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FRESH
YARN PRESENTS:
Sparkly
Things
By
Lan Tran
PAGE
TWO
 When
I got home that night, my mom pounced. Di co vui khong? Mai dua
kia sao? Con co gap ai khong? How did it go? Did you have fun?
Did you meet anyone nice? My father cut to the chase. "So,
when are your new friends coming over?"
"Dad, we don't have anything in common," I wailed "they're
all pageant veterans except me."
My father, bless him, decided to attack this problem the only way
he knew how: like a research project. If learning pageant culture
was going to get his kid Vietnamese friends, then by golly we would
have that information. So he got in his car, drove 25 minutes out
of his way back to 99 Ranch Market, where he bought a videotape
of last year's pageant, the 12th Annual Little Saigon Hoa Hau
Ao Dai. He handed it to me saying, "Last year's winner
was from Texas."
See, I was born in Texas and as every Dallas debutante knows, there
have been more Miss Americas from Texas than any other state. "So
there," my father joked, "if not by your intelligence,
talent and good looks, then surely by your birthright as a Texan
do you also have a shot at the tiara."
This
is what passes for humor in an academic family.
I watched the videotape, silently cheering for my fellow Texan.
There were also all these behind the scenes interviews with the
other girls. There was Minh, who had entered on a dare by her friends;
Tam, studying to be a dental assistant; and Bich Ngoc, an aspiring
actress who had Americanized her name to Mary Lou, after the gymnast.
I was engrossed in the personal drama behind the quest for the crown.
Knowing that Thuy, the entrant from Phoenix, had twisted her ankle
jogging just weeks before, made watching her dance number to Madonna
so much more impressive. Go Thuy!
I felt such a kinship with these females, all girl glorious and
bonded with women I had never even met. I wanted to be in their
world, the better world of the 12th Annual Little Saigon Hoa
Hau Ao Dai, where the girls talked about how no matter who won,
they were so thankful for this opportunity to have made lifelong
friends. I was convinced that if only my parents had panicked about
my lack of cultural pals just a year earlier, I too could have held
hands on stage with Minh, Tam, Bich Ngoc (aka Mary Lou) and Thuy.
But no, my colleagues were Hello Kitty Toes, Convex Five Bang, and
Shushy Girl.
And then, more than halfway through the torturous month-long process,
I actually made a friend. Her name was Kim and she was a late entrant
to the pageant, coming to just the last three of our rehearsals.
On the day of the contest, when they called the names of all the
semi-finalists and I was one of them, Kim gave me a huge smile and
clapped so heartily I think it was the first time I didn't feel
alone onstage.
I didn't make the final round and neither did she. But we did make
plans to go out a couple of weeks later and had a grand old time
partying together, getting liquored up and doing karaoke.
When we stumbled home to my parents' house at five in the morning,
a couple of giggling drunks, my father was waiting up for us. He
threw open the door and nearly knocked Kim over as he profusely
thanked her for being such a good influence on me and agreeing to
be my friend, as if we had stayed up discussing classical literature
instead of licking beer bottles all night. "You stay for pancakes,"
he told her. "My specialty."
Homemade pancakes for coming home at five! Oh my God, if I had known
it'd be like this I would have gotten a Vietnamese friend MUCH sooner.
Kim was better than a Get Out Of Jail Free Card. For the rest of
that summer at home, I invited her to everything. If she couldn't
make it, I'd just say I was with her and garner praise for spending
so much time exploring my cultural heritage. I had never had so
much parentally sanctioned fun.
Ironically, in the decade since that pageant, I have become a writer
and now get invited to events with other Vietnamese writers. My
father is so pleased. I get to share a stage with people he reads
and admires. It is his best illustration of the transitive property.
If A: other contemporary Vietnamese-American authors know B: yours
truly, and B knows C: my dad, then A knows C. I am his Kevin Bacon
connection to the new Vietnamese literati. And whenever I come back
from these events and bring him an autographed book by one of his
favorite authors, that is his sparkly thing. And I know he is certainly
a lot prouder than he would have been had I won the 13th Annual
Little Saigon Hoa Hau Ao Dai.
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