Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet (11 page)

19

T
here is a long moment of silence. Ana doesn't know what to say. Slowly, Jamie lets go of her hand and sits down. He clears his throat.

“So,” he says in a strained voice, “who wants dessert?”

Amanda Conrad giggles, and her mother shushes her.

“Son, are you all right?” Grandpa White asks.

Jamie clears his throat again. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Ana looks at her grandparents desperately. She wants to give Jamie a hug, or run and hide in her bedroom. Instead she just stands there. Grandma White and Nai Nai rise at the same time.

“I believe Ana's mother had a cake she was decorating,” Grandma White announces.

“And I am going to make my mango pudding,” Nai Nai says. They both leave the table.

“Sounds great,” Grandpa White says. “I'll get some tinfoil for all this food.”

“We're in for a treat,” Ana's dad tells everyone. “Ma's mango pudding is legendary.” He sounds so fake-cheerful it puts Ana's teeth on edge. Why did she say anything to Mr. Tabata? Her mother was right. What could be worse than this?

Ana's dad starts to clear the table for dessert and everyone drifts off to admire the herb garden, read the graduation sign and just get away from the scene of the crime. Jamie stays seated at the table, still sprinkled with rice, napkins and empty plates, like the last person at a parade. Ana shifts uncomfortably. She crouches down to face him.

“Jamie, I'm sorry.”

Jamie looks at her. His eyes are a little red, but that's all. “It's fine, Ana. It had to happen someday. Sorry it happened at your party.”

Ana shrugs. “That's okay. But it was my fault. I should've kept my mouth shut.”

“Right,” Jamie says. “You should've stopped being Ana Shen.”

Ana shrugs. “That's not such a bad idea.”

“You're kidding, right? I mean, you're Ana Shen. You stood up for your family, and you're smart, and you're pretty, and you're a nice person. Why would you want to be anything other than that?”

Ana takes a deep breath and pulls herself into the seat next to Jamie.

“You know, before you came over, I would have given anything to not be in this family. Sometimes we just really hate each other. My grandmother was actually mad at me when she found out I wasn't valedictorian. She called me lazy. And my other grandmother thought I ‘let you win’ ”—she makes air quotes—“because I like you.”

Jamie smirks. “Yeah, I was gonna let you be valedictorian, but my dad would've killed me.”

Ana laughs. “They could start a club together.”

“The pushy-pushy club,” Jamie says. They both laugh.

Ana looks around the yard and sighs. “Then again, here we are, top of our class.”

Jamie looks at his hands. “High school's gonna suck.”

“Yeah.” Ana pats his knee and folds her hands into her lap. “Families kind of stink.”

Jamie laughs. “Yours is pretty cool.”

Ana frowns. “I didn't think so, until now.”

Jamie sighs. “Well, I wish I had a better one.”

He looks at Ana and she passes him a paper napkin to wipe his eyes. “Who knows?” she says. “Now that it's all out in the open, maybe you will.”

Jamie shrugs and sighs. “Maybe.”

The evening settles around them softly, the day's heat rising in waves from the ground into the air.

“So,” Jamie says after a moment. “You like me.”

Ana reddens. She clears her throat. “According to my grandmother.”

That garners a small smile.

Ana bites her lip. “And you think I'm pretty.”

Jamie blushes. “Very.”

Ana smiles wryly and nods. “Cool.”

20

I
n the kitchen, Nai Nai shakes her head.
What a scene tonight,
she thinks.
What a scene.
No matter the differences in their family, she would never have made it so public, so obvious and embarrassing. She hears the front door slam as Mr. Tabata goes home alone.
Good riddance to him.
She relaxes her shoulders.

Lighten up, Mei,
she tells herself. Today should be a day for celebration. Nai Nai smiles. Here she is, cooking mango pudding in her son's kitchen, his troublesome wife right behind her, icing Ana's graduation cake. That Japanese boy's mother is sitting at the table, watching. She stopped crying a few minutes ago, after telling her husband to go home. That's good.
Take time to calm down,
Nai Nai thinks.
Besides, no one is worth your tears.

