CHAPTER 7
Lillian
Now that we’ve been taking cooking class together, every once in a while my mother lets me help out in the kitchen at home. Tonight is one of those rare occasions: she’s making a shrimp dish, and it’s my job to peel them. I’m not going to lie, peeling shrimp isn’t exactly my favorite kitchen chore, but there is actually some skill involved, so my mother asking me to do it is kind of a big deal.
The shrimp peeler is really sharp, and slicing open the shell while also removing the vein along the shrimp’s back takes practice (I know that sounds totally gross, but it’s really not that bad once you get used to it). The trick is to do it quickly, without cutting off your finger in the process. Having to be rushed off to the emergency room for a kitchen accident would definitely not increase my mother’s confidence in my skills. Luckily, she bought enough shrimp to feed the whole block, so I’ll have plenty of time to perfect my technique.
I’m just getting into a good peeling rhythm when Katie comes in the back door. She’s been out running, and there are damp spots darkening her tank top under her arms. Even sweaty, she’s practically flawless. Her cheeks are flushed and her ponytail is still perky. If it wasn’t for a few flyaway hairs and the faint sweat stains, you might think she’d just stepped out to the corner deli to buy the bottle of water she’s chugging, rather than run two three-mile loops around Prospect Park—the biggest park in Brooklyn. Katie puts the bottle down, takes a deep breath, and then scrunches up her face.
“Ew,” she says, pinching her nose, “what exactly is that smell?”
I hold up a drippy handful of peeled (and deveined!) shrimp and give her an extra perky grin. “Dinner.”
“Really, Lillian, that’s just disgusting,” Katie says, holding up her hand to block her view and turning away. “Are you trying to make me throw up?”
“That is enough, WeiWei,” my mother says firmly. “I do not put ‘disgusting’ food on my table.” For a girl whose Chinese name means “mighty” and “powerful,” Katie is acting pretty wimpy about a pile of raw seafood.
I go back to peeling shrimp, making sure to hold each one high enough so that Katie can’t avoid seeing me slice the shell along its back. “And didn’t you get straight As in biology last year?” I ask. “How is what I’m doing any more gross than dissecting a frog or a scorpion?”
I fully expect my mother to snap at me for egging Katie on, but she looks up just long enough to give me one of her “warning stares” and goes back to chopping bok choy. She’s a biology professor, so maybe she agrees.
Katie glares at me and then turns to my mother. “I’ll just have some steamed vegetables tonight, Mama,” she says. “With a small scoop of brown rice.”
“I bought two pounds of shrimp at the fish market,” my mother says, her knife moving rhythmically along the thick white stems. “Jiāo yán xiā has always been one of your favorite dishes.”
Jiāo yán xiā is salt-and-pepper shrimp. It’s one of the foods that Chinese people traditionally serve on Lunar New Year, but my mother’s is so tasty that we all beg her to make it year-round. Or at least we all used to.
Katie tosses her water bottle into the recycling bin. “Shrimp is full of cholesterol. I can’t put that in my body while I’m in training.” She squeezes past my mother and heads for the table where her backpack is slung over the back of a chair.
Mama waves her hand dismissively. “I am not running a restaurant,” she says, pointing to the rice cooker. “We are having white rice tonight.”
Katie takes a massive textbook out of her bag and shrugs. “I guess I’ll just have greens, then.” She holds up the giant book, which I now see is a Shakespeare anthology. My sister is in the advanced English literature class, of course. “I’m off to memorize my sonnet in the bath. We’re reciting them tomorrow, and Mr. Gupta says I have a ‘flare for the Bard,’ so I don’t want to disappoint him.”
I’ve heard Shakespeare called “the Bard” before, but who even knows what that means? Katie does, of course, like she knows everything. Or like she thinks she knows everything. She’s only fifteen, but she acts like she’s in college. I don’t know how her friends can stand it. Not that she’s made any real friends since we moved to Brooklyn anyway. There were a couple of girls on her soccer team who came over a few times back in the fall, and she texts sometimes with her Model UN teammates, but she’s always so busy studying or working out or preparing for a competition, I don’t know when she’d have time for friends even if she wanted them.
