The Best American Short Stories 2019

by Anthony Doerr

  Somehow, in practice, we started to talk like the boys. When someone would miss a pass we’d say, Where were you at, playa? When someone shot an air ball, we’d put a fist to our mouths and boo like boys. It wasn’t long before we started to spit into our palms as we lined up to slap hands against opposing teams postgame. Good game, good game, good game, we’d all say. Sometimes we couldn’t hold in the laughs until the line was done.

  We blasted music in the gym during warm-ups before home games. Coach let us turn up the music so loud that we could feel the beat on the floor, could feel it in our bodies, our hearts. Who cared that the Bulls dominated back then and that the Dubs were shit. On the court, we felt proud. During games, we took hits and threw elbows like champs. Who cared about girls from Napa who put their fingers in our faces and timed their pregame team chant with ours so you couldn’t hear our voices? Who cared that we would grow up to have all kinds of girls interrupt us, correct us, cut us, talk over us, throw shrimp cocktail at us? Could we blame them? We were brown like their nannies, brown like the big-eyed dirty kids in those Save the Children commercials, brown like hotel housekeepers, brown like nurses who wiped asses, and brown like those Miss Universe runners-up who said things like, You know what, sir, in my twenty-two years of existence, I can say that there is nothing major major I mean problem that I’ve done in my life . . . because I’m very confident with my family, with the love that they are giving to me. So thank you so much that I’m onstage. Thank you, thank you so much!

  Fuck.

  We were brown like their daddies’ secretaries, brown like the women their daddies beat off to and sometimes left the family for, brown like me love you long time, brown like I need to apologize for offending you, brown like may I take your plate, brown like you think I need your charity, and brown like how can I help you, sir? Back then, we helped ourselves. We dove out of bounds. We broke bones. We didn’t care about sweat-slicked ponytails. Didn’t care about the skinned knees or bruises or scars, didn’t bother with bandages in the mornings before school. We got hard. All the marks on our faces and bodies said, So what, I’m still here.

  WEIKE WANG

  Omakase

  from The New Yorker

  The couple decided that tonight they would go out for sushi. Two years ago, they’d met online. Three months ago, they’d moved in together. Previously, she’d lived in Boston, but now she lived in New York with him.

  The woman was a research analyst at a bank downtown. The man was a ceramic-pottery instructor at a studio uptown. Both were in their late thirties, and neither of them wanted kids. Both enjoyed Asian cuisine, specifically sushi, specifically omakase. It was the element of surprise that they liked. And it suited them in different ways. She got nervous looking at a list of options and would second-guess herself. He enjoyed going with the flow. What is the best choice? she’d ask him when flipping through menus with many pages and many words, and he’d reply, The best choice is whatever you feel like eating at the moment.

  Before they got there, the man had described the restaurant as a “hole-in-the-wall.” He had found it on a list of top sushi places in central Harlem. Not that there were many. So, instead of top sushi places, it may just have been a list of all sushi places. Be prepared, he said. Nothing is actually a hole-in-the-wall, she replied. Yet the restaurant was as the man had described: a tiny room with a sushi bar and a cash register. Behind the bar stood an old sushi chef. Behind the cash register sat a young waitress. The woman estimated that the hole could seat no more than six adults and a child. Good thing sushi pieces were small. Upon entering, she gave the man a look. The look said, Is this going to be OK? Usually, for sushi, they went downtown to places that were brightly lit, crowded, and did not smell so strongly of fish. But tonight downtown trains were experiencing delays because someone had jumped onto the tracks at Port Authority and been hit.

  That was something the woman had to get used to about New York. In Boston, the subway didn’t get you anywhere, but the stations were generally clean and quiet and no one bothered you on the actual train. Also, there were rarely delays due to people jumping in front of trains. Probably because the trains came so infrequently that there were quicker ways to die. In New York, the subway generally got you where you needed to go, but you had to endure a lot. For example, by the end of her first month the woman had already seen someone pee in the corner of a car. She had been solicited for money numerous times. And, if she didn’t have money, the same person would ask her for food or a pencil or a tissue to wipe his nose. On a trip into Brooklyn on the L, she had almost been kicked in the face by a pole-dancing kid. She’d refused to give that kid any money.

