Chapter 19

So much to do! So little time! But as Don’s house project was coming together, and his final school year was nearing completion, the State Championships hung like a cloud, blotting out all sunlight. Don, Rosa, Lanh, and Paul Mach were at the school every morning immediately after the cows’ morning milking to practice, and again ten hours later after school. Rosa’s performance was on the increase, her times got better with every practice race, Don’s time’s fluctuated and so far his personal best remains unchanged from his performance at regionals.

The day finally came when the team and a surprisingly large group of fans including Craig Lewicki and Sydney McCloskey boarded a school bus and headed to Brooklyn Park MN, to the Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center, on the campus of the University of Minnesota for the state championships. Unfortunately for Sydney, Craig brought his girlfriend with; Cindy Reese was a blond cheerleader whose personality annoyed Don, Lanh, Sydney, and Rosa. She was a Minnesota “Valley Girl” whose life was tied up in makeup and shopping, and she hated Asians with a passion. Being the only Asian in Grant Valley High School, Cindy’s bigotry was narrowly focused on Lanh and has been since that Christmas Dance when Lanh and Don met.

Don and Lanh had reverted to their old selves, sitting silently in the last row, watching people they barely knew enjoy life around them while their only solace was each other. Don wasn’t worried about the race. He was worried about meeting dozens, maybe scores, of future relatives. Lanh’s family landed in Minneapolis after a long painful journey to freedom and celebrated their arrival at their new home with lots and lots of babies. He carried a pocket notebook with the names of many of his future relatives, many of whom he had spoken to on the phone.

Lanh’s primary worry was that Tam and Huy would spend their time together showing off the university campus that Lanh turned her back on for a life with Don. Tam understood, but Huy didn’t. He tried to convince Lanh to go to school and get a degree while her husband “played army” overseas. Lanh eventually informed him he was about to get a hormonal teenage sister coming down on him like the wrath of God if he came up with another dumb idea like that. Huy respected Lanh’s threat, and in the end, they became closer.

On the cold, bouncing bus, Lanh snuggled closer to Don, and he put his arm around her and held her tight. Soon she was asleep, secure in his arms; but as for Don, he remained wide awake. Don hadn’t slept for days. The swim meet wasn’t causing him a chronic loss of sleep, it was the “side show.” Lanh has so many relatives in the area and, for some reason, meeting his future family terrified him.

Rosa had a grand old time on the trip. She chatted with the girls, flirted with the guys, and danced in the aisle as someone cranked up their boom box. Sydney somehow got a seat across from Craig and Cindy and she was able to talk with Craig the entire trip, much to Cindy’s displeasure.

When they got off the bus, they were led to the Dorm rooms they were provided. Don picked up their bags, and as they walked up to their rooms, Lanh told Don all about the campus. Tam and Huy had given Lanh dozens of tours of the university, and she was intimately familiar with many of the buildings. Don recognized it as nervous chatter, something she only does with himself and Tam.

As they walked down the hallway looking for the room that Lanh would share with Rosa, they were blocked by a fellow in a Battle View High School jacket, Grant Valley’s chief rival. “Hey buddy, didn’t you know that your coolie is supposed to carry YOUR bag?” He then grinned and turned to Lanh and shouted, “Me so hawwwwneee!”

Don glared at the Battle View swimmer. He was trying to get a rise out of Don, trying to get Don to hit him and get disqualified from the race, and Mr. Mach was too far down the hall to stop him if he snapped. With a tiny whimper, Lanh hid behind Don and began trembling in fear. The terror she felt when she was attacked by Joshua Grimes came flooding back. “That’s my fiancé you’re talking about, chum,” said Don with a growl in his voice.

“So what?” shrugged the Battle View swimmer, a gesture that said fuck you. “Whatcha gonna do. Cry?”

“I’m just going to advise you not to look over there,” Don said as he nodded his head toward the hallway behind the Battle View swimmer.

“Or what? What are you going to do?” the Battle View swimmer sneered, and he turned in the direction that Don signaled. When he did, he found he was staring into the scowling, anger filled face of Tam.

“Me love you long time,” snarled Tam, completing the quote from Full Metal Jacket. Her cocked arm released, and her fist crossed the distance to the jerk’s face in a quarter of a second. Her punch connected solidly, and the Battle View swimmer’s head recoiled off of her fist and slammed into the wall. He sagged to the floor dazed as Mr. Mach and the Battle View coach walked up.

“Tried to warn you dude,” said Don as he stepped over the prone jerk’s body.

“Who is that?” asked Mr. Mach.

“I don’t know, I was going to ask his name, but he decided to take a nap,” said Don.

“I’ll take care of it,” growled the Battle View coach, who heard every word. “Torito, get on your stupid feet!”

On Friday afternoon Don and Rosa won their elimination heats easily, since they did so well in the Regionals, they were paired against weaker schools, but the rest of the team failed to fare so well in regionals and all were eliminated from State competition, but at least Don and Rosa made it to state this year. On the upside, Don and Rosa would have a large cheering section for finals. High school sports in the upper Midwest states are big attractions for residents and tickets for events like this were hard to get, but there was a crowd there to cheer on Don and Rosa.

Rosa and Sydney had a new superhero in Tam. At one point, Rosa compared Tam to her favorite Asian action star, Jackie Chan. “Not a chance,” insisted Tam. “He’s a nice guy, I haven’t been nice since you were six.”

