Nothing but the truth: (and a few white lies) Read online

  4. Given. Last night, Jasmine didn't come in until after three in the morning.

  Therefore, Jasmine is different.

  Viva la difference!

  So where did Jasmine go last night and what was she doing for two hours?

  While the professor moves on to a mini-lecture on Number Theory, I turn to a fresh page and continue my own theorizing.

  Patty Ho Truth Theorem Two

  Given: Hapas are hybrids.

  Prove: I am a strange hybrid.

  Statement

  Reason

  1. The word comes from Hawaiian slang, hapa haole, which translates to half-foreigner.

  1. I looked it up. What Jasmine didn't tell me is that it used to be a derogatory term, like "chink" or nip. How can a curse become a compliment?

  2. I am all-foreigner whenever I come close to the China Dolls Club.

  2. China Dolls think hapas are too white to understand Asian angst.

  3. I am all-foreigner when I hang with white girlfriends.

  3. White girlfriends think hapas are the result of weird, inexplicable Chinesey experiments.

  4. I am all-foreigner trespassing in this math camp.

  4. Given. But then again, most normal people would feel like a stranger in a strange math land here.

  111

  Therefore, I am a mixed-race foreigner who is a 100% mixed-up misfit wherever I am.

  No comment.

  So why would anyone think being hapa is cool?

  About half an hour later of scribbling furiously (twenty-four note-takers, and one note-writer), we are dispersed into five geek pods for a problem set. These are also going to be our groups for the Research Project, which we'll be working on for the next four weeks and presenting at the end of camp.

  Over in the row closest to the blackboards, Anne's chest is heaving and her cheeks are rosy as she points to something on her paper. The way her boy minions are salivating, it very well may be Anne's "just sex" scene, but I'd bet it's "just math" that is getting their juices flowing.

  My math potluck group includes Stu of the Burly Calves, his roommate, David Watanabe, whose razor-sharp cheekbones would make Janie go green with envy, and Ben Aguilar, with hair dyed pumpkin orange. O, lucky me, Malibu Barbie gets herself assigned to our group after pointing out that I'm the only girl in my own math harem. Let's be honest, she can't resist the magnetic force known as Stu. But even Katie is tackling the problem set like it's math manna from Heaven after a nine-month fast at the high school level. When her eyebrows lower into a scowl, I clue in that something's trespassing in my territory.

  Then, my eyebrows lower, too, because I realize I haven't turned my Truth Theorem over. Stu's written: "Given: Because hapas are way cute."

  I blush and bite my bottom lip. Is that a general statement

  112

  about all mixed-race kids, or a specific statement about me? I'm too embarrassed to look Stu in the eye and almost miss one of the teaching assistants strolling our way. Stu flips over to a fresh page in my notebook for me, and I whisper, "Thanks," before I put on my best studious Asian study-bug face.

  It works like a feng shui charm. The assistant walks by us, nodding with approval without actually checking our work. Two and a half Asian kids hunched over a problem set = excess brain power.

  Ever since fourth grade when Steve Kosanko pointed out during math that I was a weird combination, I've hated anything to do with numbers. How many different ways can you combine the genes from an Asian mom and a white dad to create an oddly tall and gangly daughter? (One.) What's the probability of getting Mama's math whiz gene? (High.) What's the probability of inheriting any of Daddy's genes? (Unknown. I've never met him, haven't heard about him, and can only guess.)

  But now, studying Stu while pretending to study the theorem on my desk, I embrace all sorts of combinations and probabilities. What is the probability of Anne hooking up with that redheaded math champ who was staring at her last night like she's the Empress of Equations? What is the probability of me dating Stu? The way Katie is glaring at her paper, pressing down so hard that her pencil is on the verge of snapping in two, I'd say the probability of that white girl being jealous of hapa me is pretty good.

