Number One Chinese Restaurant

by Lillian Li

  “Pat, I’m going to ask your mother to marry me.”

  Pat looked at the black velvet box as if Ah-Jack had whipped out something pornographic.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  “I’m not.” Ah-Jack flipped open the box. “Do you think she’ll like it? I didn’t know what kind of ring to get.”

  “She’s married! You know that, right? My dad is still her husband.”

  “I know. But they haven’t been in the same state for years. Your mother deserves someone who wants to be by her side forever.”

  Pat whipped his cigarette into the street. He fished out another one and lit it, sucking deeply.

  “Why are you showing me?” he asked. He reached out to grab the ring, and for a moment, Ah-Jack thought he would throw it just as he had with the cigarette. But Pat merely put the ring up to his eye and squinted at the square diamond at the center. He gently replaced it in its velvet slot.

  “I’m showing you because I want to ask for your blessing. I’m not just marrying your mother. I’m becoming part of your life too.”

  Pat snorted but didn’t interrupt.

  “All I want is for everyone I care about to be happy,” Ah-Jack said. “That includes you. I never had a child of my own, and from the first day I saw you, I wanted to be your guardian.”

  “What do you want me to say?” A woman walking her dog looked curiously at the two of them.

  “I want you to be okay with me in your life. Your mom’s life.”

  “You’re pretty sure of yourself.” Pat looked out at the water. “I’ve always hated that about you.”

  Ah-Jack tucked the box back in his pocket, disappointed but not surprised. But when he turned to go back into the Glory, Pat touched his shoulder lightly.

  “You didn’t buy that ring today, did you, Uncle Jack?” he asked, his voice strange but not unnatural. “You didn’t do all this just because I told you about California?”

  Ah-Jack was going to tell him the truth. After all, his intentions were pure. But then he understood why Pat’s voice felt so familiar. This was how Pat had sounded when he’d been a child. Ah-Jack hadn’t heard this high, clear tone in years.

  “Of course not,” he said instead. “I’ve had this ring for a couple of weeks. Who knows, your mom might not even say yes. She’s the catch, after all. And if she does say yes, maybe we’ll go to California together. Nothing’s set.” He’d gone too far in consoling Pat. The boy had sniffed out his pity. The vulnerability in his face disappeared in a blink.

  “What do I care?” he said. “Go ahead. Marry my mom. Make a whole new family. Have a ton of babies while you’re at it.” He laughed rudely, as if trying to draw yellow phlegm up from his chest.

  “Thank you,” Ah-Jack said anyway. “You’ve made me very happy.”

  “Whatever.” Pat slouched back to let a pair of joggers huff by, his cigarette clenched in his fingers. Ah-Jack took one last look at the boy. Heaviness plumbed through his elation. He went back inside before he was dragged down entirely.

  *

  He couldn’t get ahold of Nan until an hour before the dinner service. As soon as the lunch shift ended, she’d dashed out to buy Pat some new shoes. When she came back, she was still fluttering around, organizing and fussing with her bags in the coat closet.

  “He’s worn holes the size of quarters into his old shoes!” she kept saying, while Ah-Jack tried to get her attention. “What is that boy doing?”

  He finally had to snatch her by the wrist, which smelled of department-store perfume.

  “What is it, old man?” she asked with a crooked smile. “You want a little fun in the afternoon?”

  He knew he couldn’t fool her, so he had to push some truth into his lie. “What an accusation!” he cried. “Your son has holed up in the walk-in fridge. He wants his mom.”

  Nan’s eyes widened in alarm, and Ah-Jack instantly regretted his words. It was true what she had once accused him of: He was only good at careless living. He tried to keep up with her on her way to the walk-in. He told his pounding heart that they would all laugh about this in a minute.

  Nan threw open the heavy fridge door as if it were nothing but a curtain. “Pat?” she said, into the mouth of the walk-in.

  A chilly mist swirled around their feet. Scales of frost covered the metal walls. When she saw no one else in the fridge, she wheeled around, mouth twitching in panic.

