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It’s just dumplings, I tell myself as I enter the restaurant.
There are no other customers here. It’s two minutes after eleven and they just opened, so that’s not surprising. A woman comes over to me, regards me for a moment, and starts speaking in Mandarin. I catch a word or two, but nothing more. Before I can say anything, she switches to English and tells me to sit wherever I like. After I take a seat in the middle of the restaurant, she brings over a teapot and a teacup.
“I’m waiting for someone,” I say.
She nods and brings another teacup.
Drew is only four minutes late now, but I can’t help worrying that he won’t show up and I’ll be stuck here eating dumplings alone, feeling like I don’t belong. Although I want dumplings, perhaps this wasn’t the greatest idea—I feel “other” in Chinatown, just like I feel “other” when I’m with my father’s family.
I don’t speak Cantonese or Mandarin, aside from the little I learned when I took that class. I can’t read the language. I don’t look quite right. I’ve never been to China.
I don’t share a lot of experiences that other people of Chinese descent share.
I don’t even have any Asian relatives anymore.
I feel like a fraud.
Well, that’s not quite true about the relatives. There’s Aunt Anita in New York City, but I haven’t seen her in ages. I feel like she’s abandoned me, though I shouldn’t feel that way.
I pour myself some tea, then start to read the menu to calm my mind. Each item is listed both in Chinese and English and has a number beside it. There are little sheets of paper and pencils for you to write down the number corresponding to each of the dishes you want.
Okay. I’ll read the menu over slowly, and if Drew still isn’t here by the time I’ve finished, I’ll order something. This will be fine, even if I have to do it alone.
I’m on the “boiled dumpling” section of the menu when Drew walks in, and I want to weep in relief, which is ridiculous. He comes to sit across from me.
I pour him some tea, my hand shaking on the teapot.
“Are you okay, Chloe?” he asks, taking the teapot from me.
“I’m fine.”
He tilts his head in an I-don’t-believe-you manner. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
“You were less than ten minutes late.” I try to be reasonable. “It’s no big deal.”
He touches my knee under the table. “Do you know what you want to eat?”
“Um.” Suddenly, figuring that out seems like an insurmountable problem.
“I’ll order for us,” he says. “If that’s okay. Is there anything you can’t have?”
I shake my head.
He removes his hand from my knee and picks up the menu, but his other hand closes around mine on top of the table. This small gesture feels like a very public declaration.
I like it.
The server comes over to our table. Drew hands the paper to her and says a few words in English, and then his attention is on me. His expression is serious but kind.
I feel like I could say anything, and he would listen, and it would be okay.
“My mom loved her birthday,” I say, “and she never tried to hide her age. When she turned fifty, she said the whole year would be a celebration.”
He smiles faintly and rubs his thumb over my hand.
I take a deep breath, and then I tell him something I’ve never told anyone else. “Ice cream makes me happy, but really, the ice cream shop is for her. In her memory. I decided I would have Asian flavors, because my mom was Asian, and God, it sounds stupid when I put it like that, but as soon as I thought of it, I loved the idea. Green tea and red bean and coconut...”
“And durian.”
“Yes. But that’s only because Valerie insisted.” I pause. “Since my mom died, I’ve felt like half of me has been wiped from existence. Like more than just my mother is gone. But reading Chinese history and folklore and trying to learn a language she never spoke didn’t help me feel more connected.”
He doesn’t speak; he just listens and continues to stroke my hand.
“I needed something else, so now I make green tea and ginger ice cream, in an ice cream shop just outside of Chinatown.” I shrug. “It feels so frivolous, to have an ice cream shop in my mother’s memory. An ice cream shop.”
“It’s not frivolous,” he says.
Which is the first time anyone has ever said that to me, but I’ve never given anyone the chance to say it to me before; I don’t talk about this, not even with Valerie.
“I’m a frivolous woman,” I insist. “I have an ice cream shop with pink walls and rainbows and unicorns, and I wear a frilly apron because I like it. I was planning to go to dental school, but then my mom died and I quit university. You think I’m ridiculous, don’t you? You, who doesn’t even like ice cream.”
“Chloe, I don’t think you’re ridiculous. I think you should do what makes you happy—”
“Do you?”
“—in a sensible way,” he finishes. “I assume you have a solid business plan?”
“Why do you think that?”
He shrugs. “Because I don’t think you’re frivolous and ridiculous. You just have very different, uh, tastes than I do.”
“My dad thinks I’m ridiculous. And he said he didn’t think of my mother as Chinese, and he’s confused by all my Asian ice cream flavors. I’m his, so I must be white. Or he thinks of me as colorless, because he believes it’s best not to see color.”
I’m rambling. I don’t know what I’m doing. I just have all these thoughts crowding my brain, and they’re popping out at random, even though I usually keep these things to myself. But for once, I’m not filtering what I’m saying.
Why with Drew? Why not with Valerie? Or Lillian?
“My white relatives are nice,” I say, “but I feel a little removed from them. They’re family, though. I shouldn’t feel that way. Outside of my family, it feels like white people think of me as Asian, and Asian people think of me as white—nobody sees me as one of their own. Like here.” I gesture around the room. “I don’t belong.”
