by Lillian Li
“You sleep in my bed, and I’ll sleep here,” she blurted out, putting an end to the possibility. This time, Ah-Jack had to agree. He hadn’t expected to feel disappointed, but he could hardly insist they share a bed now. The short trek up the stairs was lonely and strange. He kept looking behind him, though he knew that Nan had not followed. His stomach flipped when he tiptoed past Pat’s door.
Her bed did smell like her, deeply of her, and she’d left a few strands of hair on the pillow and in the creases of her bedsheets. Her blanket had been thrown off to the side in her rush to get out, and he settled it back over the bed. Out of respect—For Nan? For Michelle?—he slept on the side that Nan did not favor.
He certainly hadn’t been so shy the last time they’d shared a bed. He’d jumped right in. Of course, it was more accurate to say they’d shared a mattress. After Ah-Ray had left for California, they’d gone to trade in her queen for a full—the first time they’d been alone together since Nan had gotten married. She’d agonized over the rows of mattresses for an hour, forgetting the feel of one as soon as she tried the next in line. How could someone so sure be so helpless? It was as sexy as it was maddening, like watching a woman in a crisp dress shirt suddenly lose all her buttons.
Finally, determined not to spend his entire day off at a Mattress Warehouse, Ah-Jack forced Nan to lie down on a mattress and close her eyes. She refused, until he flopped down on the bed and pretended to snore. Scolding him, she eventually gave in. They lay side by side, as they might have tonight, and rested their eyes.
“It’s perfect,” she whispered. Her voice was thick.
He knew, even with his eyes closed, where her hand would be. He reached down, found it clenched at her side, and placed his hand around her fist. Like a mollusk, it opened. Her fingers rose up to nestle, just barely, in the space between his, and they stayed like this, pretending to be asleep, until a salesman came by and asked how they were liking the full-size Comfort King.
What a shock it had been to open his eyes, awakening to a world that wasn’t quite the same. How strange he’d felt for the rest of the day, so strange that when Michelle asked him if he’d bedded any women in the warehouse, he hadn’t realized she was repeating a joke he’d made right before he’d left.
“Of course not!” he’d said before he caught his mistake. Thinking quickly, he’d turned his head into his shoulder like a wounded woman. “None would have me.”
Testing the springs with an elbow, Ah-Jack was glad he’d found Nan a comfortable bed. Even with his bruised back, he had no trouble drifting off. But though he found sleep easily, with Michelle back in his thoughts, peace was hard to come by. Bad dreams seeped into his head. His sheets grew sweaty and tangled around him. He kept waking during the night—a little frightened of the strange place he found himself—before falling asleep again, the wakefulness a chronic hiccup in his rest. When he finally woke up on his day off, on Nan’s side despite his trying, he could not say that he had slept well at all.
11
It was two in the morning when Jimmy drove up to the Duck House in his mother’s SUV. The building crackled, as if shifting its bones, but stood upright, enclosed. Jimmy was relieved—his mother always exaggerated. There were no flames. His fears might be unfounded after all.
“Thank you,” he said, approaching the man operating the fire truck’s pump.
“Nowhere near the end yet.” The fireman’s voice was hoarse from smoke. “Fire’s got itself in the roof structure.”
“What fire?” Jimmy saw only the fire truck’s flashing glare.
“See that black smoke?”
“Sure.”
“That’s the fire.” The fireman cleared his throat and spat over his shoulder. “Fire ain’t just flames.”
“That’s nonsense!” Jimmy wanted to step on the big hose to get the fireman’s full attention.
“Excuse me,” said a voice from behind. “You the owner?”
Jimmy turned. A short, unappealing woman stood with a notepad in hand. Her hair was pulled back, showing off a muscular neck. Her skin was as thick as a gargoyle’s. She was wearing the same coveralls as the firemen.
“Jimmy Han.” He stuck out his hand.
“I’m the fire investigator. Laura.” She spoke in short, direct bursts. “Follow me. We’ll go through some questions.”
“I’ve got a lot of questions—”
“Let’s start with mine first,” she said.
