by Camy Tang
“Huh?” Lex’s chopstick stopped halfway to her open mouth.
“Back up, Jenn,” Venus said.
Jenn set down her mushroom tart. “They wouldn’t listen to me about Brad. In fact, they didn’t even care. I didn’t matter to them.”
Venus looked down at her plate and chewed her lip, but didn’t say anything.
Because Jenn was right. “Mimi and her wonderful new boyfriend—who’s a Yip, by the way, and we all know they can do no wrong—were the only ones they cared about. Not Jenn and her culinary degree—oh, except when it came to expecting me to work for Aunty Aikiko.”
“But didn’t you take all those night courses so you could work for her?”
“It wasn’t just for her. I wanted to learn how to be a chef. I wanted to someday own my own restaurant, not take over for her.”
“And did you tell this lovely plan to Aunty at all?” Venus drawled.
Jenn’s answer stuck in her throat. “Uh, no. But in my defense, she never mentioned about me taking over the restaurant until today.”
“Oh come on.” Lex set down her chopsticks, loaded with a mound of noodles. “You knew that’s what Aunty was expecting.”
Jenn rubbed her forehead with her hand. “Yes, I know, I know. Maybe I was in denial.”
“Well, what about now? What are you going to do now?” Venus speared a shrimp tempura. “If you tell me you’re going to meekly quit your job to go work for Aunty, I will take this plate of shrimp and leave.”
“Not without giving me some.” Lex snatched one from the plate.
“Honestly, is food the only thing you guys can think about?” Trish demanded as she entered the kitchen, baby Elyssa in her arms. “This is serious. The family has majorly dissed Jenn.”
Silence fell over the four of them as they watched the food grow cold.
“Not that food isn’t important.” Trish snatched a bacon-rolled shrimp.
They munched in silence for a while, then suddenly Trish said, “I’ve got it. Cater my wedding.”
Jenn frowned at her. “I thought I was catering your wedding.”
“I mean, as my caterer.”
Jenn blinked at her.
“She means, start your own catering business,” Venus said, her eyes bright. “Trish’s wedding will be your trial run.”
“Use that culinary degree for your own business, not Aunty Aikiko’s,” Lex said.
“You don’t matter to them? Well then, Aunty’s restaurant doesn’t matter to you,” Trish added. “But who matters to you? Me! I’m your girl.” She held out her fist and Jenn weakly bumped it with hers.
Not work for Aunty Aikiko? Jenn felt a weird combination of elation and terror. “But … my job.” Programming paid well in the Bay Area. Catering … not so much.
“When were you going to start work at the restaurant?” Venus asked.
“Never,” Jenn shot back.
“I mean before they hacked you off, genius.”
“Oh. I dunno … a month or two.”
“So you were going to give notice at your computer programming job in a month or two?”
“Oh. Well, yeah.” But it had been a nebulous thing in her mind. She still had a hard time believing she’d gotten her culinary degree at last.
“So what’s stopping you from quitting early and starting your own catering business?”
“Health insurance.” The words fell from her lips like the first cold drops of rain from a storm front.
There was a beat of thoughtful silence around the kitchen table. Snatches of memory went through her mind—driving her mom to the hospital for chemo, holding her head as she threw up into the toilet, watching her weakly sipping tea, praying for Jesus to please take the cancer away. And He had.
If Jenn worked for Aunty Aikiko, she’d have the health insurance offered to all the restaurant employees. If she started her own business, she’d have to pay for her own insurance.
“Quitting my job seems irresponsible,” Jenn said. “What if Mom’s cancer comes back?”
“You can’t live life based on ‘what ifs,’” Venus said quietly. “Sometimes you just have to take a leap and go for it. If Aunty’s cancer comes back, then you reevaluate and figure out your options.”
“But that’s … that’s scary.” Jenn hated how small her voice was, but she couldn’t imagine doing what Venus was suggesting. Sure, Venus was smart and driven. Trish was fearless and adventurous. Lex was gutsy and stubborn. She was … just Jenn.
“You can’t live your life being afraid, Jenn.” Lex’s eyes were steady. “Otherwise, you might as well bow your head like a good little Asian girl and go work for Aunty Aikiko at the restaurant. For the rest of your life.”