She steals a glance over her shoulder. Whatever she might think of Ana's mother, the woman has a talented eye. A jungle of brightly colored icings has sprung up in bowls alongside the giant sheet cake. Nai Nai had worried it would be served plain as a coffee cake, inappropriate for her granddaughter's big day.

She shrugs and turns back to her pudding. Her daughter-in-law is an artist. Let her do her art. The pot is almost at a boil now.
Too hot, too fast,
Nai Nai chides herself, and lowers the flame. The air is heavy with ripe mango. Nai Nai's mouth waters. Too hot and too fast. She was like that once too.

“Mei, he's too old for you!”

“He is not,” Mei said for the umpteenth time. Teacher Shen was handsome, refined, even mature, but not old. “Besides, he said he liked the flowers I brought him yesterday.”

“It's just creepy, Mei,” her best friend, Ton Li, said with a shiver. “And he's not even a real teacher. He's a substitute! You're seventeen. You can do better than a substitute teacher.”

The two girls were smoking filterless cigarettes smuggled in from the Ukraine, blowing the smoke out the window of the third-floor girls' bathroom in the Taipei School for Charming Young Women, or the Harm School, as the girls called it. It was a reform school, no matter what the shingle said on the outside. Even the principal knew that his students smoked in the bathroom. The ashtrays with the school logo on them were evidence of that. Mei and Ton Li puffed streams of smoke out the window as the only act of defiance left them—showing their bad behavior to the whole world.

“Besides, also,” Mei declared, “Lee Yuan is better than some greasy-faced punk from Gordon's.” Gordon's was the British-run brother school of the Harm.

“True, true,” Ton Li conceded. The girls finished their cigarettes just as the lunch bell rang. They squirted their mouths with violet perfume, checked each other's hair and headed to the cafeteria. Skipping out on English lessons was one thing, but lunch was the social event of the school. Gossip, fashion and school politics held sway at the girls' table. Besides which, Teacher Shen would be there.

“Ah, Mei,” Shen Yuan said when Mei made sure to brush up against him in the food line. “Eating like a bird again, I see.”

“I have no appetite,” Mei said as melodramatically as she could.

Teacher Shen frowned. He was a handsome man, Mei thought, and she tilted her head down to appear shy.

“Is something amiss?” he asked. “Perhaps you should see the school nurse.” He put down his tray and patted his pockets for a permission slip.

“Oh, no, no, not that,” Mei said. Normally, she would jump at a free hall pass, but that wasn't her goal today. “What I have, no nurse can cure.”

“Really? Bitten by a tsetse fly?” the teacher asked, chuckling.

“Some other sort of bug,” Mei said coyly. “A love bug.” She batted her eyelashes at him and sauntered away in her best imitation of the American movie star Marilyn Monroe. Ton Li watched all this from their usual table, monitoring her friend's success.

“Well?” Mei asked breathlessly as she sat down.

“Well, first of all, you forgot your lunch tray. And secondly, I don't think he noticed the walk. Or you didn't do it right.”

“Aie. No. Should I do it again?”

“What, and look desperate?”

“Well, you're no help.” Mei pouted. “And I'm hungry, too.”

Her lunch tray appeared in front of her, with an extra helping of rice and sweet mango pudding.

“Good, your appetite is returning, Miss Choi. A quick recovery is a sign of good blood.” Teacher Shen stood over them. He handed Mei a napkin and turned to Ton Li.

“See you in mathematics, Miss Ho.”

“Bon appétit, Teacher Shen,” Ton Li sang as he walked away.

“Ugh. So embarrassing,” Mei said. She ate all her pudding anyway.

Two weeks later, Teacher Shen left for a job at an American university in California. Mei had been cutting class when the announcement was made, so she missed out on her opportunity for a melodramatic farewell.

A year after that, when Mei was on the verge of her nineteenth birthday, Shen Yuan came home for a holiday. She found him in her parents' sitting room, an American-made hat on his knee. Apparently, she
had
done the walk just right. Better than any of the American girls he'd met since then.

