Weddings and Wasabi (6 page)

“We want you to take over the restaurant while we go on vacation.”

“No, sorry.” The words shot out before she even finished the request.

“Jenn!” Mom objected.

Aunty’s mouth had frozen open.

“No, I’m too busy setting up my catering business.” Jenn knew the “vacation” was just a flimsy excuse to get her working at the restaurant. When they came back from “Disneyland,” Aunty would come up with other excuses why they couldn’t come back to work, and Jenn would be forced to either stay there or leave the restaurant high and dry.

Aunty’s face turned a dark red like an
azuki
bean. Mom sighed and shook her head, probably wondering what alien had abducted her daughter and left this foreign surrogate in her place.

A reckless streak prompted Jenn to add, “You should ask Mimi to take over.”

“Mimi wouldn’t know the first thing what to do,” Aunty snapped.

“Actually, considering Mimi works there more often than all her brothers combined, I think she’d know exactly what to do.”

“She couldn’t possibly run the restaurant alone—”

“I’m almost positive Jared would be happy to forego Disneyland to help her.”

Aunty gave her a wrathful look.

Jenn met it with a guileless expression. She stood up. “Sorry to run off, Aunty, but I have some errands. Good bye!”

As she picked up her purse and exited the house, she burst out the front door like Daniel escaping the lion’s den. God had helped her be brave and stand firm. She’d never fall prey to her relatives’ manipulations again.

The goats were still there.

Jenn mutinously shoveled goat feed into the feeding trough (which, to the goat, looked mysteriously like an old bucket).

One of the two babies, skittish before, suddenly came up to her hopping in a circle around her, leaping and twisting mid-air. One of his acrobatics nudged her in the back of the leg, making her sway on her feet. She glared down at the tiny creature.

It seemed to be smiling at her in a mysterious goat-y way. Really, he was quite cute. She patted him on the head, which he endured with a condescending grace for all of half a second before bounding off to play with his sibling.

Well, she’d given Larry the day, and he had failed her. He had to face the consequences, dire though they may be. Jenn realized she was actually looking forward to this.

She hopped in her car, the ratty, fluffy yellow pony rug draped over her backseat. Ah, the sight of it filled her with such malicious joy.

On the drive to downtown San Jose, however, her phone rang. She didn’t want to take her attention off the road to rummage in her purse so she could look at the caller ID on her cell phone, so she just hit the answer button on her Bluetooth. “Hello?”

“Hi Jenn, it’s Aunty Yoshiko. Bethany has a cooking project she needs to do next week and we wondered if you’d be able to help her?”

“No.”

A beat of silence. “Er … what did you say?”

“No, sorry, Aunty. I’m too busy.” Besides which, the last time she’d “helped” Bethany with a project, she’d ended up doing half of it because the lazy brat’s sloppy efforts would have not only ruined her project but also Jenn’s springform pan, which she’d let her borrow since she didn’t have one.

“But …” Aunty sputtered incoherently. “But Bethany needs you.”

As if that was reason enough for Jenn to drop everything? “I’m too busy, Aunty. You’ll have to help her yourself”—and get those two-inch long acrylic nails dirty, imagine that?—“or ask someone else.”

“There’s no one else to ask.”

“I’m sure there is. I have fifty-seven cousins on the Sakai side.”

Aunty gave a gasp of indignation.

“Bye, Aunty!” Jenn hit the Bluetooth button to disconnect the call.

That felt wonderful! Jenn neatly changed lanes to pass a slow car.

Another phone call. “Hello?”

“Hi Jenn, this is Mrs. Hoshiwara from church. I’m gathering names for the church bake sale to raise money for Vacation Bible School. Can you help us out again this year?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say yes. After all, Mrs. Hoshiwara had been nothing but nice to her since Jenn started going to church.

But wasn’t this all about the Liberation of Jenn? No longer slave to the needs of others? She’d just denied two aunties—two blood relations. Surely the church would understand?

