by Lillian Li
“One mistake?” The chef laughed. “You’ve been fucking up every plate you put your hands on. I was going to fire you in a few weeks anyways.”
“But Ronny said—”
The chef blew out his lips. “Ronny’s a liar. A user. And a cheat.” He wiped a drop of sweat from his temple. “But at least he’s a good cook.”
Jimmy’s face filled with heat. He was a good cook. A great fucking cook, who’d scarred and scorched his hands for the sake of Koi’s fresh-shucked oysters; its flambéed octopus legs; its chilled sea urchin, cracked open and served with spines intact. Worse, he’d been a good friend. The designated driver at night, the coffee bitch in the morning, the eager target of every kitchen prank. He gave away his blow for free, for fuck’s sake, thinking that a favor given was a favor owed, thinking that surely, after this, Ronny and the others would have to give him a proper place at the table. He’d truly believed that he’d found his people.
He rounded back and stuck his battered face right in Chef Alfred’s.
“I can cook!” he screamed. Their noses bumped. Jimmy’s balled-up tissue touched the other man’s upper lip, and the chef pushed him away. Jimmy shoved him back hard in the chest, hard enough to send Chef Alfred falling against the gleaming glass doors behind him. Jimmy’s mouth was too dry to swallow. He was breathing hard and then he was running.
“You piece of shit,” Chef Alfred yelled after him. “Get back here!” Jimmy ran faster. He tried to outpace the voice sprinting after him. Rounding the corner, he scraped his elbow against the brick wall. His shoe cracked against an empty cardboard box. But even after the shouting turned into unintelligible noise, Jimmy understood. The chef’s words burned into his back: “You’ll never work in a kitchen again.”
*
Jimmy wanted to bury his face into the pillow and smother the memory out of his head. Some stories not even Janine would get to hear.
“I liked it fine, but I got blackballed for dealing to the staff,” he said. The pressure in his chest released. “You embarrassed that you slept with a coke dealer?”
Janine registered his dodge.
“Not at all.” She recalibrated to match him. “This was lovely.”
“Let’s get lunch again,” he said. “Soon.”
When Janine dropped him off at the waterfront, she let him kiss her goodbye. Jimmy had to stop himself from clapping strangers on the shoulder on his way into the Glory, but when he saw Ah-Jack sitting at a booth near the entrance, he couldn’t help shaking the old waiter lightly by the arm.
“Hard at work!” he crowed. Ah-Jack stood up immediately.
“I take small break.” He started wiping down the booth. “One minute.”
“That’s fine,” Jimmy said. “We all need breaks. In fact, it’s your day off. You should go and enjoy the rest of it.”
Ah-Jack was out the booth and through the doors before Jimmy could think to take his favor back. The old waiter’s face looked grim when he walked past the front windows, as if he were annoyed that Jimmy had taken this long to release him. Jimmy went to inspect the kitchen. He made a note to treat Ah-Jack more harshly tomorrow.
He nearly ran into Pat when he rounded the waiter station.
“What’s your hurry?” He grabbed the kid above the elbow. He tried to apply pressure, but his fingers couldn’t close around the bulk of Pat’s arm.
“Sorry,” Pat said. He let his arm drop instead of pulling away, forcing Jimmy to hang on like a child. “I was looking for you.”
“Well, you found me.”
“I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity, but I can’t take the job.” Pat scratched at a zit on his chin. The skin around it looked inflamed.
“You have something better?” The one thing Jimmy hated more than giving out favors was having them thrown back in his face.
“No—”
“Then what’s wrong with this job? You think you’re too good to wait tables?”
“No, I just don’t think I’m the right person.” Pat stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“If I say you’re the right person, then you’re the right person.” How had someone like Nan produced a son this stubborn and stupid?
“I’m sure you can find someone else, someone more qualified.”
“Don’t tell me what I can do.” Jimmy stepped closer and lowered his voice. “I’m doing this as a favor to your mother. Haven’t you tortured her enough?”
