by Camy Tang
Jenn put on her brightest, I’m such a properly obedient Asian niece I’ll scrub your bathroom floor with a toothbrush voice. “Aunty, I’m going to San Jose State this afternoon, and I know how much you hate driving in downtown San Jose, so I wondered if there was anything you wanted me to take to Larry at his dorm?”
It earned her a grudging, “That’s very nice of you, Jenn. In fact, I do have a load of laundry Larry needs right away.”
“Great! I’ll come by and pick it up in a few minutes. Is there anything else?” She gave a thoughtful pause. “Any special memento Larry might have forgotten in his room that he might need?”
Aunty always treated Larry, her only son, as if he still couldn’t feed himself with a fork if she weren’t there to help him. Now, Jenn counted on it. “Is there any kind of memento Larry might need for exams next week?”
“There are exams next week?”
“My cousin Mimi said they were soon.” If “soon” meant six weeks away.
“Oh, he always gets so stressed when there are exams. Last time, he bought so many pizzas for all-nighters that he needed to borrow money.”
Pizzas, huh? More like drinkable sustenance. “Is there anything I could bring him to help him?”
“Oh, I have the perfect thing. When he was in high school, he’d lie on his yellow pony rug in the living room to study.”
“Wonderful.” Even Jenn hadn’t known about the yellow pony rug, although Larry had let slip once that he had a lucky charm for when he had to study for finals in his senior year. “Aunty, why don’t you call him and let him know I’ll be by this afternoon with his laundry and the yellow pony rug.”
“I’ll do that right now. Thanks, Jenn.”
Jenn hung up her cell phone and counted the seconds. Fifteen seconds for Aunty to ask how he was doing, another twenty seconds while she rambled on and Larry tried to get her off the phone, then ten seconds when Aunty remembered why she’d called her darling boy and told him about the laundry. And the yellow pony. Five seconds for Larry to realize what Jenn had done and give some excuse for needing to get off the phone right away—maybe a fire drill or an email from his professor.
Her phone rang. Caller ID: Larry
“I was thinking of draping the rug across the couch in your dorm’s common room,” Jenn said. “Maybe with a note pinned to it saying, ‘This is Larry’s study partner.’”
“Jenn,” he said with false heartiness, “you’re not like that. You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?” She could almost hear the sweat dripping down his face.
“Of course I would. I would consider it ample repayment for the goats in my backyard.”
“Aw, but Pookie’s awful cute, isn’t he?”
“Pookie is a she, and she tripled yesterday.”
“Tripled? Uh … congratulations?”
He was a little too unsurprised by that. “Did Brad know she was pregnant?”
“No, of course not.”
“You are going to call him and tell him to come get his goat today.”
“Today? That’s too short notice—”
“Today or else the little yellow pony is going to be galloping through the front door of your dorm.”
He gave a painful groan into the phone.
Mom’s soft knock on her bedroom door.
Jenn stood up but finished her conversation with her cousin before opening it. “I mean it, Larry! That goat is eating me out of house and home. If Brad doesn’t get it from me today, it’s going to the humane society and Brad’s mother will blow like an aerosol can in a microwave. And you know what? I don’t care if they are Yips. I’m not keeping their goat another day.” She disconnected the phone just as she opened her bedroom door.
Aunty Aikiko stood next to her mom.
Jenn’s jaw clenched. Well, what did she expect? On the phone, Aunty had said “You should do whatever is best for you, Jenn.” But what she meant was “I’ll let this go for now and then snipe in with a new argument later to break down your defenses (you puny human).”
Jenn tried to smile but it felt like her face cracked in half. “Hi, Aunty.”
“Jenn, I’m so glad I caught you at home. I have a favor to ask.”
Jenn felt like she was waiting for a soufflé to collapse. “Why don’t we go out into the living room?” Jenn made to move past her, but Aunty stood her ground.
“No, why don’t I speak to you privately in your room?”
No way would she be secluded with Aunty in her bedroom. That was like inviting a tiger to sit down for a comfortable chat in a confined space.
Besides, this was her house. She’d paid the majority of the mortgage payments since Dad was gone, and she could dictate who she entertained where.
“Aunty, I was just on my way out. Let’s talk in the living room.” Jenn forcibly thrust herself between Aunty and Mom and led the way to the living room, leaving them no choice but to follow.
