“Well, was anything—was she acting differently? Did she seem anxious? Stressed about looking for jobs or…?”
He hesitates.
“Yes?” I hold my breath as the muscles in his jaw work.Come on. Tell me what you know. Please.
“She was a lot like you, you know. But—” He looks at his watch.“You’ll have to excuse me, I’m late for—again, my deepest condolences.” With that he turns and walks away, long quick strides lengthening the sidewalk between us, as I stare in the direction he went, my heart hammering in my chest.
Chapter Eight
Maya
October 2011, junior year
Professor DuPont’s behavioral economics301 was the single most popular class at the university. So much so that to get in, we’d wait at 6:59a.m.on class registration day, with the class queued up on TigerHub, pale and slick-palmed as our fingers hovered over the return key waiting for the second hand to reach the hour. It was rumored even the waitlist was filled within the first ten minutes.
Maybe I’d had enough bad luck sophomore year that by junior year, the universe decided to let me into the class. And that Friday, I sat in the second row next to Daisy Miller as Professor DuPont paced onstage in front of over four hundred students. After the Lawnparties incident, the rest of sophomore year had been uneventful as I studied alone, ate alone, lived alone…but the one good thing that came out of it was meeting Daisy. She’d sat next to me in a microeconomics class at the beginning of spring semester, and her bubbly personality ensured we’d been friends ever since.
I’d been worried Daisy and I would lose touch over the summer, but we somehow remained close—she’d send me updates about the boys in the Hamptons, and I’d keep her entertained with stories about living in San Jose with my sister and Aunt Ella, though it took some effort to omit the more concerning details. I admired Daisy’s sense of style, her spontaneity, and her ability to befriend anyone. To her, everything in life was a game.
McCosh Hall had a tall domed ceiling, diamond-paned windows, and a sloping wooden floor with hundreds of antique-style deskscurving around the stage. Every seat was full, including the upper level, which, like opera house seating, jutted out over the lower rows. The way everyone’s eyes were fixed on Professor DuPont, nodding as pens scratched notebooks and fingers flew madly over keyboards, it was as if he were a pastor speaking to his congregation.
“ ‘Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.’ Does anyone know who said that?”
A girl with thick glasses raised her hand. “Economist Daniel Kahneman,” she said.
Professor DuPont nodded. “That’s correct. The Israeli American psychologist and economist who won the 2002 Nobel Prize for his work, the father of behavioral economics, and my esteemed colleague.”
Professor DuPont rarely name-dropped, but he must have known he was somewhat of a campus celebrity. We’d all seen the pictures of him inTimemagazine shaking hands with the president, the links circling the internet to his TED Talks and leadership conference appearances. He’d spent time on Wall Street after graduating from Princeton and less than a decade later, had become the most successful wealth manager onForbes 40 under 40.
Yet despite his success, he had the laid-back ease of a man humbled by it all. He didn’t brag, he didn’t dress ostentatiously, and he kept his office hours open late.
I began sketching Professor DuPont as he lectured. Not only was he smart, but he was beautiful. It was as if Michelangelo’s David had put on a tailored suit.
Daisy sighed. She was wearing a tweed mini skirt and a cashmere sweater, her legs crossed daintily at the knee. She had stopped taking notes and was staring at him with a faraway look in her eyes.
“The world does not make sense. Humans are not rational decision makers—we are driven by our wants, our needs, our fears.” I swore for a moment he looked straight at me, and my heart beat faster. “I hope that in my class, you will question everything. Don’t take what is written in these textbooks as fact. Don’t take what I say as fact. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions…and then I’ll enjoy challenging them in class.” He grinned. “All right. Getout of here. I want you to think about this over the weekend and come to class next week with some specific examples of heuristics, those mental shortcuts we use to make decisions.”
—
I took thelong way back to my dorm, enjoying the chilly fall air and the bright orange and red leaves drifting from the trees. Though it was my junior year, the thrill of being at an Ivy League school still hadn’t worn off. The Gothic buildings, the labyrinthian campus, the ivied brick and stone. Then there were the designer clothes, Barbour hunting jackets, and Longchamp bags draped over their shoulders. The quick pace of conversation. The summer homes in East Hampton and the winter cabins in the Swiss Alps, and, above all, how students grouped together by some invisible marker of status: sports team, boarding school, or eating club.
My mother would have loved it. She was able to forget that she was the only Asian person in a room and chat up the other moms at school, make the rounds at a block party and ignore the people who mistook her for the nanny.
But despite my mother’s public persona, she was very strict at home. I was jealous of my friends, whose mothers would shower them with hugs and gossip about boys, watchFriendswith them, take them shopping at Victoria’s Secret, and teach them how to shave their legs.
My mother rejected displays of affection, which she felt were unnecessary, and preferred a no-nonsense approach to life: Ziplock bags were reused. Shoes were worn until the soles peeled. Tea, rice, and Tiger Balm never went bad.
Both of my parents were the first in their family to go to college, and my education mattered more to them than anything else. Sometimes I wondered if my mother saw me as a reflection of herself. A younger, more American version of her whose sole purpose was to live out her dreams, to achieve more than she’d been able to.
In high school, I pushed back. We’d argue when she’d criticize my tank tops, my laziness, my disrespectful tone. One night, when I was sixteen and had come home late from my boyfriend’s house, my mother and I got into our worst argument yet. She was yelling,pummeling me with words likepromiscuousandhellandregret,when I’d responded with a burst of anger that surprised us both.Well, I don’t want to end up like you.Her palm collided with my cheek and shocked me into silence.
Ungrateful girl,she’d muttered as she walked away, the only words I knew in Cantonese. I’d turned away, fighting the urge to clutch my cheek, pretending her words didn’t hurt as they cut straight to my core.
And despite what she thought, Ididlisten.
It wasn’t until after she was gone that I realized my mother was human too. That she was far away from her family, her culture, her friends, and had sacrificed everything to give us the best chance she could.
When I went to Princeton, I remembered her favorite lesson to instill in us—education means choice, and choice means freedom.I wanted to make her proud.
