Lindsey listened as he flapped his arms, brainstorming out loud. He turned to her and said, “Could you research the yummiest ethnic restaurants? And make sure they can really deliver.” He clapped his hands together, proud of the double meaning.
“I want the works. Vegetarian Pad Thai. Egg rolls, spring rolls, and sushi handrolls. Let’s really put out a spread!”
She distributed a few phone calls before she could reply.
“Maybe PR has their own connections with caterers?” she suggested, not wanting to step on Yvonne’s toes. (By the way, Vegan Warrior paid Yvonne triple Lindsey’s salary to plan no more than five parties per year.)
“No, no! I want you to handle it,” Howard insisted. “You are so much more…” He fumbled for the right words to express his assumption that she knew the tastiest locales for exotic foods.
“You’ve got your finger on the pulse of the Asian restaurant scene!” He held up his hand to high-five her.
She wrinkled her nose. She thought Thai and Japanese food never traveled well, and she anticipated problems keeping a hundred greasy egg rolls hot. Plus, she dreaded fielding questions from the staff about what foods were organic, or wheat-free, like she was some kind of nutrition expert.
She reluctantly agreed to help organize the menu.
The following morning, Yvonne bombarded Lindsey with questions. She paced the lobby and tried to interrupt Lindsey, whose other ear was glued to an irate subscriber who had called to complain about the magazine’s recent direct mail campaign.
“How come you’re in charge? You’re only an admin!” Yvonne hissed.
In Lindsey’s opposite ear, the caller fumed, “How dare you send advertisements saying your articles are ‘meaty’ and ‘ballsy’! I don’t pay good money to Vegan Warrior for meatball recipes!”
Yvonne continued, “Since when are you trying to move up to event planning? I have the Waiters on Wheels catalog memorized, y’know.”
“Beef up your stories on hummus!” the caller growled and then hung up.
Lindsey sighed and put down the receiver. She turned to Yvonne and said, “If you have a problem, please just go talk to Howard.”
“Men in power are threatened by groundbreaking feminists like me,” Yvonne replied. “But I guess shallow receptionists with lipstick and miniskirts don’t understand. Your mere existence is a willful slap in the face to true activists like me who paved the way for workplace pantsuits.”
Yvonne stormed away, leaving only a lingering aroma of rosewater and baby powder. During her lunch hour, Lindsey ate a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich at her desk while she researched numerous restaurants for everything Howard had requested: dim sum, sag paneer, naan, lemon-grass and green papaya salad, vegetable tempura, edamame, and udon noodles, for starters. She could tell this was going to be a bad workweek.
When the day of the luncheon arrived, all the visitors and staff had a grand time enjoying the variety of foods, while Yvonne eyeballed Lindsey from across the room and snapped her fingers to signal that the Sterno candles needed to be relit, or the napkins under the imperial rolls had become saturated with grease and required immediate blotting. As Lindsey swept up tempura crumbs, she looked up just as Yvonne tossed a piece of cucumber maki down the gullet of her wobbly turkey neck and laughed with an open mouth full of chewed food as people congratulated her on the delicious, well-organized meal.
“Don’t forget to reheat the chow mein,” Yvonne barked at Lindsey, beckoning to her with a soiled Chinet plate.
After the guests retreated to a back conference room for Howard’s fund-raising presentation, Yvonne ducked out to buy some Nag Champa incense. Lindsey was left to do all the cleanup by herself.
“Need some help?” Michael asked, poking his head into the kitchen.
Having not yet reconciled her worries about his Hoarder-esque wardrobe, she regarded his presence with a blend of giddiness and dread. She knew she would eventually need to deliver an apology, but for now she just smiled and nodded, and together they finished wiping the folding tables. They cleared serving trays and wrapped up the uneaten leftovers. While she loaded the dishwasher, Michael took the trash down to the back landing. She waited for him to return and tried to think of a way to tell him she was sorry for her previous behavior.