With her parents' permission (not an easy thing, as her father was a staunch military man, seven kills in the air force against the Japanese), they courted for the week, during which he convinced Mei to take night classes. Her grades were much higher without the distraction of Teacher Shen around, and she was accepted into the business program at the University of California, Los Angeles, for the following September. The wedding was in July. Before the first semester was over, a baby was on the way. Of course, continuing with classes was out of the question.

Nai Nai sings to herself, watching the sugar dissolve into the evaporated milk and softened agar-agar. Bitter and sweet. Like leaving Taiwan. Nai Nai smiles. She cannot wait to introduce Ana to her best friend, Ton Li. Second in her class. Imagine it.

She adds the cubes of ripened mango, popping one in her mouth. Her first kiss had been with Yuan the night before their wedding. He had tasted of mangoes. That night, she had asked her mother to show her how to make this pudding—so simple, but it made her new husband so happy. A taste of home, he would say whenever she found time to make it.

•                           •                           •

“Nai Nai. Nai Nai!” Ana waves her hand in front of Nai Nai's face.

“
Aie!
What are you doing, assaulting me like that?” Nai Nai exclaims with a start.

“I've been calling your name forever. Do you want a cup of tea?” Ana raises her eyebrows. The day's been weird enough without Nai Nai going senile on her.

“Well, I did not hear you. No, I do not want tea. Not now. Can't you see I'm thinking?”

“About what?”

Nai Nai taps the spoon on the edge of the pot and points it warningly at Ana. “None of your business, Miss Nosy-pants. Go help your mother.”

Ana sighs. “Okay, fine.” She turns and looks at her mother, who is decorating the sheet cake. Ana's mom shrugs.

“I'm making tea for Jamie and his mom,” Ana announces, filling a kettle. “They're in the living room. Talking.”

Ana drops into a chair at the table and waits for the water to boil. She rests her head on her arms and watches as bright blue flowers and butterflies emerge from her mother's bag of icing.

“You okay, honey?” her mom asks.

Ana nods, her eyes losing focus. “What a weird day.”

The kitchen door opens.

“Mei, sweet, sweet Mei,” Ye Ye calls in Mandarin, coming into the kitchen. Ana's eyes go wide.

“What?” her mother whispers. “What did he say?”

“He called her sweet,” Ana says incredulously.

Ye Ye puts his arms around Nai Nai's waist.

“Did everything get put away?” Nai Nai asks.

Ye Ye shrugs. “Are you making extra pudding for me?”

Nai Nai shrugs. “Perhaps. For someone who deserves it.”

Ye Ye kisses Nai Nai on the cheek. “We all deserve it,” he says.

At the table, leaning over the cake, Ana and her mom try to hide their surprise, concentrating on the icing blooming into flowers around the corners. Ana shakes her head.

“See, weird day.”

Ana's mom stifles a chuckle. “It's not
so
strange. I mean, they did make your dad.”

“Gross, Mom.”

On the stove, the kettle starts to whistle. “You sure nobody wants any?” Ana asks, pouring water into a mug. Tea seems like an inadequate offering to the Tabatas, but it's all Ana has.

“We're sure,” her mom says.

Ana's mom picks up a second pastry bag, fat with red icing. With steady pressure from her right hand, guiding with her left, she writes between the flowers and curling borders in careful cursive,
HAPPY GRADUATION DAY, ANA, CHELSEA AND JAMIE
. After a moment's thought, she adds a blue butterfly next to Jamie's name. Ana sees it and smiles.

“Thank you.” Ana's dad is suddenly standing behind her. Ana almost drops the second mug.

“Yikes, didn't see you there.”

Ana's dad smiles. His arms are full of Tupperware.

“Just packing food away.”

“Thank you for what?” she asks.

He shrugs. “Thank you for standing up for us out there. That was brave and well aimed, if a little awkward.”

He smiles, empties his armload onto the counter and kisses Ana on the cheek. Turning to Ana's mom, he takes a swipe from a bowl of red icing and eats it absently.

“Look at those two.” He points with his chin at his parents, dancing to the tune of his mother's humming. “It's disgusting.”

Ana's mom giggles and wipes the icing off her hands with her apron. “Simply vile,” she says, and leans in to Ana's dad for a sugary kiss.

“For crying out loud, people.” Ana grabs her tea mugs and flees.

