A Wedding Invitation (20 page)

Three young women in flowing dresses with white aprons saunter past us. With their bonnets secured under their chins, they remind me of a Moravian doll Dovie gave me for Christmas one year. A man tips his Paul Revere-like black hat at them, greeting them in Old English. He carries a bushel of apples and slips past me to enter a clapboard home surrounded by a lavish vegetable garden.

“We should have told the refugees that this is real American life,” I muse as Carson and I start to walk again. I breathe in the aroma of boxwoods and gardenias.

“Sometimes I wish it were,” says Carson.

“What would you do?” I ask. “There were no radios back then. You’d be out of a job.”

“There’s a gunsmith not too far from this street. I’d work there.”

“Not me. I’d work close to the Moravian cookies.” Just the thought of the paper-thin cookies makes my stomach growl.

“I don’t think making those cookies was a full-time job back then. You’ll have to pick something else.”

We stroll past more gardens, including one where a woman in a straw hat and baby blue dress is bent over with a hoe. She thrusts it along the dark dirt near a patch of white daisies.

Before Carson can suggest that I could take care of the fields, I quip, “No, no garden work for me. I can barely keep my ivy inside my apartment alive.”

Watching the scene for a few more moments, I wish I’d brought my camera.

“How about teaching?” Carson asks as we continue our walk.

“In a one-room schoolhouse?”

“It would have been no harder than teaching in the refugee camp.”

“I’d like to teach again one day.” As I make this confession, Carson nods.

“You’re good at it,” he tells me as I give him a wide smile of appreciation. “You have that teacher ability running through your veins.”

“Right after I got back from the Philippines, I was hired part-time to teach at this small language school near the Japanese embassy.” I remember how I always had trouble finding a place to park when I went to my classes; the streets seemed to be filled with No Parking signs.

“Did you like doing that?”

“It was a fun job, but it made me miss my Vietnamese students from PRPC.”

Carson takes me to his favorite restaurant—one with a shingle out front that reads
Ye Ol’ Dogwood Café
. The interior of the building is large and airy with high ceilings. The beams in the rafters are oak and from them hang various old kitchen and fireplace utensils. Carson ushers me inside, his warm hand against the small of my back.

Once we’re seated at a table by one of the windows, I say, “I heard that you dedicated a song to me.”

“Did you? I was wondering if you were listening.”

“Beanie always has your station on, and she told me.”

“I thought about calling you to tell you to listen, but then I felt that was a bit silly.” He grins. “I’m glad you were listening.”

I smile into his eyes as I lean into the table. “It was nice of you. Even if you think I’m still crazy.”

The waitress asks us how we’re doing.

I wish she could ask Carson to tell me about Mindy and why they broke up, because I can’t seem to do it. But she’s in a hurry and dashes from us to a table of twelve. She asks for their drink orders and then explains the specials of the evening.

I’m so hungry, I could eat the tablecloth. When our food comes, the portion looks small, like it won’t be enough to fill my groaning stomach.

Carson’s ordered a rib eye and garlic mashed potatoes with a side of fried okra. He licks his lips in comical fashion. Then he eyes my plate of seafood. “Is that what you ordered?” His voice shows concern.

“Yep, squid brains and eel hearts.” He laughs with me at our joke, one of the many from our days together at camp.

After a few bites, my tummy quiets, and I’m able to enjoy the buttery texture of the stuffed trout in a cheese sauce. The tablecloth is no longer appealing.

“Do you think about it?” asks Carson.

“About what?”

“The refugee camp.”

“All the time. I think about my past students and often wonder how they’re doing in America. I often think about how good those Vietnamese sandwiches were.”

Although he nods, his wistful look tells me that that is not all he had in mind. I won’t let myself believe that he’s reminiscing about the fun we used to have together. About the talks under the tin roof of his classroom, about the walks at night through the neighborhoods. “I miss it.”

I want to say so much more, but instead I choose to say nothing.

He tells me, “The last refugees left PRPC and then it shut down just last year.”

“I heard that somewhere.”

“The camp’s deserted now. I suppose it looks like a ghost town.”

Something I have read about Amerasians in the
Washington Post
suddenly comes to mind. “Do you know how the refugees that came over under the Amerasian Homecoming Act are doing?” I expect Carson to be surprised that I have studied up on what is going on in our country, that I know all about the more than 23,000 Amerasians who were able to immigrate to the United States in 1989 based entirely on their mixed-race appearance.

“People have abused it,” he says. “The government is allowing relatives to come over with the Amerasians, and people are pretending to be relatives just to get a pass over here.”

“Selling visas for large sums?” I read about this, as well.

“Yeah, and using the Amerasians as their ticket to America. Dat told me that one kid was told he could go to the U.S. if he said the four traveling with him were related to him. He came here, and then although the four said they’d take care of this kid, they left him all alone once they went through customs.” Carson shakes his head. “The other side to it is that there are those who are clearly Amerasians—you know, they look different from full-blooded Vietnamese—but for whatever reason, they are rejected a visa and forced to stay in Vietnam.”

“Sounds like a bunch of corruption.”

Carson agrees. In camp I thought his knowledge about the Amerasians could be annoying, but here I respect his love for this abandoned and ridiculed population.

Carson insists that we order dessert, claiming the restaurant’s apple strudel is the best he’s ever eaten. I’m full from my dinner of trout and suggest we share the strudel. He agrees.

As we enjoy the tart apples in a rich syrupy sauce, I say, “How do Minh and Chi feel about you now?”

“What do you mean?”

“About the past. When Minh wanted you to not have anything to do with Lien because she was accused of stealing?”