  You worry too much, the man said whenever she brought up the fact that she still didn’t feel quite at home in New York. And not only did she not feel at home; she felt that she was constantly in danger.

  You exaggerate, the man replied.

  At the restaurant, he gave the woman a look of his own. This look said two things: one, you worry too much, and, two, this is fun—I’m having fun, now you have fun.

  The woman was having fun, but she also didn’t want to get food poisoning.

  As if having read her mind, the man said, If you do get sick, you can blame me.

  Eventually, the waitress noticed that the couple had arrived. She had been picking polish off her nails. She looked up but didn’t get up and instead waved them to the bar. Sit anywhere you like, she said sleepily. Then she disappeared behind a black curtain embroidered with the Chinese character for the sun.

  When they first started dating, they’d agreed that if there weren’t any glaring red flags, and there weren’t, they would try to live together, and they did. To make things fair, each tried to find a job in the other’s city. Not surprisingly, the demand for financial analysts in New York was much higher than the demand for pottery instructors in Boston.

  Huzzah, he texted the day the movers arrived at her old apartment. She texted back a smiley face, then, later, pictures of her empty living room, bedroom, bathroom, and the pile of furniture and things she was donating so that, once they were living together, they would not have, for example, two dining room sets, twenty pots and pans, seven paring knives, and so on.

  She was one of those people—the kind to create an Excel spreadsheet of everything she owned and send it to him, so that he could then highlight what he also owned and specify quantity and type, since it might make sense to have seven paring knives if they were of different thicknesses and lengths and could pare different things.

  He was one of these people—the kind to look at an Excel spreadsheet and squint.

  Before the big move, she had done some research on the best time to drive into the city in a large moving truck. She did not want to take up too much space. It would pain her if the moving truck was responsible for a blocked intersection and a mess of cars honking nonstop. The internet said that New Yorkers were tough and could probably handle anything. But the internet also said, To avoid the angriest of New Yorkers during rush hour, try 5 a.m. When she arrived at 5 a.m., he was waiting for her in the lobby of his building, with a coffee, an extra sweatshirt, and a very enthusiastic kiss. After the kiss, he handed her a set of keys. There were four in total: one for the building, one for the trash room, one for the mailbox, one for their apartment door. Because all the keys looked the same, he said that it might take her a month to figure out which was which, but it took her only a day. She was happy that he was happy. She would frequently wonder, but never ask, if he had looked for a job as diligently as she had.

  I’ll just have water, the man said, when the waitress gave them each a cup of hot tea. It was eight degrees outside, and the waitress explained that the tea, made from barley, was intentionally paired with the Pacific oyster, which was the first course of the omakase. The waitress looked no older than eighteen. She was Asian, with a diamond nose stud and a purple lip ring. When talking to her, the woman could only stare at the ring and bite her own lip. The woman was also
Asian (Chinese), and seeing another Asian with facial piercings reminded her of all the things she had not been able to get away with as a kid. Her immigrant parents had wanted the best for her, so imagine coming home to them with a lip ring. First, her parents would have made her take the ring out, then they would have slapped her, then they would have reminded her that a lip ring made her look like a hoodlum and in this country not everyone would give someone with an Asian face the benefit of the doubt. If she looked like a hoodlum, then she would have trouble getting into college. If she couldn’t get into college, then she couldn’t get a job. If she couldn’t get a job, then she couldn’t enter society. If she couldn’t enter society, then she might as well go to jail. Ultimately, a lip ring could only land her in jail—what other purpose did it serve? She was not joining the circus. She was not part of an indigenous African tribe. She was not Marilyn Manson. (Her father, for some strange reason, knew who Marilyn Manson was and listened to him and liked him.) Then, in jail, she could make friends with other people wearing lip rings and form a gang. Is that what you want as a career? her parents would have asked. To form a lip-ring gang in jail? And she would have answered no.

