Judging day came, and the tension between Mom and Wenling made the toasty kitchen of The Lucky Dragon feel like the surface of the sun.
"It will look like you're trying to compete with the diner's milkshake," Wenling said to Mom’s back. She was about five feet from Mom, but didn’t step any closer. Despite being petite women -- Mom was only 5’1" and Wenling a good inch or two shorter -- their feud filled the large kitchen.
Mom had stationed herself at the food prep counter where she was prepping her milkshake masterpiece. I stood in the doorway off the closed side of the kitchen keeping my distance. Chef Li, whose voice I couldn't recall ever hearing, worked at the grill as if we all weren’t there.
"No, it won't," Mom insisted.
"It might," I said wiping sweat from the back of my neck. I seemed to be the only person sweating the heat and their argument. I chalked the difference up to my relative size and the part of my personality where I found any tension bordering on unbearable.
Satisfied she’d assembled her tools properly, Mom stepped to the side-by-side and grabbed the cream from refrigerator and the main ingredient for her milkshake from the freezer. Not knowing what to say or do, I wiped my glasses on my shirt, a habit I'm sure was responsible for my perpetually smudged and scratched lenses.
Curiosity got the better of Wenling, and she stepped closer as Mom opened the plastic tub that contained her homemade, gourmet "ice cream."
Wenling wrinkled her nose. "It looks runny."
Jennifer, Wenling’s daughter, entered the kitchen through the door off the main dining room.
"It’s soft serve," Mom said to Wenling. "You don't even eat ice cream."
"I've seen ice cream, and that's not soft serve, that’s–" Wenling paused and turned to Jennifer. "What-you-call-it? The word for more than soft?"
Jennifer paused to figure out what word her mother wanted, a bit of pontification I knew well. Even though Wenling is Chinese and my mom is Filipino, like most first-generation Americans, I’d grown accustomed to being my mother’s personal thesaurus.
"Softer," Jennifer answered.
Wenling said something in Chinese, and her daughter sighed. "More than soft is "soft" with an "er" just like more than fast is faster."
"But fast you say ‘quick’ or ‘like lightning’ or something new, something good," Wenling argued.
Jennifer shrugged, grabbed her table's order off the pass, and headed out to the dining room.
"I made it this way on purpose," Mom said as she poured the gloopy ice cream into her frothed cream. "It's specially formulated for award-winning milkshakes."
"Softer serve," Wenling said and then turned and left the kitchen.
Mom continued to fuss over her milkshake.
"I’ll let you prepare," I said to Mom. I grabbed a glass out of the rack and poured myself a diet soda from the fountain. I exited the kitchen, relieved Mom hadn't asked me to taste her milkshake again.
I stood in the closed half of the restaurant and debated whether I should sit alone in our booth in the back, or hover on the open side of the restaurant. The bell over the front door of The Lucky Dragon clanged harder than usual. I rushed to the front of the restaurant sensing trouble.
"What’s this I hear about your entry?" a man’s voice said.
I peered into the open side of the restaurant and found Al from the Fletcher Diner confronting Wenling in the middle aisle between tables.
The usual blend of casual conversation and utensil clicking of the lunch rush was replaced by whispers and titters. In a small town like Fletcher Canyon a public altercation was big news.
"It won’t win," Wenling said, trying to placate him.
"Every entry wins!" he argued, stepping aside to allow Jennifer to bring table six their wonton soup.
"Let me bring you some tea," Wenling said.
The squeak from the kitchen’s swinging door made all eyes turn to Mom as she popped her head out of the kitchen.
"You," Al said pointing right at Mom. It looked like something out of a soap opera, and the lunch crowd ate it up faster than the day’s special, mushu pork.
"Hi Al!" Mom said, exiting the kitchen and coming out to the dining room as if nothing was wrong. I admired Mom's unflappability. The man hadn't even glanced in my direction, and my warm face now boiled with added adrenaline.
"You're trying to destroy me," Al said.
