The International Kissing Club (14 page)

Worried about the fact that she didn’t speak the language.

Worried about the possibility that she wouldn’t fit in here any better than she fit in in Paris, Texas. But already her fears were going away, the strange connection she felt to China assuaging even the darkest ones. She belonged here.

It took her only about ten minutes to get her luggage, but it took another hour to clear customs and exchange her American currency for Chinese renminbis. By the time she stumbled onto the curb outside the airport, she was nearly catatonic. Sure, being around all these people who looked like her had energized her at first, but that second wind was fading fast. She had left home over twenty-four hours ago, and the lack of sleep had definitely caught up with her.

She’d been a little concerned about catching a cab, but there was a long line waiting to pick up passengers. Some were green, some were maroon, and as she walked toward them she wondered if there was a difference. She had printed out directions from the airport to the Shenyang Secondary School from Google before she’d left home, then run them through Google translator in simplified Chinese. She only hoped they were good enough to get her where she needed to go.

Squaring her shoulders, she headed toward the nearest cab. The driver took one look at her and spoke in Mandarin so fast she could barely distinguish the sounds, let alone understand the words he was saying.

When he finally wound down, she began to recite the phrase she had rehearsed on the airplane numerous times. Despite her practice, the words were slow and halting. “I need to get to Shenyang Secondary School. Can you take me there?”

The driver grinned when he heard her accent, and then it was his
turn to speak in broken syllables. “You speak English?” he asked carefully.

“Yes,” she answered, relieved. “I need to go to—”

He shook his head and spoke a bunch more Mandarin and she realized, with a sinking stomach, that those three words had exhausted his supply of English. Reaching into her laptop carrier, she pulled out the address and directions she’d printed the day before. She handed the papers to him and he took them, nodding.

Then he said in deliberately slow and simple Mandarin, “You go to school?”

“Yes,” she answered.

He opened his trunk and reached for her suitcase. With a sigh of relief, Mei watched as he secured the bag. Then she slipped into the back and rested her head against the seat.

The driver started the car and pulled away from the curb with a bang. As he drove, he chattered at her so quickly she had no hope of understanding. She tried her best, but she was so tired that her concentration was almost completely shot. Finally, she gave up and sat back in silence.

She glanced out the window and watched the city passing by in a blur. Though they were on side streets, the cabbie was driving like a NASCAR racer. Every time a sign came up and she tried to read it, they zoomed past before she could catch more than one or two characters.

They drove into a more heavily populated area, and she was relieved, figuring the presence of pedestrians everywhere would make the driver slow down. But it was as if he didn’t even see them. He careened around a corner and Mei clung to the seat in front of her, eyes squeezed tightly shut, as she waited for him to crash into something or someone.

When nothing happened, she risked a look and then almost wished she hadn’t. A truck barreled toward them, looming huge in the window. Just as she was certain her life was going to end, the driver took another left then a quick right.

And then things got a lot calmer.

They were on a small, shop-lined side street now, and Mei peered out the window, fascinated by the bright colors and teeming masses. People were everywhere, in the shops, on the streets, spilling onto small balconies dotting the sides of the tall white buildings that stretched far above her. Many of the balconies held four or five people, despite their being no larger than a bathroom stall back home. As she absorbed everything around her, Mei had the fleeting thought that the entire population of Paris could squeeze into this crowded street alone.

The driver said something else to her in Mandarin, and Mei nodded blankly. It wasn’t until he pulled the car right up onto the sidewalk and stopped that she realized they had arrived at her destination.

Taking a deep breath, she climbed out of the car and stared at the school that already felt familiar to her. She had spent so much time on its website and Google Earth these past two weeks that she could tell apart the huge, cream-colored buildings with their turquoise roofs. The one right in front of her, with its round turrets and soaring steeples, was the administration building. The larger buildings behind it were where classes were held. The ornate one to the right was the library, and the cluster of squat, square buildings to the left were the dorms.

Her ability to distinguish one building from the next calmed down the last of the butterflies in her stomach, and Mei was grinning as she reached into her bag to pay the cabbie. After he gave her her change, she grabbed her bags and headed through the iron fence and up the long brick walkway that led to the administration building.

Students milled around the beautifully landscaped grounds, dressed in uniforms and carrying books as they chattered to each other in Mandarin. None of them paid any attention to her, and the lack of questioning stares thrilled her as nothing else could. For the first time in her life, she was not “the little Chinese girl,” a curiosity in a town populated by descendants of Anglo-Saxon pioneers who had lived there for generations. Her ancestors had lived here for millennia.
Already, deep in her bones she felt a connection to these people and this place.

Her ethnicity wouldn’t separate her here; she was part of the same community. Her heritage, her identity, came from this place, and if she was very lucky, maybe she would find a clue to her birth parents in the following weeks.

Either way, she was home.

Or she was in hell. She couldn’t quite decide which, but at the moment she was definitely leaning toward the latter. Mei had chosen Shenyang Secondary School after seeing the brochure and reading testimonials on its website. Large, beautiful, and filled with pride in China’s long history, it offered a full language immersion program and a strong cultural emphasis that she hoped would really help with the discovery of her Chinese identity.

