by Maurene Goo
I looked at my dad’s face—the one that resembled mine, but with a straighter nose and darker eyes. “The thing is, I didn’t like it? It was fun at first but, ultimately…”
He smiled that crooked, knowing smile. “Unsatisfying?”
That was it. “Yeah. Missing something.”
I heard a sniffle from somewhere inside the truck. Whether it was Rose or Hamlet, I really couldn’t say.
“Don’t ever do that again. Got it?” He poked my forehead.
I scowled but nodded. “I won’t. I don’t want to let you down again. Ever.”
“Well, you will.” He tucked the towel back into his pocket. “But that’s okay. I’ll be here.”
There were two faces looking out at me from the windows on the KoBra. Rose wiped her eyes, and Hamlet was openly crying. Oh my God, we were a freaking mess!
My dad rubbed his hands together. “Ready to do this?”
“Yes! But wait, why did you change your mind?”
“You have a persuasive, annoying friend,” he said drily, glancing at the truck.
As if on cue, Rose stuck her head out the window, her eyes miraculously dry. “Okay, cool! Everyone’s happy and made-up—we only have an hour and a half until judging!”
My eyes widened at my dad. “Can we do it?”
He nodded, jaw slightly clenched. “Yeah, let’s do this.”
We scrambled into the truck. My dad tossed a KoBra T-shirt at me, and I started unbuttoning my flannel to put it on.
“CLARA!” Three voices shouted at me. I looked up to see everyone with their backs turned toward me.
“Calm down, puritans,” I said while pulling on the T-shirt. “Hamlet, don’t pretend like you don’t love it.”
There might as well have been a giant anime sweat drop over his head. He laughed nervously, looking at my dad. Pai made a strangled noise and banged the pots and pans around. “When Clara’s done stripping, let’s make our game plan,” he said.
We immediately kicked into gear. Pai and I were in charge of meats, Rose was in charge of rice and sides, and Hamlet was tasked with drinks and assembly. The truck grew warm once we had the grill and burners on, and an unpleasant sense of panic washed over everything as we scrambled.
And then suddenly: “Ten minutes until judging!” Hamlet yelled.
My dad and I looked at each other. I’d never seen him so nervous. I tried to distract him as I stirred the sauce with a whisk. “So, do you know how the judging works?”
He nodded. “I did my research while you were gone. In ten minutes, they’ll be coming up to the trucks, one by one, and trying our food. Did you know Stephen Fitch is a judge?” His voice almost squeaked.
“I did. That’s why I entered us. We’re basically custom-made for that man. Inventive cuisine unique to the LA immigrant experience? Check and check.”
And then our ten minutes were up. My dad rushed around to make sure the dishes looked perfect, adding touches here and there. Wiping off the edges of the plates with a towel and peering down at each one with hawk eyes. I went over to where Hamlet was pouring drinks and moved a cup closer to his ladle so it wouldn’t drip. He looked at me, his cheeks flushed from the heat and the excitement. “Thanks.”
I winked at him. He turned redder, and I gave him a quick kiss, pressing my cool lips to his hot mouth.
“Hey, you two! No kissing while handling food!” my dad shouted.
And then an air horn blared somewhere outside, making me cover my ears with both hands. Someone spoke into a megaphone: “Time’s up! Judges will be coming by.”
We looked at one another nervously. I fanned my face with a plate. Rose smoothed her hair repeatedly. Hamlet picked up a pen and spun it on his fingers. My dad took a long swig of water from a Tupperware container.
After a few minutes, I stuck my head out the window to see where the judges were. There were about twenty trucks in this competition so this was going to take forever.
My dad cleared his throat. “Well, everyone. I just wanted to say thanks. Thanks for helping me this entire summer, even if you were forced. And thanks so much for this.” He glanced at me. “I never would have done it if Clara hadn’t signed me up. She was right about that.”
I fanned myself with a paper plate. “I’m always right.”
“And humble,” added Rose.
Hamlet threw an arm around my dad. “You’re welcome, Adrian, although all I did was help today.”
My dad threw me a sly look. “You’ve helped in other ways.”
