This Is My Brain in Love

by I. W. Gregorio

  That’s where Peggy Cheng and I began our long frenemyship. Alan and I were the new kids on the block, used to living in a city where you could walk down the street and hear half a dozen different languages. It was honestly kind of disconcerting to realize that all of a sudden diversity wasn’t the default—it was an oddity, something to be pinned like a butterfly and examined with a magnifying lens. Maybe it’s because of this that the Asian kids in Utica seem to have this constant desire to blend in. It’s funny to me because a lot of my friends in NYC were the exact opposite. Some were a little too militant about their Asian pride and used to dis people for being “bananas” (yellow on the outside and white on the inside) for the silliest reasons: wearing the wrong kind of graphic T-shirt, being too devoted to Taylor Swift, or preferring Oreos to mochi.

  They had no idea how white a Chinese person could be. Utica is home to some next-level Twinkiehood.

  The thing is, I don’t blame the kids here at all. Pretty much everyone just wants to fit in at some point or another; Taylor Swift really is a great songwriter, and Oreos must have some sort of drug in them, they’re so addictive. Plus, it’s not the fault of the kids in the Mohawk Valley Chinese Association that their families wanted to assimilate. Peggy, for instance, barely knew any Mandarin at all, because her parents were both second-generation. That’s how we first met: Alan was six at the time, and he literally could not keep his eyes off Peggy’s shiny new iPad. She was doing some sort of Mandarin language program with flashcards of apples and trains, the sort of graphic catnip that Alan could never resist. After a while he started blurting out the answers to each question, and that was history.

  “You’re the new family from New York!” she exclaimed. “Your Mandarin is so good,” she told Alan. “Are you fluent?”

  “Meh, kind of?” I said, because compared to her, I was.

  “That is awesome. My mom has been all over me about learning it. She says it’s super useful for business these days.”

  I was new, so I shrugged and figured it’d be as good a way as any to make a friend. When the school year came around, Peggy made an honest attempt to introduce me to her social circle, but it soon became clear that aside from both being Chinese, Peggy and I had nothing in common.

  She was relentlessly cheerful to the point where I started to seriously wonder whether there were substances involved. (There couldn’t be, of course. She was way too Goody Two-shoes.) And why shouldn’t she be happy? Peggy’s family is rich, so she wore all the right clothes (first Justice, then Abercrombie and Banana Republic) and got to go to fancy summer camps that had the words “Cove” or “Retreat” in their names. She had long, shiny, aggressively treated hair that didn’t have an endless halo of flyaways and split ends like mine did. She did all the right activities: student council, volleyball, marching band. Nowadays, I would recognize her instantly as the “Girl Who Has It All.”

  For a couple of months, I hovered on the fringes of Peggy’s social scene like a shriveled, misshapen pea in a pod, until the day when I overheard Sarah Martin say, “I don’t know why Peggy is friends with that Wu girl. She’s so negative. Does she ever smile?” Sarah said the word “negative” in the way that other people might say “herpes” or “alcoholic.”

  It stung because I knew Sarah was right. I drifted away from their group. They didn’t try especially hard to keep me in the fold. Then Priya came along. Our puzzle pieces slotted together perfectly, and I tried my damnedest not to sabotage it, the way I do everything else in my life.

  Here’s the thing: If we move back to NYC, my family might have more money, more help, and more free time. To me, none of that is worth having less Priya Venkatram.

  This Is My Brain on Sales

  WILL

  At six AM on the Friday before the Boilermaker, we load up the Wus’ van with the big stuff—the stove on wheels that can be hooked up to a portable tank (a remnant, Jocelyn says, from its former life as a component in a Mexican food truck), the food warmer, and boxes upon boxes of serving supplies, soy sauce packets, and water bottles. That leaves my car as the dumpling-mobile, with over a thousand dumplings crammed into my trunk and back seat.

  When we get to the Expo area and start putting up our A-Plus Chinese Garden banner, Jocelyn steps back to make sure it’s level. “Are people really going to come?” she asks when she returns to help me zip-tie it to the booth’s awning.