They sat. Maybe Jenn should have likened Aunty to a spider rather than a tiger. She looked at Jenn as if she were a fly. “What did you need?” Not, What can I do for you? She hoped Aunty got the hint, but probably not.
“We haven’t had a vacation in years, and we’d like to take the boys to Disneyland.”
Jenn cleared her throat. “Aren’t they a little old for Disneyland?”
“Ryden is sixteen,” Aunty said blithely of her youngest.
“Er … and so Daniel, Jared, Rick, and Ryden all want to go to Disneyland?”
“Oh, yes, they’ve been cooped up at the house for too long.”
Actually, Daniel traveled extensively for his engineering job and was only living at home because of his recent divorce. Jared had gotten laid off so he’d been out to employment agencies and interviews for the past several months, and Rick was a senior at the University of California at Berkeley and was only home every third weekend. Jenn had to breathe through her nose slowly and carefully before she could unclench her teeth. “What about Mimi?”
“Oh, she doesn’t need to go.”
The wording made Jenn frown. Aunty was always that way with Mimi. Was it any wonder the girl had become a little wild? At least she and Lex had been roommates for a couple years, but that ended a year ago when Lex eloped with Aiden.
“So what was the favor you wanted to ask?” Jenn already knew, even before Aunty jumped at the question.
“We want you to take over the restaurant while we go on vacation.”
“No, sorry.” The words shot out before she even finished the request.
“Jenn!” Mom objected.
Aunty’s mouth had frozen open.
“No, I’m too busy setting up my catering business.” Jenn knew the “vacation” was just a flimsy excuse to get her working at the restaurant. When they came back from “Disneyland,” Aunty would come up with other excuses why they couldn’t come back to work, and Jenn would be forced to either stay there or leave the restaurant high and dry.
Aunty’s face turned a dark red like an azuki bean. Mom sighed and shook her head, probably wondering what alien had abducted her daughter and left this foreign surrogate in her place.
A reckless streak prompted Jenn to add, “You should ask Mimi to take over.”
“Mimi wouldn’t know the first thing what to do,” Aunty snapped.
“Actually, considering Mimi works there more often than all her brothers combined, I think she’d know exactly what to do.”
“She couldn’t possibly run the restaurant alone—”
“I’m almost positive Jared would be happy to forego Disneyland to help her.”
Aunty gave her a wrathful look.
Jenn met it with a guileless expression. She stood up. “Sorry to run off, Aunty, but I have some errands. Good bye!”
As she picked up her purse and exited the house, she burst out the front door like Daniel escaping the lion’s den. God had helped her be brave and stand firm. She’d never fall prey to her relatives’ manipulations again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
>
The goats were still there.
Jenn mutinously shoveled goat feed into the feeding trough (which, to the goat, looked mysteriously like an old bucket).
One of the two babies, skittish before, suddenly came up to her hopping in a circle around her, leaping and twisting mid-air. One of his acrobatics nudged her in the back of the leg, making her sway on her feet. She glared down at the tiny creature.
It seemed to be smiling at her in a mysterious goat-y way. Really, he was quite cute. She patted him on the head, which he endured with a condescending grace for all of half a second before bounding off to play with his sibling.
Well, she’d given Larry the day, and he had failed her. He had to face the consequences, dire though they may be. Jenn realized she was actually looking forward to this.
She hopped in her car, the ratty, fluffy yellow pony rug draped over her backseat. Ah, the sight of it filled her with such malicious joy.
On the drive to downtown San Jose, however, her phone rang. She didn’t want to take her attention off the road to rummage in her purse so she could look at the caller ID on her cell phone, so she just hit the answer button on her Bluetooth. “Hello?”
“Hi Jenn, it’s Aunty Yoshiko. Bethany has a cooking project she needs to do next week and we wondered if you’d be able to help her?”
“No.”
A beat of silence. “Er … what did you say?”
“No, sorry, Aunty. I’m too busy.” Besides which, the last time she’d “helped” Bethany with a project, she’d ended up doing half of it because the lazy brat’s sloppy efforts would have not only ruined her project but also Jenn’s springform pan, which she’d let her borrow since she didn’t have one.
“But …” Aunty sputtered incoherently. “But Bethany needs you.”
As if that was reason enough for Jenn to drop everything? “I’m too busy, Aunty. You’ll have to help her yourself”—and get those two-inch long acrylic nails dirty, imagine that?—“or ask someone else.”