The class A finals were going to be held Saturday evening, so the Grant Valley team had all day to let the anxiety build. Luckily, Lanh’s worst nightmare didn’t occur, and the campus tour never happened, instead something she never dreamed of happened. After they got set up in their rooms, they were taken, along with Rosa and Sydney, to a restaurant in Lanh’s old neighborhood. “Oh no,” whispered Lanh as they pulled up to Pham Pho, “this is my uncle’s restaurant.”

They got out of the car and Tam led them indoors to a melee of Asian faces and voices. It looked like all of Lanh’s relatives were there. They were overwhelmed by a very un-Asian show of affection, hugs, handshakes, congratulations, and squeals of joy from Lanh’s aunts and female cousins as they inspected her engagement ring. Lanh and Don got pulled apart, and she worried about him, but he appeared to be doing ok. While Lanh introduced Rosa and Sydney to her cousins, Don and Tam were with her uncles, aunts, and grandparents. He acted like he knew them! She didn’t realize yet that he had spent hours on the phone with many of them.

Shortly Mia, Duong, Ralph, Sandy, Kim-ly, Trung, and Bao arrived and joined the melee. The conversations between the older relatives were in Vietnamese, the younger folks, first generation citizens and their children, were in English and made for an uproar that confused Sydney. Rosa, having fostered in big families in Minneapolis that spoke Spanish and English all at the same time, felt right at home, even though she couldn’t understand the Vietnamese.

They all sat down to lunch that was started with grace, led by Lanh’s cousin, Roman Catholic priest Father Nhan Pham. There were four men from the group that emigrated to the US as little boys in Lanh’s family that went into the priesthood, echoing what Don saw in the history of his Irish Catholic ancestors when they emigrated into the US. Many of their sons entered the priesthood, too.

The conversation was cheerful, and Sydney got a lot of ribbing when she announced how surprised she was that the food was so delicious. “What did you expect? Bean sprouts and dog meat?” asked one of Lanh’s cousins.

“Uh, yeah, kindda,” she said.

“How do you know it’s not?” he grinned. The entire room burst into laughter at Sydney’s shocked reaction, until she realized she was being played. Meanwhile, Rosa went on and on about Lanh’s coaching skills and how the entire school now chants “diddy mao” and “yen yen” when she and Don are racing and how it helps her.

“We will have to come and teach them how to pronounce it properly,” laughed one of Lanh’s many uncles.

As the dinner wound to an end, Rosa, a devout catholic herself, asked Father Pham to bless their efforts at the state championship today, which he did, and he also blessed Don and Lanh’s marriage, “Father, we know that our little sister Lanh is worried that there may be some backlash from us for marrying a white man. We want to thank you for bringing her and this man together. Thank you for the opportunity many of us had to help him with his book and thank you for finally letting us meet him. Please let Lanh know that this is why we fought so hard to come here, to have the freedom to love who you put in our heart. Remind her in the dark times to come that we love her and support her and Don, and will always be here for them whenever they need our help.” He then did something un-Catholic-like and looked at his family. “Can I get an Amen?”

“AMEN!” shouted her enormous family, and suddenly a feeling of relief washed over Lanh, and she nearly wept with joy. She didn’t realize how heavily the fear that her family would reject her for marrying a non-Asian was weighing on her heart. She hugged Don’s arm in a renewed passion, knowing that her family will not reject the young couple. Don, however, wasn’t as relieved as Lanh. Half of his family was extremely Irish, and the other half was incredibly Norwegian. Neither ethnicity was known as “open” with their feelings ... especially his mother’s folks, Lars and Hilde Odegaard.

As they were hustled back to the aquatic center, followed by a contingent of Lanh’s extended family, Lanh said to Don, “I didn’t realize how worried I was that they would be upset for me marrying a non-Asian.” She snuggled up tight against him in the back of the car they were riding in. “I feel so much better now.”

“Now all we have to worry about is my family, and we’ll have it made,” sighed Don.

Don didn’t sleep well that night. He was roomed with a swimmer from Battle View named Rick, who saw the confrontation in the hall earlier. Rick was a nice guy who swam breaststroke. “Who was that chick that knocked out Danny Torito?” grinned Rick as Don eased into bed. “He’s such a dick.”

“That was my mother-in-law.”

“What?” laughed the Battle View swimmer.

“She’s actually my fiancée’s older sister, but she helped raise her.”

“That little one is your fiancée? She’s beautiful!”

Don smiled in the dark. Someone else saw Lanh’s beauty! “She’s also my coach.”

“Oh dude,” said the Battle View swimmer. “So, if you lose you’re screwed ... or not screwed as the case may be.”

“You’re a lot of help over there,” groaned Don, but it was kind of fun. Don never had a brother and never had friends over for a sleepover other than cousins that didn’t want to be on their farm.

“That’s what I’m here for buddy. Just don’t beat us too bad tomorrow.”

It was finally Saturday, and time for Rosa to mount the starting block grew near. Lanh explained to her family and her teammates how critical it was to chant in time with the swimmers’ breathing. “They can hear you best when they turn their head to breath. You’ll see their rhythm,” she said, “so that’s when we yell. When they get to the last length, you’ll hear a bell ring. When Rosa gets to the halfway point, we change from Nhanh lên to Đi đi mau! Ok? Just listen for me.”

“What if we can’t hear you?” asked a cousin.

“Oh, you’ll hear her alright,” laughed Sydney.

“They’ll hear her at the airport!” said Rosa as she pulled her swimming cap onto her thick ebony plume of hair. Just then, Don walked up, and he didn’t look happy.