  “He’s not here,” she said. “Where’s he gone? Did he look scared?” She leaned her hand against a plastic container of chopped green chilies, her head bent.

  “I wanted to get you somewhere private,” Ah-Jack said quietly.

  Nan’s head shot up. “You don’t lie about something like that!” She smacked his arm, a good bit harder than when she was teasing. “You don’t use my son as bait.”

  Ah-Jack crashed down to one knee, banging it badly against the frozen metal floor. The faster he got the ring out, the faster he could turn Nan’s mood around, but he hadn’t expected how badly his knee would hurt. Or that Nan would think he’d fallen. She let out a small gasp and tried to bend down to tend to him, but he pushed her back up.

  “No, this was on purpose,” he said, trying to keep the pain out of his face. He fumbled with his pocket, his fingers wooden from the cold. He’d never been an especially bright planner.

  “What are you doing, you fool?” she said, making disapproving noises, but she stopped mid-word when she saw the ring box emerge from his pocket.

  He struggled for another moment to locate the seam on the box. He snapped it open in front of her.

  “Will you marry me?” he asked, all versions of his speech whooshing out of his head. “Please?” His knee had gone numb against the floor.

  Nan’s mouth had fallen open and was forming strange shapes, but no noise came out. Craning his neck back, he nearly lost his balance. His body lurched from side to side.

  “Please get up,” she finally said. She grabbed him by the arms and tried to heave him to his feet. He stumbled and grasped the vegetable crates, pulling himself up slowly. He focused on the throbbing in his knee instead of on the answer she still hadn’t given.

  “When did you get the ring?” she asked. The disastrous result of his last lie made him incapable of telling another.

  “This morning.”

  “That’s why you wanted to take your car. I bet you came up with the idea this morning too.”

  “And what if I did?” He was suddenly angry. “We’ve waited thirty years. I’m hardly acting impulsively.”

  “I’m married. You’re married!”

  “Only technically.” He shoved the ring closer to her, as if that might help her make up her mind. “You’ve been my true wife from the beginning.”

  His words cut a string in Nan’s face, and her muscles went slack. In the extreme chill, her skin was flushed. She took the ring box from his hand. A tear bubbled out of each eye.

  “Michelle is dying,” she said.

  The turn was so sudden that he thought he’d misheard her.

  “She’s fine,” he said. “She’s with her new boyfriend. Love cures all.”

  “No.” Nan’s throat moved up and down. “I went to visit her last night. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you, but I wanted to get her blessing.”

  Ah-Jack started to shake from the cold. His nose ached when he breathed in.

  “How do you know she’s dying? She didn’t tell you.”

  “Of course she wouldn’t,” Nan said. “But I have eyes! She’s so thin. She never leaves her bed. She has to be carried out of it. She’s never looked this bad. You have to see her.”

  Nan caught her breath and waited for him to react. But it was his turn to disappoint. He couldn’t come up with a single thing to say. His mind was completely blank. Why were they in this fridge? Why was he in this awful restaurant with this woman who was not his wife? A roaring sound filled his ears. He pushed his way out of the fridge. The heat of the kitchen nearly knocked him o
ver. The cooks looked up from their family meal.

  “I’m so sorry,” Nan called out after him.

  He was already in the dining room, tearing at his bow tie. Jimmy asked him where he was going, but Ah-Jack shook off the little boss’s fingers. He croaked out, “The hospital,” before continuing to stagger away.

  The outside of the restaurant brought no relief. Minutes ago he’d been freezing in a walk-in fridge, imagining himself on the precipice of happiness. Now he was burning his hand against the hot handle of his car door. He climbed into his car, the inside even hotter from soaking in the sunlight. He let the sweat drip down his face, heavier and fatter than tears. He didn’t know if Michelle was in the hospital, but that was the route he took. His luck had always been good, his guesses often right. At four the Washington traffic had yet to build to critical mass on its exodus out of D.C. He slipped right down the parkway and joined the current of the crowd.