Jimmy followed Laura to her car. They walked through a crowd of amigos, who’d been woken up by the sirens and pulled out of bed. A few had their phones out.
“So, Jimmy.” Laura leaned her hip against her car. “When did you leave the premises tonight?”
“The usual time,” he said quickly, then clucked his tongue. “No, actually, I left an hour earlier tonight, to visit a … I left around ten.”
“You didn’t close the restaurant?”
“No, but I almost never do.”
“You know who did?” She paused in her note-taking to snap a few pictures.
“My manager. Nan Fang. Or if not her, then she’ll know who.”
“What time would that have been?”
Jimmy blew air out of his mouth. “Eleven, eleven-thirty. What started the fire?”
Laura glanced at the restaurant, a look of consideration passing over her craggy face. “Firefighters said the back lot’s dumpster was full of garbage. It was pushed right up against the wall.”
“A dumpster fire?” Jimmy studied the crowd of amigos. Despite himself, he felt hopeful. No way Uncle Pang could have moved this quickly.
“Not quite,” Laura said. “If anything…” She cut herself off, her mouth closing into a stern line. “Anyways. You’re the sole owner?”
“Technically,” he said. “My brother works with me, but he’s more involved with the front of the house. Johnny Han. He’s out of the country.”
“No matter,” Laura said. “I’ll need written permission from you. I need to reaccess the building after the fire’s put out.”
“Of course,” he said. “Has anyone been inside? How does it look?”
“The bottom level is covered in a light haze,” she said. “I went as far as the kitchen. Your safety nozzles failed to activate. Any reason why they stopped working?”
“We had them checked last week.” He wiped the corners of his mouth, his saliva gummy. Something was wriggling around his tired brain. “How soon until I can get back in there?”
“No one’s allowed in until the police take a look at the scene.”
Jimmy noticed the two police cars hidden between the fire trucks. An officer was eyeing the crowd, a loudspeaker in his hand.
“But that’s just the back lot. I have a business to run!”
“The entire restaurant is a crime scene.” Laura underlined a word in her notepad.
“Some kid vandalizes my dumpster and I have to shut everything down?”
Laura made another note. “We noticed some interesting flame activity around the area. Especially on the back wall. Blue flames, for one.” When Jimmy didn’t say anything, she added, “Smelled strongly of gasoline.”
“This wasn’t an accident,” Jimmy said. The seed in his brain burst open. Uncle Pang had made him get his sprinklers checked last week. His heartbeat was suddenly in his ears. How had the man done all of this in so little time? And for what? Pure spite?
“Somebody burned down my restaurant,” he said. “My family’s restaurant,” he stressed, when Laura did not move to comfort him.
“I don’t make any claims until all the evidence is in,” she said. Jimmy realized she didn’t trust him. He couldn’t remember what he’d already told her. Had he said anything incriminating? Was this part of Uncle Pang’s plan?
“By the time you get all the evidence in, everything will have been destroyed.” Jimmy yanked at his collar. The air tasted burnt in his mouth.
Laura shook her head. She made a soft noise, one that wasn’t sympathetic but pity
ing.
“There’s a lot left after a fire,” she said. “That’s what surprises people.”
*
Before it became a restaurant, the Duck House building had been a pharmacy, a real estate office, and at least a half dozen other businesses in between. In the process of these transformations, the structure had accumulated a number of roofs, each layered over the ones before, and within these unseen structures, the fire hid.
“This is going to take days,” was the firemen’s consensus, so when the backhoe rumbled into the parking lot, Jimmy didn’t at first understand. But when it began to approach the restaurant, he hurried over to the nearest firefighter.
“Somebody stop that thing.” He gestured at the hideous yellow machine. “It’s going to run into my restaurant.”
“That’s the idea,” the fireman said. His tired face offered nothing.
“We’re going to take out the walls,” another, younger fireman said. “The roof’s gonna collapse anyways. If one truss goes, they all go.” He adjusted the hose on his shoulder.
Jimmy could barely speak. “No, please no.”
“Once the roof goes, the fire’ll show itself,” the first man said. He lifted his helmet to scratch his head. “Then we smother the sucker.”
