A Pho Love Story

by Loan Le

  Mẹ makes her way from the front desk to the table—and steps back when the man rises slowly. He towers over her in a way that reminds me that my mom’s actually under five feet. It’s always her voice and manner that make her seem taller than she is.

  “Shit. I have a bad feeling about this.” Việt and I get closer to the table.

  “—if you’re dissatisfied with the taste of it, we will happily make another order for you.”

  “Jared,” the woman next to him whispers. “Let’s just have our meal. It’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine, Beth.” He looks down at my mom. “I wanna know why you’re scamming us.”

  “A scam?” Mẹ asks.

  “What, that word not clicking for you? Do you even know English?”

  “What the fuck, man,” Việt whispers to me.

  “Mister,” Mẹ starts over, regulating her voice. She speaks slowly, but clearly, “We always serve two egg rolls for each order. Look around at the other tables.”

  She gestures to other tables, where customers have stopped eating or are trying not to look interested in the drama. The man can’t help but look around too, and he lets his arms fall loose. From my place, I breathe out. There. It’s just a misunderstanding. He’s going to apologize soon, and then everything will go okay.

  But that doesn’t happen.

  “This place is shit. Shitty food. Shitty owners who can’t even speak fucking English.” His voice is booming and if the customers weren’t listening before, they’re listening now. “I’m not paying for this,” Jared declares.

  “What—” My mom’s sputtering now, shocked by his declaration. As am I.

  Before another word can be said, the guy forcefully pushes his chair in and barks at his children to get up too, which they do, eyes on the ground. Embarrassed, maybe. I would be. The little girl looks close to tears, even. “Hey,” I jump in. “That’s not cool, man. You already ate, like, everything.” Which is true. The phở, the bánh xèo—save for the side order of egg rolls—are all cleared. But my protest goes unheard. Beth scrabbles for her purse hanging on her chair and almost hesitates to follow Jared. Mouth opening, then closing, she finally heads toward the door.

  I’m the first to move. “What the hell!” I try moving past my mom, planning on calling the police on them, or something that would make them pay, but Mẹ quickly catches me by the wrist.

  “Con, it’s not worth it.”

  I’m shaking with anger. “But—”

  “We have to get back to work.” Mẹ gives me a hard look. “There are other customers to take care of. This family won’t make a difference.” To the remaining customers, she turns and smiles diplomatically. “Please, return to your meals. Sorry for the disturbance.” She repeats it in Vietnamese.

  My mom saves her complaints about Jared and his family for the kitchen. I’m sure this has happened before but it was the first time I’d seen it in person. I grew up here, living around people who looked like me. We belonged to the same temple, our parents knew each other. I didn’t expect to see someone from the outside look so sure of themselves as they spouted hate.

  I lean forward, elbows on a prep table, and say, “Do you think that guy’s going to come back?”

  “No, I won’t let him.”

  “Shouldn’t you report him?”

  “There’s many men like him. Are we going to report all of them?”

  “Yeah, but…” I trail off; I don’t have a real solution. I guess I just don’t like the feeling of some guy treating my parents—and other owners in the area—like this. It was more painful than hearing the waiter at photastic ask my dad to repeat himself. This guy basically attacked them. “I don’t know, it just seems wrong.”

  “We are not new to this,” Ba says shortly. “We have lived in other places before Little Saigon. There are much worse people.”

  “He won’t come back, con. Đồ quỷ.” Somehow she makes swear words sound like a natural part of our language.

  “He’s an asshole,” I agree. Now she scolds me for using a bad word, but I press on.

  “Let’s get back to work.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY LINH

  My phone chirps. A text from Bảo. My parents are finally sitting down with friends who’d stopped by at the tail end of service hours. The men brought out Heineken, signaling that it’ll be a bit longer until we get to leave the restaurant. Evie is busy with cleanup tasks, though from what I can see, she’s catching up with the line cooks who looked after us when we were younger, and the less senior servers are taking care of clearing the tables. I sneak out, promising myself ten minutes of my own time.

