by Camy Tang
Weddings and Wasabi
A novella
Book 4 in the Sushi series
Camy Tang
Copyright © 2015 Camy Tang
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1-942225-04-1
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Author’s Note
Dedication
To every single person who emailed, Tweeted, or Facebook’ed me to ask for Jenn’s story. Here it is.
Acknowledgements
This book would not exist without Audra Harder’s help with the goats. I’m totally serious when I say that.
Thanks also to my ex-roommates from our Palo Alto house: Cathy, Chrissy, Mary, Eileen, Elaine, Linda, and Soojin. You guys will recognize the strangely familiar scene in Aunty Aikiko’s house. The names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.
CHAPTER ONE
The goat in the backyard had just eaten tonight’s dinner.
Jennifer Lim stood on her mother’s minuscule back porch and glared at the small brown and white creature polishing off her basil. She would have run shouting at it to leave off her herb garden, except it had already decimated the oregano, mint, rosemary, thyme, cilantro, and her precious basil, which had been slated for tonight’s pesto.
Besides, if it bit her, she was peeved enough to bite back.
“Mom!” She stomped back into the house. Thank goodness the pots of her special Malaysian basil were sectioned off in the large garden on the side of the house, protected by a wooden-framed wire gate. Jenn was growing it so that she could make her cousin Trish’s favorite chicken dish for her wedding, which Jenn was catering for her. But everything in her backyard garden was gone. The animal was welcome to the only thing left, the ragged juniper bushes. Were juniper bushes poison? If so, the animal was welcome to them.
“Mom!” Her voice had reached banshee range. “There is a goat—”
“You don’t need to yell.” Mom entered the kitchen, her lipstick bright red from a fresh application and her leather handbag over her arm, obviously ready to leave the house on some errand.
“Since when do we own a goat?”
“Since your cousin Larry brought him over.” She fished through her leather purse. “His name is Pookie.”
Jenn choked on her demand for an explanation, momentarily distracted. “He has a name?”
“He’s a living being. Of course he has a name.” Her mother fluttered eyelashes overloaded with mascara.
“Don’t give me that. You used to love to gross me out with stories of Great-Uncle Hao Chin eating goats back in China.”
Mom sniffed and found the refrigerator fascinating. “That’s your father’s side.”
Jenn swayed as the floor tilted. You are now entering … the Twilight Zone. Her one remaining parent had evoked that feeling quite often in the past few weeks. “Where did Larry get a goat, and why do we have it now?”
“They were desperate.”
Actually, Jenn could have answered her own question. That goat was in their backyard right now because everyone knew that her mom couldn’t say no to a termite who knocked on the door and asked if it could spend the night.
And outside of physically dropping the goat off at someone’s house—and she didn’t have an animal trailer, so that was out of the question—Jenn wouldn’t be able to get anyone else in the family to agree to take the animal, now that it was here. That meant leaving a goat in a niece’s backyard because no one else wanted to go through the hassle of doing anything about it.
Mom said, “You wouldn’t have me turn away family, would you?”
“Uncle Percy knows, too?”
“No, not Percy.”
“Aunty Glenda?” No way. Even if Larry were eighty instead of eighteen, Aunty would still dictate to her son the color underwear he wore that day—how much more his choice of pet?
“No.” Mom blinked as rapidly as she could with mascara making her short, stiff lashes stick together, almost gluing her eyes shut.
The tiger in Jenn’s ribcage growled. “Mother.” Her fist smacked onto her hip.
“Oh, all right.” Mom rolled her eyes as if she were still a teenager. “It belongs to Larry’s dorm-mate’s older brother, but really, he’s the nicest young man.” Burgundy lips pulled into what wanted to be a smile, but instead looked hideously desperate.
Jenn tried to count to ten but only got to two. “I know Larry’s a nice young man. If an abundance of immaturity counts as ‘nice’ points.”
“Jenn, really, you’re so intolerant. Just because you’re smart and went to Stanford for grad school …”
The name of her school—and the one dominant memory it brought up—made her neck jerk in a spasm. It had only been for two years, but that was enough. Desperately lonely after spending her undergrad years living with her cousins, Jenn had only formed a few friendships among the other grad students, none of them close. There was only one person she’d never forget, although every morning when she got up and saw the scar in the mirror, she desperately wanted to erase him from her memory.