“Can’t we wait and see if the roof collapses on its own? You said it could happen any time.” Jimmy stopped short of tugging on the fireman’s sleeve.
“We’re not going to stand around all night,” the older one said. “We don’t have time to leave and come back to fight the same fire.”
Jimmy rubbed the hinges of his jaw, his fingers traveling up around his ears, desperate to plug them up.
“It’s really for the best,” the younger fireman said. “We’re not being over-aggressive.”
With a crash, the backhoe rammed into the front entrance. The screech of metal against brick against glass sent Jimmy stumbling back.
“You can wait this out in your car,” the older man shouted. “It’s all standard.”
“How close can I get?” Jimmy asked.
“Best you stay here, or farther.” The front wall crumpled and fell in. The roof tipped down, the noise deafening. Jimmy’s imagination paled in front of the real deal. How could they do this to his father’s restaurant? How could he have let them? Jimmy lurched toward the building. He wanted to rush in, grab whatever photographs he could, save the seating chart, or the carton of duck pins in the back, or even the fucking obituary.
Breathless, he loosened his tie. He was still wearing his work uniform. One glimpse at the dancing ducks on his tie, and he was overcome by emotions he couldn’t parse or wrangle. Releasing the catch on the duck pin he’d worn every day of his adult life, he ran toward the restaurant, ignoring the firemen’s shouts. Pulling his arm back, he threw the pin into the rubble. The black recesses of the Duck House swallowed the glinting metal up. Someone grabbed him from behind and hauled him away from the building. Wrenching around, Jimmy swung blindly at the person who’d put his hands on him. More hands appeared: Osman, William, Filipe, Jose, Saul. The amigos who’d once filled his kitchen surrounded him. Their bewildered faces dodged his fists, then disappeared as they ducked down. Together, they hugged the trunk of his body into a tackle that slowly brought him to the ground.
*
Back in his borrowed car, where the fire investigator firmly suggested he stay until their work was done, Jimmy called his older brother.
Twelve hours ahead, Johnny picked up, loudly sipping a cup of coffee.
After Jimmy shared all the information he’d gathered, Johnny took two slow breaths and then, just like that, regained his composure.
“I’ll be back out on the soonest flight,” Johnny said. “You need to call the insurance company right away. Both policies are at my house; just ask Christine. I’ll handle everything with the press. Any reporters contact you, have them email me, okay?”
“The fire’s already happened,” Jimmy snapped. “You don’t have to butter them up.”
“I can hint at a new Duck House. Make it less a tragedy and more a PR push for when we reopen.” Johnny’s voice didn’t break in tone or rhythm, but there was an extra layer of calm cemented over the new cracks in his patience. “Everything will be okay.”
After Jimmy hung up, he tried to get a little sleep, but his eyes refused to stay shut in his mother’s car. He remembered how Johnny’s old room had looked earlier that night. The framed certificates for honor roll and garlanded track medals still nailed above Johnny’s dresser. His old baseball glove on the nightstand. His bookshelf filled with impressive thick-volume books. Surrounded by his brother’s cultivation of generic excellence, Jimmy found that he had not outgrown his adolescent drive. He wanted to torture his brother without having to touch him, the way Johnny had once tortured him. For once, his brother would feel the chill of Jimmy’s shadow and wander, angry and blind, through the shade it cast.
Jimmy sent an email asking Johnny to be on Skype in twenty minutes. Lowering his car window, he called to the fire investigator that he was going home to freshen up.
*
The picture quality on his computer was sharp enough for Jimmy to make out the beads of sweat dotting his brother’s upper lip. Johnny had never looked more toadlike.
“What have you done?” Johnny said.
“Now you have an actual restaurant for the reporters I send your way,” Jimmy said. “I bought the place when you left town.”
“You don’t have the money.” Johnny’s jaw firmed back up. He’d grasped upon a weak point.
“The insurance will pay for everything.” Jimmy improvised with the energy his body hadn’t burned through. “But if that takes too long, I’ll sell Mom’s house. You’ve been bitching forever about Mom being too old to take care of it. I found the perfect agent.”