Pat reared back. The kid looked like he might head-butt Jimmy in the face. Then he slumped into his shoulders.
“Okay,” he said. “Thank you, Mr. Han.”
“You don’t make it easy to help you,” Jimmy said. He slapped Pat on the back and walked away. For a brief moment, he thought he sniffed a thread of acrid smoke coming off Pat’s hair, but then he was past the kid and standing in his favorite part of the restaurant: the direct center. From there, he could turn around in a tight circle and take in every furnished inch of the establishment—from the lush brown sectionals that made up the ground seating; to the high-backed chairs in the raised upper section; the stained-glass lanterns suspended from the mahogany ceiling beams; down to the bold-patterned carpet, its own paisley galaxy.
His thumbs tucked into his belt loops, he surveyed the wide space of his new restaurant. Sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling glass front.
12
Johnny had enjoyed his time away. Hong Kong in the summer was remarkable, the humidity a revelation! His students had called him Superman, because he never seemed to sweat. Secretly, he’d sweat plenty—he just never complained. Johnny’s rule was that if he didn’t belong, then he would behave better than those who did. He’d planned to spend the last weeks, after his classes ended, traveling around. Maybe see his birthplace, Beijing, for the first time, though his mother had refused to put him in touch with any family there. He hated to admit it, but running the Duck House had become stale. The same customers, questions, jokes, dramas. The hiatus had refreshed him. A few more weeks and he’d have been ready to return.
The news of the fire was a brisk wake-up call. He’d known to some degree that he was the one who kept his brother in check. But now he was certain, and duty bound him back to Maryland. He’d made some harsh threats to his little brother over Skype, but they had been necessary ones. Jimmy couldn’t depend on his family to bail him out forever; he was far too old to be acting out this way.
Johnny fully intended to see his promise about the insurance money through, but he was struggling to come up with a plan. He called himself a co-owner, but this wasn’t technically the truth. His name wasn’t on the contracts. Legally, he was no different from any other Duck House employee. Their father had been a symbolic man. He hadn’t added Jimmy’s name until his brother had worked at the restaurant for ten years, the same amount of time it had taken to open the Duck House. Their father couldn’t be convinced, even after he was hospitalized, to make an exception for Johnny. But Johnny was no less the rightful owner than Jimmy. For God’s sake, all the Duck House paperwork was at his house: the insurance policies, the W-2s, even the contract. His little brother couldn’t be trusted to run a business on his own. He was impractical, impulsive, and held himself to nothing, not to his word and least of all to his responsibilities. Their father must have known this. Why else would he have let Johnny start out as manager and skip the years of waiting tables that Jimmy had had to go through? Even the employees and customers preferred Johnny, which was perhaps why he had decided to let Jimmy lord over the place for three more years. What had seemed like an easy way to keep the peace had backfired, wildly. Now he had no say in the insurance matters. Without a restaurant, he had no say in anything.
Once Johnny cleared the security line, he called his mother to let her know he’d be back a few weeks early. Jimmy would have accused him of trying to show off the sacrifice he was making, which showed how little his brother understood about their family. When had their mother ever noticed a sacrifice that wasn’t her own? J
ohnny had been paying her bills and looking after her finances for over a year, and had he ever gotten a word of thanks? He was happy to help, but on principle, favors should be appreciated. Then again, his mother hadn’t been in the best condition since his father’s death—the shock of the fire would be another hit to her health. He needed to be gentle.
But his mother made such a task impossible. “Jimmy has ruined your father’s life,” she announced when she picked up his call.
“Dad’s dead,” Johnny said. “I don’t understand.”
“He’s selling my house! Right from under my nose.”
“Ma, calm down.” He stopped perusing the duty-free cologne. His brother certainly moved fast. “What did Jimmy actually do?”
“That’s it! His real estate agent called me. She sounded so fake. There’s nothing worse than a country girl pretending to be educated.”
“When is Jimmy selling the house?”
“I don’t know.” His mother made a sharp noise, as if reprimanding him for asking a question she couldn’t answer. “But he’s bought an outrageous new restaurant in D.C. He didn’t tell me or anyone. He was probably going to tell us opening night! Fire us all too!”
