Number One Chinese Restaurant

by Lillian Li

  Johnny sipped his tea, then settled into the cushions and crossed his legs. “I meant what I said on our last call,” he said. “You’re not getting the insurance money. But the situation has changed. You saw Ma’s place. Strangers probably wouldn’t notice a difference, but we do.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “She’s not what she used to be. I think it’s time we admit that. You’re not selling the house for the right reasons, but I think the house should be sold. Ma will need some of the money to offset the cost of a retirement community, but her finances are solid. I think we can work this out.”

  “What happened to ‘You are no longer my family,’” Jimmy taunted. “What happened to ‘Over my dead body’?”

  “I don’t think I said the second thing,” Johnny said. “But I had an eighteen-hour flight to collect my thoughts. I can’t watch you bury yourself. And the more we fight about this, the less chance we have of rebuilding the Duck House.”

  Jimmy leaned into the sofa. For all his talk about family and duties, what Johnny really wanted was his kingdom back. He was nothing without his little pedestal.

  “The Duck House is dead.” Jimmy glanced over at the kitchen. Janine should’ve come back by now. She must’ve overheard their conversation and stayed busy. Sure enough, the sound of the faucet running came from the next room. “It’s been cremated.”

  “I’ll resurrect it.” Johnny took a breath. He had a speech prepared. “It was never right for Dad to leave my name off the contract,” he began. “I might not have worked there as long as you, but I helped make the Duck House what it … was.”

  Jimmy made the hurry-up gesture with his hand.

  “Do we still own the land?” Johnny said.

  “We haven’t looked for interested buyers yet.”

  Johnny clasped his hands together in his lap. “Now you have one. Give me the Duck House. Put the contracts under my name. When the insurance works itself out, I’ll take over. If the insurance company doesn’t give us the payout, I can find investors. It’s what Dad would have wanted. Ma will be happy.”

  “Mom is never happy,” Jimmy said, but he scratched his neck in thought. “So what do I get?”

  “I’ll help you sell the house,” Johnny said. “After she broke her leg last winter, Ma gave me power of attorney. She didn’t feel capable anymore. I pay all her bills.”

  Johnny answered the look on Jimmy’s face. “She wanted it to be a secret. You know how she is with information. She still hasn’t told her relatives in China that Dad is dead. We don’t even know who our relatives in China are.”

  “Looking out for dead Dad and strung-out Mom.” Jimmy knew sarcasm didn’t reach his brother, but he persisted. “Even when you’re helping, you’re insufferable.”

  Janine came out and put a damp hand on Jimmy’s shoulder.

  “Looks like you two have come to some agreement,” she said, as though she hadn’t been eavesdropping. Jimmy knew he hadn’t left a single dirty dish in that sink.

  “I think we have.” Johnny reached out his hand. Jimmy slowly extended his as well. Their hands were the last identical parts of their bodies. Thick but agile fingers, meaty palms that could withstand hot plates and strong handshakes, and hairless wrists. They were hands that could bow at customers and shame employees. Now each hand grasped its mirror image.

  “Admit you’re doing this for the money,” Jimmy said.

  “Admit you’re doing this for our family.” Johnny squeezed hard to stop Jimmy from wriggling out of the handshake.

  Janine looked on approvingly. “I wish I had siblings,” she said, when Johnny finally released Jimmy’s hand.

  “It was nice meeting you, Janine,” Johnny said, getting up with a stretch. “Good seeing you too, Jimmy.”

  “If Mom sells, I’ll change the contracts,” Jimmy said.

  “The house will be snapped up as soon as it hits the market,” Janine said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

  At these words, Johnny looked over and held Janine in his gaze for a second too long. Janine stood up a little straighter. A jolt ran through Jimmy’s gut, but then Johnny was at the door, slipping into his shoes.

  “Hopefully, Mom hasn’t driven off without you,” Jimmy said.

  Johnny lifted his hand and smiled. The door clicked shut behind him. Janine dropped down onto the couch immediately, letting out a great gush of air.

  “What a tense meeting,” she said. “You do not get along with your family.”

  “What’re you talking about?” Jimmy stood up and paced the room. “That was us getting along.” He sank back down next to Janine. “Ready to kick an old woman out of her mansion?”

