I feel sheepish as I finish. Even though I’m not writing about this restaurant I’m currently in, I might as well be, and it feels like I’m talking about Auntie Chen behind her back. After one last proofread, I hit publish and close my laptop.
“Finished working?” Adam’s Apple Guy has taken out his earbuds. The bass notes from his indie rock sound tinny against the backdrop of Chinese ballads.
I groan and twist the kinks from my back. “Finally.”
“Are you Chinese?” He scans my face as if Beijing might be tattooed in fine print on my forehead.
It’s never a great sign when a strange white guy starts a conversation by asking your ethnicity, but I give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’s genuinely curious. “My parents are from Taiwan. I was born here.”
“Ah.” His face lights up. “My last girlfriend was Korean.”
Uh-oh.
Maybe he doesn’t see the spikes extending out of my skin, ’cause he keeps on talking. “Yeah, she was beautiful. Long black hair down to her waist. Dudes used to walk into walls when she passed by. And she had big eyes for an Asian chick. Double eyelids, like you. She swore she didn’t get plastic surgery, but I was never too sure. I bet yours are natural, though, right?”
Ew.
Unbelievably, the guy’s looking at me as if he expects me to be flattered. Instead, he gets the full force of my death glare.
He falters. “So, uh . . . What are you writing?”
I yank my laptop case shut. “A blog post.”
Bless his heart, he keeps talking. “What’s it about?”
“Men who exotify Asian women, and the sexual inadequacies motivating their racist fetishes.”
I don’t wait to see whether my words percolate into his brain. Instead, I throw my backpack over my shoulder, say bye to Auntie Chen, and duck out the door. Through the window, I see the guy put his earbuds back in, and I’m relieved he doesn’t come out. With one last look over my shoulder, I start off toward home.
If anything can cheer me up, it’s walking home in the late afternoon when Chinatown's
streets fill up. It’s a cool Southern California evening, good for washing off slimy encounters. I pass by a tourist group snapping pictures of the Chinatown Gate and a toddler throwing a tantrum under a bank with swooping old-China-style roofs. As I pass a bakery, its automatic door slides open and the smell of freshly baked egg tarts wafts out. I’m a block from my house when my phone buzzes. Reflexively, I glance at the notification.
The screen name puts a smile on my face. Adenike’s my assistant editor at the paper, and she’s always one of the first to comment. By the time I wave to the doorman of my apartment building and take the elevator up to our fourth-floor condo, my phone’s buzzed several more times.
Mom’s home already, having swapped her journalist power suit for yoga pants and a tank top. Her black hair is tied back in a hair clip, and she’s tossing Chinese sausage into our ancient Tatung rice cooker.
Rice cooker meal. Must be on deadline.
“Hi, sweetie,” she says, juggling her attention between her phone, a fistful of baby bok choy, and me. “How was your day?”
“Not bad. How’s your investigation?”
“I finally pinned down a former staffer for an off-the-record interview. It was quite enlightening.”
Mom’s been digging into a City Hall corruption case for the past few months. She’s written for the Jasper City Times since I was born, but in the years since my sister, Claudia, left for college and I got old enough to navigate our neighborhood by myself, Mom’s been on fire, churning out one groundbreaking piece after the next.
“Where’s Dad?”
“Downtown concert hall.”
Right, the Jasper City Philharmonic is unveiling their new concert series tonight. He’ll be out late.
Anyone who’s seen my mom’s Pulitzer or my dad’s Entertainment Journalism Awards isn’t surprised at all to learn that I’m editor in chief of our school paper. I guess I didn’t fall very far from the tree. It’s a lot to live up to, though. When your mom’s exposing corrupt politicians every week, and your dad’s on a first-name basis with Yo-Yo Ma, it’s hard to feel like your center spread about whether your school mascot could beat Iron Man in a cage fight is worthwhile journalism. (I wrote that one after losing a bet with the sports editor, and it got the biggest reaction out of all my articles last year. By far.)
