Kind-of A Cinderella Story

I’m from California, and before you ask, let me confirm. My life is exactly like a movie. Every Hollywood Cliche applies. Family wedding’s are farcical comedies, trips to the coast are a hazy indie film, and of course, my prom night ended exactly like Carrie; with me, covered in pigs blood screaming while everyone died. So of course, whenever I leave college to go home for the summer, it’s a fun summer comedy. I had this internship one summer and I had to cross the bridge to the peninsula everyday, wind blowing my hair, sunglasses on, belting with my radio the whole way there. The radios in California are always playing California Girls. Alternating between the Katy Perry and the Beach Boys versions. Sometimes we get Dani California by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

At the theatre company where I had my internship, my boss was Harold, a Filipino American playwright and director. He took great pride in me, a Chinese American playwright and director, and I was this strange marvel from a strange school in a strange foreign country—in I Oh Wah. I was the only Asian intern, and one of the first interns to start, the rest of them coming from prestigious California schools and Ivy Leagues on a regular semester plan. Due to the small size of the company, I was to share a cubicle with one of these interns.

My cubicle mate’s name was Darren and he went to Stanford. That was all I knew about him at first. But then he showed up one Monday morning. I was eating a bagel and got cream cheese on my face. He was a 6’ 1” blond blue-eyed boy with a sense of style and an interest in musical theatre. He respected my need to keep our cubicle in a certain way, allowed me to change the name of it daily, and he loved The Last Five Years. He could play the piano.

(There was about a week I let him teach me how to play the piano before I told him I had learned to play in third grade.)

We’d go to lunch together and sit and talk and joke about things. I’d talk about comedy ideas I had, plays I wanted to write. About my mom’s cancer, about being the only Chinese person in my department, about being 2000 miles from home. He’d talk about wanting to write musicals, about going to Stanford, about being a college student in the Bay. We’d drive to the artist apartments and pick-up rental cars, and we’d sing musicals, especially The Last Five Years, and I’d take Snapchat videos of him. I fell asleep once while we were stuck in rush hour traffic in the warm sunlight to him singing “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered am I.” For better or for worse, we were work married.

Everything changed, from my perspective, when another intern came in, a curly haired fiend with a laugh like a bludgeoning weapon who plopped a cake between Darren and I during a lunch in the green room. His name was Jamie, he was a triple threat; acting, singing, and dancing, with a baking extension. He’d bring in cookies and cakes and fudge and like a homewrecker would march his ass into our blissful cubicle everyday at 2pm when Darren would turn to me, put his head on my shoulder and proclaim, “I need chocolate!”

I started keeping a mason jar of Ghirardelli chocolates on my desk to give to him. And to throw at

Jamie like a hero throws salt at demons. The other interns would start taking longer lunch breaks, gathering in the rehearsal rooms to sing, Darren at the center. I had work to do. Flight plans to make, artist accommodations and contracts to put together. Harold started giving me more and more work and responsibilities. I ran auditions for the upcoming season. More members of the company started getting annoyed with their missing interns. I started doing Darren and the other interns’ work too. By myself, I’d organize binders, print and load scripts, and prep welcome bags while singing The Last Five Years as high as I could. Darren still didn’t notice me.

I didn’t have time to bake. I didn’t have the free time these other interns did. They were getting money from their colleges. I had a second job so that I had money. During the weekdays I’d be at TheatreWorks and nights I’d work at The Prolific Oven, a French bakery-cafe in Fremont. Weekends, I’d come in at 7, bake the warm pastries, open the restaurant at 8, and by 9 all of my warm pastries would be gone. People went nuts for my filled croissants, danishes and bear-claws. Cookies and almond twists. I smiled at babies, flirted with greying old ladies, rolled my eyes at the obnoxious coffee orders of teenagers. I had a small following of high schoolers who would fawn over my reaction to their orders. Apparently #MyBitchyBarista was trending. I had two jobs, worked 7 days a week. I didn’t have time to bake for fun. I baked for money. I’d come home exhausted; clean the house for my mom, in cancer recovery, and then would pass out. I didn’t have time to bake.

At the end of August was the New Works Festival. The company had brought in over 70 artists to work on 3 musicals and 2 plays running side-by-side. Everything I had been working towards and the event that would swallow my entire life for the next few weeks was happening. And we were having a potluck brunch. Jamie was pulling out the stops, 2 cakes and scones in all kinds of flavors.

Like the fairy godmother appearing to Cinderella before the ball, my mother came into the dining room one morning and slammed a jar of our homemade plum spice jam in front of me. This plum spice was one of our signatures. Plums from the tree in our yard, notes of orange, cinnamon and nutmeg. It smelled like Christmas morning and love and warmth and family. “Biscuits.” my mother said. “A good biscuit makes everyone feel like they’re at home.” I showed up like the picture of a 60s housewife, in gingham plaid and denim and a basket of biscuits wrapped in a fabric napkin. Everyone had compliments to give, the soft butter biscuits a delight, the jam nostalgic and familiar, yet new. I had showed Jamie up.

But that evening at the festival toast, while all the other interns danced and fraternized with the artists, I was stuck behind the bar serving champagne. They never once looked at me. Darren never looked at me, had never noticed me. None of them would. Except for Jamie, who would throw what felt like a smug look over his shoulder at me. I wasn’t Cinderella. I was Benjamin Wong. And Benjamin Wong doesn’t get the prince at the end of the story, he just gets all the work. At the end of the night, when I went to my car, I began to cry. I was exhausted. Then, there was a knocking at my car window.

According to the movies, Darren would be there to pull me out of my beat up 2000 Honda Accord, pull me into his arms and kiss me. Jamie would stomp his feet and promptly get hit by a bus. There’d be a happy pop music ballad in the background, maybe a wedding and the credits would roll. Maybe even a musical number. I’d never have problems again.

But it wasn’t Darren. It was Harold. I got out of the car to talk to him, and he put his hand on my shoulder. “You’re the best intern that I’ve ever had, Benjamin.” he said. “I’d go so far to say that you’re family now, like a little brother. I’ll be waiting for you to ask me for a letter of recommendation.” He was amazed by how motivated and talented I was. That I could work at a restaurant, at a theatre company, and still have time to have a life and put myself together and be a real, interesting person.

This story doesn’t end in a musical number. Yet. I’m working on it. But it does end in a different cliche. I worked my ass off. I pushed myself to the edges of what I could do and still didn’t get the man. But I got something better. In losing my “prince,” someone reminded me of how amazing I was by myself, without the help of some beautiful boy who can play the piano. I’m a beautiful boy who can schedule flight arrangements and accommodations for 70 artists and pour champagne. Try doing that with a piano.

4 months later, Jamie and I were seated at a bar down the street from the theatre after catching a preview of “Crimes of the Heart.” The next day, I would get on a plane bound for Cornell. Gesturing flamboyantly with his Moscow mule, he said “You’re grit personified Benjamin. Who gives a fuck what Darren thinks? He’s a flake. You’re dependable, you’re honest, and goddammit you work harder than anyone else I’ve ever met.”

I finished my drink and looked him in the eyes. “Fuck you. I don’t need a man to tell me who I am. I’m Benjamin motherfucking Wong.”