by Vivien Chien
Today Peter was dressed in his usual outfit of solid black. Instead of a chef hat, he wore a black baseball hat to cover his shaggy hair. Since I’ve known him, he’s always kept his hair long, in a Brandon Lee sort of way.
“I have no idea. I was wondering the same thing.” I grabbed four water goblets from the stacked trays of clean dishes.
“It’s got to be something serious, I’ve never seen Esther run anywhere in my life.”
We both laughed.
I filled the glasses with ice and water, as slowly as possible, hoping the door to the back room would open and we’d get some answers. No such luck. I headed back out into the dining area disappointed. How exciting could it really be? I asked myself, trying to pacify my curiosity. I mean, it was Esther. The highlights of her life were mah-jong and shopping for new floral prints more chipper than the last.
After I had taken the family’s order and given them their drinks, I slipped back into the kitchen, and stood outside the door to the back room with my ear pressed up against it. Peter watched in anticipation.
Without warning, the door swung open, nearly knocking me over. Thanks to my ninja-like reflexes, I caught myself before kissing the floor.
My mother jumped, startled by my proximity. “Ai-ya! Lana! What are you doing?”
“Nothing…”
She stared impatiently at me, her arms folded over her chest. Even at five feet two inches she was intimidating. Don’t let my mother fool you. Sure, she looks sweet enough in her cute pastel blouses, and her chubby cheeks give her a warm, friendly look that’s deceivingly trustworthy. She looks innocent enough, but like the pagoda walls outside, it was just a façade. She could crush a man like a bug if she had to.
Esther rushed past us, exiting through the swinging doors back into the dining room.
“What is Esther’s deal?” I asked, pointing toward the dining room, and pretending my mother wasn’t giving me “the look.”
“Do we have customers?” my mother asked, ignoring my question.
“Just one family, they’re waiting on their food.” I glanced at Peter who had slipped back into cooking mode.
“Okay, good. Lock the door. No more customers today. Mr. Feng died.”
My stomach dropped. “What?”
In the background, I heard Peter drop his metal spatula.
“Esther called the police already, they are coming now.” She waved her hand toward the dining room doors. “Now go, lock the door, no more customers today.”
* * *
I got the family of four paid up and out the door. The CLOSED sign was facing out, and I dead-bolted the entrance. During that time, the police had shown up along with an ambulance. I saw the gurney go by and all eyes followed the procession down to Mr. Feng’s office.
I could see Esther standing outside the office door, wringing her hands. Cindy Kwan from the bookstore was standing next to her, and I wondered why she was there.
My mother had called my dad to inform him of the news and he arrived in record time. They came out of the kitchen with Peter in tow. My mother looked solemn, and I didn’t have the heart to ask what happened. They joined me at the entrance and the four of us stood lumped together at the glass doors staring out at the circus of people starting to congregate outside the property office. None of us said a word or even seemed to breathe for several minutes while we watched the commotion outside our doors.
My dad broke the silence. “Cindy from the bookstore was meeting Tom for a business meeting and found him slumped over his desk. She tried to wake him up, but when he was unresponsive she ran over to Esther’s and they called the police.” My dad shook his head. “I can’t imagine what his wife must be going through right now.”
My dad, William Lee, is a big ole white guy. Looking at my sister and me, people assume both our parents are Asian, especially because the name Lee throws people off. They usually assume it’s attributed to an Asian background but actually is thanks to my dad’s English background. My dad doesn’t have a neat accent, but my grandparents do. They call me things like love and taught me about scones. Anyway, it’s always fun watching the reaction on someone’s face when they meet my dad for the first time.
He is extremely white. There’s no two ways around it. Sometimes, he reminds me of those posters you see in a bank of some guy shaking hands with overly excited homeowners. Which isn’t too far from reality because he’s a Realtor. He even comes with his own million-dollar smile and crisp, well-fitted suit.
He does pretty well for a guy in his mid-fifties. At first when his hair started to go gray, he had a panic attack and bought an entire case of Just for Men, but eventually he came around and concluded that it gave him a more “distinguished” look and might even help him in the realty business. My mom hated to see all that dye go to waste, so now she uses it to touch up her roots. Hey, I don’t judge.
“According to Esther, she thinks he’s been like that for a little over an hour,” my dad informed us.
I looked up at him; he towered over me at six feet. “What makes Esther think that?”
“He was lying next to a takeout box … there was still food left.”
I gulped. His lunch … the lunch that I brought him.
I contemplated that statement and the timing of my visit. I believed in timing. Kind of like when you see a major car accident that just happened and you were running five minutes late that morning. Suddenly, you’re not so upset about being late, almost as if it were a favor in disguise.
My mother, who hadn’t spoken a single word, lifted her tiny hand and unlocked the dead bolt. Softly she said, “Let’s see what’s going on.”
“Betty.” My dad reached a hand for her shoulder. “Maybe we should stay here.”
“No … I want to go.”
My father didn’t argue. My mother pushed open the door and instantly we were exposed to a clamor of voices. Following behind her, my dad kept a protective hand on her back and Peter and I brought up the rear of our little procession.
