Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet (2 page)

3

“T
here's our girl!” It's Grandpa White, Ana's mother's dad. He looks handsome in a sport coat and lemonade-colored polo shirt that makes his skin look the same shade as a Dove chocolate bar. He pulls Ana into a hug.

“Grandpa.” She hugs him back, wishing she could disappear into his shirt. “Thanks,” she tells him, and dusts off the back of her gown.

“Ana, Ana, you did not give your speech! That Japanese boy goes first and
pow!”
Nai Nai says. Nai Nai (that means “father's mother” in Mandarin) tosses her hands into the air for emphasis. “He probably planned it. To prove he is smarter than you.” Ana's stomach goes south. Nai Nai has a special knack for insulting greetings.

Ana's got what her social sciences teacher calls a “marvelously biracial, multicultural” family. Ana's social sciences teacher is a bit of a freak. What Ana really has is a Chinese American father and an African American mom. Those are the bi-races. Calling them cultural or marvelous is a stretch, in Ana's opinion. But that usually depends on the day.

“Hi, Nai Nai,” Ana sighs.

Nai Nai turns to Ana's grandfather, whom Ana calls Ye Ye. “I told you second would be trouble. Better to be last than be number two.” She turns back to Ana. “See? You should have worked harder.”

Ana closes her eyes so she won't get snapped at for rolling them. “Like that would've kept the pipes from blowing up,” she mutters to Chelsea. “Help me out?”

“Hi, Mr. Shen, hi, Mrs. Shen,” Chelsea chimes in. While greetings and congratulations are exchanged, Ana looks over her shoulder and gets one last glimpse of Jamie. Tonight has to be perfect.

Unfortunately, her family is far from that. All the immediates are there: her mom's parents, newly flown in from Louisiana; her dad's parents, who drove up from Orange County for the day; her own parents, and the tackling menace that is her little brother, Matthew, nicknamed Sammy or the Samoan, after his favorite Girl Scout cookie. The fact that Sammy is wearing leaves where his clip-on tie should be only punctuates the complete lack of perfection. Ana stifles a sigh.

“Congratulations, graduate.” Ana's mom pulls her into a hug and kiss. She's beautiful, in Ana's somewhat biased opinion. She's willowy without being super-tall, and the tiny curls that make Ana's hair a nightmare look fun and carefree on her mom's head. Her mom is an artist, the locally-known-if-not-famous Helen White Shen, and it shows in the hand-painted silk pantsuit and tinkling bangles around her wrists.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“And don't worry,” her mother adds with a hard look at Nai Nai. “We've heard you practice your speech a thousand times. It was terrific.”

“Yeah, tiger, good job,” her dad says. “You too, Chelsea. Congratulations.” Ana's dad is not an artist. He's an architect. Tall and lean, he's dressed almost the same as Jamie Tabata's dad—charcoal suit, white shirt. But there's no tie, the shirt is open at the collar, and he looks . . . comfortable. Ana and her dad exchange a complicated handshake that ends in a hug.

“Daniel, this is a school, not a clubhouse,” Nai Nai says. Ana's dad shakes his head and gives the same complicated handshake to his father. Everyone is surprised when Ye Ye keeps up. Ye Ye is the old man of the family. Older than even Grandpa White. Ana's heard family rumors that he even fought in World War II, which makes him like the History Channel or something.

“That woman!” Grandma White mutters with a shake of her head. “Hi, baby. Congratulations.” Grandma White is neatly dressed in a pantsuit and with matching purse and jewelry. Her graying hair is done up in perfect curls. Ana knows she spends all day at the salon for special occasions.

“Hi, Grandma.” Ana goes in for her tenth hug of the day. “Thanks for flying all the way out for this. Sorry it was so cruddy.”

