Lucy Madison - Pen & Palate: Mastering the Art of Adulthood, with Recipes

T here were seven of us piled into a rented Honda Odyssey, edging slowly toward the front of the line where blue-uniformed agents awaited us. Not us, specifically, but people like us, hardened criminals with questionable morals and no regard for the law, people who smuggled illegal goods into the United States of America. As our minivan inched toward the border checkpoint from Canada into the United States, we passed official signage that warned of the penalties we would incur if we committed the exact crime we were trying to commit. The signs started off politely enough (they were Canadian, after all), with a casual, Hey there, dont bring drugs, guns, or other illegal contraband across the border, yeah? It escalated quickly with every passing kilometer, until the final one read: WE KNOW WHAT YOURE TRYING TO DO. CONFESS OR WELL DEPORT YOUR ASS TO VIETNAM. I am paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it.

I was fifteen years old and had a permanent scowl etched across my facean expression enhanced by my overplucked, perpetually angry, 90s Kate Mossinspired eyebrows. I should have been spending the summer with my best friend, Lucy, baking cakes and reading trashy magazines, not wasting two weeks traipsing across all of the Chinatowns in Canada with my eternally embarrassing family. And now we were about to get arrested at the border for smuggling in hundreds of dollars worth of illegal contraband.

I was horrified by my familys blatant disregard for the law. I was a rule follower, an indoor kid. My life until that point was about maintaining the appearance of being the perfect, obedient, grade-grubbing, piano-playing Asian daughter. I discovered early on, that if you are a small Asian girl with a serious demeanor and can pull off Moonlight Sonata passably well, most people just assume you are a musical prodigy and theres no need to learn another song ever again. But not practicing piano was as far as my disobedience went. At fifteen, Id suppressed any inkling of a rebellious nature, neatly stashing it away for a later date in the not-so-distant future.

My sanctuary from the pressures of home was Lucys house. Well, more specifically, Lucys room. Id have to make it past her parents first. Through no fault of their own, I was absolutely terrified of her parents. Jane and Chris were exceedingly polite to me, always graciously offering me a place with the family at dinnertime. On the table, there would be pasta with pesto, homemade from the sweet basil that her father grew in the back garden, or a beautiful margherita pizza that her mother had just pulled out of the oven. The food looked and smelled amazing, but the mere thought of sitting through a Madison family dinner was enough to make me break out in hives. I was certain that there were rules to living of which I was woefully ignorant. I would say the wrong thing or accidentally spill food on myself. It was much better to avoid any situation that might reveal to outsiders just how uncouth and clueless I was. Instead, I would stammer, No thanks Ive already eaten, and run upstairs to hide out in Lucys room.