There must have been around a hundred people standing outside the office. Shoppers hung around waiting to see what the commotion was about and fellow shopkeepers had abandoned their posts to get a closer look.
We stood at the edge of the crowd. My mother, curious but not wanting to go any farther, secured her space and stared intently in the general direction of the office.
Time dripped on and just when I thought I couldn’t take any more, the door to the office sprang open and two paramedics came out with a gurney carrying a rather human-shaped body bag. Behind them appeared two uniformed officers and a grave-looking man in a charcoal-gray suit.
One of the paramedics shouted, asking the crowd to move aside and let them through. Like migrating birds, the cluster of people moved as one, making room down the center, letting the gurney pass.
As they passed us, I couldn’t take my eyes off the body bag. My brain worked overtime trying to acknowledge that someone I knew and cared about was in there. I had never seen a dead body in this scenario before. Although I suppose not many people my age really do.
Esther came fluttering over. She hugged my mother, and they shared a moment of hurried Mandarin together.
Esther glanced among the four of us. “I heard the man in gray say that maybe Thomas died from allergies.”
“You mean an allergic reaction?” my father asked to clarify.
She nodded slowly. “Yah, yah, yah…”
For a minute, my attention was taken away from the gurney as what Esther said registered in my mind. The whole Village knew that Mr. Feng had a shellfish allergy. And it wasn’t something that he trifled with. He was always very careful about what he ate and how he ordered food. Even at our restaurant, we had special instructions for preparing his orders. On top of that, he always carried an EpiPen as a safety precaution.
Now that I thought about it, I remembered seeing the tip of it sticking out of his shirt pocket.
It was possible that Esther had heard wrong
. She was in shock after all. We all were.
The paramedics had crossed the plaza and we watched as they exited through the main entrance on the other side of the building. As the doors shut, my mother burst into tears.
CHAPTER
3
After Thomas had been … taken from the plaza, many of the smaller shops closed for the remainder of the day. Ho-Lee Noodle House was one among the many who decided the rest of the workday would just be absolutely unbearable. Once calls were made to the rest of the staff, and everything was situated, my parents sent me home.
My mom had left almost immediately to call on Donna Feng to give her condolences and see if she needed anything. My dad, Peter, and I settled the loose ends at the restaurant. I offered to go over to my parents’ place and sit with them for a while, but my dad insisted I go home and get some rest.
The place I call home is a two-bedroom, garden-style apartment in North Olmsted, and the drive to and from work isn’t a long one. Fifteen minutes tops. The apartment that Megan and I picked out wasn’t glamourous by any means. It was your basic cookie-cutter apartment with off-white paint and that funky brown carpet that no one ever likes.
Megan and I, both unsatisfied with the look of things, took it upon ourselves to redecorate the apartment, hoping to give it a warmer vibe, something more homey-looking. Megan, who was the real decorator of the two of us, did most of the work. I helped with the shopping and painting.
The apartment as a whole was still a work in progress, but the living room, now covered in soft grays and lavenders, felt comfy yet elegant when you walked in. Our next project was the bathroom and I knew that long hours of picking out paint swatches at Home Depot were in my near future.
When I got inside, my dog, Kikkoman, was waiting for me at the door, her curly black tail wiggling in excitement. Kikko, my black-as-soy-sauce pug, looked up at me, her tongue hanging out of her mouth. She looked as if she were grinning and it forced a smile out of me. At least someone was having a good day.
Megan was sitting on the couch, chatting away on her cell phone. Her blond hair was swept up in a tight ponytail on top of her head and her casual outfit—black T-shirt and skinny jeans—gave me the impression that she was heading to work. She told whoever she was talking to that she had to go and hung up as I was shutting the door.
She looked me up and down, her hazel eyes scrutinizing my appearance. “You look like hell, woman.”
“Gee, thanks,” I mumbled under my breath.
“What happened today? I texted you a bunch of times and you never responded.”
I dug in my purse and pulled out my phone. Five missed text messages. “Oops, sorry.”
“I was going to stop by and see you today, but then Nikki called and you know how she can just go on forever. I’ve been on the phone with her for like three hours talking about her relationship issues with Kyle, and it just went on and on. I swear, she doesn’t take a breath sometimes … and hey, what are you doing home from work already?” She looked down, checking the time on her phone and back up at me.
I felt my lip quiver, and the tears welling in my eyes. Megan’s expression changed from quizzical to concerned and then she said those magic words, “What’s wrong?” and I burst into tears.
Sitting on the couch with Kikko between us, I went through the whole story from Esther running in to tell my mother the news, to my dad informing us that Mr. Feng died almost right after I saw him, and finally to the body bag being wheeled through the plaza.
Megan, in the meantime, had grabbed a box of tissues and balanced it on her knee. “Wow … that’s intense. And, kind of scary. I mean, what, the guy was in his fifties, right? Seems so young.”
“I know.” I sniffled into my tissue. “I keep going back to our conversation, it was so trivial.” Kikko put a paw on my leg and huffed as if she sympathized.
