“It’s stronger than it looks too.”
“Are you implying that I’m fat?”
“Dapper little Mel? Who are you kidding?”
“ ‘Little’? You’re the queen of insults today, aren’t you?” He pulled me onto his lap and we rocked, both our feet on the floor, our legs tangled up. I could never resist him.
“Just let me get out of this skirt,” I finally said.
“Don’t close your eyes,” Mel said.
He made me come with his hand, telling me precisely and graphically what he was going to do once I did. Then he made good on his promise. This time it was Mel entirely, his lean face, his eyes with their charcoal-rimmed pupils, his boy smell, his patient artful touch. I was sitting in the chair and he knelt in front until I came again in a long drawn-out wave.
“I love you,” I said as I came.
We were sitting naked in bed eating an omelette scrounged up from leftovers in my refrigerator. Since I only had one full set of silverware I gave him the fork and used a pair of chopsticks. I’d forgotten the beautiful way he ate, with such delicate bites.
“So,” I said, “in your regular day, do you ever think about me?”
“All the time. You’re pretty hard to forget.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you too, honey.”
“But we were right in Florida, weren’t we. About it not working.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Age difference.”
“That, and everything else.”
“We could have tried.”
“We did try.”
“What if I said I couldn’t live without you.”
He ran his fingers over my bare shoulder. “I wouldn’t believe you.”
“Why did you want me to come to the funeral?”
“I told you. I needed you.”
“And what if I suddenly called one day and said I needed you?”
“I’d be there for you, honey.”
I sighed. “You’re so young.”
“Doug was my best friend there, you know, before he tried that first time. We told each other things. Like you and I do.”
“You couldn’t have saved him. Take it from one who’s been there.”
He picked up my left forearm and held it up to the light. The newest tiger stripe had healed nicely, but like the others it would never fade completely.
I said: “You know, there’s one thing I’ve always wanted to ask you.”
“Shoot.”
“What’s your real name?”
He made a sound like a buzzer going off. “Classified.”
“Please. We might never see each other again.”
He considered. “Well, I guess there’s no harm. If you swear you’ll keep it secret to your grave.”
“I promise.”
“Okay. Well, you know my mother’s father was from Venezuela.”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“I was named after him. Carmel.”
“That’s where I was born.”
“What do you mean?”
“Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Near Monterey.”
“Amazing.”
“Isn’t it?”
I didn’t tell him I had known his name for a long time, that I had seen it one day on the tab of his folder in the nurses’ station at Willowridge.
27
Another church, five days later, this one light and carpeted and a little too warm. Aunty Lilah Sung turned around in the pew in front of us and said in a loud whisper: “Sal-lee, ni pang lei”
“Thanks,” I whispered back. Her daughter Mimi turned around too. I hadn’t seen her since my own wedding, but I would have recognized that sweet smug smile of hers anywhere. Beside me my sister shifted, recrossed her legs. On her other side Ma fanned herself with her folded program. The last bridesmaid was making her way down the aisle.
Grace turned out to be slender and American-tall, towering over her father, and unexpectedly pretty. She had grown up in San Francisco Chinatown, which explained why her hair was “done” in the way the older women’s were. Her earrings were pearl drops trimmed with gold filigree. Aunty Lilah turned around again and hissed: “Hong Kong jewelry. Her uncle gets it wholesale.”
In the reception line, Grace’s grip was as confident as her step down the aisle. “I’m so glad to finally meet you,” she said. “Xiao’s told me what a trip it was, growing up Asian in the burbs.” Like Xiao Lu, she was an electrical engineer. They’d met at Berkeley; in a last-minute burst of rebellion, Xiao Lu had decided to forgo M.I.T. Grace’s smile was open and intelligent—she was obviously a good girl, the kind of daughter my parents had wished for and never gotten. In his tux beside her, Xiao Lu looked like the cat that had swallowed the canary. “Hey, Sal, Hey, Marty,” he said, kissing us as if we were old pals. It always surprised me that his voice was deep. Aunty Winnie was even scarier than I’d remembered, in rhinestone cat glasses and a French blue satin sheath. “Glad to see your whole family could make it,” she clucked at us.
As we walked away, my mother grabbed my sleeve.
“Grace and Xiao Lu do this whole wedding theirselves. All paid, everything.”
“Good for them,” I said. Ma was wearing a new dress, tailored periwinkle silk, and her hair was cut in a becoming shag style. I could see my sister’s influence.
The guests had formed a clutch outside on the church steps and their loud chatter rose up into the sultry Manhattan evening:
“This is my son the cardiac surgeon.”
“This is my daughter, she’s associate economics professor at U Penn. Only thirty years old, too young for the position, don’t you think?”
“Roger is going to be in the Van Cliburn competition this year. Rachmaninoff specialty.”
“My daughters, Sal-lee and Mar-tee, they decide to live in New York City, be close to their mother.”
My sister was leaning against a pillar at the top of the steps, already flirting with one of the ushers, a white guy. She was dressed to kill in an old Pucci-print dress with a sashed waist and sheer black stockings and sandals with stiletto heels, even higher than the ones Alicia had had on at her Memorial Day party. I watched as she left the usher and strutted down the steps, swinging her arms like a dancer. No bandage, no trace of damage.
She came up to me and asked, “So whadja think?”
“Of what?”
“Grace.”
“I feel sorry for her,” I said. “Having Aunty Winnie as a mother-in-law. You’re not supposed to outshine the bride, you know.”
“Who’s outshining? She’s the one in fucking white.”
Someone started giving out directions to the restaurant where the reception was going to be held, a few blocks away. The guests began surging forward in a mass that disrupted all other foot traffic on the sidewalk. “Why don’t you just stay in Chinatown,” I heard a pedestrian mutter as he was forced to step aside for us. At the restaurant we were ushered upstairs into a windowless red and gold banquet room with dragons wound around the pillars. “How tasteful,” my sister said. There was no band set up or anything, just rows of round tables covered with plain white cloths and modest vases of pink carnations. The food would be the main event. My reception, which was held in the Yale Law School dining room, had featured a string quartet plus a menu of filet mignon and roasted new potatoes, a salad to start, and wedding cake for dessert. Ma told me the Chinese guests had complained bitterly that there hadn’t been enough to eat.
While Ma went to find our table, Marty and I settled ourselves at the bar, scarfing up the honey-roasted walnuts they’d put around in little painted dishes. “How was the lingerie thing?” I asked her.
“Fine, although Mimi had a bug up her ass the whole time.”
“What do you mean?”
Before she could answer there was a burst of applause and cheering—Grace and Xiao Lu were making their grand entrance as man and wife. The bride had changed into a floor-length crimson gown with a matching fringed stole. She lingered by the door, chatting to guests, and I didn’t need to hear her to know that her Mandarin was perfect.