Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet (7 page)

Ana can see it now. Amanda Conrad is probably somewhere flirting with some other boy, and Jamie Tabata doesn't matter to her one bit. That's a comforting thought. Unless, of course, it doesn't happen for another forty years, like it took for Stella Reed.

Grandma White snorts and washes off her tasting spoon. “And now, here I am still talking about her, when she's halfway to Tuscaloosa in her pink pickup truck with nothing but a gin and tonic on her mind.”

“Grandma!” Ana feigns shock.

Grandma White smiles sheepishly. “Sorry, honey. I guess that old goat got to me. But that's my point in the end. This Jamie Tabata may be first in his class today, but September's a whole other story. Big fish in a small pond and all that. But you, baby girl, you've got the gills to keep on swimming. So don't be down. You'll do just fine.”

“I guess.” Ana sighs. She could use a life lesson right about now, but she's getting the wrong one. “The thing is, Grandma, I'm not sad that Jamie is valedictorian. It never really mattered to me. It's just that . . . well, you had Timothy, right?”

“Timothy? Timothy was a boyfriend, not a rival. He's—” Ana's grandmother stops in midsentence and the sun comes out in her eyes. “Oh! Oh, Ana dear, I had no idea. You're not competing with that boy, you're competing
for
him!”

Ana blushes. “I didn't think of it that way. But some of the other girls like him too. And now that we're going to high school, I guess I missed my chance.”

“Now, now, the summer's just starting and he's not going to the moon, so you never know. But tell me one thing, sweetie.” Grandma White gets serious. She wipes her hands on the kitchen towel draped across her shoulder and turns to face Ana head-on. “You are a bright, bright girl, and I'm proud of you, top, bottom or middle of your class. But tell me, did you let this Jamie person make valedictorian?”

“Let? What, like letting him win at tennis? No! Of course not. I didn't even know I was in the running until they announced it. Honestly, I didn't think I would be up there at all. Jamie's as smart as they say.
And
he's good at tennis. Well, table tennis, anyway.” Ana smiles inside, remembering gym class with Jamie. They monopolized the table for three weeks, the Ping-Pong king and queen.

“Look at you.” Grandma White shakes her head and clucks her tongue. “Uh-huh, there's a story there, in that smile,” she says. “I'd like to hear it someday.”

Ana blushes furiously.

“Don't worry, I can wait until it's less embarrassing,” her grandmother says. “Of course, I'm going to have to pay extra attention to the young man tonight.”

“Grandma!” Ana gasps.

Grandma White grins.

Just then, the oven timer goes off,
ding!
Ana jumps.

“That's Mom's cake. Can you put it on that rack?”

This time, the cake comes out golden brown and perfect.

“Well, that's one thing right today,” Grandma White says. “That and my gumbo. Now, go on and call your friend Chelsea. I've got to check on your grandfather and Sammy.”

“Right, Chelsea.” Ana drops the first ball of dumpling dough back into the bowl. She wipes her hands and dials Chelsea's cell phone.

“This better be good news,” she says.

It's not. Chelsea is going to be late.

12

A
na rubs flour on her hands and tries not to think about it. So what if her best friend/fashion advisor isn't coming early? She sprinkles a little flour on the parchment paper and tries not to think about it some more. Chelsea's coming late and Ana hasn't even started the pot stickers. Let alone picked out the perfect dress. Now she's got to do it without a second opinion. She sighs and looks at the clock. Not a lot of time, especially without Chelsea here to keep her sane, but she can still give it a go.

She starts making little balls of dough. Pork-filled pot stickers were the first Chinese dish she learned to make. Nai Nai would let her mix the dough, and Ana would watch her expertly stuff the dumplings, fat and crescent-shaped, like chunky little pieces of moon. Which is probably why Ana never quite got the hang of that step. That changes today. Today she will make perfect little purses of pork and ginger. Dumplings even Nai Nai would be proud to serve.

The dough is a warm off-white color and slightly sticky. It's relaxing to use her hands, after everything that's happened today. Good old-fashioned mindless cooking. No more freaking out about Jamie Tabata. No walking on eggshells trying to juggle the grandparents. Nothing but rolling balls of dough. The knot in her stomach disappears. It's pure bliss.

When the sheet of parchment paper is full, she presses each ball flat until it's the size of a drink coaster. Then she scoops out a tablespoonful of pork filling and drops one on each piece of dough. She picks up the first dough circle, cupping it in one hand and folding the dough like a taco around the meat. With the other hand, she pinches the outer edges together, sealing the meat in. It reminds her of the coil-and-pinch clay bowls she used to make with Grandma White when she was little.

Grandma White used to be an art teacher. When Ana was little, she loved to visit her grandparents in Louisiana and sit in on her grandmother's classes. None of Ana's friends had grandmothers with paint sets and easels or pottery wheels. Grandma White was the one who inspired Ana's mom to be an artist.

