I am sure we were meant to be friends, but you see, you came too late. In kindergarten, I was the awkward child trying to hold the classmates’ hands at recess. I mouthed their words along with them to feel those new words on my tongue like a new candy flavor.

“Thank you,” I greeted. Red apple skins, common and cheap.

“Please.” I waved and left. Fresh lychee, special and soft.

“Hello,” I pointed. Peppermint, like the gym teacher’s chewing gum.

Friend tasted like pineapple, sweet and stinging.

By the third grade, I had mastery of the English language and no mastery of friendship. My name had even warped into something easier for my classmates’ tongues, more acceptable for the substitute teacher to call out. The name was broken from the name my parents scoured for, to something short and mundane. A mockingbird’s song became a pigeon’s coo. I was willing to twist my name, myself into uncomfortable positions, to make others’ lives easier. How many pieces I let them make of me.

Seeking adult approval, I was useful to the teacher, if not an ally among my peers.

Then you arrived in class with your name with its curious qi- and zh- sounds, am I remembering that right? Or was it a double name, like someone sang it?

I hated that the teachers asked me to translate English into a language I was trying to forget in order to speak with the right accent. You needed so much help. You were undoing my attempts to assimilate, to blend in, to undo myself. You were trying to make me whole, return the Chinese piece to the American piece.

I’m sure we were supposed to be friends if I had been a kinder child.

My situation was so precarious that I could not risk standing near you, fearing they’d mistaken one red-hooded, black haired girl for another despite my glasses and overbite, your lighter skin and smaller nose. I was furious that the teacher made me your babysitter, your mandatory companion. I tried to leave you behind at the zoo, at the museum. I did not turn back for you when I heard my Chinese name echo off the walls. I had untethered from my name. You found me easily among the pale classmates at the butterfly enclosure, under the giant blue whale skeleton. You never showed your disappointment that your shout did not slow me down.

I finally had to wipe your hand off my wrist as if you were a mosquito, a parasitic tick. I forced you to sit alone when I ate my lunch in the bathroom. I refused to translate the class’s jokes, though your eyes bounced from each laughing mouth, hungry for connection.

And then you were gone, another teacher and class’s problem.

Not mine.

How did you manage it? Did one of your grownups perform some charades to communicate my rudeness? Did you have to draw it out for the principal with stick figures?

They certainly didn’t bring me to the office to translate.

No, I could return to my deliberate losses.

After you were gone, I lost so much language and expression. I didn’t know shrugs were not a part of my family’s body language, didn’t know that I laughed loud like an American. How should I gesture now? Would you have corrected me, taught me to smile without showing my teeth? Would you have rolled your eyes too when they called us into the office to translate for a Korean family?

We should have been friends.

I changed my name back in high school, made my teachers sweat with the effort the first day. In freshman year of college, I decided to major in Mandarin. My friends told me I was cheating, because they didn’t understand that our mother tongue was actually incomprehensible to Mandarin speakers. A rare language of eight million speakers, ha!

I graduated with a double major in English literature. I dream and curse in three languages. I caught success with my mastery, tasting red bean and chocolate in my translations.

But the scar of our would-be friendship remains. I had defied fate with my cruelty, untangled our red threads.

I’ve tried a thousand ways and a hundred plans to find you, but I don’t remember your name. Have you changed it? Did you change Ting Ting to Grace, or Mei to May? Did it taste like mango or jujube?

Please, tell me your name again.

* * *

Ⓒ Wen Wen Yang