North of Beautiful (31 page)

“Here,” said Norah, pulling out her pen, “let me write down all the names of the silk market stores you have to visit tomorrow.”

The promise of shopping buoyed Mom’s spirit at least. As they bent their heads down to confer, Jacob pushed away from the table. “Do you want to walk outside for a bit?”

Mom glanced up and nodded her permission at me, though she watched us leave with a slight frown. What was that about? I started to wonder, but then I remembered. Be fair to Jacob, she had told me. Even as I chose to ignore her perturbed expression, I could feel her concern as palpably as I could the memory of her smooth hand on my forehead whenever I was sick, measuring my temperature with her mysteriously accurate mother sensor. “A hundred and one,” she’d pronounce, Dad insisting that she check with a thermometer. Her intuition was always right.

As it was now to be concerned . . . because Jacob held the restaurant door open for me, waited for me to walk before him through the restaurant’s small bamboo grove, as solicitous as any boyfriend. More solicitous than mine who was back home.

Be fair to Jacob.

I assured myself that it was only natural for me to accept Jacob’s hand over the last bumpy step on the stone bridge, sided by pockmarked rocks. But Jacob kept my hand in his even when we reached the busy lane fronting the lake. Nor did we let go when we joined the other couples meandering the shoreline. I could no more release Jacob’s hand now than I could have canceled this trip, despite Dad’s best intentions to scare us into staying put.

Alleys radiated around the twinned lakes of Hou Hai and Qian Hai, surrounded by the last holdouts of ancient courtyard houses, some seven hundred years old. There was very little concept of street appeal here; mostly the houses presented flat blank walls since they faced inward into their namesake private courtyards.

“Is this what you expected?” Jacob asked me.

At first, I thought he meant us — that we would fall into this very familiarity. But he was looking out at Beihai and at the green-striped paddle boats in the middle of the lake.

Reading about this city and this country — and talking to the Twisted Sisters, who had all traveled here one time or another — had been one thing; being here a vastly different experience. It was like describing color to someone born blind. Even at their best, words were only a feeble approximation for the real thing.

“I didn’t know that the world could be so mind-blowingly beautiful,” I admitted.

Jacob turned his gaze from the lake to me. “Neither did I.”

Discomfited, I finally released his hand and started for another arching stone bridge. Its reflection turned the bridge into a full circle, half submerged in the calm lake. Off to the left, an old man sat on a bench, legs crossed, his back hunched in the same angle as his long curving bamboo fishing rod. He didn’t move, and I had a feeling that if we watched him for the next hour, the next decade, he would be right there, fixed in place like a painting.

Jacob turned away first and said, “I have something for you.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out the GPS, handing it to me. “So you don’t get lost, Control Freak.”

Touched — even though I had my doubts about the device ever helping me to find my way — I smiled at Jacob. As I was about to put away the GPS, a tiny paper stuck to its back scratched me. Curiously, I flipped the GPS over; two coordinates were written precisely on hotel stationery.

“For the Great Wall,” he explained. And then added more bashfully, “It’s my favorite geocache in the world. My dad took me there when I was ten.”

I knew what it was like to share something I loved, a collage I had labored over, a book that changed my view. So I assured him, “I bet I’ll love it.”

“You will.” And then his lips curved into the mischievous smile I so loved. “I have one more thing for you.” From the depths of his pockets, he withdrew a pile of napkins neatly enclosed in a clean plastic bag. “Your own stash, Trouble Magnet.”

I laughed so hard I snorted. I couldn’t help it, but the napkins were so silly, so perfect. The bathroom inside the restaurant hadn’t had either toilet or toilet paper, and I suspected there would be a few more of those primitive latrines in my future. I was still laughing when I tucked both the napkins and the GPS safely inside my messenger bag, and when I looked up, Jacob was staring at me as if he wanted to tuck me away safely, keep me with him.

There must be a few times in life when you stand at a precipice of a decision. When you know there will forever be a Before and an After. Mom’s life was twice marked: Before Dad, After Dad. Before her sister’s death and After. I knew there would be no turning back if I designated this moment as my own Prime Meridian from which everything else would be measured. Mom’s urging to be fair to Jacob, Karin’s warning about losing the security of a miracle boyfriend, the image of Erik’s easygoing grin itself — all those conspired now, convincing me to stay in the Before.

