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  His bride-to-be, Melanie, was slumped with her cheek against the window, already asleep, her mouth open. Her small feet were extended across his future mother-in-law’s lap and onto his. He still thought of himself as Xiao Gang, but Vivian had already given him the name Travis.

  The plane began to move and he jerked into an alert position. He could still change his mind; he could run away. A cold sweat passed across his forehead and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. Against every impulse of his limbs, he sat there in the seat as the plane drew its body faster and faster down the runway.

  Mother, daughter, son sat still in those seats. Yuan fen held them together and transported them safely across the ocean. During the coming years, his nights would eventually stop being about the old man’s bees, and his reveries would no longer involve pigeons. He would buy his mother a big house, much like the one he would have in California. He would send his family money and vitamins, and they would be the envy of all the relatives. He would take up golf and drink single-malt scotch, learn to speak English, and make new friends. On Christmas cards, he would sit between Melanie and Vivian, his arms around both of them. Sometimes a stranger, usually a woman, would ask if Melanie was his younger sister, and if his mother-in-law wasn’t around, Xiao Gang would lean in with a smile and say, “Yes.”

  LOVE

  Fuerdai to the Max

  It is technically an unhappy occasion, but I am crazy happy to see Kenny. I spot him in the crowd right away, all the way from the sidewalk of the airport. My dad’s driver, Six Uncle, who is obligated to follow me everywhere now, says, “Look at that little filthy bastard,” loud enough for me to hear and slams down on the horn with a balled-up fist.

  Kenny’s a lot skinnier than he was the last time I saw him; his hair isn’t gelled anymore and it flops around the top of his head like a fin. For the first time, I think I might be bigger than he is. His expression is grim until he spots me and sticks his tongue out.

  As Kenny pushes through the crowded sidewalk, I catch a nearby couple turning around and giving him dirty looks. Maybe they can tell from the brand of his suitcase or the smell of his cologne, but there must also be something distinct and intangible; I know it because I have it, too. Some people think being called a fuerdai—second-generation rich—is an insult, but I don’t care. The emphasis is on the fu, as in rich. And Kenny and I, we are fuerdai to the max.

  Twice a year we come home to Beijing to visit our families. Usually, no matter how busy they are, our parents pick us up from the airport and together we go to town on spicy seafood at our favorite place on Ghost Street. This year we’re on our own. Our parents have their reasons to be pissed off. Kenny and I are both back because we have done something really bad. It isn’t even a visit anymore, since neither of us can go back to the States anytime soon.

  When we were fifteen, our parents took us to Cerritos, the city they were told had the top high school in SoCal, so we could enjoy a full-on American education. Complete with American suburban life. Most of us were wards of the same Chinese lawyer couple, the ones who promised to get us into college. Our parents bought Kenny and me matching cars, laptops, and clothes, and then, even though I practically begged my mom to stay the year, left us there. The lawyer couple said we’d get used to American life right away. We had neighboring two-bedroom condos in the same complex, and a lady who never talked to us came around once a week to clean up, wash our clothes, and buy our groceries.

  None of the white kids, the Mexicans, the Koreans, and the ABCs, even the ones who spoke Chinese well, wanted anything much to do with us. In class they called me Skinny Chinese Sam because there was already another Chinese Sam and he was fat. Kenny was always our leader. Kenny was Kenny because he liked South Park and everyone thought he was funny. He had a way about him that made everyone stick around. Our core group consisted of the two Sams, Kenny, a crazy girl named Lily who kept us all on short leashes, and, of course, that idiot who named himself Cloud.

  “Goddamn, I need a smoke so bad right now,” says Kenny as he throws his suitcase in the backseat of the car.

  “Six Uncle, can you give him a cigarette?” I ask.

  Dad’s driver pulls a soft pack out of his breast pocket and tosses it in Kenny’s direction without looking at us, then gets back in the front. He’s been with my dad since I was two years old; I can’t even count how many times he’s had to lie for me. So only he can get away with treating me and my friends like that.

