27

STANLEY IS SEATED FIVE ROWS FROM THE STAGE WITH TWO TEACHERS Irecognize from Dunia. He catches my eye and gives me a quick, terse nod that says Later.

As a recipient of multiple Later awards, I know what's coming.

I manage to finish my set (a reworked set about conditional and unconditional love vis-à-vis Asian parents and being an average student that sticks the landing) and slink off the stage to wild clapping that barely registers, that's how nervous I was in the face of Later.

When I get back to my seat, the comics who know me and Ray—Royce—observe me with expressions of pinched disappointment. I tense, waiting for their admonishment, waiting for punishment, maybe. But they don't say anything—I have shocked the words out of them.

I have shocked the words out of myself.

In my head I hear every single word I said onstage in a reverberation chamber, and I cringe. I could see my face, hideous with greed, like those motivated demons depicted in Chinese hells. Twisted. Possessed.

The results come, and from Malaysia, Vern, Royce, and I make it through along with another girl Natalia who had flown in from Penang, but I feel hollow. Hollow and nauseous. So much so that when Evans comes over to the bar to hand me the consent form to go to Singapore and says I don't half suck for a female comic, I don't take my pen and slot it up one of his nostrils. Because I don't advocate violence in any situation, but also, I'm slower than I used to be on my feet.

Stanley and I do not say much in the car ride home. I can tell from the way he grips the steering wheel and how fast he's driving (still under the speed limit, incredibly) that he's upset—but I don't detect anger.

After ten minutes of utter silence, he breaks it. "How long?"

"Four months or so since my first appearance onstage," I mutter, shamefaced.

"So all those nights studying with Zalifah or working at Seoul Hot?"

I keep my gaze trained at my lap. "Some of them didn't happen," I admit.

"Your mother is going to be so disappointed," he says, shaking his head. "Why didn't you just tell her you were performing stand-up?"

I bit my lip. He doesn't get it. In our culture, sometimes we have to hide the best parts of ourselves from the people who love us most, just so they can continue to love us the way we want to be loved. I want my mother to look at me the way she does when I'm winning. When I'm not messing up or in danger of messing up. For my sake—and hers.

"You know why," I mutter, hunching away from him to lean against the car door.

He sighs. "Your mother is stronger than you think."

"I've known her for longer," I counter before I can stop myself.

He doesn't reply, but the car speeds up just a little. We spend the rest of the ride silent. My heart pounds and my blood whooshes in my head; it is difficult to breathe. The stress of having to come clean to my mother drains me.

My phone chirps, and I glance down.

Epic burn, Vern says, a row of fire emojis following this. Way to show that 0.001 percenter about authenticity and our truth as comics! That was so brave of you, Agnes.

He thinks I'm some kind of rebel. It makes me feel like it hadn't been a sloppy kneejerk reaction, but something I'd planned in furtherance of a Greater Goal. It makes me feel good.

When we near our neighborhood, I muster whatever courage I had left to ask, "Could you…could you please keep this secret for a while longer? I just…I need to find the right way and time to tell her."

He doesn't reply as we turn into the driveway. He parks carefully, then turns off the engine. At this point, I'm practically hyperventilating from nerves. My mother is an unpredictable element to introduce this late in the qualifiers—I can't risk it now. I can't. There's a big chance she'll just pull me out.

Finally, he says, "I'm not going to be the one to tell her. No more non-work or school-related nights out until you do."

I had till the new year to hand in my consent form that would allow me to perform in Singapore in the semifinals, which is happening on the second weekend of the new year.

"I'll tell her soon," I say, trying to convince myself.

A drumming on the steering wheel. That's Stanley's cue for I Have More Words, Wait for It. So I wait. "By the way…at your show, I saw the way you were acting with Royce—I just wanted to say it's not cool. I'm really disappointed in you. That's not the way your mother and I raised you. We don't put other people down to raise our-selves up."

Tears sting my eyes. I'd never heard Stanley say he was disappointed in me, ever. It hurts almost as bad as my leg does.

"I'm going to make supper," Stanley says, reaching for the car door handle. "And Agnes?"

"Yeah?"

"Apologize to Royce. He didn't deserve any of that."

I know he's right. Part of me knows I went too far at the scene, that Royce didn't deserve that. I had been so remorseful at first.

But didn't Royce belittle me first, onstage? I flash back on his snide comment and the rage comes roaring back. Why should I apologize to him when he's got everything I've ever wanted?

And then there's this other part of me, a part that has tasted a new kind of drug, the surety of Vern's approval, the thrill of putting someone in their place, that whispers, So what if they don't approve?