“Why. Do we have. A goat.”
“It’s only for a few days—”
“We don’t know a thing about how to take care of—”
“They’re easy—”
“Besides which, this is Cupertino. I’m sure there are city laws—”
“It’ll be gone before anyone notices—”
“Oh, ho, you’re right about that.” Jenn strode toward the phone on the wall. “I’m calling the Humane Society. They’ll take it.” Although they wouldn’t provide a trailer to transport it. How was she going to take the goat anywhere, much less to an animal shelter?
Mom plopped onto a stool and sighed. “That boy was so cute. His name was Brad.”
There went her neck spasming again. But Brad was a common name. She grabbed the phone.
“Such a nice Chinese boy. Related to the Yip family—you know, the ones in Mountain View?”
The phone slipped from her hand and bungee-jumped toward the floor, saved only by the curly cord. She bent to snatch it up, but dizziness shrouded her vision and she had to take a few breaths before straightening up.
“Oh, and he went to Stanford. You two have something in common.” Mom beamed.
No. He wouldn’t.
Yes, he would.
“Brad Yip?”
Mom’s eyes lighted up. “Do you know him?”
Sure, she knew him. Knew the next time he came for his goat she’d ram her chef’s knife, Michael Meyers style, right between his eyes.
CHAPTER TWO
What should have been a joyous party celebrating her culinary degree had turned horrible. Like finding a cockroach in her bowl of soup.
The “cockroach” in question stood a head taller than Jenn’s relatives, doing that male head-nod-sip-drink-laugh that indicated “bonding” as they watched a few of the younger kids battling it out on the Wii. His smile had once made her stomach flop. It still did, but this time to cast up the makuzushi she’d just eaten, the vinegar rice from the sush
i burning the back of her throat. Her glare should have clawed that relaxed smile off his deceitful face.
Venus followed Jenn’s gaze. “Who’s the guy you’re stabbing with your eyes?”
“The scum of the earth.”
Venus’s eyebrows arched as she turned to Jenn.
“That’s him.” Jenn fingered the scar on her cheek.
Her cousin’s eyes suddenly burned like charcoal. “You’re kidding. Who brought him?”
“I don’t know.” The conversation yesterday filtered through her raging thoughts. “Maybe Larry.”
“Larry? How would he know him?”
“Larry’s apparently dorming with Brad’s younger brother.”
Venus’s poise faltered far enough for her to drop her jaw. “I don’t believe it. What are the odds?”
Jenn didn’t answer, just glowered at him.
Venus’s eyes narrowed slightly. “And how do you know all this?”
“Because he foisted his goat on my mother yesterday.”
Venus blinked. “Come again?”
“I wasn’t home. Larry brought Brad to Mom yesterday, and they asked her to take Brad’s goat.”
“His goat? Why does he own a goat?”
Jenn threw her hands up. “Why don’t you ask him?”
Venus’s brow fell and she gave a short motion with her hands. “Chill.”
Jenn bit her lip. “Sorry.”
Venus frowned at Brad as he and their cousins laughed loudly. “Why in the world did he come to your party? What nerve.”
How could he just stand there? Having a good time? As if what he’d done to her hadn’t happened?
No, she wasn’t going to be a victim ever again. Steel shot through her veins, straightening her shoulders. “I’m going to ask him.”
Venus grabbed her arm. “What?”
Jenn shook it off and moved forward. “I’m going to ask him.”
Venus caught her elbow again. “No, you’re not.”
“Why?” She tried to pull away, but Venus’s fingers tightened.
“You shouldn’t have to.” Venus scanned the room. “Where’s Lex?”
“That hurts.” She knocked Venus’s hand away. “You can’t keep protecting me—”
A suffocating cloud of lilac preceded Aunt Aikiko, then smothered Jenn as Aunty gave her a hug. “Congratulations on your graduation!”
Jenn coughed. “Thanks, Aunty.”
“I’m so proud of you.” Aunty beamed at her, still keeping her hands at Jenn’s shoulders. “It took you so long but you finally got your certificate.”