  113

  17 * Model Minority

  The math jailers have us so busy computing that pretty soon all we're doing is chewing and spewing math. Some more than others. Anne has thrown herself into this college lifestyle, pretending to be a full-time Stanford student, not a summer camp wannabe. She was practically in tears that the math library closes at five during the summer, wailing that she wasn't going to have enough time to complete our month-long Research Project. I could be mistaken, but think I heard Professor Drake mumble something about this being a summer camp presentation, not a dissertation.

  I'm pretending to be a Stanford student in a different way. Every day after my one-on-one with a teaching assistant to review my daily problem sets, I take off on a long run, exploring the campus. I've already made a full circuit around Campus Drive, and yesterday, I checked out the Mausoleum where the Stanfords are buried. Creepy.

  My foot is tapping the common room floor like it's phantom-running the Dish, the trail in the foothills behind

  114

  the campus I'm planning on doing today with Jasmine. We've got a small window of opportunity before our "mandatory field trip" to the swimming pool with the rest of the campers. Thank goodness it's not some truly exciting activity, say bird-watching at the crack of dawn or something.

  Time is ticking, but Brian is clicking his mechanical pencil thoughtfully like he's got all the time in the world. What's hard not to see is the disappointment in this Stanford grad student's eyes. Brian's look so clearly reminds me of Mama that I bow my head and stare at the hangnail on my thumb. My shoulders tense as I prepare for a lecture, but instead Brian asks a question, one that is worse than any lecture: "Why aren't you trying, Patty?"

  I play dumb, which isn't hard after dumbing myself down since junior high. "What are you talking about?"

  "Well," he says, tapping his fingers on my problem set like it's the problem, which I suppose it is. I see the obvious mistake I've made on the equation. "I just get the feeling that you're afraid of being good in math."

  My reaction is second nature, honed after years of denying my math potential. Since seventh grade, I've denied that I'm good at numbers -- or anything else that makes me like my math-aholic accountant of a mother. So now I say, "I'm not good in math."

  The grating sound of a buzzer goes off in my head. Wrong answer, Patty. And Brian pushes away my problem set.

  "You're obviously gifted in math," he says like it's a known fact. Here we go, folks. The model minority theorem. You are Asian. Hence, you work hard, you are a credit to your race, and you are a math genius. But what's the corollary for

  115

  hapas? You are only half-Asian so you must be only half-good at math. Half-witted. Half-hearted. Half-assed.

  "Why? Just because I've got squinty little eyes?" I ask even though I know perfectly well that I don't. The bitterness of my words startles even me, as if they've been brewing for a lifetime in Mama's Tonic Soup.

  Brian actually looks offended, rearing back in his seat. "Whoa, hold on. That's like saying I'm blond so I should be a surfer airhead dude who can't add two and two, right?"

  A smile sneaks onto my lips. Honestly, I can't help it. Brian considers his feet in his well-worn flip-flops and then gives me a rueful smile in return.

  "What I meant was that you're as gifted in math as anyone here. Otherwise, you wouldn't have gotten in. God, your answer to the polynomial question on the application was..." He struggles for a word. "Elegant."

  I'm so surprised, I lose the ability to build a sentence out of simple words. "Me? Math? Elegant?"

  Brian nods, running a tanned hand through his bleached blond hair. He changes tactics, now the star of the buddy-ol'-pal-I'm-one-of-you show: "Look, when I was in high school, kids picked on
me for being the math geek. But you're not in high school anymore, Dorothy."

  Brian smiles winningly at me, but I feel like a loser. Even if I were Dorothy and followed the yellow brick road and clicked my ruby shoes three times, there was someplace better than home.

  This mansion, for one.

  The thought of returning to House Ho while Janie and Laura are still off on their adventures, the thought of being

  116

  laughed at as the Summer School Dropout, of listening to Mama's endless tirades about wasting more than three thousand dollars only to get booted out of camp after a week, is less than appealing. So I promise Brian, "I'll try harder." Ding, ding. Right answer.

  Brian glows and nods his head approvingly, my loyal Toto. "Good. It's why we're here, right?"

  I nod my head even if he is so wrong.

  I'm here not because of any great love affair with math like Anne and half of the guys. Nor am I here because I want to pad my college applications like Jasmine and the other half of the campers. I'm here because I don't want to be up in the Pacific Northwest where it's always overcast with disappointment and showering anger.