  “So all your brother’s talk about family?” Janine dipped her chin into his shoulder, a knowing smile on her face.

  “Total bullshit.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’ve never felt closer to him.”

  “Do you want to feel closer to me?” she asked. She nibbled the collar of his shirt.

  He jumped on top of her. Their bodies bounced lightly on the couch, their skin sticking and smacking against the leather. The cushions were still warm from the weight of his family’s bodies.

  *

  Waiting in the car, which she’d had a hell of a time hoisting her stiff body into, Feng Fei allowed herself a minute to fume before she got straight back to work. She’d never been lazy, nor was she the kind of woman who would allow the creatures she’d created to bury her under their self-interest and neglect. Ever since her youngest had dropped his plans on her head, she’d been considering her options. Then her oldest had come flying back, further disrupting her strategies. Now she had two sons to manage, and as with most ill-mannered children, they only ceased their fighting to fight her. Johnny, for all his peacocking, was more like his father than he realized, and it wouldn’t surprise her if he’d already leveraged his control over her finances to get what he wanted. Jimmy, like a drowning rat, would gladly seize the option, regardless of how cruel the consequences, because he still, at his core, believed his big brother was a hero. How she regretted signing over her freedom to Johnny in that period of weakness. Grief and pain had made her want to throw out her own ambition; she was rooting through the garbage for it now. But she was not without one last ally to call.

  “Long time, Feng Fei,” Pang said when he answered his phone.

  “Ah-Pang,” she said. Nostalgia came into her like new breath. How many times had she said those words to him? How many favors had they traded over the phone? This was why one kept old friends, even rotten ones. “You’re repeating your old tricks. It’s like you wanted me to hunt you down.”

  “Why replace an old trick if it keeps working?” His laugh crackled through the connection. He’d always had an old man’s laugh, yet now that he was finally an old man, all Feng Fei could think of was Ah-Pang in his twenties. Back then, self-conscious about his missing finger, he’d strapped on a steel prosthetic. He used to dip it into the hot broth they used for the wonton soup and trace it along the back of her neck, stinging her like a scorpion. He was the worst when he was bored. At his best, he fixed all her problems. As long as he got to tell her about the slick and violent routes he used. Powerful enough that he clung to secrecy like a security blanket, Ah-Pang spoke exclusively to her about his plots, shutting even Bobby out of the loop. Because of their private chats—or, rather, Ah-Pang’s whispered monologues while she worked—her husband was always suspicious of the two of them.

  “I don’t give a damn about that sneak,” Feng Fei used to have to say. “He clings to me like a duckling, and the only thing worse is you boohooing like the last unmarried girl in town.”

  Truthfully, a part of her had enjoyed Ah-Pang’s confidence, had felt, in his recognition, a sensibility inside her that set her apart. He gravitated toward her because, like him, her meanness came not from greed but from the constant fear that life had never and would never respect her. She had to demand respect from life, or it would try to pass her by.

  “You and
my husband,” she said. “You don’t know when to retire.”

  “You’re sounding mighty friendly, considering what you’re accusing me of,” he said.

  “I only hold grudges when they benefit me,” she said. “Unlike some people.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re calling,” he said. “Unless you’re asking me to do something unsafe to my livelihood.”

  “Who do you take me for?” she snapped. “My sons are idiots. You know this. Forgive Jimmy like I’ve forgiven you.” She turned the car on and cranked up the air-conditioning. For the first time in a while, she was too hot.

  “None of them take after you, little Feng,” he cooed. “None of them got your business sense.” His tongue clucked against his teeth while he considered her offer.

  “Perhaps I was a little rash,” he continued. His voice disappeared from her phone and rematerialized over the Bluetooth speakers. “You know my temper is hard to manage.”

  “I also know that you never have fewer than three Plan Bs.”

  They’d switched to talking in code, speaking about events that had remained unspoken for so many years they’d lost the language. The most immense moments of their lives—coming to America, Bobby’s first restaurant, Jimmy’s possession charges—had been diced up and scrambled into the same shorthand.

  “I need your help,” she said. “They’re planning on selling the house out from under me. And they’ve got some flimsy little real estate agent helping them. I assume she’s your girl, so call her off.”