“We used to spend all our Sunday afternoons at the museum,” Ana's mom told her once.
The museum
meant the Art Institute in Chicago, where Ana's mom grew up. She said it the way other people called New York City
the city
, like there was only one in the whole wide world. To hear her mother talk about it, there might as well have been.

“Every week, after church, Daddy would go home, and it was just Mama and me. Those quiet white hall-ways, the staircase with the Chagall stained-glass window made me catch my breath every single time. Sometimes it felt holier than church.”

Her mother had laughed at the memory that followed. “On the L ride home, I guess it was the graffiti on the walls that grabbed me. The fact that it was right out there for everyone to see. You didn't need to pay admission or wait for free Tuesdays. All you had to do was pass by on your way to school or work, even on your way to a funeral. Art for everyone. And that's why I'm a muralist.”

Ana loves watching her mother work. The sides of the Los Angeles River basin and some of the underpasses on the 101 freeway toward downtown are smeared with colors her mother chose, and the faces of people, and landscapes that marry the Midwest with the South with the West and points beyond. Her favorite mural is of a cherry orchard, running along a stretch of the 110 before it reaches Chinatown. The pale pink blossoms look like strawberry ice cream on chocolate branches. Ana was eight the first time they drove past. It took three visits before she realized that among the painted people wandering beneath the painted trees were a younger version of her mother and father. They were holding hands, sitting under the smallest tree.

“That's a moment in time,” Ana's mother told her. “That's when your dad proposed.”

Ana's parents met when they were students, working on the same project in graduate school. Her father had designed a small gymnasium for a public park and Ana's mother was chosen to design a mural for one of the walls. It wasn't love at first sight, but according to her parents, it didn't take long.

Ana sighs and reaches for another ball of dough. It seems so obvious that her mom would become an artist, that her dad would fall in love with her. But here Ana is, starting high school in two and a half months, and there's not a single obvious thing in her future. It's like the rest of her family is carved out of something solid and strong, like iron or stone. Nai Nai will always be Nai Nai, her folks will always be Mom and Dad. Even Sammy will always be Sammy, no doubts there. But Ana . . . Her hand drops the ball of dough on the table, but she doesn't press it flat. Instead, she takes a deep breath.

“All things to all people,” she tells herself. That's her job.

She presses her palm into the dough.

They all have love stories, too, including the Samoan. He has his stupid Girl Scout cookies that he adores beyond passion, and Nai Nai and Ye Ye have some odd, understated romance. She's only heard their story in bits and snatches here and there, but it feels exotic to Ana, the thought of marrying someone so much older than you and moving to a foreign country together. And Mom and Dad have their story painted under imaginary cherry trees on a dusty stretch of freeway. Grandma and Grandpa White have their love story, too, about meeting in a diner where Grandma baked pies after the Korean War. Yep, everyone has their love story, except for her.

Ana frowns. Jamie Tabata is coming over for dinner with his entire family. At least at the dance they could have been alone. He might even have kissed her. Her own backyard seems a far less likely setting.

A second later, the kitchen door opens. The peace and quiet was way too good to last.

“Oh, good, you can help me,” her father says, coming through the door. Ana feels a twinge of guilt in her scalp. Her dad would flip if he knew she was daydreaming about some boy.

“Help you what, Dad? I'm elbow-deep in dumplings.”

“Dumplings that I helped make the filling for, tiger,” he reminds her, and rushes to the refrigerator. “I need you to chop and drain the tofu for me for the
mabo.”

Ana cuts him a look. “I've seen you work with a knife, Mr. Flying Fingers. That's going to take you all of ten seconds.”

Her father straightens up and looks at her sternly. “You might be head of your class, but I'm head of this household.”

Ana grins involuntarily. “Not today, you aren't. Or you wouldn't be sneaking around behind Nai Nai.”

Her dad's shoulders drop. “I can chop stuff, it doesn't mean I can cook. And we've got”—he looks at his watch—“oh, under an hour. No room for error.”

“Don't worry, Pops. I'll help you.” She finishes the dumpling she's working on and moves to the sink to wash her hands. Her dad starts going through the pantry, pulling out cornstarch and Szechuan pepper, the hot spice with a strangely numbing effect on the tongue.

Ana opens the fridge and stares into the crammed shelves of leafy vegetables still sticking out of their grocery bags. “Where is Nai Nai, anyway? With Ye Ye? He's disappeared too.”

“Don't think so,” her dad says. “She was running to the store.”

Ana eyes the refrigerator, packed to capacity and then some. She finds what she's looking for. “Really? What did we forget, spicy tofu? Pickled something or other?”

Ana's dad laughs. “I have no idea. She didn't say.”

“Here's the green onions.” Ana passes them to her dad for chopping. “At least she won't be answering the phone.”

“Yeah. How did Chelsea take it?”