  "Incidentally," Brian calls to me as I shoot out the door, "you don't have squinty little eyes."

  I'm flooded with adrenaline and practically sprint from the tutorial all the way up to the Dish. My feet drum an angry rhythm on the paved trail wending up the foothills. I'm so focused on their one-two beat that I barely see or smell the eucalyptus trees as I pass joggers and walkers moseying along, nothing better to do on another perfect day in Northern California.

  Two miles into the run, my body is shedding sweat tears. Jasmine pants, "Yo, daddy longlegs, slow the hell down."

  Honestly, I forgot about her, a couple of paces behind me since the start of the run. She might as well have been lost in the drying, knee-high grass and weeds.

  117

  Even if I want to, I can't slow down. My daddy longlegs surge ahead. The Dish, an enormous, fifteen-story-tall telescope, is just ahead of me, on top of the hill. A guard on a golf cart hums by on my right, shoots a wicked look of challenge at me and steps on the gas. I speed up, panting hard, but he's had a head start. Ten feet later, my lungs feel like they're being crushed.

  I'm doing the best I can, I tell myself. Or am I?

  Faster than I've ever sprinted, chased by every expectation I've failed to deliver on for Mrs. Meyers, Brian, my mom, I surprise myself with how much energy I have left in my reservoir. I pass the golf cart. The guard waves at me, a cheerful loser, but I don't stop to wave back at him. I reach the Dish first. So how come I feel like the sore winner?

  At the top of the foothill, catching my breath as I wait for Jasmine, the irony of the whole situation sinks in. I, the giant, have been coming up short. I start laughing, and a side ache cramps me. I can't even walk, not one step. I clutch my left ribs, just under my heart. It hurts to laugh, but I can't stop.

  "Who are you? Zebra-woman?" asks Jasmine, breathlessly. But her sweaty face shifts to concern when she sees me. She offers me a drink of water through the long, flexible tube connected to her Camelpak pouch, a plastic umbilical cord. But I shake my head, still breathing and gasping and giggling too hard to drink anything.

  "You OK?" she asks.

  Nearly tripping over a rock jars the giggles out of me. I lose my balance and only manage to right myself just as I'm about to go skidding face first down into an oak chaparral tree with peeling, sunburned bark. I kick the rock out of my

  118

  way, knowing that I may be kicked out of camp if I don't get my brain in gear.

  "I always thought that being short would be so great," I say. "It's not."

  Jasmine looks confused. "What are you talking about?"

  I tell her about Brian and how he thinks I've been shortchanging myself. Unexpectedly, Jasmine bonks me on the head with her tube of water. "God, you big doofus-brain. Didn't anyone tell you?"

  "Tell me what?"

  "That being smart is sexy. And any guy who doesn't think so is too stupid to waste a single brain cell on... unless all you want to do is sleep with him. Then, you know..." Jasmine pulls off her ponytail holder and shakes her long mane free, "no thinking required."

  "Jasmine!" I say, pushing her. "Geez Louise."

  "Come on, I dare you to do this." She whips her shirt off so that she's standing in the Stanford sunshine with only her jog bra on top and yells, "Say it. Say, 'I am one hip, hot hapa mama!'"

  I blush and mumble, "I am a hip, hot hapa mama."

  "Pathetic." Jasmine rolls her eyes.

  As I stand on top of that foothill, overlooking the red-roofed Stanford campus and Silicon Valley and San Francisco, I have no idea if Jasmine is right, but I know Brian is. I've been shortsighted. Under the Dish that scans planets and distant galaxies, I know that the world -- the universe -- is bigger than high school and Mark Scranton and Steve Kosanko and their edamame-bean brains. That it's bigger than Mama and math camp. That maybe I am Zebra-woman, trapped behind black-and-white bars of my own making.

  119

  I may not be able to claim loud and proud that I'm a hip, hot, hapa mama. Those are Jasmine's words, not mine.

