“I couldn’t get to sleep—”
“Oh yeah?” Dagou grins, and James is struck again by his resemblance to their father. “Well, you woke up right on time, noodle-dick—I’m basically done with the snow.”
“Sorry.”
“S’okay. You’re ahead of Ming. He said he’d be here a half hour ago. Lunch is going to be slow, so I’m depending on you both to help prep for the party!”
“I’ll do it,” James promises. “Go out, run your errands.” Gu Ling Zhu Chi warned Dagou to stay away from the restaurant.
“Thanks, kid. I’ll go check up on Ma. She’s still in bed, her temple friend Omi says. Rough day for her yesterday.”
“Dagou—” James swallows. “Don’t tell Ma this. Alf got away from me again last night. In Letter City.”
Dagou stands, frowning, overheating in his winter jacket. His creased cheeks glow red; he looks hot enough that his feet could melt through the snow. “Well, he knows the way to the house, and the way here,” he says. “Someone probably found him and brought him home. They’ll call the number on his tag.”
“His collar and tag are gone.”
A puff of steam escapes Dagou’s collar. “S’all right, Snaggle,” he says, patting the top of James’s hood. “He’ll find his way back to us. Like Ba says, he knows who’s feeding him.”
It’s as if the uncontrolled bitterness of his radio rant never happened and his anger never broadcast itself out into the snowy night. James swallows, waves goodbye, then lets himself into the restaurant.
Entering the back door, he has a sudden need to use the toilet. He removes the bags from his shoes and hurries down the hallway.
Only O-Lan is in the kitchen, entirely forbidding, even more intimidating than he remembers. Nicknamed by Leo “The Orphan,” she first arrived at the restaurant two years ago with no connections, no family, and no plans. Winnie took her in, noticing her pinched face and her hair reddish with malnutrition. She insisted O-Lan be given temporary work, to get her back on her feet. O-Lan has been at the restaurant ever since. She’s carved out her preferred kitchen tasks, defending this territory against JJ, even against James.
Now she barely glances up, as if he hasn’t been away for months. She’s a woman of indeterminate age—big boned, wary eyed. Sometimes she looks like a plump teenager; at other times, with light from an open window on her face, she appears to be a person who’s already lived through a beginning, middle, and end, a story enclosed, known only to O-Lan if she cares to remember it. Her actions in the kitchen are ruthless and efficient, the actions of a person who wishes to remember nothing. Older and indifferent, not wanting to like or be liked, O-Lan is alpha dog to James. She terrifies him. He waves. She doesn’t respond.
The bathroom is roomy enough for three people to enter and converse—or argue. Here, Winnie once vehemently scolded James and Fang for sneaking flavored toothpicks meant for the customers. James thinks about the thousands of hours he’s spent at the restaurant, doing his schoolwork at a back table in the dining room, or sitting in the office on an old MSG box, rereading Ming’s battered Werewolf comic books. Perfect child care: the child never out of sight. All three brothers growing up, learning a work ethic here, how to be responsible. While Dagou hung over Winnie’s shoulder during off hours, tasting ingredients, Ming was more interested in the contents of the register. He once saved them a hundred dollars when a large family tried to decamp without paying. Ming raced out the door and down the avenue—“O. J. Simpson!” Leo said later—returning with the bills clutched in his hand. But when Ming turned thirteen, his enthusiasm slackened. He no longer spent his downtime industriously folding napkins, snapping beans. His interest in the money lasted longer, until one day he lost patience with even that.
“This place is a dump,” he exclaimed. “We work like dogs six days a week. We’re making egg rolls from scratch.”
“They taste way better than frozen egg rolls,” Dagou pointed out.
“The point is, we’re investing our labor on a product that is consumed immediately and brings in small change.”
“Big Shot!” their father said. “You rather spend your precious time jacking off? Then shoot your wad about your own business and not mine.”
For several months after, Leo referred to Ming as Big Shot. Ming didn’t respond. As a freshman in high school, he won first place in a math contest. He kept the prize money and invested it on his own. He joined the track team (four-hundred-meter relay) and ran every day. Leo hired JJ, who (until he fell in with Lulu) did whatever Winnie told him to do, and whose greatest flaw was his tendency to sing off-key in the kitchen. For the rest of his time in Haven, Ming clocked in minimal hours at the restaurant, and then withdrew except in emergencies. Leo, for whatever reason, let him do this.
James checks his watch: it’s ten past eleven.
In the front room, O-Lan stands behind the counter while a man orders takeout. He wears a baseball hat, and his jaw moves ceaselessly and nervously in a way James knows means he’s quitting either drinking or smoking. He booms out his order as if he’s at a drive-through: “Sesame peanut noodles and fried rice. And some extra soy sauce packets.”
O-Lan doesn’t meet his eye, pushes the button on the cash register. “Sih. Doerrr. Fittty. Sih. Cen.”
“Did you hear me? I want sesame peanut noodles and an order of rice.”
O-Lan spits out, “Sih. Doerrr. Fitt—”
“Be right there!” James hurries to the register, dodging tables and chairs. But O-Lan and the customer are locked in mutual hostility, ignoring him.
The man works his jaw. “Can. You. Understand. Wh—”
The front door flies open and Ming appears against the backdrop of brilliant snow, wearing his cashmere overcoat and again looking, James notices, entirely out of place. His authority is palpable. He strides directly to the register. O-Lan moves aside.
“May I help you?”
“What’s wrong with her?” The man fumes at Ming. “I placed an order. I asked for sesame peanut noodles and fried rice.”
Ming says, “One order of sesame peanut noodles and fried rice. That will be six dollars and fifty-six cents.”
The man hands over a ten-dollar bill. “And extra soy sauce. Seriously, what is it with her? Is she deaf?”
“She can understand the orders, but she can’t speak English.”
“Then she should go back to where they speak whatever she speaks.”
Ming’s voice is a shade higher than usual. “She knows what you ordered and how much it costs. She was filling in for me. I was late because of the snow. My apologies. Here’s your change. Your food will be ready in ten minutes.”