“There’s no one else to ask.”
“I’m sure there is. I have fifty-seven cousins on the Sakai side.”
Aunty gave a gasp of indignation.
“Bye, Aunty!” Jenn hit the Bluetooth button to disconnect the call.
That felt wonderful! Jenn neatly changed lanes to pass a slow car.
Another phone call. “Hello?”
“Hi Jenn, this is Mrs. Hoshiwara from church. I’m gathering names for the church bake sale to raise money for Vacation Bible School. Can you help us out again this year?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say yes. After all, Mrs. Hoshiwara had been nothing but nice to her since Jenn started going to church.
But wasn’t this all about the Liberation of Jenn? No longer slave to the needs of others? She’d just denied two aunties—two blood relations. Surely the church would understand?
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hoshiwara, but I’m afraid I’m too busy. I just quit my job, and I’m starting a catering business.”
“Oh, how wonderful!”
Her enthusiastic approval made Jenn’s stomach gurgle uncomfortably.
“I’m so glad you’re doing this, Jenn,” she continued. “You’re so talented in the kitchen.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Hoshiwara.”
“Of course you wouldn’t have time to make something for the bake sale.”
Actually, she probably could whip up a batch of cookies pretty darn quick … No, she was being liberated. She had to stick to her guns.
So why did it feel so different to tell Mrs. Hoshiwara no? It hadn’t felt like this with either of her aunties.
“Well, I’ll see you at church on Sunday,” Mrs. Hoshiwara said.
“Uh … yeah.” Jenn actually hadn’t been to church in a couple weeks because she’d stayed up late doing things—Trish’s wedding, her business license, applying for a small business loan …
“Bye, Jenn!” She hung up.
Jenn could make it up to her next year, make a couple cakes or something. Right?
Speaking of cakes, she needed to start her trial runs of Trish’s wedding cake to make sure she could get everything done right the day before the wedding. Plus she was eager to try out those new cake pans.
Parking in downtown was almost impossible—what a surprise—so she had to park several blocks away and hoof it to Larry’s dorm with his ginormous laundry bag and the stinkin’ yellow pony rug trailing behind her. When she entered his dormitory front entrance, she was surprised to find not only Larry, but Brad waiting to pounce on her.
And not just Brad, but a couple quarterback-sized Yip cousins, too.
The rug was ripped from her hands, but unfortunately no one grabbed the laundry bag. So she dumped it on the ground and kicked it aside.
She addressed the slimy fink ratworm Brad. “So you could drop off the goat at my house and you can drive into downtown San Jose but you can’t come pick up your animal?”
Brad just laughed and flashed that I’m better than you because my daddy makes enough in a day to buy your house look. “Jenn, your bitterness over losing me has really pervaded your life.”
She had a strange, fierce buzzing in her ears and her voice came from a long way away. “Losing you? More like good riddance.”
“Thanks so much for bringing that for me, Jenn,” Larry said in a triumphantly smarmy voice. “Now I can burn it without needing to sneak it out of the house first.”
“If you hadn’t had the linebackers over there, you’d have had to fight me for it. And I’d win.”
Larry only smirked. “I needed the protection because you’ve obviously gone over the edge. You’re crazy and dangerous. Who knows what you’d do?”
She did feel dangerous. Worse, she felt more than a little crazy. “Brad, you can pick up your goat at the Humane Society.” She turned to leave.
“Oh no, you won’t.”
“Stop me,” she flung over her shoulder.
“Your grandmother will.”
She froze in her tracks. The linebackers snickered.
Turning to face him, she pinned him with a glare that should have seared him like crème brûlée. “Explain yourself.”
“Your Aunt Aikiko called my mother and said you had told your Grandma Sakai that you were … what were the words she used? Oh yes, ‘thrilled’ to keep Great-Aunt Chin’s goat. Mom had wanted to find a new home for the goat when Great-Aunt Chin moved to that small apartment, and she’d been adamant about not wanting the animal taken to the Humane Society. So when Larry called me and I called Mom, she was understandably confused about the threats to take it to the Humane Society.”
Jenn’s mind raced (and not just from that incredibly twisted explanation for why the goat was in her backyard). Aunty Aikiko must have overheard her talking to Larry on her phone and drawn her own conclusions. Aunty wasn’t close friends with Brad’s mother, but she managed to get her to take her call anyway.