Girl Overboard (32 page)

If I’ve ever doubted The Ethan Cheng Way, I don’t anymore, not when I now have conclusive proof that Baba is right yet again. See, according to him, visionaries are so ahead of their time that they often get vilified for their forward thinking. It takes people a little time to come around, but they usually do.

“Manga meets service learning meets social commentary,” I correct.

“Right, that’s right!” says George, nodding as if I’m the one who’s finally catching on.

After class, Mr. Delbene asks me to stay behind. While I wait for him to speak, he tacks my manga-column on the bulletin board and reads the working title, “ ‘A Fine Whine,’ huh? Not The Syrah Cheng Way?”

“Nope, that’s been done before.”

He nods as though he understands that sometimes we have to step off the well-grooved tracks and find our own route, however bumpy it is. “I can’t wait to see what you come up with next.”

That makes two of us, Mr. Delbene. I can’t wait to see what I come up with next, either.

T
ell me that I
woke up this morning on the set for a new horror movie,
The Night of the Living Leongs,
because surely zombies have replaced that entire branch of my family. The Boys standing outside The House of Cheng have their mouths shut, hair slicked down, and shirts tucked in, and in no way do they resemble The Boys of Richmond. My aunties and uncles file inside, dumbstruck tourists visiting a five-star haunted hotel, half-expecting that they’ll be picked off one-by-one. Even Mama, she of the perfect quip for every social situation, is uttering monosyllabic replies, like her conversational talents have been vaporized.

So it’s up to me to be the convivial host-slash-translator-slash-tour guide.

“Come in,” I welcome everyone, and lead the Leongs to the living room, where dim sum stations are set up. “You must be starving.”

One of The Boys whispers, “Our whole house fits in this room.”

“Yeah, a kid came in here about a year ago and he was never seen again,” I whisper back, loud enough for the rest of The Boys to hear.

That seems to loosen them up; at least it gets a round of “nuh-uh” going among The Boys.

Kids down, adults to go. They’re standing around, gawking. Not that I blame them. It’s not every day that you step into a house that has more precious Asian art than most museums. Even Jocelyn looks subdued, and I start to worry that maybe she hadn’t been envious of me back in Richmond because she had no benchmark, no conception of what billions look like. But then she intercepts my SOS and says, “Auntie Marnie, the present.”

With that prompt, Auntie Marnie’s natural bossiness asserts itself. “Yu,” she says in an authoritative voice. “Mama wanted you to have this.” From her cavernous purse, zipper broken and marred with a faint blue ink mark, Marnie withdraws a yellow silk envelope, snapped shut. She urges it on Mama, who simply holds it gingerly in her hand as if it’s a small-scale version of Pandora’s box that she’s loath to open. Well, that just irks Auntie Marnie, who commands, “Open it.”

With shaking fingers, Mama pulls out an apple-green jade bracelet. Even to my untrained jewelry-appraising eyes, I can tell that it’s hardly as valuable as the piece Mama wears around her neck. So many conflicting emotions must be running through Mama that I wouldn’t be surprised if she dismissed the gift, but slowly, with everyone watching, Mama works the bracelet, carved out of solid jade, over her left hand. At last, it slips over the birdlike bones of her wrist, and when it does, everyone smiles.

“Perfect,” pronounces Auntie Marnie.

At that moment, Baba walks in, briefcase in hand, unaware that the Leongs, even The Boys, are staring at him with starstruck awe: the great Ethan Cheng, the man whose face has graced sixty-two magazine covers, is standing right here with them. His eyes are only for Mama. When he reaches her side, she looks up at him and smiles tremulously, holding up her tiny wrist. “Look, Ethan, look at what my mother left me.”

“It’s beautiful,” Baba tells her, and then greets the Leongs as if they were his family, too.

In the middle of the introductions, from across the room, comes a loud crash followed by an equally loud chorus of “Oh, no!” The Boys are standing amid a fallen bonsai and its shattered pot, mouths agape with horror at what they’ve done.

“Aiya!”
cries Auntie Marnie, rushing to them as she simultaneously launches into a tirade of Mandarin, scolding The Boys for being so clumsy.

“It’s okay,” I tell Auntie Marnie, even though I’m panicking inside:
Oh, no, they destroyed one of Mama’s perfect, precious bonsai.
Mama is staring, staring, staring at the tiny pine tree, lying like roadkill, thrown feet away from the broken porcelain.

