21st Century Girls

I.

“Sorry, my place is a bit small.”

I unlock the door and push Kim’s carry-on inside to make way for the two of us. Kim follows me, kicks off her black sneakers and puts them on the shoe rack. She looks around, mouth curved just a bit downward as if she’s unimpressed. But that’s just her resting expression; I’m used to it. “Make yourself comfortable,” I say, wheeling the suitcase straight into the living room. On the open sofa bed, I’ve put out a new bedding set and the hardest pillow I have, hoping she still prefers hard pillows.

Behind me Kim walks around my cramped apartment, step by step, silently, not paying attention to anything in particular. I pretend to smooth out the folded blanket. Even though we were roommates in college, sharing a space with her feels strange now. We haven’t seen each other since graduation, our little circle of the only Vietnamese admits of that year – me, Kim, and the travel junkie Jamie. All from Hanoi, too. None of us stayed in the U.S. afterwards. Kim went to Seoul for a Master’s in Translation and ended up working there as a freelance translator, and Jamie— well, Jamie is the reason why Kim is in Saigon on an otherwise random Sunday night in December, the most culturally uninteresting month in Vietnam.

“An.” Across the room, Kim stops in front of my modest shelf of English grammar books, and turns to me. “Have you bought our tickets to Hanoi?”

“No. Jamie emailed me only last week, and at school we’re close to finals season, so I haven’t had time to plan.” I say, looking at anything but Kim. It’s not a lie, so why am I nervous?

“Lucky thing you still check your college email. If not, she would have no idea how to send the wedding invitation to you.” Kim picks up a baby blue acrylic frame on the shelf. A polaroid of the first time the three of us went to New York City, awestruck by the blinding billboards of Times Square. She shows it to me with a delighted smile, a tiny dimple deepening on her left cheek. I nod in return, and she puts it back again.

“Did she finish her Sociology Master’s?” I ask. “Where was it, again? France?”

“London. And no, she didn’t finish the degree.” Kim’s breathy laugh is dry and I need a few seconds to remind myself that it’s without sarcasm. “She was so close, but a month before her first draft was due she was like, ‘I can’t take Europe anymore, I need to go to Mexico,’ and dropped out and flew back to Hanoi in February.”

“And announced a wedding ten months later.” I chime in.

“A wedding with a CEO’s son, mind you.”

“What a girl.”

Kim bobs her head exaggeratedly, we cackle, it’s like another night in college again. Staying up late, talking at random in the dark, no filter. No keeping face.

The tenant upstairs stomps on the floor above our heads as a warning for us to quiet down. We do, but not without Kim rolling her eyes and mouthing to me, “We barely made a noise. I thought I’d only run into petty people in Hanoi.” I tell her the dude isn’t Saigonese. Saigonese are a pleasant bunch. Saigon is a pleasant city.

“Glad you’re liking it.” Kim hums as she reaches for her suitcase and starts unpacking.

I, too, would also like to be a pleasant person.

II.

The following morning, I submit my vacation request for next Monday and Tuesday. Despite my prayer for a smooth approval I’m still called to HR, which causes a stir in the teachers’ lounge. HR could’ve dropped me an email, but decided instead to send an office assistant – I can’t even remember the girl’s name – to the lounge to get me during lunch break. On my way out, all my colleagues have their eyes on me. No, they’re not impolite. Just curious.

As soon as I return, about to heat up my lunch, Hoa – one of the most seasoned teachers, also one of the loudest – immediately waves me over to the coffee table in the middle of the room: “Heard you’re taking some days off for a wedding? Come, come. Tell us everything.” Reluctantly I walk over with my cold container of white rice just to realize midway I’ve forgotten the accompanying braised pork on the desk. It doesn’t even occur to me to turn back and grab the rest of my food. I hold my breath, bracing myself for the potentially invasive questions to come.

Twenty or so people gather around me, from the senior teachers to the blond Americans and the too-serious college teaching assistants. They can’t believe that a rookie first-year teacher such as myself dared to ask for a vacation in the first week of December – the “finals hell month” – because of a wedding.

“Your best friend’s wedding, huh?” Hoa squeezes in next to me on the armchair.

“Yeah.” I say, lying in an over-excited white girl voice, holding myself back from mentally cursing at the HR girl. I can’t blame the people for being nosy— it’s part of the culture, I get it. That’s why I’ve kept a low profile ever since the first staff meeting in July. “I haven’t seen her for so long. I just have to be there on her big day.”