For Pete’s sake.
Suddenly, there was a rap on the window. We froze and Rose came to her senses first, rushing over with a huge smile, ready to charm. “Hi there!”
I scrambled to the stove and took the food out of the oven where we had stuck it to stay warm. My dad and Hamlet ferried the plates over to the window, and Rose handed them drinks.
“Here you go,” my dad said. “I’m gonna hop out to explain what you’re eating there.” We watched as my dad stepped out of the truck and shook hands with the three judges. One was the food editor for a local magazine, one a restaurateur from France, and the other was food critic Stephen Fitch. I held in a squeal at seeing him in person. Pai gave them the rundown on the menu, then stepped back to let them eat the food.
The food editor, a tall Japanese American woman in her fifties, took a bite out of the pastel, and her eyes lit up. The muscular, bearded Frenchman ate a forkful of the lombo and chewed thoughtfully, giving nothing away with his expression. And Stephen Fitch dug into the picanha with gusto, his eyebrows raised as soon as the spice hit him.
A pool of sweat was practically gathered at my feet. I turned away and drank some water to distract myself. Rose did the same. Hamlet kept his head close to the window, watching everything.
Finally, we heard them thank my dad and move on. We got out of the truck and joined him outside. The afternoon sun was dropping lower into the sky, and the hottest part of the day had passed. A jazz band was playing not too far off and a breeze rustled the leaves of the eucalyptus trees.
We sat down, tired and relieved to be done. With the judges still making the rounds of the next few trucks, we had a minute to cool off and catch our breath. It was then that I realized I was starving. I went into the truck to plate some food, and we ate in amiable silence. The last twenty-four hours of emotional turmoil had caught up to all of us, it seemed.
Another air horn blare startled us. The voice came over the megaphone again, “We have a winner! All contestants please meet in the middle of the lot for the announcement!”
Gah! We ran to where everyone was gathered. The crowd was filled with nervous energy, and I looked over at the line of people next to me and squeezed Hamlet’s hand really hard. Please, please, please. For my dad. He deserves it. Please. I didn’t even know who I was pleading with.
The hopeful expression on my dad’s face was unbearable, so I looked at the judges lined up in front of us instead. Stephen Fitch picked up the megaphone and cleared his throat before speaking. “Thank you so much to the contestants this year. As predicted, this was a really difficult task. The food of this city is better than ANY OTHER CITY in the world!” Everyone cheered. “It represents the beating heart of LA: the people.” I felt myself choking up—thinking about how my dad’s love for me had always been tied to food. How I identified with my city through the different flavors of the cultures brought over here by families around the world. By brave people like my dad.
And it hit me then—how much home mattered to me and my dad. How it had kept us anchored through so much uncertainty.
“And so let me just cut to the chase. The winner of this year’s LA food truck competition is—Chili Today, Hot Tamale!”
CHAPTER 35
I dropped Hamlet’s hand.
The winners were screaming and jumping up and down. Some were in tears. I’d be in tears, too. That was a boatload of money.
My dad took off his cap, ran a hand through his hair, then walked toward
the truck. Rose cried, “What! That hunk of junk won over us! Completely unfair!” Several people looked over at us. Oh my God, Rose was the sorest loser on this planet.
My dad came over, put a hand on her shoulder, and said, “Hey. That’s enough, Rose.” She looked like she wanted to argue, but one look at my dad’s crestfallen expression made her stop. When he walked to the truck, she followed him.
My chest hurt witnessing this sadness, and I turned to talk to Hamlet. But he was a few feet away talking to Stephen Fitch. When Hamlet caught my eye, he waved me over.
“Are you Adrian Shin’s daughter?” Stephen asked me, his wire-rimmed glasses sliding down his nose a bit.
I nodded, not able to speak for a second. “Yeah. Yes. I am.”
“Your dad’s food is just excellent,” he said enthusiastically, reaching out for my hand. “I want to talk to him. Can you introduce us?”
Trying to remain cool and collected, I brushed a lock of hair away from my face. “Oh sure. Uh, he’s in the truck. Follow me, please.” Out of view, I shot Hamlet a look. His eyes were wide and he mouthed, What’s happening?