A part of me admired the way the man threw around melodramatic accusations with the earnestness of an angsty, hormone-drenched teenager.
"Al, no one can destroy you. You're a very successful man." Mom could get away with saying things like that.
Al blushed at Mom's obvious buttering up. Even the top of his shiny, bald head turned a bit pink, but then he remembered he was angry. "Jo, you can't enter a milkshake. It's not like you even cater milkshake parties or something."
"I'll never get to cater a milkshake party if I don't let people know I make great milkshakes," Mom said.
"When people think of milkshakes, they think of ice cream. And in this town that means the Fletcher Diner," Al said.
"Maybe they think of milk when they think of milkshakes. And if they think of ice cream, then they probably think of Jerry's Ice Cream next door." Mom said.
Al's anger subsided a smidgen with recognition of Mom’s logical point.
"Besides, you can't enter your milkshake. It doesn't qualify since you use ice cream from an outside vendor and store-bought milk. My ice cream is homemade," Mom added.
Al’s minuscule bit of calm evaporated at the mention of Mom's homemade ice cream.
"You're not serving any darn milkshake to that judge," Al said as he waddled by Mom and made for the kitchen.
Mom dashed behind him, but Al was such a broad man there wasn’t enough room for her to go around and beat him to the kitchen. He banged on the swinging door and barged into the kitchen.
"That’s my kitchen," Wenling said following them.
I took the long way via the door on the unopened side of the restaurant I’d just left. I poked my head in to find that Mom, with Wenling's help, had grabbed the very large Al by his shirt. The two of them had managed to keep him from getting at Mom’s milkshake. Chef Li, who’d been smoking in the alley, strode over to Al and grabbed the thick meaty part of Al’s hand.
"Ow!" Al exclaimed, knees buckling.
Mom and Wenling, seeing Al was well-restrained, let go of his shirt.
"Stop that, it hurts," Al said.
The chef made a clicking noise, shook his head, and led Al toward the main dining room. Then, he freed Al's hand and held open the swinging door. Al opted to take the chef's invitation, and left.
Without a word, Chef Li went back to work at the stove.
"I need to learn how to do that," Mom said.
"I know how to do it, but with my arthritis..." Wenling said.
"Show me," Mom said, sticking her hand out for Wenling to torture. Wenling used her thumb and middle finger to grab at the meaty part of Mom’s hand at the base of the thumb and squeezed.
"I think that would work if your grip was stronger," Mom said.
"Try me," Wenling said, sticking her hand out for Mom to attempt the death pinch on her.
"No, you've got to do it closer to the thumb, like over a little more," Wenling instructed Mom, their feud forgotten in their attempts to figure out Chef Li’s trick.
Jennifer came in and announced that the photographer from the newspaper had arrived.
"Kid," Mom said to me. "Go out there and keep them busy while I prepare."
Wenling sighed, realizing that there was no way Mom was going to change her mind. She walked over to the clean dish rack, grabbed a plate, picked an egg roll up with a pair of tongs, and plopped it onto the plate.
"I'll go first," Wenling said.
I followed Wenling out of the kitchen to find Solomon, Mom’s friend and our town’s jack of all trades, waiting in the main dining room with a fancy digital camera.
"You’re a ph
otographer now?" I asked Solomon.
"Edna Sanders gave me this camera for graduation, and Todd needed help at the paper."
"Wait! I thought you were only a sophomore," I said.
"High school graduation. She didn't realize I'd graduated high school until last month when I drove one of her new clients over to her house."
"You mean an actual client for the memorial taxidermy service?" I asked.
"She says it's the ‘next big thing’," Solomon said.
"I’m not sure about that," I said.
Solomon nodded. "I kind of felt bad for Bandit," Solomon said, referencing the stuffed raccoon that Edna used to showcase her talents. "He looked so full of life."
We both stood there for a moment in quiet reflection on the life of Bandit. Solomon broke the silence. "She was going to use this for taking the," he paused to think of a way to tactfully discuss the stuffed dead animals, "pet pictures, but it was too complicated for her. I took a lot of pictures of Bandit and his pals for her brochure."