Her grandmother swats her with her purse. “Cruddy? How could my grandbaby's graduation ever be cruddy? Muddy, maybe”—she gives a throaty chuckle—“but never cruddy. And how are you, Miss Chelsea? Are you going to come out to dinner with us tonight? Ana's got a restaurant all picked out, in the Valley somewhere.” Grandma White leans toward Chelsea conspiratorially. “She won't let us eat around here anymore. I think we embarrass her.” She winks.

Ana and Chelsea exchange looks. Ana gets a little twinge in her stomach. “Uh . . . about that—”

“Can we go now?” Sammy interrupts. “I'm hungry.”

“Sure, honey, let's go.” Ana's mom takes the lead, sorting out the carpool situation. Grandma and Grandpa White will go with Ana's dad and brother in the SUV with their luggage. Ana, her mom and the Grandparents Shen will take the station wagon.

“Come along, young man. You and I can make sand-wiches at home,” Grandpa White says.

Sammy takes his grandfather by the hand. “I don't want a sandwich.”

“Well, how about a ‘samwich’?”

Sammy giggles.

“You guys go on,” Ana says weakly. “I'll catch up in a minute.” She and Chelsea wait until her family is too far away to hear them.

Ana turns on her friend. “Oh my God, Chelsea. What did you just make me do?”

Chelsea's wicked grin belies her innocent shrug. “Don't blame me, blame Cupid. And don't worry. I'll come over at six to help out.”

“Help out? Haven't you helped enough already?” Ana huffs. “Like my family's not enough of a sideshow, now I've got to introduce them all to Jamie? And his dad? Blech.”

“Oh, don't pretend to be angry. You wanted pizza with Jamie, and now you get to have him in your actual house for a whole evening. And your family gets what they want too. Dinner with their precious grandbaby. What more could you possibly ask for?”

Ana's scowl melts into a grudging half-grin. “Not much, I guess. But . . . wait a minute. That means we have to cook! We haven't had a meal at home with all my grandparents in five years!”

Chelsea shrugs. “But your grandmothers can cook. You're always talking about your grandma's gumbo, and like I told Jamie, those dumpling things you made that time were really good.”

“Pot stickers.” Ana sighs. “Yeah, they're good, but mine are all lumpy and funny-looking.”

“Hey, you said they were supposed to look like that,” Chelsea complains.

Ana blushes. “Well, they're not. And Jamie knows it. He
likes
them! And he's gonna know
I
made them! Ugh.” She tosses her head back and gasps up at the sky. “And my grandmothers! Geez, Chelsea, you don't know my grandmothers.”

“Um, friends since second grade, yeah, I do,” Chelsea replies.

“No, really,” Ana says. “We've had exactly three family meals with both sides together.” She ticks them off on her fingers. “Thanksgiving right after my parents got married, Nai Nai said the turkey was dry and raw at the same time. My mom burst into tears and spent the night driving around the block with a bucket of chicken strips she was too embarrassed to serve. Christmas when I was five, Nai Nai cooked an exotic Mandarin feast complete with duck's feet and fungus for dessert. Grandpa White ended up in the emergency room with a bad MSG reaction, and my mom sent me to bed with a can of Vienna sausages. And then we tried it one last time when Sammy was born. Grandma White offered to cook, since my mom was coming home from the hospital. She never even turned on the stove. Between her and Nai Nai, we ended up with takeout.

“We eat out together. We
have
to eat out together, or else there'll be a fight or a disaster or the end of the world. It was a miracle to have Nai Nai and Grandma White on the same sports field, let alone in the same kitchen.”

Ana sighs. “This is no longer a dinner, it's a competition. That means you've just made my life hell for the next”—she glances at her watch—“four hours. Four hours! Holy crap, I've gotta go! And look at my hair! And that's, like, twelve people to feed.”

Chelsea winces. “Fifteen.”

“What?”

“I told Mr. Tabata my family would be there, remember? That was the clincher.”

“Right.” Ana groans.

“I know,” Chelsea replies. “I've gotta get Chuck cleaned up and presentable.”

“Stop calling him Chuck, he's your dad.”

