you had a good price.” Yuey crosses her arms.
“This bag is worth one thousand. I give it to you for fifty percent off!”
“Three hundred. I won’t pay more than that.”
After much bickering, the woman agrees to the price and Yuey gives her the money in cash. Outside the store, Yuey hands me the bag.
“It’s yours,” she says. “It looks just like the real thing, but we got it for a fraction of the price.”
“I can’t take it.” Her sudden act of generosity confuses me.
“No one will be able to tell the difference. My parents bought me the real thing, but it’s not worth three thousand dollars.”
The real price of the bag nearly knocks the air out of my lungs. “It’s not that–”
“People wear fake bags all the time, especially rich people. Your friends won’t be able to tell the difference. If our classmates can’t even tell that we’re two different kinds of Chinese people, you can wear this bag.”
I look at her, dumbfounded. Had she been watching me and my friends? Did she know who I truly was, as hard as I tried to hide it?
“I want you to study with me after school during the week. This is the best day I’ve had since I came to this country. We can be number one and number two next year in the class rankings, if that’s what you care about.”
My shoulders slump in relief, hearing her true motivations. I take the bag, trying not to appear frazzled.
“Deal.” For good measure, I also shake her hand, which makes her laugh.
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