“If you tell anyone about this, I’m gonna have to kill you,” I said, staring my best friend squarely in the eye.
“Okay, geez, Lana. I won’t tell anyone. No need to be so dramatic.” Megan rolled her eyes as theatrically as possible.
“No one can know what I’m doing or where I’m going. Not even Adam. If they were to find out—” I paused. “Well, I don’t even want to think about what would happen.”
“I said okay, Lana Lee. Now will you get going? If you don’t leave right now, you’re going to be late.”
I checked the time on my cell phone. I hated it when she was right. “Fine, I’m leaving. If anyone comes looking for me—”
“No one is going to come looking for you. Would you relax?” Megan stood from her seat at the kitchen table and waved her hands at me, shooing me out of our apartment.
I patted my black pug, Kikkoman, on the head and made my way out the door.
As I hurried through the parking lot, I debated whether I was being dramatic. Perhaps. But if my mother found out that her youngest daughter, and manager of the family restaurant, Ho-Lee Noodle House, was taking a Chinese cooking class—with strangers—her hair would probably light on fire.
A few weeks ago, my older sister, Anna May, who can be an absolute thorn in my side, had begun giving me an extra-hard time and teasing me persistently on my lack of cooking skills in the Asian cuisine department. Did I love Chinese food? Yes. Did I want to cook it myself? Not really.
Aside from making rice, the whole thing was an ordeal that I’d rather not get mixed up in. But now that I was in charge of the family business, it was a little odd that I didn’t know how to make eighty-five percent of the items on our menu. Not that there was really a need for me to do much cooking at the noodle house. Our head cook, and one of my very best friends, Peter Huang, was miraculously never sick, and didn’t request many days off. In the instances where he was out for the day, our evening chef and backup, Lou, would pick up the slack. My sister and mother were then next in line for kitchen duty. So, really, was any of this necessary? It was still a question I couldn’t answer.
But man, did it eat at me that my sister was being this relentless. So here I was on a Tuesday evening, driving out to Parma, a large suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, for an adult course in ethnic cooking. I’d been nonchalantly watching the course listings at a local learning center as each quarter offered classes to the community on cooking for different cultures. The last class had been for Mexican food, but oddly enough I can wrap a burrito like nobody’s business, so I figured I was okay in that department. When I saw that they were featuring Chinese food for the next eight weeks, I signed up for the class posthaste.
Northeast Ohio in September can be an interesting place. Things either get cold really fast and we’re forced into an early winter, or we’re blessed with random spurts of eighty-degree days that trickle all the way into December. Right now, we were experiencing a warmer than usual beginning to the fall season. And that was perfectly fine with me since I was not a huge fan of chilly weather.
I took I-480 eastbound toward Brook Park, blasting my stereo and singing along to the Arctic Monkeys. The car is the only place you’ll catch me testing my vocal abilities. All things considered, I was in pretty high spirits. It had been a rough summer at Asia Village, the plaza that houses our family’s restaurant, and it was nice to look forward to doing something regular and mundane. I homed in on the fact that eight weeks from now, I was going to have some impressive Asian culinary skills and would wow my sister and my mom. Of course, my boyfriend, Adam Trudeau, would be amazed too, but he didn’t really seem to care if I could cook Chinese food. I think the man would be happy if we had chicken wings and curly fries every night of the week.
I merged off the freeway at the Tiedeman Road exit, and turned right heading toward Barton’s Adult Learning Center right across from the local community college. Within ten minutes, I was turning into the parking lot of the two-story, glass building and feeling the excitement of my secret jump around in my belly.
When I got out of the car, I turned toward the street to look across the way at Cuyahoga Community College. It had been a long time since I’d been on this side of town. Memories of times past flooded my mind as my eyes swept over the length of the Tri-C campus. Though Megan and I had graduated from Cleveland State University, I had spent a little time at the local college. Aside from the community events they held, like music festivals and Fourth of July celebrations, I’d taken a few courses there back in my college days.
My line of sight traveled over to the southern entrance of the school, and I visualized a younger, more innocent version of myself scurrying to the doors, rushing to get to class. A laugh escaped at the thought of how naïve I had been at the time, and though I’d mostly held on to my idealistic ways, there were parts of me that had changed. I was now more aware of the darkness that hid in society, and for a brief moment I wished for those careless days of thinking that nothing horrible could touch you. At twenty-eight years old, the times of thinking that I’m invincible are long gone.
Some of that is due to the things I’ve experienced in the past year: a few murders, a boatload of deceptions, and, of course, working with the public.
I shook the thoughts away and turned to head toward the main entrance of Barton’s. They’d provided a map in their course book, and I pulled it out of my tote bag to find where I needed to go. The adult learning center wasn’t very big and looked like a repurposed office building. The lobby led into an open common area covered in neutral tones with couches, chairs, and dark wooden tables sprinkled throughout. Artwork by local talent adorned the walls and I vaguely remembered reading in the course book that everything was for sale. I thought that was nice of the school to support local artists, and I made a mental note to check out what was available to purchase.
I found my class at the end of the hall, and watched a variety of people walk into the room, noting that so far, I was the only one of Asian descent. Even though I’m only half Taiwanese, you wouldn’t know it by looking at me. A bit of insecurity slipped in at the idea of what people would think of someone like me taking a class like this. Shouldn’t I already know how to cook Chinese food? Didn’t I have a family member who could teach me these sorts of things? Should I tell people that I was adopted?
I shook my head at that last thought. Nonsense, Lana, no one is even going to be thinking about you because they’ll be too concerned with themselves. I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath, and continued on into the room, repeating positive affirmations in my head. This was going to be the best cooking class ever.
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