* * *
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THREE PIECES OF MAIL:
A Shen Yun brochure—5,000 years of civilization reborn.
A silken envelope, in an off-white color in between alabaster and champagne. I untied the satin ribbon that was around it and saw that I was cordially invited to Fang and Tami’s annual Winter Bash, the pinnacle of their bashes since there were so many December holidays to celebrate. I didn’t bother reading through the activities, the list of which was long and embossed in gold foil lettering. I was definitely not going to go but debated how to get that message across. If I never RSVP’d, my brother would RSVP for me. If I called to un-RSVP again, I would get another lecture. Texting was the safest but say Fang texted back immediately with a reprimand and an urgency to talk. What’s more important than family? And I know you’re getting my texts, Jiu-an. I know because from my end, I can see when my texts are being marked as read, a setting I’ve told you to turn off for your own benefit but you keep forgetting to do.
The third piece of mail was the strangest. From an unaddressed and vaguely named Asian cultural center, a twenty-nine-page leaflet, all in Chinese, that on the cover wished me peace with a drawing of a female celestial being. The first few pages were about health and how to find your inner serenity. But then the rest of the pages discussed the most effective ways to withdraw from the Chinese Communist Party, and once I realized what I was reading, I carefully set the booklet down and pushed it away.
* * *
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I WAS ASSIGNED TO just one service week in December, and looking at my almost blank schedule in my hospital account, wiping my monitor down to see the twenty-four blank boxes more clearly, I decided that that wouldn’t do. I couldn’t be given a raise for no work. It felt like negligence, theft, like I was only taking from the system and not giving back. I let the other attendings know that I was more than available to step in at any time, no strings attached, and soon I was on service the entire month again, with two Sundays off.
The first Sunday I dedicated myself to cleaning my apartment. I owned a robot vacuum that swept around with no foreseeable plan, taking a different path each time, often driving itself into a corner. Then it beeped to tell me that it was stuck. Like the man in my father’s cassette player, a female voice lived in my vacuum. But she was American, and when she came on to say error, I heard terror, like the woman was afraid.
To Fang, a circular vacuum for square rooms made no sense, and he suggested that I hire a cleaner.
I said our mother used to do that, clean other people’s houses and wipe away their filth.
That’s the past, said Fang. The past is the past. The future is now.
Tami had asked if the robot vacuum was my surrogate child. You like to worry about the vacuum, she said, and that worry becomes an activity in and of itself that fills you up.
Once I passed thirty, many things had, according to some, become my surrogate child. If I bent down to admire a dog around Tami, it became my child. If I stared too long at a clock, it became my biological clock. Once I passed thirty-five, the frequency of child references doubled.
As I was cleaning Robot Vacuum, cutting from around its bristles a lawn of black hair that should’ve left me bald, my mother called to say that there was no one in the house except Nanny and her.
Why’s that? I asked, trying to pry hair that once belonged to me out of my first surrogate child. But I was unsuccessful and decided to put Robot Vacuum in the closet for a time-out.
Terror, it cried, and my mother asked what that was and I said I didn’t hear anything, while shutting the closet door.
She said everyone else left to do holiday shopping.
I didn’t like shopping either, I said, to which she replied who said she didn’t like it? All women liked to shop, and had she the stamina to keep up with Tami for a day, she would’ve gone.
My sister-in-law was a committed shopper and knower of name brands. Her only policy for herself was to never buy anything on sale or visit outlet malls where crowds of Asian women gathered, looking for deals. If you couldn’t afford luxury products at full price, Tami believed, you shouldn’t be buying them at all. But sometimes I wondered if in steering herself away from one stereotype, she’d steered herself straight into another.
My mother added that not only did all women like to shop, but they liked to shop together.
I couldn’t say that I agreed.
Well, have you ever tried? Have you asked Tami to take you with her?
The only time I’d gone with her into a store, we were quickly and immediately ushered into a private room. When I asked what kind of place was this, both Tami and the salesclerk blinked at me: You’ve never been inside a Tiffany’s? Who’s Tiffany? I’d asked, and neither of them seemed to know or care. We were in that private room for the better half of a day, admiring shiny pieces on velvet trays, while mannequin-like men in black suits kept bringing us champagne.