Loveboat, Taipei Read online

  Dedication

  For Andy

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Praise

  Books by Abigail Hing Wen

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  Loveboat, Taipei is inspired by actual summer programs attended by thousands of Asian American teens since the 1960s. My husband and I both attended the program in Taiwan in different summers and eventually met through mutual friends. South Korea hosts a similar program for young adults of Korean descent.

  The program has evolved over the years. I loved chatting with alumni from across different summers. Loveboat alumni will no doubt recognize many of the landmarks and also note the creative liberties I’ve taken in service of storytelling. The story and all characters are fictional, and any resemblance to real persons is coincidental.

  For an overview of the history of the program, see Valerie Soe’s 2019 documentary Love Boat: Taiwan (loveboat-taiwan.com).

  Thank you for reading!

  Abigail Hing Wen

  邢立美 (Xing Li Mei)

  Prologue

  March 31

  BROWN UNIVERSITY Office of College Admissions

  Dear Ever,

  Thank you for your interest in our Program in Liberal Medical Education. This year’s pool of applicants was exceptionally talented, and, with regret, our committee was unable to offer you a space in our incoming class . . .

  * * *

  March 31

  BOSTON UNIVERSITY College of Arts & Science

  Dear Ever,

  Each year, we are faced with the difficult decision of turning away highly qualified candidates . . .

  * * *

  March 31

  WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

  University Scholars Program in Medicine

  Dear Ms. Wong,

  While your credentials are impressive, we unfortunately can only admit . . .

  * * *

  April 1

  UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER MEDICAL CENTER

  Dear Everett,

  With only ten slots in our program, I am sorry . . .

  * * *

  April 1

  RICE UNIVERSITY Baylor College of Medicine

  Dear Ever,

  Thank you for your interest in the Rice/Baylor Medical Scholars Program. Unfortunately . . .

  * * *

  April 3

  CWRU SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

  Dear Ms. Wong,

  With regret . . .

  * * *

  April 3

  NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY Feinberg School of Medicine

  Dear Ever,

  Congratulations. I am pleased to offer you a place in our Honors Program in Medical Education. Since 1961, we have offered a unique, seven-year educational experience for motivated students aspiring to medical careers . . .

  * * *

  April 4

  NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Tisch School of the Arts

  Dear Ever,

  Our Dance Department is unable to admit you at this time; however, we would like to offer you a place on our waiting list . . .

  * * *

  May 1

  Dear Northwestern University/Feinberg School of Medicine,

  ☑ I ACCEPT the offer of admissions and have paid my deposit of $500.

  ☐ I DECLINE the offer of admissions.

  Ever A. Wong

  1

  CHAGRIN FALLS, OHIO — JUNE 5

  The envelope drops through our mail slot like a love letter.

  The familiar purple insignia—the four-petal flame spreading like a dancer’s fan—sends me plunging down the faded carpet of our stairs. I text Megan:

  running late b there in 5.

  Then I snatch up the letter almost before it kisses the doormat.

  My thumb traces the school’s name in the upper corner. This can’t be real. The last time an identical envelope arrived, crisp-cornered, smelling of new paper and ink and smudged with fingerprints, was two months ago. Like a full-colored dream breaking into a gray reality: of the lavender swish of tulle skirts, satin-rose ribbons unfurling, the weightlessness of leaps toward a sapphire sky.

  NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

  Can it be—?

  “Ever, there you are.”

  “Mom!” I spin around, scraping my arm against the rickety bookshelf Dad built. I fold the letter out of sight behind my back as Mom charges from the kitchen, waving a printout. Her jade-green blouse is buttoned to its modest neckline, as usual. A familiar panic digs into my gut. “Mom, I thought you were out.”

  “The church had extra volunteers today. I have good news.” She waves the page, covered with Chinese characters. Another ancient herbal concoction to improve my circulation? I don’t want to know, and anyways, she’ll be making me drink it soon enough. “We applied for you and—are you wearing makeup?”

  Damn. I seriously thought she was out. Normally, I’d have waited until I was down the block to pinkie on my microscopic touch of lip gloss.

  “Just a little,” I admit as she snatches a tissue off the side table. Behind my back, the envelope cuts into blisters on my palm.

  “Mom, I’m late to meet Megan.” I try to angle past her to the stairs, but the hallway, crammed from floor to ceiling with portraits of Pearl and me at every age, is as tight as the inside of a suitcase. “She’s at the field already.”

  Mom sets my tank top more securely over my bra strap, lips pursing, as they do whenever I mention Megan. She’d rather I spend my hours getting ready for Northwestern because my brain and the Krebs cycle don’t get along. I barely scraped a B in AP Bio—and that tumor on my report card might be malignant.

  The tissue comes at me. It doesn’t even occur to her she’s invading my space. “Yes, but I need to tell you—”

  A soft crash in the kitchen is followed by a wail from Pearl. “I’m sorry! My hand slipped!”

