His tourist visa was expiring soon, and his mother was in the process of sponsoring him for a real work visa. The forms had been in his room for weeks, and he needed to fill them out. Until then, he couldn’t legally receive a salary, wasn’t on the official payroll at World Top English, but Boss Cheng paid his mother extra money, which she then deposited into his bank account.
After his morning class, Daniel went out for lunch with two of the other teachers, Eddie and Tammy. They usually insisted on McDonald’s or Pizza Hut, places where he would never voluntarily eat. Today they were going to a spaghetti restaurant that Tammy said was sophisticated, though Daniel would have been fine going to a noodle stall and slurping down a cheap bowl of soup. They walked the three blocks from World Top to the restaurant, Daniel familiar with most of the streets in downtown Fuzhou, accustomed to mopeds coming at him at in all directions. The summer in Ridgeborough, the liminal New York winter that had preceded it, seemed like another lifetime ago. It was astounding to think that that had been him, tromping across the ice on Canal Street, not knowing that by the end of the year, he would have not only have seen his mother again but be living with her, seeing her every day.
Inside the restaurant, an old song was looping on the speaker, the moon hitting the singer’s eye like a big pizza pie. The waitresses wore red, white, and green uniforms. It was a Macaroni Grill on steroids. Eddie climbed into the banquette next to him. “Is the menu authentic?” Outside of class, they spoke Fuzhounese.
Daniel flipped through the pictures of pastas drowning in red and white sauces. If it wasn’t a Chinese restaurant, Tammy and Eddie always made him order. “Yes,” he said.
Tammy brushed her bangs away from her eyes. Unlike Eddie, she avoided eye contact at all costs. “Restaurants where the waitresses wear uniforms are always authentic. Deming, you order for all of us.”
Daniel asked the waitress for three bowls of spaghetti and meatballs and a platter of garlic sticks. Eddie’s unblinking gaze felt like being cross-examined. Tammy said she’d heard that the restaurant served the best American food in Fuzhou.
“This food isn’t American,” Eddie said.
“Well, it’s Italian,” Daniel said. “But the dishes are more of an American style. They would call it Italian American.”
Tammy said, “But is it Italian or American?”
“It’s both.”
“But Italians aren’t American,” Eddie said.
“Sure, they can be Italian American. Like if your parents were born in Italy, but you were born in America.”
“Then you’d be American,” Tammy said. “Because you were born in America.”
“Well, you can be Chinese American. I’m Chinese American because I was born in America.”
“But you have a Chinese face so that makes you Chinese,” Tammy said.
“Americans can have Chinese faces. They aren’t only white people.”
Tammy and Eddie glanced at each other and Eddie muttered a quick sentence in Fuzhounese that Daniel couldn’t catch.
“I’m right here, you know,” Daniel said. “I can hear you talking about me.”
“We’re not talking about you,” Tammy said.
The tomato sauce was too sweet, the pasta overcooked, and Daniel ached for a proper New York thin slice, folded in half and chowed down while standing at an oily pizzeria counter. Tonight, he’d pick up food on the way home and eat in front of the TV. If he was in Manhattan or Ridgeborough his friends would be buying him shots, but instead he would return to an empty apartment. His mother was supposed to be coming home late, on the bullet train from Xiamen, where she had spent the last two days for work. She no longer watched him so carefully, like he was in danger of vanishing, and on weekends they spent hours walking around the city together, having long, easy meals, and he would feel warm and full. But when she made plans for him, mentioned people she wanted him to meet or a trip they might take in the future, he would feel a sticky dread, like he had overslept on a winter day and woken up to discover it was already dark.
He didn’t want to be alone, not today. “What are you two doing tonight?”
They exchanged another glance. “We have dinner with our families,” Eddie said.
HE WAITED FOR THE bus to West Lake Park after his last class of the day. Yong would be working late tonight, or at a business dinner. One night he had taken Daniel to his factory, and Daniel had looked down from the executive office at rows of women at sewing machines. “Your mother doesn’t like to visit me at work,” Yong said.
Once or twice a week, Daniel took the bus out to Leon’s place to eat with him and Shuang. He played with Yimei in the park, showing her how to toss a Frisbee and do wheelies on her bike, and wished she were his real sister, or at least his real cousin. When he mentioned these visits to his mother, she said, “Maybe I’ll come with you sometime.” But tonight Leon was also busy; he’d said he had to work late.
Now that Daniel was making money again, he had started to pay Angel back, little by little. He had cut up his credit card and was chipping away at the balance, but whatever extra he had left over, which wasn’t a lot, he sent to her. She never responded, but deposited the money.
He hadn’t heard from Roland either. The last time he had googled Psychic Hearts, several weeks ago, he had read a review of their latest show with the headline “Don’t Believe the Hype”:
While guitarist Nate Lundstrom—a former member of a number of Meloncholia projects—is technically and stylistically astute, Psychic Hearts’ new, dancier configuration lacks the claustrophobic, manic-depressive, and almost mystical cohesion of its original pairing. The looping beats have gotten frayed and agonizingly repetitive, and Fuentes’ howls grown stale, like a fifth-rate Lightning Bolt meets bubblegum pop . . . How can something so heavy sound so damn minimal? Sure, it’s cool, kids, but there’s no there there.