“That’s so cute. You said you haven’t been back to Hanoi since you graduated, right?” Cindy coos, then turns to pierce a piece of pineapple with a toothpick and I feel the stab in my gut. I don’t like the way she’s steering the conversation. “You must be so happy you’re going home, and to attend a wedding, too!”

I scoop up a hefty spoonful of rice and shove it down my throat. It nearly chokes me. I’ve spent three years after graduation finding employment everywhere but Hanoi because I did not want to stumble across anyone who might know my family. “Yes, of course.”

“Your parents must look forward to seeing you as well.” Another colleague joins in. “Their little girl now grown up to be such an amazing teacher. If only they can see how much the students love you!”

My fingers shake as I pretend to dab the dry corners of my mouth with a napkin. My colleagues are being friendly. They mean no harm. I’m the shy newbie teacher. I can’t tell them off, so I lie again. “Yes, my parents were so happy and proud that I decided to do this.”

Hoa smacks my back, loud and rowdy like your everyday Vietnamese auntie. “Bet you they are.” Then, a certain warmth in her voice, a little slower, a little richer. “Cindy and I have been talking about how much we admire you for teaching local high school kids. You know people don’t view us too favorably, like we’re underqualified and in it for the easy cash or something. So normally someone like you with a U.S. education would go for a TOEFL or IELTS prep justify, or an English academy like British Council.”

I laugh nervously. I don’t believe they’re mocking me; when I had an interview with Hoa she seemed genuinely impressed by my English degree and eager to have me in the school. At the same time, the way my colleagues think I can walk in British Council and get a job just like that— I’m not sure if they’re serious. Even someone who’s been away from Vietnam for seven years like me knows that’s not possible. The only way to get in those prestigious English justifys is credentials I can’t afford to pursue, or internal connections I don’t have because I’ve cut all my ties with Hanoi.

I swallow my unease into a polite smile as the little crowd continues to marvel at my “devotion,” my “bravery” to take time off during second most stressful time in the semester to attend an old friend’s wedding. Suddenly I’m swarmed with well-intentioned, intrusive small talk questions. When and where is it held? I try to recall the wedding invitation: this Sunday, Daewoo Hotel in Hanoi. How fancy! Is her family super rich? I think so. There must be many guests. Jamie’s family is indeed quite a big deal. Will you be seeing other friends from college as well? Yes, a close friend I haven’t seen for a while just flew from Korea to Saigon last night.

Oh wait.

The room explodes into a unison, high-pitched ohhhhhh like I’ve revealed a spicy insider gossip about a celebrity. I bite my cheek, bracing myself for what will come next.

“You should definitely have your friend here,” Nghi says. “I can cover your first period, too.”

“Thank you for your kindness, but that’d be unnecessary, don’t you think?” I object weakly, trying to undo the damage of that slip of the tongue. After so long I can finally write up a new life as a high school teacher – and a pleasant one at that. I can’t let it come in contact with anything or anyone tied to my personal life, to Hanoi.

“Don’t be so formal.” Another English teacher chimes in. “I’ll take your third period. Give her a tour around the school and take her to the hotpot restaurant across the street. Let her have a taste of Saigon.”

I never intended for my three-year separation with friends and family to be a sob story, but my colleagues are too kind. Too kind. I want to be kind to them, too.

III.

The perks of working freelance is the ability to decide your own vacation. Kim’s just finished a commission before she left and came to Saigon first solely to visit me and for us to fly to Hanoi together. So when I, out of guilt towards my colleagues, ask if she would like to tour my school, Kim, with nothing better to do, agrees.

We begin walking to school at half past seven, the streets filling up with motorcycles, every rider wrapped in UV protective clothing from head to toe. With no wind in sight, the heat is so palpable the sun seems to be crashing straight into Saigon. My skin warms up with sweat rolling down my neck like an uninvited tickle and I’m suddenly apprehensive of my colleagues meeting Kim. Who knows what the nosy bunch will ask.

But then again, Kim isn’t the most talkative person. She has these droopy eyes like she’s in a perpetual state of boredom. The ash brown highlight on her black hair adds a little edge to her otherwise quiet presence. Back in college, she rarely responded and, keeping her thoughts to herself, simply nodded whenever I complained to her about my parents’ disapproval of whatever I did that was against their wishes. But if anyone did something stupid, she’d be the first to say it to their face, not unlike the way she stood only to my shoulders yet hauled my 200 pounds worth of suitcases up the fifth floor when we first moved into our elevator-less dorm.

