by Camy Tang
“You’re going to squeeze the milk out of the teat in a smooth motion from top to bottom … No, squeeze harder. Like pushing toothpaste out of a tube.”
“You’re sure I’m not going to hurt—Oh!” A stream of milk shot out of the teat and bounced on the dirt ground. “I did it!” She kept staring at it. “Is that all?”
“You have to let go of the teat so more milk can flow into it.”
“Oh.” She let go, and it slowly thickened like a memory foam cushion getting back to its original shape. She squeezed again, and another shot of milk came out.
“Good. Now grab two of them and try to get into a rhythm with alternating teats—squeeze, release, squeeze rel—”
“You quit your job to start your own catering company?” Aunty Makiko’s voice roared as if she were calling the cows to come home rather than just across the tiny yard.
She hadn’t known that already? Mom must have let it slip, assuming it was common knowledge. Jenn didn’t even deign to look at Aunty, concentrating on the two softish leathery teats in her hand. Squeeze, release … “I’m calling it Jenn’s Apoplexy-Inducing Brainchild.”
She had to wait a few seconds for Aunty’s “What?!” to echo across the yard, but she was surprised to hear a soft giggle. Jenn looked up from Pookie’s udder and saw her cousin Mimi standing on the porch near Aunty Makiko—well, not too near, since Aunty looked like she could breathe fire.
“Hi, Mimi. You came to help fold paper cranes?” What Jenn really wanted to ask was if Mimi’s mom, Aunty Aikiko, was around, too. Jenn hoped Mimi could read her slightly anxious expression.
She could. “I was at my parents’ house and Mom was ranting about something crazy—I thought she mentioned Disneyland, can you believe that?—so when your mom called me to ask if I could help, I drove right over.”
Bless her mother. Mom must have called Mimi the second she saw Aunty Makiko had arrived early to harangue Jenn. Out of all the cousins, Mimi was the only one who could manage to sidetrack Aunty Makiko from a tirade.
“Aunty, let’s go inside.” Mimi laid a hand on the chicken-wing arm, and her voice had modulated subtly to a younger, lighter tone that somehow made Aunty’s face a little less strained and lined. “We have a lot of cranes to fold.”
But then Aunty’s belligerent expression returned. “No, I’ll have my say.”
Didn’t she always?
“Jennifer, you cannot run your own business.” She said it like a royal pronouncement.
Squeeze, release, squeeze, release …
“Jenn, you’re squeezing a bit hard,” Edward murmured just as Pookie shifted slightly.
“Sorry, Pookie,” she told the poor abused goat. She let go of the two teats and stood up to face her aunt. Hopefully her loose jeans hid her quaking thighs. Her entire body shivered as if she were in a strong north wind.
“You don’t have experience,” Aunty went on. “Why don’t you work for Aunty Aikiko to gain some business experience?”
“The only business experience I’d gain would be learning how to run Aunty’s restaurant the way Aunty wants it run.”
Behind Aunty Makiko, Mimi stifled an amused gasp.
Aunty just about blew a gasket. “This family has done nothing but pamper and support you—”
“This family has never supported me,” Jenn shot back. “You only want to use me.”
To her surprise, Mimi gave her an encouraging nod.
Aunty’s mouth opened and closed like a rather stupid goldfish. Finally she demanded, “Come here so I can speak to you properly without needing to yell.”
“You’ll yell whether I’m in front of you or across the Bay.”
Aunty sputtered.
Jenn turned back to Pookie. “I’m busy. If you want to speak to me, you can do it from there.” Hopefully Aunty wouldn’t slip into a pair of the outdoor slippers on the porch and march across the tiny yard.
“Your mother needs you,” Aunty said.
“Well, she sees even more of me now than when I was working as a software engineer.” Jenn grasped the teats again. “And much more than if I was working for the restaurant.”
“Don’t you care about Aunty Aikiko? She needs you.”
Jenn set her mouth for a moment, then turned to Aunty. “She doesn’t need me. Her sons are too lazy or disinclined to take over the restaurant—fine, I understand that. But she has Mimi. She could have trained her daughter, and yet she refuses to. That’s her loss.” And her own mental hangup. She never valued her only daughter, treating her like something useless.
Mimi had gone slightly pale, but she didn’t say anything.
“You are so selfish,” Aunty said. “You should care about pleasing your family. You should try to be a good Japanese daughter.” And here she gave a rather sneering look at Edward.
