Loveboat Reunion Read online

  For my children

  XAVIER LOVEBOAT TALENT SHOW AND AUCTION

  NATIONAL THEATER, TAIPEI

  AUGUST 8

  When your life has been a series of fuckups, it’s hard to believe any one thing will actually go your way. But now I’m backstage behind the velvet curtains, watching Sophie try to auction off my mural to two thousand people—and a weird hope beats in my chest.

  “Now for tonight’s final item…”

  Sophie gestures a hand at my painted dragon, hung high on the backdrop from my stage wing to hers. An electric fan makes him ripple and fly like he’s sprung to life. He’s all shades of green: like wet grass, peacock feathers, the ocean, and mint. Like the mountains of Taiwan and the coolness under a leafy tree.

  At least, that’s what was in me when I painted him into existence.

  “This dragon is the work of an anonymous Chien Tan student.” The microphone lifts Sophie’s voice over a blur of faces in the audience. She smooths a stray lock from her mass of black hair, which is swept off her neck and pinned with a silver clasp. “Notice the impossible number of hues in its scales. The power of its wings…”

  Somehow, she’s making it sound real. When my whole life, Ba told me not to waste my time with art. Once he melted my pastels into a puddle and left them to harden on my desk. But this summer, I got brave and started to draw again. This dragon is the biggest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve never felt so exposed; way worse than if I ran naked across the stage.

  “Do I hear three thousand NT?” Sophie asks.

  To my surprise, several white paddles rise in the night.

  A hundred bucks for a smear of green, blue, and gold pastels.

  “Six thousand?” Sophie asks. “Twelve thousand? Picture this impressive dragon guarding the halls of your office!”

  Sophie was born to command an audience. The numbers climb, making me dizzy with their speed. I couldn’t believe someone was willing to fork over a hundred US bucks. Now there are several someones willing to pay seven.

  Eight.

  Nine.

  At a thousand US dollars, Sophie is down to three bidders. I crane my neck to see them. The darkness obscures a woman standing in the balcony, a man in the back, another to the side. Unbelievably still raising their paddles.

  At five thousand US dollars, the man to the side drops out.

  “And sold at two hundred thousand NT!” Sophie cries. “To the man in the white jacket. Thank you, sir, and congratulations! Please meet me at stage right after the show to claim your mural.”

  The applause vibrates the floorboards beneath my feet. I nearly spill onto the stage trying to follow the spotlight as it searches the faces for the guy who shelled out over seven thousand US for my anonymous dragon—almost as much as the rest of the auction made tonight. A supporter of the arts? Or just someone who liked what he saw?

  The spotlight stops on a man in a snow-white jacket and pants. Head and shoulders erect, with a familiar military bearing. He takes his seat again, raising one modest hand to acknowledge the applause.

  Wait, I know him.

  It’s Ba.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  LOVEBOATERS

  Chien Tan Campus

  Xavier Yeh (Xiang-Ping)

  Sophie Ha (Bao-Feng)

  Ever Wong (Ai-Mei)

  Rick Woo (Kuang-Ming)

  Marc Bell-Leong

  Spencer Hsu

  Debra Lee

  Ocean Campus

  Emma Shin

  Bert Lanier

  Priscilla Chi

  Joella Chew

  Jasmine Chew

  YEH FAMILY

  Chao-Xiang Yeh (Ye-Ye): Xavier’s grandfather

  Ako Yeh: Great-Aunty One

  Yumiko Yeh: Great-Aunty Two

  Jasper Yeh (Ja-Ben) (Ba): Xavier’s father

  Lynn Noel Yeh (Chun-Hwa) (Ma): Xavier’s mother

  Edward Yeh: Jasper’s younger brother, Uncle

  Rose Chan: Aunty Three

  Lily Yeh-Abebe: Aunty Four

  Lulu Chan: Cousin

  Lin-Bian Yeh: Cousin

  Gloria Yeh-Abebe: Cousin

  Xiang-Ping “Xavier” Yeh

  WOO/HA FAMILY

  Sophie Ha

  Rick Woo

  Camilla: Sophie’s mom

  Sophie’s brothers: Kevin, Steve, Dave, Kai

  Aunty Claire

  Uncle Ted

  Their children: Fannie, Felix, Finn

  1 SOPHIE

  TAIWAN TAOYUAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  AUGUST 9

  You’re smarter than 99 percent of the planet. Last I checked, that includes most guys in existence. So why don’t you go make your own millions of dollars?