I finish peeling the last of the shrimp and remind myself how lucky I am to have made friends like Liza and Frankie. I don’t even like to think about those first few weeks of school before Mr. Mac put me in their project group and Liza came up with her Big Idea to take Chef Antonio’s cooking class. Moving clear across the country and having to leave my cousin Chloe and my best friend Sierra behind in San Francisco was the worst. I’ve never felt as lonely as I did that first day at Clinton Middle School, standing in the cafeteria and not seeing a single friendly face at any of the tables.
Maybe Katie would be nicer if she had some real friends too. Even back in San Francisco she spent more time with all of her clubs and teams than with any of the girls on our block or in her class. When we were little, our parents made us go to Chinese school every Saturday—all day. I don’t know how I would have survived if Chloe and I weren’t always in the same class (our birthdays are so close, we call ourselves “twin cousins”). I would have died of boredom without someone to pass notes to, or to make fun of the teacher with behind her back. But Katie didn’t have anyone like Chloe to get her through Chinese school every week. She was as serious about getting straight As there as she was in regular school—the other kids were probably afraid to even talk to her.
My mother finishes chopping the bok choy and scoops all of the pieces into a colander for rinsing. Holding it under the water with one hand, she reaches into a cabinet with the other and pulls out a small bamboo steamer. She puts a handful of bok choy into the steamer, replaces the lid, and pushes it aside with a sigh. “Your stubborn sister can steam them herself,” she says.
I wonder if she knows that “stubborn” is exactly how most people would describe her, too.
CHAPTER 8
Liza
Nana Silver is taking me to see some “venues” after school today. She called this morning all excited to tell me that she’s been “scouring the city” for the perfect place to have my party, and she’s narrowed down her list to a few “real gems” that she can’t wait to show me. Spending a whole afternoon looking at party rooms isn’t exactly my idea of a good time, but if I let my Nana choose the place without checking it out myself, I guarantee she’ll pick the one that looks the most like the royal ballroom in Cinderella.
A couple of years ago Nana decided she was “too old to take the subway” anymore, so she takes taxis wherever she goes (never mind that my science teacher, Mr. Stubbs—I know, unfortunate name—is older than she is, and he rides his bike to school every day). Since we’ll be making a bunch of stops today, though, she actually hired a car and driver for the entire afternoon. While we’re looking at “venues,” the car will be waiting for us outside. When I texted Frankie to tell her, she texted back, SO COOL! I’m jelly! But to me the whole thing is totally embarrassing—like we think we’re so fancy with a chauffeur-driven limo.
“Here,” Nana says when I complain about the car. She hands me a pair of seriously oversize sunglasses. “Put these on and nobody will recognize you.”
The sunglasses could not be more Nana’s style and less mine, but I put them on anyway and check my reflection in the window. I look ridiculous.
Nana nudges my shoulder. “See, darling?” she smiles. “Problem solved.”
If only. I take a selfie wearing the insane glasses and send it to Frankie and Lillian. I’m sure they’ll find my misery as amusing as Nana Silver does.
* * *
Our first stop is surpris
ingly less glitzy than I expected. It’s a big loft space in a very cool, very expensive neighborhood called DUMBO (which stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass and has nothing to do with the Disney elephant). Back in the 1970s, the neighborhood was full of industrial lofts that artists took over. Pretty soon, DUMBO became a hot place to live, with cool restaurants, art galleries, and all that. These days it’s way too expensive for artists or anyone who doesn’t make a gazillion dollars a year. But it’s still a nice neighborhood to walk around, and there’s a really great park along the waterfront with my favorite ice cream place and amazing views of the bridges and the Manhattan skyline.
