The Heart Principle (The Kiss Quotient 3)

My face is hot and I’m on the verge of tears, but I put on a smile. I remember to wrinkle the corners of my eyes. I fumble through greeting them all. I’m horrible at remembering faces, and there are different ways to say aunt and uncle in Cantonese depending on if they’re on my mom’s side or my dad’s side, their age relative to my parents, and whether or not they married into the family. In the end, my mom has to reintroduce me to everyone, and I parrot back the titles that she gives me, only with abominable pronunciation that makes people laugh. My mom laughs along with them, but there’s a hard edge to her face that tells me she finds my failure humiliating.

By the time that’s over, my heart is hammering and my head hurts. I need a quiet place. I need time. As I’m closing the front door, Julian and his mom walk up the front steps. I didn’t invite them, so Priscilla and my mom must have done it. I really wish they hadn’t. It takes energy to be with him, and I feel like I’m scraping the bottom of my resources.

Numbly, I note that he looks good today. Well, he always looks good, but today he looks exceptionally good. He’s dressed in well-fitting khakis, a white button-down shirt with no tie, and a navy blue sports coat, and he’s having a great hair day. His chin-length locks look like they’ve been professionally styled with a round brush and a hair dryer and then flat-ironed, but I know he rolls out of bed like that. Julian is lucky in many ways.

My facial muscles don’t want to respond, but I make them cooperate through a force of will. I say the right things with the right amount of enthusiasm. I hug Julian and his mom and show them to the backyard, where caterers have set up a big white tent and a dozen round dining tables on the grass. The sun’s only begun its descent, so the sky is still bright and the illumination from the Christmas lights suspended overhead is subtle. The flower arrangements are beautiful—fresh hydrangeas in shades of magnetic blue and magenta—and there’s a long buffet table filled with food from my dad’s favorite restaurant. In the back corner, a bartender is setting up a wet bar.

This is what happens when Priscilla organizes an event. Everything’s perfect.

For other people.

For me, it’s a test of my endurance. Every minute, more guests arrive. The tables fill up. The noise escalates. Activity levels escalate. I shake hands with unfamiliar people and hug familiar ones. I make small talk, pushing my brain to its limits as I follow the conversations with careful attention, reason through what I think people want to hear as quickly as I po

ssibly can, and then say it with the correct delivery, which involves facial expressions, voice modulation, and hand motions. I’m a marionette, hyperaware of all the strings I need to pull in order to give a convincing performance.

All the while, my cousins are tossing a football back and forth at the far end of the yard. A baby is crying, and her mommy is trying to distract her by pointing out the football. Bees are buzzing on the camellias. The air smells like grass, flowers, Chinese food, alcohol, and the smoke from the next-door neighbor’s barbecue.

I haven’t been moisturizing my skin properly, and as I sweat, my face stings. My hand grows clammy, and Julian lets me go so he can wipe his palm on his pants.

“I can’t tell if that’s you or me,” he says with a laugh. “I’m a little nervous tonight.”

“Why?” I ask, because that’s unusual for him.

His chest expands as he draws in a big breath, and instead of answering the question, he asks, “Want a drink? I could use one.”

“Sure.” Now that he’s mentioned it, dulling my overloaded senses with massive amounts of alcohol sounds like a fantastic idea. Maybe I’ll have an entire bottle by myself.

I follow him to the wet bar, and as he’s ordering us two glasses of red wine, I can’t help noting how attractive he is. But I could say the same of a Monet painting, and I don’t have a burning desire to possess one. Julian isn’t Vivaldi for me. He doesn’t captivate me. He’s not my safe place.

There’s only one man like that for me, and he’s not here. I wish he was. At the same time, I’m glad he’s not. I’m pretty sure my mom doesn’t want him in her house. Priscilla doesn’t respect him at all. The rest of my family would probably hate him on sight.

As Julian hands me a wineglass and tips the bartender, the crowd quiets. Priscilla rolls our dad outside in his wheelchair. There’s a knit cap on his head, and he’s wearing a black cardigan backward over his hospital gown. A fleece blanket covers his legs and is tucked neatly under his feet. His head is propped up with pillows, but he still lists slightly to the side as he blinks groggily at his surroundings.

“Thanks for coming, everyone. Dad is so happy you could make it here to celebrate his eightieth birthday with him,” Priscilla says proudly.

People clap and crowd around him, and there’s a steady hum of conversation as everyone tries to get a family photo with him in it. I see my mom in the middle of the throng, dressed to the nines, makeup on, talking animatedly with guests, entirely in her element. This party, I realize, isn’t for my dad. He appears to have fallen asleep.

“Where did Priscilla go?” Julian asks.

I look around, and when I don’t see her, I say, “She’s probably getting ‘fresh air.’?”

His mouth crinkles like he’s tasting something he doesn’t like. “I guess I’ll wait until she gets back, then.”

“Wait for what?”

He just smiles at me and shakes his head before sipping from his wineglass. “My mom said she spoke to you.”

I’m not sure what he’s talking about, but I nod. “It’s been really nice of her to visit so often.” That seems like the right thing to say.

He gives me a skeptical look before he takes a sip of his wine. “You told her you’d love to have her as a mother-in-law.”

A bad sensation settles over me. It feels like all the small lies that I’ve told to please people are catching up with me, and a moment of reckoning is coming. I’ll have to deal with everything eventually and make tough choices. But I can’t today. Not here and now, not while everyone is watching.

“I did. I like her a lot,” I say. My cheeks are tired from all the smiling I’ve done today, but I smile again for him.

“You know what that means, right?” he asks, reaching out to tuck my hair behind my ear.

I try my hardest not to flinch as the nerve endings in my scalp protest his touch. My smile stays in place, but my heart is beating so fast I’m light-headed. I can’t remember his question, but I know how I’m supposed to respond. “Yes.”