When Eric straightens up, his face slick with vomit, James turns the taps to warm so he can wash.
“What the fuck?” Eric gasps over the faucet.
James considers what to say.
“Do you think it’s true?”
Skaer’s Diner is the last of what was once a cluster of family businesses: a bar, two restaurants, and a butcher’s. Once, when they were both in middle school, Trey Skaer shoved Ming’s face into the toilet at the butcher’s. Where did the Skaers get that gift of meat? And where is Alf?
James hands Eric a glass of water. “It’s not true,” he says. “Fang was just messing with you. Honestly. You feeling better now?”
“I’m getting the fuck out of here.”
Eric washes his face, and together they walk back into the dining room. The families with children have departed, and other guests are putting on their coats. Eric heads for the door. James follows him out to the foyer, where he searches the rack for his coat, mumbling. “Goodbye,” James calls after him. “Merry Christmas.” His call is muffled by the snow. Brenda stands at his elbow. Together, they watch Eric disappear into the snow-surrounded parking lot.
“Thank God he’s gone,” Brenda says. Her features are severe, her squint crowding her dark lashes close together. She crosses her arms, huffs a cloud of steam. After a minute, a BMW pulls out and turns quickly into the street, tires squeaking.
“Didn’t you invite him?” James asks carefully.
“We went out in high school. He just got divorced, has partial custody of a son. Decided I was the one who got away.”
“He didn’t seem comfortable here.”
“No kidding. Well, you win some, you lose some.” But she turns back toward the restaurant with an expression of anticipation.
James monitors the consumption of dessert. First, the guests are served a fresh fruit plate with local apples and pears, orange slices, pineapple, and pomegranate. Next comes Brenda’s favorite, long-life peach-shaped red bean paste dumplings. Finally, each group of remaining guests is given a big bowl of hot sweet fermented rice broth with smaller dumplings made with sticky rice and black sesame seed paste.
Freedy and his brother enjoy second bowls of the rice broth. They’re sitting with Fang and Alice, holding their bowls Chinese-style, with steam rising on their faces. Katherine, who in the last hour has grown increasingly crestfallen and pale, has gotten up to collect the plates. James wishes Ming were here. He tries to talk to her, but she says, “I’m okay,” waving him off. She has the determined expression of someone planning to stay until the bitter end.
Leo is now at the bar again, red-faced. “More ice!” he roars at James.
James goes back down the basement steps and hurries into the freezer room, checks again to make sure the key is still on the shelf, and grabs another bag of ice.
When he comes upstairs, almost all of the guests have stumbled into the foyer.
“Fabulous,” someone says. This is Jerry Stern’s friend Maud, the one who’s running for the town council.
Maud is holding Brenda’s two hands in her own leather-gloved hands and gushing, as if Brenda is the wealthy hostess of an ornate home, “Brenda, you’ve become a part of something marvelous here.”
And Brenda, as if this woman has ever given her the time of day, gushes back, “It’s been lovely to see you, Maud.”
“I’ve eaten myself drunk,” Mary Wa is saying. “Let’s go home.”
In twos and threes, the final dinner guests stroll out into the snowy, crystalline night, relaxed, their eyes shining and their earlobes pink, desiring nothing.
Silent Night
In the empty dining room, Dagou looks victoriously around at the mess. The guests have left wet napkins, crumpled napkins, napkins festooned over the backs of chairs, overturned wineglasses, champagne flutes and soup bowls, fruit peelings and half-eaten fruits, garlands of poinsettias, at least two neckties, and a number of holiday presents piled on the front table.
While James and Freedy collect the trash, Tyrone gathers the tablecloths and napkins. They all work together to collect the dishes. Freedy and Tyrone, who live in her neighborhood, have offered Brenda a ride home. She invites each of them to choose something from the pile of presents, and packs the rest into a couple of shopping bags. Dagou gives them a wad of twenties. He thinks of the sensual happiness with which Brenda passed around the dishes. He’s eager to be alone with her. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he says. She smiles at him and steps out the front door.
He passes Katherine in the hall; her eye makeup is a little smudged. He can sense her anguish. He thinks, in her direction: Please leave. To his relief, the next time he comes through, Katherine is nowhere to be seen.
Leo directs James to stack the leftover whiskey at the base of the stairs. Later, Dagou sees his father talking to O-Lan. O-Lan is listening with a private, knowing look Dagou has seen before, an expression she wears only when talking to his father. “… thinks he’s a big spender!” Leo’s saying in Mandarin, slurring a bit. Dagou’s hands shake. He tries to focus on the memory of Brenda’s warm, brilliant voice telling the entire room he was a marvelous chef, the meal was an achievement. He imagines bounding through the deep, white, holy night, weightlessly, up to her door.
“Everything okay?” James asks, emerging from the stairs. Calm enough, but with a faint glimmering about his features that Dagou, heartstrings twanging, recognizes.
“Sure. Listen,” Dagou says. “You’re gonna get laid tonight. You’ve got guaranteed admission. I know it!” Pride swells into his mind: perfection. “Listen, you gotta use my apartment.”
James blinks, confusion shifting to a bewildered gratitude. “No, no—”
“My pad! It’s perfect! Come on, little brother. Your first time!”
“What about you?”
Dagou winks. “I got plans elsewhere. Just use my place! And forget the restaurant. We cleaned; don’t bother to set up. You can do it tomorrow morning. Go get her!” he adds, as James begins to protest. “I’m leaving soon.”
“… his Life Savings!” Leo Chao is saying to O-Lan.
“Get out of here,” Dagou says to James. “Good luck tonight!”
O-Lan, looking tired and grim, is taking off her apron. It’s ten minutes to midnight. “You can go home now,” Dagou tells her, and for perhaps the first real time, he wonders if she does have a home.
There’s a shout from the stairs. His father has found more leftover vodka. “Hey,” he calls out to Dagou, “help me bring this to the freezer!”
His father is hoarding the vodka, Dagou knows, for his own use.
“You’re going to miss that bar,” he says, hustling past Leo, who is swigging a final finger from one of the bottles.