Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet (6 page)

11

I
n the garage, Grandpa White is perched on an over-turned bucket, putting the last of his battered chicken into a giant turkey fryer. The door is up, revealing his little campsite and a host of Ana's dad's tools. Besides being an architect, Ana's dad fancies himself a carpenter. He built the Samoan's tree house last year. Ana wishes he'd built one for her when she was Sammy's age.

“What's up, sweet pea?” Grandpa White asks when she enters. Ana shakes her head, but she can still hear the arguing going on inside.

“If Grandma and Nai Nai don't stop bickering, we'll never have anything for dinner.” She walks past the workbenches to the big white freezer chest in the back of the garage and puts the pork chops inside. “Just this once, why can't everyone behave?”

Grandpa White shakes his head. He looks awfully serious for a man wearing a boss of the sauce apron. “Those women wouldn't know what to do if they couldn't argue. Why did God give them tongues?” He raises his eyes to heaven wearily. Ana drops her head to the top of the freezer, resting her cheek against the cool white metal with a sigh.

“It's worse than that, you know? It's like watching Chelsea's parents when they used to fight. Like little family earthquakes. Maybe one day everything will just shake apart.” She looks down at the scratched surface of the freezer, her eyes stinging just a tiny bit. “What is with this family? Nobody likes anybody else. You all just pretend to.”

Grandpa White shrugs. “I like them just as far as they like me. And you.”

“Well, it sucks for dinner parties. Sometimes I think if Sammy and I weren't around, none of you guys would feel the need to get together and there'd be a little less fighting in the world.”

Grandpa White looks at her, tongs balanced across one knee, fried chicken in the deep fryer in front of them bubbling away. Then he smiles.

“Baby girl, that's ridiculous.” He shrugs and goes back to turning his chicken. “The two of you kids are our common ground, and that is a beautiful thing.”

“That's me: Ana Shen, granddaughter, diplomat, peacemaker. Oh yeah, and salutatorian.”
Sigh.
She stands up and paces across the garage.

Ana remembers the way Jamie Tabata's father looked down his nose at her. Obviously, he has someone more Amanda Conrad–like in mind for his son. Wouldn't that be great? If she and Jamie ever
did
date, Ana's not so sure she could deal with the parental garbage.

Grandpa White checks the thermometer on the fryer. “Well, cheer up, baby girl, 'cause things are just about to get a whole lot better.” He smiles at her proudly. “Chicken's ready. You've never seen anyone fighting when they're eating fried chicken.”

“Not sure that's a real test of the situation, Grandpa White.”

“But it's true.” He nods and picks up his tongs again. He drops the last drumstick in. The oil spatters, hot and snappy. Ana leans back, even though she's out of popping range. Grandpa White acts like he's made of asbestos. If he gets hit by the hot grease, it doesn't show.

“Want that drumstick?” he asks, pulling the first batch out of the fryer to rest on a plateful of paper towels.

“I don't think I can eat just yet. But I'll take a hug.”

“Oh, well, those are ready to go too.”

At least one grandfather likes her. Ana wraps her arms around him. Grandpa White smells like shoe polish and menthol. He likes to say the military taught him to shine his shoes until they look like glass and the AARP taught him to use mentholated cream to ease the pain of picking up the shoes. Ana kisses his cheek and then braces herself to go back inside. Less than two hours to go, and there's plenty left to do.

“Want something to drink? There's fresh iced tea.”

“Let it get nice and cold first. I'll be in soon with the chicken.”

“Okay. See you at the table.”

The phone starts to ring the minute Ana enters the hallway.

“Telephooooone!” Sammy screams out of nowhere. He explodes down the stairs and rushes past her through the kitchen door. Ana shakes her head.

“I'll get it,” she shouts, but someone else picks up and the ringing stops. Ana sighs. What if it's Chelsea? Or worse, what if it's Jamie? Her heart skips a beat.

“Shush!” Ana's mother hisses. She's hovering nervously near the oven, a bowl of half-mixed white icing in her hands. “Don't you ruin this cake too.” She turns the oven light on and peers through the window for telltale signs of a fallen middle.

“Sorry, Mom,” Ana whispers. Grandma White bustles over to the stove. The hot sweet smell of baking cake mixes weirdly with the salty and tangy scent of Grandma White's gumbo.