21

“G
ood night,” Ana says. Jamie and his mother were the first to leave, in a cab half an hour earlier. Now Ana leans against the doorjamb and waves as Chelsea and her family leave with Amanda Conrad and her mother in tow.

Amanda hangs up her cell phone. “Mom, can you drop me off at the movies? I can still catch up with those other guys.” She tucks her arm into her mom's elbow.

“Let's just see, honey,” her mother says, and hurries to catch up with Chelsea's dad.

Chelsea's dad's arms are laden with leftovers, and everyone looks kind of worn out. The sky has gone a deep purply blue and the stars are hanging overhead. The air feels like a warm bath. Ana is tired to her very bones.

Chelsea hangs back as the others go around the corner of the hedge. “Yo, Shen,” she hisses. “This is your fault!”

Ana smiles and shrugs. “Blame Cupid,” she whispers back. Chelsea gives a mock frown, then holds her hand up like a phone.

“Call me,” she mouths. Ana does the same and nods.

Back inside, her dad is giving Sammy a bath upstairs. Ana can hear Sammy splashing around. She walks down the hallway and sees Grandpa White taking off his glasses and sitting on the edge of the guest bed.

“Good night, Grandpa.”

“Good night, honey. Thanks for the unusual evening.”

Ana laughs. “Any time.”

In the living room, Ye Ye is watching an action film on TV. “Good night, Ye Ye.”

“Hmm? Oh, good night, Ana. Good night.”

Ana smiles to herself and walks back to the kitchen, where her grandmothers are packing up the last of the cake and pudding.

“Thank you, Nai Nai. Thank you, Grandma. It was really good.”

Ana's grandmothers smile at her. “You're welcome, baby girl,” Grandma White says.

“Yes, Ana. It was our pleasure,” Nai Nai adds. Ana gives them a group hug. Maybe Jamie was right about them.

She grabs a leftover slice of watermelon and steps out into the backyard. A breeze has finally risen from the ocean and Ana can smell seaweed and brine in the cooling air. Her mom is on a stepladder, taking down the graduation banner.

“There she is,” her mom says. “So, honey, you've graduated and had your first dinner date. What do you think?”

Ana laughs. “Like you have to ask.”

“So, no love connection?” her mom asks.

“More like a therapy session.” Ana pulls a chair over and helps take down the other side of the banner. “But it was good. I had fun.”

Her mother looks over her shoulder at Ana and smiles. “Yeah, that's what first dates are like.”

“I don't think it counts as a date if your entire family is there,” Ana points out.

Ana's mom shrugs and climbs down from the ladder. “It counts as much as you want it to.”

They fold the banner into a sloppy version of a square and Ana's mother puts it in a box in the garage. “Well, what are you going to do now?”

Ana shrugs. “Go to bed, I guess. I'm kind of tired.”

Ana's mom stifles a yawn. “Yeah, you're not the only one.” She pulls Ana into a hug and kisses her on the forehead. “Congratulations, honey. I'm very proud of you.”

“Yeah, Mom,” Ana says, embarrassed.

Her mom's smile fades. “No, Ana. I'm really very proud.”

Ana looks into her mother's eyes and nods. “Yeah. Me too.”

•                           •                           •

Upstairs in her bedroom, Ana opens the window to the evening breeze. The light wind ripples her pajama top and feels good along her skin.
So much for my big day,
she thinks. She looks at the clock. It's not even nine-thirty. Sad. She stands in the window a little longer.

Jamie and his mom seemed okay when they left. Like they'd handle things together somehow.
I wonder what's going on at their house right now.
Down the block, a dog starts to bark. Ana rests her head on her arm against the windowsill. She wonders if Jamie will get to keep his car. But that's the least of his problems.

Ana breathes in the night air. This was not the day she expected it to be. Not. At. All. But still, it was pretty interesting.

She lowers the window halfway and crawls into her bed. In the light from the window, her skin is a pale shade of moonlight, her hair Midnight Blue
^TM
. She yawns and tucks her head against her pillow.

I still haven't kissed a boy,
she thinks.
But Jamie Tabata likes me
. . .
and high school doesn't start for another seventy-four days.