The words were hollow like a death sentence. Jenn shuddered. No, she couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t.
She turned to Venus. “Okay, Miss CEO, what do I do first?”
CHAPTER FOUR
“You’ve lived your entire life in California and you’ve never driven with the top down?”
The rush of the wind whipping past Jenn’s RAV4 made Trish shout to be heard. In lieu of a retractable top, they’d opened the windows and the sunroof.
“I never had a convertible, doofus.” Jenn navigated the winding country road at a nice, safe, speed.
“We should have rented one for today.” Trish tipped her head back and smiled at the sunlight dappling through the trees lining the road. “Days like these were made for convertibles.”
“Since when did you drive a convertible?”
“I rode in an ex-boyfriend’s Cabriolet.”
Jenn giggled. “Very sexy. Which ex was this?”
“Ted. It gets even better—it was his mother’s Cabriolet.”
“Ted? I don’t remember a Ted.”
“You and Venus were both getting your masters’ degrees at Stanford at the time. And Ted had a drinking problem so he only lasted a few weeks.”
Jenn and Venus had been ecstatic to be accepted for transfer to Stanford in their junior years at San Jose State. They had taken the five-year engineering program to get their masters’ degrees with only one extra year of schooling as opposed to two. Venus had also gotten into the MBA program and continued with that while Jenn had immediately gotten a computer programming job. In the meantime, Trish and Lex had graduated from San Jose State and gotten jobs in their fields.
A new song came on the radio, and Trish immediately reached a hand out to turn up the volume. “I love this song.”
It was “Let It Rise” by Big Daddy Weave, and the music filled the car. Trish’s head fell back, her eyes closed, she flung her hands out—nearly poking Jenn’s eye out—and she belted out the lyrics. It was as if her entire body was lifted in worship to God.
The sight made Jenn a little uncomfortable. Trish’s complete … abandon. It made Jenn wonder a little about their faiths.
Jenn had become a Christian when she was living with Trish, Venus, and Lex during their years going to San Jose State University. Trish had come home one day, wildly excited about something she said changed her entire life. Lex and Venus had been skeptical, but Jenn, who’d always been closer to Trish, could see that this was a real change, and something about the way Trish talked about it made Jenn want to know more. The four of them had gone to church that Sunday—Venus cynically said Trish only wanted to go to meet some cute guys—but they’d all come out of that service feeling different. And they’d gone back week after week, until one service there was a call for people to sign up for baptism, and all four of them had signed up.
Trish had backslidden a little a couple years ago, but she’d renewed her relationship with Jesus since then. She was more confident, more … filled. And at times like these, watching her express her faith, it made Jenn feel a little stale.
That was silly. Jenn read her Bible every day, she went to a weekly Bible study, she went to church a lot more consistently than any of her cousins, and she knew Jesus loved her and had died for her on the cross. What el
se was there in being a Christian?
After the song ended, silence descended on the two of them for a time, until Jenn broke it. “It’s nice not going in to work on a day like this,” she admitted. “You’re sure you can take off work?”
“I’ve accumulated too much vacation. My boss said I had to use it or lose it. And it’s not like Spenser and I can take a long honeymoon because Elyssa’s still breast-feeding. So I’ve been taking off days here and there to plan for the wedding.”
“The winery knows to expect us, right?”
“Yes.” Trish didn’t open her eyes. “I was standing right next to Kathi when she phoned her cousin to ask if we could visit today.”
Jenn privately thought Trish just wanted to get Jenn out of her house as opposed to needing to visit this Saratoga winery to sample their wines, even if her coworker’s cousin’s family owned it. They could have simply bought a bottle and tried it one night at home.
But Jenn’s mom had been moaning and whining about Jenn quitting her job (last day was yesterday!), and after escaping the house like a convict, she realized it was very relaxing to go somewhere new during the day. She felt like she was playing hooky.
“How did The Conversation with Aunty Aikiko go?” Trish asked.
“Kind of frightening, actually.”
“Let me guess.” Trish gave her sidelong look. “Lots of crying and wailing about you failing in your familial duty, disappointing Aunty’s expectations of you working for her, being a bad niece?”
“No. None of that.”
“None?” Trish turned to look at her, surprise in her face.
“That’s what was frightening about it.”
