You did, I think silently, remembering the unexpected text message chiming on my phone on the last day of school before winter vacation.
“And who kept bringing you drinks all night?” she asks.
You did.
“And who kept complaining about her stupid ex-boyfriend and lamenting the fact that she wasn’t going to have anyone to kiss at midnight?”
You did.
I stab one of the white bits of wrapper straw with my index finger, the realization slowly dawning on me that Jenny’s telling the truth — she did set me up. She wanted me to kiss her last night. She was hoping I would. She’d engineered the whole night, guiding it to that moment, the moment where she leaned her back against the wall, hands pinned behind her butt, gazing up at me with big brown eyes and an open-mouthed smirk.
I look at her — the sun — and look away again. “Why? Why did you want me to kiss you?”
“Because I… I knew you were into me. I could see it in the way you watch me, in the way you can’t quite ever…” One of her small, porcelain-white hands reaches across the sticky surface of the diner table and gently covers two of my fiddling fingers. “Look at me.”
I follow her command, my hand falling still as I look up from the shredded wrapper, eyes meeting hers. And then I realize “look at me” wasn’t a command at all but the completion of her sentence.
She knew I had a crush on her because I can’t ever quite look at her.
She must not realize that she’s the fucking sun.
The little white hand withdraws, and then both hands disappear beneath the table. Jenny glances around the diner furtively, and the waitress returns with three plates of food — two for me, one for Jenny.
I take my fork immediately, but Jenny’s silverware stays untouched next to her hot plate of eggs and hash browns.
“I thought I could kiss you as a joke,” she says, resuming her half-whispered explanation. “It would be a story I could shock my friends with, something that might make Brett jealous.”
(Brett is her most recent ex-boyfriend, by the way. And Anika is to Brett as the ugly step-sister is to Prince Charming.)
Should’ve known.
Fuck, Anika, you should’ve known.
I look down at my plate because tears sting my eyes and I don’t want Jenny to see them. I attack the short stack of pancakes with a knife, not bothering with syrup or butter, just shoving the biggest forkful I possibly can into my mouth before I say, “Great fucking joke, Jen. Fucking most hilarious thing I’ve heard all year.”
All year, we’ve been sitting next to each other in trigonometry. All year, we’ve been checking each others’ homework. Working together on group projects. Studying together on weekends, before quizzes and big exams. And all year, I’d been the jokester, always telling stories to make her laugh, making fun of her to get her to relax when she came into class stressed about Brett or her friends or who-said-what at band practice. I was supposed to be the jokester, but I guess
“Joke’s on me,” I say, finishing my thought out-loud as I swallow a mouthful of dry pancakes. What Jenny doesn’t know — and what I’ll never tell her — is that last night’s kiss was my very first one. My very first fucking kiss, and I’d already been played, already been the butt of someone else’s joke.
It fucking figured.
“I’m so, so sorry, Anika. God, I’m so sorry.”
A small white hand reappears above the table, hovering uncertainly for a moment before it reaches across the divide again, fingertips brushing against my forearm.
“But what I’m trying to tell you,” she says, “is that I made a mistake. Because what happened with us last night… it wasn’t a joke to me.” The fingertips stay on my arm. The touch is light, barely there, but it burns like acid against my bare skin. I should move out of reach, but I don’t. I can’t. “It wasn’t a joke at all. From the moment you touched me… Something happened. Something I didn’t know I already knew until you kissed me.” She sighs. “That didn’t make any sense, did it?”
I shake my head.
“What I’m trying to say is, Anika… do you believe in love at first kiss?”
Slowly, I put my fork down. And slowly, I look into those wide, innocent brown eyes again. This time, I don’t look away.
“Yes,” I say, my voice barely audible.
Chapter 8: Home smells like curry, collard greens, and fried chicken.
Back to the present
I travel light.
