Girl in Translation

“I want go,” I mumbled. I could feel her leaning forward across her polished desk to hear me better but she didn’t interrupt. “But we should pay.”

“I should have been clearer.” Her tone was brisk now. “No one would expect you and your mother to pay for it all yourselves. I meant that the private school would naturally have to offer you a scholarship. I can’t promise anything, but I believe there is a chance they would.”

“Really?” I had never imagined that I might get to go to a fancy school like A

“But don’t get your hopes up too much, because this is very late to apply. The normal application process is already closed. Any school who accepts you, if they do, would have to squeeze you in and their budget may already be ex-sausaged.”

“Maybe Harrison?” I asked. That was where A

Mrs. LaGuardia laughed. “Well, you do set your sights high. Why don’t you let me make some phone calls? I’ll get back to you, Kimberly. You may go now, but again, don’t hope for too much. It’s a long shot.”

After I came back from Mrs. LaGuardia’s office without being expelled, Luke wanted to fight me every day. We had our exchange of backpack blows a few more times when another girl caught on to what was going on before I did. She was begi

“You better not pick on my friend,” she said, pushing her face close to his. She had never spoken a word to me before this, but I was still grateful.

It wasn’t long before Luke transferred his attention to her.

“You wa

They had to fight only once before they started necking in the school yard. Finally, I understood. I hadn’t been involved in fights: it had been a courtship, the rules of which I’d violated by kicking him so hard the first time. I felt ashamed. In any case, the whole episode earned me a kind of respect from the rest of the class and I began to feel more at home.

There were several other notable events that spring: Easter, a holiday about rabbits and eggs, and the school photo. Ma and I couldn’t afford to buy the pictures, so I kept the print they gave me, which had the word PROOF stamped across my chest. The new PTA meeting came and went without Ma’s knowledge.

After Easter, I heard from Mrs. LaGuardia that Harrison Prep was indeed interested in me as a scholarship student, which I understood to mean they might be willing to pay for me as long as I got into a good college in the end. That seemed to be a reasonable bargain to me. What else could I offer?

Mrs. LaGuardia made an appointment for me and Ma at the school, which was in a part of Brooklyn I had never seen.

Ma was breathless with excitement when I told her. “What a chance! I am so proud of you!” But her brow furrowed when she heard the date. “So soon? The shipment is going out that night.”

“It’s all right. I can go by myself.”

“Can we reschedule the appointment for another day?”

“Ma, I’d like it if you came with me but I don’t want you to get into trouble at the factory. You can’t miss any day there.”

Ma looked sad. “I wish you didn’t have to do it alone but I’ll light incense for you.”

I was allowed to miss my own classes that day and I had to take three subways to get to Harrison Prep. Then I walked for a while, following the map they’d given me, until I came to a huge wooded area. This was a part of Brooklyn I hadn’t dreamed existed. It didn’t look like anything else I’d seen, not even A

I thought I was walking along a park but it later turned out that this was already a part of Harrison ’s campus. The school was so old that it owned a great deal of property. The trees and shrubbery turned into a high wire fence and through it, in the distance, I could see high school kids playing a game on an enormous and immaculate lawn. They were wearing shorts that were so wide, they seemed to be square. These kids and their game were completely alien to me. At my current elementary school, at least I wasn’t the only nonwhite child and I certainly wasn’t the only poor one. No one I’d ever known had done things like what these students were doing, and if I stayed here, I would also have to run with a netted pole, be expected to catch balls and toss them to some figure waving in the distance. I would also have to run in square shorts. We could never afford square shorts.

I stopped walking for a moment and thought about turning back, going back to who I was. If they knew that Ma made even my underwear for me, that we slept under pieces of fabric we’d found in the trash, they would surely throw me out. I was a fraud, pretending to be one of the rich kids. What I didn’t know then was that I shouldn’t have worried about pulling any of this off; they weren’t fooled at all.

I finally reached a large brick building set in the same smooth lawn. The door was made of carved wood inset with pieces of colored glass. It was so heavy, I could hardly get it open. Through the lighter parts of the glass, I could already see a young woman at a desk in front of an enormous curving staircase. She was in a crisp white blouse and high heels, her light brown hair neatly pulled back in a bun.

I felt very small in that hall. A portrait of a bearded man holding a Bible watched me as I walked up to her. I looked at the crumpled slip of paper in my hand, even though I already knew it by heart. I’d thought a lot about how to get through this appointment.

“Do you know Dr. Weston?” I asked in a squeaky voice.

She looked faintly surprised, then took a breath and said, “Do you have an appointment with her?”

“Yes,” I said, relieved she’d understood me. She would take over from here.

“You must be Kimberly Chang.”

I nodded and handed her the stack of forms I’d had to fill out for my application.

She glanced behind me. “Is your mother parking the car?”

I looked down. “No,” I said. “She is ill today.”

“Someone else must have brought you, then?”

I should have thought of this and been ready with an answer. Lies flashed through my mind-someone brought me but they were waiting in the car, someone brought me and left.

She interrupted my thoughts. “Did you come alone?”

The engine of my mind stuttered to a halt. “Yes.”

She paused, then smiled at me. “You must be tired from all the traveling, then. Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll tell Dr. Weston you’re here.”

She led me to one of the wooden chairs set against the wall and left with my pile of paperwork. She hadn’t been unkind but I wasn’t reassured. Her heels echoed in the hall.

When she returned a few minutes later, she was accompanied by a compact older woman in a beige suit with a face like a bulldog, the jowls hanging below a pointy nose, and close-set bright eyes.

The older woman stopped before me. “Hi, I’m Dr. Weston,” she said.

“How do you do?” I said, glad that I had practiced this with Mrs. Avery. I extended my hand to her and she shook it without hesitation. Her hand was pale and soft except for the hardness of several square glittering rings.

When I was seated in her office, Dr. Weston leaned back. A silver stopwatch rested on the yellow legal pad on her table. My forms also lay on her desk. She gave me a smile that only moved the bottom half of her face. I knew this was supposed to put me at ease but it only made me more nervous.

“We normally do this in written form but because I’ve been told you’re a special case, I’m going to ask you a few questions myself, all right? Just answer them as best you can, and if you don’t know the answer, tell me.”