“And you want to cook?” he says.
“Oh, no, I… I’m just helping Jay. I…” I sigh at myself. “I do, but I’m too scared.”
He nods. “It’s a life.”
“It’s not even the lifestyle,” I say. “I’m not afraid of long nights or having no weekends or holidays off. I’m not afraid of the hot, cramped line, or the egos.”
He stops stirring the chicken. “What’s the hurdle then?”
“I… I don’t know if I’m good enough. Actually, I do know. I’m not good enough.”
He nods again. “Well, the world needs plenty of mediocre cooks.”
I nearly drop my bao. “What?”
He shrugs. “Someone has to work in chain restaurants that have those two-for-twenty-dollars deals. Or diners. They always need short-order cooks. Not being good shouldn’t stop you.”
“I wouldn’t be a cook at a diner,” I say, shaking my head.
“Why not? You can’t make eggs?”
“I can make eggs—”
“Eventually you’d learn. Scramble isn’t hard, just whisk it a lot. And some people even use ketchup so they won’t taste your bad eggs—”
“Because I’m better than that!” The words fly out and I stand there with my mouth open.
He stops what he’s doing and stares at me. “Oh, so that whole not being good enough thing is kind of bullshit, isn’t it?”
He smiles.
I didn’t even realize he was baiting me. I am, however, flying through these bao.
“I have a sister who’s like you,” he says. “Two younger sisters. You can’t fool me. Your problem isn’t that you don’t think you’re good enough.”
We’re silent as he replaces the dough rounds with a new tray. He stacks the dumplings onto a catering cart.
“Then what’s my problem?” I ask. I tip forward on my toes in anticipation. I haven’t spoken this honestly since I last talked to Eugene.
“Complacency,” Chef Wang says. “You want to play it safe. You don’t want it enough, and in that case, you shouldn’t be a chef, because you won’t make it. It’s a hard life and requires way more drive than you have and more work than you want to do.”
I’m so insulted, I don’t know what to do with myself. I make some kind of hassled sound and put down the last bao. I want to throw it at his face.
I walk over to an empty table and stand with my back to him because I’m both furious and thinking that he’s right.
He’s not right, though. I do have drive and I’m not afraid of work. And maybe I’m the only one who’ll ever see that, but I know it.
I grab garlic and start smashing it. After everything that happened from the hurricane party to thirty seconds ago, it feels good to crush the bulbs. There’s already cooked rice because Chef Wang was going to make congee. I grab it and an enormous sauté pan and start making garlic fried rice. Sinangag is one of my dad’s favorite Filipino dishes. It’s as simple as it is delicious.
Once it’s done, I add shredded mozzarella. A lot of it. Next I clump the rice, roll it in egg wash, and coat it in sesame and gochugaru-spice-seasoned flour, then panko. Then I deep-fry it.
While it cooks, I chop scallions. Then I whisk soy, oil, eggs, sugar, lemon juice, and some of the fried garlic to make a sauce.
The timer goes off and I pull up the basket and put a dozen rice balls on a grate to cool. When I finish, the other chefs are standing around me. I hadn’t even noticed them.
“That’s clever,” Aunt Jay says. “Nice to combine all the sides of you.”
I glance at my aunt. She still gets me. Really gets me.
“Are those sinangag arancini?” Chef Matthews asks, peering over at the plate. “Can I try one?”
“Yes,” I say.
I say a silent prayer to every deity that ever existed that they taste good.
We all take one, and I break mine open to cool it down. I take a bite a little too soon since it’s still hot, but the flavors are all balanced. It’s crispy, salty, savory, and a little spicy from the Korean pepper flakes. It’s good. It’s really good.
“Oh, there’s sauce,” I say. I push the bowl forward.
“It doesn’t need any. I could eat a dozen of them right out of the fryer,” Chef Matthews says. “Impressive.”
Impossible. Chef Matthews couldn’t have just complimented my cooking.
Chef Wang gives me a smug smile, tipping his baseball cap at me. Ugh. He was still baiting me when he said I had no drive.
With the compliments from the chefs, I feel like I’m invincible. I prep hundreds more like it’s nothing.
And I know—there isn’t anything in the world I want more than this. And I won’t deny it anymore.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Once we finish prep and load Aunt Jay’s van and Chef Gonzalez’s truck, we drive over to the Amway. As Jay said, downtown is a mess with street closures and crews working. But it’s not far away, and with a few detours, we make it to the enormous parking lot in about twice the time it should take in bad traffic.
I can’t obsess over the fact that I’ll be seeing Eugene, because I’m put to work unloading the van and getting our station set up under the tailgating tents. I am, in fact, a fetch monkey right now. I barely have a second to glance around, but I don’t see him.
With no cooking facilities, everything had to be brought in from chafing dishes to portable wok burners. It’s five o’clock when everything is in place.
“Do you know how to use this, kid?” Chef Wang asks me, pointing to the portable wok. It’s like a barbeque grill, but with one open space for a single wok.
I shake my head no.
“Here, it’s like this,” he says.
He walks me through how to adjust the temperature. We’re going to wok-fry my rice balls in batches because they don’t hold up long in chafing dishes. It was my one misstep—making an item that will get soggy under a lid.