She finished cleaning the kitchen and moved on to straighten up the mailroom. She pinched away a mangled heap of staples strewn messily about the counter and unjammed the heavy-duty Acco stapler that a coworker had abandoned for dead. Filling the copier trays with recycled paper, she made a mental note to order more #10 letterhead envelopes. She retrieved a Ziploc of rotting organic baby carrots from behind a bookcase and tossed the shriveled, toelike nubs into a nearby trash can.
Fishing the latest Office Depot catalog from her mailbox, she found a plain white envelope scrawled in ballpoint. Above the office’s street and suite numbers, the letter was not addressed to her by name, but simply to The Slant.
Lindsey had found it under her own nameplate, so the envelope was obviously meant for her. Nonetheless, she was puzzled. It had been a long time since anyone had called her a slant, or any other racial epithet, for that matter. Could this slur even be applied to her, in this day and age? She was, after all, not an immigrant laborer, or even a factory worker. She wasn’t a job-stealing slant, but, rather, she was a flip-hairdo’d go-getter in Victoria’s Secret undergarments who performed light clerical tasks born of white-collar, eco-friendly whims.
She leaned against the copy machine with a befuddled expression, her powdery lavender eyeshadow crinkling like crushed velvet. (Pau Pau had protested against this hue, saying, “Ai-ya, bad luck to wear color of zombies!”)
Just then, from around the corner, Michael spotted her and approached. He brushed against her wrist as he leaned closer, reading over her shoulder. “What have you got there?”
“Isn’t this outrageous?” she asked, feeling the warmth of his presence and anticipating the support of someone equally galled. Glancing again at the offensive word, she ripped open the letter, feeling a tingling mixture of anger and embarrassment.
Michael grasped the envelope and pulled it from her fingers. He replied, “What’s outrageous? That you’re reading my mail?”
She took a step back and looked him in the eye. “What are you talking about?” she asked.
“It’s the magazine’s new humor column. The name was my idea. I even won a gift certificate to Herbivore for coming up with the best title.”
He smiled at her with vague pride, but she was appalled. “You have got to be joking,” she said. He looked at her blankly, so she added, “You do know this is a racial slur, right?”
“What?” He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts and then collected himself. “Oh…,” he said, as the fact slowly dawned on him. “Hunh.”
She waited for his eyes to register the realization of his wretched transgression. But several seconds elapsed, and he didn’t seem half as disturbed as she felt he should be.
“Well?” she asked.
He bounced his head up and down and looked up, trying to think of something to say. “Well, ‘Slant’ is supposed to mean something like, a different point of view, or, you know, a different take on things…”
Lindsey clenched her teeth. “I know what it’s supposed to mean,” she said.
“Okay, then,” he replied with a shrug. “It’s no big deal.”
“I think it is,” she said, exiting the mailroom with a crimson burn spreading from her ears across her face.
For the next few weeks, Lindsey avoided Michael with the same stealth and precision she had previously devised to attract his attention. If she spotted him by the elevator as she was leaving, she would busy herself long enough to take the next lift down, and if she saw him standing in a doorway down the hall as she walked, she quickly detoured onto an alternate route.
First she had grappled with the possibility that Michael might be a Hoarder in sheep’s clothing, and now his blasé attitud
e about racial slurs made her completely confused about who he was.
She was bothered by his lack of cultural knowledge and self-admitted distance from his partial Chinese identity. Although she was suspicious of Hoarders who delved too wholeheartedly into Asian customs, in contrast, she now took offense at Michael’s ignorance.
She stewed over his insensitivity, but eventually she began to wonder if she could really blame him. After all, she had spent most of her own life disassociating herself from her Asian-ness. As a child she’d felt self-conscious as she’d watched the devilish Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp, wondering if all slant-eyed creatures were supposedly evil. The Chinese feline in The Aristocats had frightened her as it had sung menacingly about egg foo young, and, later, Mickey Rooney’s buck-toothed Japanese caricature in Breakfast at Tiffany’s had made her young heart sink.
She had spent many hours, and then years, denying any relation to those stereotypes. When the world had routinely characterized Asians as unscrupulous, deceitful, and foolish, how could she criticize Michael for having the urge to downplay his Chinese background?