Maybe that’s hard to understand, since I’m flying in from fucking Europe and don’t know how long I’m going to be here, but an airline lost my checked bag once when I was country-hopping for basketball, and ever since then, I only take a carry-on with me. So I don’t have any reason to go to baggage claim, but I end up walking past it anyway on my way to ground transportation.
The baggage carousel from our tiny propeller plane flight is rumbling rhythmically, metal slats letting out a high-pitched squeak every few seconds as they scroll by, but no bags ride the conveyor belt.
Amy’s standing there with a handful of others, oversized purse on her shoulder, hands folded in front of her, and as I walk by, she catches my eye, waves me over.
I check my phone, but there’s no reply from Gerry, which means the restaurant’s probably still in the weeds, so I saunter in Amy’s direction, gym bag bouncing against my waist.
“You didn’t check anything?” she asks when I arrive.
“I fundamentally do not fucking believe in checked baggage,” I say, then add, “Sorry, I should watch my language.”
She shrugs. “I work in a software company. I’m the one female in an office full of men. Believe me, an occasional f-bomb is the least of my worries.”
I grin. “So where do you go next, once you get your bag?”
“I pick up my rental car. Then it’s off to Bumblefuck, Nowhere, for this wedding.”
“And where exactly is Bumblefuck? Sounds suburban. Is it close to Columbus?”
Amy pulls out a phone, thumbs it awake, flips through a few screens. “No, it’s… Marcine. Have you ever heard of Marcine, Ohio?”
“You’re fucking kidding me. Marcine? The wedding you’re going to is in Marcine?”
“Yeah,” she says, eyebrows furrowing a little. “Why? What’s wrong with Marcine?”
“Nothing — everything, actually. It’s my hometown. It’s where I’m going. Marcine’s between here and — ”
“Akron?”
“Exactly.”
Her eyes light up. “We should ride together!” Then her face falls just as quickly. “Unless — sorry, I’m sure you have someone picking you up, or other plans, or — ”
“You said you’re renting a car?” I ask.
“Yeah, as soon as my — ”
“I’m in.”
“Really?”
“Really. Lemme just text my brother, tell him I don’t need him to come get me.”
#
I don’t give Amy directions to my family’s home; I give her directions to Soul Mountain. After all, this is why I’m here, isn’t it? To fill in with whatever needs doing at the restaurant while Mom recovers from chemo and surgery, and Dad nurses her back to health. I try to explain this to Amy as we drive without giving away too much family drama.
“The ‘Soul’ is for soul food,” I tell her. “You know — collard greens and coleslaw and cornbread and fried chicken. The ‘Mountain’ is for traditional Himalayan cuisine. Nepalese food is similar to Indian food, but… different. Usually not quite as intense. More lentil soup, fewer hot peppers.”
Amy contemplates this, adjusts the glasses on her face as she looks over her shoulder before changing lanes. She switched into glasses before we left the Cleveland airport, complaining that her eyes were burning after sixteen hours wearing contact lenses. The glasses make her look kinda professorial. Which I mean in a good way. In a hot-for-teacher way.
“So… soul food… and Himalayan food… fusion?”
&nb
sp; “I swear it’s not as strange as it sounds. My mom and dad, they’re both amazing cooks. They make it work.”
“They must make it work, if they’ve owned a soul-Himalayan fusion restaurant in small-town Ohio for — how long did you say, again?”
“Twenty-five years. Give or take. After my dad got laid off from the auto parts plant for the third time, my folks realized that running restaurants was the only other marketable skill they both had. So they borrowed some money from my dad’s brother-in-law, and… voila.”
So — let me just skip ahead here and explain that I did not go on and on and on about my family’s restaurant the entire car trip to Marcine. I made sure to get Amy talking, too. And here’s what I learned:
Begin Summary
As a kid growing up with a military dad and a stay-at-home mom, Amy had grown up in
- Germany
- France
- South Korea
- Alaska
- North Carolina
- New York state
Of these, her two favorite places were South Korea and Alaska. South Korea because it was so wired; Alaska because it was so not-wired. She got an undergraduate degree in business management from Ohio State, then returned for business school a couple years later because she was a “practical idealist” — her words, not mine. After growing up in the shadow of pretty much the biggest bureaucracy the government had to offer, she decided that governments and militaries and politics and policies were not going to fix the world’s problems. Socially and environmentally responsible businesses, on the other hand, now they might just be able to tackle big issues and turn a profit at the same time.