“Thanks,” I say.
“You know I was just giving you a hard time before, right?” he says. “This business will kick your ass, and there’ll be a ton of people who’ll try to put you down. Especially you being you.”
“What do you mean—me being me?”
“You’re Asian, you’re young, and you’re female—those are three strikes against you in the kitchen. Take it from a guy who has two of those strikes. But you have talent and you’re a quick study. You’ll make it… if you want it. But you have to want it. Look at what this industry did to your aunt. Her partner stole all the profits and she lost her restaurant, but she picked herself up and now she has a catering business. You have to have a love for it.”
I startle, but he walks away, and I stare with my mouth open. No one, not a soul, ever told me Jay’s restaurant closed because someone stole money. I just assumed it went belly up because… restaurants do. Because she took a risk and she failed. But it wasn’t talent, or the industry being hard, not really. It was… theft.
I think back to those bills littering her desk. How devastated she was. How I’d never seen her drink alone like that before or since. And the envelope saying “goodbye.” I wonder if she’d just found out that day. Right before I came waltzing in, expecting her to teach me.
I don’t have long to think about it, though, because the lines of people are now massive around us and the other tents. There are a dozen news trucks covering the pop-up goodwill event.
Jay’s dishes don’t require any work, neither do Chef Holloway’s or Chef Gonzalez’s. They’re all pros. Chef Matthews and Chef Collins are cooking things to order and fussing with plates and working with tweezers, because they can’t help themselves. Chef Wang has steaming baskets that need to be rotated out. That’s my job as well, but his Szechuan chicken is ready to go.
Chef Holloway is collecting money while Jay and Chef Gonzalez are serving. My job is to keep everything stocked and to fry my rice balls when they look low. We start service and I’m glad I’m here. The first people in line are a family who l
ost their home in the storm. They’re from the Sunshine Pines mobile home park that was leveled in the high winds. Every chef greets them as they go down the line and choose what they’d like.
I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like to lose everything in a day. Everything I’d ever had or loved gone except for my family. For me, the hurricane went the other way around.
But… that’s not true. I didn’t lose my family. In the face of people who actually lost everything, I can’t say that. My family is still here. They’re trying to talk to me. I’m just really hurt and upset with them.
We serve more and more people, most of whom lost power in the storm or lost everything. I’ve never felt more certain of where I should be. I belong here. This is what I want to do with my life—make good food that provides some comfort. A hot meal that lifts spirits. And I’m going to figure out how to do it, even if I have to take a risk. Even if I may not have the talent. Even if I have to tell my mother.
A reporter comes through and asks to interview us. For some reason, she focuses on me. Probably because I don’t want her to at all, but I gather myself and smile for the camera. I am, after all, a reality star… of sorts.
“And here is one of the volunteers,” Felicia Strong says. “Tell me, what sparked this idea?”
“Well, my aunt wanted to help the people affected by the storm,” I say. “Josephina Ventura and the other chefs donated all the food and supplies to give back. The money raised tonight will go to the community’s food bank.”
“And what are you preparing right now?” Felicia asks.
“It’s a Filipino rice ball,” I say. I hand her one.
The camera guy zooms in on her plate as she breaks one apart and takes a bite. “Mmm! Amazing. What’s the name of your aunt’s restaurant?”
“It’s a new catering company, actually—Ventura Catering,” I say. “You can follow them on Instagram.” I remember the plug Cari uses.
“And I will!” She smiles before turning to the camera. “World-class chefs are out here at the Amway serving more than just delicious dishes. They’re serving the community.”
I look over at my aunt and she mouths “thank you.”
And it feels good. Really good.
At nine o’clock, we break down the area and begin to load the vehicles. The table in front of me is the last one to be cleaned up. Any remaining food sits out in case of stragglers.
I’ve just finished transferring the used wok oil for disposal when someone says, “Are there more rice balls like the ones I saw on TV?”
While putting the cap on, I point without looking. “Yeah, there are a couple in—”
I should’ve recognized the voice.
I look up and Eugene stands in front of me.
He locks eyes with me. He’s wearing something similar to the first time I met him—a black T-shirt and jeans, but he just looks good.
“My dad said I had to try them,” he says. “And so did the reporter.” He puts two on a plate. The chefs are moving around us, putting things away, but it’s hard to notice anyone but him.
“Thanks again for your help, Jasmine,” Chef Holloway says. “We raised more than three thousand dollars for the food pantry.”
That’s an impressive amount considering half the people didn’t pay.
“And thanks for the shout-out, Jaz,” Jay says. “You didn’t have to do that, but we added a bunch of followers tonight after the news segment.”
I want to ask her why she never told me the reason her restaurant folded, but maybe she had tried when I was avoiding her. And now, in front of everyone, isn’t the time to discuss it.
“No problem,” I say.
“Will you take a walk with me?” Eugene asks.
“I—” I hesitate and notice the other chefs, including Jay, trying not to stare.
Note: they’re definitely staring.
Yeah, better to take a walk because I have things to say to this boy.
I take off my chef coat and give back it to Jay.