My phone buzzes again. This time, the notification delivers a jolt of adrenaline.
I’d never admit it, but the mere sight of Bobaboy’s handle makes my hair stand on
end. I wonder what his complaint will be this time. Am I hopelessly out of touch? A tool of corporate America? Or perhaps I simply have trash taste in tea. I’m already going back through my blog post, trying to figure out what he’ll nitpick this time.
“Does that sound all right with you?” asks Mom.
I snap out of my mental stress party. “Sorry, I was distracted. What did you say?”
Mom rolls her eyes and waves me toward my room. “Go on. Get it out of your system. No phone at dinnertime, though.”
I smile sheepishly. “Thanks.” The good thing about having parents who are on their phones 24/7 is that they can’t really give you grief about being on yours.
My bedroom is small, but after eighteen years I’ve got it exactly the way I like it. My bed’s in the corner, with periwinkle sheets neatly tucked in. Opposite it is my desk, with space for my laptop, a pencil holder with multicolored gel pens and one prized fountain pen, plus a blue retro desk lamp. My window looks out onto the Cantonese seafood restaurant across the street. When I’m bored, I watch the waiters fishing lobsters out of the window tanks. One time, a crab slipped its rubber band handcuffs and pinched the waitress on the thumb. I swear I could hear her scream through my window. The whole thing inspired an investigative series on the hidden perils of summer jobs.
I carefully plug in my laptop and take out my bullet journal. For tonight, I have calculus homework and outlining for an English paper. Shouldn’t take too long, but I won’t be able to concentrate on it unless I drop by my blog first. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
So I sign on. The dashboard that greets me already has new comments spilling past the bottom of my monitor. I hold my breath and do a quick scan down the side. All friendly names on this screen. Always better to start in friendly territory.
First comment is from Nikegirl117.
I grin at my screen. By “magnum opus,” Adenike probably means she’s finished the feature article on nontraditional pets that she pitched last week. I type a quick reply.
A few other regulars have commented. ChrysanthemumDreams shares a recipe for iced tea. TapiocaQueen once again finds a way to dunk on Starbucks without actually saying Starbucks. I type quick, friendly replies to each of them. It takes a lot of time to respond to everyone, but it helps build the
blog community in a time when everyone’s moving on to the newest social network. In the next thread, CantoCheese and TPopStar are arguing about the TeaTok meme where baristas blow the steam off a cup of tea to the accompaniment of “I’m Too Sexy.” I leave a laughing face.
That’s it for this screen. Bobaboy’s comment can’t be too much farther down. My stomach tightens in anticipation. Sure enough, his screen name pops into view with the next press of the page down button. Well, I can’t avoid him forever.
I take a deep breath and read.
Chapter TwoDanny
AUNTIE LIN IS WAITING FOR HER WINNING TILE. I can tell because she has this way of tensing up and pretending to be relaxed at the same time. Every couple minutes, she starts tapping her finger on the table, only to catch herself and stop again.
Auntie Lin doesn’t have all that many tells. She’s about as serious a mahjong player as they come—the kind that doesn’t even sort the tiles in front of her on the off chance her opponents might gain some intel from position alone. She’s the type of player who doesn’t do small talk except between rounds, and she gets grumpy if anything changes the winds of luck. One time, when I was seven, Uncle Howng had me sub in for him while he went to the bathroom. I’m sure he expected to lose that hand. I mean, I was seven. But the mahjong gods must have been bored that day, because I won a huge jackpot. Auntie Lin was so pissed that for an entire week, she chased me away from the mahjong table any time I got close. Apparently I was “ruining her luck.” I couldn’t get too upset, though, because she still squeezed candy into my palm every day before she left—the nougat wrapped in rice paper that she knew I loved.
All this is to say, I’ve been watching Auntie Lin play for a long time, and I know for a fact that she’s about to win big.
