Page 28 of A Banh Mi for Two
“Definitely the street,” Nga adds. “I didn’t agree to a triple.”
“Me neither.”
“All right—can you guys stop making me feel bad?” Cindy pleads as she gets off my twin XL to the makeshift mattress on the floor—blankets and pillows she got from who knows where. “I promise to not snore tonight.”
“I don’t know if that’s physically possible. Unless you don’t sleep,” Nga comments.
“I do usually have a lot to get done at night.”
“She does.” I shrug. “A whole folder of fan fictions to get to.”
“Leave me alone. I’m not hurting anyone,” she grumbles from below.
“I’m not judging.”
“You shouldn’t be when all you do is stare at Lan from the window and imagine both of you holding hands and skipping through a flower field like a pair of cottagecore sapphics—”
“Cindy!”
“What’s this?” Nga appears right next to my bed. “Lan? As in Lan from Bánh Mì 98?”
“Gosh, Nga! You literally look like a ghost,” Cindy yelps, dropping her phone on her face. “Sorryyyyy. I know it’s quiet hours.”
Now Nga’s on my bed—I guess everyone loves my twin XL. People on the internet were right once again. College is great because it’s like summer camp but with unlimited and unauthorized sleepovers.
“You think Lan’s cute, huh? It’s pretty obvious. You were shaking while talking to her.”
I blush, and no words dare escape my mouth.
“She does,” Cindy sings. “She most definitely does.” She sings again in a crescendo.
“Watch it, Cindy, or else I’m sending you back into that haunted room.”
“What are these?” Nga is by my desk now, looking at the pictures I stole from Mom.
“That’s my mom in Vi?t Nam. When she was a girl,” I say, relieved someone changed the subject. “I think the other people are my family. I mean, Cindy says we all have the same cheekbones. I brought the photos because… I thought I’d try finding family here.”
“Your mom was born in Vi?t Nam?”
I nod at Nga. “Yeah. She rarely speaks of this country, though. My dad, on the other hand, immigrated with my grandpa when he could barely talk, so he doesn’t know much, either. The only things I really know about Vi?t Nam have been through Google and all the weird, traumatic facts taught in US History classes.”
“Ugh, AP US History sucked,” Cindy scoffs, folding her arms before turning to Nga. “AP US History is this core requirement for ‘gifted’ American kids to learn about American propaganda. Our teacher, Mr. Smith, would spend twenty minutes on a lesson, then expected us to hand in a full-length project.”
Nga winced. “So that class didn’t answer your questions, either?”
I nod. “Not a single one. I just wish I knew why my mom immigrated. It’s strange, I’m raised by immigrant parents, but I don’t know why they chose to come to California. I don’t know if it’s a my family problem, either, because Cindy’s from a family of immigrants, too, and they aren’t like that—hiding things about the country they came from.”
Nga looks from me to Cindy, shock on her face. “You are? That’s so… interesting to me, I guess because my family has always been in Vi?t Nam.”
Cindy nods. “Yeah, my family are immigrants—undocumented immigrants to be exact.”
“Undocumented…?” Nga cocks her head.
Cindy sighs, taking a finger through her hair. She often does this when the topic of her family immigration comes up, and so I reach out to squeeze my best friend’s hand. “My family has no citizenship. They’re not Americans, and they can’t receive any ‘American benefits.’ They’re paying taxes, but the government pretends they don’t exist.”
“What? That’s just messed up.”
I sigh. “And there’s nothing they can do.”
