Stealing Buddha's Dinner

by Bich Minh Nguyen

  While none of my siblings seemed to feel the intense shyness that wore me out daily, Vinh at least also lacked the toughness that Anh and Crissy had. They had fierceness, the kind that didn’t need to find expression in good behavior and careful cursive; if we played Office with them they would always be the bosses. And Vinh was a little boy, exempt from the anxieties of wanting to look pretty, something else my sisters had already conquered. Taking on the role of older sister allowed me some release from myself, allowed me to throw off the mantle of classroom self-consciousness and not mind so much, because Vinh didn’t, the thick, chunky-framed glasses I was cursed to wear.

  Traipsing home in the winter, my brother and I pretended to be explorers. We took shortcuts through the block to see if we could walk on backyards of iced-over snow or if our weight would send us crashing through to the ground. As soon as we got home we yanked our moon boots off inside out and left them in a damp pile. We never washed our hands or bothered with napkins. We raced each other to the kitchen counter for bowls of shrimp-flavored mi soup, sliced steaks seared with onion and garlic, and french fries that soaked up the juices from the meat. Noi would keep frying the potatoes as we ate, sliding them onto our plates. All the while, an extra serving sat at the dining table for the spirits of our ancestors. Their food was always cold by the time Noi ate it for her own lunch. She would wrap the potatoes in lettuce and dip them in vinegar. Afterward, she whittled us apple wedges or cut a cantaloupe into bite-sized pieces. Ngon quá! Vinh and I exclaimed, our voices tilting up on the second-syllable accent. So delicious! We were safe for a while, cocooned in Noi’s kitchen, and at such times I never missed my friends in the cafeteria.

  Before heading back to school I followed Noi back to her bedroom, where she would watch her afternoon lineup of Days of Our Lives and Another World on the television Chu Cuong had given her. I loved the calmness that radiated from Buddha, positioned on his high shelf, while the oranges clustered below him grew ripe with waiting. Noi settled on her bed with her knitting bag and Vinh gathered his books for the afternoon. I always wanted to stay with them, skip out on the rest of school, admire the tenderness of Bo and Hope and drowse in the warmth from the radiator. But I never did. Mindful of gold stars and how they stretched across the classroom, I hurried back to Ken-O-Sha, taking the shortcut so as not to be late.

  7

  American Meat

  I WAS NINE WHEN I LEARNED HOW TO USE A KNIFE. Everything my grandmother cooked or fed us came in bite-size pieces, whether in a bowl of fruit or a plate of stir-fry, so there was never any need to know how to cut a T-bone steak. But I pretended to know American meat as well as anybody: prime rib, pork chops, meat loaf. If the girls at recess talked about these things that they had eaten the night before I would simply chime in, “Me, too.”

  By the beginning of fourth grade Holly Jansen and I had become BFF, best friends forever, and she made it official by inviting me for a sleepover. I never would have invited her to my house. I didn’t have my own room, for one thing. And I was afraid, both of how my family would act around Holly and how she would react to being around them. I could imagine her startled glance at Buddha and the altar for the ancestors. I had already seen Jennifer Vander Wal shrink away from it. If Holly came over, she would have to eat my grandmother’s strange food for dinner; she would have to deal with everyone talking over the TV and the barking dog. I knew such things didn’t happen in other households. Almost none of the kids I knew, in all of my school years in Grand Rapids, had any cats or dogs. It was some kind of Dutch obsession with cleanliness, Rosa said, some hatred of things other than human.

  On the day of the sleepover I rode the bus home with Holly. She lived in a subdivision called Princeton Estates, which was about the fanciest name I’d ever heard. Her house rose up two stories, with tan vinyl siding and a prominent two-stall garage in front. Inside was as pristine as the Vander Wals’ house and smelled the same—faint reminders of clean laundry, Lysol, and early morning baking. It was apparent that the real mothers in Grand Rapids knew exactly how to run a house, how it should look and smell. They were in on some code that my stepmother had been left out of. Their rooms possessed remarkable calm, as if no one had ever raised a voice there. Arguments didn’t happen; chaos never ensued. The house was free of all bacteria, dirt, and excess noise. I felt that I could lie down and sleep comfortably, forever, on the creamy carpet that blanketed the second floor. The look-but -don’t-touch living room had fresh vacuum marks on the same pale carpet, and a grandfather clock ticked in one corner. The sofas were plaid, to match the drapes, and bore pillows that Holly’s mother had cross-stitched.

