The International Kissing Club (37 page)

Can’t wait!

Izzy slapped down the laptop lid before she changed her mind.

But she wasn’t going to feel guilty about what she’d done. Everyone knew high school was a jungle—you did what you could to survive. And she was tired of moping around. It was time to go on the offensive.

Dropping down onto her bed, she pulled out her spiral notebook from History, flipped to a blank page at the back and began to make a list.

Boys I Could Kiss:

She drew a line down the middle of the page. The left column she labeled “Local,” the right column, “International.” Even though this was the International Kissing Club, she started with the local column. That should be the easy one, right? But when she put her pen to the page, she only jotted down a single name:
Tanner Colt.

She stared at the name, her pulse racing. Why had she done that? She couldn’t kiss …

No. That was ridiculous.

She scratched it out. And then went over it in permanent marker. Then tore the page out, crumpled it into a ball, and started over with a fresh page.

If there was one guy in Paris—in all of Texas, for that matter—that she absolutely could not kiss, it was Tanner.

She focused her attention on the international column. Surely not every guy within driving distance and under the age of twenty was a native Texan. Weren’t there some migrant workers on Tanner’s farm? And what about that blond guy who worked for them during the week? He didn’t talk much, but when he did, she thought she’d heard a faint accent. Besides, his name was Pieter Claussen. No red-blooded Texan would name their son that.

By the time she was done, she felt optimistic for the first time in weeks. She’d needed something fun to take her mind off her loneliness. Somehow, learning SAT vocabulary words just hadn’t cut it.

But this … this was something she could get behind. And she wasn’t a football coach’s daughter for nothing. She knew how to make a game plan.

Like her dad always said, “You plan the play and you play the plan.” She was guaranteed to score.

Better still, Invisabel Isabel would finally be seen.

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Messages

Between
Mei
and
Izzy
:

Mei

Hey, Izzy, I’m about to do something that I thought was right, but now I’m not so sure.

Izzy

No! Don’t sleep with sk8ter boy!

Mei

Calm down! Not that!

Izzy

Then what? Whatever it is, don’t get arrested in Communist China.

Mei

It’s not that kind of bad. I just … I don’t want to hurt anybody, you know?

Izzy

Okay … Is not doing it going to hurt you? Sometimes you need to forget about what other people want and do what you need.

Mei

You’re right.

Izzy

You know you’re killing me here. Can you at least throw me a bone?

Mei

Sorry, Iz. If I tell you, I might lose my nerve. I’ll explain it all when I get back. But how’re you?

Izzy

Am making long list of kissing prospects.

Mei

Who’s on it?

Izzy

Random guys from Paris High.

Mei

Have you considered John?

Izzy

Eew! No. There are not enough degrees of separation. I would never kiss a fellow IKCer’s guy. Even if he’s an ex. But don’t worry, there are some guys who work with me that might be international.

Mei

Good luck. Post the points the second his lips leave yours. Now, I’ve got a date with a pizza.

Chapter 20
Mei

Mei thought she’d recognize the Social Welfare Institute where she’d lived before being adopted. She’d expected to feel some spark of remembrance. She’d lived there for nearly two years of her life. Surely it would seem familiar.

However, the campus didn’t stir even the faintest memories. Situated on the outskirts of town, the Dalian SWI was a series of squat modern buildings surrounded by a gray wall of concrete blocks. From the outside, it was no-nonsense and austere. She would have walked right past it if Guiran hadn’t been there with her, navigating via his phone.

In the yard, chickens roamed freely, pecking at the weed-strewn grass. She could see, back behind the main building, an extensive garden and a pigpen. She knew there was a school and a nursing home here at the SWI. Despite the obvious poverty, there were touches of cheer. A row of flowers planted by the door was standing up to the autumn chill better than she was. A cheerful mural was painted at the front entrance. And yet, Mei had to swallow back a lump of sorrow at the sight of the smiling bunny and happy grasshopper.

She and Guiran were welcomed warmly. The nannies offered her hugs and chattered brightly in a stream of Mandarin too fast for her to follow.

And yet nothing about the place seemed familiar. In all fairness,
she’d been twenty-one months old when her parents brought her home, and Mei knew most people didn’t retain memories from that age. But she’d always considered herself above average. After all, she did remember the stitches she’d gotten on her chin when she was two and a half.