  Instead, I cup my hands around my mouth and shout down this foothill of browning grass: "I am hapa haole!" I click my blue sneakers three times for good measure.

  "You're weird," pronounces Jasmine, but she doesn't look bothered.

  We ran the Dish so fast that we've still got forty-five minutes before our "organized outing" with the rest of the campers. So we cut through White Plaza and head over to Tresidder, where we each pick up a Gatorade, having both drained Jasmine's water supply. I'm so thirsty that I chug mine before we've made it past all the grad students, the lifers at Stanford, clustered on the patio.

  "Ready for more math?" asks Jasmine.

  "Yeah," I say and mean it.

  Just beyond the bookstore, a young black woman is stapling a flyer onto a kiosk that's papered in so many layers it looks dressed for a ragtag ball. Her pink flyer is tacked on top of old ones for parties, jobs, diet pills. I backtrack when I see "HAPA" out of the corner of my eye, and brush away leaflets until I can read the one I want.

  "No way." The flyer is for The Hapa Issues Forum, announcing the last meeting of the school year on "Crossing the Hapa Line." I can't believe that there's an entire organization for kids like me.

  "Hate to break it to you, but you hapas are a dime a dozen here." Jasmine rips the flyer off the kiosk and hands it to me. "Proof in case you ever forget."

  120

  You hapas. I could get used to the sound of that, I think, as we head back toward the house in silence. I fold the flyer in half, holding it tightly in my hand.

  A bunch of guys are playing basketball on the court in back of FloMo. My eyes are on Stu patrol, easily spying him in the middle of the court. A ball gets away from the game, and Stu chases after it as it rolls toward me and Jasmine.

  "Talk about model minority. There's one coming our way," says Jasmine.

  "Shh."

  As if I play basketball all the time, I bend down, pick up the ball and toss it his way.

  "Thanks," says Stu, smiling at me, and then he pauses. "Wanna work on the problem set tonight -- after dinner?"

  "Yeah, sure," I answer calmly, even though my pulse is racing like I've just run the Dish five times in a row. My eyes follow him back to the court, where he slam-dunks the basketball and shoots me a smile that says he knows that I'm watching him. And he likes it.

  Jasmine nudges me. "Like I said, you hapas are so lucky."

  Stu hasn't exactly asked me to a prom, but homework tonight certainly shows a lot of promise. Who knew that late-night problem sets could shimmer with so many probabilities?

  121

  18 * Equating

  After swimming, showering and dining, Stu and I are finally studying in the Coffee House, or CoHo in Stanford speak. I should say, Stu is studying math, and, technically, I'm studying him. For a wh
ile, there's nothing but the sounds of people talking, plates clinking, pencils scratching and my heart thumping because Stu is sitting just a touch away.

  Stu's pencil darts all over the equation we're supposed to be solving together. My XX chromosomes are getting all hot and bothered just watching Stu's XY action. Jasmine is so right. Brains + brawn = lots of yummy.

  I steal a glance at Stu. He's blowing a strand of hair out of his face, all concentration.

  All I can concentrate on is whether Stu really thinks I'm cute. If so, his pencil moves a lot faster than he does, because he's acting like we're just problem set buddies. Instead of dating, we're equating.

  Still, equating is threatening to one-fifteenth of the female population at SUMaC. Jasmine let it drop over dinner to Katie that Stu and I were studying tonight, and all Malibu

  122

  Barbie was able to muster was a weak verbal swipe at me: "What a perfect ho-hum first date." I just laughed and told her that I had heard worse from third graders, ho ho ho. Anyway, if Katie thinks she can fluster me, she obviously doesn't know that I'm an honors student in Mama's Insidious Insulting Academy.

  A couple of scraggly guys start setting up in the corner of the CoHo, pulling out guitars and microphones.

  "This isn't working out," Stu says, tapping his eraser on an errant X.

  Before I think about what I'm doing, I take my pencil, reach over to his notebook and jot down the answer. He woos me with a compliment; I with a math answer? Even as I lift my pencil, I wish I could scribble out the past few seconds.