Despite having his grandmother’s genes coursing through his veins, Michael did not appear of mixed-race heritage. With his tallish frame, straight nose, and easy-to-grow five o’clock shadow, what alienating incidences had he sidestepped by having a physical body that lacked Chinese features? Never having been called a “chink” to his face, alone in a parking lot or surrounded by friends at McDonald’s, he had escaped discrimination and tears. Never having experienced subtle mistreatment or outright hostility due to race, how could Michael know the terrible loneliness, or feel the awful embarrassment, helplessness, and anger she felt when she heard a word like “slant” used so nonchalantly?
As for her, no matter how hard she tried, she could never escape being identifiably Asian; all her life she had had the same jet-black hair and eyes like skinny minnows, which remained unchanged whether she wore preppy Benetton cardigans, ruffled Betsey Johnson frocks, or thrift-store ensembles. When she was a youngster, she had been called names. She had not understood them then, but she’d known they were meant to be hurtful and had everything to do with her being Chinese. She remembered neighborhood teenagers pelting the house with mushy blackberries, and she recalled the glares from a boutique saleslady when she’d shopped for her junior prom dress. She had tried to ignore these humiliations, but each incident had stayed with her.
And what good Chinese things had Michael skipped? She supposed that he had never received a knowing glance from a Toisanese stranger passing on the street, or felt the sense of safety and belonging that she did in Chinatown. Perhaps he seldom heard the intonations of a familiar yet undecipherable language whose power flowed through the ears and had the ability to comfort the bones. He had not spent years tasting the flavors of ancient recipes that soaked from the taste buds into the heart; he had missed out on the fortifying crunch of every bamboo shoot, the soothing reassurance in each swallow of faintly tinted broth, and the surge of love in every pungent bite of ginger.
She knew that she gained a certain strength in not being able to hide who she was. And now that she reflected on her upbringing filled with Empress of China dinners, New Year’s parades, and calligraphy lessons, she realized that each experience had formed an impression on her identity, augmenting her development layer by layer, like an intricate design carved over a thousand hours in soft cinnabar. Every experience, even the unpleasant ones, had helped to slowly build her character, creating a one-of-a-kind Chinese-American named Lindsey Owyang.
Given all these variables, she wondered if she was justified in holding Michael responsible for his lack of understanding. With romantic optimism, she wanted him to instantly know the depths of her heart and mind. She was disappointed that he clearly did not share her scope of experiences, and was saddened that he did not automatically know her feelings. She did not know if she had the strength to relive small hurts in order to teach him or love him.
Did she know enough of him to risk the opening of her heart? After an initial flirtation and the discovery of a common record collection, did True Love begin with a shy courage?
Chinese Chick & Salad
Lindsey knew that Chinese New Year had come around when she began noticing pomelos and tangerines multiplying atop the television. From her perch on the sofa she attempted to adjust the volume with the remote control, but its invisible electronic beam was intercepted by all the good luck from the cornucopia of citrus delights.
She held a sack of dried, cranberry-like fruits in her lap and was separating the meat from the pits. She was helping Pau Pau make neen-goh.
“Keep peeling!” her grandmother yelled from the kitchen.
She used her fingertips to mince the leathery hoong jo fruit into teeny scraps. Pau Pau would later mix the bits in with sugar, sweet red beans, and glutinous rice powder. She’d boil the whole mixture and spread it in a metal pan, steaming the whole thing until she announced that it was ready to eat.
Lindsey liked all the different types of goh, like the savory ones made from turnips and dried shrimp that were served in dim sum restaurants, and the white, dessert goh sold in triangles at Chinese bakeries. But neen-goh was a special dish made only during Chinese New Year. Once cooked, it would resemble a sticky gray quiche held together by bumpy fruit and beans. Its taste was sweet and its texture gummy. She loved the flavors, and ever since she was small, she had helped Pau Pau make it. It always meant Chinese New Year to her.
