The light in his eyes was quenched then but it was already time for us to start our tutoring session anyway.

In eleventh grade, Annette fell in love with the theater. It started when she was at the library, visiting me, and talking about Simone de Beauvoir.

“She’s writing about how women are excluded when they’re seen as the mysterious Other and how that has led to our male-dominated society. People from different races and cultures can also be classified that way and it has always been done by the group in power.” Annette gestured with her hands, as she always did when she was passionate about something.

Mr. Jamali had come up behind me. “Look at her, her gestures. Everything is so big, so dramatic. You should be onstage.”

“Really?” Annette put her hands on her hips, thinking. “I never thought about it.”

“Tryouts are in two weeks. You could explore your relationship with otherness by being yourself and yet not-you in a role.”

That was enough to pique Annette’s interest. Although she only started in small roles, I saw that Mr. Jamali was right: she did have a certain flair onstage. Her flamboyant hair and her passionate, questioning nature combined to make her compelling under the spotlight. Mr. Jamali said she had a great deal of talent but it needed to be channeled and refined.

He was always there in his beautiful embroidered tunics, saying, “Very good, that was almost perfect. Now, shall we see it again, with just a bit more restraint, yet losing none of our intensity?”

I was filled with pride when I sat in the darkened theater and watched Annette rehearsing. Since the actual performances were often in the late afternoons or evenings, I never got to see her perform otherwise.

Nelson was on the debate team of his school, and since he was sure to be so good in competition, we’d been invited to come admire him as well. We were all crammed into their minivan together. Ma and I sat in the rear-most row of seats, but we could hear everything that was going on in the front of the car.

“It’s my nicest shirt,” Uncle Bob said. He’d put on a silk shirt for the occasion. “I brought it back from China. I was just trying to-”

“You’re going to embarrass me in front of my friends,” Nelson said.

“Yeah,” Godfrey, who was now thirteen, piped up. “What a stupid shirt.”

“You look gay,” Nelson said. “You look like a pimp.”

Finally, we had to turn the car around and go home so Uncle Bob could change. Nelson also made Aunt Paula take off her gold jewelry because he said gold was tacky, especially Chinese twenty-four-carat gold.

“Ah, the children develop their own taste,” Aunt Paula said. “What about you, Kimberly? You must have many extracurricular activities too?”

“I don’t have time,” I said.

“What a pity. They’re so important for colleges.”

Aunt Paula still believed that I was doing as badly as I had been at the beginning of Harrison Prep. Ma and I had never corrected this impression, since it seemed to lessen Aunt Paula’s anger and jealousy.

“And how are you doing on your standardized tests?”

“Fine.” I was doing well but Ma, on the other hand, had failed the naturalization exam, as we’d both known she would.

Before we left their apartment again, Nelson looked Ma’s simple clothes up and down. He opened his mouth to comment.

I stood in front of her and said in English, “Don’t even think about it, Nelson.”

“What?” he said.

“Just don’t.” And he didn’t.

I saw that his private school on Staten Island was much smaller than Harrison. Nelson seemed to shrink once he was onstage, becoming a red-faced, shy boy. His debating team lost.

It should have been obvious that the oven wouldn’t be able to take the constant abuse of being on morning and night, winter after winter, but it was still a great shock when it finally broke. The cold crept in over the floor, freezing the water in the toilet, thickening the layer of ice over the inside of the windows. Ma and I huddled together on her mattress for warmth the whole night long, with everything we owned heaped on top of us.

Ma called a man recommended by one of the button-sewing ladies. He was cheap, he worked under the table, and the lady said he had some kind of certification for his work from China, which told me he didn’t have any here.

The man’s dirty shirt and overalls were too big for him, as if they’d been stolen. He dragged his toolbox across the floor, leaving a mark on the vinyl. I winced when I saw him bang on the control valve with his hammer. I knew it was a delicate piece of equipment. After a great deal of noise, which I believe was designed mainly to impress us with his exertion, he emerged from behind the oven to tell us that it was unfix-able and his visit would cost us a hundred dollars.

“I don’t have that much money here,” Ma said, lifting her hand to her cheek.

At this, I spoke up. “You’ve made it much worse than it was! You are trying to beat on our leg bones!” He was trying to take advantage of us. Indeed, the stove had been dismembered and some of its entrails now rested in the kitchen sink.

He loomed over me. His accent was from the north of China. “I spent my time here, I want my money.”

Ma tried to push me aside. “Let me handle this, Kimberly.”

“Get away, kid,” he said.

I was afraid Ma would cave in and agree to pay him later. I was sixteen and I had the confidence then of a teenager who’d had to act like an adult for too long. I didn’t know enough to be afraid but I did know that I helped earn our money and I wasn’t going to give it up so easily. A hundred dollars was 10,000 skirts, a fortune.

“You want your money, you show me your papers first,” I said.

“For what?”

“Your passport, please.”

At this, my implied threat, he seemed to swell up like a blowfish. “You want my papers?!”

I was standing close to the phone on the wall of the kitchen and I strode over and grabbed the receiver. I started to dial Annette’s number.

“Who are you calling?”

“The police.”

His eyes were very still, wondering what he should do. I heard Annette’s little brother pick up the phone on the other end.

“Hello,” I said in English. “Could you please send someone over to house number-”

At this, the man grabbed his things and ran down the stairs, though not without one last baleful look at me. Time seemed suspended until we heard the door slam downstairs. Ma slumped into one of the chairs in relief.

“Wrong number,” I said rapidly, and hung up, hoping Annette’s brother hadn’t recognized my voice.

“What a thief’s head and thief’s brain he had,” Ma said weakly.

“With a wolf ’s heart and a dog’s lungs.” Untrustworthy and vicious. My heart was still leaping about like a frog in my chest.

At least he was gone. But the stove was still broken and temperatures were expected to be below freezing for the coming days.