  “There are more than twenty thousand people registered. The foot traffic is going to be beyond anything we’ve ever seen.” There’s no way to predict how much we’ll sell, but Jocelyn’s hoping for a profit of $400 that we can use toward a booth next year. Privately, I think that our goal should just be to break even. Even if we lose a little money, it’ll still be worth it for the publicity and exposure.

  “What if people don’t stop to eat? What if they just pop in to get their bibs and leave?” Jocelyn waves over at the other food trucks setting up. “There’s so much competition already.”

  “Wait until we start giving out samples,” I reassure her.

  We make short work out of setting up the cooking area. As I’m emptying ice into a cooler for the water bottles, a plump, shortish South Asian girl walks up.

  “Good-looking booth,” she says, eyeing our banner.

  “Priya!” Jocelyn’s entire demeanor changes when she sees her. She practically tackles her in a hug. “Will! This is my friend Priya. She’s our social media consultant. Her Instagrams are the ones you put on the new website mock-up—that is literally her picture up there,” she says, pointing to the dumpling banner.

  “Nice to meet you,” I say. “You’re a great photographer.” She is. I’ve scrolled through enough student galleries—including Javier’s—to appreciate what she does with lighting and composition.

  Priya shoots a few candids of us setting up and then pitches in herself. With another pair of hands, we’re ready to go in no time. Because of the volume we have to cook, Grandma Wu came up with a shortcut that only marginally affects the flavor—we preboiled the dumplings and will panfry them to get the all-important crisp.

  Jocelyn takes over video duties and livestreams Priya biting into her first dumpling.

  “Mmmmghhhh,” Priya moans. It doesn’t even seem exaggerated. “Oh my God.” She barely pauses to wipe some juice dribbling down her chin before inhaling her whole serving.

  “Hashtag Boilermaker. Hashtag Expo Eats,” Jocelyn declares. “This is awesome! Okay, Will, you’re next. This can be our thing. Dumplings on the street.”

  Priya gets out her phone. “I’ll live-tweet it, too.” She types furiously on the phone.

  If you’re gearing up for @boilermaker #ExpoEats, make sure to get some killer pot stickers from the @apluschinese booth. It’s a religious experience.

  She attaches a picture of herself gazing rapturously at a dumpling. Then she turns to me and cocks her head to the side like she’s looking right through me. “Okay. Stand with your back to the booth so I can get the signs in the shot.”

  I do what I’m told and try not to feel too self-conscious as I stage my own first bite.

  “Don’t look at me,” Priya barks. “Pretend I’m not here.”

  Easier said than done. The sun’s coming up higher, and we’re exposed and out in the open at the edge of a large field. With the kitchen area already generating heat, I’m beginning to feel dampness in my pits. Thank God I wore a dark shirt.

  Priya misreads my hesitation. “Do you want to use a fork?”

  “No, that’s okay.” To prove that my family ordered Chinese takeout as often as any other working American household, I grab a pot sticker with my chopsticks and dunk it into some soy sauce mixed with vinegar and ginger. Because I’m not allowed to look at Priya while I eat, I look at Jocelyn instead. She’s looking at me, too, with an intensity that kicks my heart rate up a notch.

  There’s a moment before the food hits my mouth when I’m suddenly afraid that we have screwed it up. That the two-stage cooking method isn’
t going to hold up to the traditional way of panfrying them all at once. What if my memory of the flavor of that first dumpling that Grandma Wu made me has become legendary in my mind, something that can never be replicated, like when I was five and waited all year to go back to the Jersey Shore to have boardwalk pizza, only to be disappointed when it wasn’t actually that special after all?

  Then the first taste of warm, velvety jiaozi hits my tongue, salty slick, and I bite into the wrapper that gives away effortlessly, releasing that incredible synergy of pork and cabbage and green onion that does not disappoint. The pot sticker is the gift that keeps on giving—continually surprising, as the crispiness of the bottom contrasts with the soft boiled part that wasn’t panfried, as it gives way to the complex overtone of ginger and a bite of garlic. It isn’t until I’ve swallowed my last bite that I realize that I’ve closed my eyes to savor the experience.