  The air is cool enough for me to wear my jacket outside. I use the lamplights to guide me away from the restaurant, to the small park usually populated by skateboarders and people exercising outside. Bảo’s there, sitting on a graffiti-ridden bench. He sets a Styrofoam container on the bench and stands when he sees me. His smile is weary, a perfect reflection of mine. He kisses me.

  “Peace offering,” he says, handing me a container. I laugh and hand him my own, which I had hidden behind my back. Inside Bảo’s box, he’d packed away a small slice of bánh xèo, while I gave him egg rolls nicked from the kitchen. We sit there, eating food cooked by our family’s respective enemy. I wish I could say I understood why their food is considered a threat, a reason for my dad’s competitiveness when it comes to them, but I can’t really taste the difference, even if the bánh xèo is good.

  “Do you think it’s possible that our parents actually know each other?” Bảo asks. “Like, actually interacted with each other? Maybe way before us. Vietnam, or sometime after their escapes?”

  “Wouldn’t they have said something, though?”

  “Come on, it wouldn’t be unusual for them to hold back a few things from us.”

  I think about the comments my mom and dad have made about his family. Have I missed signs?

  “What makes you say that?” I ask.

  “My mom mentioned something about your mom’s cooking. About her bánh xèo not being good, but she sounded like she knew. Like she’s had it before.”

  “Okay… ?”

  “How much do we really know? Like Chef Lê said, there’s stuff that they don’t tell us because it isn’t relevant to us.”

  “So, what, you want to ask your parents about us?”

  “Nothing too direct. Nothing to raise suspicion. You okay?” Hands together, he runs his thumb over my hand. I wonder if he knows what he’s doing. “It’s a lot, I know.”

  I don’t want to run away again.

  “For now,” I say.

  “My mom just texted. She’s wondering where I’ve gone off to; they’re heading home.”

  “I know,” I sigh. I hate thinking that the moments we spend together are only temporary. That, when we get back to our separate restaurants, we’ll need to pretend that our lives have no bearing on each other. When it’s the opposite.

  He takes my hand and we start walking back. I imagine a time when we don’t have to hold hands in the dark, when we can visit each other on lunch breaks without having to find a secluded park.

  “We’ll find another moment,” Bảo says, reading my expression. “We still haven’t had a first date yet.”

  “If you think about it, haven’t we’ve gone on many dates already—between the restaurants that we went to and our meetings in the art room?” I say, even though the word “date” causes my stomach to tumble.

  We stand at the intersection between Larkin and Sylvester, knowing we’ll need to let go. By day, the plaza is packed with cars, but the parking lot is empty now. A neon sign saying CLOSED burns brightly in the dark, casting a metallic sheen against Bảo’s face. It’s silent save for grasshoppers hiding in nearby bushes.

  “This is going to be different. Let’s go somewhere where I can hold your hand like this.” He squeezes my hand. “Brush aside your hair when it falls in front of your eyes.” Like now. “Kiss you.” He leans in, capturin
g my lips.

  “Our first date will be ours alone,” he declares.

  * * *

  On a Saturday, my parents and I attend a two-part wedding: the traditional Vietnamese ceremony and the American reception—all in one day. The bride, Fay, is the oldest granddaughter of Bác Xuân. I’ve talked to Fay a couple of times, our circles of family and friends overlapping because of our business, and liked her. Rather than being involved in the food business, she went to dental school and later opened up her own practice in southern California. Her partner is her soon-to-be husband.

  Attending a wedding ceremony means I’ll need to squeeze into my áo dài, which grows tighter each passing year. It means seeing strangers who know everything about me through information shared over various phone calls, store errands, and house get-togethers. It also means there’s a high possibility of me sitting at the kids’ tables at the reception—with the actual ages ranging from two to college students. Since Evie’s back at college, I’ll be the only teenager at the table, but for the first time ever, it won’t matter.

  This wedding is an opportunity.