“Hey, us children of divorce have to grow up fast,” Chelsea counters. Ana rolls her eyes.

“You're a child of trial separation, not divorce.”

Chelsea sighs. “Yeah, whatever. Don't you have shopping to do? For Jamie?” She draws the
a
in his name out and wiggles her eyebrows. Ana laughs, and this time her smile lingers.

“Right.” She takes a deep breath and hugs Chelsea. “See you tonight.”

“Sure thing.” The girls separate, backing away from each other across the muddy lawn.

“And don't forget, if you start to freak out . . .” Chelsea holds her hand to her head like a phone. “Call me,” she mouths.

Ana mimics the movement and gives a thumbs-up and a cheesy wink. It's the last smile she shares at Edison Junior High. Then she runs.

4

M
ud and running do not mix. Ana goes dashing across the swampy part of the field, menus for tonight's dinner flashing through her head. The flood in the school gymnasium is draining slowly into the parking lot. They've even brought in pumps to speed up the job. Ana is moving so fast she hits the asphalt before she can stop herself. And it's six inches under water. If her graduation gown didn't run before, it does now. Purple dye splashes every-where. She hops on tiptoe out of the puddle and runs, crablike, to where her family is waiting beside her mother's station wagon.

“Grandma! Grandma!” She comes skidding to a halt in front of her family.

“—but otherwise, it was a nice flight,” Grandma White finishes saying to Ana's dad. Then, slowly, deliberately, she turns and gives Ana a hard look. “Young lady, where is the fire?”

Ana takes a deep breath, her fingers tingling with embarrassment. “Sorry, Grandma. I was . . . it's just that— will you make your gumbo for dinner?”

Grandma White's expression melts into a proud smile. “Why, of course, baby girl. I'd be glad to. You hear that, Derby, she's asking for my home cooking on her big day.”

Grandpa White grins and puts his arm around his wife. “Sure she is, honey. That's the kind of food that brings hope to the hopeless. Good eating.”

“I thought we were eating out,” Sammy whines, tugging on Grandpa White's leg.

“We're not eating out?” Ye Ye asks, his hooded eyes opening in surprise. He looks at Nai Nai and Ana's dad.

Ana winces. No jobs for her at the United Nations.

“What I meant was . . . well, Chelsea and I . . . we kind of invited a couple of people over for dinner, and it would really mean a lot to me if we didn't have to disinvite them.”

Another surprised silence follows. Ana's shoulders rise and lock together before she can stop them.

“Well, we could still eat out,” her dad says hopefully.

“No? Not really?” Ana's voice rises into a question and she winces even more. This is not the way she planned it. Then again, nothing's gone the way she planned today. Today is her big day. Ask and she should have received. But she didn't ask right and now she's stuck in wince mode, eyes scrunched in anticipation of disaster.

Grandma White clutches her purse imperiously. Nai Nai purses her lips imperiously. Ye Ye and Grandpa White shrug. Ana's dad puts an arm around her mother's shoulders. Her mother sighs and looks down at the ground.

“Oh, Ana, honey. Look at your legs,” her mother says.

Ana looks down. Zebra stripes of purple are spiraling their way down her calves.

Ana closes her eyes. “No, no, no, no, no.”
Jamie Tabata is coming over tonight and I look like a leper,
she thinks.
Get a grip, get a grip.

The Samoan starts to laugh. “Ana's got tights on, Ana's got tights on.”

Nai Nai clucks her tongue. Ana swears under her breath. At least the attention is off dinner for a minute.

“Hold on, baby.” It's Grandma White, rummaging through her giant purse. “I've got something in here . . .”

“Just pull it off me,” Ana pleads, struggling with the gown.

“What, over that fine head of hair?” her grandmother asks. “No, hold still.”

Right,
thinks Ana. Nothing a shower and a lot of hair gel wouldn't improve.

A small pair of sewing scissors flashes in the sunlight, and Ana's grandmother cuts the gown straight down the back.