“You’ve figured everything out.” Johnny sucked desperately at a bottle of water.
“You’re used to making all the plans,” Jimmy said. His brother’s face looked pained as he drank. Water dribbled out of the corner of his mouth. “I understand if this is uncomfortable.”
“I don’t understand,” Johnny said. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have supported you.”
Jimmy minimized his brother’s video. How boring, how stable. He was like the inflatable cone-shaped clown that you punched, only to have it bounce right back up. Jimmy couldn’t be the only one overflowing with despair. Johnny deserved some too.
“I didn’t burn down the restaurant,” Jimmy said, bringing the video up again.
The froggy look washed back over his brother’s face.
“Stop it,” Johnny whispered.
“I hired a man instead. I’m not sure if he did it. I told him the deal was off, but who knows.” Jimmy leaned back in his chair, dizzy, almost exhilarated by his confession. For once, he was glad to have a brother whose opinion he cared nothing about.
Johnny collected his empty bottle and stood. He’d taken the Skype call in a crowded café. The sound of the metal chair against the tile made Jimmy want to reach through the screen and slap his brother. He never took Jimmy seriously, but now Jimmy had shown him.
Johnny stooped back down, his hands holding up his weight. His face was angled above the screen. Jimmy felt like he was actually looking up at his older brother.
“You are no longer my family,” Johnny said. His face did not quite know how to look angry, but the deep blackness of his eyes stopped Jimmy from laughing. “You’ve destroyed everything Dad worked for, and for what? Your own restaurant?” Johnny leaned his face even closer to the screen. “There’s no way in hell you’re getting a single cent of that insurance money. I’ll make sure of that.”
The thin fog of tolerance that had enabled Jimmy to work with his brother seven days a week for seven years lifted.
“I’d like to see you try,” Jimmy said, ending the video call.
*
By the time he’d returned his mother’s car and collected his from in front
of Janine’s house, he was too exhausted to call the insurance company. Jimmy got into bed, fully clothed, and lay there until his normal wake-up time. The dull, almost negligible ache in his belly and the solid beating of his heart felt oddly familiar. After his father’s funeral, he’d also gone to bed in an uncomfortable suit. Lying down, arms tight at his sides, he’d tried to imagine himself in that position for an eternity. How was tonight any different? Jimmy’s eyes watered. Something hot slid into the thick grooves of his ears.
At nine, he palmed his shrill alarm clock, sat up, and rubbed at the new wrinkles in his trousers. He changed into a fresh suit and tie and wet a comb to pull through his oily, smoke-tinged hair. His reflection looked sloppy but well rested. Would his lack of dark circles be suspicious? He could only hope that Uncle Pang’s rashness had kept the man from planting any more clues against him. How angry was he? Angry enough to take the Glory down too?
Jimmy started his long list of calls, twisting his piercing until the top of his ear ached. To the insurance company, he told the bare minimum. They recorded their calls, and in his current state he didn’t know what might slip out. He thought about calling Nan to break the news to the rest of the waiters but called May instead—she was the bigger gossip. When the waitress tried to ask him questions, he hung up. He called his mother, who didn’t pick up, no doubt already re-entombed in her basement bedroom. He called his brother’s wife, Christine, who was also the Duck House’s accountant; she volunteered to talk to the insurance reps. He called the IT guy who ran the restaurant’s website, to put a notice on the front page and to email everyone on their mailing list. He called the restaurant itself and changed the voicemail message. Finally, he had only Janine left to call but no energy to dial. He couldn’t handle any more questions, any more sympathy. He would see her at lunch.
He wasted no time getting into his car. The Beijing Glory’s soft opening would have to be pushed up, but the building didn’t even have a new sign. He hadn’t contacted the new servers, most of whom had probably lied about their work experience. The printed menus were arriving this morning; the silverware was still covered in factory dust; the seafood distributor was hounding him for cash on delivery. He couldn’t dwell on the past, not when the future was this precarious. He had a duty to the Glory. There was nothing he could do for the Duck House now. He wouldn’t give Uncle Pang the satisfaction of wasting the day to mourn a pile of rubble.