Mom came out with her milkshake and a bag. She had it in a glass with whipped cream and a cherry on top, set on a red tray. "Mr. DeMille, we’re ready for our closeup," Mom said as she set the tray on the table, whipped some tulle out of the bag and draped it around the tray.
Wenling rolled her eyes and plopped her plate a few feet from Mom’s. "You can take mine first."
"Seriously?" Solomon said to Wenling.
"Just take the picture," Wenling said. "We win every year. It's the only egg roll."
"It doesn't look as appetizing alone on the plate. It's so," Solomon paused, "brown."
"It's an egg roll. It's supposed to be brown," Wenling said.
Solomon snapped a few quick photos and showed Wenling the shots on the camera’s little screen. She agreed that it didn’t look as appetizing as she would like. They decided that the best thing would be to photograph someone eating the egg roll.
"Why don't you ask him?" Solomon said, pointing to a customer eating.
"He's too skinny," Wenling said, her voice loud enough for everyone to hear. "A big man makes things look more appetizing."
She glanced around the restaurant, but there was a shortage of "big men" with the exception of Al, who was glowering in the doorway.
"No," he said without being asked.
Then Solomon's and Wenling’s eyes stopped on me.
"I'm not a big man," I said.
"No, you're very healthy. You’ll make the people want to come and try our egg rolls," Wenling said.
"No," I said and stepped behind the bamboo plant to hide–a ridiculous, but effective move on my part. There was no way I was going to get my picture in the paper, eating of all things. I'm the average amount overweight, but I'm not a big fan of pictures in general, let alone a picture of me eating.
Mom volunteered to pretend to eat the egg roll, and Solomon snapped away. Then, it was time to take photos of the milkshake surrounded by tulle that looked more like a pink tutu.
Wenling decided that it was a good idea for her to pretend to drink the milkshake to make it look more appetizing. I secretly believe she wanted her photo in the paper like Mom.
"OK, but don't put your mouth on the straw, that's for the judge," Mom said.
"We can replace the straw," Wenling said.
"No, I don't want another hole in the whipped cream. It's perfect like it is, besides you don't want to show wrinkles by putting your mouth around the straw, just hold it and smile next to it."
The not wanting to show wrinkles around her mouth argument cinched it for Wenling. She posed smiling, holding the straw, careful not to "make the hole bigger," and Solomon snapped away.
The mood in the restaurant lightened as the photo shoot continued, until Todd Fletcher and the judge, Brent Cryer entered the restaurant.
Weirdness and death ensued.
Diapers and Detectives
Two days after Brent’s fall, and before we knew he’d died, Mom and Wenling folded wontons at our booth in the back of the restaurant. I sat across from them and watched a forensic reality show on the portable television. The little set was so old that it even had an antenna. Wenling had won it on a game show in the eighties. It surprised me we got cable on it at first, until I spotted the old school cable box under the napkin holder.
We all wore hairnets because of the food prep. My round face looks even rounder with my hair in a hair net, but since this side of the restaurant was closed and the average age of most residents of Fletcher Canyon was sixty, I didn't care.
"Do you want me to help?" I asked. It seemed weird to be dressed for the game but not play, so to speak.
"You have to save your hands for doing the business on the computer," Wenling said.
"I'm sure I'll be fine," I answered.
Mom joined in. "No, I saw on television. Carpal tunnel. You need to rest your hands."
I knew it was their polite way of telling me that my previous attempts at folding wontons had been disastrous. I’d even used a small spoon to scoop the filling instead of chopsticks, but no go.
Mom and Wenling folded in the comfortable silence. They’d look up from their work to the television and then look out the glass storefront to see who might be stopping by. They always sat on the same side of the booth with their backs to the kitchen so they could see Main Street out the window.