And then there was Jacob, who stepped closer to me and then waited, letting me decide whether I would take that next step. Balanced there in indecision, it was as if the Twisted Sisters were before me, shaking their pom-poms, asking: But what is fair about staying with a guy who is ashamed to be seen with you? What was so miraculous about a relationship that was based more on my gratitude than mutual respect?

I wanted more. I wanted better. I wanted Jacob.

Even knowing that what I was doing was wrong, I jumped off my Before and reached for my After.

I traveled that short, short distance separating Jacob from me and stepped into his waiting arms. My face tilted up, my lips parted, so ready for Jacob’s kiss. Unexpectedly, he let go of me, and my breath caught, painfully, deep in my chest. Had I so misread this map leading me to him?

Then slowly, so slowly, Jacob cupped my face in his hands, his thumbs brushing gently across my cheeks, the good side and the bad.

“You know, I don’t even see your birthmark anymore,” he said to me, tracing the ragged edges of my port-wine stain beneath my makeup with the tip of his finger. I shivered. “Which makes me sad,” he continued, “because it looks like Bhutan. That’s the one place in the world I’ve really wanted to see.” His lips replaced his finger, equally soft as it explored the contour of my cheek, down to the corner of my lips. I had never been so aware of my mouth before. My lips were buzzing. Just kiss me, damn it. I parted them and heard the answering intake of his breath.

Jacob’s gaze, inexpressibly warm, bored into mine, saw past my prickly outer surface. I closed my eyes, then decided I didn’t want to hide anymore. So I opened them. Only then did he lower his lips onto mine. That first kiss was so gentle, a fleeting touch, barely there. It was a kiss meant to tease, to leave me wanting more. More. His mouth hovered above mine, for one breath, then two. My lips swelled from wanting him. Just as I pulled urgently on his shoulders, his lips came down hard on mine.

Mine, I thought. And I swear, in his kiss, I heard his echo: Mine.

Chapter twenty-six

Mappery

FROM THE VERY CORNER OF the street where we had nearly experienced our own Pamplona of stampeding bicycles, Mom and I now waved at the Fremonts as they got into their cab, bound for the airport. Jacob didn’t exactly smile, but his last look at me from inside the cab was nothing short of smoldering. My lips tingled in response, as if it was his soft mouth, not his eyes, that had just raked me.

The cab pulled away from the curb. Mom sighed. I would have sighed, too, except I didn’t want to be one of those pathetic girls who pined for their boyfriends . . . even though I was pining. And worrying. And feeling guiltier than ever. I wished I could go back to all those opportunities I had to tell Jacob about Erik. Or better yet, go back and actually break up with Erik.

I tore my eyes away from the receding cab. Boisterous as a camp counselor, I told Mom, “Okay, onwards to the Forbidden City.”

Mom sighed again. “Onwards.”

“We’ll be okay.”

She squeezed my hand. “I know we will.”

I just wished she’d sound more sure of us. I wished I were more sure of us, too. Swells of familiar worry that I’d get us lost, or worse, get us lost and in trouble tumbled over me even as I started to cross the street. The traffic gods were with us this time. We made it to the other side with not even a close call. Already, I spotted the tall walls separating the former home of two dynasties from the masses. How hard could it be to navigate to the most massive palace in the world?

Obviously harder than I thought it would be. According to my research, most tourists entered the Forbidden City through the south via the Meridian Gate, but the lines were shorter from the opposite end in the North. The problem was, I didn’t know which way to turn.

We don’t need the Fremonts to be our pathfinders, I reminded myself. And had to keep reminding myself of that when Mom echoed the question in my head: “So which way do we go?” Her helplessness was as burdensome as my second-guessing, which was plentiful enough as it was. I wondered about her chicken-and-egg relationship with Dad. Which came first? Her helplessness or his controlling?

If Mom wasn’t going to take charge, I would. I couldn’t wait on this corner forever. I studied the map, couldn’t make any sense of it. A woman passed us, an Asian version of Norah in a bright red suit, carrying a briefcase. Here was a woman in control of her destiny.