  A moment later, my little sister’s head pokes from the doorway behind Mom. I hide a smile as she bites into a spear of peeled grapefruit. Her eleven-year-old face is mine in miniature: same shoulder-length black hair and pixie face, but with doe-brown eyes like Dad’s, reflecting her infinitely sweeter disposition—and a mischievous glint as she meets my gaze. “Mom, help! I spilled the brown sugar.”

  “You didn’t hurt yourself?” Mom’s already starting for Pearl.

  “No, nothing broke.”

  Dad appears at the top of the stairs. “Everything okay?” Th
e steps squeak as he descends, belly straining at his favorite Cleveland Indians sweatshirt. Under his elbow, he folds the World Journal, the Chinese-language newspaper of North America, that covers everything from global politics to the ten-year-old Chinese American global chess champ to the Yale-bound former child prodigy who is the bane of my existence.

  “Grab the broom, will you?” Mom asks me.

  “No, I’ve got it,” Pearl says. “Look, the sugar’s mostly on the napkin. Still clean.”

  Not a penny wasted. Five years of running interference for each other, and Pearl has it down to a science. I mouth thank you at her then squeeze past Dad, sliding my arm around to my stomach, keeping my letter out of sight.

  “I’m sorry, I gotta run.” My feet scarcely dent the carpet pile as I race upstairs. Near the top, my shoulder sets the family portrait swaying on its nail, and I grab hold to still it.

  “Ever, I need to tell you something.” Mom never lets go—Pearl and I know that better than anyone. “This summer—”

  “Sorry, Mom, I’m so late!”

  The slam of my door flutters the old test papers on my desk and sets my pink pointe shoes, hung by their ribbons, swaying on my bedpost. My room holds my twin bed, my dresser, and a few dozen pieces of dancing gear: jazz shoes on the floor by my closet, my dance squad flag in the corner, leotards and tights and skirts.

  I lean my back against the door and clutch the letter to the pounding in my chest.

  Can it be—?

  I’d applied to Tisch on a whim, in secret. My parents tolerated all my dancing only because my guidance counselor reassured them I needed diverse interests for college applications. Buried under the mountains of medical program applications, Tisch was a shot in the dark. When the wait-list letter arrived, I figured that was what they told all their applicants: Thanks, but you go on without us.

  Downstairs, Mom’s impatient voice mixes with Pearl’s lighter tones. My stomach does a backflip—I have about a minute before Mom breaks down my door.

  With a trembling finger, I rip open the envelope.

  2

  Ten minutes later, I jog onto the field behind the high school. Puffy storm clouds close over the sky, the remnants of a typhoon kicked up in Asia, according to the weatherman. The grass is moist underfoot. A guys’ soccer match runs full tilt, a mad dash of Chagrin Falls orange jerseys versus blue from Solon, a rival high school. Normally, I’d stop and look, as in look, but today, all I want is to talk to Megan, my best friend since kindergarten, when we both joined Zeigler’s Ballet Studio. We’ve danced together all the way through high school, along with our twelve-member flag corp and dance squad.

  She’s by her Camry, hauling our black-and-gold flags from her trunk, already dressed in our outfit: black leotard with sheer lace sleeves that catch the light, the matching skirt rippling over her long, lean legs. She has a dancer’s body—like a living, breathing Degas sculpture. As I veer toward her, I feel a familiar twinge of envy. I’d rather take remedial biology all summer than have my thighs so exposed, but this is the price of dancing, and I’m willing to pay it.

  “Megan!”

  “Ever, you got out!” She waves, then grabs the periwinkle tote bag slipping from her narrow shoulder. Her reddish-brown hair tumbles over her fingers.

  “Hey. Megan.” I gasp.

  “Hurry up and change.” She shoves my tote bag at me, which I’d left in her car last practice for safekeeping from Mom. She glances worriedly over her shoulder. “Stikeman needs this field for some staff thing. We only have an hour.”

  “Megan.” I clutch my bag like a life preserver. “I got into Tisch.”

  The poles clatter to the asphalt and Megan shrieks loud enough to be heard in Manhattan. I’m enveloped in a storm of curls and the scent of rosemary.

  “How? When?”

  “Just now.” My body shakes as if I haven’t eaten in days. I’ve tucked the letter under my pillow, but those black lines of type are seared into my mind: We are pleased to admit you to the Dance Department . . . “They emailed too, apparently, but I’ve been on hiatus since graduation. Now I have to answer by next Friday. I don’t know what to do.”

  “You didn’t tell your parents, did you?”

  “I climbed down my pipe before they could talk to me.”

  “Ever.” Megan grips my arm and walks me toward the school. “You’ve got to stop doing that. If you break a leg, how will you dance? What if you hurt yourself permanently?”

  “I’m not going to break a leg.”

  She frowns. “So Tisch. You want to go—of course you do, right?”