Ana's mom shakes her head. She gives her icing a few more stirs. “Just don't shout, okay? Now, the timer's on, but if I don't hear it, just pull it out in twenty minutes. There's a cooling rack on the counter.”

“Got it. I promise.”

Ana's mom wraps the top of the icing bowl in plastic and kisses Ana on the cheek. “No tasting that. There's just enough to decorate the cake,” she warns, and scurries off to another task.

On the stove, the broth for the lion's head is at a full boil. The smells of cabbage and pork float in the air. Ana's mouth waters.

“Whoops, I'm supposed to be watching this.” She grabs a spoon and stirs the broth before covering the pot and lowering the flame. Fortunately, Nai Nai is on the phone.

“No, who are you? You were at the graduation today? Did you graduate? Good, good.”

Ana cringes. Someone from school. She looks around. Her dad sits at the kitchen counter, cutting radishes into roses. He shrugs when she catches his eye.

“Hey, little bit.” Grandpa White comes through the back kitchen door with a plate of fried chicken. He waves a piece in the air. “I did what I could.”

Ana shrugs and joins him at the table. There's not enough room there for making dumplings, and Nai Nai is not giving up the phone anytime soon. Funny, but now that practically the whole family's in one place, she's got someone else she'd rather talk to.

“So, what is your GPA?” Nai Nai asks whoever is unlucky enough to be on the other end of the line in her ever-so-careful English. The way she says it, GPA sounds like a medical test rather than a grade-point average. “Not so good, but not too bad, either.”

Oh God,
Ana thinks.
Please don't be Jamie.

“Derby,” Grandma White says to Grandpa White, “I'm going to keep an eye on my gumbo.” She gives a meaningful look at Nai Nai's back. Ana rolls her eyes. Even Nai Nai wouldn't stoop to sabotaging the soup. Apparently, Grandma White's not so sure. “Can you take Sammy out back to finish that little project I told you about?”

Grandpa White wipes some fried chicken crumbs from his mouth. “Come on, Sam. Your grandmother's got us painting again. Treats us like little kids,” he says in mock indignation.

“I
am
a little kid, Grandpa.” The Samoan grabs Grandpa White by the hand and tugs him out the back door.

Ana waits until they're gone, then sighs.

“How's it going?” her dad asks from his perch at the counter. Ana shakes her head.

“They'll be here in less than an hour. And I still have to do the dumplings, but I need the kitchen table. How about you? Where's our
lu bo gao
?”

He doesn't bat an eye. “I'm working on it.”

“Right, Dad. I can see that. With little radish flowers.”

“These are for your grandmother. My dish needs no decoration. Simple and perfect, that's my motto.”

Ana smiles. “Since when?”

“Since I decided to make
mapo dofu
instead.”

Ana laughs.
Lu bo gao
takes peeling and pounding at least a pound of turnip roots, but
mapo
is a stir fry—five to ten minutes of prep instead of five hours.

Ana's eyes drift back to Nai Nai, still on the phone.

“What about your parents?” she's asking. “What do they do?”

Whatever they do, Nai Nai approves. “Okay, Chelsea. Bye.” She turns, nods at Ana and hangs up.

“Nai Nai!”

“Don't ‘Nai Nai’ me, now. I saw you forgot to turn down the lion's head. You want to eat good food, you have to help make it.”

“Well, what did she want?”

“She can tell you later. Now you are washing your hands and making dumplings,” Nai Nai says. “Then you can call your friend.”

Nai Nai turns her attention to Ana's dad. “That Chelsea says her father is an engineer. A mechanical engineer. They make good money, very smart.” She narrows her eyes at Ana's dad across the kitchen counter. “Such a shame. You should have stayed a structural engineer.”

“Love you too, Mom,” Ana's dad says.

“Love nothing. Love doesn't feed the family. Love only gets in the way.”

Ana stops washing her hands long enough to look at her grandmother. “Nai Nai, why do you say things like that? You love Ye Ye.”

“That's different. I'm smarter than both of you. I know how to fall in love with the right kind of man.”

At the table, Grandma White harrumphs. Ana cuts her a warning look.

“I would ask what that's supposed to mean, but it's not worth it,” Ana's dad says. “Here are your radish roses and your carrot flowers. Garnish away. I'm going to spend time with my wife. Whom I love. Very much.” He winks at Grandma White, who smiles back, and he grabs a couple of drumsticks from Grandpa White's platter on the way out.

Ana turns to Grandma White. “Grandma, can you move your glass? I need the table for the dumplings.”