Ana shrugs. “Fine. She called to say they're going be a little late.” She peels back the plastic cover on the first tub of tofu and pours the chalky water off the bean curd and into the sink. It swirls down the drain looking like halfhearted milk. Ana stares at the spongy brick of tofu left behind. Suddenly, it all seems hopeless. Making a meal out of a flavorless block of curd is like a magic trick. She looks up from the sink and over to where her dad is slicing green onions. The dumplings on the table are nowhere near done. She hasn't even had a real lunch today and her hair is still wet and twisted up into little-girl braids, not to mention the still-not-in-a-sundress problem and the “here's some cash to buy your love” incident with Nai Nai.

“This sucks.”

“What sucks?”

“Well, maybe we should just order pizza. The rest of this stuff isn't really coming together.”

Her father stops chopping. “You'd have a mutiny on your hands, honey. I haven't seen this big a joint effort since the Berlin Wall came down.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She sighs, a tired feeling creeping over her shoulders.
Maybe that's why I fell asleep in the car. Avoidance.
“It's just so much work, and anxiety.”

“Anxiety?” Her dad wipes his hands on a kitchen towel. He comes over and puts an arm around her. “You want to tell me what's on your mind?”

Ana puts the tofu package down and rests the heels of her hands on the edge of the sink. “It's just . . . sometimes I feel like . . .” She pauses and gathers her thoughts. “You know when you were a kid, and Russia and the U.S. were all angry at each other?”

“The Cold War?” her dad asks with some surprise.

“Yeah, that. And you said you lived with the threat of nuclear war every day?” She turns to face him.

Her dad shrugs. “Well, not every day. Not consciously, but yeah, it was a different time.”

Ana shakes her head. “Not so different anymore. But the thing is, Dad, sometimes that's how it feels around here. Like there's all this tension all the time, and like I'm in the middle, like Switzerland or something. But I don't know which side I'm supposed to be on.”

Her dad pats her shoulder and they both lean their backs up against the sink. “And it's not just at home, but at school, too, like I don't know who I'm supposed to be.” Ana frowns. Mandy Conrad or Ana Shen? Ana Shen or Ana White Shen, like her mom? Or maybe even Ana White-Shen-Tabata. God, Mandy Conrad doesn't hyphenate and she probably wears a sundress all the time and has a personal chef to make the dumplings.
Ugh.
The stomach knots are back.

Her dad sighs and it sounds so sad, Ana wishes she hadn't said anything.

“Honey,” he says, “your mother and I knew it might be hard for you and Sammy to grow up biracial. But it's not about taking sides. You are the best of both of us, the best we have to offer as human beings. Our cultural differences only enrich us and make us stronger.”

Ana stares at her dad, her mouth opens but no words come out. He takes a deep breath and continues.

“You're growing up, tiger, and the world's not always going to be a friendly place. But look, it's like . . .” He looks around the room and sees the jar of Szechuan chilies. He holds it up to her.

“It's like Chinese cooking. All our differences are like different flavors. Some are hot like these chilies, or sour like vinegar, or salty like dried shrimp, or sweet like melon. They're all so different from each other, but take a bite of one of those dumplings dipped in vinegar and soy sauce, and it's delicious. Ana, it's perfect.”

He cups her cheek in his free hand. He looks so earnest that Ana can't hide it anymore.

“Dad, I've got a total crush on Jamie Tabata and I'm, like, freaking out. This dinner has to be good.”

Her dad freezes. She can feel the hand on her cheek stiffen.

“What?” he says slowly.

“Um . . .” Ana's mind starts racing. “Oh . . . oh! No, Dad, this isn't a race thing. I mean, I know who I am, sort of, that way. But I'm not a little kid anymore and you keep calling me tiger and everybody wants me to do what they want me to do, but today is supposed to be my day and I've got things I want to do. Like make perfect dumplings and have dinner with a boy. So I've got to finish cooking, and I've got to get dressed, because I don't want to look like a total disaster when he comes over. Sorry to freak you out. I know you said no boys until I'm twenty-one, but be realistic, it's happening. Well, maybe, it's at least starting, and I thought you should know.”

Her dad blinks like he's moving in slow motion. His hand falls away from her face.

“Wow.” He takes a step back and frowns at the floor. “Huh. Wow.” He rubs his eyes. “Um . . . This kid, Jamie . . . Tabata?”

Ana's face goes hot, the embarrassment finally catching up with her mile-a-minute confession.

Her dad swallows. “Is he . . .”

“He's the valedictorian, Dad. He's smart, he doesn't do drugs or anything, and he's the same age as me.”

Her father nods. “Right. Good. Good, just so we're clear.” He nods a few more times. “All right. Can't wait to meet him.”

Ana breathes a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Daddy.”

She gives him a hug. He quirks an eyebrow at her.

“Don't you mean ‘Dad’?”

Ana smiles. “Sometimes. And sometimes ‘Daddy.’ ”

“So where's my tofu? You've got to get dressed and all,” her dad says.

“Right.” Ana pulls the tofu out of the package and places it on the chopping board.

“Hey, Dad? Where's Ye Ye?”