Nothing But the Truth (10 page)

“Heading over there, too?” she asks, slowing down and pointing to the SUMaC sign with an arm more defined than any woman’s I’ve ever seen, including Janie’s exercise-obsessed mom. She is The Asian-ator.

“Unfortunately, yes,” I mutter, switching the suitcase from one gangrene-threatened hand to the other.

Her lips, shellacked a heart attack red, spread into a grin, and the girl flips back hair so long it hangs past her hips. Then it occurs to me. She’s one of those Asian chicks who dyes her hair almost exactly my shade of brown, but white-balls me from her inner circle of friends. Just like the skinny girls I see on our quarterly trips to Chinatown, the ones who snicker when they see me towering over my mom and Abe.
While I’m trying and convicting her of bi-racial prejudice, she says, “Thank God, someone normal.”

It’s the last thing I expect her to say. I smile back at the girl; I can’t help it. Making friends has never been one of my fortes, unlike Janie who collects people the way her mother collects vintage fabrics. Back in third grade when we moved in, Janie trotted over with all the kids on the block behind her like she was the Pied Piper’s puny sister. “We’re the same age,” Janie proclaimed. “You’ll be my new best friend.”

“I’m Jasmine Lin. Don’t laugh,” the Chinese girl says, mock-frowning at her name. “Sad, but true.” You couldn’t get more Chinesey than Jasmine, and I can guess how she’s been teased:
Hey, tea bag.

“Sadder, but truer, I’m Patty Ho,” I say, my own name striking me as funny, instead of fodder for someone else’s joke. “Tea bag, meet Ho bag.”

Jasmine laughs, loud and unself-conscious, nothing like Laura’s ladylike titter behind her hand or Janie’s soft giggle. I laugh with her.

“That’s good,” she says. Then, noticing the SUMaCers watching us, Jasmine blows out a low whistle, but I can’t tell whether she’s looking at Stu or the blond counselor, the only ones whistle-worthy. “Oh, my God, is that our TA?” I must look clueless because she clarifies, “You know, our Teaching Assistant. If that’s what math does to a grad student, sign me up.”

We are signed up. For four weeks. But I don’t have time to remind her because Jasmine darts off for the group like she’s got a math homing instinct, too. I follow more slowly, hampered not just by what I’m carrying, but by what I’m seeing. It’s as if Mama’s amber-colored glasses have landed
on my face: “Look! There’s one! And over there! And there!” Compared to the San Francisco airport, the entire Northwest is Whitesville, USA. Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Filipino, Koreans—they are every where. Standing by the luggage carts. Chatting by the sliding glass doors. Waiting in the rental car lines. Speaking in Southern drawls, Brooklyn accents, Texas twangs. A teenage girl who looks mixed, like me, has her arms around a Latino guy. I can’t stop gawking at her, mentally calling out her features in a biracial cheer: her eyes have a double eyelid crease (like mine!), her nose has structure (like mine!), her skin is pale (like mine!).

Jasmine slows down for yellow-struck me. “You look like you’ve set foot on Mars.”

“I’ve just never seen so many Asians in one place.”

“Where are you from?”

“I thought from Earth,” I say, “but I’m wrong.”

A moment later, Stu ambles over. For a guy as tall as he is, he moves with ninja grace. Stu to the rescue: he asks if I need some help with my luggage. I flush, but whether from exertion or embarrassment, I don’t know. I’m so tongue-tied, all I can do is mumble, “No, thanks.” He nods, but when his lean legs head back to Anne and her math ménage à trois, more than my hands are sore.

Jasmine shakes her head. “You are definitely not from planet Earth.”

13
The Gates of Math Hell

O
ur bleached blond camp
counselor cum tour guide, Brian Simmons, steers our van down Palm Drive and breaks out into what he thinks is a spooky boooo-ha-ha-haaaaa laugh. He sounds like a vampire who’s become a beach bum: “Dudes, welcome to
The Gates of Hell.
”

This is the math prodigy that the Second Summers in front of me are talking about? The one who supposedly is going to become a full professor by the time he’s twenty-six, according to Anne, who has just whispered that bit of news to Stu? (Not that I’m eavesdropping or anything.) Now, talk about scary.