Jamie, though, was a rowdy one. Always up to date with the latest gossip on campus, she earned the nickname bà tám – an excessively chatty woman – among the Vietnamese community in college. She’s also been running a poorly maintained yet oddly popular Instagram where she uploads the most flamboyant photos of herself in cities around the world. She always posts on a whim, and unless you’re a close friend, you won’t be able to tell she’s not a travel blogger, but a suffering post-grad who, according to Kim, can’t stand breathing in London air any longer. Once in a blue moon, when I’m not scrambling to make ends meet, I’ll answer her texts on Instagram asking for my whereabouts so that she can send me postcards.

Kim who is quiet but no-nonsense, Jamie who is self-centered but generous at heart, me who is never sure of my own heart. Maybe that’s why we get along. If only Jamie’s family didn’t know mine, I’d be less resistant to attending the wedding. She would definitely invite my parents, and when I meet them, they’ll laugh at me for ending up teaching at some local high school in Vietnam, earning barely enough to pay for a cramped, thin-walled apartment. You could’ve listened to us, I can hear my dad’s mocking tone just like on graduation day, but no, you decided to be stubborn when you clearly didn’t know better. Look at where it’s led you. All by yourself, no family, no friends.

“This is a pretty nice school.” Kim says as we round the corner to the faculty wing on the 3rd floor, after crossing several hallways and a baseball field. “Small, but not too shabby.”

“Yeah? Thanks.” I respond awkwardly. No way I’m going to tell her I’m glad she doesn’t find the place too run-down or poorly equipped. I lead her to the giant metal door across from the teachers’ lounge, hoping I’m late enough that my colleagues will be scrambling to finish their lesson plans and not have time to talk to Kim. “We have a lounge down there that’s much nicer and more friendly-looking, but I’m taking you out for lunch today, so here’s the boring main office.”

To my surprise, most of the teachers have headed out to their first period, leaving the room quite empty save for some non-teaching staff. My relief is short-lived, though, as Hoa notices us from her desk and calls us over right away. Excitedly she introduces herself, moves to some questions about how Kim and I met, then some more about Jamie. Keeping her answers short but with interested body language, Kim handles the conversation with ease, a maturity she didn’t yet have in college. A maturity which I still don’t have.

“I’m so happy for An that she’s finally going to see her parents.” Hoa says good-naturedly while patting me on the back. My skin heats up where her palm has touched me, and spreads across my entire body. “Being a teacher is hard, so to have supporting parents is really fantastic.”

I glance at Kim, who nods nonchalantly and waits for Hoa to move on to another topic. I don’t have the best relationship with my parents— that Kim and Jamie have witnessed on several occasions, though I doubt they know that my parents have practically disowned me because I didn’t listen to them. My parents wouldn’t publicly acknowledge it, either. The pressure to save face in Vietnamese culture is crushing.

Kim never makes eye contact with me throughout the rest of her little chat with Hoa. When I take her on a tour around the school, we talk like nothing happened. I explain to her what lesson planning looks like for different grades, ramble on about the aggressive parents who want me to help them dictate their kids’ lives, brag a little bit about my homeroom students hosting a surprise birthday party for me last month. Kim only listens, the same wordlessness she gave me in college to signal that she was taking in and processing everything I said. My heart lightens in the reassurance of her silence, but alas, it can’t get rid of the anxiety that sooner or later, I’ll have to tell Kim the reason I’m putting off booking flight tickets.

In the evening, I take Kim around Saigon as if we were tourists on a tight schedule: Turtle Lake almost indistinguishable in the night and swarmed with young couples, Nguyen Hue Pedestrian Street buzzing as a hangout spot for the entire Saigon population, cramped and niche souvenir shops scattered around the city justify. We even venture all the way to District 7 to see Starlight Bridge and its rainbow neon lights that turn out to be less coordinated and more undermining in real life. Again, Kim simply lets me bring her to wherever. From time to time I find her staring at me, her impartial, lazy gaze impossible to decipher. When I ask her what’s wrong, she only shrugs and redirects her eyes to the pitch-black Half Moon Lake underneath the bridge.

