“She’s always been like that, even as a baby,” said Mom. “She used to watch the educational shows with the puppets and get the questions for the kids right. But then there would be a joke for the adults that she couldn’t have possibly understood, and she’d get so angry that she’d missed something. That she didn’t get a ‘perfect score.’ She was such an angry little girl.”
“It’s not like you got the Masterpiece Theatre references inside Sesame Street either,” I snapped. “I remember asking you to explain them, and you never could.”
The only person to smell the change in the wind was Quentin, who glanced up at me while chewing a mouthful of noodles.
“There was also the time you cracked that boy’s rib for pushing Yunie into a tree,” Mom said. “The only reason you didn’t get suspended was because he was so embarrassed he wouldn’t admit the two of you got into a fight. You should have seen yourself standing up to the principal, saying over and over that you did hit him and you deserved your proper punishment. The teachers didn’t know what to make of it.”
“Ah, so she has a sense of justice,” Mrs. Sun said admiringly. “If only our boy were the same way. He was such a little delinquent when he was young.”
“Now look at him,” said Mr. Sun. “He pretends to be good but it’s all an act. He thinks he has us fooled.”
I did look at Quentin, who was busy slurping the last of his soup. He didn’t seem at all bothered by his parents’ put-downs. In fact, he gave me a little wink over the edge of his bowl.
“I also hear that you’re the star of the volleyball team,” Mrs. Sun said to me. “Their secret weapon. Have you always been stronger than other people?”
“Yes,” said my mother. “She’s always been big.”
Oh boy. The gates were open.
“Oh, I meant in an athletic sense,” said Mrs. Sun. “Skill-wise. Good gongfu at sports.”
The distinction was lost on my mother. All those words meant the same thing to her. Masculine. Ungirly. Wrong.
“She’s always towered over the other girls,” Mom said. “The boys, too. I don’t know where she got it from.”
“Oh yeah, like my height is under my control,” I responded. “There was a button you press to grow taller and I got greedy and hit it too many times.”
“Maybe it was my fault,” she added, turning martyr mode on. “Maybe I fed you too much.”
“Okay, the implications of that are horrifying.” I raised my voice like I’d done a thousand times before. “You’re going to say you should have done the reverse and starved me into a proper size?”
“Why are you getting so upset?” Mom said. “I’m just saying life would be easier for you if you weren’t . . .” She waved her hand.
“Thank you!” I practically shouted. Okay, I was flat-out shouting. “I well and truly did not know that before you said it this very moment!”
“I think Genie’s beautiful,” Quentin said.
The air went out of the room before I could use it to finish exploding. Everyone turned to look at him.
“I think Genie is beautiful,” he repeated. “Glorious. Perfection incarnate. Sometimes all I can think about is getting my hands on her.”
“Quentin!” shouted Mrs. Sun. “You awful, horrible boy!”
Mr. Sun smacked Quentin in the back of the head so hard his nose hit the bottom of his empty bowl. “Apologize to Genie and her mother right now!” he demanded.
“No,” said Quentin. “I meant it.”
His parents each grabbed an ear of his and did their best to twist it off.
“Ow! Okay! Sorry! I meant that I like her! Not in the bad sense! I mean I want to become her friend! I used the wrong words!”
“Sure you did, you terrible brat,” Mrs. Sun hissed. She turned to us, crimson. “I am so, so sorry.”
My mother was stunned. Torn. While that display by Quentin was definitely improper by her delicate standards, she also had wedding bells chiming in her ears. The sum of all her fears had just been lifted from her shoulders.
“Oh, it’s all right,” she murmured. “Boys.”
I could only stare. At everything and everyone. This was a car accident, and now burning clowns were spilling out of the wreckage.
“Who’s Sun Wukong?” I blurted out.
I had absolutely no idea why I said that. But that was anything but this, and therefore preferable.
“Sun Wukong,” I said again, talking as fast as I could. “Quentin mentioned him earlier at school and I didn’t get the reference. Everyone knows I hate it when I don’t get a reference. Who is he?”
My mother frowned at me and my one-wheeled segue. “You want to know? Now?”
“Yes,” I insisted. “Let me go to the bathroom first, and then when I come back I want to hear the whole story.”
My outburst was bizarre enough to kill the momentum of the other competing outbursts. While everyone was still confused, I stood up and marched out of the room.
I hadn’t even filled my hands with water to splash my face when Quentin appeared behind me in the mirror.
“Gah!” The running faucet masked my strangled scream. “What is wrong with you? This is a bathroom!”
“You left the door open,” he said.
I could have sworn I heard his voice twice, the second time coming faintly from the dining table. It must have been my mind deciding to peace out of this dinner, because if not, Quentin was casually violating time and space again.
“Who’s Sun Wukong?” he repeated in a mocking tone. “Smooth.”
“You don’t get to criticize after what you did!”
“I was trying to . . . how does it go? ‘Have your back?’ ”
“Your English is perfectly fine,” I snapped. “Or at least good enough to make your point without being lewd.”
“I’ll work on it. Anyway, the situation is turning out perfectly.”
That was in contention for the dumbest comment made tonight. “In what possible way?”
Quentin reached behind me and turned the faucet off. “You’ll hear the story of Sun Wukong from someone else, so you’ll know I’m not making it up.”
Before I could question his logic, he slipped out the bathroom door.
When I came back to the table, Mr. Sun was unwrapping a gift. It was a huge urn of horridly expensive baijiu, big enough to toast the entire Communist Party. It probably cost more than our car.
“The legend of Sun Wukong can get pretty long,” he said. “We should hear it over a drink.” He winked at me, willing to run with the diversion I’d handed him. Bless his heart.
Mr. Sun poured us all a bit, even me and Quentin after getting a nod from my mom. I took a single tiny sip and felt it etch a trail down my throat like battery acid.
“All right, so Sun Wukong,” I said. “What gives?”
“I tried telling you these stories at bedtime when you were young,” said Mom. “You never wanted to listen back then. But here goes . . .”
10
So to paraphrase my mother’s story . . .
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was China. Ancient China.
Here, in a long-lost place called the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, all the wisdom and splendor of the sun and the moon poured into a stone until—crack!—out popped a monkey.