He would step aside happily if his parents allowed Jinjing to take his place, if he could go off to a place like Paris, live in a small room like his own, but higher up, an artist’s garret. Paint and parks and pretty people, maybe then he would uncover himself. But Jinjing will never run Haiyang Best. She is a daughter first of all, and second-born, and their parents have other plans in mind for his sister.
His thoughts have catapulted him far away, and he returns to the sunny sidewalk, walking next to Miss Rosen, whose step is suddenly springing. She has such a nice voice, Da thinks, deep and musical, with that French lilt to her words, and she is saying, “I’m going to salt-roast the sea bass I purchased from you, Young Wong. A bed of Kosher salt in the pan, then after I have cleaned the fish, I shall stuff it with Herbs de Provence—” and Da decides to join the conversation. Already it is the most interesting thing he has heard in a long while.
“How do you prepare such herbs?” he asks.
“Très facile. Rosemary, fennel seed, savory, thyme, basil, marjoram, parsley, oregano, tarragon, bay leaves, and my own dried lavender flowers. All stuffed right up in there. Then I make the salt crust to seal in the moisture and gently steam the fish in its own juices. A plaster of two egg whites for every cup of Kosher salt. Some people use only water, which is ridiculous. It is the egg whites that bind the salt most effectively, like making un papier maché, as children do in school. The crust becomes solid when baked, sealing in la loup de mer entièrement.”
“That sounds like it would be enjoyable to make,” Da says, thinking of his hands in such a mixture, up to his wrists, even if the goal was a coating for hateful fish.
At Lafayette, Paloma makes a right and Da follows suit.
“Oui. Très délicieux. It is very impressive and looks very complicated, mais, un, deux, trois, easy as pie.”
“What will you do with the other fish?” Da asks.
“With the cod, a paté. Your fine anchovies marinated. Your spicy green flying fish roe served with crunchy potato latkes made from scratch. So much more, but we can talk recipes another day.”
He likes that she has referred to them having another day together, and follows her marching up wide Lafayette until it narrows, comes to a halt at Spring Street.
“So, Young Wong, while we’re waiting to cross, tell me one true thing about yourself. Anything at all. But preferably something you don’t tell most people.”
He is unused to anyone inquiring about his interior life, but still he can answer immediately. “I would be less stoic,” he says, and when he releases that hidden assertion into the thick hot air, the queerest feeling comes over him, a coolness from within, instantly lowering the temperature of his overheated, sweating body. His heavy heart weighing a few ounces lighter.
Cars trying to beat the changing light screech to a stop halfway into the crosswalk. Paloma says, “Très intéressant. S’il vous pla?t expliquer. Explain in more detail, if you would.”
He waits until they have reached the other side, and then looks down at the top of Miss Rosen’s white head, just as she looks up. For the first time since she arrived at Haiyang Best, he allows her eyes to capture his.
“I am exhausted from living a life that makes me want to complain day and night, and saying so very little about it. I am locked up inside. There is much I want to do, but I need to escape first, find my way, find the place that I belong.”
When she nods slowly, thoughtfully, Da is filled with hope that she might have the answer he needs.
“What are you doing at eight tonight, Young Wong?”
“Selling fish. We do not close until ten.”
She begins walking again, and he keeps pace.
“Can someone replace you? That other one, the stingy hoarder of tape, the one scowling over my anchovies?”
“My cousin Bai? I cannot trust him to close up properly.”
“You feel locked up inside, so maybe this is the exact step you must take, to walk out the door.”
Will he free himself by simply having Bai lock up the store? He ponders as they continue down Spring, crossing Crosby, Broadway, Mercer, Green, until she makes a quick left onto Wooster and continues to the middle of the block.
“We are home,” Paloma Rosen says, standing in front of a great steel door flanked on either side by an eight-table coffee place and a florist.
“Miss Rosen, I’ve been thinking over your advice, and I don’t understand.”
“You will, Young Wong. You are to have your cousin lock up tonight because you are invited to a dinner party. Here, at my home. I might as well have one guest of my own and I have chosen you. Now, let’s go, up the stairs. There’s someone I’d like you to meet. I think you might have much in common.”
Joan does not know where Da Wong has come from. She did not expect to find a young Chinese fishmonger who yearns to be a painter in Paloma Rosen, but he exists now, along with his dirty-minded cousin, Bai, and the history of the fish market she has named Haiyang Best. But she saw Paloma Rosen on a steamy summer morning on an expedition for the procurement of seafood, shopping for the ingredients of a fine meal she has no interest in preparing.
She is, as Joan thought she might be, a sensational chef. She cadged Paloma’s recipes from dishes Martin experimented with when he took up cooking as one of his new interests, preparing dinners for the two of them from the start of the year until she escaped from Rhome.
Joan thinks how Paloma’s unwilling need to do right by Theo Tesh Park brings into her extravagant force field another young man who desperately desires clarity in his life, but does not yet know it is Paloma he requires. And Paloma Rosen, becoming a reluctant surrogate mother to Theo Tesh Park, will become more than a mentor to Da Wong, another mother of sorts, the one who will show him how to break free and discover his own new horizon. And Da Wong will see his future opening up when, after climbing the six double flights of stairs, he steps into Paloma’s loft, and then is led down the fifty steps to her studio, to see the new sculpture she has only begun carving. Within the untouched grain of the butternut wood, Da will instantly see the mother and child that Paloma sees, and Da will believe himself that child, Paloma the maternal, sheltering being, though Paloma imagines it herself and Theo. Da will look around the studio and feel he is home, the way Theo feels in Paloma’s presence. And Da can imagine painting his canvases in a far corner, out of the way, nearly out of sight. If only—he will think.
Joan reads over all she has written and wonders what will happen between Theo and Da—a friendship, a brotherhood of sorts, a love relationship, a fight for supremacy in the affections of Paloma Rosen? She’s not sure, but their journeys will be utterly altered by the old artist who will help them find a place in their souls where they will always be home.