  Ever’s voice plays in my head as I watch her and my cousin Rick lock into the farewell kiss of the century. They’re dressed in complementary blues, backdropped by a billboard advertising furry baby pandas arriving at the Taipei Zoo next week—it’s too bad we’ll miss them.

  Debra, Laura, and a bunch of the guys are dressed in comfy chic, exchanging contact information, vowing to video chat every week. Swearing that our summer cultural immersion trip means we’ll be friends forever. Everyone scrambling to plant last seeds they hope will blossom into romance.

  Not me. I’m swearing off guys for the next four years of Dartmouth. Maybe forever.

  And for good reason.

  Loveboat, for me, was A. DISASTER.

  I threw myself at Xavier Yeh, son of Dragon Leaf CEO Jasper Yeh, because I was supposed to marry a rich husband and support my mom and four brothers. Instead, I got my heart shredded, my reputation pulverized, my eye blackened by an asshole—and I did some terrible things I will never forgive myself for. I hit rock bottom, to say the least.

  Then Ever caused a cataclysmic shift to the axis of my world.

  Why don’t you go make your own millions?

  Now I’m going to Dartmouth. I can make my own future! Maybe every other girl already knows she can do this, but I actually, truly didn’t. But I have a second chance to blast off into the stratosphere.

  I just pray I don’t get in my own way.

  Like I did with Xavier.

  “Boarding first class for Los Angeles,” says a woman’s voice over the PA.

  I take a seat in the waiting area and open my phone to check school emails for the first time all summer. My home screen is my favorite picture, bought years ago here in Taipei—white moon lanterns floating into the night. I dig into a mess of emails—from friends, high school wrap-up… then one from Dartmouth jumps out at me, from a month ago.

  RE: ACTION REQUESTED—SECOND NOTICE

  My heart misses a beat.

  “Hey, Xavier. You slumming it with the rest of us?” Marc Bell-Leong asks.

  I glance up. Of course. Xavier Yeh himself is walking toward us, slouchy in his finely woven black shirt with the silver threads. Tastefully understated without even trying or caring: that’s Xavier. His wavy black hair’s falling into his eyes. He hitches up his orange Osprey backpack and tucks his sketch pad deeper under his arm.

  “What happened to the private jet?” Marc asks. I hadn’t even known Xavier had one, and I’m glad I didn’t. Ooo, Xavier, let’s fly to Paris! I’d have acted like an even bigger fool.

  Fortunately, Xavier isn’t judgy. We’re good. And I’m over him.

  Xavier’s smile is grim. “My dad’s been pushing me to go to some school in Massachusetts. So I’m on the next flight to LA. Someone offered me a gig working on the set of a play.”

  He drops into the seat beside me. “Hey, Sophie.”

  “Hey, Xavier.” His knuckles are white against his sketch pad in his lap, and smudged with blue pastel. I frown. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Ju
st… can’t believe summer’s over.” He pulls paper-wrapped white rabbit candies from his pocket and offers one, then nods at my phone. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

  I chew on the mild milk candy as I scan the Dartmouth email.

  Dear Student,

  The deadline for registration for Introduction to Artificial Intelligence has passed and we have not yet received your course fee.…

  My stomach dips with dread and I swallow hard. “Shit.”

  “What’s wrong?” Xavier asks.

  “I missed a deadline. I didn’t know there was a fee, and now I’m on the waitlist for my most important class.” I should have been laser focused on Dartmouth ins and outs, but instead, I was laser focused on trying to impress Xavier.

  “That sucks. But it’s just one class, right?”

  “I don’t know! I’m on a special scholarship for girls in tech with a lot of requirements. If I can’t keep my scholarship, my mom can’t afford to send me to Dartmouth.” I’d have to leave… and then what? I need to stay on top of this. I can’t afford any more mistakes and to permanently flush my future down the drain.