  “How bad was it back there?” I ask Kenny, reaching the flame of the lighter toward him. We both lean back against the car window as he takes his first satisfied inhale.

  “Don’t want to talk about it. Too much on my mind,” Kenny says, exhaling like a dragon through his nose. “I couldn’t pack my own bags. Had to leave all my stuff and run out of the house before dawn like a thief or something.”

  “Shit, that sucks, and you just got the Huracán, too!”

  “Let’s not talk about it. I’m so fucking sick of talking about it,” he says, spitting on the sidewalk and wiping it away with his Nikes.

  I nod my head. Fair enough.

  “My mom knows you’re here to get me, right?” he asks quietly.

  “Yeah, but she told my mom to tell me to tell you that she doesn’t want to see you yet.”

  “That’s good,” he says, “because I don’t want to see her either.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re back, bro,” I say, and I genuinely mean it. He flicks his cigarette over the car and we both get in the back. Six Uncle stares at me in the mirror and then shakes his head. I turn the stereo up with my iPhone, so loud that the sunroof shakes.

  This was actually maybe only the first time in my life that I’ve ever truly messed up. I didn’t lose money in Vegas, I didn’t drag race, and I didn’t have that many friends to rage with on the weekends. I took molly a few times at some EDM parties in Orange County, but who hasn’t? I did once get myself in trouble with the cops. All I was doing was cruising, trying to come down. I was this close to making it home but must have fallen asleep and nearly wiped out on the mountain road. Instead of driving off the cliff, I smeared blue paint all along the retaining wall and had to ditch my car there. I figured one day I’d tell my kids, “See that? Your pops drew that.”

  Took me about an hour to walk home and I passed out on my bed immediately, but later, when police were inside my condo and couldn’t find any parents, it became just a giant mess. I called the Chinese lawyer couple, who showed up and jabbed their fingers in my face, and called up a white-man lawyer. They said because I was over eighteen, there was a chance I’d be convicted of reckless driving and then get locked up. After that, the lawyers told my parents that it would be better to have me back in Beijing, at least for a while.

  I heard my dad talking to the lawyers on the phone, saying how much he’d be willing to pay them as a reward to cover this up. I think the more trouble I get into, the bigger my dad gets to feel for getting me out of it.

  That’s the only reason I already had a flight to Beijing scheduled for the morning after “the incident.” By the time the police tried to find me at school, I was out of the country. They couldn’t keep our names straight anyway. Zhang, Ming, Yuyao, Jirui, Kao, Duo Duo, Fung, it was all the same to the cops. They couldn’t tell us apart, they didn’t know if a person was missing, just thought it was one person with three names or three people with the same name. So even though I was there that night, nobody will see my name in any newspapers or getting bad press for Chinese parachute kids. Nothing about my parents, about the one-child policy, about Chinese society failing my generation. My parents didn’t even seem that mad at me about any of it. It was not as if I was throwing away a bright future at Berkeley that was all lined up, they’d probably given up on that dream a long time ago.

  What police reports can’t say were our reasons for doing what we did. California high schools can be treacherous places. T
hink about it: What would you do if, on the first day of school, assholes keyed your new car because they thought you wouldn’t fight back? Wouldn’t you want everyone to know that you could defend yourself? Wouldn’t you want revenge? Wouldn’t you want people to understand that if anyone messed with your friends or your family, then you would make them pay?

  Before that night, I might have done a few other things that were against the law. I may or may not have punched a kid so hard in middle school that he had to wear a brace. I admit to taking some bats to car doors after being looked at wrong. You could say I baited trouble. But the thing is, I always did what I wanted and nothing happened to me. Just good luck. What Lily asked me to do, what she convinced me was necessary, well, that was just bad luck. Especially for her, for Kenny and Fat Sam, too, but more so for fucking Cloud.

  Instead of taking us straight back to my parents’ place, I convince Six Uncle to let us eat first at an Italian supermarket in Shin Kong Place, where they have really good spaghetti.