The Lucky Dragon was in the middle of "all the action" according to Mom and Wenling, but in a sleepy town like Fletcher Canyon, the word "action" is used liberally. Main Street was a two-lane, tree-lined road at the foot of the mountain that held the three eateries, a laundromat/dry cleaners, and other small business. The residents called this "downtown". A bus made up to look like a red-and-white trolley ran up and down the street and around to the Civic Center that housed the courthouse, post office, and the sheriff’s substation we shared with the neighboring town.
Whenever there’s major gossip in Fletcher Canyon, people come to Main Street to run errands, get something to eat, and find out the scoop. Mom always had the latest news. People just couldn’t stop themselves from telling her secrets. Except regarding Brent, Mom didn’t really care to hear the gossip—especially the part that involved her milkshake. She was sensitive about it. Luckily, Mom had been away on an audition yesterday and missed the initial wave of town talk.
"What was your audition for yesterday?" I asked Mom. It struck me odd that she hadn’t told me about it.
"Just another commercial where I came in to make sad face and then happy face," Mom said.
Mom considers her acting as making "sad face" or "happy face." She’s never had any formal training and only got involved in show business because of my father.
He was a teamster for Local 399, and a show he worked on needed extras. He encouraged Mom to audition. Wenling had just moved to Los Angeles and had auditioned to be an extra on the same show, and that’s how they became best friends. I don’t think I can legally say the name of the show, but let's just say that there was such a shortage of Korean background actors in the late 70s early 80s, that a Filipina and a Chinese woman made for a passable substitute.
Wenling left the show after two years to open the restaurant. Mom worked her way up to featured extra, because with the right amount of dirt makeup and her small frame she looked very forlorn and war torn. She even had a big scene with the series star, during the final season when she was pregnant with me. She tells people about it whenever she gets a chance.
"Was it a national?" I asked Mom. National commercials paid the most money.
"I think so," Mom said, but she didn't sound enthused. Typically Mom is excited about booking a national commercial. Something was definitely up with this particular audition.
"Did something go wrong?" I asked.
Mom shook her head.
Wenling’s eyes got wide, and she smiled. "You’re embarrassed. That means you got asked to audition for an adult diaper again, wasn't it?"
Mom was uncharacteristically quiet, which made
Wenling laugh. She put down her chopsticks and covered her mouth as she laughed. "They brought you in to make your sad face because you pooped your pants."
Mom continued to fold wontons as if her best friend wasn’t talking.
"I remember I got the flu," Wenling continued. "I had bad fever and bad stomach. I didn't even know what I was doing." Wenling dropped articles of speech and made slight English errors when she was excited. Mom did the same thing. "They made me get them. The box," she paused to shake her head and laugh. "The box is so big!"
Wenling's laugh proved contagious, and I laughed as well. Mom couldn’t help herself and smiled.
"What did they make you do?" Wenling asked. "Come on, come on."
"I pretend to sit on the bus," Mom said with a giggle, all her regular English going out the window as her laughter grew. "And I’m there. I look stress, because it all take so long."
Wenling laughed louder. "Very stressful!"
"And then they say, ‘Jo, pretend bus finally stop but it’s too late.’ And then I give very sad face as I get up and walk like I have poop in my pants."
Mom got up and demonstrated her poop walk. She kept her legs very close together. She sat down. "Then they say, ‘show another day happy and calm as I walk off the bus. Except you know there's no bus. So I just sit in the chair and pretend. They think I was good."
Wenling’s laughter died down, and she said sincerely, "Your walk was very good. Believable." I agreed.
Mom smiled at the compliment.
Mom's sad face can evoke any type of tragedy. War. Starvation. And apparently adult incontinence.
Jennifer came over to the closed side of the restaurant to talk to her mother. She spoke in Chinese, but her mother answered in English.
"It's one o'clock," Wenling said. "You'll miss the lunch rush."
Jennifer said something in Chinese. It struck me as unusual that Jennifer was speaking in Chinese to her Mom. Usually it was the other way around.
Mom caught it too. She watched as Wenling responded in Chinese and then nodded yes. Jennifer left.
Milkshakes and Murder Page 2