Finally, she cackles, using her ruler to flip her mahjong tiles flat on the table. “Hu le,” she crows while the others howl in protest.
“Again?” asks Uncle Tony.
Auntie Lin dusts off her sleeves. The gemstone rings on her fingers glint like her eyes. “If you don’t want a serious game, don’t come to play.”
As they tear everything down and mix the tiles, I rush in with my tray and a new pot of tea, refilling everyone’s cups and clearing a plate of watermelon-seed shells.
“Thank you, Danny!” says Auntie Lin, patting my arm. My eardrums, calloused from years of hanging around old Chinese folks, stand strong against her considerable volume. Auntie Lin always talks as if she’s addressing the entire room. “You’re always so attentive.”
I never really know what to do when Asian elders praise you. The correct response probably involves falling to the floor and listing out all my faults one after the other until I’ve left no doubt in anyone’s mind that I’m the least deserving recipient of praise that has ever groveled on this piece of earth. But then I’d spill the tea, so I just bow my head with an awkward smile.
“Danny Mok is such a nice boy,” Auntie Esther chimes in. Whereas Auntie Lin is loud and brash, the refined, silver-haired Auntie Esther reminds me
of a Chinese Julie Andrews. She even has that old-world accent. “Tell me, do have a special lady yet?”
For a brief moment, I wonder if the real Julie Andrews would use the term “special lady.” And then I wonder if I can avoid answering the question by pulling my head inside my apron. When I look up, I see all four uncles and aunties blinking curiously at me like a flock of septuagenarian seagulls.
“No,” I mumble, feeling my face flush red. “No girlfriend.”
“No girlfriend?” By the outrage in Auntie Lin’s voice, you’d think I just told her that Szechuan hot pot was superior to Cantonese seafood. “But you’re such a handsome boy!” She pinches my bicep—ouch. “And so strong!”
Okay, time for an exit strategy. “It’s just that I’m so busy, Auntie Lin.” When her eyes narrow skeptically, I add the clincher. “They give us so much homework these days.”
“Ah!” Uncle Tony, who’d been cracking watermelon seeds on his still-good back teeth, raises his finger like Einstein discovering a new formula. “This boy has his head on right. Get your grades up. Get a job. Make lots of money. And then all the girls will come.”
Growing up at Fragrant Leaves has bestowed me with the ability to exit quickly while holding a tray stacked high with dirty dishes. I make full use of that superpower now.
Once safely behind the counter, I duck through the door to the kitchen and unload the dishes into the sink. Other than the mahjong players, our only other customers are two older businessmen slowly nursing a pot of jasmine over an intense discussion of quarterly reports. I think I have time to hang out in back for a little bit.
Dad’s in the office. His chair faces away from the door, so I can only see the spreadsheet on his computer screen and the gleam of his bald spot. He has his hand on the mouse, but he’s not moving it or typing.
“Hey Dad, I’m going to do some homework, okay?”
Dad doesn’t move. I think I might have heard a grunt in reply, but it’s hard to tell over the clink of mahjong tiles in the next room. It’s what I usually get from him these days, though he wasn’t always like this. I remember, when I was younger, how he’d make his rounds in the dining room, chatting up the regulars. I could pinpoint where he was by following the raucous laughs that erupted around him. But time passed. The neighborhood changed. Our regulars started moving out as their rents increased, and we weren’t fancy enough for the people who replaced them. We cut down our staff, and it seemed that with our shrinking customer base, Dad shrank too. He used to be the big-ideas guy in the family. He’d make all these charts, spreadsheets, and plans for where he wanted the restaurant to be in five years or ten. Nowadays, he still spends all his time looking at spreadsheets, but it just puts him into a funk.
I try again. “Hey Dad, do you think you could check on the customers in a bit?”
No answer. I guess
I’ll just keep an eye on the clock.
The tea shop’s kitchen has an eight-burner stove, ...
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