  “I never told her to sell your house.” Ah-Pang’s voice turned throaty with indignation.

  “You always had a hard time controlling your women,” Feng Fei said. “Even without her, they’ll sell the house. You know what a good location that place is. Jimmy needs his money.”

  “I can fix the insurance,” Pang said. The speakers crackled from his breathing. “But you’ll have to let me deal with Jimmy as I please. I know he’s your darling baby—”

  “He needs to grow up sometime,” she interrupted. “His father did.” She thought, with some relish, of the decrepit takeout joint Bobby had owned before the Duck House, how he’d presented it to her, newly in America, as if it were the greatest gift the country could ever bestow. How easily the greasy walls had burned.

  “Everyone should have a mother like you,” Ah-Pang said.

  “And an ‘uncle’ like you.”

  14

  Ah-Jack’s wife officially introduced him to her new lover at the second-best hotpot restaurant in Maryland. After Jimmy had let him leave early, Ah-Jack had spent the rest of his day off waiting for Michelle to come home. He’d called her so many times that the phone started sending him automatically to voicemail. Ironic, then, that this was how she finally chose to contact him. He woke up Wednesday morning to a long message from Michelle. He couldn’t bear to listen to it until he was in the car, on his way to pick up Nan—then, he could not bear not to. At the end of the voicemail, she’d asked him to come to Li Wah’s, where she and the other man would be until close. He should’ve just driven into a tree. At least Michelle cared enough not to book the meeting at his favorite hotpot joint. Li Wah’s was stingy with their fish balls, and their vegetables were unclean. He was happy to give the place up.

  By the time Ah-Jack showed up at the restaurant, Li Wah’s was mostly empty. Jimmy had kept refusing to let him take his lunch break, even though the new staff had finished all his remaining tasks. Now it was almost two. Waiters were eating their family meal at a round table in the corner. Michelle was easy to spot in her headscarf. Beside her in the booth was her new lover. The other man was younger, his face generously creased around the eyes and mouth but nowhere else. He was dressed casually, but his hair looked freshly combed. Ah-Jack could smell the man’s recently applied cologne. Michelle also looked younger—or, rather, newer. But when she stood to greet him, the healthy glow on her face revealed the marks of makeup. She rubbed nervously at the line of her bottom lip, painted an unnaturally rosy color. Her cheeks were a similar shade, and the soft down above her upper lip glimmered with translucent powder. The one thing unenhanced by makeup was the eager, hopeful look that came into Michelle’s eyes whenever she glanced at the man next to her. Ah-Jack wanted to bring a wet washcloth to her face and scrub everything, down to that terrible look, away.

  “Order whatever you like,” the other man, who called himself Gary, said. “This one’s on me.”

  Gary was acting as though the late lunch were a normal event. He tried to make small talk that, given the circumstances, came off as perverse, even malicious. After they’d ordered, Ah-Jack pretended to keep reading the menu. He was secretly studying Gary, trying to find what was so appealing about him. Gary was a fat-cheeked man whose clothes looked too new, as if he’d swiped his outfit off a store mannequin. His speech was to the point, lacking any finesse or tact; based on the coarseness of his manner, he was most likely from some mountain village up North, where the men were known for eating too much meat and beating their wives. The other man clearly lacked any real intelligence and was so petrified of silence that he didn’t allow any gaps between his sentences. He prattled on as if practicing a play to a mirror. Ah-Jack would have hated Gary even if he hadn’t stolen his wife.

  Michelle stared at the soy sauce bottles near her left hand, unable to meet his eyes across the table. She had the look of a defenseless animal who, rather than curling into a tight ball, laid itself out flat, ready for the blow. But watching her over the roiling hotpot, Ah-Jack couldn’t muster the strength to hurt her back—only a wounded tenderness, and a desire to trace the sunken sockets around her dark eyes.

  “You look well,” Ah-Jack said. He’d interrupted Gary mid-sentence. “How’re you feeling?”

  “I feel fine,” Michelle said. “Thank you for asking.”

  “Don’t thank me!” Ah-Jack was aghast. “I haven’t done a thing that requires thanking.”

  Michelle looked down at the table, then at Gary.

