Girl in Translation

I didn’t answer. I was terrified of losing everything Ma and I had worked for. What if I couldn’t understand the English well enough, since it would all be spoken? What if I happened to make a few mistakes or just did less well than usual on her test? They could wrongly decide I’d been cheating and I would have to leave the school. I stared at her but her face no longer made sense to me. It had become a blur of shapes and light.

“I’m not out to get you, Kimberly. If you’re doing everything honestly, you have nothing to worry about.” And she turned back to her desk.

I walked slowly out of her office. Why couldn’t I just be like everyone else?

“You okay?” Curt was passing by, arm in arm with Sheryl.

Sheryl turned her head, her forehead furrowed. Perhaps she was as surprised as I was that he’d spoken to me. Maybe he also remembered the last time I’d been in that office.

“Sure,” I said. I blinked my eyes a few times. “Thanks.”

“See you,” he said, moving away.

NINE

I had a few casual friends, but at some point, we always hit an invisible barrier. There was Samantha, who was something of a snob. At the school cafeteria, I once asked the lady behind the counter for a cheese croissant in my careful English and Samantha corrected me with an exaggerated French accent, “Crois san. It’s so uncultured to pronounce the t.” And nowadays, Tammy spent her time pretending I didn’t exist.

Finally, there was boy-crazy Lucy, who said things like, “Hey, I know what. Let’s dress up in our shortest miniskirts and go shopping in the city! I went out last Friday and these guys were drooling all over me!”

In the end, A

The younger A

“So how come we’re so close,” she began once, “and I’ve never been to your house?”

“My apartment is small. You would not be very comfortable,” I said.

“But I don’t mind.”

“My mother care. Just wait, I will ask her if you can come, okay?” I was hoping that this would appease her until she forgot about the whole thing. It was not until several years later that A

What A

In some ways, getting the phone had only made things worse. Once, when I was working in the library, A

“I tried to call you yesterday afternoon.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Why aren’t you ever home after school?”

I tried to look i

“You never answer until so late. Where do you go?”

“Nowhere. Sometimes it takes me a long time to get home.” A

Miserable, I met her eyes. “Of course.”

Her eyes were fierce. “I’m not stupid.”

“I know.” I hesitated. “The truth is, I help my mother at work.”

“In Chinatown? Are the stores open that late?” I’d once told A

I decided to tell her a part of the truth. “Do you remember I told you once we worked in a factory?”

“Maybe, kind of.” A

“A

“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. But are you okay?”

“Yes. Really. It’s not so bad,” I lied. “There is a soda machine.”

“Oh. Great.” She sounded sarcastic. “If there’s a soda machine, you’ve got to be in heaven.”

I started laughing. “You can even get iced tea in it.”

She giggled too. “Now I’m really convinced.” Then she sobered up. “Thanks for telling me. You can trust me.”

I paused and looked at her. A

“Kimberly, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me any of this! And why didn’t you just say it was Tammy who was really cheating?”

“I’m actually not so smart.”

“No, you’re just not a telly-tale, that’s all. You remember you always used to say that?”

We both started to laugh again but I remembered where we were and shushed us.

“You’ll be all right,” A

“I hope so.” I wasn’t so sure. “But they can make the test very hard.”

Whenever we got home from the factory, Ma would cook our di

At fourteen I couldn’t take the naturalization test myself, but I would automatically acquire U.S. citizenship if Ma passed. This was essential if I wanted to qualify for the financial aid programs at colleges. Ma had bought a cheap tape player and a study book with a cassette. After listening to the questions repeatedly, she memorized what she needed to answer by the sounds alone. I peeked in her notes and they were full of phonetic symbols like a musical score. I’m sure she had no idea what any of the sentences meant. When I tried to explain their grammar and meaning to her, she listened politely, but I never saw anything like understanding in her eyes.