  22

  Nan intercepted Jimmy before he could follow ah-jack to the door and pulled the little boss aside. She explained Ah-Jack’s situation, ready to argue herself into a one-week vacation, but Jimmy seemed to wilt at the sight of her.

  “I hope his wife’s okay,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “If you ever need to take time off in the next few weeks…”

  “You firing me?” Nan asked. She couldn’t handle any more bad news.

  “No, of course not!” Jimmy swiped his hands in front of him, as if trying to erase the possibility. “I just thought you’d want to be there for Jack.”

  Nan wasn’t surprised that Jimmy knew about their new relationship. Even in a restaurant filled with young Americans, word traveled fast. But she couldn’t believe what he was suggesting.

  “I am fine,” she said firmly. “I can work. No worry, boss.”

  Jimmy rubbed his hands as if they were cold. He kept looking over at Johnny, who was working the room like a restored king. Nan put two and two together. Who would have thought that the little boss, tough as he was, could be struck down by a case of the nerves? Jimmy was almost cute, worrying about his first Friday-night service.

  “Tonight will be a success,” she said. She hadn’t touched him since he was in his twenties and the worst waiter the Duck House had ever seen, but she reached out to calm his hands. “Make the Duck House’s first night look empty.”

  He grabbed her hands and gave them a short squeeze.

  “Will tonight be as big as when John Travolta came?” he tried to joke.

  “Let’s not getting crazy,” she said.

  Jimmy rolled back his shoulders. “You’ll tell Jack what I said?”

  “I will.” Nan turned toward the kitchen. She scraped a straw wrapper off her shoe and felt the ring box shift in her pocket. Would she ever talk to Ah-Jack again? Not literally talk but talk in the same spirit? He had an open voice with everyone, including strangers, but with her, she’d always detected a slight lilt, an extra pinch of joy. She was wiping a tear away when Pat suddenly jumped into her path.

  “Did Uncle Jack talk to you?” he asked. He put his hands on her back and rushed her into the closest waiter station. It was empty except for a busboy’s tray of water.

  “He did.” Nan looked her son over. She couldn’t remember the last time Pat had initiated a conversation with her.

  He grabbed her hands and lifted them up, as if to kiss her knuckles, but she saw that he was inspecting her fingers. He was looking for a ring. She gently took her hands away and hid them behind her back.

  “What did you two talk about?” Pat asked.

  Nan studied her son’s face. Perhaps if Ah-Jack hadn’t used Pat as an excuse to get her alone, she would’ve said yes. But he had put her son in her mind, and not just her son but her son in distress.

  “Your uncle Jack asked me to marry him,” she said plainly. “And I told him that his wife, your aunt Michelle, needed him more than I did.”

  Pat rubbed the back of his head. “I’m not sure that was the answer he wanted.”

  “I think I’ve been in a strange fog lately.” Nan felt her head too, as if looking for a bump. “Maybe with the restaurant burning down, seeing all those years go up in flames, it made me a little crazy. But I’m awake now.”

  “Everyone’s been acting weird,” Pat said.

  “I guess it took something big, like a proposal, to make me see that I’m your mother first. I’m sorry, Po-po,” she said, using his pet name. The endearment felt good in her mouth. “I shouldn’t have tried to send you away. That wasn’t what I was trying to do, but it does seem that way. I was only scared that I couldn’t be good to you.”

  “You’re okay,” he said. He reached out and put his hand on her arm. The pressure felt good, but then his grip tightened until it started to hurt. A terrible look crossed his face.

  “What’s wrong?” She tried to move closer, but his grip held her back.

  “I have to tell you.” He was starting to shiver, and, decked out in his waiter’s uniform, he looked like a strung-out businessman, ready to crash.

  “You can tell Ma anything.” She was trying to reassure him, but she was only making him more upset. She tried to hand him a glass of water from the tray.

  “I met this guy, Jimmy’s friend, this old dude who was at the restaurant, and—”

  Before he could keep going, Jimmy stepped in. Any trace of softness from earlier had vanished. He was red in the face.