(“I have an Elon Musk approach,” she says, and I nod knowingly rather than admit I don’t know who the fuck Elon Musk is.)
That’s how Amy ended up in “b-school,” as she calls it, with the intention to either work for a business that had social responsibility as its primary objective, or to start one herself. But by the time she actually graduated, the economy was down, pickings were slim, and the software company made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.
(“Golden handcuffs,” she explains with a shrug.)
The rest was history.
End Summary
“And that was almost — God, I think it’s been eight years already,” she concludes, eyes on the road. “It’s strange, isn’t it? How time works as we get older? When I was a kid, ‘eight years’ meant two or three different pushpins on the map. Two or three different houses, two or three different schools, two or three different sets of new friends. And now? Now, it’s like eight years can pass” — she snaps her fingers — “like that. And you look back and you think, ‘Where’d that time go? Where was I for those eight years?’”
“Eight years ago, I’d just turned thirty,” I muse.
She nods. “I was thirty-one.”
“And thirty felt so fucking old, right?”
“So fucking old,” Amy agrees. “Ancient. Over the hill. Or at the very least, it felt like we’d finally arrived at an irrefutable adulthood.”
I nod. “But now… thirty year-olds are already starting to look like babies.”
“And you look at forty year-olds, forty-five year-olds, and you think, ‘Eh, they’re still young,’” she says, grinning. “You see forty-three, forty-four on someone’s dating profile online and you’re like, ‘Oh! My generation!’ When did that happen? That ‘our generation’ is in their forties?… Um, not that I spend all that much time looking at people’s online dating profiles.” She glances sideways at me. “Speaking of forty. How long will you keep playing basketball for?”
I sigh, because this is the question of the hour. Forty might look young to a software executive; to a professional athlete, forty is beyond ancient. Forty is career-ending.
“This might be my last season,” I admit. “If not this year, then…” I trail off with a shrug. “My thumb hasn’t been the same since I hurt it a few years back.”
“I remember when you were out for almost half a season after the surgery,” she says.
I nod. “And I’ve gotten to the point where ice baths after every game are a necessity.”
“So what will you do next? After basketball?”
After basketball.
After. Basketball.
I was afraid she was going to ask that. It’s what I ask myself almost every day now. And I don’t have an answer for myself, let alone for her.
“Coach?” I suggest, shrugging my shoulders. “Maybe. I don’t know. Alex can probably help me get a job somewhere if it comes to that.”
“You don’t sound that enthusiastic about it.”
“I suppose coaching’s better than… I don’t know, sitting behind a desk all day, staring at fucking computer screens.” I realize what I’ve just said a moment later. “Sorry,” I say quickly, my cheeks burning. “I’m sure staring at computer screens…”
Amy only chuckles. “I would love it if I actually got to sit behind a desk and stare at screens all day. Sitting behind a desk would probably be more productive than traveling all over Europe, schmoozing with fat old men at conferences and dinner parties.”
“This is our exit,” I say, pointing at the green and white highway sign, glad to find a topic-changer.
I’ve been away from the U.S. for so long that the green and white sign seems more foreign than familiar. But despite my long absence, I don’t have to check my phone for directions. I could find my way back to Soul Mountain blindfolded. I’m like a fucking homing pigeon. A mile later, well before the crowded parking lot comes into view, I can smell our family restaurant. These mingled smells of rice and lentils, black-eyed peas and curried vegetables, chicken masu and golden-brown hush puppies, formed the backdrop of my childhood and my adolescence.
It smells like home.
And it makes me goddamned twitchy.
