chapter one 

and so I've learned the best way of how to spend your winter break: trouble. 

        Ask anyone — well, anyone who knows me— and they will tell you that I have this uncanny ability for finding the fun. It doesn't matter how sedate the situation, how staid the participants, I, Luhan, will inspire laughter where there is only misery. I can bring effervescence to places where boredom seems to permeate the very walls. I am the indomitable master of mayhem.

Examples? You ask for examples? No problem. I have a plethora of good stories.

How about last year when we were all forced to sit through career planning with Mr. Cheng, the guidance counselor of doom, and I reduced the entire classroom to hysterics by repeatedly insisting I wanted to pursue a career in high-end ? (I know. It was ingenious.) Or when my mother and I went to Aunt Lee’s for Thanksgiving, and I refused to give up until I persuaded even my execrable Uncle Wang to play charades. (He did a killer Jaws, by the way.) Last summer, I even got the crowd giggling at the funeral of my best friend, Wei, when I brought up his macaroni-and-cheese obsession during my eulogy. Okay, so maybe I didn’t find the fun for myself that day —it was next to impossible— but I did find it for other people.

So why, I ask you, why was I sitting there for the fifth afternoon in a row, watching yet another appalling, mind-numbingly stupid soap opera? Had I really sunk that low? Or even worse, gone mad?

It was my first ever winter break from college. One month to stay at my old friend’s home in Connecticut, where there was virtually nothing to do, I was facing four whole weeks sequestered from all the new friends I’d made at Stanford University in the first few months of my freshman year, and I was wallowing. I’m not proud to admit it, but I was. It was about twenty degrees outside and I abhor the cold, unless, of course, I’m on the slopes with my snowboard, sporting some sleek, smexy and impervious boarding gear. I had already read every last book I would be required to read in next semester’s American Writers course — ten heavy and mostly tedious tomes that were a serious pain to lug across the country— including the unabridged version of Moby-, which, let me tell you, will make you want to scratch your brain out through your ear canal, it’s so oblique.

My high school friends back in China had been expunged from my life over the past semester, for which I take the brunt of the responsibility. I hadn’t been very fastidious about returning phone calls and emails, preferring not to be reminded of senior year and of Wei. I was ready to move on. And when I first stepped off the flight to California I was overjoyed by my fortuitous choice of schools. Stanford was so far away from the Ivies on the East Coast where most of my friends were going that I’d never be expected to see them. It was a new life of me. A new start.

Now, of course, I was paying for it. They all had given up on me, for a good reason, and there was no one I could call, no one to distract me from the talk shows and the turgid dramas of these horrid over-actors. My life had become so insipid I could hardly even stand to be around myself.

I glanced around the impeccably kept living room -Yifan was always a neat freak while I tend toward the messy- looking for something to inspire me. Yifan’s many awards of service extolling his virtues as a police officer, lined the walls. Even his basketball and track trophies were displayed with pride along the mantle. The eclectic collection of books and videos amassed since he was a kid -everything from Free to Be You and Me to Charlotte’s Web —packed the shelves adjacent to the fireplace, but none of them were interesting enough to stir me from the comfort of the couch. The effulgent sun glinted off the snow-covered lawn outside, blinding me whenever I made the mistake of looking toward the window. I squinted and covered my eyes. This was sad. I was becoming allergic to sunlight.

Okay, time to get off your , I told myself. Mustering all of my energy, I pushed myself from the comfy faux-suede cushions and padded over to the mirror to check my reflection. It was beyond mortifying. My skin was so pale and pasty, you’d think I was a nocturnal being. Très vampiric. My short brown hair was mussed into spikes on one side. I even had the pattern of the plaid throw pillow imprinted on my cheek. Yes, bed-hair is definitely in style. It was time, as they say, to get a life.

Typical behavior of a young adults life, yes indeed. But if I were to see this scene from myself 2 years ago, I would think that I was sinking into depression. After all, the popular pretty-boy from China the total heartthrob probably won’t be living a life like this, fresh from high school. But this pretty much was how I would be spending the rest of my break. No regrets, well, maybe a bit later. I would just count myself lucky that Yifan had a home here, where I could just crash and snuggle up until hibernation was over.

Still within my stance, at the moment one of those ebullient commercials came on the TV, touting the energizing effects of some nutritional supplement for the elderly. I saw the reflection of the screen in the mirror and caught a glimpse of an ancient couple riding their bikes along a path, smiling all the way. Ha, if only you can experience that in reality. Suddenly I had an epiphany. I could do that. I’m sure that Yifan had a bike . . . somewhere. So what if it was sub-zero temperatures out there? I had to do something.

I changed into a pair of warm sweat pants, my favorite Stanford sweatshirt, and my windbreaker, then got my fluffy hair under control by stuffing it under a beanie hat and headed out to the garage. It took a few minutes to excavate my dirt bike from the back of the room, which served as a sort of storage place for all discarded furniture, appliances, and sundry items that Yifan couldn’t seem to part with but refused to keep in his meticulously clean house. By the time I’d filled the tires with air and checked the brakes, I was raring to go.

As soon as I was out on the road, I felt a million times better. The cold air in my lungs and the pumping of my muscles brought on a light-headed kind of euphoria. How had I forgotten how much better exercise always made me feel? I definitely need to get out more. I rode to the end of the block, slowing down as I passed the houses of the neighborhood, strangely reminded me of memories back in China. Reaching the end of the block, I pedaled a little bit faster. There were certain things I just couldn’t ruminate on.

I turned down Morrison Street, the main avenue of Morrison, Connecticut