Number One Chinese Restaurant

by Lillian Li

  Before she could stop herself, she was out of the car and at the front door. She stared at the chipping doorknocker. It was too late to turn back now. Regardless of her intentions, she was doing the right thing. Her hand found the doorbell.

  To her muted surprise, a larger man than she’d imagined answered the door. He was like a granite statue softened and plump. His face was fleshy and oily and therefore youthful even though gray flecked his hair. He clasped her hand in both of his before taking the box of pastries.

  “Come in.” He threw the door open wide. “Michelle is in her bedroom.”

  “If it’s too late I can…”

  “No, no, we call it her ‘office’ now.” He smiled at his own joke, but his eyes were tired. “She’s always up there. Please, go right up the stairs. I’ll be up soon with tea.”

  His assumption that she knew the floor plan of the townhouse was endearing. He seemed like the kind of man who made many assumptions, always flattering if a little too forward. He and Ah-Jack were eerily similar in spirit. But unlike Ah-Jack, this man could focus his vigor and good humor. He no doubt owned his own business, something that had him outdoors but didn’t make him sweat. A landscaping company, possibly. And in his free time and conversation, he probably preached the value of hard work. Nan rounded the last flight of stairs. All these judgments from one encounter. As if by criticizing this man, she might undo the pain she was causing Ah-Jack. Had she ever hurt him before? Not in all their years.

  The door to the master bedroom was open a crack. A yellow light seeped out, the kind that hurt your eyes if you read under it. Nan knocked and Michelle called out a greeting. Nan pushed open the door. She nearly gasped.

  Michelle had lost a ghastly amount of weight. The last time Nan had seen her had been months ago, and she barely looked like the same person. Ah-Jack had mentioned that this time around, Michelle’s treatment had made her lose, not gain, weight. But the transformation was startling. Michelle’s body was barely visible beneath her comforter. Her head was propped up by a pile of pillows. Because her face was no longer joyfully plump, the full spheres of her eyes were visible; they looked reptilian as they blinked up at Nan. Only her smile was unchanged: wide, bright, and nervous.

  “Get over here,” she said, biting at her chapped lower lip.

  “How are you feeling?” Nan perched at the foot of the bed. She was forced to scoot closer when Michelle reached out to grab her hand.

  “Fine,” Michelle said. “And you? I hope Jack isn’t too much of a burden. I told him he shouldn’t be bothering you, but you know he doesn’t have a clue.”

  Nan was tempted to fall back into old patterns. She and Michelle didn’t have much in common, and teasing Ah-Jack was easy. But she couldn’t pretend she was Michelle’s friend after what she’d done.

  “Actually.” She squeezed Michelle’s dry hand. “Jack and I … We’ve grown closer. It wasn’t planned.” Her words tumbled out. “It just happened. I’m so sorry. Please know we didn’t want to hurt you.” She took a deep breath, unable to look up from Michelle’s hand. “I understand if you never want to see me again.”

  Michelle quietly leaned her head back. She blinked, and two tears fell down her cheeks, down the length of her neck, disappearing into her nightgown. Nan put her hands back in her lap and waited to be asked to leave. But when Michelle lowered her head again, her face was calm.

  “I’m not surprised,” she said, crying with a small smile. She looked like rain on a sunny day, miraculous and ordinary. “I know you and my husband have always been special to each other. I knew from the first time he said your name. That’s why I invited you to lunch all those years ago. Made you eat with a strange woman you’d just met.”

  “I’m sorry.” Nan was also starting to cry, but she bit her tongue. She didn’t have the right. Michelle leaned forward with a grunt and took her by the arm.

  “I know.” Her eyes were encouraging. “Of course I know. But he left me long before he met you.”

  Nan nodded before she could stop herself. She hated being disloyal to Ah-Jack. But he had never done enough to help his wife grow into this country. He was too comfortable being the absent sun to her tiny world.

  “I have no right to keep you two apart,” Michelle said. “Perhaps I should thank you. With you there to pick up the pieces, I was allowed to leave. To be with Gary.”

  “Gary.” Nan took the time to memorize his name. “He seems like a good man.”