So for the second time that day, I tried out my rudimentary Excuse me. For a moment, the woman’s plucked eyebrows furrowed, not understanding me. I covered how shy and stupid I felt with a smile. Let me just say this. Anyone who transplants from their homeland to another country, trading in their culture and language for a different one — that is a person of courage. Grudgingly, I had to admit, that included Merc. I could feel Mom pressing in on me, wondering what I was doing, but not doing anything herself.

Imagine my surprise when Mom grabbed the map out of my hands and tapped on the North gate.

The woman nodded in understanding and pointed wordlessly in the direction we should take.

“Xiexie,” Mom said. I straightened in surprise. I had yet to hear her speak a single word of Chinese — not a single “thank you,” not one “delicious” after a meal. For all I knew, she could have been practicing in private all along.

The woman smiled back at us. “Bu yong xie.”

Maybe getting around in life was nothing but map-reading. A skill that required practice. A key to unlock where you wanted to go. A legend to show where you were.

“Mom, you kicked butt,” I told her as we went to the North Gate.

“Xiexie.”

True to Fodor’s word, there was barely a line in the back entrance, just a few people and one tour group, led by a woman lofting a yellow umbrella over her head. As much as it would be nice to have a tour guide paving the way for us, I was glad to be alone with Mom.

“Ready to walk among the emperors?” she asked me now, while I held both of our tickets and she put away the change.

“Definitely.” I straightened my shoulders like a woman warrior, and before the tour group had gathered around their guide, Mom and I were already striding toward the Gate of the Divine Prowess.

Visiting the Forbidden City backward was like stepping inside a huge three-dimensional collage — seeing the most intimate layers first, the Inner Palace, where only the emperor and his family were allowed to live. The deeper we went into the Imperial Gardens — past the enormous planters, trees that looked as old as the Forbidden City itself — the harder it was to remember that modern-day Beijing in all its pollution and population existed just outside the gate.

By silent agreement, both of us halted before a red-painted door, decorated with bulbous knob-shaped nails too big to fit my palm. Set in rows of nine by nine, I had read they symbolized luck.

“Rub one, Mom,” I encouraged her, camera to my eye. “Make a wish while you do.” She looked up at me in surprise, unable to fathom making a wish for herself. I grinned at her from behind my camera.

“What would you wish for? A house like this?” Then I told her about the sheer magnitude of the Forbidden City, an astonishing eight hundred buildings, and ten times as many rooms.

“I wouldn’t have wanted to be the maid,” Mom said, stepping away from the door hastily.

“I’m not sure I would have wanted to live here, period. There was too much court intrigue, everyone plotting against everyone else. Living in a city-sized palace definitely has its downside.”

“Living in a log cabin in a small town has its fair share, too,” Mom said.

I lowered my camera, waited for Mom to say more, but she motioned me to the door, telling me, “I’ll take your picture, and you make a wish.”

Wishes were dangerous. You only had to pick out any of the fantasy books in Claudius’s bedroom to know how many misadventures started with one bad wish, haphazardly worded, impetuously made. I inspected these bronze knobs, and finally settled on one, the highest I could reach, that didn’t look too worn: just enough power to grant a wish, not enough to distort it. Wouldn’t you know it? As I wished for us to be safe on this trip, I thought of the fragment of the China map I had carried with me in my messenger bag. Merc had denied any knowledge of the Kryptonite geocache on our property when I had asked him about it on our last night in Shanghai.

That left Mom. I took out the notes I had made of the Forbidden City, and now I pointed out the animal statuettes on each of the building’s roofs, the more animals the more important the building. You can imagine how many animals there were on the emperor’s private bedchambers.

I shot Mom a look and said casually, “The world would have been a different place if China had kept on exploring. Just think — what if Dad was right and China really had discovered America first? Everything would have been different. Our houses, our clothes. We’d probably be speaking Mandarin right now.”

Mom looked startled; I wasn’t surprised. We never talked about Dad’s shame, his fall from cartographic grace that made him exile himself — and us — to Colville, the hinterlands of Seattle.