“You know that’s not the end of it.”
“Of course that’s not the end of it. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.” Despite her casual words, a thick cesspool of dread swirled in Jenn’s stomach at the thought of what Aunty Aikiko would do now that she’d lost her future restaurant manager.
“You could go a little faster.” Trish eyed the speedometer significantly.
“Says the woman who drives on sidewalks.”
“It was only one time! And I got distracted by a false labor contraction, thank you very much, and I was only just easing into the intersection after the light had turned green.” Trish added, “And I didn’t hit anybody!”
“Well, I don’t want to hit anyone either.”
“There’s no one to hit.” Trish flung her hand out of the car at the open country fields on either side of them to push her point.
“There’s the biker behind us.” He was pretty far away, but Jenn could already hear the rumble of his Harley Davidson. She glanced again in the rear view mirror and caught a twinkle of chrome.
Trish turned her passenger side mirror to get a look at him. “Now that’s a nice way to ride these windy roads.”
“Hey, you messed up my mirror. Put it back.”
“I will when I’m done.”
“You’re getting married.”
“Get your head out of the gutter. I’m not looking at the rider. I’m eyeing the bike.”
He came up behind them, a relaxed figure in black leather with metal trim on his fitted jacket. The roar of the motor filled the car through the open windows.
The lane ahead of her was long and empty, so she eased to the right-ish side of the road to signal that he could pass her if he wanted.
He wanted. The motor growled, although he didn’t zip past her as she expected him to. He was driving a bit cautiously for a biker, to be honest.
He passed to her left, and Jenn turned to look at him. He looked at her at the same moment.
He had the dreamiest eyes. Something about them—about the look he gave her—made her chest tighten and her breath come in faster gasps.
He didn’t look away. Neither did she.
A small part of her brain squealed at her to smile, to give him any kind of encouragement. But she couldn’t seem to move her facial muscles. And her jaw was in her lap, completing her dorky look.
A bumping noise … Oops, she had drifted too far to the right and one side of the car was treading through the gravel at the side of the road.
“Jenn!”
She snapped her eyes forward and righted the car slowly, lest she ram into the biker to her left. Lovely way to pick up a man—run him over with her SUV. The biker passed them and moved back into the right lane.
“And you talk about me driving on sidewalks?” Trish said.
“You will have to excuse me for being distracted by the view,” Jenn said loftily.
“The bike? This from the woman too terrified to even sit behind our cousin on his motorcycle?”
“It was Larry, and only an idiot wouldn’t fear for her life. I meant the rider. He was gorgeous.”
“You couldn’t even see his face.”
“Yes, I could. He had a clear-ish visor. He had beautiful eyes.”
Trish groaned. “You mean the kind of eyes women would die for but men get instead? I don’t want to hear about it.”
“No, they were very masculine. He was dishy.”
“According to the two square inches you could see of his face.”
“It was love at first sight, I tell you.” Jenn grinned.
“The first time I saw Spenser, I thought he was cute,” Trish admitted. “But he got annoying real fast. Men do that, you know.”
“I hate to tell you this, but you’re marrying him.”
“I didn’t say the annoying was bad—”
Bam!
“What was that?” Trish shrieked.
“Relax, it’s just a tire. We got a flat.” Jenn’s calm voice belied her pounding heart. She had to fight the steering wheel a bit to get the car to the side of the road.
“This lane is awful narrow,” Trish said as they got out of the car. “And we’re not far from a bend in the road. I hope no one comes by soon.”
“Well, then, help me change this tire quickly.”
Her words were drowned out by the sound of a very loud motor.
The next thing she knew, the Harley rider had pulled up beside her. She hadn’t even seen him turn around to head back to them—had he heard their tire blow out? His bike was a monstrous presence, his eyes even more intense behind his visor. He cut the engine and took off his helmet. “Need help?”
Jenn would have answered him, but her heart had stopped. And her mouth had stopped working. And she couldn’t blink, either. And her lungs might have collapsed, too, because she was getting dizzy from lack of oxygen.
He was uber-dishy.
Chestnut hair. Dark, dreamy eyes. A firm jaw framing a mobile mouth with fine laugh lines at the corners.
His gaze caught hers like a hand cupping her face. He didn’t look away. Neither did she.