Many Chinese women spoke with voices so melodious and bright that the language sounded like a gentle, teasing song; his mother was not one of those women. She emphasized every word as others might slap a table. When she was allowed to talk without interruption, the effect was like waiting out a rainstorm under a tin roof.
“He’s not abandoning Dad’s restaurant,” Johnny said. His mother’s haranguing made him want to defend Jimmy. “He’s moving it to a new location.”
“Don’t you know your brother by now?”
“Ma, you’re making yourself crazy.”
“He’s probably not even going to serve Chinese food.” Her volume was unbearable. “Why are you in Hong Kong? You don’t speak Cantonese. You’re supposed to be at home watching over your stupid little brother.”
“That’s why I called. I’m coming home. My flight leaves in half an hour.”
“You come straight to my house,” she said, registering no surprise or relief. “That’s if your brother hasn’t sold it already!”
*
Eighteen hours later, Johnny was rolling his baggage out of Dulles Airport. His daughter, Annie, was waiting by the exit to drive him home. He didn’t know if he should give her a hug, but before he had to make the choice, she was walking in front of him.
“Thank you for picking me up.”
“Hey, Dad.” She didn’t turn her head as the automatic doors opened. “I’m kind of in a hurry.”
“You’re very busy.” He struggled to keep his breathing steady while he jogged to catch up. “I understand. How was the rest of freshman year? How’s work?”
“Fine,” she said. She’d left her little car idling outside the terminal. A security officer circled the car ominously. Before Johnny could intervene, Annie stepped in.
“Sorry,” she said. “My dad just ran off and I had to chase after him. It’s his first time in America.” A harried look hung over her face. “I think all the buses scared him.”
The officer looked over at him. Johnny straightened up and raised his chin. He was offended when the man appeared convinced by his daughter’s ridiculous story.
“You need any help getting him in the car?” the officer asked.
“No.” Annie reached over to touch the man’s arm. “But thank you.”
“Where’d you learn that dirty trick?” Johnny grumbled, opening his car door.
“Uncle Jimmy,” Annie said, smiling for the first time.
In the car, Johnny wished he’d taken a taxi home. He’d felt a rush of love when he’d first seen his daughter, who was as lovely as a nineteen-year-old girl should be. But how had he forgotten the tension between them? He’d hoped that his absence might make her a little sweeter, but she was even moodier than when he’d left five months ago. Couldn’t she see how tired he was? Didn’t she care about the terrible news?
Annie sped past a slow-moving car, jolting Johnny sideways when she swerved back into the lane.
“Jesus, will you slow down?”
“He wasn’t driving the speed limit.” She spoke sluggishly, mocking his own speech patterns, but Johnny would not rise to the bait. His early years in China had made his mouth inflexible to certain sounds, and he had to slow his words to be understood; Annie said this made him sound more like a stage actor than a real person. Better that than how Jimmy sounded, with his machine gun for a mouth.
“I bought you this car,” Johnny said while Annie continued to jump lanes. “When you pay for your own car, then you can wreck it.”
“Okay, fine.” She checked her eye makeup quickly in the rearview mirror. “I’m dropping you off at Grandma’s. She wants you to drive her car to Uncle Jimmy’s.”
Annie’s attention to her eyes made Johnny curious. Her lids were puffier than normal. The black lines she drew close to her lashes didn’t quite disguise the fat wrinkles that formed when she widened her eyes. The end of her nose was red. Johnny’s chest panged, not in an unpleasant way. He wasn’t the reason she was acting so touchy after all.
“Everything okay?” He reached out and touched her hand.
“Dad!” She jerked the steering wheel in surprise. “Everything is fine. Stop being weird.”
“Are you having trouble at the restaurant? Or with friends?” Johnny tried to check how eager he sounded. “Or is it boy troubles? Don’t be embarrassed.”