Chapter 9: These weeds aren’t the kind you smoke.
I pull my bag from the backseat and give Amy one last goodbye wave. She waves back and drives off, and it’s weird, but I kinda think I’m going to miss her.
I thread through the cars and push into Soul Mountain’s outer foyer, greeted by the same series of framed, black-and-white family photos of Kathmandu, Harlem, and Ohio that have been hanging in the entryway for the past twenty-five years. They rattle precariously on the wall when the open door sucks in a cold draft of early spring air.
By the way I have to say “Excuse me” when I reach through the crowd for the second glass door and “Oh, sorry” when I bump the heavyset man on the other side with my gym bag, I know Soul Mountain is deep in the weeds.
(Time-out for restaurant lingo explanation: If you haven’t ever worked in a restaurant before, let me explain: “In the weeds” means you are backed-up and probably totally FUBAR (and if you don’t know what “FUBAR” means, sorry. You’re going to have to just look that one up). By the time you’re in the weeds, the kitchen staff is yelling at the waitstaff, the waitstaff is yelling back, the customers are grumbling, and the hostess is standing at the podium with a plastic smile that wouldn’t convince a gullible puppy, telling people things like, “Sorry for the long wait. We’re clearing off your table just now — it’ll be ready any second.”)
I glance around, looking for Gerry or my dad, but I don’t see either one of them, which is ominous. The teenage hostess behind the podium has eyes that are wide with panic, but she tries to smile anyway and asks me, “How many in your party?”
I shake my head. “Where’s Mr. Singh?”
Her face falls, like I’m about to deliver some really shitty news. “Which one?”
“Either.”
“Mr. Singh’s in the kitchen,” she says. “His son is helping a guest right now.”
“Right. Okay.” I nod my thanks and squeeze between her podium and a family of towheaded Ohioans, “pardon-me-ing” as I try to keep my gym bag from knocking over a chubby first-grader. The kid’s got so much extra padding on him that if I do knock him over, h
e’ll probably just bounce right back up.
I know. It’s wrong to say, but it’s true. I’ve obviously been living in Europe for too long if the girth of your average American resident is starting to surprise me.
“Ma’am?” the hostess calls to my back as I make a beeline for the kitchen. “Ma’am, do you need me to get Mr. Singh for you?”
I ignore her and keep walking, pushing through the white, saloon-style doors into the kitchen.
It’s as bad as I assumed it would be when I walk in, with my dad lifting a basket of chicken from the deep fryer with one hand, forehead beading with sweat, while he shuts off a beeping timer and opens an oven door with his other hand.
Meanwhile, there’s a guy trying to clear the backlog of dishes in the back and clearly losing the battle; a Hispanic guy I don’t recognize plating dal bhat tarkari, garnishing it with artfully cut carrots and cucumbers, dropping a sprig of parsley on top of his perfect mound of rice; and another guy I don’t recognize on the hot prep side next to my dad, stirring a giant rice cooker for all he’s worth.
Becker, a second cousin of my mom’s who’s so huge that he makes me look petite, booms out “Order up!” just as a skinny young waitress scurries into the kitchen and slaps a new ticket on the rack.
She glances at me for a single impatient second, not curious about who I am or why I’m standing in the middle of the kitchen so much as wondering why I’m suddenly in her way. “Where’s the side of mashed potatoes for table seventeen?” she barks, not directing her question at anyone in particular. “I told you about it at least ten minutes ago.”
Becker smiles, white teeth gums a sharp contrast to his purple-black skin. His bass voice rumbles out of his chest like a truck engine starting. “Don’t stress, lovely. I’ve got your mashed potatoes right here.” A ham-thick fist reaches over the head of the Hispanic guy, pulls out a small bowl from the stack, plops an ice cream scoop of mashed potatoes inside and adds a ladle of gravy before handing it to the girl.
Anika takes the long way home up soul mountain: A lesbian romance (Rosemont Duology Book 2) Page 5