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hoshiwara, but I’m afraid I’m too busy. I just quit my job, and I’m starting a catering business.”

“Oh, how wonderful!”

Her enthusiastic approval made Jenn’s stomach gurgle uncomfortably.

“I’m so glad you’re doing this, Jenn,” she continued. “You’re so talented in the kitchen.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Hoshiwara.”

“Of course you wouldn’t have time to make something for the bake sale.”

Actually, she probably could whip up a batch of cookies pretty darn quick … No, she was being liberated. She had to stick to her guns.

So why did it feel so different to tell Mrs. Hoshiwara no? It hadn’t felt like this with either of her aunties.

“Well, I’ll see you at church on Sunday,” Mrs. Hoshiwara said.

“Uh … yeah.” Jenn actually hadn’t been to church in a couple weeks because she’d stayed up late doing things—Trish’s wedding, her business license, applying for a small business loan …

“Bye, Jenn!” She hung up.

Jenn could make it up to her next year, make a couple cakes or something. Right?

Speaking of cakes, she needed to start her trial runs of Trish’s wedding cake to make sure she could get everything done right the day before the wedding. Plus she was eager to try out those new cake pans.

Parking in downtown was almost impossible—what a surprise—so she had to park several blocks away and hoof it to Larry’s dorm with his ginormous laundry bag and the stinkin’ yellow pony rug trailing behind her. When she entered his dormitory front entrance, she was surprised to find not only Larry, but Brad waiting to pounce on her.

And not just Brad, but a couple quarterback-sized Yip cousins, too.

The rug was ripped from her hands, but unfortunately no one grabbed the laundry bag. So she dumped it on the ground and kicked it aside.

She addressed the slimy fink ratworm Brad. “So you could drop off the goat at my house and you can drive into downtown San Jose but you can’t come pick up your animal?”

Brad just laughed and flashed that
I’m better than you because my daddy makes enough in a day to buy your house
look. “Jenn, your bitterness over losing me has really pervaded your life.”

She had a strange, fierce buzzing in her ears and her voice came from a long way away. “Losing you? More like good riddance.”

“Thanks so much for bringing that for me, Jenn,” Larry said in a triumphantly smarmy voice. “Now I can burn it without needing to sneak it out of the house first.”

“If you hadn’t had the linebackers over there, you’d have had to fight me for it. And I’d win.”

Larry only smirked. “I needed the protection because you’ve obviously gone over the edge. You’re crazy and dangerous. Who knows what you’d do?”

She did feel dangerous. Worse, she felt more than a little crazy. “Brad, you can pick up your goat at the Humane Society.” She turned to leave.

“Oh no, you won’t.”

“Stop me,” she flung over her shoulder.

“Your grandmother will.”

She froze in her tracks. The linebackers snickered.

Turning to face him, she pinned him with a glare that should have seared him like crème brûlée. “Explain yourself.”

“Your Aunt Aikiko called my mother and said you had told your Grandma Sakai that you were … what were the words she used? Oh yes, ‘thrilled’ to keep Great-Aunt Chin’s goat. Mom had wanted to find a new home for the goat when Great-Aunt Chin moved to that small apartment, and she’d been adamant about not wanting the animal taken to the Humane Society. So when Larry called me and I called Mom, she was understandably confused about the threats to take it to the Humane Society.”

Jenn’s mind raced (and not just from that incredibly twisted explanation for why the goat was in her backyard). Aunty Aikiko must have overheard her talking to Larry on her phone and drawn her own conclusions. Aunty wasn’t close friends with Brad’s mother, but she managed to get her to take her call anyway.

Jenn had to admit it was extremely clever. In invoking Grandma’s name to Brad’s mom, Jenn couldn’t get rid of the goat or else she’d risk Mrs. Yip talking to Grandma about Jenn. It would put Grandma in a very awkward position, despite the fact she probably didn’t even know about this goat feud.