I shrugged and hurried ahead of Stephen to warn my dad.
“Pai!” I hollered as soon as I got to the truck.
He looked up from wiping down the counter, his expression grim and irritated. “What?” he snapped.
“Stephen Fitch would like to speak to you,” I said. “That’s all,” I hissed quietly, nudging him in the ribs.
“What?” Confusion clouded his features as he peered outside. Then he paled. Wiping his hand hastily on a towel, he stepped outside and I followed.
Rose, Hamlet, and I stood off to the side as they talked.
“Hi, Adrian. I’m really sorry you didn’t win the competition,” Stephen started. My dad held up a hand like, like “No problemo!” Please.
“But I wanted to say, you’re doing something really special here. That pastel, the combination of flavors! Truly inventive.”
“Thank you,” Pai said, rubbing the back of his neck, suddenly shy.
Stephen handed him a business card. “If you’re still interested in opening up a restaurant, I’d love to talk about investing. What you said about your Brazilian and Korean cultures—that was fantastic, and it’s exactly the sort of thing that is integral to the food scene here. I’d love to set up a time to talk.”
A very quiet, very long squeak came out of Rose, and I held back from dragging my hands down my face and screaming.
“Yes! Of course! Thanks, man,” he said, holding out his fist. Stephen glanced down at it, then smiled, giving him a bump.
When he left, we remained cool for about .5 seconds. Then jumped up and down. Hamlet ran over to my dad and lifted him up.
“Ohmygodohmygod!” I screeched. I had zero chill and zero cares about it.
Rose paced in circles, beside herself. “Your investor problems are solved! Just like that! And what if he features you on The Weekend Feast?”
“What’s that?” Hamlet asked, excited before knowing why.
“An NPR show about food!” she exclaimed.
My dad held his hands up. “All right, you guys. Let’s remain calm. You don’t know if he’ll invest yet!”
But hope was making me buoyant. “Don’t say that! Think positively!”
The three of them stopped moving. They exchanged glances then laughed. As one. One laugh unit.
“What?!” I asked, testy and defensive.
My dad shook his head. “You sound like…”
“Me,” Rose finished for him. “You sound like a total try-hard.” Her tone was like mine, flat and rude.
I flushed. “So?”
“It’s a good look,” Hamlet said with a wink. My own moves being used against me made me flustered, but I couldn’t help but smile. So big my cheeks hurt.
We went back to the truck and cleaned up, everyone considerably less glum than before. When I noticed that the sun was setting, I had an idea. I hopped into the driver’s seat. “Grab a hold of something,” I announced as I lurched the truck out of the lot, finding the main road in the park.
“Clara! The four of us can’t ride in this thing,” my dad said, bracing himself against my headrest.
“It’ll just be a few minutes, hide yourselves from cops,” I said as I adjusted the rearview mirror. Rose threw herself into the passenger seat and put on her seat belt frantically. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
* * *
We followed a road that led us out of the park and up into the hills. A few minutes later, Hamlet popped up next to me, leaning against my headrest. Squinting into the tunnel we were headed toward, he asked, “Are we going to the observatory?”
Ugh, Google Maps boyfriend! I didn’t answer, instead taking us up the hills until we reached the parking lot for the Griffith Observatory. Since it was a Saturday evening, it was completely packed. I drove by the lot and instead went farther up the hill, to an area I knew we weren’t really allowed to drive into—it was more of a hiking trail.
Rose sniffed out disobedience quicker than a cop. “Clara, we’re not supposed to drive here.”
Again, I ignored her. There was nothing obstructing us from driving on the dirt path. It was just wide enough. And finally, we reached the spot I was looking for. An old stomping ground of mine—a dirt lookout with the hillside behind us, and a view of the city in its entirety in front of us.
I parked and got out of the truck, climbing onto the hood and then the roof. I called down, “Come up!”