By the time we get back home it’s already late enough for me to excuse myself to bed. Neither of us brings up Kim coming with me again to school. I’ve dodged a bullet with Hoa, but as I drift off to sleep, I remain uneasy. Last week when Kim told me she’d like to visit me in Saigon first, she mentioned planning to fly out to Hanoi on Friday, which is two days from now.

Why does it matter that Kim didn’t dig into Hoa’s comment? The real countdown is still ticking. I feel like a criminal only hours away from my final verdict.

IV.

The next day, as I’m wrapping up the review sheet for grade 9’s English, Kim texts me the name of an old Japanese restaurant in District 3. She came across it in middle school when on a family trip and it was her first time eating Japanese food. A little ride down memory lane, you can say.

More impressed by the fact that the restaurant hasn’t closed yet after a decade, we arrive and accept its neglected state. The signboard goes almost unnoticed at the end of the hall on the fifth floor of an apartment complex. Even under the dimness of worn out light bulbs I can still see the wallpaper peeling off and thin cracks running across the ceiling like veins.

On our table, the candle flickers with each jolting drop of rain. According to the weather forecast, Saigon’s monsoon this year will continue for longer than expected, all the way until early December. Every once in a while, a light breeze dashes by, and the pungent smell of damp dirt and overgrown grass from the front garden of the building shoots upward. I scrunch my nose at the sudden whiff of indescribable odor and turn to Kim with resignation.

Kim pays no attention to me. Instead, she busies herself with the pepper shaker until a thin black layer forms on top of her now cold seafood udon. Another habit of hers from college. Why Kim never sneezes as she destroys her food, I can never understand. I stab the spoon into my bowl of gyudon. The egg, sunny-side up, explodes, creamy yellow melting through the rice and beef thins like a volcano. I watch the yolk deflate and only begin mixing once it’s completely shapeless. The steam clings onto my glasses in a fine mist.

Pitter, patter, raindrops like little hops on corrugated tin roofs. Hushed, but not heavy.

“Thank God Jamie isn’t here, or else she would’ve complained for days on end.” Kim reaches for our shared sashimi platter.

“Yeah. Even by my standards, this is a little… sad.” Behind the cloudy glasses my eyes follow Kim’s movement. “Jamie would’ve definitely dragged us to one of those luxurious restaurants in Vincom.”

A small laugh. “Or we can stay home and cook mushroom soup. Every single time Jamie comes to Seoul we find a new mushroom variety to add to the recipe.”

“She visits you often?” I ask and take my first bite of the gyudon.

“Whenever she has a break. So, like, bi-monthly.”

“Oh?” I stop. “How come you didn’t post pictures?” I’ve never received a postcard from Korea from Jamie, even though she surely travels there more often than any other countries because of Kim.

“It’s not that exciting. She knows the place too well there’s nowhere else to take her.”

“You guys just stayed home?”

“And messed around in the kitchen to the point where some of our Korean friends call our rendition of Korean cuisine blasphemous.” Kim says, her lips curved up into a fond smile.

My heart trips and sinks like a misstep down the stairs. I imagine the two of them in Kim’s studio, stirring spicy rice cakes and chopping up as much mushroom as possible into their soup as all of us used to do in college. Every so often Kim will upload photos of their burned rice cakes on Instagram for laughs while Jamie has even curated a list of favorite mushroom-based recipes on her travel blog. I think about practicing some of the recipes from time to time, but then decide against it. There’s no point cooking for someone who isn’t there to enjoy it.

“How nice.” I manage to choke out a reply.

“Mm-hmm. It’d be nice if you were there with us, too.”

A piece of sashimi slips off my chopsticks into the little dipping bowl of soy sauce. I pick it back up again. A waiter, pretty-boy-faced and dangling earrings, approaches us with two beer glasses half-filled with ice and four bottles of Heineken, Kim’s favorite. I pop a bottle open and pour half of it in Kim’s glass, the rest in mine. We cheer. I down the beer in one go, closing my eyes to avoid Kim’s gaze.

“So.” Kim puts down the glass with a small clank. “Your parents had a change of mind about your teaching career?” Kim speaks like she’s reciting a fact, monotone, neither curious nor skeptical.

My throat becomes impossibly dry. I snap the lid off the second Heineken bottle, fill up my glass in the slowest manner possible, scoop up a hefty amount of rice into my wooden spoon and blow at it until I start to grow dizzy. All the while, Kim continues to stare straight at me. She knows my avoidance tendency too well, has accepted it as a part of me, but would nevertheless grab me by the neck if I’m close to pulling something stupid. I chew but don’t swallow. She leans back onto the chair and crosses her arms, waiting. The distant revving of motorcycles screeches like a whistle, momentarily fills the space between us, then fades away.