  “If you need to yell at anyone, yell at me,” Gary said. He moved his body in front of Michelle’s and put his hands firmly on the table. Ah-Jack was once again reminded of Gary’s bigness. He’d mentioned in passing how he used to practice judo, and though the muscle had given way to fat, he’d retained an athlete’s ability to fill up the space around him. “I’m to blame for this mess. I’m the one who pursued Michelle.”

  Ah-Jack wanted to reach over and flick Gary in the eye. He knew, from the voicemail, all about how they’d met—in an overcrowded hospital lobby, while Michelle filled out paperwork and Gary waited for a doctor to set his dislocated shoulder. He knew about the friendly lunches that had turned into secret dinners. Worse, it was Gary who’d accompanied Michelle to her doctor’s visits; who ferried her to the pharmacy for her meds; who distracted her from her nausea. The other man’s worst crime and greatest power was that he’d simply been there. Where did that leave Ah-Jack?

  Their waitress moseyed over with a tray of raw beef, fish balls, glass noodles, cabbage, and radish. Ah-Jack shooed her away before she could dump all the items into the hotpot, and, standing up, he started dropping the fish balls in from too high a distance. The boiling broth splattered onto Gary’s broad hands.

  “Shit!” Gary wiped his hands on his chest. Red patches bloomed on his skin.

  Ah-Jack didn’t stop there. From the same height, he used his chopsticks to push the bundle of noodles into the pot, then the hunks of cabbage. The thick rounds of radish cannonballed into the soup, sending up geyser spouts. The vinyl tablecloth grew wetter as the broth rolled, unabsorbed, across the surface. He finished with slices of beef, which barely unsettled the waters. By then he’d calmed down. The beef, turning rapidly brown, floated, shriveled, above the broth.

  “Are you finished?” Michelle demanded. She cleaned up the mess with her napkin.

  “You can have the townhouse.” Ah-Jack stayed standing.

  She started to refuse.

  “I don’t
need our home,” he continued. “Nan is going to let me stay with her.”

  He was throwing this information at her spitefully. But if Michelle had betrayed him, he should at least be allowed to intimate that he could do the same. Nan hadn’t actually offered him a place in her house. She didn’t know Michelle had left him. But when had Nan refused him before?

  “You’re staying with Nan?” Michelle said, as Gary asked, “Who’s Nan?”

  “She’s a good friend,” Ah-Jack said. “A great friend.”

  “She has no room for you,” Michelle said. “What’re you doing, burdening her and her family?”

  “What Nan and I do is none of your business anymore,” he said. “Where do you think I went after I found you gone?” He stopped himself short of revealing which bed he’d filled. Why hurt Michelle with false allusions?

  He sat down and ladled whatever looked cooked into his bowl. He mixed in too much shacha sauce and wolfed it all down, the biting saltiness of the sauce and the heat of the food making his nose run. Soup ran down his chin. He snuffled and chewed and swallowed until his bowl was empty.

  “Eat, eat!” he said. “There’s enough for all three of us.” Michelle and Gary sat motionless, watching him.

  “You must be hungry, waiting so many hours for me to show up.” He nearly gagged on the mass of food in his mouth. “How rude of me!”

  He was fully exposed before his wife and her lover. They shouldn’t be allowed to watch him eat. No one who ate with any pleasure looked human, and for them to stare at his churning jaws while they fiddled with their chopsticks was to feel completely animal.

  “Stop it.” Michelle sounded frantic. She’d switched off the hotpot. The bubbles that had moments before threatened to brim over settled down. “You’re going to choke yourself to death.”

  “This was a bad idea,” Gary said. The simpleton.

  Ah-Jack continued to eat. He let his cheeks bulge obscenely. He opened his eyes as wide as they could go, showing his whites like a demon. If they wanted to stare at him, he would leer back. He would show them their own reflection with his face, show them what he pictured, the sickening lewdness of his images, where they touched and grabbed and stroked each other. He could feel their thighs overlapping in the booth, the press of their flesh. What had Michelle’s leg felt like under his thumb? He could only vaguely bring up the skin, soft and cool, the sparse hairs, the raised spots. She was the one who always did the touching. He bit the inside of his cheek by accident.