Auntie Marnie first tells the boys to stand back and then continues her chastising in Mandarin, “Didn’t I tell you to be careful here? Aaaah, you boys are like ants on a hill, running up and down all day long. Now look what you’ve done.”

“It was an accident,” says Mama, interpreting Auntie Marnie’s Mandarin correctly. “Just an accident. It can be replaced. Really,” she says slowly, “nothing important was broken.”

As relieved as The Boys look at that, Auntie Marnie is still glaring at them, so I don’t hear a single protesting peep from them when I suggest that they follow me downstairs pronto. After I leave them in the theater, bouncing up and down on the couches as they watch a cartoon with Jocelyn, I return back upstairs to find Auntie Marnie still lamenting over the bonsai.

Just as I’m about to tell her to forget about it, Baba stops me with a gentle hand on my arm. Only then do I see the miracle unfolding within The House of Cheng: this broken vessel is mending our fragmented family.

“What a waste,” sighs Auntie Marnie, her hand full of jagged pieces of pottery that she’s salvaged from the floor.

“The pot was too small anyway,” says Mama, taking the shards from her. “No, no, what’s going to waste is all this food.” And then in halting Mandarin, Mama asks,
“Chi bao le ma?”

It’s a greeting, a new start in our family history. “Let’s eat,” I agree, following Mama’s lead, as we urge plates on my relatives, on Baba, and finally on each other.

O
n Sunday, the morning
of the event, Mama and I set a world record for female preparedness in the Cheng household. Mama has us on a timer; I’m not kidding. Seventeen minutes is all she allots for us to breakfast, shower, and steal into the car, all without waking up any of our extended family. Like conspirators, we’re giggling as Mama reverses out of the garage, looking like a teenager in her pigtails and après-ski outfit. My new red jacket—the result of the “You need to wear bright colors on TV” pronouncement by Auntie Marnie, which was seconded by Mama—is not for the fashion shy.

“We did it,” I say, and pull out the minute-by-minute program we created with Meghan a week ago. “I was sure one of The Boys would wake up.”

“You wore them out yesterday.”

“Our toys wore them out.” For once, I don’t feel guilty about our largesse, not when I can share it with the people I love.

Niceties dispensed with, we get down to business for the rest of the drive over to DiaComm. It’s still so dark, I need to use the mini flashlight Mama packed for this purpose. The lake we’re crossing over on the 520 bridge is flat black.

“I can’t believe today’s the event,” I tell Mama.

“You’ve been working nonstop. How’re you feeling about your speech?”

“Like I’m going to throw up.” Last night, Grace casually mentioned that my appeal for bone marrow donors would be broadcast to thirty million viewers worldwide over ESPN, and as she said, “That’s not counting the pickup on the news… if you give a good enough sound byte.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Mama says, as if I’ll be speaking at more of these fundraisers in the future.

We arrive to a DiaComm that has undergone a miraculous transformation, from parking lot to Snow Park. No sooner does Mama get out of the car than she marches to the snow blowers. Apparently, the shape of the snow is not quite up to Cheng standards.

“Shouldn’t this be smoother?” she asks, pointing a dainty finger at a lump.

A thin guy with a goatee takes his shovel and whacks down the offending bump.

“Is your mom always like this?” he asks me when Mama moves off to meet with the vendor who’ll be selling Ride for Our Lives T-shirts, proceeds benefiting the bone marrow registry.

“Like what?”

His bushy eyebrows lift meaningfully before he attacks another bump. In a way, I’m no different from Christine, who denounced Bao-mu publicly during the Cultural Revolution. Haven’t I put down Mama whenever I could, whether it’s in my head or in my journal? Written her off as a socialite fluffhead? Haven’t I been denouncing Mama, figuring if I couldn’t have her, I didn’t want to be like her at all?

For the first time that I can remember, I defend Betty Cheng, socialite, philanthropist, adopted daughter, reunited sister, and beloved mother: “Yeah, she’s always on top of everything. Isn’t she amazing?”

Three hours before the
event starts, the pro riders begin arriving to practice. It’s a who’s who of snowboard superstars, both guys and girls who are regulars in all the riding magazines. Some are Olympic medalists, others are video stars. Whatever career track they’re on, the snowboarders here are at the top of their games.