  My mind latched on to Bảo’s suggestion as I fell asleep last night. Is it possible that there’s more to our families’ feud besides our competitive restaurants? Is there something else that might have driven them apart and made our families this way?

  I can’t ask my parents outright; I’m not even sure there’s a way to ask them subtly.

  But, as all Vietnamese know, information gets around. At least one person has to know the truth. In my parents’ network, there’s only one viable person who might know more about my family—and Bảo’s. The best connection that we have so far is Bác Xuân, Fay’s grandfather, who gave my mom a chance with the restaurant. And who helped most of the businesses around here, including Bảo’s family restaurant.

  Mẹ and I are getting ready in her bedroom. She’s just put on her áo dài, a yellow-and-white floral pattern adorning it from top to bottom. She needs me to hook together the sides so that skin there doesn’t show.

  Apparently Fay and her husband are not going to last, my mom confides in me. They’d picked the wrong dates, didn’t consult the right calendar, or something like that. I don’t think those things actually have a real bearing on the outcome of their marriage, but my mom—and her friends—certainly do.

  The ceremony at Fay’s house proceeds smoothly. First the men and the women from each side of the family exchange gifts in red tin baskets covered by red velvet. It’s a way of the husband asking permission from the bride’s family to see her. Both families line up at the shrine, also decorated in red. Fay, radiant in her traditional red áo dài, emerges from upstairs, her arm looped through her already crying mother’s. When she joins her soon-to-be husband, Dũng, who’s wearing the traditional blue áo dài for men, the image of them is striking. They’re the most colorful people in the room, and their happiness only makes them glow brighter.

  I imagine the murmurs from the crowd fade when Fay and Dũng face each other to exchange vows. Dũng, so nervous, bumbles his way through his speech, his words earnest and sincere, and Fay reaches out for his hand when he pauses, holding back tears. We’re all smiling by the end of the ceremony.

  Later, the wedding transitions into a modern American wedding. The áo dài disappear—though Fay’s mom opts out of changing—and we move for the American ceremony to a Catholic church, the reception to follow in its courtyard right after. I’ve changed into a periwinkle dress that stops above my knees.

  I do my best to avoid the women in Fay’s family. They like to tease. They think, Well, there’s one Vietnamese woman off the market! Let’s see who else has potential, so they crowd the young ones and joke about their boyfriends. I can just imagine the fury on my parents’ faces if I were to ever answer the question honestly. That me and Bảo are finally together.

  I try to fight back my smile when I get the question for the fourth time tonight. I guess it feels less tedious when you actually have a perfect answer.

  Fay and her husband, Dũng, couldn’t look any happier. Probably both from the relief of finally seeing their wedding go off without a hitch and from the actual idea that they’re just starting a new life together.

  By now, food and lots of alcohol have sated the guests. The elderly ones sit clumped off, chattering away about past and present grievances. My parents are sitting with Fay’s parents, chatting. The younger generation are tearing up the floor, moving along to the American music blasting from the speakers. They’re heedless of the expressions of shock, and some amusement, from their parents and family members watching. But there’s also a few braver older Vietnamese guests who’ve joined the floor, and I think I can pass the night away just watching it happen. The strobe lights are blinding, disorienting. I almost forget about Bác Xuân, until I see him a couple tables away, seated in a wheelchair on the edge of the dance floor. My heart wrings at the sight of him; it’s been so many years since I’ve seen him in person.

  I escape the flailing elbow of a seven-year-old to my right and make my way over. “Thưa, Bác Xuân.”

  Bác Xuân looks up slowly and reveals a nearly toothless smile. “Ah, cháu.”

  “Do you remember me?” I ask cautiously in Vietnamese.

  “Of course. Liên Phạm’s daughter,” he replies. “You look just like her now. What a beautiful young woman you’ve become.”

  I laugh, sitting down across from him. Age spots outline his cheek. His hands sandwich mine, trembling faintly. There’s a glossiness in his eyes that I mostly see in my family’s elderly customers. They’re past the point of worrying, their lives already fulfilled. I think it’s a look of satisfaction, or I hope it is.