He squeezes my hand again, as though saying, You do.
I close my eyes for a moment, concentrating on his hand on mine, before I continue.
“Asian people are expected to be either immigrants or the children of immigrants. If we’re raised here, we’re supposed to be struggling with the divide with our parents, who were raised in a different country. But I’m third generation, not second generation. Unlike the kids I went to school with. Unlike the Asian Americans in the TV shows I watch.”
“I know how you feel.”
I manage a smile. It’s rare for someone to say that to me. “What was it like for you?”
“I told you my father was born here, right?” he says, and I nod. “It always surprises people when I say that. My mother didn’t grow up here, though, and I think that’s a lot of the reason why my parents had different ideas on how we should be raised. They fought about it quite a bit.”
A bamboo steamer is set in front of us. Drew opens it up to reveal twelve dumplings.
“I think these are the beef and celery,” he says.
I reach for a dumpling with my chopsticks and pop it in my mouth. It’s a little too hot, but it’s tasty.
We eat in silence for a few minutes. I feel like I need the silence after what I said. It’s weird to talk about things like this.
My mom died, and I miss her. But the effects of her death rippled through my life, affecting what I do for work, how I feel about myself, and how I relate to my father—and people in general.
What would it be like if she’d lived?
I want that so desperately. I’d be a different person. I don’t know who.
Drew hasn’t lost a parent, and he isn’t biracial. He doesn’t have exactly the same family history as me, but there are similarities. More than with most people.
And I just like talking to him.
I don’t know what it is about him, because it’s not his frown or his really great arms—though they are quite fine—or the quiet concentration in his expression.
“Have you been to China?” I ask.
“I’ve been to Hong Kong several times to visit my mom’s family. I’ve also been to Beijing, and I’ve seen the Great Wall.”
“Have you been to where your father’s family is from?”
He shakes his head.
I can’t help my disappointment. I was so hoping he’d been. I’m curious.
“My paternal grandparents never went back,” he says. “They didn’t leave under great circumstances, and they never wanted to return. They had no family to visit there—everyone was either dead, or they’d come to North America.”
“My grandparents never went back, either. I didn’t understand it when I was younger. In every word they spoke, I could hear that they hadn’t been raised here, but they rarely talked about the past and never expressed interest in going back. I suppose it would be a completely different place today.”
“My parents are in Hong Kong right now.”
“For how long?”
“More than a month. It’s the longest they’ve ever stayed, but they’re retired and my grandma isn’t in great health. It’s awkward for my dad because everyone speaks to him in Cantonese, and he doesn’t understand the language very well.”
The server brings us some pan-fried dumplings.
“Pork and chive,” Drew says.
“Ooh, these are my favorite.”
I appreciate that he picked out the restaurant and ordered for us. I like not having to make decisions for a day.
And I feel like someone sees me, really sees me.
It’s nice.
The server sets another bamboo steamer on our table.
“How much did you order?” I ask Drew.
“This is all, but we can get more if you like.”
Suddenly, I’m ravenous. “Maybe we could have more of the pork and chive ones.”
Drew asks the server to bring us another order of dumplings before turning back to me. “When do you have to be at Ginger Scoops?”
“Valerie is opening today, but I told her I’d be there by one. I hope it’ll be busy. The weather is nice.” I nod toward the window.
We chat a little more as we eat. I ask Drew about his job. He’s one of those smart finance people who works at a bank on Bay Street. That’s something I could never do. Neither my old self—who wanted to be a dentist—nor my new self would do something like that.
By the time we leave, I’ve eaten twenty-four dumplings.
Hardly a healthy meal, but I feel content.
* * *
Drew walks me back to Ginger Scoops and comes inside with me.
“How about I get you some ice cream?” I say. “On the house. What would you like—Vietnamese coffee? Chocolate-raspberry? Or maybe you’d fancy some durian? Perhaps some taro? Maybe all four? Usually there are two flavors in a bubble waffle, but I could make a special one for you. And did you know we have rainbow sprinkles and chocolate shavings?”
I can’t resist teasing him.
He glares at me, but it’s an affectionate glare. “I’m not getting a bubble waffle with four types of ice cream and goddamn rainbow sprinkles.”
“Shh. This is a family establishment. No swearing.” Although there’s only one teenage couple in the shop, and they’re making out.
“It’s a family establishment?” He raises his eyebrows. “That’s news to me.”
“You bring your niece here every Saturday.”
“Mm-hmm.” He pulls me around the corner to the short hallway that leads to the washroom. “But you remember what happened on Friday night?”
My cheeks heat. “I do.”
We’re separate from the rest of the shop now, leaning against the bright pink wall. He rubs his thumb over my chin. “I seem to recall you sitting in my lap and pressing yourself all over me.”
“Why wouldn’t you take me home with you?”
“Chloe.” He runs his hand through my hair. “Let me take you out next weekend. On a proper date. Saturday?”
I very much want that. In fact, I want to wrap my arms tightly around him and keep him with me all day, but I have a business to run. Saturday will have to do.
“I’ll be working until after nine, so it’ll have to be a late date.”
“No problem.” He winks at me before he heads out.
Six days until I see him again.
I can’t wait.