That prejudiced look fired her blood. No one talked like that to her anymore, and no one talked like that about her friends.
She’d been a people pleaser and a “good Japanese girl” for most of her life, and yet her family didn’t appreciate her or respect her. Moreover, she was grossly insulting Edward just because he wasn’t Asian.
So Aunty didn’t like her friend? Jenn would show her how “Japanese” she was.
She turned, grabbed Edward a bit awkwardly around the neck, and kissed him.
CHAPTER TEN
The kiss stunned him, dazzled him. The Milky Way exploded in front of his eyes. He felt a hundred feet tall (or at least taller than his normal five foot nine).
And she’d missed his mouth slightly and her hands around his neck kind of pulled his head at an awkward angle.
But she was only doing this to shock her relatives, who, granted, needed a bit of shocking. Still, this wasn’t right, not if he ever wanted a real relationship with Jenn. He grasped her waist to gently push her away.
Makiko’s voice grated on his ears. “Yuki! Your daughter is kissing that Hispanic migrant worker!”
His neck tightened. He was actually a Heinz 57 of old world Spanish, Italian, Russian, German, and a little Latvian. But the woman’s insulting tone made him grab Jenn’s waist and pull her closer instead of pushing her away from him.
Her body melted against him, and an inferno engulfed his head. Holy smokes, she was like his Aunt Lorena’s elote picoso chiles and corn dish.
Receding footsteps. The shush as Makiko yanked open the back door and then a whoosh! Thump, thump! as she slammed it shut.
Jenn didn’t immediately pull away. That was a good thing, right?
“She’s gone, guys,” Mimi said.
Jenn backed away, avoiding his eye, her cheeks purple like a plum. “Er … sorry. I kind of … lost my temper.”
She had pretty good provocation, and he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable with him, so he put a light spin on the incident. “You can lose your temper with me anytime.”
She flickered a glance up at him, bit her lip, then reluctantly smiled.
“I knew you were going to blow up eventually,” Mimi said from the porch.
“I didn’t blow up. Do you see any blood and guts?”
Mimi laughed. “Now you sound like me.”
Their banter reminded Edward of his own family. It was good to see that Jenn had more than just Trish on her side. After the display today, he’d been afraid she had turned her entire family against her.
She touched his forearm lightly, her eyes pained. “I’m sorry about Aunty.”
“Don’t be.”
Her gaze flickered. “No, really. I’m sorry you had to listen to all that.”
“And I’m telling you again, it’s okay. My family is even louder and they’ve had plenty of fights in front of my friends while I was growing up.”
“Really? That’s awful.” Her eyes were pained again, but it was for him. He wanted to touch her face and maybe brush the blush from her cheeks.
But had she kissed him because of him? Boring Edward Castillo? Or exotic, non-Asian biker Edward who rescued her on a Saratoga
road? The doubt made him straighten instead of leaning closer to her. He was glad for Mimi’s presence, to keep him in line. “See? We all have crazies in our families.”
Jenn ducked her head, hiding her smile. She turned to Mimi. “Thanks for trying to get Aunty away.”
“No problem. I owed you anyway.”
“For what?”
“For what?” Mimi flung her arms out. “For the reason you’re in this mess in the first place. For Brad.”
Who was Brad? Suddenly he wished Mimi gone.
“What do you mean, for Brad? I ruined the party.”
“What are you smoking? Brad ruined your party. I really didn’t know you guys had dated before.”
Dated? How long ago? Edward wanted to ask but didn’t think he could do it casually without looking like a turd.
Jenn shrugged. “It was a long time ago, in college.” But she was tense—he could see the tight set of her shoulders. “Did he … say anything about that?”
“Oh, I broke up with him.” Mimi said it as if she were telling them about the head of cabbage she just bought.
“You did?”
“I figured if he hit you, Miss Sweet and Mild, it’s almost a guarantee he’ll take a swing at me. I mean, with my mouth?”
“He hit you?” Edward’s question shot out of his mouth, tight with outrage.
“He pushed me.” Jenn pulled her hair forward and fiddled with it, the strands framing her face. “It was only once.”