  “What’re you two standing around for? Dinner’s started, can’t you see? For fuck’s sake, don’t mess this night up.” He separated the two of them and grabbed Pat by the shoulders.

  “Stop pushing,” Pat snapped. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He handed it to Nan, closing her fingers around the gray shell. “This will explain,” he said, blinking fast. “I’m sorry, I really am.”

  “Apologize later,” Jimmy said, leading Pat out into the dining room. “Nan, there are tons of ducks waiting.”

  Nan tucked the phone into her apron and headed back into the kitchen. Her steps were blocky, as if her joints had been taken out and put in backward. She wanted a moment to breathe before she was forced back into the day’s current, bouncing against decision after decision. But as Jimmy had predicted, a duck was waiting for her at her station in the kitchen, and she was in a revolving door for the next few hours. She became so focused on carving, on smiling for photos, on reassuring patrons that twenty-eight slices of duck was the standard amount, that she could forget the cell phone in her pocket. When she glimpsed her son, balancing his heavy tray, he looked so professional that she convinced herself his panic was a momentary spell, a nip of nausea after too many nights of partying. His confession was that of a tired little boy exhausted by his own freedom, who wished to climb back into bed. She wouldn’t let herself consider other possibilities. Better to trust in his goodness, as she had done before the trouble at school. Her son was a good man. He had raised himself to be a good man.

  Even so, when she saw the pair of policemen enter the Glory, she lingered back in the dining room. She tailed them when they started to thread their way over to Jimmy.

  “You weren’t supposed to come tonight,” she overheard him say.

  Jimmy called to his brother, who had just noticed the policemen. His rusty Chinese was strained as he tried to hide his anger from the officers. “What the hell are they doing here?”

  “Hello, Officers.” Johnny shook their hands. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

  “You’re saying you know our orders?” the more senior officer said. His skunk-striped hair was gelled into an imposing block on top of his head.

  Johnny’s hands jumped up in front of his chest, palms out. “Not at all,” he said.

  A small commotion interrupted Nan’s eavesdropping, and she turned to see Annie sobbing into her fists. Nan went over to the girl and asked her what was wrong. A strong whiff of body odor hit her when she hugged Annie close.

  “They’ve caught me.” Annie managed to say in
between sharp intakes of breath.

  “Let me get Johnny.” Nan peered over Annie’s head. “You need your dad.”

  “No!” Annie tore out of Nan’s arms and ran for the door. She tripped, nearly pulling the hostess stand down with her, and when she got up, the slit in her dress had ripped. The strip of loose fabric flapped open. A customer tried to help, but she pushed him away. Then she was out the door. Nan turned back. The men were huddled together.

  She went toward them, toward Johnny. “Where is he?” the younger officer said. Gray in the face, Jimmy pointed, and following the direction of his shaking finger, Nan choked on a shriek. The police, and Johnny with them, converged on her son.

  “Stop!” she cried. “Wrong person!” She sprang after them, throwing half her apron off in her animal panic, but Jimmy grabbed her around the middle and held on tight.

  She threw her arms around, trying to batter Jimmy’s pale face, trying to alert her son. Her hands caught her carver’s hat, tearing it out of her hair. Pat saw the police when they were halfway across the room. He looked around wildly, spotting the exits. She wanted him to run, nearly screamed at him to go, but he gently set his tray down on the bar and waited. Nan struggled against Jimmy’s arms, but they only squeezed harder. When the first policeman grabbed Pat by the wrist and wrenched it around his back, she lunged and tripped, pulling Jimmy down with her. The dark carpet was full of unseen debris.

  She could hear Jimmy now. He’d been speaking the entire time. He was saying, “I’m sorry,” over and over again. She pulled them both to standing, wheeled around, and slapped him across the face, just to get him to stop. Pat was in handcuffs. The officer who’d arrested him was reading him his rights. The entire restaurant had turned around in their seats, mouths agape and phones out. A terrible quiet descended. Even the kitchen ceased its clattering.