The admissions officer must have seen the shock cover my face. A whole Family Home could live on that for months!
“You can apply for financial aid. If your family doesn’t have much money, the government will give you a Pell Grant, which should just cover the tuition.” She passes me the sheets of paper on applying for financial aid as well.
I head to the Monterey Public Library, a contemporary two-story structure on Pacific Street in downtown Monterey and check out the most recent ACT and SAT Kaplan study books. The books are a few years out of date, but I hope they are recent enough to help me get a good score. I have no money to take SAT prep classes or hire a tutor, strategies I see mentioned in the study books.
I sit at the dining table every day and in bed at night, working my way through the exercises. It’s been six years since I looked at these subjects, so I need to brush up on everything. Staring at the trigonometry and geometry questions, I want to cry. There are whole areas of study I never had. I’ll have to work around them, I finally decide, realizing the futility of trying to teach myself two new branches of math in two weeks. I tell myself the few possible questions won’t count much against the overall score. Each question counts for only one point. Better to focus on the easier material I can master.
Please, God, please, please, please let my score be high enough that I don’t have to take all those high school courses. Every extra class I must take means more money in tuition before I can study the courses that actually count toward college.
My SAT scores arrive in a thin envelope, and my stomach clenches as I remove the slip of paper. I scored in the 99th percentile for English! Whew! Thank You, God! But my lack of geometry brought my math score down to the 82nd percentile. Still, it’s good enough to escape all but one remedial math class.
Now, I just have to figure out a way to support myself.
“Bartending is the best way to make money while you are going to school,” my aunt declares. “Rick and I both did it in college.”
My only experience with alcohol is the occasional glass of wine or beer—and my one wine tasting. “But I don’t know how to mix drinks,” I protest.
“It’s easy,” she says, waving her hand.
There’s only one bar in the village, a grungy cowboy bar and diner called the Running Iron. The sour smell hits me as I push open the old wood door—a smell I will come to recognize as old beer and dirty washcloths. I squint as my eyes try to adjust to the dim light; a few neon beer signs flash lazily in the corner. What?! My wide-open eyes take in the brown cowboy boots and a few dusty bras hanging from the ceiling. What a waste. I wonder if any of those boots would fit me?
A florid-looking white man is barking out orders to the hard-bitten waitresses scurrying past. “What can I get you?” he asks me gruffly as I approach the bar.
Drawing my shoulders back to make my 115-pound, five-foot-one-and-a-half frame look more confident, I declare, “I want to bartend.”
He speculatively eyes my idea of a professional, job-hunting outfit—a long A-frame black skirt that brushes the tops of my black ankle boots and a long-sleeved, high-neck mustard-color shirt topped with a black buttoned vest.
“How old are you? You look like yer about fifteen.”
“I’m twenty-three,” I say firmly.
“Well,” he drawls, taking his time, “one of my bartenders is going to be leaving. You can shadow her for a couple weeks, learn the ropes—no pay now. But she’ll train you. If you do well, you can take over her shifts when she leaves, and I’ll hire you. You’ll get $8.25 an hour, plus you can keep your tips. How does that sound?”
I’m elated. Who knew it would be so easy! “Great! Thank you!”
He smiles like he’s won something. “Come back tomorrow at four p.m. and you can start training.”
My first afternoon, the bartender I will be taking over from offers me some advice. “Don’t ever date anyone you meet in here. All no-good dogs!” she says with venom, eyeing the men sitting on barstools, who are studiously avoiding her gaze.
“I doubt that will be a problem,” I say, glancing at the barflies, who are sixty if they are a day. They show up like clockwork at 5:00 p.m. After a week, I’ve learned their favorite beers—Coors, Bud Light, Budweiser, Sierra Nevada. They’re all delighted to have a young woman behind the bar, even if I’m not showing a bit of skin below the neck.
Guys who come to the bar love it when I chat with them and tell them stories about foreign countries, but I soon realize my stories widen the gulf between us. We have no common reference points. They know nothing about these places I’ve spent my life in, and I know nothing about sports, or the local high schools, or American TV shows, or music bands. I can speak four languages but not the language of American culture. Not yet.
When they ask where I’m from, I find it a hard question to answer. They could mean many things by that. Where were you born? Where do you live? Where did you grow up? Where did you come from right before this place? Or even, what is your heritage and ethnicity? I always debate whether to mention Macau or to just say, “Texas,” where my dad is from.
I never mention the Family to anyone; my standard line is both truthful and vague: “I grew up on a farm in Asia. My parents were missionaries and teachers.” I’m grateful that I don’t have my father’s last name, which is famous—no one, not even ex or current Family members, would know my last name and be able to find me. I’d be afraid they would “out” me and I’d have to give long, uncomfortable, and incomplete explanations of a life I’m no longer part of. I just want to find my new way in peace.
I’m longing to make friends, but I don’t know where to start. Reading the newspaper, I see an ad for $10 dance classes. That Thursday evening, I show up at 6:00 p.m. for the Intro to Ballroom Dancing class at the local dance studio in Monterey.
As I hesitantly enter the brightly lit dance studio, I notice the group of fifteen people gathered for the dance class are mostly over fifty. Hmm, perhaps this is not the best place to make new friends. But the dance instructor is a confident young woman close to my age. She calls me up to demonstrate a dance move with her. We move easily and fluidly together. I may not be professionally trained, but I’ve been dancing in charity shows my whole life.
We laugh as she spins me, and I sense the twinkle of recognition between two sympathetic souls. This begins a beautiful friendship. She is drawn to my fierce desire to experience everything I’ve missed out on, to learn and grow. I love her sassy confidence, her deep acceptance of herself and others. She is a warm, loving haven where I can relax. I bring her my drive, vision, and encouragement when she is down. And we both love to dance wild and free, like no one is watching. There is no jealousy or competition between us, unlike most of the girls I’ve met. We can be ourselves with each other, even though I’m stumbling to figure out who I am.