  Six Uncle watches us order, then pays for our food, but as soon as he heads to the bathroom Kenny and I drop our forks and get the hell out of there. We run out the back way through the hanging hams and into the mall. It is always like that with us. We could speak without even talking. We’re both hysterical and panting and pulling up our pants and Kenny is leading the way, hurtling down the escalator yelling, “Emergency, ladies and gentlemen! A life is on the line!”

  Now that’s the Kenny I missed. In Beijing, Kenny was a legend. Kenny always had, like, six girlfriends and a limp, which he claims he got from fucking too much. He has always been lanky even though he eats like a beast. And although he was practically military royalty, he never held that over anyone’s head. He was always chill, fun to be around, and even though he had lots of friends, he always called me up. Being around him actually calms me down a lot; he is probably the closest thing I have to a brother.

  Once outside, we jump in a black cab in the alley and head back up the second ring road toward Sanlitun.

  “Can you take us to Kokomo?” asks Kenny. Kokomo is a cheesy tiki bar on the roof of 3.3 Mall, where nobody would know us. “I could use some sunshine right now.”

  I turn my phone over in my hand and take out the battery. Kenny never got his phone back after being released from the police station, but his credit cards still work, which is a relief.

  “I should get hammered before I see my parents,” he mumbles, as if to himself. He is looking ahead, but his eyes are all spacey. The hand with his wallet in it seems to be shaking.

  It is depressing just to look at him.

  “Stop being so worried,” I say in the most convincing tone I can come up with. “They’ve heard of far worse. Kids in pool-hall shootings, killing people. I heard my dad tell your dad, ‘It’s not like he killed anyone.’ ”

  I look into the rearview mirror just in time to see the driver turn his eyes away.

  “My dad’s not like yours.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I say. “Maybe my dad is just tired of getting mad. He’s tired of me in general.”

  “I think my dad is literally going to kill himself,” Kenny says, not looking at me.

  “Just stick with the story. Keep saying ‘It was all Cloud, that’s the guy you want to question,” I say. “People will forget about it eventually.” But Kenny’s not listening.

  Kenny laughs. “You know if this gets out, that his son got into big trouble in the States, what are people going to say? They’re going to want to know where all my money came from.”

  I shake my head like that’s ridiculous, but what do I know?

  The counterfeit liquor at Kokomo tastes like gasoline and the music is terrible techno, so it is exactly where nobody will come looking for us. Kenny’s scared and so am I. His nervous energy rushes through me like a wild fire looking for the next spot to burn.

  We need to order a ton of beers, we yell to the waitress.

  As it gets dark above us, we crowd the table with empty bottles. Kenny loosens up. He tells me about being handcuffed and driven to the police station. He tells me about not showering for four days and finding out he is actually capable of BO. He tells me about not being able to take a shit for three days and pissing in a bucket. He tells me about using his one phone call to call his “aunt” and finding out she was more scared than he was. He tells me about the rotten milk the guards threw at him and the peanut butter sandwiches he couldn’t swallow. Even then, the way he tells it, it’s pretty funny. The way he talks makes me think he doesn’t hate me, won’t blame me for what happened, at least not right now. He tells me about making bail and finding his real aunt from Florida waiting to pick him up.

  “She was standing outside the police station wearing a disguise, like an actual wig and sunglasses, like she’s conducting espionage in a movie,” he says. I spit my beer out all over the table, laughing.

  We try to remember the numbers of everyone we like in the city, but we’ve been away for a long time. Plus it isn’t summer vacation and nobody studying abroad would be around yet. Our friend Square is still in the international school here, and after a while he comes by, even though he never liked me and always made sure I could tell. Then Coco and Crystal arrive, these annoying girls we know from elementary school who are no fun and just shop all day.

  “Kenny? Hey, Kenny. I was just thinking about you,” says Crystal as soon as she sees us.

  They kiss Kenny on both cheeks. They don’t do it to me, but I keep my face straight.

  “Yeah, what were you thinking about?” asks Kenny.