  When I open my eyes Priya is grinning.

  “What?”

  “Cut!” she says. “Hashtag Food Orgasm.”

  Jocelyn turns pink. “Priya!” she stage-whispers with her eyes wide open in horror.

  My face is a little hot, too, but I have to laugh. “You’re not wrong. Those things are as amazing as anything I’ve ever eaten.”

  “I’m going to quote you on that,” Priya says, composing another tweet.

  By eleven, people are trickling by to get registered, and Jocelyn cuts some jiaozi in half (she just couldn’t accept the idea of giving away a whole dumpling for free), and skewers them with toothpicks. She and I each take a plate and fan out around the booth while Priya sits at the booth and pretends to be checking her phone while secretly lining up shots.

  “Excuse me, would you like to try some handmade dumplings? It’s my grandmother’s secret recipe,” Jocelyn tries.

  The first few people have kids in tow. They don’t even stop for a sample.

  Then, “Ma’am—care for a free sample of some authentic pot stickers?” finally gets me a taker, a tall brown-haired woman wearing Lululemon yoga pants, who pops the sample into her mouth without much of a thought, and then does a double take.

  “These are amazing. How much are they?” She gets two orders.

  “Thank you so much for your business!’ Jocelyn says as she cashes her out. “Here’s a coupon for a free appetizer at A-Plus Chinese Garden restaurant. We’re just a few blocks away.”

  When the woman leaves, Jocelyn gives me a high five. “Two down, two hundred and ninety-eight to go.” With just over 1,500 pot stickers, we have enough for about three hundred orders depending on how many free samples we have to give.

  Priya flashes out her iPhone yet again. “Here, let me take a picture of you two with your first dollar. Or ten dollars, as it were.”

  We hold the edges of the bill up like we’re getting an oversized check from some philanthropist. Priya waves us in with one hand.

  “Get a little closer, and bring the money to your face. I want to really zoom in on you.”

  I have to crouch down so Jocelyn and I can lean our heads in together, and I smell a faint coconut from her shampoo. It’s getting to be a warm day, and I’m suddenly worried that I’m too sweaty, that I didn’t put on enough deodorant this morning. We’re close enough together that, if I were with my buddies, I’d just sling my arm over their shoulders. But neither Jocelyn nor I makes a move to do so—instead we just hover at the borders of personal-space invasion.

  JOCELYN

  I am going to kill Priya. Not because she and Will get on like a house on fire (of course they do). I am going to murder my best friend because she is trying to produce my life as if it’s some reality show.

  “Angle yourselves in so you’re facing each other,” Priya says, all smooth and businesslike. People who don’t know her would think that she’s just being professional, but I know the smirk she wears when she’s trolling someone, so I stay put.

  Will, on the other hand, shifts his stance obediently, so our faces are just about the width of a dollar bill apart. I can feel the air move as he breathes, and I have to use every ounce of mental strength not to stare at his lips, which are smooth and perfect, not all chapped up like mine always are. Instead, I focus on Priya, trying to communicate to her without words that she needs. To. Stop. After my attempt at telepathy fails, I try not to sound too annoyed when I ask, “You done?”

  She has the gall to look innocent when she scrolls through the images on her phone and says, “Just a couple more shots. J’s eyes were closed.”

  “They’re not closed, I’m just Asian,” I say. Will chokes down a laugh and my resolve breaks—I look at him, he looks back, and I’m trapped. Frozen by how intensely he’s seeing me.

  It maybe freaks me out a little. I wonder if he’s noticing that one of my eyebrows is less straight than the other, or if he clocks the scar on my left cheek that I got in sixth grade from a zit that I couldn’t stop picking at and eventually got infected. I should have worn lip gloss or tried to pluck the fine baby hairs on my lip that make me look like I have a mustache that was inexpertly photoshopped out.

  Finally, after what seems like a hundred shots, Priya is satisfied.

  “I’m going to totally keep that picture for your wedding slideshow,” she whispers to me while Will helps another customer.

  I snort, tearing my eyes away from Will to concentrate on the boiling pot of water. As if he could be remotely interested.