  “How are you doing? What are you doing in school? And where is your sister—you have a sister, don’t you? I remember she was very smart. And you still draw?” He seems happy to talk to someone, finally. I smile with relief, just glad that he remembers me.

  “Evie’s away at UC Davis, studying biology.”

  “Ah!”

  “And I still draw. I’m a painter, in fact.”

  “So I can see.” He gestures to my hands. I really thought I washed them well, but I missed a spot on my pinkie finger. “Giống y hệt dì của cháu,” he mutters, amused.

  “My aunt?” I ask in English, jostled by the comparison. Then I remember she visited him when she was over here. “Dì Vàng, you mean.”

  “Of course. Ever since she was little, she would have her hands in something messy. Mud. Then clay. Sculpting was her true passion.”

  The disorientation comes back and now it has nothing to do with the lights. “You knew my mom and aunt back in Vietnam?”

  “I lived just a few houses down from them. In Nha Trang.”

  I lean back into my seat. That’s why my aunt had been so familiar with him on her last visit. They weren’t just meeting; they were reuniting. I glance past Bác Xuân, feeling as if the ground shifted underneath me.

  Back in Nha Trang. Before me.

  Bảo’s right. There’s more to the story than we’ve been given.

  “Oh, your mother and your aunt! They were inseparable, especially after your grandparents passed. It was always interesting seeing your mother act like the older sister.” Bác Xuân shifts in his wheelchair, his pillow slipping sideways. I get up and fix it quickly, earning a pat on the shoulder. “Thank you. The community, just like here, was important in our neighborhood. Individually we didn’t have much, but together, we had everything we would need, even as the Cộng sản were starting to take everything we had. We looked out for each other. Mẹ, your mother and aunt, the Lês, especially after the fall of Saigon.” He pauses.

  “Ah, forgive me. She’s no longer a Lê; she’s now a Nguyễn.”

  Nguyễn.

  “It was a miracle that we all found each other again when we made it over here. It took longer than we all imagined.”

  Nguyễn as in Bảo Nguyễn?

  “Bác Xu�
�n,” I say, interrupting him midsentence, “by Nguyễn and by ‘she,’ do you mean the woman who owns the restaurant across from ours?”

  “Of course, who else? She runs her restaurant like a true entrepreneur. Just like her own mother. I thought that by encouraging her and your mother to see each other again—the restaurants facing each other—they would be able to move on from the past.” He shakes his head. “Ah, terrible what happened.”

  “What happened?” I ask immediately, though I wish I hadn’t, because it signals a change in Bác’s expression. He actually looks uncomfortable now.

  “You don’t know?”

  I shake my head.

  “Ah, well. It is not my story to tell. If my wife were here”—Bác Xuân’s wife had passed before I remember meeting him—“she would tell you everything, but I don’t think I can. I don’t think I have any right to.”

  “I won’t tell my parents, I swear. I’ve been wondering about the other family, why they’ve never spoken to each other. Why they seem to hate each other.” I place a hand on his arm, but he only pats it again, this time with sympathy.

  He chews on his lip, deep in conflict. “We went through many things to get here, cháu. Things that we do not speak of because it might pain us too much. Show some respect. It will all come out in due time.” He nods to another person over my shoulder, then wheels himself away, oblivious to the thoughts roiling inside me.

  * * *

  I stalk the room, deep in thought, the wedding fading in the background. My mom and Ba have now included Bác in their conversation with Fay’s parents. Mẹ is smiling and Ba throws back his head, laughing. They’re both red from the wine at the table. Looking at the group, I wouldn’t have been able to see the shared history with Bác; I always assumed they’d met in California. But there’s a story between them—and between my mom and Bảo’s mom.

  The bride and groom do their rounds around the room, trailed by a red-eyed, pale photographer who looks like he doesn’t know what sleeping means. When they get to my table, where I’m now sitting, the kids all hold up their fourth glasses of soda that their parents, under the dim lighting, and amid the noise of celebration, don’t know they’re having.