  On the outside Holly and I were polar opposites: she was tall, blond, and kempt; I was short, black-haired, with clothes that knew no iron. In some ways my friendship with Holly was another version of the one I had with Jennifer Vander Wal, but instead of resentful envy I mostly felt admiration. Holly and I were drawn to each other not just by proximity but by our shared desire to be orderly and perfect. To me Holly had already achieved this through her inherent being, but maybe she didn’t believe it. We both worked so hard to be good. Teachers often let us study in the hallway by ourselves—advanced reading or independent math, they called it. But once in the hallway Holly and I played word games and devised an elaborate Wheel of Fortune board. We were also the only ones in our class whose parents voted Democrat. The following year, in the weeks leading up to the 1984 presidential election, the other kids would stand together in the courtyard at recess and chant, “Reagan! Reagan!” In response Holly and I alone would feebly call out, “Mondale, Mondale!”

  The closer Holly and I became, the more I wanted to be like her. On the day of the sleepover I felt light-headed with nervousness; I was terrified of disappointing her, of making a mistake that would show the low errors of my upbringing and very self. Looking in the mirror every morning before school I wondered why I could not be transformed. If only my hair, at the very least, would cooperate and look like Holly’s, bending into a soft curl at the shoulder. Instead my hair fell bluntly, as if cleaver-chopped, laced with wintertime static.

  In Holly’s house her mother greeted us with a snack of banana bread and milk, which we ate carefully in the breakfast nook. How was school? Mrs. Jansen wanted to know. Did we have any special homework assignments for the weekend? She cleaned as she talked, wiping down the spotless counters and scrubbing the sink. With her hair trimmed into a practical, motherly-looking bob, she was by all appearances Holly’s clear and desired future. As I watched her work in the kitchen I searched for clues and answers to How Things Were Supposed to Be.

  Once, playing on the merry-go-round at recess, Holly asked me if I had a real mother. She had met Rosa at our school play and didn’t understand why I called her my mom. I told her my real mother was in Vietnam. When Holly asked why, I lied, “She likes it there better.” I didn’t add that I had never met her, that I didn’t know her name or what she looked like. Holly mulled over my reply. “Did your mom and dad get divorced?” she wanted to know. I said yes. It sounded like a plausible enough explanation, and it became the story I told all of my friends from then on, if they asked.

  Holly’s bedroom was done up in yellow and white gingham, with coordinating window valances and ruffled bed skirt. Not a wrinkle marred the neatly made bed, where glassy-eyed dolls and stuffed animals, including the coveted lion from Mrs. Andersen’s class, sat posed as though for a portrait. A bulletin board above Holly’s desk displayed Field Day ribbons (she was a good runner and natural athlete) and family pictures. Out in the hallway, I got a glimpse into her parents’ bedroom. Two twin beds covered in identical green blankets. I was about to ask Holly why—my parents slept in one big bed—but something made me keep the question in check.

  Holly and I spent all afternoon playing in the finished basement, which was decked out with two complete offices—one for Holly and one for her older sister Sandra. Our favorite game was, in fact, Office. We played secretaries. We aspir
ed to secretary status. The words executive secretary and legal secretary swelled our vocabulary and hearts. We wrote memos, phone messages, reports. Other times we played waitress, taking imaginary families’ elaborate orders, because we aspired to that job as well. The menu items were all Holly’s: prime rib, fried chicken, baked potatoes, corn, and she had Legos and figurines to represent each dish.

  Meanwhile, upstairs, Holly’s mother was “getting dinner.” After a while I detected the scent of roasting meat, and as the smell grew stronger I grew more anxious. How would I know how to act at dinner? What would I say to Holly’s parents? What if I spilled on myself?