  My fingers shake as I sign up for the waitlist. “I’m number two hundred thirty-one! I need to find out how to get in.”

  “Wish I could help,” Xavier says.

  Ever’s scanning her ticket at the gate. Rick is gone.

  “My flight’s boarding.” I rise, grabbing my bag. “Be careful in LA. And good luck!”

  “Wait, Sophie.” Xavier’s hand closes on my wrist.

  He’s looking at me with those dark brown eyes that see everything and everyone, in a way that makes my insides shrink back a bit. It’s a terrifying thing to have someone see you to your core, and not know what it is they are seeing. In Xavier’s case, he’s seen the very worst, of everything in me.

  “Will I… ever see you again?”

  He releases me, but his question stumps me. So much went wrong between us. Why would we see each other?

  I’ve never been to LA. My Aunty Claire paid for my plane ticket to Taiwan. “I don’t think I’ll be in LA anytime soon.…”

  “Well, once I finally get my trust fund, maybe I can visit. Everyone. New England in the fall is awesome. All the leaves changing colors. Maybe I can come by Dartmouth one weekend?”

  So he wants to visit?

  A stupid little hope flails in me, a wanting I can’t afford. Not when I need to pour every ounce of emotional energy into college.

  And poor little rich boy has to wait for his trust fund so he can jet off to see his friends? Ugh. Dom Perignon problems.

  Putting him in that box, at least, builds a necessary wall around my heart.

  “Boarding all rows Los Angeles,” says the woman over the PA system.

  “You gotta go.” Xavier gives me a one-armed hug that makes that traitorous little hope hiccup. I slip free and turn to go.

  But pause at the sight of a familiar man bearing down on us, flanked by two men in navy uniforms. Steel-gray hair and a snazzy navy sports coat.

  The guy who bought Xavier’s mural last night.

  “Oh, shit, Xavier. Your dad’s here.”

  2 XAVIER

  Ba comes at me like a torpedo, flanked by two hulking bodyguards. His hair is cut so sharp he could grate cheese on its serrated edges. Which matches his temper when it’s directed at me.

  Friends from Loveboat turn to look at him. I know he’s a big deal. He’s been on the cover of Forbes Asia three times since he took over Dragon Leaf, the company my great-grandfather started more than a hundred years ago. The logo’s even embroidered on the guards’ breast pockets: the bristly tree-like character that means “leaf,” my last name 葉, surrounded by a wreath formed by a long-bodied dragon. I hear it’s the proudest day in a guard’s or driver’s or whoever else’s life to put on that badge of Yehdom.

  But not for me.

  I rise warily, holding my sketchbook to my chest like a shield. I spent the morning with it sitting on the Chien Tan lawn, one last try with my worn-down pastels to hang on to the feelings I had there. My sketches are changing. The face that’s haunted my pages most of the summer has changed. For the first time, I’m not drawing Ever Wong. She chose Rick, not me, and I’ve let her go. And I’m seeing things differently now, but all these feelings are hard-won and fragile as silk threads.

  Not something I want Ba to touch.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Ba grabs my arm in a pincer grip. “You were supposed to fly to Boston for classes.”

  Everyone falls silent, and I wince.

  “Told you already,” I say. “I’m going to LA.”

  Ba yanks my sketch pad from my hands, moving so fast he blurs. Before I know what’s happening, the sketch pad whales me across the face.

  “Stop!” Sophie yells. “What the hell are you doing?”

  White lights swim in my vision. My head rings. Everyone else is pulling back from me, eyes cast away, hurrying onto their flight. In case the fucked-up-ness of my life might be contagious.

  Ba’s shoulders surge as he tears my sketch pad in half. He hands it to his bodyguard, who tosses it in the trash bin. A book full of everything I saw all summer, transferred from my soul to my fingers to a page.

  Gone.

  Ba’s dark-eyed gaze is grim. Short, angry breaths heave at my chest. I want to hurt him back. I have imagined—fantasized—what would hurt him most. If he lost all his money. If the family’s reputation went down the toilet. If I had him tied up in a metal chair, helpless and powerless, while I punched him in the gut over and over.