That night they went to China Garden for a big family dinner. Her family always had two Chinese New Year banquets: one to close out the old year and one to welcome the next. This evening was to celebrate the ending of the old year, and before the meal was served, the married couples distributed lucky money in red envelopes, called lay-see, to children and unmarried young adults.
When she accepted the lay-see, Lindsey made sure to say “Dawh jeh, Goong Hay Faht Ghoy,” which meant, “Thank you, prosperity in the new year.” This phrase was practically the only complete sentence she could say in Chinese. Incidentally, she always hated how non-Chinese people pronounced it, as if it rhymed with “flung may splat boy,” but then again, she supposed that she had more incentive to say it right since, for her, it translated into free cash.
Kevin accepted a red envelope from Auntie Vivien and said, “Sun neen fai lok,” which meant “Happy New Year.”
“Show-off,” Lindsey muttered under her breath.
“Hey, Steph,” Brandon said, “it must be lousy that you don’t get lay-see anymore, and now you’ve got to give it every year, huh?”
“Yeah, but I have a cutoff point. I don’t give lucky envelopes to spinsters like Auntie Shirley. She’s too old.”
Kevin put in his two cents. “Damn, Stephanie. She babysat you and made Nehru jackets for your Barbies, and now you won’t even give her two dollars every February? That’s messed up.”
It was polite to put away lucky envelopes right away. Nonetheless, Cammie ripped open her lay-see and counted up her fortune at the dinner table. She appeared somewhat dejected, and when Lindsey asked her what was wrong, she replied, “Dang, I got a lot more last year.”
As they all snacked on dried cuttlefish, they heard a commotion at the entrance to the restaurant.
“Oh, there’s going to be lion dancing,” said one of her aunts.
Lindsey had misheard. “Line dancing, like in country and western bars?” she asked in disbelief.
“No, stupid,” her brother said, jabbing her with an elbow. “You know, li-on dancing.”
“Oh, right.”
During this traditional performance, Lindsey felt undeniably Chinese. When the drums and cymbals started to clang, ringing in her ears and stopping her heart for a split second, something in her blood started to well up. The music was a cacophony of cultural noise, rhythmic and forceful. The strength of its distinctive beat made her think back to every past Chinese New Year celebration she had ever attended. And because she
only experienced this music when surrounded by her extended clan of relatives, she enjoyed herself without worrying about having to explain this glorious, garish dance.
The members from the martial arts studio ranged from eight-year-old kids to middle-aged adults, and in unison they banged on drums and knocked out the rhythm on large gongs and small brass cymbals. The festive excitement they created with their bodies and instruments was so intense and powerful that immediately the air changed. People sat up straight in their chairs, craning their necks to catch a first glimpse of the performers. Babies looked startled, but then began to clap their plump hands. Young kids, temporarily disengaging from their Game Boys, squirmed with zeal, and even the sullen teenagers snapped out of their deeply practiced apathy for a few minutes.
Costumed characters with pink-and-blue masks pranced about, teasing the lions, which were a creation of wire, papier-mâché, fabric, and feathers. Each creature was brought to life by two athletic performers—one who maneuvered the lion’s head and shoulder area, while the other manipulated the midsection and rear.
They did not resemble real lions at all; rather, they appeared as pom-pom-festooned beasts that were part fu dog, part dragon or snake. The bodies consisted of alternating sections of gold and crimson satin, combined with pink, violet, and emerald quilted pieces in the shape of fish scales. The luxurious fabrics were all trimmed with white fur that zigzagged across the flowing, capelike midsections. Dressed in matching satin and fur pants, the performers twisted and kicked, creating wavelike motions as they brought life to the ferocious yet playful creatures.
The performers hoisted the lions’ heads above their own, swinging the elaborately decorated headpieces side to side, then higher and lower. They waved their tireless arms to fan out the sequined fabric, creating the illusion of the lions’ bodies where there was only air. The beasts’ flirtatious batting of glittery eyelids, the twitching of feather-lined ears, and the flapping open and shut of their colorful mouths captivated the audience.
The Dim Sum of All Things Page 20