  When Holly heard the mechanical sound of the garage door opening she jumped up, exclaiming, “My dad’s home!” She ran upstairs and I followed her. I felt vaguely homesick, tired. I hadn’t celebrated my father’s return from work since the days on Baldwin Street when he would toss my sister and me in the air. Now I avoided his arrival, staying put in Noi’s closet with my books and stolen desserts. When he came home with a dark face and callused hands, tired of machinery, even Vinh knew to tiptoe around him. Rosa meanwhile shuttled between her ESL work downtown and her classes at Grand Valley State, where she was earning her master’s in education. Coming back from school, she usually found my father sitting on the backyard patio, no matter how cold it was, smoking Winston after Winston.

  Holly’s father was balding and spectacled. With his navy-blue sport jacket, striped tie, and polished cordovan shoes, he looked just like fathers and businessmen on TV. It didn’t matter what kind of business. The important thing was that he did something quiet and white collar, in an office, something that commanded respect. He came home from work clean.

  “Hello,” he said in a kind voice. I never knew if it carried generosity or pity. As he spoke to his daughters and wife the word cozy ran though my mind. It was a word I’d gleaned from The Boxcar Children and Little Women. I wanted cozy, and I wanted this. People who spoke softly and nicely! Who never looked rumpled, hair all out of place! Dinner as an event!

  “Let’s wash up,” Holly directed. I washed my hands as if I did so every day and followed my friend to the dinner table. It was set the way mine at home never was, with floral place mats, tumblers filled with ice water, and matching silverware. A knot of fear struck me as I surveyed it all. At home my parents had taken to using paper plates for every meal, tucking them into wicker paper plate holders that became encrusted with dried bits of food. On weekdays we ate our meals on our own. Noi would cook in the afternoons, keeping the food warm and the rice fresh in its cooker for whenever we got home from school.

  On the Jansens’ dinner table there were bowls of peas, applesauce, and potatoes whipped with an electric mixer. These circled the core, the main event: a wide platter of meat. At least, I knew it was meat, but I couldn’t tell much more than that. The slabs were grayish brown, thick with bone, and daunting.

  As if reading my mind Holly said, “Pork chops.” She spoke the words reverently.

  Holly’s sister came into the dining room. “Please have a seat,” she said, smiling like her mother. Sandra was two years older and had her own quiet interests—piano lessons, Sunday School, studying. Like Holly, she favored pastel crewneck sweaters over white turtlenecks. A gold necklace peeked out from in between.

  At the table everyone bowed their heads and Holly’s father said a prayer. I bowed my head, too. My religious rebellion against Jennifer Vander Wal and her acolytes had held fast, so I only pretended to pray, grateful for a moment to pull myself together. But I also felt like a fraud, not because of prayer but because the ritual was so intimate, so much theirs and not mine. I was a squatter, an imposter. A ruiner of other people’s family dinners.

  At the “amen” everyone looked up and smiled. I noticed that they had all set their napkins in their laps. I followed their lead, though it mystified me. At home, I kept napkins balled up next to my plate for easy access.

  Holly’s mother began passing the bowls around and I copied whatever Holly did. She took a large spoonful of peas and dropped a dollop of applesauce on her plate. I did the same. She forked a large pork chop in the middle of it all and I tried to do the same, but the meat stuck to the fork. A wave of panic came over me just before Holly’s father intervened, gently helping the pork chop slide onto the home base of my plate.

  Mr. Jansen asked Sandra about her school day. Then he asked Holly and me, but I was too nervous to respond. Perhaps Holly sensed it, because she did all of the talking. I needed all my concentration to get through the meal. I watched the others, uncertain about the applesauce. It was something Rosa sometimes bought in huge jars, when they were on sale, to have as dessert. The Jansens wielded their knives and forks expertly as they carved out bites of pork chop. They dredged each piece in applesauce and deposited the whole into their mouths, never spilling a drop. From there they made the rounds of potatoes and peas, circling back to the pork.