  Except I’d never even get a first punch past his guards.

  Tangerine-orange silk flashes in my periphery. Sophie’s fingertips graze my elbow, a steadying gesture of support—so she’s still here. I’m surprised, actually. She was the ex from hell after we broke up, although she went through her own share of unexpected hardships. I’m not entirely sure I trust her—or at least her and me and the shitstorm we were together—but we’re on better footing. Still, I’m not sure I want her here, not right now.

  “What do you want from me?” I ask Ba.

  “I put you in a summer program with students going to Yale, Harvard, Berkeley, Oxford. All summer, you were supposed to be learning Mandarin with them. This is what you do instead.” He gestures to the trash bin. “Now you want to go to LA so badly? Very well. You’re getting on the jet with Bernard, and Ken-Tek and Ken-Wei here will take you straight to a high school there that I’ve convinced to take you. Harvard-Westlake. I’ve set you up with an apartment to finish your senior year.”

  What the fuck? He wants me to repeat high school?

  “Your cousin Lulu is also a senior there. She is very studious. You will follow her lead. No more girls, no more parties. And you will graduate.”

  High school again? “I’d rather pimp myself out,” I snarl.

  “You need to learn to read.” He doesn’t react to what I actually say. Never does. “When I was your age, I booked my own meetings on three continents. I ran a business unit for Dragon Leaf. Your cousin has been apprenticed to your Uncle Edward since he was thirteen.”

  He snaps his fingers and his bodyguards come at me. I know what’s coming. I back up. My fist strikes one in the nose. My foot pulls a grunt from the other. But it’s over in a heartbeat. I’m a black belt in tae kwon do, but Ba has three-time world champions as his bodyguards. They grab my arms in fists like iron cuffs, one on each side.

  I glower at Ba. “You bring two guards to take on one son?”

  “Xavier, do you want me to call someone?” Sophie’s face is full of fear. Her phone is in her hand.

  “Thank you for your concern, but there’s no need,” Ba says curtly.

  “Xavier?” She looks to me. The waiting area is deserted except for the gate attendant, who is looking away. Which means she’s been briefed. Yet Sophie stayed.

  The rest plays out in my head: we call the airport guards, Ba flicks his wrist and sends them away. Yeh-creste
d or not, the entire fucking island is in his pocket.

  “It’s okay, Sophie.” I force my voice steady. She’s pretty brave, actually. No one stands up to Ba. They kiss his shoes. Lick them clean. But I don’t want her witnessing things that shouldn’t be witnessed by anyone. “You need to catch your flight.”

  Her eyes are dark with worry. “I—I’ll call you when we land.”

  The bodyguards move me before she’s done talking. Their fists are cutting off circulation in my arms. They march me down the corridor. To anyone looking, it doesn’t look bad. Like I sprained my ankle and they’re helping. But I’ll be bruised in the morning. A reminder of who’s in charge.

  For now.

  Because in two more days, my trust fund vests. I’ll be in charge of my own destiny, and then I’ll hire my own bodyguards to fight off his.

  Two more days, and Ba can’t ever touch me again.

  He turns a corner, and the Kens steer me after him. I glance back at the LA gate. Sophie’s still watching me, cell phone raised. I wish she could unsee everything she just saw. I must look so weak and stupid to her.

  Then a coffee shop comes between us, and she vanishes from sight.

  Ba’s shoes make sharp clicks on the floor. “What can you do without a high school diploma, Xiang-Ping?”

  “I’m doing art.”

  He scoffs. “Art doesn’t make money. Even Shakespeare had the queen to pay for his scones and jam.”

  He fucking knows everything. If I could put everything I know into a circle, he could draw ten concentric ones around it.

  But here’s where he’s wrong. Seven fucking thousand dollars’ worth of wrong.

  “Art can make money.” I match his calm voice, although everything in me wants to crow the whole ironic truth over the PA system. “That dragon mural you paid all that money for? Turns out I painted that.”

  I whistle the sound effect of a missle falling, complete with splat on the ground. Who gets the last laugh now, Pops? I lift my jaw and lock eyes with him—waiting for the truth to hit him harder than my fists ever could.