by Camy Tang
“Mom!” Aunty Aikiko’s panicked voice cut through the busy noises of the kitchen. “Mom! You can’t go back there!”
“Oh, can’t I?” Grandma’s steely voice held more menace, although it was only half the volume of Aunty’s.
Grandma entered the kitchen, her eye scanning the shocked faces until she saw Jenn. She waved an imperious hand. “Come here, Jenn. You’re leaving right now.”
“What?” Jenn almost dropped the bowl of udon noodles.
“What?!” Aunty Aikiko screeched.
“We’ll discuss this outside,” Grandma said. “I can’t hear myself think in here.” Which was rather odd because for once the kitchen was quiet, everyone paused in shocked silence.
“Mom,” Aunty Aikiko said, trying to regain her composure. “Jenn’s working—”
“Not anymore.” Grandma grabbed Jenn forcibly by the wrist and tugged.
The udon bowl tipped, and broth went everywhere.
Well, no, not everywhere in the kitchen. Just everywhere Jenn was.
The porcelain bowl hit the floor and shattered amidst a nest of noodles. The hot soup took a moment to soak through her apron and into her clothes, stinging her skin. She fumbled with the knot of her apron ties while trying to make her body shrink away from her clothes. “Owowowow!”
She could have sworn a noodle slithered into her underwear.
She got the apron off but her jeans were still soaked and sticking hotly to her legs, noodles had found their way into her shirt collar and some hung down the front of her shirt, and her bra felt like she’d put it in the microwave for a minute before putting it on.
Grandma paused, then said, “See? She can’t cook while wearing somebody’s lunch. She’s leaving now.” She grabbed Jenn’s wrist again, and Jenn allowed herself to be towed out of the kitchen.
“Mom …” Aunty Aikiko followed them, her pointy-toed shoes kicking Jenn in the Achille’s tendons.
Jenn’s wet shoes slipped on the slick floor of the dining area, and she did a half-split before righting herself.
Grandma glanced back—not at Jenn, but at Aunty. “Aikiko, my bank holds the lease on this building.”
Just that one sentence, and Aunty stopped following them. Jenn looked back and saw Aunty standing bewildered, angry, frustrated. The waitresses never stopped their busy movements, but they gave her a wide berth.
Then Grandma’s hand on her wrist tugged her along, and she had no choice but to follow.
They erupted from the restaurant into the sunlight beating down on the streets of San Jose Japantown.
“Come.” Grandma led her to where she’d miraculously found street parking close to the restaurant. “We’re going to the bank.”
“The bank” meaning Grandma’s bank, founded by Grandpa Sakai and made significantly successful after he’d married Grandma, who now ran it after his death.
“I need to change—”
“I have some spare clothes at the bank.”
“That’ll fit me?” Jenn eyed Grandma, who was a good six inches shorter.
“Mimi left them a few months ago by accident and I never got around to giving them back to her. I’m sure they’ll fit you.”
Jenn wasn’t sure if she should be flattered Grandma thought Jenn would fit into twenty-something Mimi’s skin-tight jeans, or if she should admit to Grandma that she’d split the seams just dipping a toe into them.
“Wait, Grandma.” Jenn resisted, and her grandmother stopped to face her on the sidewalk. “What’s going on?”
“Just come with me—”
“No.” Jenn said the word as forcefully as she could, more forcefully than she’d ever said anything to Grandma before. She wasn’t the same Jenn, who would meekly allow others to dictate her life. “Tell me what’s going on. I needed that job for more than one reason.”
Grandma’s face registered annoyance, but also a grudging respect. “Very well. I wanted to tell you in the comfort of my office, but in the middle of Japantown is fine, too.”
Jenn ignored her acerbic tone and stood her ground, crossing her arms.
“Your small business loan was approved.”
“Grandma! I told you to withdraw it. What am I going to do with it?”
“Start your own business of course,” she snapped as if Jenn were a simpleton.
Jenn blinked at her in annoyed disbelief. “With Mom the way she is?”
“Your own business lets you set your own hours so you can take care of her.”
“Sure I can take care of her. With what money?”
Grandma then smiled. A triumphant smile that had Jenn a little frightened, to be honest. “You now have a monthly stipend.”
“That’s news to me. Since when?”
“Since today. The first month’s check is at the bank.”