They joined me one by one. And by the time we were lined up on the roof, the sun was very low in the sky. To the left was the observatory—my favorite place in the entire city. Most people knew it from Rebel Without a Cause, the beautiful art deco architecture with the three domed buildings, the middle one housing a telescope that could view distant planets. It had a planetarium and exhibits inside, but my favorite thing about the observatory was the view. You could see all of LA from here.
What tourists usually came to see was the Hollywood sign, which was directly to the right of us, larger than life. Iconic but completely meaningless to me, to be honest. People who were born and raised here didn’t see LA with the same starry eyes. It was just home, and the Hollywood sign did little to stir any feelings in me. But I did feel something when I looked down at the city stretched below us.
From this vantage point, you could see downtown to the left, Dodger Stadium a little farther north of it, a sprawl of suburban areas, the main drags that crisscrossed the entire city—Wilshire, La Brea, Santa Monica. And on a clear day like today, you could see a glimmering strip of the Pacific Ocean to the very west of us.
When you saw the city like this, everything inside you slowed down. Relaxed. It wasn’t that LA was perfect, or some immigrant utopia. Like other good things in the world, it was deeply flawed, and on some days you sat parked on the 110 surrounded by buildings you couldn’t see because of the smog, and you hated it here. It could be relentless and lonely. But it was also where my dad had built his life, where so many people had. It was a place where you could grab Brazilian Korean food in the park where Walt Disney dreamed up Disneyland. But more important, it was home. And I related, deeply, to a home that was a little messed up, but ever-evolving.
And as the sky turned a light lavender on the edges, pale pink in the middle, and then a deep orange near the horizon, you, gratefully, felt your littleness in the universe.
I looked over at the KoBra crew and felt so grateful for the small part of the universe I had.
We watched the sun set, quiet with our own thoughts. My head tilted back and my eyes closed as a cool breeze drifted over us. Summer was ending, I guess. It felt good, and it felt sad. I knew that things wouldn’t be the same with Patrick and Felix, and I was okay with that. I glanced at Hamlet and Rose, their gazes straight ahead, the last of the day’s light shining on them. It was startling how I felt about them now, how fiercely they mattered to me.
Yeah, I was okay with a lot of things.
When the sun dipped behind the hills, my dad jumped off the hood. “We should go before we actually get into trouble.” At the word trouble, Rose booked it after him.
I grabbed Hamlet’s hand before he could follow. “Wait a sec.” I watched Rose disappear into the truck, then looked up at Hamlet. It was dark, but my eyes adjusted and I could see his features perfectly. I had his face pretty well memorized now. Like the streets in my neighborhood, the pages of my favorite books. “We need to talk about what you said to me last week, before I left. Um, how you love me.” I was grateful for the darkness, hiding my blushing cheeks.
He took a deep breath. “You don’t have to—”
“I know. And I’m not ready to say it back.” Relief poured out of me, a weight that had been filling the parts between my bones finally lifting. “Is that okay?”
He blinked a couple of times, looking down at our feet. I held his hands firmly, and my palms were dry for once. After a while he looked at me and, while there was some sadness in his eyes, I believed him when he smiled and said, “Yeah, that’s okay.”
I squeezed his hand. “But you have to know … I’ve never said that to anyone before. Except my parents.”
“Really? What about all those ex-boyfriends?”
I lifted my hand up to the base of his neck and wound my fingers into his thick hair. “I never loved them. In fact, I never liked any of them as much as I like you. I think that’s why I freaked out. Not because you said you loved me. Just understanding the extent of my actual feelings for you. It’s really new.”
His eyes softened. His whole face, the edges of his body—they softened. Everything. “You like me more than them?”
I leaned my forehead against his. “Yeah. So much more.”
Catching my belt loops with his fingers, he drew me closer to him and said, “All right. I guess I’ll have to be patient. We’ll live on Clara Time. Not Hamlet Time.”
And then he lifted my chin, gently, touching his lips to mine. The kiss was sweet and full of promise. Like him. When he let go, I felt a lurch in my chest that told me Clara Time was going to catch up to Hamlet Time real fast. And when he climbed down from the roof, I took one last glance at the view—lights sparkling in the inky-blue night.