Jenn damped down her irritation. “Thanks, Aunty. Actually, it’s not a certificate, it’s an Associate of Occupational Studies degree—”
“And now you can work in my restaurant.” Aunty’s expression was a mix of self-congratulations for acquiring family labor and an invisible push at her niece to walk the line of her plans.
But perversely, Jenn stiffened.
Now why would she do that? Probably because of Brad’s grating voice filtering through the party noise. Her tight jaw wouldn’t let her smile, so instead, she nodded.
Venus didn’t say anything, but she crossed her arms and turned away slightly. She’d probably bring up their old argument as soon as Aunty walked away, and Jenn was too dispirited to rehash all the reasons why she was going to work at Aunty’s okazuya in Japantown. Plus she was tired of Venus and Lex always trying to protect her. She was thirty-three, not thirteen. “Aunty, did you have the crab puffs? It’s a new recipe I’m trying.”
She tried to steer her toward the buffet table, but Uncle Howard came up and hugged her hard, his hand slapping her shoulder blades. “Jenn, my favorite niece with a culinary degree.”
Jenn resisted rolling her eyes at the old joke. “Uncle, I’m your only niece with a culinary degree.”
“So are you going to use that degree and work for your aunty?”
Aunty Aikiko simpered.
“Um … of course.” So why did she feel like a fish in a net? Hadn’t she taken Culinary Management classes specifically because Aunty had hinted that she wanted Jenn to take over the restaurant one day? Aunty and her husband, Uncle Aki, must be good managers—the small restaurant had grown by leaps and bounds—so Jenn would learn a lot from them.
The problem was that Jenn didn’t really want their Japanese restaurant. She wanted her own.
However, she hadn’t voiced that desire to anyone because it almost seemed as if she’d jinx it if she did. Not to mention the fact that Aunty and all the relatives would be seriously displeased if she ditched Aunty’s restaurant to start her own, and Jenn wasn’t quite willing to brave their censure … and crying and arguing and yelling and nagging (this was the Sakai family, after all). Lex or Venus might not care about that, but Jenn was the quiet cousin, the one who liked everyone to get along.
Uncle Howard pounded her back again. “We’re all counting on you to help your aunty out.”
The weight of his approval—of the entire family’s approval and expectations—settled on her shoulders like a sandbag.
No, it was not a sandbag. She had to stop thinking negatively. It was a mantle.
That weighed fifty pounds.
Behind Uncle Howard, she could see Brad moving with her male cousins toward the back door of Grandma’s house.
Venus took off after him. Even worse, she spied Lex standing with her husband, Aiden, and forcibly yanked her away from the conversation.
No way would Jenn let Venus “fix” things for her. Not with him. “Uncle, Aunty, I’m sorry, I need to talk to someone. Have some food.” She scurried after Venus.
She had to dodge a few younger cousins running underfoot, and she almost trod on an old aunty’s foot, but she caught up to her cousins just as Lex grabbed Brad’s arm and jerked him aside.
“What are you doing here?” all three of them barked at once.
Brad, obviously still the egomaniac he’d always been, didn’t seem fazed to be approached by three women. And being Brad, he also homed in on gorgeous Venus like a shark. “Hey, baby—”
“Stuff it, you rotten excuse for a human being,” she snapped.
His dimples faded. “Uh …” His eye wandered to Lex without recognition, lingered on her slim form in a new silk blouse she (and Trish) had bought for Jenn’s party.
Those eyes finally slid to Jenn. And then his arrogance reasserted itself in that slimy smile. “Oh, hi, Jenn. How are you doing?”
“How am I doing?” Her voice rose from its normal deep octave to one closer to the pitch only dogs can hear. “I was doing a lot better before I saw you here.”
The insult washed over him. “Now, Jenn …” His tone was condescending.
“How dare you show your face here?” Lex fired at him.
“Mimi invited me.” He glanced over his shoulder.
Their cousin, Aunty Aikiko’s only daughter, had been chatting with a few of Trish’s cousins on her mom’s side, but Mimi now stopped and stared at them. Her face had whitened, but Jenn couldn’t quite tell if she was angry at them for attacking her guest or shocked at their behavior, which, Jenn acknowledged, resembled semi-rabid dogs.