“And who is my mysterious benefactor? Santa Claus?” Jenn really hoped it wasn’t Grandma. Or Venus. While she knew they only did it out of love, she hated the feeling of being a charity case. It made her feel like she was less of a person.
“Mr. and Mrs. Yip.”
It took her a second to register the names. “As in, Brad Yip’s parents?”
Grandma nodded grandly. She could have been the Queen granting everyone a tax break.
“Why in the world are they giving me a stipend?”
“As compensation for taking care of their family goat Pookie.”
“What? Pookie? How did you get them to do that?”
“They have a brother in considerable debt … to the bank.”
Jenn was beginning to see the threads of Grandma’s weaving as they formed her web.
“They were so surprised to hear that when Brad gave you Pookie to take care of, he hadn’t offered any form of compensation. They were very embarrassed. I suggested a sum that would be adequate for all the work you’re doing, or that would enable you to stable Pookie at a farm.” She named an absurd amount that had Jenn gasping.
“Grandma!” She stopped short of accusing her grandparent of extortion in the middle of the busy street.
“I consider it adequate,” she replied. “Especially in light of their son’s behavior to you.”
“Brad?”
Grandma’s eyes softened then. “Jenn, I didn’t remember that incident until you confronted him at the party, or else I would never have allowed him to be invited.”
The words draped over her, warming her like the softest down. “Thank you.”
“So. Shall we?” She gestured to her waiting car.
“Yes.” She followed her Grandma, joyous at being sprung from her teriyaki-coated prison.
CHAPTER TWENTY
They snuck into church like a foursome of thieves.
Except thieves wouldn’t have stalked into the sanctuary on Venus’s three-inch high designer heels—which she insisted were shorter than what she used to wear—or tripped over her own shoes like Lex, or exaggeratingly tiptoed in like Trish.
Jenn followed a few feet behind, unsure if she really wanted to sit next to them and announce to all and sundry that she claimed them as acquaintances.
Then again, it was the fault of all four of them. They wouldn’t have been late to Sunday service if Trish hadn’t insisted they all drive together, and if Lex hadn’t been as late as she always was, and if NASCAR-racer Venus hadn’t kept nagging Jenn about how slow she was driving, which of course made Jenn drive even more carefully just to be perverse.
Normally they didn’t all go to church together, but for the first weekend in a long time, Aiden, Spencer, and Drake were all out of town, and the four cousins had elected to go to church together and then have lunch and go to a chick-flick at the movie theater.
Venus found them a seat by zeroing in on a pew taken up by several lounging teenaged boys and ordering them to “Move over.” They complied like peons in a boardroom, squeezing their lanky frames together so the four cousins could sit without spilling over into each others’ laps.
Trish knocked elbows with Jenn, which ma
de her clench her teeth to keep from yelping. She happened to glance to the side as she rubbed her stinging elbow, and that’s when she saw it.
The polar ice caps must have melted because a few rows down and across the aisle from her, sitting in a pew, was the last person she would have ever expected to see in church.
Grandma Sakai.
Jenn backhanded Trish’s arm, not taking her eyes off of Grandma, just in case she dissolved.
“What?” Trish said.
Jenn pointed to Grandma.
Trish sucked in air so fast she started coughing.
Jenn wasn’t hallucinating. That really was Grandma.
Trish slapped Lex while still coughing.
“Will you keep it d—” Lex’s sentence was swallowed by her shock as she saw Grandma. She slapped Venus, sitting next to her.
“Toddlers would behave better than you three. What is it?” she whispered.
All three cousins pointed fingers at Grandma, who was still oblivious to their shock and amazement.
“Oh. Is that all?”
“What do you mean, ‘Is that all?’” Lex hissed.
Venus shrugged. “Mrs. Matsumoto and Grandma have been coming to church for several weeks now.”
“And you didn’t tell us?” Trish’s whisper was sharp and incredulous.
“Shut up, you’re disrupting the service.” Venus faced forward and ignored their astounded looks.
Jenn had known Grandma had patched things up with her good friend Mrs. Matsumoto, who happened to be a very outspoken Christian, after the two of them had argued a year ago. When they became friends again—it really reminded Jenn of a high school drama, the whole thing had been so silly—Mrs. Matsumoto had managed to get Grandma to go to some church-sponsored Senior group meetings. But Jenn hadn’t known she’d somehow managed to get Grandma to go to church.