After a few minutes they were ushered inside. They were shown into the director’s office and left alone.

Guiran let her sit first and then plopped down in the extra chair, legs stretched out in front of him. Nerves ate away at Mei’s control. She sat upright, hands knotted on her lap, legs pressed together, knees bobbing.

The summer she was fourteen, they’d gone to Hawaii for vacation. She still remembered the cliff divers, the way they stood poised on the very edge of the earth, before they jumped off into oblivion, their bodies tautly arching before they plummeted down to the water. Mei felt like that. Like at any second she was going to dive headfirst into free fall.

Guiran placed his hand on hers. He had to force her fingers apart before he could slip her hand into his. He gave it a squeeze. She looked over at him and tried to match his smile with one of her own.

Her lips were still wavering with the effort when the door swung open and the director of the institute entered. The woman was lean, her expression pinched and disapproving. Back in Paris, Mei had read a ton of adoption stories online—it seemed like every family who adopted a child from China put up a blog about it. Everyone had described these kind and generous women who ran the SWIs. Of all the maternal types in China, this was the woman who ran hers? What luck.

Both Mei and Guiran jumped to their feet. There was something in the woman’s gaze that made Mei feel instantly inferior. Her spine stiffened as she automatically straightened her posture to deflect the director’s disapproval. From the corner of her eye, she saw Guiran do the same.

Seeing that, she nearly smiled. Who would have thought he’d had it in him? Normally there was a rebellious slouch to his posture. She tended to forget just how tall he was.

After giving both of them the once-over, the director spoke in brisk Mandarin. Even though Mei had been in China all this time, she still only caught about every third word. And they were all negative. God, she hoped the ones she didn’t know were the upbeat ones.

When Mei didn’t answer immediately, the woman arched one inky eyebrow.

“Could you slow down, please?” Mei asked in Mandarin, her voice sounding unusually small. “I’m still learning—”

The woman barked out a retort before Mei had a chance to finish. She turned to Guiran and delivered another speech in tones as icy as the dorm floor first thing in the morning. He responded, his tone respectful but not deferential.

When he paused, the woman frowned, her lips crimped in a line. He turned to Mei. “She says she doesn’t have the time to run errands for a selfish girl too disinterested in her own culture to even learn the language.”

Mei quickly swallowed her shock, then mustered her determination before meeting the woman’s eyes. She would not kowtow to a bully. She didn’t do it at home, and she was tired of doing it here. “Guiran, please tell her that I have been working my hardest, but that a language as beautiful and complex as Mandarin cannot be learned overnight. Then tell her I came a long way for this and that I appreciate her cooperation. And that I’m not leaving until she’s checked the records.”

The director’s gaze didn’t waver from Mei as Guiran repeated her words, though it did narrow a bit. She was obviously assessing Mei’s willingness to make a pain in the ass of herself. She must have realized that Mei wouldn’t let it go.

After a moment, she spoke. This answer was longer and more
circuitous than the previous ones. Then with barely a backward glance, she left.

Guiran flashed Mei a reassuring smile and gestured toward the door. “She said her predecessors kept horrible records but that we can follow her and she’ll see what she can do.”

The director led them down a long hallway and up a flight of stairs. She paused at a door, unlocked it, and let them walk in. Obviously some kind of storage closet, since boxes lined the walls. Another flurry of Mandarin followed, accompanied by gesturing and pointing. Then the woman left Mei and Guiran standing alone in the tiny room.

Guiran flashed her one of his lopsided smiles. “Here are the records. The boxes near the bottom are probably the correct time period, if we want to search through them.”

Mei sucked in a deep breath, the air stale with the musty scent of aging paper. Guiran, obviously not cursed with the same anxiety, dug right in, shifting boxes around to get to the ones the director had indicated. A moment later, he had five stacked by the door for them to start on.

As Guiran opened the first file, Mei felt her heart sink. A few of the pages were typed, the ink faded and blurred from an ancient printer. Others were handwritten. All were very difficult to read. She’d made herself a cheat sheet with a few key Mandarin phrases, her birthday, adoption date. Her name. That was about the extent of her ability to read Mandarin. And that was typed Mandarin. Not handwritten.