*Emphasis has been added in an attempt to accurately show the moods and affect of participants.
DR. ROSEN: I’m glad you young ladies agreed to see me in a group setting. Of course we’ve been meeting individually—some of us for years and some, like Haley, for just a few sessions. Let me go around the room and introduce everyone. Jessica, you’re the oldest at seventeen. Tiffany and Ariel are next at sixteen. And Haley and Heidi will be turning thirteen this year. Who would like to start?
JESSICA: I don’t know why I have to share stuff with a couple of crappy-ass tweens.
TIFFANY: Me either.
DR. ROSEN: Putting the age differences aside, the five of you have many things in common. You all live nearby—in Pasadena, Arcadia, and San Marino— JESSICA: Great, so we’ll get to run into each other on the street— DR. ROSEN: You all have similar educations. You’ve gone to Crestview Prep or Chandler, Westridge or Poly.
JESSICA: I’m intimidated already.
DR. ROSEN: You’re all Chinese— JESSICA: Duh.
DR. ROSEN: And you were all adopted from China.
JESSICA: I still don’t see why they have to be here.
DR. ROSEN: They?
JESSICA: The little girls.
DR. ROSEN: They’re a bit younger than you, but they won’t be afraid to speak up.
JESSICA: You mean, they won’t be afraid to speak up around me. You must have invited them to learn from my bad example. Hey, what are your names again?
HALEY: Haley.
HEIDI: Heidi.
JESSICA: Let me give you my advice and then you can go home to your mommies. Don’t give a random blow job at a house party just because some guy asks for one. Don’t drink your dad’s best scotch if he’s the kind of person who’ll notice a drop missing in the bottle. Actually, don’t drink scotch, period. Don’t bother to self-medicate. You’re seeing Dr. Rosen. He gives way better meds.
DR. ROSEN: Thank you for your input, Jessica. I can see you’re angry— JESSICA: You always say that.
DR. ROSEN: Can you think of another reason why Haley and Heidi are here?
JESSICA: Nope.
HALEY: Maybe you older girls can learn from us too.
DR. ROSEN: What do you mean, Haley?
HALEY: My mom and dad sent me to you because I was having problems with my friends. I’ve had other problems too. Things I don’t like to talk about. Maybe Jessica, Tiffany, and Ariel will hear what Heidi and I have to say and . . . I don’t know. Maybe our lives are like gigantic jigsaw puzzles. You find the right piece and suddenly the whole picture has meaning.
JESSICA: Whoa! Isn’t she the smart one?
HALEY: I bet every person in this room has had to deal with that label.
TIFFANY: I have.
HEIDI: Me too.
JESSICA: I hate labels. I hate the word labels.
ARIEL: Just because we’re Chinese doesn’t mean we’re smart.
JESSICA: Yeah, but the expectation is there. The high school girls know what I’m talking about. God, all the hours I’ve spent going to Kumon, and now I have an SAT tutor. This year I doubled down on extra AP classes. The school called my mom to say they were worried about me. “If she takes all APs then how will she have time for extracurriculars? How will she make friends and become a whole person?” Of course my mom and dad got all worried, but it’s a little late for that, don’t you think? After their pushing . . .
TIFFANY: What’d you say to them?
JESSICA: What could I say? “Working hard makes me happy, Mom. Do I get into trouble, Dad?” And they bought it, because we’ve been in this pattern since Day One. Now it’s going to be all work until I get into college. Debate, tennis, making blankets for the homeless, and all that crap. I’m sticking with my cello lessons too. I’m busy promoting the Asian stereotype!
HALEY: But are your parents Chinese?
DR. ROSEN: Interestingly, you were all adopted by white families.
HEIDI: I’m a super student— JESSICA: Brag about it, why don’t you?
HEIDI: There’s a big difference between bragging and the truth. I’m great at math and all the sciences. I have to play an instrument— TIFFANY: So do I. What do you play?
HEIDI: Piano. My parents want me to be like Lang Lang.
JESSICA: For me, it’s cello and Yo-Yo Ma.
ARIEL: Violin. Sarah Chang, you know, and she’s not even Chinese! She’s Korean! But I have to keep up with my violin because it’ll look good on my college application. Like every other Asian kid in the country doesn’t also get straight A’s and play an instrument too? I don’t know. Maybe I should stop with all the academic stuff, focus entirely on the violin, and go to Juilliard instead of Stanford, Harvard, or Yale. Man, what a burn that would be!
DR. ROSEN: What about you, Haley?
HALEY: I started violin lessons when I was six. My mom and dad also said I could be like Sarah Chang. My dad inherited a ranch near Aspen— JESSICA: Great! A brainiac and rich too— DR. ROSEN: Jessica, please let Haley finish. Go ahead, Haley.
HALEY: Last summer we were in Aspen, like usual. They have a big music festival up there. We’re in the tent listening to Sarah Chang. My mom has this thing where she’ll lean down and whisper, “That could be you one day.” She does it all the time, and it’s always really bugged me. But that day, as I listened to Sarah play Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D Minor, I realized that was never going to be me. Not ever. I haven’t picked up my violin since.
ARIEL: And they let you?
HALEY: They didn’t “let me.” I just stopped.
ARIEL: Weren’t you scared? I mean, what if— HALEY: They send me back?
JESSICA: I’d send you back.
Tiffany: C’mon, Jess. Who hasn’t felt that? When I was little, Mother and Father thought they were helping me by telling me how lucky I was to have been adopted. “Your parents wanted you to have a better life in America.”
ARIEL: I heard that one too.
JESSICA: We all did, but please, that can’t be the real reason for all our birth parents.
HALEY: Lucky. People say I’m lucky to have been adopted. People tell my parents they’re lucky they got me. But am I lucky to have lost my birth parents and my birth culture? Yes, I’m fortunate to have been adopted by nice people, but was that luck?
JESSICA: Damn! You are smart!
TIFFANY: Mother and Father are lawyers. They always gave me way too much information.
DR. ROSEN: Like what, Tiffany?
TIFFANY: You know, because we’ve talked about it before.
DR. ROSEN: But maybe you can share it with the others.
TIFFANY: Stuff like I needed to know from a superyoung age about China’s history of euthanasia— HEIDI: They kill all the girls there.
JESSICA: I thought it was only me who got that talk.