  “A little young for me, and sometimes too childish,” Michelle said modestly. “He’s always carrying me up and down the stairs. I tell him I can walk! But he doesn’t listen. Men are never happy unless they’re carrying something too heavy for a woman to hold. He’s paying my hospital bills. I didn’t want that. But he feels a duty. They all do.” She smiled shyly to herself, as if wondering whether to tell Nan a secret.

  “You know, he taught me the most interesting thing.” She played with the tail of her headscarf. “I was always so afraid of going outside. I couldn’t stand being confused. Not knowing how to ask for help. He told me, ‘Just laugh. Everyone wants to help a woman with a beautiful laugh.’” She beamed up at Nan. “Now I can go shopping at the mall. I can order at restaurants. It’s so easy!”

  “You look happy,” Nan said, because this was the truth.

  “I was always happy,” Michelle said. “But now you can be too.”

  Nan hated to break the translucent shell of Michelle’s joy, but she couldn’t leave without addressing the biggest problem in the room.

  “I think you should speak with your husband,” she said. “He needs to know that you’re not feeling well.”

  Michelle lunged forward with surprising strength, her headscarf slipping back to reveal new inches of scalp. Her fingernails were thin and splintered.

  “Don’t tell him.” She struggled to roll onto her knees. “Promise me.”

  “Don’t get up,” Nan said. She settled Michelle back into her pillows and looked at the agitated woman. “Why don’t you want him to know?”

  “I have Gary to take care of me,” Michelle said. “Why does Jack need to know? Then everyone feels bad. Worse, everyone feels responsible. I want you both to be happy.”

  “If this is really what you want,” Nan said. “As long as you get better.”

  Michelle smoothed the covers over her lap.

  “Even if I don’t,” she said. “Even if I die. Swear to me that you’ll take care of him.”

  “Die?” Nan hated the feeling of the word hissing out of her teeth. “You’re not dying. Don’t exaggerate.”

  “Look at me.” Michelle stretched out her bony arms. “Jack and Gary, they both refuse to see what’s in front of them. They’ll break into pieces if they even try. I’m telling you because you’re strong enough to see. The doctors say that everything is okay, but I know what okay feels like.”

  Her fingers plucked at the pilling cotton. Then she looked up with an eager glint in her eye. Gary opened the door with his elbow, holding a tray.

  “You are such a bad host,” she teased. “Making our guest wait for so long.”

  Gary apologized good-naturedly and settled the tray onto the bed.

  “I didn’t know what kind of tea Nan wanted.” He gestured at the three small teapots cluttering the tray. “I have oolong, chrysanthemum, and jasmine.”

  “I just remembered.” Nan was already off the bed, which felt love-worn and intimate with Gary sitting there. She couldn’t be in the room another minute. She shouldn’t have visited. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth; her throat was so dry it hurt to speak. “I have to pick Pat up from a friend’s house. I’m so sorry to drop in unexpectedly and then leave this soon. I’m a terrible guest.” She looked at Michelle over Gary’s large head. “I’ll make it up to you.”

  “I know,” Michelle said. She yawned to excuse the tears leaking out from her eyes. “You always keep your promises.”

  “Are you sure you can’t stay for a cup of tea?” Gary sa
id, standing up to shake Nan’s hand. His pleasant face was broad, like a big dog’s. She wanted to tell him to take care of himself. To take care of Michelle. She gripped his hand in both of hers and told him that next time she would.

  Halfway down the stairs, she sat on a step and leaned her elbows into her knees. Her breathing sounded hoarse as it bounced off the tight walls encasing the staircase. The words Michelle had spoken so casually rebounded, with extra force. Michelle was dying. She was in great pain. She was in love.

  Nan let herself out. She got into her car, but she didn’t feel like she could drive. She couldn’t stop thinking about Michelle’s forgiveness, her grace, her skeletal frame. Bad behavior didn’t rattle Nan anymore. After working for the Hans, marrying Ray, raising Pat, she was too comfortable with people acting out. In tantrums, the true desire revealed itself. But when people acted graciously, as Michelle had done—when they acted through goodwill, or sacrifice, or charity—Nan felt out of her depth. What did these people want when they said they wanted nothing but her happiness? Nobody was without motive or desire. Yet the only thing Michelle asked was that Nan take care of her husband for her.