“Thanks for keeping that,” I say. I want her to know I remember the green jacket with the embroidered J and how much it meant to me—how much it still means to me.
I look up at her and hope to convey that I’m sorry about what happened to her. That I wish I’d known. She looks back at me a little surprised at first, but her face softens and there’s so much love there. And for the first time in four years, it feels like I’m reconnected with my aunt.
Eugene waits for me and I walk with him. It’s dark now and the breeze feels incredible. My body is buzzing from service, from working like that. There’s an afterglow to surviving a dinner rush I hadn’t expected to feel so acutely.
We pass the other pop-up tents breaking down for the night. I love how Orlando has this community. And maybe if I never leave, it’ll be okay.
“These are fantastic,” Eugene says. Somehow he’s eating while we’re walking. “I knew you’d cook for me eventually.” He tosses out the paper plate in the nearest garbage can.
I stop and stare at him, but he keeps going.
“I want to apologize,” he says.
“You should’ve started with that,” I say.
“I know.” He stops walking and faces me. “I should’ve figured out a way to respond to your messages after the beach. It was wrong to ghost you and I’m sorry.”
I wait for more, but he’s done talking. I blink rapidly. “That’s what you’re sorry for?”
“Yeah, and if it’s any consolation—I missed you, a lot.”
His words impact me and they shouldn’t. They absolutely shouldn’t matter. I’m done with this whole charade. But the corners of my mouth turn up a little—traitors.
“So all the faking and game playing was…” I wait for him to fill in the blank.
“What faking or game playing?” he says. “Everything between us was real.”
I utter a strangled laugh.
“Yes, I knew your family was trying to set you up with dates, but I really brought desserts to the party. I really caught you when you tripped. I really ran into you at Publix. It was Cari’s idea to stop by the shelter, but my family does do monthly donations to charities. We were going to stop because my mom left town, but my dad was on board to give to the shelter. And the rest was just us. Everything from bringing you to my restaurant to racing against you to the beach was all real. We both kept some pretty important details hidden from each other, but don’t most people when they’re first dating? If you want an apology, though, I’m sorry I knew you were going out with other guys, I guess.”
It’s… the worst apology. Ever. It’s so bad, I’m speechless. He’s the one who actually seems annoyed.
“I meant every word I said to you, including Friday when I told you I fell for you,” Eugene says. “I don’t know how much more real it gets than that.”
I stand there shaking my head as every rebuttal leaves me. I had points, I know I did. Good reasons I’ve been mad at him, Justin Michael, and Aaron for days. But Eugene looks sincere and I believe him when he says he fell for me. What’s more is I felt it. That’s why I was so devastated when all of a sudden he wouldn’t talk to me, when I found out it was all a competition. And that’s why I know I can’t trust my own judgment.
“You just wanted to win,” I say.
He sighs. “You didn’t hear me at all, huh? I’m sorry then, Jasmine. I’m sorry for this whole thing.”
We turn around and walk back. But my limbs feel leaden, like I want to stay right here with him. I shouldn’t feel this. I said what I wanted to say and he apologized. I got what I wanted. There shouldn’t be any sadness.
We return to where the pop-up was set up and it’s empty. I look for the van or the truck, but I don’t see them. Eugene continues through the space.
I pause.
“What’s wrong?” Eugene says.
“I’m looking for my aunt. We were right here, weren’t we?”
“Oh. She asked me to give you a ride home.”
I slap my hands against my jeans, my body not knowing what else to do with this frustration. “You’re kidding.”
“No,” he says. “She’s going back to her kitchen then home. You live closer to me than her. And this way you won’t have to help them clean up. Come on, I’m over here.”
I hesitate. I really do hate washing dishes, but really? More interference? When I’d just started to rebuild good feelings with my aunt?
Still, I follow him to the end of the aisle, because part of me distinctly wants to go with him.
“Right here,” Eugene says.
That isn’t a truck.
He has his bike.
I’m going to kill my aunt.
“Oh, hell no,” I say. I back up a step.
“It’s easier to get around on the bike,” he says.
I shake my head. “No. No, it is not.”
“Your call.” He shrugs. He takes two helmets out of the saddlebag and puts his on.
I don’t have a lot of options—we both know that. In the aftermath of the storm, there won’t be rideshares, and the bus, which disappears in perfect weather, isn’t running at all. I’d either have to walk for hours at night or call Cari to come get me, and I’m not exactly on good terms with her. I’m also not speaking to Justin Michael or Aaron, who are not far from here. Or June. Or Emily. And I don’t want to go there with Paul.
Wow, my options suck.
I sigh and put on the helmet. Sure. Why not hop aboard the SS Death Trap?
“Here, it’s a little…” Eugene reaches out and adjusts the strap under my chin. “The only thing you need to do is to lean the way I lean when I turn. If you don’t, the bike can get unbalanced.”
“Oh, okay. I feel much safer now!”
He shakes his head, straddles the bike, and kicks it started. I hate every single thing about this.
“Get on on this side,” he says over the roar of the engine.
I throw my leg over the seat and rest my feet behind his. I glue myself to his back and wrap my arms around his chest.
He repositions my arms to link around his stomach.
The Jasmine Project Page 23