At the meeting's end I thanked Bryan and discovered he had maybe four English phrases in his vocabulary. Fortunately, the written material told me where we'd meet at the airport and the basics of what I would need, including my visa. As I started to leave, the young man I'd seen earlier touched my shoulder and asked, in perfect English, if I needed help.
This was Helpful Young Man Number Three on my tour adventure. Leonard, a nineteen-year-old taking the tour with his mom. Leonard, as it turned out, lived in Hong Kong but had attended high school in my hometown of Vancouver, Canada. Now he was attending a university in Ontario.
Eureka, what luck. My own personal translator.
Hey, Leonard, I said. Nobody was listening. What was Bryan talking about?
Oh, just junk about medical insurance and stuff, not important.
Got it. That's what I thought.
Now I'd be a proper tourist running around Beijing, following a flag carried by a tour leader. And I was going to see the real China, with real Chinese people, in Chinese. Pretty good chance we'd have some Chinese food too. No promises, of course, but I was hopeful.
William and I dated for over a year before I met his parents. I needed to be somewhat certain we were steadily steady. Believe me, I told him, I am not what your mother has in mind.
Meeting the folks over dinner seemed risky. I changed my outfit three times, as if going on a first date. My warning rang in my head. Our racial difference was not the foremost concern. His brother was engaged to a white woman; those waters had been forged.
My unease lay in our age difference and my being twice divorced. And that we did not wish to have children — William was even more adamant about this than I was. We didn't disclose any of these tidbits in my first encounter with his mom and dad. Or the second, or the third....
His parents and I got along well. They appeared pleased their son had a girlfriend and sent flowers on my birthday along with generous presents like spa gift certificates. In those early years the sun shone on us.
However, the day William confessed to them we weren't having children, then followed that with our age difference and my marital history, they were not pleased. When we eloped, William called his parents and his mother wept on the phone to me.
William is precious to us, she said. Take care of him.
I suspected those were not entirely tears of joy. It didn't matter that William made clear his resolve to not have children. I think his mother was convinced he would change his mind if he just married the right girl. His father told him there was no reason to marry if we weren't planning on having children.
It was a daunting situation, but William took my hand and we climbed inside our bubble. Me, him, a cat and a dog.
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