A word of advice to all future SUMaC camp counselors, tour guides and visitors of Stanford University: do not start with
The Gates of Hell.
Any feng shui master worth his hourly rate will tell you that this is not an auspicious way to begin life at Stanford.

Unfortunately, Brian doesn’t subscribe to fortune-telling, only storytelling. He thumbs to our right, Museum Drive, and tells us that the largest collection of Rodin’s sculpture
outside Paris can be found right here on the Stanford campus. One of the signature pieces, we learn, is
The Thinker,
a guy sitting in his birthday suit with his chin in his hand. Sounds like
The Thinker
made an inadvertent trip through the other key sculpture in the collection,
The Gates of Hell
of the booo-ha-ha-haaaa sound effects. Too bad he didn’t drag Mark with him.

Gosh, and here I thought hell was entering a van and listening to Anne yap about the eight problems we had to solve on the SUMaC application form. Hell is hearing everyone talk about our future problem sets like they’re upcoming blockbuster movies. Spare me the exponential and logarithmic trailers, please.

So now I’m wondering, is a month at Stanford, surrounded by strange math geeks and stranger math gurus, going to be Heaven or Hell? I’m guessing the university’s architects must have been just as confused about the quality of campus life because the very next stop, I kid you not, is Memorial Church, better known as MemChu.

After seeing the church plastered on nearly every piece of literature I was sent about Stanford, you would have thought I’d say, “Move on, Tour Boy.” But the church glows an otherworldly sandy gold in the sun like it’s lit up from within, and seeing it makes this—being here at Stanford after talking about it for weeks—cross over from surreal into real. Even Jasmine, I think, perks up for the first time since we started our tour, although it’s hard to tell for sure since she’s still wearing her sunglasses and hasn’t spoken a single word. Unlike Anne, whose nonstop monologue about polynomial equations has put her seatmate into a permanent Stu-por. I catch Stu glancing back at me. But I shift my eyes like I’m
looking out the window instead of looking him over. Anyway, he’s probably checking to see if
The Gates of Hell
were left open and he’s been sucked in by accident, too.

“Welcome to the Farm,” says Brian, explaining that Stanford is so nicknamed because it used to be a huge farm for the founders’ many horses. With all the braying in the van as we bend around Campus Drive, it’s safe to say that animals still feel right at home on these grounds.

We drive past cement block dormitories, ugly despite heroic attempts to beautify them with wide-leaved plants. What was meant as temporary housing during World War II is permanent housing in the twenty-first century. As I said, the university’s architects were a little hazy about the line blurring Heaven and Hell.

Brian points out the row houses down Mayfield, all the fraternities (where residents party) and co-ops (where residents cook and clean). Guess where I’d rather live? As our van climbs up a steep hill, the engine sputtering, we learn all about our future residence, Synergy. It’s the vegetarian mecca of the campus. The students used to raise chickens at the original Synergy house, which was damaged beyond repair in the Loma Pietra earthquake. So we don’t have chicken coop cleaning duties, thank God.

“And here is your home away from home,” says Brian proudly, sweeping his arm over not to the dingy house I’m imagining, but a gorgeous mansion, built at the turn of the twentieth century. Even Jasmine lowers her sunglasses to check the place out. The front lawn alone is about twenty times the size of mine back home, and the lush grounds complete with peach and plum trees make even Janie’s groomed-and-pruned garden look like an untended dirt patch.

“Hello, House of Syn,” I murmur softly. Not softly enough because Anne turns around to shoot me a disapproving glance. But Stu grins at me, one eyebrow quirked up… in amusement or invitation? I don’t know, and turn to look out the window as a flush heats my face.

Synergy looks like it’s been taken straight out of
Gone with the Wind,
before the Civil War when Scarlett had enough to eat. Speaking of which, meat-eaters rejoice: we’ll be taking our meals across the street at Florence Moore Hall where there’s a trained chef on staff.

