My new life requires adapting to one surprise after another. The next day, Jin and I drive to the airport to pick up Ci-teh, who’s agreed to leave her husband and daughters for a month to take care of my shop while I’m on my honeymoon. She’s arranged to have the most recent batches of tea my family made, as well as several kilos of Pu’er from Laobanzhang, sent directly to Midnight Blossom. My impression, seeing her for the first time out of Spring Well Village? Chubby and tu, with her ill-fitting Western-style clothes and numerous overstuffed bags made of red, white, and blue plastic mesh hanging from her arms. Ci-teh catches the judgment in my eyes, so the first thing she says to me is “I’m the first person from Nannuo Mountain to fly on an airplane.” Ours is a long and complicated friendship, and I’m beaming at the joy of it.
Next, we pick up Jin’s mother and continue straight on to the marriage bureau. Ci-teh and I peel off to the ladies’ room so I can change into my Akha wedding clothes and she can ask what feels like dozens of questions.
“Has your future husband tested the machete yet?”
The last time I heard that phrase was when the ruma asked it of San-pa as part of our wedding ritual. When I tell her no, her eyes go as wide as soup bowls.
“Don’t they have a Flower Room in Guangzhou?” she asks.
No, but there are many equivalents where boys and girls, men and women, can be alone together for talking and kissing: bars, nightclubs, a friend’s apartment. I apply lipstick so I don’t have to answer the question.
“Then you must have stolen love in the forest by now,” she presses, so nosy.
“Do you see forest around you?” I ask, starting to get irritated. “Besides, I already told you. He hasn’t tested the machete.”
Undaunted, Ci-teh changes the subject. “So how rich is he?”
“Rich enough to buy you an airplane ticket,” I answer.
“I didn’t need him to fly me here. I could have bought my own ticket,” she brags. “My family now makes one hundred times what we did just five years ago. All because of Pu’er.” She laughs, giddy, I suppose, at the craziness of the changes we’ve seen. But crowing about her own wealth serves to bring her back to her original subject. “Really, how rich is he? A millionaire? A billionaire?”
“I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter to me anyway.” I’ve been reciting these phrases to myself the past twenty-four hours. In truth, I wouldn’t mind having the answers, although a part of me is afraid of them.
“Would he invest in a business with me?”
As I put on my headdress, I meet my friend’s eyes in the mirror. “Ci-teh, you already sell your teas through my shop. Are you hoping to compete with me?” I’ve kept the question light and teasing.
Ci-teh frowns at my reflection. I hope I haven’t gone too far and insulted her. “Why aren’t you having a Western wedding with a big white dress?” she asks, ignoring my question. “That’s what I see in the magazines. That’s what everyone wants.”
I stare at myself in the mirror. I look young and unmarred by my experiences, which is both unsettling and a relief. The clothes remind me of all I’ve lost, but also gained, and all I’ll need to forget . . . and remember. It feels strange to leave the ladies’ room and walk down a public hallway wearing something that so marks me as an ethnic minority. I worry about Jin’s reaction, but he lights up when he sees me. That he’s happy makes me happier still. He holds my hand through the five-minute ceremony. Mrs. Chang dabs at her eyes with a tissue. Ci-teh’s laughter feels as light as air. Jin can’t stop smiling, and neither can I. Our banquet is small—just four people sharing a moment of supreme joy.
We drop my mother-in-law at her apartment. Alone in the backseat, Ci-teh chatters like she’s had too many coffees, pointing excitedly at the skyscrapers, neon lights, and limousines. When we pull into the motor court of a hotel next to the Fangcun Tea Market where she’ll stay—too hard to teach someone so tu how to use the subway or hail a taxi—she leans over the front seat to whisper in my ear. “Tell him to make a way down there first,” she advises in Akha, as though I’ve never done the intercourse before.
An hour later, Jin and I are sitting on our veranda, overlooking the tree-lined pedestrian walkway outside our beautiful home, and drinking champagne. I excuse myself to change into a cotton nightgown I bought at a night market. Ready, I open the door into our bedroom. Jin has closed the shutters and lit candles.
“I’m not a girl anymore,” I remind him.
He takes me in his arms. We don’t steal love or do the intercourse. We make love.
* * *
Three days later, I’m in Beverly Hills, having dinner in a restaurant called Spago. I’m still struggling with how to use a knife and fork—which my husband finds supremely amusing—and worrying that the meal will make me sick. Everything is too rich and too heavy with cow: cow meat, cow cream, cow butter. And why can’t the dishes be served all at once in the middle of the table to be shared by the two of us like a normal meal? Later, after the main course plates are removed, Wolfgang Puck himself comes to the table to shake Jin’s hand and kiss me on both cheeks. He promises to send over a special dessert that isn’t on the menu—a Grand Marnier soufflé. If I don’t spend the night throwing up, I’ll be happy. Every wife must adapt, but the food part has been hard for me. But the rest? Wow! I so like this American word. Wow! Wow! Wow!
We’re staying at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, which makes the King World look like a guesthouse. My husband took me shopping on Rodeo Drive, where he bought me new clothes, because, he said, “We don’t want you to look fresh off the boat.” I tried on clothes made with a quality of textiles—silk, cotton, and cashmere—I didn’t know existed and fit me in a way I didn’t think possible. Dior. Prada. Armani. He even took me to a store to buy new underwear and a nightgown so pretty I can’t imagine sleeping in it, to which he whispered in my ear, “I don’t expect you to sleep in it.” I got a new haircut too. By the end of the first day—and I was completely jet-lagged, something tourists at the King World used to complain about—I looked like a different person. Jin couldn’t stop grinning, or saying, “You’re beautiful.” I’m a married woman, and my life has been totally transformed.