“Have you looked at tickets to Hanoi?” Kim begins again.

I empty my second glass. “No, not yet.”

“Is it your parents?”

The beer starts to kick in, blurring the edges of every object just enough to make me feel two steps removed from reality. What’s to hide? Kim acts like she doesn’t care, but she sees right through me. I straighten up, aware that I’m getting tipsy. “Well, there’s no doubt that Jamie invited them, right?”

“Yes.” The expression on Kim’s face is, as usual, unreadable. The lack of judgment is oddly reassuring.

“Well, my parents and I… we don’t talk anymore.”

Kim bends forward, props her chin on the palm of her hand. “Since when?”

“Since graduation.”

“Is that why you never take up on my offer to connect you to employment opportunities in Hanoi?”

“Yeah. I guess I want to prove to them I can do things on my own.”

“And you did, didn’t you?” Kim raises an eyebrow. “You have a stable job, a cozy little apartment, colleagues and students who like you a lot. Why don’t you want to see your parents?”

“No, Kim, you don’t get it.” I stare down at the melting ice, neck bent ninety degrees, both hands wrapped around the glass dripping with cold sweat as if it’s my last anchor. “It feels humiliating to be back. Everyone is so much more successful. Vietnamese alums from our college are in senior positions in big tech companies. Jamie doesn’t finish her Master’s but who cares because she’s pretty and rich. You’re a translator working in freaking Korea. And me, just a public school teacher even though I have a U.S. degree. My parents have always expected me to fail, to come back to them crying for help and admit I was wrong for not listening to them. I don’t want to give them more reason to taunt me.”

From my angle I can’t see Kim’s expression, but I can see her hand struggling to get a slice of tuna between the tips of her chopsticks. “Do you like being a high school teacher?”

“I— yes?”

“Do you like Saigon?”

“Yes. The people are a bit annoying, but they’re genuinely nice.”

“Then who cares about your parents? They need to accept that you’re your own person. Go to the wedding. Jamie really hopes we can reunite.”

I laugh. “You’re just saying that. It probably doesn’t matter whether I’m there or not.”

“Bullshit.” The sudden hurt in Kim’s tone echoes in my ears so crisply I wonder if the beer has completely taken over, reducing me to absolute exhaustion and vulnerability. The last time she lost her cool that I know of was at graduation when my parents were passive aggressively bashing my English major. She continues in the same whispering screaming voice. “Jamie and I miss you. You barely update us on how you’re doing.”

My grip on the glass tightens. “Well, you could’ve asked.”

“Yes, if we knew your parents actually broke off with you like that, we would’ve done more.” Kim returns to her regular impassivity. “I’d visit you more often. Jamie wouldn’t hold onto your sporadic follow-up Instagram messages for opportunities to send you postcards.” Then, the voice softens, softens, quiets. “But you need to tell us, An ah. Don’t bottle it up too much. How else would we know?”

Without our knowing the sun has retreated its light for the more vibrant artificial ones of Saigon; the rain has also slowed; the only remnants of its existence are heavy droplets rolling down the cracks of roofs and plunging noiselessly down the cemented road. Motorcycles roar, and the muted cursing and laughter of young people pierce through the streets.

Kim yearns forward, enveloping my hands with her own.

Without lifting my head, I loosen my grip on the glass and sheepishly slide my palms under Kim’s hands, then, with a small turn of the wrist, reach out to intertwine my fingers with Kim’s. She squeezes lightly. Gathering enough courage, I return her eye contact, awash with a tender connectedness familiar from our college days and at the same time excitedly new, for we now occupy the world in very different ways.

Later that night I finally book tickets to Hanoi for me and Kim. I have Friday afternoon off, so we decide on an afternoon flight so that all three of us can have dinner. As soon as we forward the itinerary to Jamie for her to pick us up, Kim’s phone is bombarded with text notifications. Jamie writes in all caps, screams about how excited she is to have us over, and goes off about the elaborate accommodations that are already underway for us – bedrooms with brand new bedsheets, squeaky clean private bathrooms, even restaurant reservations for just the three of us after the wedding. And the husband— he can have her attention later.

“Here she goes again.” Kim shakes her head, fondly, and I find myself smiling as well.