The loft is big and white and very bright, with giant windows taking up most of three of the walls. Talk about views! I bet it’s incredible at night when all the lights are on along the bridges and in the office buildings across the river. Renting this place for a night probably costs more than our apartment does for a whole month, but it’s on Nana’s list, so she must be able to afford it. And if she insists on throwing me a party, I think this “venue” will do just fine.
Unfortunately, Nana and I aren’t exactly “on the same page” as my mom used to say about herself and my dad. “This is the plainest of all the rooms I’m going to show you,” she says. “It’s big, but it’s nothing special.”
“But what about the view at night? It must be incredible,” I say, pointing to the Brooklyn Bridge out one window and the Manhattan Bridge out another.
“The views are nice,” Nana says with a shrug, “but if everyone’s looking out the windows, nobody will be looking at you!”
Exactly! “That’s okay, Nana. I don’t want everyone to be looking at me.”
“Nonsense,” she says, waving me off. “It’s your special day. You should feel like a princess!”
Ugh. This afternoon is definitely starting to go as expected. I text Nana’s princess line to Frankie and Lillian. Frankie sends me back a crown emoji surrounded by little hearts. Not helpful.
The next place we visit is a little fancier than the loft, but it’s not completely obnoxious. It’s a big room in the back of an Italian restaurant that I’ve heard people talk about on some of my cooking shows, but I’ve never been there. The walls are mostly mirrored and there’s a painting on the ceiling, but there’s no gold paint or chandeliers. It’s not exactly my style, but I could live with it.
It is not a shock to me that (even though this place is on her list!) Nana looks totally less than thrilled. She’s just come back from talking to the manager, and she’s shaking her head. “You can’t have outside catering,” she says. “All of the food has to be provided by the restaurant.”
That makes sense to me—what restaurant would want people bringing in food from someplace else for a party? “That’s okay with me,” I shrug, trying to show how accommodating I am, “I love Italian food.”
“That’s nice,” says Nana, “but you won’t love having tomato sauce stains all over your pretty dress. Red sauce and party clothes do not go together.”
“Can’t we just bring extra napkins?”
Nana shakes her head, tugging one of my braids. “Cute,” she says, even though I wasn’t trying to be.
* * *
We see three more places—all in Manhattan—each with a little more flash than the one before. The last one might as well be Buckingham Palace. Nana is in heaven.
“Don’t you love it, Liza?” she says, opening her arms to emphasize the glittering expanse of the room. I take a long hard look at her to make sure she’s not actually holding a wand.
“It’s pretty,” I say, trying to start off on a positive note, “but it’s, uh, a little too fancy, don’t you think?”
Nana pretends to look surprised. “Not at all, darling, not at all. It’s perfect.” She straightens a fold on one of the long velvet curtains. “And besides, we can always tone it down.”
I try not to panic, and force myself to smile. “Even if we could, Nana, it’s in Manhattan. All of my friends live in Brooklyn, and most of Mom’s, too.”
My grandmother puts her arm around my shoulders. “But my friends are all in Manhattan, sweetheart, and it’s harder for people my age to get around the city. You understand that, right?”
This from the woman with a car and driver waiting at the curb. I could remind her, but there’s no point. Instead, I wander around the room while she stands there beaming. I must be looking pouty, because finally she throws up her hands.
“I can see this isn’t your favorite,” Nana says. “That’s okay, that’s why I brought you along. It’s your party, after all.”
Is it? You could have fooled me.
“So you’re not going to rent out this place?” I ask, hopefully.
“I still have to do some price comparisons and look into a few other details. But your lack of enthusiasm about this venue is duly noted.”
Nana’s nonanswer isn’t totally reassuring, and her chilly tone is intended to make me feel bad, but I’m a little bit relieved anyway. At least this is the last “venue” of the day. I snap a photo of the Buckingham ballroom while Nana isn’t looking and send it to Frankie and Lillian. Gotta go, I type. My carriage awaits.