“You ripped into him pretty good.” Mimi had a rather malicious gleam in her eye. “You might even say he was the catalyst for everything that’s happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if you hadn’t confronted him, the aunties wouldn’t have tried to shut you up, and you wouldn’t have gotten mad and decided not to work for Aunty Aikiko, and you wouldn’t be forming your own catering business.”
Whoa, that was convoluted. But it seemed to be a winding road that had led her to him, so he couldn’t complain.
“Speaking of which,” Mimi continued, “why do you need to milk that goat if you’re forming your own business? You’re not going to sell milk, are you?”
“Cheese.” Jenn’s face had lit up. “I can use goat cheese in one or two dishes for the wedding.”
“When’s the wedding?” Edward asked. “Trish never mentioned the actual date to me.”
“In four weeks.”
“And she gave birth the last time I saw you?”
“Yes.”
He scratched the back of his head. “You won’t be able to use the milk from her for two weeks.”
“What? Why?”
“The first two weeks, the goat is producing a special milk for the kid, and it doesn’t taste all that great. But after that, you could get maybe a gallon from her a day, if you milk her once a day.”
“A gallon?” Jenn’s eyes narrowed and she stared into space. She reminded him of his uncle when he was calculating harvest dates.
“Doesn’t give you much time to make cheese before the wedding,” Mimi remarked.
“I’ll think of something. What else do I need to know?” she asked him.
They spent more time with Pookie, and even Mimi got a chance to milk her. He explained what Jenn would need to do for milk collection, what equipment she’d need, what precautions she’d need to take with the raw milk.
After they’d untethered Pookie and let her wander in the tiny yard, Jenn asked Edward and Mimi if they wanted to stay for lunch.
“Your aunty won’t mind?” Edward asked.
“She won’t stay,” Jenn assured him. “She prefers Japanese food and I always make sure to cook Italian or Mexican when she comes over. In fact, if I start cooking now, it’ll chase her out of the house faster.”
“Have I mentioned I love the smell of boiling pasta?” Mimi turned toward the back door.
“It’s only nine or ten in the morning.”
“Remember, I still have to fold cranes with them.”
Jenn groaned. “I’ll probably have to do that, too. Unless …” She chewed her lip. “I do still have to do a trial run of Trish’s wedding cake. Maybe I’ll do that this morning.”
“So we can have cake for dessert? Bring it on!” Mimi bounced on the balls of her feet as she walked up the steps to the porch.
“What should I do?” Edward asked.
“Do you want to fold cranes?” Jenn asked.
He held out his square, strong hands. “With these?”
Jenn grinned. “Wait for me in the kitchen.”
Inside, Edward felt a bit like he was on the deck of the USS Enterprise. Everything gleamed with chrome and digital readouts and a few rather nasty looking knives that a Klingon would love.
“Mom!” Jenn’s voice sounded high, strained. Through the open doorway of the kitchen, he saw Jenn dart from the hallway into the living room. “Mom, where are my cake pans?”
“In the kitchen.” But Mrs. Lim’s voice trembled.
“No, my brand new ones. The special ones I bought for Trish’s wedding. The ones that were in the box in my room.”
“They’re not there?”
A pause. Edward could imagine Jenn counting to three. “I may be getting older, Mother, but I can see well enough to know that the box is empty.”
Edward actually heard Mrs. Lim gulp. “Er … well … do you remember when Aunty Aikiko was here?”
There was a terrible silence.
Edward left the kitchen to go rescue Jenn’s mom.
“You let Aunty Aikiko take my cake pans?” Jenn’s voice screeched off the low ceiling of the living room just as Edward grasped her shoulders firmly from behind.
“In the kitchen, Jenn,” he said.
“You let—”
“They heard you the first time, Jenn.” He pitched his voice firmly to cut through her shock and anger. Aunty Makiko looked faintly pleased. “Mimi?” He jerked his head toward the open doorway of the living room as he pulled Jenn backwards and out of there.
He managed to zombie-walk her into the kitchen, followed by her cousin. She let out a weak, “I can’t believe she let … They were really expensive … special order …”
Edward plopped her into a bar stool next to the island in the middle of the kitchen. “Do you need a glass of water or something?”
“I’ll make tea.” Mimi bustled around, getting the teapot and mugs.
Jenn stared into space, breathing heavily. “What am I going to do?”
“Retaliate.”
“Retaliate?” She turned a confused face to him. “How?”
“Infiltrate and retrieve.” He hadn’t played all those Xbox games for nothing.