She was his mom.
Clinging to his last shred of control, he said, “Only if you promise the matchmaking stops after this. You won’t try to hook me up with Dr. Son’s daughter or the dentist’s daughter or Vy’s friends or anyone. You won’t ambush me with surprise guests when I come over for dinner.”
“Of course,” his mom said as she nodded eagerly. “I promise. Only this summer, only this one time. If you don’t like her, I’ll stop. I don’t think I can find a better girl than M? anyway, and—” She hesitated midsentence, and a thoughtful look crossed her face. “But you have to really try. If I don’t see you trying to make it work, I’ll have to do it again. Do you understand, Kh?i?”
He narrowed his eyes. “What does it mean ‘to try’？”
“It means you’ll do what a real fiancé does. You’ll take her out, introduce her to your friends and family, do things together, things like that. You’ll take her to all the weddings this summer.”
That sounded horrendous.
He couldn’t help grimacing, and Quan burst out laughing.
“You know, Mom, maybe this was a good idea after all,” Quan said.
“See? You kids think I’m crazy, but Mom knows best.”
That was questionable, but Khai had no choice but to say, “Fine. I’ll do all that stuff this summer if you promise to stop with the wife planning after this.”
“I promise, I promise, I promise. I’m so glad you’re being reasonable on this. You’ll like her. You’ll see,” she said, smiling ear to ear like she’d won the Powerball lottery.
Khai was one hundred percent certain she’d be the one seeing, but he kept that to himself. “I’m taking a shower.” He spun around and marched toward his bedroom.
It was just like his mom to hatch a scheme like this. The entire thing was ridiculous. He wasn’t going to change his mind. M? could be the most perfect woman in the world, and it wouldn’t change anything. His liking her was inconsequential. In fact, if he liked her, that was all the more reason why he shouldn’t marry her.
CHAPTER THREE
M? clawed the arms of her seat as the plane landed with a stomach-dipping jerk. Strange mechanical sounds reached her ears, and the lights flickered back on. She never wanted to fly again. Once in her life was enough. The loudspeakers dinged.
“Welcome to San Francisco, California. The local time is 4:20 P.M. Thank you for flying Air China …”
Thank sky and Buddha for English classes in high school, all the bootleg American movies she’d watched, and the audio English lessons she’d been listening to nonstop while she cleaned these past couple of months. She’d understood most of that.
California. She’d finally made it.
That meant she’d be meeting him soon.
Nausea hit her so hard the skin on her face prickled and her vision blurred. Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. That wasn’t how she wanted to spend her first moments in the United States of America.
What if they dragged her somewhere for disrupting the peace with her vomit? Or—she glanced at the nice old lady in a hand-knit sweater next to her—spraying the people around her? Could she go to jail for that? Could she get deported for that? Maybe they’d send her back without letting her off the plane.
Everyone started lining up in the aisle, and M? jumped to get her luggage from the overhead bin. A tall man with in a brown leather jacket beat her to her suitcase and pulled it out. “Here, let me get it for you.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Embarrassment locked the English words in her throat. She’d learned the words in school long ago and could read and write a little—enough to fill out the disembarkation form and customs declaration, at least with help from the flight attendant—but actually talking had always been a challenge. She curled her fingers into ineffectual fists. How could she make him stop? All she had in her purse was Vietnamese ??ng, and it amounted to basically nothing here. It wasn’t enough to tip him.