  Michelle was right. If Ah-Jack knew, he would be duty-bound to come back, even as Gary’s presence turned him into a shadow. But if Nan stayed quiet and he found out about her visit, about their alliance to keep him in the dark, he wouldn’t know how to heal himself. The easy happiness that made him such a treasured man would leave him. He would learn to mistrust his friends and suspect the intentions of strangers.

  Nan started the car, embarrassed by her thoughts. She might as well be talking about a child! Ah-Jack was a grown man, an old man. Old men didn’t get their hearts broken. She didn’t either.

  When she pulled away from the curb, she thought she could see the bedroom light go out on the third floor of the townhome. She hoped that Michelle might sleep through the night, without pain. That in the morning, Gary would be waiting, arms open, to carry her down the stairs.

  20

  Jimmy pounded on Janine’s door, ringing her doorbell with his other hand, until she appeared. At the sound of her lock turning, he shoved the door open, pushing her back. She had to grip the staircase to regain her balance.

  “What the hell, Jimmy?”

  “You know who I just had a reunion with?” He closed the distance between them.

  “Of course not,” she said.

  “I think you do.” Jimmy gripped her by the shoulders. He wanted to feel her body snap and buckle in his hands. “He gives you his best.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about Pang,” he said.

  “You saw him? Was he here?” She tried to go to the window, but Jimmy blocked her way.

  “You’d know better than me.”

  She sucked in her cheeks, her eyes drifting to his left earlobe.

  “I promise you,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You thought you could trick me,” Jimmy continued, as if she hadn’t spoken.

  “Of course not,” she said. “Please calm down. Tell me what he told you, and I’ll tell you the real story.”

  “Tell me why you invited me over the night of the fire.” Jimmy let her go and began to pace. The floor creaked beneath his feet. “Did he tell you what he was going to do? Did he give you money? A job?”

  “Nothing,” she said. She didn’t try to misunderstand this time. “He told me nothing. He gave me nothing. I’m the one who owes him. When Pang asks me for a favor, I do it, no questions asked.” Jimmy didn’t say anything, too preoccupied by the snakes burning tunnels through his gut.

  She sank down on the second step of her staircase, tugging him down by the hand to sit next to her.

  “I used to drink too much,” she said. “After my ex-husband left. The police pulled me over one night and I failed the Breathalyzer. I was going to lose my license, which basically meant I would lose my job. Pang stepped in. He knew the judge. But I promise you, I’m trying to get out. Selling your mother’s house is the first step to getting my own client list. Then I’ll never have to listen to that hateful man again.”

  “Who doesn’t he know?” Jimmy chipped a flake of paint off the banister. “He wants something from you, and he wants to destroy me.”

  “I’m your alibi! I’m the reason the police haven’t questioned you yet. I swear I didn’t know what Pang was planning. When I heard what he’d done, when I saw you at Antonio’s, I wanted to die. I feel fucking terrible. I’ll do anything to help you, I promise.” Janine pulled her legs up and rested her chin lightly on her knees.

  “Will you stay over?” She looked up at him. “I dropped Eddie off at the neighbor’s. We have the house to ourselves.” Across the hall, a row of candles glowed softly from the living room.

  Jimmy got back on his feet. The awkward, halting way she’d spilled her story was unrehearsed. She was desperate that he stay. But she was also desperate that they sell his mother’s house together. He thought of her son, how unappealing he found Eddie yet how deeply Janine loved the boy.

  “I don’t think I can.” He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and tried to bore a hole into his skull. “I don’t trust you. I can’t let you sell the house.”

  “Do you honestly think I’m talking about the house?” she said. “What kind of woman do you think I am?”

  Jimmy grew flustered, no longer certain he knew the answer.

  “I don’t know my own family, and I’ve lived and worked with them my entire life. I’ve known you for a year, and you’ve kept your distance the whole time.”