“What are you doing?” Ana shrieks.

“There, now take it off.”

“Mom!” Ana's mom grabs the sleeves from the front and Ana pulls her arms free. At least she's out of the gown. She looks down. Her pale pink graduation dress is ruined, speckled and stained with purple dye, like an Easter egg with the shell removed. “I look like I'm contagious.”

“Don't worry, there's a towel in the way-back.” Her mom goes to rummage through the back of the car. Ana follows for a quick toweling off, removing most of the dye from her arms and legs. Afterward, she takes a seat on the tailgate to take off her mucky sandals. Her mom stands in front of her, and they each take a muddy shoe to clean.

“So,” her mother says now that they're alone. “What's going on with you and Chelsea?”

Ana blushes. “Nothing. We just thought, since there's no dance, we could have dinner together . . . with some friends.”

Ana's mom quirks an eyebrow. “How many friends?”

Ana blushes even more. Mr. Tabata doesn't exactly count as a friend, but . . . “Um, six?”

Ana's mom shakes her head. Ana knows what she's thinking. Christmas, Thanksgiving and Sammy's first day home . . . not exactly a good track record.

Her mom sighs and drops her shoulders. “Well, who knows? Maybe the fourth time will be the charm for us. We might have to set up in the backyard, though.”

Ana breathes a sigh of relief. “Cool. It should be fun.”

Her mother looks up from the sandal she's cleaning. “Fun? Huh. I've never heard you use that word when it comes to family dinners.”

Ana shrugs. “Well, I know that, when it's just us, and Grandma and Nai Nai get into it or whatever. But it'll be different this time, since we'll have company. Right?”

“Who knows,” her mom says, rising and handing over the cleaned shoe. “Maybe
Family Feud
will skip a round. It's a nice thought.” Ana accepts the kiss her mother plants on her forehead. “Well, honey, you'd better go ask Nai Nai to cook too, or we'll never hear the end of it.”

Ana puts her shoes on and checks her reflection out in the window. Not bad, for a sponge bath and a speckled dress.

Ana's mom smoothes out the back of Ana's dress. “Boy, this Jamie kid better be worth it.”

Ana's jaw drops. Her mom just winks. “It's okay. Kind of obvious, the way you two were looking at each other onstage.”

“It was? I mean . . . he was giving me a look?”

Her mom smiles and shrugs. “It might have been a look. Or something. Just don't tell your dad. He'll lock you in your closet until you're eighteen.”

Ana shakes her head. “Twenty-one. He already told me.”

“Well, his bark is worse than his bite,” her mom says.

Ana turns to rejoin the rest of the family, and stops. “Thanks, Mom.”

Her mom smiles. “That's what I'm here for.”

Everyone else is waiting patiently by the front of the car. “Nai Nai?” Ana approaches her father's parents. Nai Nai seems to be counting the leaves on the eucalyptus tree towering over their heads. If she were a cartoon, there would be fuming little angry-lines waving over her head.

“Yes? Did you say something?”

Ana takes a deep breath. “Grandmother, it would be an honor if you would prepare a special dish for tonight's festivities,” she says painstakingly in Mandarin. Ana is by no means fluent, but with each word she manages, Nai Nai's face, if it doesn't exactly smile, at least softens.

At last, Nai Nai nods. “How else was it going to be a party?” She flings a hand toward Grandma White. “You think a little bowl of soup is enough to feed guests? Of course not. This is a banquet. We need eight dishes—no, nine is more auspicious. Yuan, get me a pen.” She taps Ye Ye on his arm. Ana's grandfather obediently pats his pockets until he comes up with a small notepad and paper.

“I will make a list,” Nai Nai says, and begins jotting down her thoughts in quick Chinese characters. “This is my granddaughter's special day. I will make it the best.”

“Oh, I'll do dumplings,” Ana adds. “And
lu bo gao
would be good.” Sweet and salty turnip cakes speckled with shrimp and Chinese sausage. The thought of them makes Ana's mouth water.