But now, standing before the school’s director—who was in the middle of dictating an endless list of rules and regulations about what she could and could not do during her stay—Mei just hoped she had some identity,
any identity
, left when she got back home. Although, at this point, she’d settle for having a smidgen of identity left when she finally escaped this office.

No nail polish. Mei curled her black-tipped fingers into her fists.

One single pair of earrings at a time. Studs. Mei tossed her hair to hide the multiple piercings along the curves of both ears.

“You will need to purchase a uniform, which you will wear always during class,” said Director Song, her glossy black hair pulled into a severe knot, her gray suit tailored with military precision. “Though you may, of course, wear your own clothing for after school hours.”

Well, at least that’s something
, Mei thought—she couldn’t even imagine wearing the same navy polo top and matching pants from morning to night, every day of her time here.

“You will be attending ten class sessions a day, including physical education. We can provide you with a tutor to help with your Mandarin during classes. Also, you will have two
hao you
assigned to you, ‘buddies’ who speak English and who can help guide you through your immersion experience at our school.”

The door to Director Song’s office opened and two girls, both in ponytails, came in wearing the plain, yet seemingly comfortable uniform.

“Mei, this is Dao-Ming and Bao, they will be your
hao you
while you are here. They will show you to your dormitory and help you find your classes each day.”

Mei smiled, eager to make new friends. Dao-Ming’s and Bao’s smiles faltered almost immediately when they saw her, making her own smile a little less bright. She didn’t know why, but she had the distinct impression that they were disappointed by her. Maybe it was the nail polish …

Speaking in very slow, very precise English, the girls assured Director Song that they were happy to help Mei get settled in.

Then they left the office, leaving Mei to follow, dragging her suitcase behind her. “Thank you for your help,” she offered in English when they didn’t speak to her. The two glanced back in unison, then shot each other a look that did nothing to alleviate her initial feeling that they were less than pleased with their charge.

The three of them made their way down the school’s long institutional hallways, with doors branching off in both directions. Mei peered into the classrooms, seeing scores of uniformed students seated in uniform rows, each classroom looking almost identical to the one before it. Maybe this was where she got her appreciation for order and organization, she thought—it seemed to be a running theme at this school, anyway.

Across a beautiful courtyard, Dao-Ming and Bao brought her to the dormitory building.

“This is your room,” Dao-Ming said when they reached the last
door at the end of a long hall on the third floor. The girl unlocked it and then handed the key to Mei. “You will be the only one in this room, as we have no other American students at the school right now.”

Mei walked in, her shoulders sagging with disappointment. The room—her home for the next ten weeks—made the school’s spartan halls seem positively opulent by comparison. A metal twin bed lined each wall, along with a wooden desk. But that was it. No dresser. No nightstand. No blankets. The place had all the warmth and comfiness of a maximum-security prison cell. Were she Piper, she’d have this place whipped into a charming pied-à-terre by the end of the day, but Mei could see nothing beyond the drab gray walls and concrete floor.

At least the large square window in the room overlooked the courtyard below.

Dao-Ming stood at the window. “There is the cafeteria.” She pointed to the east building. “In there is the gymnasium.” She pointed to the west building. Then she headed to the door. “Your schedule will have the room number printed next to each class.”

“Thank you,” Mei said. “Hey, maybe we can eat together? I would very much like to be friends.” She hoped that if she reached out to them they would reciprocate.

Dao-Ming gave her a look of unconcealed scorn that bared an uncanny resemblance to one of Germaine’s. “You may dress American and act American and talk American,” she said, attempting an exaggerated flat accent that Mei supposed was her attempt at “American.” “But you’re just another Chinese girl. Nothing special here.”

“A Chinese girl nobody wanted,” Bao added, her English words stiff, but still able to get her point across with a heavy dose of contempt.

“We have enough Chinese friends already, we don’t need another one. So I hope your Mandarin is better than Bao’s English,” Dao-Ming finished, and then they were gone.

Stunned but too tired to respond, Mei sank onto her bed. Part of her wanted to chase after them, to ask why they wouldn’t even give her a chance. But one look down at the quad and she knew she wouldn’t have a chance of finding the girls. In their uniforms, everyone looked the same. Plus, if she didn’t get some sleep, she would lose all ability to function. Her first day had been bad enough without her descending into a drooling, incoherent mess. Besides, she hoped everything would look better after she got some sleep.

By the next day, however, Mei had figured out that hope did not always spring eternal. And here in China, it didn’t even spring internal.

Was this how Piper had felt at the height of the pig debacle? Or had she felt even worse? For the first time, Mei wondered if maybe she hadn’t been sympathetic enough. Because being ostracized sucked. Big-time. Even for a day.

Not to mention the huge clusterjam that was her academic schedule. Turns out that three semesters of online language courses from Paris Community College and a Rosetta Stone DVD were not enough to get a person through eight hours of school taught fully in Mandarin. Mei spent most of her class time sitting in the back of the room using her phone’s translation app to cobble together enough words for general understanding of what was being taught.