  “Because I’m scared,” she said. She started unstrapping her shoes, nearly ripping apart the thin leather. “I have no one else looking out for me or my son. I can’t just do whatever I want and not be afraid.”

  “I’m afraid.” He was angry that she’d forced him to admit this out loud. “You see how little you know me? We’re practically strangers. If I had really lived my life, I wouldn’t be here. And Pang wouldn’t have my fucking number.”

  “Stop blaming him for everything.” Janine’s voice hit a level of feeling Jimmy had never been able to access before. He stepped onto the welcome mat. He hadn’t even taken off his shoes.

  “Fine,” Jimmy said. “Maybe I shouldn’t be making my own choices, then. Maybe you tell me, should I stay with you or should I leave?”

  “Did you only want me before you found out all my problems?” she said.

  “Your problems are your problems until the solution is to make my life hell,” Jimmy said. “What if I become the one thing standing between you and what you want?”

  Janine stood on her flat feet, her arches collapsed against the ground. She looked unbalanced, and her fingertips touched the knobbed end of the stair railing.

  “You don’t have children,” she said. “If my success means that Eddie can go to a good school or live in a better neighborhood, then—”

  Jimmy interrupted her before she had to finish exposing the outward bounds of her ambition. His last generous act toward this woman he loved.

  “I don’t have children,” he said. “But I have a family. And you’re right. I thought I would give up everything just to have you. I would have bought a hundred more restaurants. I would have given you my mother’s house, even without the fire.” He felt cornered by his own confession, by his deep desire to forget everything and walk straight into her arms. He opened the door and backed out, stumbling over a small shoe. He would never let himself get this weak again. “If only you hadn’t slept with me. You meant more before I got you.”

  He watched her face crumple and the flood come as she lost control of her beautiful, liquid features. His own flood he locked inside his chest. He shut the door behind him, knowing it would never open for him again.

  He wasn’t, in the end, that generous. Generosity, after a certain point, was just another word for self-destruction. Jimmy had only himself to watch out for.

>   *

  The waiters closing up the Glory told Jimmy that Pat had grabbed a ride to a Mexican bar back in Maryland.

  “He’s getting pretty wasted.” Tom reached past Jimmy to show another waiter a series of texts from Pat. “Guess he made bank tonight.”

  “You always talk to your boss this way?” Jimmy snatched the phone from him. “You’ll get this back in the morning. There’re tables to clear.” Tom picked at the corner of his eye with his twiggy middle finger but walked away.

  The new waiters were forever forgetting their place or, worse, forgetting Jimmy’s place over them. He didn’t want to hear about their weekends, their relationship dramas, their sick-day excuses. He missed the peace of the old waiters at the Duck House, whose passions had coagulated over the years. Their arguments passed like morning fog.

  Scrolling through Pat’s texts, Jimmy found the address of the bar, in the crowded shopping center a block from where the Duck House used to be.

  “COME ALrrDY,,duCCKkcing BASTsdard.” Pat was indeed getting drunker. Jimmy, against his nature, obeyed.

  *

  Guadalajara looked, from the outside, like it was packed to the gills. Loud, horn-heavy Mexican music pounded through the thick-glass storefront, and flashing neon lights streaked onto the pavement outside. Inside, the restaurant and bar was patronized by only a handful of customers, all men, and almost all amigos.

  Pat, the glaring oddity, banged a Corona he shouldn’t have been served against the bar counter. The boy was talking to one of the waitresses, who was dressed, oddly, in lingerie and heels. At the karaoke machine in the corner, a familiar man was belting Julio Iglesias, fighting to be heard over the DJ. It was Osman. Around Jimmy, other faces clarified and focused from the dark corners of the room. Almost all the ex–Duck House busboys plus a few members of the kitchen staff had gathered near Pat. They were also drinking Coronas, pelting one another with lime wedges. Jimmy could barely meet the former busboys’ eyes when they nodded hello. He pushed back the feeling of their hands gripping him, yanking him away from the Duck House wreckage. Funny how they’d gone on living their lives, only to be pulled back together by the boy who’d splintered them in the first place.