Page 5 of Menage a Passions

“I want to go over a few things with you before we embark on our tour,” Vice Principal Williams said as Jane and Cecelia made themselves comfortable at her desk. “Ms. Wong, it’s my understanding that you are Cecelia’s aunt… and her legal guardian while she is here?”

“Yes,” Jane said, careful to keep her tone light and as devoid of sarcasm as possible.What a trial.Already, scalding, biting words about her sister touched her tongue. Yet she won the battle of wits with herself. “It’s customary in my family for the youths to study abroad by the time they’re in the upper levels. I went to a boarding school in England. Our Cece here has… other continental ambitions.”

“Ah, well, thank you for choosing America, Cecelia.”

The girl in question struggled to keep a straight face. “Not a problem.”

“Now, as for how we have you set up in your system… there’s what you will go by in school and have on your ID card, and then there’s how we have to report your progress to the government and your related departments back in… where is it you are from? Hong Kong?”

Oh, this is getting good.Jane couldn’twaitto see where this conversation went. “We were both born and raised in Hong Kong, yes,” she said. “Poor Cece here can’t remember the colonial days, though. That’s how we can date her dear ol’ Aunt Jane. I’m practically withering in my age.” She was in her forties, but Ms. Williams didn’t need to know that.

“Right. I’m asking because I know it’s customary for many Chinese people to have both a Chinese name and an English name.”

“Chinese?” Cecelia hissed to her aunt.

“Go along with it,” Jane spat back in Cantonese. “Almost every American you meet here will make a damn fool of themselves over it. Either by bending over backward to pretend you’re anything but a Hong Konger or ensuring to your face that you’reChineseChineseChinese.”

Ms. Williams glanced between them, her fake smile growing. “Everything all right?”

“Perfect,” Jane said, switching back to immaculate English. “I am sorry, what were you asking?”

“I was asking if Miss Lam has another name that she goes by back in Hong Kong.”

“My name’s Cecelia…”

Here I go, to the rescue once again.Jane better get used to it. “To my knowledge, her legal name in Hong Kong is also Cecelia Lam. It is the only name on her passport.” She cleared her throat. “I think you’ll find that having two names has fallen a bit out of style among our class.” Jane wouldn’t speak for others. She only knew that her own “Chinese” name was a result of her parents growing up in a different world.The only people who call me Lin Hua are my mom when we’re speaking Cantonese and Caitlyn…Hell, Caitlyn called her Lin, not the full clip!

Toliterallyeveryone else, even in Hong Kong, she was Jane. Plain, silly Jane.

“My name’s Cecelia,” the girl in question reiterated. “Some people call me Cece.”

“And you speak perfect English. How about that?”

Cecelia sent her aunt a countenance harboring a distress signal. “Welcome to America,” Jane lackadaisically said in Cantonese.

Luckily for them, this was the hardest part of the orientation. Once they were out of Ms. Williams’s office, taking a tour of the grounds and meeting some of the teachers, they were treated more like a normal family transferring at the start of a student’s sophomore year. It was understood that Cecelia was a “normal” student, not on exchange, and planned on being in New England for at least a year or two, if not graduating from Winchester Academy before applying to an Ivy League university. She didn’t know which one yet, but Harvard was the commonly understood name in both the Wong and Lam households.

They were assured that Winchester Academy sent an above-average number of students to Harvard. And Yale. And Dartmouth…

When they were overburdened with information and literature full of happy, smiling rich kids in dark-colored clothes, Jane and Cecelia returned to the car and decompressed with the air conditioner blasting in their faces and NPR playing on the radio. Jane promptly turned it off.

“Where are we going?” Cecelia asked when they were back on the road.

“You’ll see.”

If there was one thing Jane knew the kids in Hong Kong liked those days, it was overpriced drinks to go with their oversized shirts. As it so happened, she knew the perfect café downtown that catered to the same crowd.I may be wealthy, but come on, these prices…Forty dollars for two people to get fancy drinks and some sandwiches. Never mind a dessert! Yet Cecelia didn’t say no to an iced latte with soy milk, a BLT on artisanal bread, and the kind of colorful fruit tart that looked more tailor-made for Instagram than someone’s plate.

Jane was content with a hot coffee and the hummus plate. She wasn’t a big snacker. Nor was she a growing teenage girl.

“This is nice,” Cecelia humbly said. “Thanks.”

“Ah, I know it’s nothing like the places your mom and your friends take you to back in the World City. But some places here aren’t so bad.”

Cecelia sipped her drink before cutting into her large sandwich. Already, Jane eyeballed the to-go container that her small niece would surely need.Lilian and our mom will kill me if I let Cece pack on the American pounds.Jane could hear it now.

“I don’t go to many places like this back home.”

“Really? Things have changed since I was your age.” Jane didn’t only mean traveling abroad to study. Whenever she was in Hong Kong, she was out of her home of White Fir as much as possible, hanging out with other teens at malls, clubs, and at the marina where she knew more than one classmate with a yacht they could party on all day. Jane had to meet her first few girlfriendssomehow…

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