“That was a tough situation to be in.” Carson’s face shows some of the pain he felt during that time. “Minh didn’t like it because I stuck up for Lien. He felt it was none of my business as a non-Vietnamese.”

“You put your neck on the line, so to speak.” I recall the agony Carson went through during that time when he was forbidden to associate with or help Lien.

Chewing, Carson nods. Thoughtfully, he says, “I learned later that it was not my place to intervene between the neighborhood leaders and the Hong family.”

“And now? Has all been forgiven and forgotten?”

A smile plays across Carson’s lips. “It has.”

How nice that there are those who can forgive and forget, I think. I wonder if this would be a good time to let Carson know that I still harbor an ill feeling about how he treated me in the camp. Boldly, I begin. “You know, there were times I was mad at you.”

Carson looks confused, like he doesn’t have any idea what I mean.

Back off
, a voice inside my head says.
Stop trying to dig up the past.
Relenting, I say cheerfully, “You were right; the dessert was delicious.”

After Carson pays the waiter for our meals, we head to Saigon Bistro. I don’t know why we have to go there so much. But Carson is unwavering. “You’ll see, Sam. Just trust me.”

Carson drives us across town to the restaurant as I think of how comfortable being with him feels. It’s like sitting on Dovie’s porch when a warm wind blows. We’ve picked up where we left off.
Yep
, says the voice in my head.
Just where you left off years ago—the same old confusion and frustration and so many unanswered questions.

When we arrive at the restaurant, the kitchen crew is washing up. Lien gives us each a hug—Carson’s noticeably longer than mine—and asks what we’d like to eat.

“We already ate,” answers Carson.

She serves us moon cakes and hot tea anyway. Then she sits across from us at the table as her arms move from her lap to the table and back to her lap, her bracelets clinking against each other.

I see that there is a new painting on the wall, one of a rice field, its green blades and muddy waters being lit from the ginger and red hues of a setting sun. “Where did you get that?” I ask.

“You like?” she asks with a nervous grin.

“It’s peaceful.” I wish I felt as peaceful as it looks.

“I give to you.”

“Oh, no!” My protest is adamant. How could I have forgotten that one needs to be careful when admiring something that isn’t hers around the Vietnamese. I ended up with so many trinkets when I told refugees their possessions were pretty or nice.
“You like?”
I’d be asked, and the next thing I knew, the ring or picture or piece of cloth was mine.

“Thanks for the tea,” I say to change the subject, and then take a small taste.

Smoothing a tuft of hair from her face, Lien says, “I am getting married.”

My eyes almost pop out of my head. “You?”

Carson gives me one of his
you better be careful
looks.

“I mean . . .” I cough and continue. “Really?”

Lien’s head bobs up and down.

I sputter, “Congratulations, Lien.”

Carson smiles, seemingly pleased with my reaction. “When did Jonathan ask you?”

“Jonathan?” I am out of the loop. “Who is he?”

“He American,” says Lien. “He go to my church. We study Bible together in English.”

“And Jonathan is learning some Vietnamese,” adds Carson.

Lien shoves her hand in front of me, asking me to admire the diamond on her ring finger.

“Very nice,” I say, taking her hand in my own. A single large diamond encased in a silver band is surrounded by smaller diamonds glistening like stars against a night sky. “So how old is Jonathan?”

“He’s twenty-four,” Lien says as she draws her hand across the table back to her lap. “He is a bank manager.”

“So he works with lots of money,” I say with a slight smile.

Lien gets my joke. “Yes, he plays with money when he go to work every day.”

I laugh, pleased with how well Lien understands my jokes in English. On a serious note, I ask, “When are you planning to get married?”

“November thirteen.”

“A fall wedding,” I say. “That will be nice.”

“And I want to find my mother.”

twenty-five

I
mmediately, I lean into the table, my elbow nearly knocking over my teacup. “You want to do what?”

Lien glances at Carson. “My mother. I need to find her.”

I look around the restaurant, suddenly aware that neither her mother nor Minh are here tonight. “Where is your mother?”

“I don’t know.”

“She’s not here? Is she at home?” How could she not know where her own mother is?

“I don’t know. Maybe Chicago.”

“What?”

Carson intervenes, understanding my confusion. Resting a hand against my arm, he says, “Sam, you know that Lien’s mother gave her up when she was young.”

I recall Beanie once telling Dovie and me that when her second husband left her, she felt she’d been hit smack in the head by a telephone pole. I feel like that right now. “What? What do you mean?” My questions sound foreign, like English is not my first language. “So . . .”

Carson offers, “Minh and Chi are her uncle and aunt. Huy’s her cousin.”

I stare at Lien.

She merely looks down at my teacup.

“I knew Lien’s dad—I mean Minh—wasn’t her biological dad. I knew some American soldier was responsible for Lien being conceived, but I didn’t know that Chi wasn’t the woman who gave birth to Lien. . . .” I let my voice hang heavy and murky like fog on a mountain road.

I’m left to my own stupor as Lien and Carson talk. I realize I should have put two and two together before this, but as my mother would say,
“Sam, you’ve never been good at math.”

Carson uses a Vietnamese word and soon the conversation is all in Vietnamese.

Lien sees my discomfort and says, “I am marrying Jonathan. I want my mother to come to the wedding. I want her to see me marry.”

Carson nods. “We know. You have wanted to do this for some time.”

“Do what?” I ask.

“Find her mother.”

Lien says, “My uncle and aunt give me good home. I love them. They will come to wedding, but I want my mother, too.”

“When was the last time she saw her mother? Why did her mom give her up?” I don’t know why I’m asking Carson and not Lien.

“Thuy gave her up to be raised by relatives.” Carson is annoyed with me. His brows are furrowed, his eyes like darts, and his jaw taut.