  “Let’s focus on cooking and selling, okay?” I plead. “We’ve got three hours and more than a thousand dumplings to unload.”

  WILL

  My friends like to rag on me a lot. I’m Will the perpetually picky eater (dairy makes me feel bloated), the teacher’s pet (so sue me if I like to turn my assignments in on time and occasionally give them thoughtful end-of-the-year thank-you gifts), and the envirofreak (seriously, why don’t they understand, I keep used plastic utensils in my backpack because of the children—do they even know how much energy goes into creating our disposable culture?).

  The point is, they’ll really have a field day when they find out how much it turns me on to watch Jocelyn cook.

  She’s a whirling dervish of efficiency: talking while frying, tossing the perfect amount of oil into pans straight from the bottle, wielding the spatula as if she’s a fencer, shouting out orders like she was born to do it, which I suppose she was. There is not a single millisecond of hesitation in any of her movements. Watching her, I feel this buzz under my skin, a constant awareness of where she is, a little hiccup in my heartbeat when she’s close.

  They don’t tell you in life skills class how hard it is to work with someone who you’re attracted to. I’m simultaneously drawn to her and afraid to get near out of fear of the train wreck that is Will When He Tries to Get His Game On. But we’re colleagues, right? I need to be her right-hand man. I need to take things that she hands to me hurriedly, so that our fingers brush in a completely unsexy way that nevertheless makes my blood rush (just a little bit) into very unhelpful body parts.

  It’s hot and it’s sweaty and there are so many people lining up to place orders that my chub never completely materializes, but I do take a bathroom break to readjust when Jocelyn gets overheated and takes off the T-shirt she’s been wearing, revealing a black camisole with just enough lace to make my mind short-circuit a bit.

  The pace picks up, and Priya and I both give up on prep work for a bit to take orders and run the register. The line in front of our little stand gets longer, which attracts more customers.

  Jocelyn gets a pinched look around her eyes as she looks out at the rows of people. “We’re going to have to cheat,” she says flatly. “Can you take over for a sec?” We talked about it beforehand, that deep-frying the dumplings would be an option. She walks over to the Wu’s van and brings out the deep-frying unit, then fills it with oil with a grim face. In the twenty minutes it takes for the fryer to get hot enough she tells us to offer boiled dumplings until we catch up to demand.

  “If you’d
like them panfried it will be an extra ten minutes, but it’s actually healthier without all that oil,” I reassure any customers who look askance at the pale boiled dumplings. Admittedly, they do look like they could use some sun.

  Whether they’re panfried, boiled, or deep-fried, folks keep coming. It’s a steady stream of people unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in the restaurant.

  JOCELYN

  By noon things are so busy that we don’t have time to give out samples, let alone chitchat. The world narrows down to the seven-by-nine-foot area of our booth, to the sound of boiling water and the sizzling of oil. We have a line for ordering, a line for cashing out, and a line of people waiting for fresh pot stickers that gets longer and longer, until we have to make them in batches of twenty to keep up with the pace. We run out of the thousands of quarter-sheet flyers that we copied on the Xerox machine at Will’s father’s law firm.

  When I slide our last bag of pot stickers out of the wok into a serving container, I feel a boneless, aching relief.

  We’re done.

  I collapse onto an overturned crate. It’s the first time I’ve sat down since our first sale, my hair reeks of the smell of panfried oil, and I’m probably as dehydrated as the runners are going to be during the actual race.

  When Will finishes checking out our last jiaozi customer, he glances at the heating lamp and then peeks in the empty dumpling cooler.

  “Holy shit!” he exclaims. “We sold out! Jos, we did it. We knocked it out of the park.” He puts his fist out and I barely have the energy to raise my hand to bump it, but his euphoria is infectious. I allow myself a brief moment of victory.

  We did it.

  I only have a minute to savor it, though, before a middle-aged woman comes up with two teenage boys. “I’d like four orders of those dumplings everyone is eating, please.”

  Within seconds, all my euphoria bleeds away, and a knot of dread forms in my belly.