Annie drove past one exit, then another. The silence between them was doughy with possibility, but slowly, surely, it stiffened. The drop in his stomach was familiar. He should’ve been used to the ways his daughter liked to punish him by now.
“I was seeing a dishwasher, from the restaurant,” she said suddenly.
Johnny stared at his daughter, as if expecting fingerprints to appear on her skin. She kept adjusting her steering wheel, making the car wobble left and right. He had to close his eyes. “An amigo?” he asked.
“No, you don’t know him. He’s new. We had kind of an embarrassing incident in the storage closet. I wanted to tell you before you heard the gossip.”
Johnny swallowed and realized his mouth had gone dry. Annie had finally found a response more punishing than silence. If she’d wanted to shut him up, she’d gotten her wish. He leaned his head against the window, the glass cool and painfully hard against his temple.
*
With Annie, Johnny didn’t think of where he had gone wrong but rather of where he had lost her. His mother used to nag him about having more children, but during the years when their family had room for another child, he shrank from the idea of splitting his attention. Annie, from birth, had been so greedy for his time, weeping when he had to leave her and throwing herself into his arms when he came back. She devoured him, and in her constant consumption he felt bottomless. He had always thought she would be the one to grow tired of his affections. He was terrified of that day. Children grew up and lost interest and life went on. This was what his mother had warned him, while he dangled Annie over his lap, her chubby legs bowed out as she tried to find footing on his thighs. Have more children, his mother had continued. Slow down time. He only hugged Annie tighter.
“You’re the one for me,” he sang to her.
But when Annie was maybe twelve, he got distracted. Johnny had no other way of describing what happened in those years, after he left his research lab and joined the Duck House. His father, stomach cancer still undiagnosed, had needed an extra hand. Johnny had had no intention of doing more than his duty. He’d always disliked the family restaurant, which was like a monument to his father’s greed. He used to wish, as a kid, that his father were a lawyer, or a doctor, or even a postal worker, just someone whose job had a larger purpose than filling a bank account.
Even the food they served suited his father’s pockets. Everything a person might find at a takeout joint they could find at the
Duck House, under a fancier name, at three times the price, and served on a nicer platter. Black pepper beef became Beijing Steak. Fried shrimp transformed into Phoenix Prawns, named for their extra-golden color, like the outside of a corn dog. Seafood pan-fried noodles kept their name, but got “Gourmet” tacked in front and came hand-tossed tableside by a waiter. Was it tasty? Sure. But was it authentic? Was it anything to be proud of? Only the Peking duck fit the bill. His father, not for want of trying, had never figured out how to prepare the duck faster than the traditional way, with the fowls shipped down from Long Island, their skin air-dried then brushed with sugar, and finished off with slow heat in a rotisserie oven. Everything else on the menu was a scam.
Johnny had only meant to stay a year. Then Jimmy had gone to rehab. His father’s health had started to suffer. Duty transformed into something else, something close to pride. No one was more surprised than Johnny. He found that he liked greeting old VIPs and introducing himself to new ones; he felt in control in the dining room, as he never had in his lab. The food didn’t grow on him, but he couldn’t deny the pleasure with which people attacked their fried rice. After a year of working with his father, Johnny began to piece together the original vision for the Duck House. The early press; the old pictures of the restaurant’s cooks dressed in toques and fake medals; the stories of presidents renting out the private party room. All pointed to the same dream—his father had wanted prestige. Johnny only had to update his father’s vision slightly to fit his own.
When his father was finally hospitalized, Johnny took a hard look at the Duck House. By then there hadn’t been a new visit from a celebrity or politician since the restaurant’s first decade. Who would come back once the bribe had been paid and the meals were no longer free? His father had no foresight. You couldn’t expect people to think highly of you when you sat them practically cheek to cheek. When the food you overcharged for didn’t, at least, tell a story. More customers pulled Johnny aside to complain about the greasiness of the lo mein than to ask about what the president once ordered. They quizzed him about MSG and asked if there was a senior discount. Slowly, people stopped ordering the Peking duck; the ones who did complained without humor about the price.