Her head was on fire. Her hair was burning. She really did expect laser beams to shoot out of her eyes as she glared at first Brad then Larry. She turned and moved toward the door slowly, keeping an iron hold on her raging desire to run around in a circle shrieking her frustration.

Just before she left, Larry called out, “Hey, you forgot your bag.” He kicked the bag of laundry she’d dropped.

He didn’t even realize it was his bag of laundry, the doofus-brain. She was about to snarl at him what he could do with it, but then an idea of such brilliance struck her, she wondered where that brilliance had been when she was trying to pass her physics classes.

She met Larry with tight face, praying she didn’t betray her elation. “Oh, sorry. You don’t want that there, do you?”

He snorted. “No, get it out of here.”

“I’ll get that out of your way.” She slung the bag over her shoulder and walked out of the dorm.

She had to walk several blocks off campus to one of the fraternity houses. A nice-looking kid sat on the front steps studying.

Jenn paused. He looked a little too respectable, but the bag was too heavy for her to try to find another frat house. “Hi.”

He looked up. “Hi. Can I help you?”

“I need a few guys with a little creativity.”

“To do what?”

She held out the duffle bag. “These clothes belong to Larry, a freshman living in Building B. I need you do to something very creative and very public with them.”

A slow smile spread across his face, turning him from angelic into downright devilish. “Larry, you said? Your wish is my command.”

“His tighty-whiteys ended up on a flagpole,” Jenn told her cousins the next day over lunch. “They had written his name on them in Sharpie markers.”

Lex chortled. “Think he’ll tell his mom?”

“And admit his pajamas were decorated and waving outside the art building? I don’t think so.” Jenn passed them a plate of cheese spread and crackers. “Here, try this, I’m thinking of using this for the wedding.”

Trish tried one. “Delish, but remember, Mom’s on a special diet because of her heart attack.”

“Oh, nuts. I forgot.”

“But we’ll eat this.” Lex grabbed one. “Tell you what, Jenn. I’ll tell one of the web guys at my workplace. He has the kind of sense of humor that’ll do a good job making fun of the ‘mysterious Larry’s clothing’ all over San Jose State campus.”

Venus had a cream-laden cat expression. “He’ll have to buy new underwear.”

“You think?”

“Do you really believe he had another load of laundry at his dorm? No, he took everything home for his mom to wash for him.”

“You don’t feel just a little sorry for him?” Trish asked, although she didn’t look all that sorry.

“Why should I? His own mother told him I was bringing his laundry to him, yet he told me to get rid of the bag. I told Aunty Glenda that, too.”

Lex’s eyes grew round. “You did?”

Jenn nodded, drizzling sauce over the steamed asparagus. “I called her when I was driving home. ‘Aunty, I don’t understand it, but Larry didn’t want the bag of laundry. He told me to get rid of it. So I gave it to a boy sitting on the steps of a house who said he could use the clothes.’” Jenn slid the platter onto the kitchen table. “She was a little surprised, but she told me thank you.”

“Jenn, you are becoming downright devious.” Lex grabbed an asparagus with her fingers, then dropped it on her plate. “Hot!”

“Use your fork, Neanderthal,” Venus told her. “So what are you going to do about the goat?”

Jenn sighed. “I don’t know. Keep it, I guess.”

Trish rolled her eyes. “Honestly, sometimes I wonder where your brain is. You’re a cook—you have a
nursing
goat.” Trish gave an
Isn’t it obvious?
twirl of her fork.

All three cousins stared blankly at her.

“Oh for goodness’ sake. What have the ‘girls’”—Trish gestured to her chest—“been producing for the past several months?”

“Oooooh.” The lightbulb blazed in Jenn’s head. “How much milk does a goat produce a day? How do you milk a goat? Do I need to give her special food?”

Silence around the table.

Well, yeah, the audience wasn’t exactly farmers. “How can I find out?”

Trish’s eyes lit up. “Edward.”

“Edward?” “Who’s Edward?” Venus and Lex pounced on his name.