  Tea it is, the man said. He smiled at the pretty waitress. She was pretty. The purple lip ring matched the purple streak in her hair, which matched the purple nail polish. Nevertheless, the man complimented the waitress’s unremarkable black uniform. The waitress returned the favor by complimenting the man’s circular eyeglass frames.

  Oh, these silly things, the man said, lifting his glasses off his nose for a second.

  They’re not silly, the waitress said matter-of-factly. They’re cool. My boyfriend couldn’t pull those off. He doesn’t have the head shape for it.

  If the man lost interest, he didn’t show it. If anything, knowing that the pretty waitress had a boyfriend only made the flirtation more fun.

  Kids now are so different, the woman thought. She hadn’t had a boyfriend until college. She wasn’t this bold until after grad school. But the waitress might not have immigrant parents. Perhaps her parents were born here, which would mean different expectations, or parenting so opposed to the way they had been brought up by their own strict immigrant parents that there were basically no expectations. Another possibility: the waitress might have been adopted. In which case all bets were off. Kids now were not only different but lucky, the woman thought. She wanted to say to the waitress, You have no idea how hard some of us worked so that you could dye your hair purple and pierce your lip.

  The man nudged the woman, who was sitting next to him like a statue.

  You’re staring, he said. The waitress had noticed, too, and huffed off.

  The mugs that the tea came in were handleless. The tea was so hot that neither of them could pick up the handleless mug comfortably. They could only blow at the steam, hoping that the tea would cool, and comment to each other on how hot it was. Until now, the sushi chef had not said a word to the couple. But it seemed to irritate him as he prepared the Pacific oyster (which turned out to be delicious) to see them not drink the tea.

  This is the Japanese way, he finally said. He reached over the bar for the woman’s mug. He then held the mug delicately at the very top with two fingertips and a thumb. The other hand was placed under the mug like a saucer. This is the Japanese way, he said again. He handed the mug back to the woman. The couple tried to mimic the chef, but perhaps their skin was thinner than his; holding the mug the Japanese way didn’t hurt any less than sticking their hands into boiling water. The man put his mug down. The woman, however, did not want to offend the chef and held her mug until she felt her hands go numb.

  Now that the man knew the chef could speak English, he tried to talk to him.

  What kind of mug is this? he asked. It looks handmade. The glaze is magnificent. Then the man turned to the woman and pointed out how the green-blue glaze of their mugs seemed to differ. The layering, he said, was subtly thicker and darker in this part of her mug than in his.

  Hmm, the woman said. To her, a mug was a mug.

  It’s a yunomi, isn’t it? he said to the chef. Taller than it is wide, handleless. Yes, handleless, with a trimmed foot. Used in traditional tea ceremonies.

  The chef looked suspiciously at the man. Maybe he was wondering if the man was fucking with him, as people sometimes did when they encountered a different culture and, in an effort to tease, came off as incredibly earnest, only to draw information out of the person they were teasing until the person looked foolish.

  He’s a potter, the woman said.

  The man quickly turned to her as if to say, Why did you just do that? We were having so much fun. Then he began to laugh, leaning back and almost falling off the barstool. I’m sorry, he said to the chef. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. The mug is beautiful, and you should be proud to have something like this in your kitchen. I would be.

  The chef said thank you and served them their first piece of fish on similarly green-blue ceramic plates that the man promised not to scrutinize.

  Enjoy, the chef said, and gave them a steady thumbs-up.

  The man responded with his own thumbs-up.