Outside by the car Nana says she’s staying in Manhattan and will get a cab home. She tells the driver to take me back to Brooklyn. “And don’t try anything funny,” she warns him, giving him a distinctive Nana Silver glare. “That’s my granddaughter and I know what you look like and where you work.” She makes a show of studying his ID posted on the dashboard and takes a picture with her phone.
I slink down into my seat. Nana’s protectiveness is sweet, I guess, but I feel terrible for the driver, who has been extremely professional and perfectly nice to us all day.
“Sorry,” I say as we pull into traffic.
The driver (whose name is Vikas, according to the card I’ve read at least a hundred times) laughs. “No worries,” he says. “You are lucky to have a grandmother who cares only for your happiness.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. Ha! I think. My happiness? If you only knew.
CHAPTER 9
Liza
“This Spanish assignment is giving me a stomachache,” Lillian says. We’re over at Frankie’s doing our homework in the kitchen, which is the only room that is temporarily free of her brothers and assorted random boys throughout the house. Her dad is not on duty today, so he’s apparently doing little repairs all over the place—tightening hinges on doors, patching small holes in plaster, changing a shower head. The Caputos’ house takes a beating, I guess, because Frankie’s dad is always doing this kind of thing—when he’s not in the kitchen cooking, I mean.
“You’re probably just hungry,” I tell Lillian. “Check out the cabinet next to the microwave—it’s where the Caputos keep their snacks.”
“Is that okay, Frankie?” Lillian asks. Sometimes I forget that she hasn’t grown up in our houses the way Frankie and I have in each other’s.
“Huh?” Frankie looks up at the sound of her name. For some reason she’s been pouring over the “Spring Clubs and Teams” flyer Ms. Hirshman handed out in advisory today. “Oh, sure. Yeah, take whatever you want.”
Lillian opens the snack cabinet and practically has a stroke. “Oh my God, Liza—look at all this food!”
I’ve seen the contents of the snack cabinet a thousand times, but it’s not something you ever get used to. There’s a shelf full of chips of every kind—potato, tortilla, barbecue, salt and vinegar, veggie sticks, you name it, if it’s salty and crunches, it’s there—and another that’s crammed with cookies. The rest of the shelves are stocked with cereal, crackers, granola bars, “healthy” Pop-Tarts, and pretty much anything else that exists to satisfy the munchies. The crazy thing is, between Frankie and her brothers (especially her brothers) and all of their friends, the Caputos can easily clean out the entire cabinet in a week. Frankie’s dad must have gone grocery shopping this morning.
“I know—it’s like a dream come true,”
I say, thinking of the pathetically empty shelves in our kitchen. When we have snacks around, my mother goes for healthy, organic stuff because of Cole. But sometimes you need junk food . . . “So what are we having?”
I recognize Lillian’s stunned expression as she stares into the cabinet: snack sensory overload. “I have no idea,” she says. “I want it all. My parents probably don’t even know the snack aisle in the supermarket exists.”
Frankie puts down the flyer and looks at Lillian and the overflowing snack closet. “Yeah, we have a ton of it. My brothers eat round the clock, but I am not that into that stuff. You guys can have whatever, though.”
Lillian and I exchange a look. We may really like good food, but we’re definitely not against snack food too. At least, we never used to be.
“Come on, Frankie, you love cheese curls. And you made nachos in Señora Valentin’s microwave for lunch last week.”
“I think you’ve been spending too much time at my house,” says Lillian, reaching for the family-size box of microwave popcorn packets. “You’re starting to sound like Katie.”
“No I’m not,” Frankie says, her cheeks turning pink. “I’m just tired of living with a bunch of pigs.” She gets up and opens the cabinet above the sink.
“Wow—you guys have so much pasta!” Lillian says, her eyes practically popping out like an anime cartoon. “And so many different kinds!”
Full-on blushing now, Frankie slams the door shut and shoves a jar at Lillian. “Hey, Lillian, let’s make this instead.”
Lillian takes the jar, which is full of dried corn kernels, and looks skeptically at Frankie. “But why? Microwave popcorn is so much easier.”
The Icing on the Cake Page 4