“Not much. I just wanted to clarify.”
Fitz picked up a shrimp chip by its edge, dipped it in the peanut sauce with red pepper flakes, and crunched. His face became sweaty and bloomed red as he chewed, then coughed. He grasped the water glass and took a quick gulp.
Ming said, “Are you upset?”
He coughed to his right side, and had difficulty stopping. He reminded himself to sit up straight while coughing, realized that he wasn’t covering his mouth, covered his mouth, was embarrassed that his fair skin burned hot and red, wondered in a panicky blur if this redness would be seen to portray most keenly his injured emotional state, his physical vulnerability in choking, his Anglocentric intolerance to chili, his embarrassment at not initially covering his mouth, his obvious infatuation with Ming, or—worst of all—could be interpreted as a feeble attempt to mask or distract from his discomfort at her pre-emptive romantic rejection.
Ming was grateful for this interlude, for she had now entirely forgotten her rehearsed stock of diplomatically distant but consoling though slightly superior phrases.
“Hot sauce. I’m fine,” he gasped, coughing.
There was a long restaurant pause, in which Ming was aware of the other diners talking, although she could not perceive what their conversations were about.
She said, “I’ve embarrassed us both.”
“I’m glad you mentioned it.”
“So you are interested,” she said. “Or you were interested until a moment ago. Is that why you’re glad that I mentioned it?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? What you’ve just said has made it irrelevant. Or, it would be irrelevant if it were previously relevant, but I’m glad you brought up your feelings,” said Fitzgerald. He picked up the menu.
“Don’t feel obliged to tell me whether I needed to say what I just said.”
“It was great to study together. You’ve got a great handle on … on mitochondria.”
The waiter came. Ming felt unable to read the menu, and pointed at a lunch item in the middle of the page. She got up to use the bathroom, and wondered in the mirror why she had not worn lipstick—not taken a minute this morning to look good. Then, she reminded herself that she should have actually taken measures to appear unattractive. Nonetheless, Ming examined her purse for lipstick, finding only extra pens and a crumpled exam schedule. When she returned, they smiled politely at each other for a little while. They ate, and the noodles fell persistently from Fitzgerald’s chopsticks onto the plate, resisting consumption. Ming asked if he wanted a fork, and he refused. After a while, as Fitzgerald’s pad thai continued to slither from his grasp, Ming caught the waiter’s eye, who noticed Fitzgerald’s barely eaten plate and brought a fork without Ming having to ask.
Fitzgerald ate with the fork, and craved a beer.
“We’re great study partners,” said Ming, still holding her chopsticks. “I want to clarify that it’s not because of you.” She had to get into medical school this year, and therefore couldn’t allow distraction. Her family, she said, was modern in what they wanted for her education, and old-fashioned in what they imagined for her husband. They would disapprove of Fitzgerald, a non-Chinese. They would be upset with Ming, and she couldn’t take these risks while she prepared to apply for medical school. The delicate nature of this goal, upon which one must be crucially focused, superseded everything else, Ming reminded Fitzgerald. He stopped eating while she talked. She looked down, stabbed her chopsticks into the noodles, and twisted them around.
He asked, “What about you?”
“What do you mean, me?” she said.
“Telling me this. Did you feel … interested?”
“I thought you might be.”
“You might say that I’ve noticed you, but I accept the situation. Priorities.” The imperative of medical school applications carried the unassailable weight of a religious edict.
“Very well,” she said, as if they had clarified a business arrangement.
The bill came. Fitzgerald tried to pay and Ming protested. He said that she could get the bill next time and she insisted that they should share.
She said, “See you in January,” and left. He had not even put his coat on, and afterwards she felt badly, decided she should have been calm and walked out into the street with him. Not just should have. She wanted to have done that, to have at least allowed herself to pretend, for the length of a city block, that there was something between them. Except that her cousins and family’s friends were numerous on campus, and might notice her and Fitzgerald walking together without any academic justification for each other’s company. Not that those of her own age would disapprove, and not that they would do anything less themselves. They would be enthusiastic about such gossip, and it was the talk that could be dangerous.
Fitz struggled into his sweater, took it off again, sat for a little while, and then ordered a pint. There came the relief and ease of the first drink. With this sense of mild well-being, and having abstained completely over the exam weeks, and with no more tests to write and Ming having fled, why not have another? So another beer, and with it the open hurt of feeling sorry for himself. This was the part he liked least, when he wanted to cling to something. This feeling was a lingering shadow of what he had felt when his mother went away, and reminded Fitz of how his father had become cold except when morose in drink. This was the worst part of it, both familiar and unhappy. What was new to Fitz was that he felt a pain at not having Ming. The pain of rejection was a significant shade different from the longing of desire, he noted, although drawn from the same palette. This sombre phase could generally be gotten through with a few more, and therefore justified the third drink. A washroom break. With the third pint came the brink between anger and the careless release that could sometimes be achieved and was the goal of the drinking. Fitz tried to will himself into this easy release, to tip over the meniscus of anger that grew like water perched higher than the rim of a glass, but it didn’t work today. It didn’t spill over so that he could relax, and instead he grew angry at his mother for crashing her car, at the doctors for not saving her, at his father for being his father, at himself for drinking, at Ming for being scared. After a fourth pint, the waiter brought him the bill and Fitz paid it with no tip, angry at the waiter for presuming that it was time for the bill. He told himself not to think about Ming because the anger didn’t help him deal with the hurt of rejection. He let himself out into the street where it was still snowing, that drifting quiet veil that sometimes persists after a storm.
—
During the previous month, Ming and Fitzgerald had studied at the same table in the library. For self-identified “med school keeners” (the label was inherently self-designated even for those who publicly denied it), study tables were the monks’ cells of exam time. Adherents arrived early in the morning and sat silently except for whispered exchanges. There was a desperate devotion to the impending sacrament and judgment of the exam. The faithful departed late at night, and returned upon the library’s opening. At first Ming and Fitzgerald sat at the same table coincidentally, but gradually the third table from the corner window became their table. One day they courteously acknowledged that they were studying for the same examinations, and then later that day murmured about phosphorylation reactions.
Sometimes, Fitzgerald closed his eyes and mouthed words while