  The woman liked how easily the man handled everything. He never took anything too seriously. He was a natural extrovert. By now, the woman knew that, although he worked alone in his studio, he not only enjoyed the company of others but needed it. When out, he talked to anyone and everyone. Sometimes it was jokey talk, the kind he was having with the sushi chef. Sometimes it was playful banter, the kind he had with the pretty waitress. The flirting didn’t bother the woman. Instead, it made her feel good that the man was desired. While he was not handsome, he had a friendly face and rosy cheeks. The word wholesome came to mind. He was someone who could have just stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

  Their first official date had been on Skype. It had consisted of each of them drinking a bottle of wine and watching the same movie on their respective laptops. He suggested House of Flying Daggers, and she said that she was OK with watching something else. Maybe something that wasn’t so overtly Chinese and, no offense to the talented Zhang Yimou, so old-school.

  What do you mean, “old-school”? he had asked.

  I mean Tang dynasty, she had said.

  She was fine with watching something more mainstream, set in modern day, with story lines about non-Asians. She didn’t need the man to make her feel comfortable, if that was, in fact, what he was trying to do.

  But it’s a critically acclaimed movie, he’d replied.

  So they ended up watching House of Flying Daggers. The entire movie was in Chinese, with English subtitles. As they got progressively tipsier, the man asked the woman if the subtitles were all correct. I guess, the woman said, even though she understood only half of what was said and was reading the English herself. The man knew much more about Wuxia than she did. He also knew much more about the Tang dynasty, especially the pottery. During that dynasty, the Chinese had perfected color glazes. Most famously, they had perfected the tricolored glaze, which is a combination of green, yellow, and white. He even said the Chinese word for it, sancai, and she was a little shocked. No, she was a lot shocked. You would know the glaze if you saw it, he said once the movie was over and the wine had been drunk. The next day, he sent her a picture of a Tang-dynasty camel with sancai glaze. It was the same camel that had sat next to her mother’s fireplace for the past twenty-five years.

  The woman asked some of her friends. Most of them were Asian, but she had a few non-Asian friends as well. A red flag? She did not want to continue with this man if he was interested in her only because she was Chinese. She had heard of these men, especially the kind you met on the internet. She had heard of “yellow fever.” She didn’t like that it was called yellow fever. To name a kind of attraction after a disease carried by mosquitoes that killed one out of four people severely infected said something about the attraction. Her closest friends told her that she was doing what she did best, overthinking and picking ou
t flaws where there weren’t any, hence the reason she was still single at thirty-six. As a potter, the man would obviously know about the history of pottery. And he probably just liked House of Flying Daggers as a movie. One of her non-Asian friends said, He’s a guy and probably just thinks martial arts are cool. One of her Asian friends said, He probably just wants to impress you.

  We’ll see, she replied.

  For their next Skype date, he suggested a romantic comedy set in England. The following week, an American action film. The next week, a Russian spy drama. After watching, they chatted first about the movie and then about other things. He told her that he had been in a few serious relationships, the most recent of which ended a year ago. What was she like? the woman asked, but really just wanted to know if she was Chinese. The man said that she was nice, though a little neurotic. But what was she like? the woman asked again, and the man said, What do you mean? She was Jewish and tall. He didn’t suggest watching a Chinese movie again. When they visited each other, they ate not at Chinese places but at French, Italian, and Japanese restaurants. She was excited that he was turning out to be a regular guy. He met most of her friends, who afterward found a way to tell her how lucky she was to have met someone like him: single, American—an artist, no less—and her age. By “American,” some of her Asian friends also meant “white,” the implication being that she was somehow climbing the social ladder. She hadn’t thought any of these things before, but now she did. Or maybe she had thought all of these things before and was just now admitting to them. Eventually, the woman felt comfortable enough to ask the man why he had picked House of Flying Daggers for their first date. The answer he gave was even less profound than what her friends had said. It was a random choice, he explained. That day, the movie had popped up on his browser as something that he might be interested in watching. It was critically acclaimed, he said again.