Mr. Connelly walks over and gives me a hug. “You were great,” he says to me. I introduce him to Ming, and he congratulates her as well, telling her how proud and honored the faculty is to have her at the school. Before he leaves, he leans in and whispers into my ear, “Get used to it. You’re going to have to do a lot of these when you get into Yale.”

I smile. I turn to Ming after he’s gone and ask her if she’s seen Zach. Ming rolls up the long sleeves of her formal velvet dress and shakes her head.

“Hey, did you mean what you said about Mrs. Mandalay changing your life?” I ask her.

She nods.

“Because your parents didn’t understand why you play the violin?”

She shakes her head. She leans over, as if to tell me a secret, then hesitates. I furrow my eyebrows, What is it?

“No, because I’m gay,” she finally says.

Five

Claire

I glare at my Chinese teacher in class. Her lack of ethics has doomed me to a lifetime of American burgers.

At lunch, my friends crowd around me, analyzing the pros and cons of going, while I look over at Teddy. He’s sitting at the senior table with his friends, but he’s not talking to them. His rice sits untouched while he scrolls on his phone.

What are you thinking? I text.

He looks up at me but doesn’t text back, instead he puts his phone away. He’s mad. He hasn’t said a word to me since I told him the news this morning.

I wait for him after school, and we walk the long way home, where the Old Northern Gate was. Shanghai used to have many gates. The gates separated the concessions in Old Shanghai. There’s the former French concession, where the French dignitaries used to live. There’s the British and American enclaves, ceded as a result of the Opium War.

I think about that, about all the concessions I’ve made over the years, pieces of me carved out to please my parents. Maybe this is just another one. I’d like to think that, like Shanghai, eventually I’ll get it all back.

I look over at Teddy. Say something. We cut through People’s Park. He stares at the umbrellas on the ground, fingers squeezed into his pockets. It’s a marriage market day. The sidewalks are lined with umbrellas. On each umbrella, there’s a piece of paper taped to it advertising an unmarried girl. They call them “leftover women,” meaning women over thirty who have not yet married, a fate considered worse than death. Desperate mothers crowd the parks trying to marry off their girls by umbrella—no doubt, my mother’s worst nightmare.

“You’re gonna go and fall in love with one of those big-nose Americans,” Teddy finally says.