I make a note for my Truth Statement later: Stanford may look like a country club, but it’s a school of Haves and Have Nots like any other. Still, I would be grateful to be slumming anywhere on this campus, because it means Have Not a Nagging Mother for One Month. I could be on a desert island for all I cared. That is, until I trudge behind everyone, lugging my ball-and-chain of a suitcase, into air that feels as hot and dry as the Sahara Desert. Then I realize I Have Not a Clue About Packing Properly For Math Camp.

No more than five steps into the great outdoors, and I swear, all the talk about Northern Cal i fornia’s sublime, moderate temperature is just a bunch of Department of Tourism hooey. I am literally in Hell, sweltering in a “rare” heat wave, as Brian yells in explanation over his shoulder, leading the expedition across pavement and lawn.

Another note to self: I better start packing more lightly. If I don’t, my arms will stretch even longer than they are now. I will be a mutant, the world’s only gorilla-woman, whose knuckles drag on the ground. Except not as hairy. A standing ovation for my half-Asian genes. I barely have to shave my legs.

My other saving grace in being caught in this outdoor oven is that I don’t need to wear deodorant. Thank you, thank you. It’s so rare for Asians to have B.O. that in Japan, men can get a special dispensation from serving in the military if they smell. That’s the truth.

When I step inside Synergy, I almost fall to my knees in gratitude for the cool air in the foyer. I almost fall to my knees anyway since I trip over my new pet, Baggage-saurus.

In the time it takes me to heave and haul my way into the mansion, Brian has started the tour. A bunch of kids look like they’ve already checked in, milling around with their parents. In front of the grand stairway, Brian tells us, “So this house was given to Stanford in hopes that it would become a mental hospital.” Then his face morphs into a goofy, crazed expression, which all the kids around me copy, and I know that I’ve landed in a certified nuthouse.

Brian leads us to his room on the first floor.

“You need anything, anytime, day or night, bang on this door,” says Brian, demonstrating for us. Jasmine looks ready to bang him, day or night, eyeing his door like it’s one of the pearly gates.

Apparently, my hell is another person’s heaven.

Brian points to the stairs. “Girls on the second floor. Boys on the third.” Some of the boys moan in disappointment. Me, I’m breathing in relief. I’ve lived with Abe, and B.O. or no B.O., it’s not an odor-free environment. The boys can have free run of the third floor all they want. Except for maybe Stu, who can come visit the second floor. Just as I think that, Stu’s eyes collide into mine, and we both look away.

“You’ll have to wait until college before you go co-ed,” Brian tells everyone with a grin before taking a few steps up
the stairs. “You’ll find your name on the door, keys on your desks. Make yourselves at home. And the professors and I will see you after dinner, back here in the common room.”

There’s a rush of
bodies up the stairs as math jocks break world records to find their rooms and crack open their books. At least, that’s what I think Anne has gone to do. For a girl who couldn’t leap across a single hurdle in PE, she sure is fleet-footed as she hurtles up the stairs without a backward glance at me.

I know I should be following, a good lemming who will throw myself over to polynomial equations and encryptions and whatever else we’re going to study. Only I’ve always been a little scared of falling—falling off cliffs, falling down on skis, falling in love.

So instead, I watch the Happy Family reality show taking place in front of my face. One dad, dressed and pressed in a purple pin-striped shirt with cuff links, is heaving a trunk upstairs, a sherpa I’ve never had. He looks so he-man proud of himself:
Aren’t I the world’s most doting and devoted father?
His big-haired daughter trails behind him, a feminine echo of daughterly concern: “Oh, watch out for your back, Daddy.” Even the redhead with the worst case of acne since Dylan Nguyen struts up the stairs to the boys’ hall, showing his parents around, not looking the least bit embarrassed. Why would he be? His parents look normal in their color-coordinated clothes and speak so quietly I can barely hear them.

The front of the line will be reserved for me at The Gates of Hell; I’m relieved that Mama’s not here to embarrass me in a thousand different ways.

Behind me, someone says, “My grandfather used to hang out at airports just to see this.”