  “I was thinking that, well, I haven’t texted Kenny in a while, and I wondered how you were doing.”

  “I’m—” he starts to say, but Crystal isn’t finished talking.

  “Coco just went to Moscow with her mom because she had this idea in her mind that she wanted to buy diamonds,” she continues. “But of course it was a big waste of time. Then I just got back from London because I. M. Pei built my dad’s friend a pavilion in his backyard, but that party was boring, too. What do you guys do over there?”

  “Nothing special, just going to school. Going to Six Flags. Car shows. Pretty girls. Smoking leaves,” he says.

  “And how about you?” I cut in. “How’s school in Switzerland?”

  “No, Sweden,” she replies shortly. “We drive to Norway and listen to these bands in the woods and eat seafood.”

  “Right, right, Sweden,” Kenny says, nodding, as if agreeing to something dangerous.

  “Well, Kenny and I, we’ve been well. I keep telling Kenny that we should come back more often,” I say. “Just to keep up with you sophisticated European girls.”

  “So tell me,” Crystal asks, “what’s it like in America, is it all that great?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I say, looking away from her and making eye contact with the girls at the next table. “It’s pretty weird.”

  We jump around the dance floor in a group just like the old junior high times. More friends of Coco and Crystal show up. Someone carrying a briefcase pays for a private room and like magic, the top-notch local girls line up at the railing, trying not to look in our direction, hoping we will invite them inside.

  “It’s still fun, right?” I say to Kenny, eyeing the girls. “Don’t you kind of miss this?”

  “Why aren’t they asking us why we’re back so early? Do they know something? Did you tell them?” Kenny asks, jerking his head toward Coco and Crystal.

  “Man, nobody knows anything. They don’t care,” I whisper, patting him on the back.

  Coco is busy lecturing the waiter, “Champagne has to come from Champagne. This shit is just sparkling wine.” And the friends she brought are nodding even though they don’t care and the waiter is listening even though I’m sure he cares even less. They’re all flirting with this tall, muscly guy who is not paying for anything because he’s someone�
��s private tutor. He apparently went to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, and yet he is mooching off us.

  Then Kenny says he wants to “fly,” so we have to ask around for Prince’s new number. Prince is a collective of Nigerian drug dealers who refers to themselves as Prince. Whether this is a sophisticated operation or Prince is actually a real person is a debate no one really wants to engage in.

  “Do you want the green or do you want the white or do you want the black?” Prince says to me in English.

  “The green,” I yell into the phone, still loving the way my American accent sounds. We go into the bathroom together to smoke the weed and I close the door to shut out the sounds of our friends singing karaoke.

  “You feel better now?” I say to Kenny as he tries to light the joint in his mouth. “It’s going to be fine.”

  I turn on the fan and watch him inhale as much smoke as he possibly can.

  “Feel better…that we fucked up our entire lives?” he says in between huge hits.

  I think I am looking at him way too much, so I look away when he catches my eye.

  “What would you rather have happened? For us to just walk away?” I say, taking the joint from him. “Was it wrong of me to try to help Lily? To stand up for one of us?”

  “Oh, so that was why you made us do it,” Kenny says, leaning his face on the mirror. “Thanks for that. I feel great now for fucking up my life. Probably my whole family’s lives, too.”

  Is this a joke? Was Kenny crying or laughing?

  “Hey, you were there, too. You could have stopped it if you wanted to,” I say, but he’s so high I’m not sure he hears me.

  All five of us had walked up to this bitch named Wey in the parking lot, right by her baby-blue Maserati. We told her to come with us to the park by the condos, we had to talk to her. I remember that part clearly: the two kids playing with that big white dog tied outside the ice cream place. Those orange-and-white clouds hurrying across the sky above our heads as we walked. Green ivy smell in the breeze. There was only one tree in the park and we gathered under its branches. I told Wey to admit she was wrong and apologize to Lily, but she gave me two miles of lip. Then I told her to beg Lily for forgiveness, but she just kept talking shit.