  “Well, even considering it feels ridiculous, right? I’ve got almost a full ride to med school. You know how my mom feels about dancing—all body, no brain. Practically prostitution. Anyways, we can’t afford Tisch. If they knew I’d applied, that I got in—I really think they’d consider disowning me”

  “What about financial aid?”

  “It’s not enough. The letter mentioned a scholarship.”

  “From Tisch?”

  “No, an arts association. I’d have to audition in Cleveland right after we dance in the parade next Saturday. At one thirty.”

  “Ballet? Jazz?” Megan’s grip is starting to hurt.

  “Open-ended.”

  “How about this routine? You made it up—that’ll count for something, right? Okay to do a duo?”

  “I don’t have anything else!”

  She frowns, thinking hard. “We’ll have to Uber from Public Square. Shit.” She shoves me toward the bathroom. “Now we really need to practice. Go change!”

  Five minutes later, I am seated back-to-back with Megan on the grass. I lift the bottom of my fiberglass flagpole to form a roof peak with Megan’s in the opening pose. A familiar warmth spreads like honey inside me: the anticipation of rhythm and beat.

  Low notes. Wind instruments.

  Like flowers uncurling, we unfold through our spines. Our legs unwind. Our black flags, cut through by a bolt of lightning, glide together in a sunrise. We line up and pan our flags in opposing—“Shit, wrong way,” Megan apologizes—directions, salute to either side, reverse, one slow spin, a faster one, waking from a dream.

  Then the music explodes—and so do we.

  I spin a half turn. The wind of Megan’s mirror movements ruffles my hair. Black-and-gold vinyl snaps at my ear as I hurl my flag skyward and swing into a double pirouette, feet shredding grass, black hair whipping across my face. The scent of grass fills the air and I’m so, so alive—never so alive as when I’m dancing.

  Megan collides into me, our poles scraping.

  “Sorry!” she yells. “What’s next?”

  Megan is always thinking ahead to the next step. I never have to. The patterns we make, how they change over what space and with what energy and tempo—that’s what my body knows.

  “Bigwheels,” I gasp. My hand slides to my pole’s end.

  As the music races to close, we pirouette apart, hips swaying in a few parent-forbidden measures of sexy. Our flags sail high, revolving in tandem, once, twice, then we sweep out and back to center, where I land on my knees and throw up my arms.

  “Sorry I screwed up the transition,” Megan groans. She shuts off her camera, which we’re using to record this dress rehearsal.

  “S’okay. We’ll run it again.” Panting, I fall on my back. My blisters sting, the punishment of hours with the fiberglass pole, and we’ve more to go. But as blades of grass tickle my cheeks, my heart ricochets off my rib cage in a soul-surging rhythm.

  Could this be my future? A lifetime of dancing, this limber-bodied afterglow—instead of walking antiseptic-smelling hallways?

  “You are one mean choreographer, you know?” Megan grabs my water bottle and takes a swig before passing it to me. “Once we perfect this for Public Square, Broadway will bang down our door.”

  “Ha.” I’m obsessed with musicals—dancing on Broadway would be a dream come true. Megan’s just saying, of course, but it’s dizzying
to think about.

  “Seriously. How do you come up with all that? We are so hot!”

  “We could be green-haired hags and you’d say that. It just comes together. Your dad gets a medal for scoring us this slot in the parade.”

  “Well, his firm’s been sponsoring it for ten years. It’s about time he got something back.”

  Megan yanks the gold ribbon off a box of Malley’s chocolates, our staple reward while we catch our breath. “Too bad you didn’t get to dance the spring show with the squad. That number was the best. And you choreographed half of it.” She pops a truffle between her lips. “I still can’t believe your mom pulled you out of rehearsal like that.”

  “I can. It’s the part where she did it in front of the entire squad that still kills me.” I bite into a dark raspberry, shuddering with the memory. “Poor Ethan, she acted like he had leprosy. All because I was partner dancing with a boy.”

  “I honestly don’t get her. I mean, you’re eighteen.”

  “It’s just that way.” It’s a mixed blessing to have Megan in the know, when her family’s so laid-back she can’t understand. “Chalk it up to her Chinese-Baptist roots. You know, she still hasn’t given me the birds and bees talk? All I’ve picked up from her is—”

  “‘Sex is a by-product of marriage to be endured, preferably through a hole in the blanket.’ So you’ve told me.” Megan laughs and I almost smile, then she sobers. “Are you going to tell them about Tisch?”

  “I don’t know.” Something tightens in my chest. “Med school’s been the path set for me since before I could walk.” The fulfillment of my parents’ lifelong dream for stability. Respect. “The deposit’s already paid. Dancing . . . they already hate how much time I spend on it. They’ve always expected I’d let it go after high school, when I join the real world.” They know I’m in the parade, but I’ve downplayed it so they’re not coming—I can’t risk them cracking down on the time suck, not to mention my outfit.