Nai Nai pauses. “Who's planning this party, anyway?”

Ana snatches the pad and pen away. “We are, of course.” She waves her arm to gather her family closer.

“Okay, so we've got dumplings and
lu bo gao,
gumbo and lion's head, fried rice, what else? Dessert? Anyone?”

Ana's mom raises her hand. “I was going to make a cake anyway. I'll make it a little bigger.”

“Great, Mom. Grandpa, do you want to contribute?”

Grandpa White shakes his head. “Do you have to ask? My world-famous chicken has got to be on the menu of any party where the guest of honor is my grand-daughter.”

“Sounds good to me.” Ana jots it down on her pad. “So that's”—she counts in her head, lips moving—“that's eight dishes. Who wants to do the ninth?”

Nai Nai steps forward and snatches the list from Ana. “Hey!” Ana cries.

“I will do the ninth. We must be orderly. We must make a shopping list. We must be clear, or mistakes will be made. Right, Mrs. White?”

Ana shudders. Nai Nai always insists on being formal with Ana's other grandmother. Ana's dad says it's a matter of pride—the
via
in
Olivia
trips up Nai Nai's tongue and turns into
Oliver
. It still irks Grandma White, though. Especially since Grandpa White is on a first-name basis with both Nai Nai and Ye Ye.

Fortunately, this afternoon, Grandma White doesn't take the bait. She simply nods and says, “That's sound advice. Sound advice indeed.” Nai Nai doesn't even see her shake her head, or mutter, “That woman!”

“Great,” Ana says with a sigh of relief. “Now, write your lists and let's go shopping!” She all but claps her hands like a chirpy camp counselor.

Ana's dad hauls Sammy up onto his shoulders. “Saddle up, cowboys. First stagecoach to Ralph's, head this way!” The Grandparents White and Sammy go with Ana's dad to his SUV. Ye Ye follows.

“The SUV has a television,” he says by way of apology, and shuffles away.

Ana looks at her mom and Nai Nai. Not the best arrangement, but it will have to do. Ana's mother takes a deep breath.

“Pavilion?” she asks, naming the nearest grocery chain. “There's one a few blocks from here.”

Nai Nai shakes her head and gets into the station wagon. “Monterey Park is better. I'll tell you where to drive.”

Ana drops down in the middle seat of the wagon. She shuts the door, and suddenly, everything sinks in. This is her last day at Edison Junior High. Ana feels like the life is being pulled out of her, down the length of her arms, through the tips of her fingers and toes. She is tired, bone tired. That's a Grandma White phrase, and it fits. Maybe it was getting up early for the ceremony. Maybe it was staying up all night trying to perfect her speech. Or anticipating the graduation dance. Or running from the great flood. Or maybe it's just plain depression. Now it's over. Anything can happen at dinner tonight, but after that, who knows?

Everything's changing,
she thinks. She's said good-bye to her grade-school friends, to all her old teachers, to the principal, and now here she is, in the backseat of her mom's blue station wagon, head resting against the window, letting the vibrations of the 405 freeway drum away a small, small feeling of regret.

“How do you feel?” her mom asks. Nai Nai is surprisingly quiet in the front seat. No doubt planning her next salvo.

Ana sighs. “Different.”

Ana's mother smiles at her in the rearview mirror, a very faint smile. “Now you're growing up.”

Ha,
Ana thinks.
Maybe I can start calling my parents Dan and Helen.

In the front seat, Nai Nai's breath catches in one quick sob.

Ana closes her eyes. That's why everyone's so quiet, she realizes. Ana the little girl no longer exists.
Now,
that's
depressing. I'm growing up and I haven't even kissed a boy. Not one that's counted, anyway.

Ana lapses back into her thoughts and lets the hum of the car's wheels lull her. By the time they reach the part of the freeway that looks across downtown Los Angeles, she's fast asleep.