“Sure, baby.” Grandma White picks up her glass and folds her arms, watching over her gumbo like a pit bull. Ana's just glad there's no fighting going on. She wipes the table clean and spreads a couple of sheets of parchment paper on the table, Nai Nai's words ringing in her ears.

She can't help wondering if Jamie is the “right kind of man” for her, whatever that means. Nai Nai wouldn't think so, of course. Jamie is Japanese. For all Ana knows, he might be a direct descendant of the soldiers who burned those crops in China. He may as well have forced the moldy corn down Ye Ye's throat himself, as far as Nai Nai's probably concerned.

“Ana, don't forget your mother's cake this time. And don't touch the lion's head,” Nai Nai says to Ana, looking at Grandma White. Nai Nai's eyes narrow slightly. “Just let it cook.”

“Okay,” Ana says, uncovering the bowl of dumpling dough.

“Okay.” Nai Nai nods and pats Ana on the cheek. “You are such a good girl. We are so proud of you, aren't we, Mrs. White?”

Before Grandma White can answer, Nai Nai straightens her immaculate suit jacket and is gone.

“Thank goodness she's gone. We could all use some peace and quiet.”

Ana moves around the table and kisses Grandma White's cheek. She can still smell the faint scent of onions and celery on her grandmother's skin.

“I'm sorry about Nai Nai. She can be so difficult sometimes.”

“All the time,” Grandma White says. “But that's not your fault, so don't apologize. We've been having our trouble since before you were born.”

“I know.” Ana sighs. “You'd just think it would be different after fifteen years.” She ties her apron back on and gets the bowl of pork filling from the refrigerator.

Grandma White chuckles. “You'd think. But that's not the way things work. Shoot, you've got to realize there's a problem before you think about fixing it. And you have to know what the problem is. If it's just black versus Chinese, that's one thing, a thing that won't change. But there's something else about that woman. You know, she's never, ever called me by my first name? Always ‘Mrs. White, Mrs. White, Mrs. White.’ She likes your grandfather well enough, though.”

“Yeah, I don't know what that's all about,” Ana admits. “Dad says it's because she has a hard time saying
Olivia.
Maybe she's embarrassed?”

Grandma White stands up and goes to check on her gumbo pot. “Well, I guess I should be grateful that she calls me anything at all. When we first met, it was like we weren't even at the same table. Like she'd frozen over solid or something. Now, Derby says it's my imagination. He could be right. Most times, our rivals don't even know our names.”

“You guys aren't rivals,” Ana says.

Grandma White cocks an eye at her. “Aren't we, though?”

Ana shrugs and pulls a piece of dough out of the bowl. “I guess. If you want to be America's Top Grandmother or something.”

Grandma White laughs. “Maybe I do. Maybe I do.” She stirs the gumbo pot and turns the flame down.

“Is that true?” Ana asks. “About rivals, I mean.” She's pretty darn sure Amanda Conrad knows
her
name. But Grandma White nods.

“True as the nose on your face. There was a girl back when I was in high school, her name was Stella Reed. She thought she was the hottest thing since sunshine, and half the boys thought the same. Oh, how I hated her. Especially when she started dating my brother, your uncle Jacob. I couldn't understand how Jake could be so stupid. But he couldn't see through her. Put her up on a pedestal, like all the other boys did, and she kicked each and every one of them in the teeth.

“That was bad enough, but then she dumped my brother and went for the boy I had been seeing. And Timothy was a year younger than her, too! Can you imagine that?”

Ana's eyebrows go up into her hairline. “You dated?” She has a hard time imagining her grandmother dating in high school, let alone caught up in some kind of soap opera drama with the old-time equivalent of an Amanda Conrad.

Grandma White swats at her with a kitchen towel. “Yes, I dated. How do you think I met your grandfather? We weren't born old and married, Miss Smarty-pants.”

Ana grins and dodges the towel. She starts patting the lump of dough in her hands into a flat disk.

“I ran into that Stella the other day at the hair salon,” her grandmother says. “Seems she was in town for a convention. Selling makeup out the back of her truck. She looked it, too. No pedestals under her feet anymore. But even so, do you know she didn't recognize me? When I said, ‘Hello, Stella,’ she tried to sell me some reeking perfume. I had to tell her I was Jake's sister, and then remind her who Jake was. And I don't think she ever remembered Timothy, or what she did to him and me.”