Then again, now that Lex and Aiden were married (by elopement, no less), Lex no longer came to this church, instead going to Aiden’s. Jenn had also been going to Valley Bible Church with Lex, Aiden, Trish, and Spenser, and only Venus came to Santa Clara Church because she and Drake worked with the youth group on Saturday nights. So if Grandma and Mrs. Matsumoto were coming here, only Venus would have known.
During announcements, Venus wrote in her program and passed it to the three cousins, who hunched over Trish to read it.
Mrs. Matsumoto & Grandma have become friends w/ Mrs. Cathcart, who runs Sunday School pgrm. She invited them to Senior group that meets here after church. They’ve been coming for 2 months.
Two months? The three cousins hadn’t known that their staunchly Buddhist, verbally anti-Christian Grandma had been going to Venus’s church for two months?
Well, no, Jenn couldn’t say Grandma had been as snidely anti-Christian in the past half year, not since she and Mrs. Matsumoto were back to being BFFs. When they had broken up, Grandma had been a bit insulting to Lex and Trish about their faith, but she hadn’t said anything about the cousins’ faith in the past few months, to be honest.
The service dragged on forever. Jenn was dying to go up to Grandma. But really, what would she say? “Hi, Grandma, funny seeing you here, so have you become a Christian yet?”
Well, she’d think of something. The pastor was certainly talking an awfully long—
At that moment, she noticed the table standing to the side near the front of the sanctuary. Faux-silver, deep-rimmed plates stood stacked on top of each other.
Just when she thought the service would be wrapping up … nope. It was the weekend for the church’s quarterly communion. She’d have to wait an extra fifteen minutes to talk to Grandma.
The pastor started the communion, clarifying that all Christians were encouraged to take communion even if they weren’t members of this church, but that they asked non-believers to abstain.
The ushers passed some shallow-rimmed plates, each containing broken pieces of bread. While waiting, Jenn watched idly as people took their bread.
The plate got to Grandma, and Jenn was hardly paying attention, until it seemed Grandma dipped her hand in the plate.
What?
Jenn stared hard at her, but it was difficult to tell if she’d taken a piece of bread or not. She shook Trish’s arm. “Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“Grandma.”
“Grandma what?”
Maybe Jenn had imagined it.
The pastor had asked everyone to hold their pieces of bread so they could take it all together to signify their unity as a body of Christ. Jenn, feeling guilty, didn’t really pay attention to him because she was watching Grandma like a hawk. But she didn’t have a good angle—she was further up the aisle as opposed to directly across from her—and when everyone else raised their hands to their mouths to take the bread, she couldn’t be sure Grandma had eaten anything.
Had she taken a piece of bread? Jenn’s heart picked up speed as the ushers then passed around the deep-rimmed plates, which each contained tiny plastic cups of grape juice.
When the plate got to Grandma, she didn’t even hesitate. Very matter-of-factly, she took a cup.
Jenn’s entire body suddenly jolted like she’d been hit by lightning. Beside Jenn, Trish yelped softly. Venus shushed them, but then caught sight of Grandma, whose outside hand clearly held a cup of juice. An intense look settled on Venus’s face.
“Seriously?” Lex whispered. “Seriously?”
“You didn’t know this?” Jenn asked Venus, who shook her head.
Grandma. A Christian.
The thought made her want to laugh. To cry. To shout.
But then her heart plummeted back to earth. Maybe Grandma was only taking the cup so she wouldn’t look weird to not be taking it in front of everybody.
But Mrs. Matsumoto, sitting next to Grandma, wouldn’t have let her do that. And Mrs. Matsumoto looked rather complacent as she sat there.
“Jenn.” Trish nudged her.
She looked down at the plate of grape juice cups. Oh, right. Communion. She took a cup.
The pastor had asked people to take the cup as they felt led, to signify each person’s individual commitment to Christ. Well, it was kind of a no-brainer what she wanted to talk to God about. She closed her eyes.
Whoa. God. How could I ever think something was too big for You?
Hadn’t the past week taught her that? Being rescued by Grandma, receiving her first check from the Yips only seven days after getting the news about Mom? (Granted, that had been a slightly stressful seven days.)
And now, this. Completely unexpected but utterly amazing, filled with the grace and power of God. Of all her relatives, she would never have imagined that hard-nosed businesswoman and matriarch Grandma Sakai would turn from her lifetime of faithfulness to Buddha to Jesus Christ.