“I’m American Chinese!” I holler at the retreating back of the man. He begins to jog-run, as if he is actually scared of me.
Eyes watering and sneezing nonstop from the smog, I get even more hopelessly lost at the station. I’m also not feeling better when my stomach cramps relentlessly and I realize that I still have my unruly traveler’s diarrhea. This made-up bug has obviously not exited my system.
Someone taps me on the shoulder.
Shit.
Involuntarily I jump.
SHIT.
“I saw you leave the hotel.” It’s Frank in his blue grandpa-cardigan. He looks serious but also slightly amused. His lips twitch at the corners, as if he’s afraid to fully smile. But then he winks at me, like he knows why I am running away, and for some reason, my breathing and my heart stop completely. It seems that my flower-heart is officially malfunctioning or working too well in China.
Physical attraction isn’t supposed to be dangerous to your overall health. How can finding a boy attractive cause disruptions to one’s major organs?
As if on cue, my stomach rumbles. The sound of undigested thunder. And every shitty soundtrack to a slasher horror movie.
“I promise I’m not stalking you,” he continues.
I’m barely listening.
“Do you have small change, I mean, six yuan, for the bathroom?” I blurt out, embarrassed that I lied but needing to use the bathroom more. To my surprise, I’m thrilled that I might at least have some company, if not some serious boy-candy to soothe my aching eyeballs. But first, bathroom business. I continue, almost not caring that I look slightly panicked, “It’s an emergency. I’ll pay you back.”
Fumbling for his wallet, Frank hands over some spare change, and then I remember just in time that I need a bit extra to buy toilet paper. He obligingly hands over a few more crumpled yuan.
“Everything is okay?” he asks when I return.
He smiles politely and hands me a bottle of mineral water.
I nod.
My heart is literally thumping hard, and I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been getting a leg workout from crouching with my traveler’s diarrhea or if I’m dehydrated and just delirious. I gratefully glug the water down, not caring that I spill most of it on my sweatshirt and the ground.
“So famous Wang Weijun, favorite niece of Feng Construction Corp, all the way from the United States, how do you like Beijing so far?” he says, grinning. He gestures proudly at the steel structures around him, like he’s responsible for their particular creation.
“China is … interesting,” I say, not sure how to explain my last seventy-two hours of misadventures. Would he care that I’m a cultural misfit? Does Frank know anything about being homesick, which is like having mono and a weekend hangover at the same time? Has he ever been banished to another country with strangers who all look like you but everything you say and do is strange and unrelatable and leads to confusion?
“It’s really, really lovely to finally meet you,” Frank says. Genuine warmth seeps into his words, and he sounds like he actually means it.
For a second, my body temperature suddenly feels hotter than Las Vegas. I gulp more water, unable to look away.
We shake hands. And I can’t stop staring at Frank’s incredibly symmetrical features. I’m actually jealous. He makes me feel a bit intimidated, to be honest. My mom’s advice keeps looping in my head like an annoying pop song: Never date dudes who are better-looking than you, I find myself repeating. Otherwise they will football-smash your heart. She also said not to be BFFs with better-looking people, but look at what happened with Samira and Peter, who were really average-looking. “Boyfriends and best friends are not like shopping for fruit,” she once explained. “In this case, a rotten apple is not rotten. Find your ugliest fruit.”
I never really understood what she meant.
I just really miss her confusing advice. I hope she is thinking about me right now and feeling guilty and worrying about her only child. (I’m pretty sure that I don’t have a sibling that I don’t know about. I’d be so bummed if I was suddenly replaced.)
Besides, it’s not like I have to be romantically involved with Frank. I just want someone to talk to in Beijing. Bonus points if he’s an extra-beautiful specimen who looks like he takes care of himself.
“Sorry I lied earlier,” I say. “I just don’t like being tutored, you know?”
He looks baffled. “Why?”
“Because it’s work,” I protest.
“It’s more work for me,” Frank says. “Sometimes I have to tutor people who don’t put in any effort.”
I laugh nervously.
Back in New Jersey, tutoring seemed like a waste of time when I could be with Peter. But in Beijing, there’s honestly nothing better to do.
Taking my elbow, Frank walks me to a nearby coffee shop in what he calls the “tourist district,” and he orders our drinks. “Do you take cream in your coffee?” he asks.
“No thank you!” I blurt, thinking about the bathroom situation.
Frank says that after the group interview, Uncle Dai’s secretary immediately hired him, congratulating him on passing the rigorous hiring process. Uncle Dai thought that Frank could probably teach Mandarin to an opinionated American and help me pass my GED with moderate effort.
As he talks, I notice that Frank’s English has a soft, flat British-Mandarin accent. Sipping his coffee, Frank explains that he has been studying English since he was five years old, and that he’s an English literature and classical Chinese literature major at Tsinghua University.
He proudly says the name “Tsinghua” like it’s Harvard University, but I honestly haven’t heard of it before.
Confused about why someone would want to spend their whole life learning a language and giving up their summer holiday to work, I want to ask Frank about his life in Beijing. But he finishes his coffee, and I’m disappointed when he immediately opens an SAT book and begins discussing the verbal component.
I nod and pretend to be interested.
He keeps talking energetically about multiple choice, like he’s narrating a red carpet event at the Oscars. How can anyone find fill-in-the-blank vocabulary as glamorous as designer evening wear?
“So let’s try some verbal reasoning … ,” he says, at the same time that I ask him about his hobbies.
I just want to know more about Frank. I don’t care about unpronounceable words with more than four syllables.
But he ignores my question and continues discussing strategies and word choices. I don’t know any of the vocabulary that he’s referencing, even though English is my first language and English is his second. I thought I would be some prodigy at English when I arrived in Beijing. But people who are second-language learners seem to know more thesaurus-sounding words than I do. How is this possible? Isn’t English vernacular something you absorb through the osmosis of peers and social media celebrities who slowly replace your parents?
Inevitably I yawn several times and pretend that I’m stretching my lower jaw. I hope my yawning will signal to him that he should change the conversation and tell me more about himself. What does he like to do for fun in Beijing? Who are his friends?
Frank nods and looks unfazed.
I raise my hand. I cough, like I have something very urgent to announce. As if I’m captain of an airplane about to announce a crash landing over a major metropolis. The thought of meeting Uncle Dai’s ultimatum of finishing the entire Mandarin Language Beginner Guide is absolutely terrifying. How can Frank be so calm about learning?