Surrounded as I am by these celebs, the only person I’m focused on is Lillian. She looks nervous and hopeful and afraid, just the way I felt on the way to Vancouver, desperately wanting the Leongs to accept me but unsure whether they would.

“This is so much bigger than I thought it was going to be.” Lillian gestures to the stands that are already congested, the VIP tent for the corporate sponsors, the pro snowboarders milling in the staging area around the ramp, the booths for Children’s Hospital and the vendors, and the tent housing the National Bone Marrow Registry. “I can’t believe you pulled this all off.”

“We haven’t yet,” I correct her. What counts isn’t the pomp, but the results. Will people, especially minorities, register their bone marrow?

“Are you kidding me?” Lillian’s about to go on, but she looks over my shoulder, mouth widening, as she gawks, not at the snowboarders, but at all the press, the celebrities of journalism who’ve turned out. The business press is hovering around Baba, ready to capture every business bon mot springing out of his mouth.

Then, grinning at Lillian, I hand her a press pass. “Have fun hanging out with the big boys.”

“You Chengs are amazing.” She slips the long cord over her head and looks at her badge, hanging like a medal on her chest. “It’s so official.” Throwing her arms around me, Lillian says, “Thank you.”

I know she’s thanking me for more than the press pass, and instead of demurring with an “It’s nothing,” I hug her back with a “You are so welcome,” and honor my own hard work to pull off Ride for Our Lives. Then I tell Lillian about the editor of
Snowboarder
who tracked me down earlier, not exactly groveling, but definitely apologetic for writing about how rich dilettantes like myself were hazards on the slopes.

“Ewww!” shrieks Lillian, just the way I hoped she would.

“I told him he could make it up to me by featuring Ride for Our Lives—on the cover. I’m so shameless.” Isn’t it funny how once I accepted my body, I’ve learned to love throwing my weight around?

“Can I quote you on that?” she asks. “You know, I’ve got that article about you that I need to write.”

As co-chair, my job
is a lot more than meet-and-greet duties. I’m supposed to work the crowd, make sure that the VIPs are taken care of, that everyone and everything is in place. Luckily, we’ve got Meghan, the event planner extraordinaire, who is managing most of the behind-the-scenes logistics. Like now. With her walkie-talkie to her mouth, Meghan orders the espresso cart moved over two feet. Why, I don’t know, but with this event in her good hands, I welcome Mobey and B.J. at the entrance, where they’re standing awkwardly, staring at all the riders and Mount Cheng, the twenty-foot ramp built on top of scaffolding that runs down to a twenty-foot kinked and curved rail.

“Hey, guys, you came!”

B.J. throws his arm around me. “This is unbelievable.”

“Thanks,” I say, and can’t help asking, “Where’s Age?”

The guys exchange a look, one that tells me that Age isn’t coming. Uncomfortably, Mobey keeps staring at the ramp and mutters, “He made other plans.”

Those other plans are Natalia. We all know that.

“Here,” I say, “let me show you guys around,” and lead Mobey and B.J. to the tent that Mama had set up for the pro riders.

“All this loot is free?” asks B.J. in wonder.

“Yup. You know my mom,” I tell them proudly. “If the presenters at the Oscars can haul home fifty grand of goodies just for reading a teleprompter, then so should ‘our’ snowboarders.” That means, of course, the latest and greatest cell phones with a free one-year plan, free music, free games, and yes, free manga for all the participants.

“God, I gotta be a pro rider,” moans B.J.

“Hey, is that Jared Johanson?” asks Mobey, gawking dazed-and-amazed at the ESPN and
Sports Illustrated
photographers who are camping out in the staging area. Beyond them, Jared is standing next to his brother. My heart, I am glad to report, doesn’t break at the sound of Jared’s name. Not the way it does at Age’s absence.
Muy
adult of me to invite Jared and ask him to round up his buddies, I have to say.

“I can’t believe all this,” says Mobey. And then he punches me in the arm as if I’m one of the guys. I punch him back, glad that I am. He says, “I knew you’d be more than a snowboard girl.”

More than a snowboard girl. It’s true. You’d think that it’d be all bittersweet and heavy sighs being this close to my old dream. But I don’t feel more than a twinge of wistfulness, the same way I feel when I see pictures of our old house. Snowboarding gave me a place in the world, and going pro was something tangible I could strive for. Somewhere along the way, having fun gave way to courting fame and proving my worth.