  I thought of weekend afternoons when my family gathered together for Noi’s pho, well simmered with oxtail, onions, and star anise. She prepared each bowl individually, ladling thin slices of beef into the vat of broth until they were just cooked, then releasing them onto a mound of noodles. On the table there were plates piled with herbs, bean sprouts, and lime wedges, jars of hoisin and Sriracha, and a dish of sliced hot chilies. When my father, uncles, and Noi ate pho they leaned in close to the bowls, sniffing deeply to take in the deep, delicate fragrance of the soup. Then they fell to eating, using chopsticks to loop up skeins of noodles and suck them into their mouths, and Chinese spoons to slurp the broth. Having dinner with the Jansens, I realized how much noise, how much of a mess, everyone in my family made. We chomped down big mouthfuls of food, splashed the table and ourselves, snatched sprigs of coriander with our hands. We spiced our soups until our tongues burned, our foreheads glazed with sweat. At the end of the meal my father would go into the kitchen and fish out a beef bone from the bottom of the pot, aiming for every last bit of marrow.

  At Holly’s house I picked up the knife and fork, grasping them the way she did. I planted the fork into the graying wedge of meat, making sure I had a good grip. But cutting the meat wasn’t as easy as it looked. The pork was tough, and I couldn’t figure out where the bone was exactly, or how to maneuver around it. My heart pounding, I continued sawing away. I began to feel some progress, some give. Inside, the meat was a duller gray, and dry straight through.

  When the knife pushed through the final barrier of flesh and hit the plate, it made the sound that ice skates make when a skater slices into a jump. The stub of meat, cleaved free of its chop, sailed through the air and dropped onto the carpet near Mr. Jansen’s chair.

  Hands shaking, face burning, I set my knife and fork down. I eyed the fallen meat with terror—a stain on the carpet, on my entire being. I would have given anything for my family dog, Mimi, to be there to snap up the evidence. I didn’t know what to do: retrieve the meat? Say something? All around me the eating continued. No one at the table said a word or in any way registered what had happened. A moment later Holly’s father reached down and picked up the meat with his napkin. He did this so swiftly it seemed an act of magic, my transgression erased from the family table.

  Somehow, I made it through the rest of that dinner, even managing to get a couple bites of the remaining pork chop. The meat was gristly and fatty, starkly unspiced. I chewed hard, chasing it down with the potatoes and applesauce. I did not speak a word.

  Back at home, Rosa shuddered at the idea of pork and applesauce, going so far as to say, “Yucko.” In truth I was relieved to be at home again, to have the beef sliced into easy pieces in the salty stew, to see half-inch squares of tofu bobbing in a clear soup. But the lesson hard-learned at Holly’s stayed with me. I would never endure that panic again. To make sure, I began practicing with a knife and fork. I cut small pieces of chicken stir-fry into even smaller pieces. I hacked up stalks of bok choy and Chinese broccoli, and curried eggs. At lunch Noi served up
the usual ramen, steak, and fries, but stopped cutting the meat for me. She didn’t say anything about it but left out a knife and fork so I could attack the beef.

  One day Rosa saw me practicing and said, “You know, only Americans do that. Europeans eat differently.” That got my attention, for she knew how enamored I was of all things British: Mary Poppins, Charles Dickens, names like Margaret and Elizabeth. She demonstrated how to slice off a piece of meat and eat it without switching the fork from one hand to the other. “Americans don’t know how to eat truly correctly, the way Europeans do.” She gave me a smile I couldn’t interpret—part sad, part reluctant.

  So I practiced both methods, saving them up for an imagined future.

  8

  Green Sticky Rice Cakes

  BEFORE I STARTED SCHOOL, MY CONCEPT OF THE world was largely formed by TV shows. Making friends on the playground would be like Charlie’s Angels, I imagined. Or maybe Laverne & Shirley, with me wearing a big cursive B on every outfit. Anh and I sometimes practiced marching down the street, arm in arm, shouting our own mangled version of Schlemeel, Schlemazel, Hasenfeffer Incorporated! The delusion that I could become Laverne or Shirley, Janet from Three’s Company, or Vicki, the Love Boat captain’s daughter, stayed with me through most of my kindergarten year at Chamberlain Elementary. Rosa had enrolled Anh and me there because it had a bilingual education program that she was certain we needed. As soon as we learned enough English, she said, we could transfer to nearby Ken-O-Sha.