In the kitchen, Dagou checks the clock. It’s six-fifty p.m., time for the first course: shrimp with heads on, spinach and pressed tofu, sea cucumber, cold jellyfish. Over at Brenda’s table—Dagou avoids looking at Eric, but he can’t help seeing Brenda—she waves to him, points at the kitchen, but he shakes his head. She’s not allowed to help.
He’s given James a muttered rundown of the facts: Eric Braun was captain of the football team in high school, when he and Brenda were involved. Homecoming king, the big man on campus, always an asshole. He went to college at Northwestern, majored in business, and made a lot of money in a northern suburb selling commercial real estate. He also married, had a son, and divorced. He’s returned to Haven for Christmas, and in the last twenty-four hours he’s taken Brenda out for drinks and lunch. Now he’s her guest at the party.
Dagou avoids Brenda’s eyes as he and James, Freedy, and Tyrone pass around small plates of tender cold chicken, and braised gluten.
At seven-fifteen, asparagus, pork belly, and soup with seafood dumplings.
Now comes the Peking duck. Dagou has directed a man or woman in each group of six to carve the ducks, which are served properly with scallions, plum sauce, and one pancake per person. The dish takes a long time to serve, but each duck is perfectly tender and the skin crisp under its mahogany gloss.
“Let me help!” Brenda pipes up, grabbing James’s sleeve.
James glances at Dagou; Dagou shakes his head. James has been instructed to make sure Brenda does no work tonight.
James makes his way to Brenda’s table and passes on his instructions. For a fleeting moment, watching Brenda’s face, James is certain Dagou isn’t letting her help not only because she’s a guest of honor, but because she has hurt him.
What does Dagou have in mind? James wonders. He can’t tell what Brenda’s thinking or feeling, but he notices she’s wearing more lipstick and eye makeup than usual. Is it possible, James wonders, that Dagou knows this one thing about Brenda she doesn’t know about herself: That she actually wants to work? Loves the swinging doors, the hectic insanity of the kitchen? Loves wooing, cajoling, and pleasing the customers?
Near Eric Braun, Alice sits dreamily over an untouched plate of Peking duck. James brings pancakes, but she doesn’t want any. He promises her the most mouthwatering dish will be a mutton stew.
“No thanks,” Alice says. “I’ve decided to be a vegetarian.”
“It’s eat or be eaten,” says Lynn. “Mutton stew, yum.”
Fang turns to her, grins, and shakes his head in some mysterious warning.
Eric Braun seems confused by their conversation and this restaurant: by its crowdedness and unusual smells, by its cacophonous conversations, many in a language he doesn’t know, by so many black heads, slanted eyes. Sitting next to Brenda, he peers around the room and straightens slightly, defensively, as though he’s surrounded by goblins. It’s not until Fang engages him on the subject of alternate currencies that Eric begins to relax into his cups. James watches very closely. There it is, in Brenda’s posture: relief. James doesn’t know how he knows this—what unfolding instinct has enabled him to read her. But he’s sure of it. Brenda excuses herself. She stands up, takes off her cardigan, and moves toward the kitchen in her snugly fitting red dress. She’s going to serve, permitted or no.
It’s a simple stir-fry of hollow-hearted vegetable, dressed up slightly with tiny dried shrimps.
“Ren,” shouts Dagou, from halfway across the room. Together, he and James, Tyrone, and Freedy have finished lugging out tureens of soup. “You don’t help tonight. You’re a guest of honor!”
Brenda straightens up, vibrant, gorgeous. “Of course I want to help,” she cries. “It’s an honor to help such a marvelous chef. This meal is an achievement!”
And as the words leave her mouth, everyone knows what she says is true. Their bodies are lighter, their souls expanded. It is a breathtaking meal created by a truly gifted chef, a man who has reached for and has grasped the power of his life’s possibility. They will remember it forever.
Dagou is elated. He shines like the sun. Beams of happiness and sweat rise visibly from his collar. For a moment, just long enough to snap a photo, he and Brenda glow at one another.
“Chip off the old block!” yells Leo Chao. “Look, I can sit in my own restaurant, do nothing, and get served banquet food by a beautiful woman!”
Dagou ignores this. He, James, and Brenda retreat to work on the next course. Behind the kitchen doors, Dagou reaches, leans toward her. James tries not to listen, but his brother has no interest in keeping his feelings a secret.
“This party is really for you. You’re a guest of the family,” Dagou exclaims. “I wanted it all for you. Are you going to get together with that bozo, or what?”
Smiling, Brenda shakes her head.
He nudges her toward the dining room. But neither of them moves; they stand holding hands. Something’s burning on the stove. When James passes them a moment later, carrying extra spoons, he backs off slightly from their radiance. They look as if they are aflame with beauty. He can almost see the stream of happiness flowing through them. Dagou beaming, handsome. Brenda a torch of dazzling light.
They wait until the guests have polished off the greens and the entire soup dish. Then they collect themselves in time to serve the red stew.
This is the mutton, deep and spicy, meat slipping from the bones, so tender and so flavorful that everyone wants seconds. It’s the meat the Skaers delivered, and although they’d sent a generous amount, there isn’t quite as much of it as there is of everything else.
Eric Braun is entirely taken by the mutton dish. He’s consumed a good-sized serving and now he reaches with his fork over to Brenda’s plate. He’s the only person at his table who is eating with a fork. Carelessly, Brenda pushes her own portion to his plate with chopsticks. Then she stacks the platters, making space on the table for the crispy noodles covered lavishly with seafood.
The Bibles have long been put away. Near the Christmas tree, Mrs. Chin, her anxiety over Lynn’s journalistic ambitions forgotten, is making a video to send to Winnie, while, in the corner, Lynn herself is deep in conversation with Fang about whether to switch her major back to data science. Corey’s mother is taking a photograph of Corey and his plus-one under the mistletoe, and Katherine is texting at top speed. In the middle of this, James becomes aware of a woman in the corner, talking to a couple of nuns. She’s looks Chinese American, around Dagou’s age; she’s a plump woman wearing red-rimmed glasses, her hair cut into bangs across her forehead. “… my grandfather, my junior year abroad,” James hears her say, “and we kept in touch.” The nuns are calmly nodding. She finishes speaking, rises, heads in the direction of the bathroom.