“What did you talk about?”
“Dumb stuff, you know? Like, how business was going and did I enjoy working for my parents. That kind of stuff.”
Megan nodded. “That’s natural though, that’s what people normally talk about. It’s not like you knew it would be the last time you’d ever see the guy or anything.”
I took a fresh tissue from the box. “I just wish I would have said something better.”
“Well, you know, hindsight and whatever,” she responded, flipping her hand nonchalantly. “We would all say something better if we knew that we weren’t going to see someone again. But, most of the time, we don’t have that luxury.”
“What’s even stranger is that Mr. Feng talked about that. About appreciating people while they’re still around. Who would have thought he’d be the one that wasn’t around anymore?” I thought about his wife and two teenage girls. They’d never get the chance to see their father again. What had their conversations been like the last time they spoke with him?
“So make a change,” Megan said matter-of-factly.
“What do you mean?” I wiped a stray tear from my cheek.
She put the tissue box on the coffee table and stood up to face me, hands on her hips. “Life is short; we hear it all the time. So, instead of moping around, let’s both take life by the proverbial horns. Let’s live and appreciate each other and what we have in our lives. Maybe the loss of Thomas can help shape a new outlook on life.”
I knew she was right, but I didn’t have it in me at the moment to take on such a positive attitude. “Maybe we can start tomorrow?” I asked, looking up at her.
She let out a heavy sigh. “How about I call in sick from work and we can watch movies?”
“Scary movies?” I asked.
“Sure.”
The idea of a movie binge cheered me up a smidge. “I’ll get the ice cream.”
* * *
The following morning, I woke up to what appeared to be another day of mild weather. November in northeast Ohio is hit-or-miss. By this time of year, it had usually started snowing, but sometimes we lucked out with a sprinkling of seventy-degree days throughout the beginning winter months. So far, we’d escaped an early snowfall, but who knew what tomorrow would bring. Content with my light winter jacket, I was keeping my fingers crossed that snow would show up right in time for Christmas … and then it could go away again.
The atmosphere upon arriving at Asia Village was extremely somber, and a sadness filled the air. I couldn’t bring myself to look up at Mr. Feng’s office, so I kept my eyes down and slithered by unnoticed. There were only a few people opening up when I arrived and no one said a word to me as I passed.
I opened the door to the restaurant and locked it behind me; Peter wouldn’t be in for another thirty minutes.
On a normal day, the quiet didn’t bother me, but the silence was overbearing and I had a sense of loneliness I couldn’t quite shake. I turned on the sound system and switched the setting to a rock station, hoping it would lighten the mood.
As I busied myself with the tasks I usually dreaded, like refilling condiment bottles and double-checking the tables for flaws, my mind drifted back to the Feng family. I thought again about their two daughters and couldn’t imagine what this whole ordeal was like for them. It made me think about my own life and what it would have been like had one of my parents not been there.
Despite my uneasiness, time flew by as I tidied up the restaurant, and before I knew it Peter was tapping on the glass to get my attention.
“Good morning,” I said as I let him in.
“Dude, is it just me, or does it feel like we work in a funeral home today?” He looked back at the plaza, shaking his head. “It’s so gloomy out there.”
I shrugged, locking the door again. “I think it’s going to be that way for at least a few days. His death was so unexpected.”
Peter looked away. “Do you know what’s going to happen to us?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know, now that Mr. Feng is gone, will his wife take over? Or, do you think it’ll be his partne
r? Ian Sung has always run the residential properties. He doesn’t seem very interested in the plaza. You don’t think he’ll sell the place, do you?”
“I don’t know … I’m sure Mr. Feng left a will,” I said, hoping that was true.
We talked as we walked back into the kitchen. Peter hung up his coat and ran his hands through his hair before putting on his hat. “I hope we don’t have to get new jobs.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “Worst-case scenario, my parents would find a new property for us to move into. We wouldn’t actually shut down for good.” The thought was absurd. My parents, especially my mother, loved this place. “Maybe we’d move over to the east side near old Chinatown.”
“Yeah, but Asia Village, it’s like … a staple, man. It’s like, so many things are leaving the west side lately. There’s too many empty businesses…”
“I’m sure everything’s going to be fine.” I wasn’t sure if I said it more for his benefit or my own, but either way, I didn’t have time to think about it. I looked up at the clock. “I better get out there and finish prepping the dining room. You know the Mahjong Matrons like to come in for their rice porridge first thing in the morning.”
He laughed. “At least one thing in our day will be normal.”
* * *
As predicted, the Mahjong Matrons—one of the many teams at the Village—were our first customers of the morning. Every day at 9 A.M. sharp, the four widowed women—whom you hardly saw without one another—would come in for the same breakfast of rice porridge, pickled cucumbers, century eggs, and Chinese omelets with chives. While they ate, they enjoyed looking out into the plaza, people-watching and gossiping about anything juicy they could come up with. They were a sassy bunch and some of my very favorite regulars.
I seated them at their usual table by the window. All four women looked somber and lacked the pep they usually brought in with them.
