Rose stared at me, frowning.
For normal friends, it would have been a moment ripe for a hug. But I was me and she was Rose. So we stood there awkwardly without speaking. I punched her arm. “Hi.”
She punched my arm back. Hard. “Hi.”
“Sorry for leaving you,” I said, the words whooshing out of me. And I was surprised by how easy and natural it was. Words that usually had to be yanked out of my insides with a crowbar.
Her delicate chin quivered. I was mortified. Seeing Rose cry would be like breaking the seventh seal to bring on the apocalypse or something.
“We can talk about that later,” she said, her voice steady. Before I could answer, I spotted my dad in the doorway of the truck. What! What was he doing here? The happiness that flooded me in that moment almost knocked me off my feet. Never had I been happier to see that lucky Dodgers cap.
I looked over at Rose and she smiled. “Surprise!”
“Adrian?” Hamlet exclaimed from behind me.
But my dad kept it cool. He leaned against the truck’s doorframe and crossed his arms—the birthday tattoo visible on his forearm. “Well, well, well.”
Looking at my dad in his truck—a culmination of decades of blood, sweat, and tears—the e-mails I’d read yesterday flashed through my mind, paired with the strongest memories of my childhood.
The day my mom left, the feeling of her hair pressed against my face and the wetness of her tears immediately forgotten when my dad scooped me up in his arms and took me down to this very park we were standing in. Putting me on the little train that traversed through creeks, horse stables, and trees. The worst day turned into a magical one.
My first day of kindergarten, the first time I’d been truly apart from my dad and left with strangers. He let me wear his old Bone Thugs-N-Harmony T-shirt, tied into a knot at the waist, and the animal charm bracelet my mom had mailed me for good luck. When I wouldn’t stop crying, he stayed parked outside the school, within view of the window all day—missing his first day at a new job and getting fired.
Being picked up from a sleepover in fifth grade when all the girls circled around me and asked me why my dad was so young and was he really my brother and where were my real parents. My dad pounded on the front door of Lily Callihan-Wang’s house so hard that the entire family woke up. He bought me a McDonald’s hot fudge sundae on the midnight drive home and we sang along to TLC’s “No Scrubs.”
My dad’s expression as he sat in the doctor’s office with me as I got a shot for a bacterial infection, wailing. Not being able to tell if it was his palm that was sweaty or mine as he grasped my hand, so tight.
My dad’s expression, again, as he read the instructions on the back of a tampon box out loud to me as I lay curled up in fetal position on my bed, torn between laughter and tears.
And his expression, now. I realized right then—how disappointed you could be when you were all in with someone. When you cared so deeply. How your heart could break, so precisely and quickly.
But I’d always known that. Ever since my mom left my dad, left us. And everything since then had been an attempt to keep myself so far away from all that. Anything real, anything difficult to hold on to.
As I stood there surrounded by three people who had the ability to do just that—crack my chest open to all the disappointment and difficulty and grief—I knew I still wanted it. The risk of the bad stuff was so worth the good stuff. People who would be there for you even when you messed up and behaved like a little jerk? They were the good stuff.
My fear that my dad would move on without me, with Kody or whoever else, seemed so absurd then.
It was hard to keep the emotion out of my voice. “I’m back.”
“I see,” Pai said, cool and distant.
I took a deep breath. “And I’m the worst person. Do you still want me as your daughter?” The words came out choked, garbled.
His posture relaxed and he smiled, somehow sad and happy at the same time. “Sure, Shorty.” He stepped down from the truck and when he reached me, I hugged him fiercely.
“I’m sorry,” I said into his shirt, the tears dropping rapidly—they’d been at the ready since the second I saw him. I heard Rose and Hamlet tactfully walk away from us.
His chin rested on the top of my head, and he wrapped his arms around me, too. “I know.”
“I’ll never do anything like that again.”
“I canceled my credit card, for one thing.”
I laughed a little, snot running down my face. “I overreacted. I was just disappointed and it was hard and Mãe was easy.”
He pulled back and rubbed the snot off my face with the dish towel from his back pocket. “Yeah, she has a way of making everything seem simple.”
I looked at my dad’s face—the one that resembled mine, but with a straighter nose and darker eyes. “The thing is, I didn’t like it? It was fun at first but, ultimately…”
He smiled that crooked, knowing smile. “Unsatisfying?”
That was it. “Yeah. Missing something.”
I heard a sniffle from somewhere inside the truck. Whether it was Rose or Hamlet, I really couldn’t say.
“Don’t ever do that again. Got it?” He poked my forehead.
I scowled but nodded. “I won’t. I don’t want to let you down again. Ever.”
“Well, you will.” He tucked the towel back into his pocket. “But that’s okay. I’ll be here.”
There were two faces looking out at me from the windows on the KoBra. Rose wiped her eyes, and Hamlet was openly crying. Oh my God, we were a freaking mess!
My dad rubbed his hands together. “Ready to do this?”
“Yes! But wait, why did you change your mind?”
“You have a persuasive, annoying friend,” he said drily, glancing at the truck.
As if on cue, Rose stuck her head out the window, her eyes miraculously dry. “Okay, cool! Everyone’s happy and made-up—we only have an hour and a half until judging!”
My eyes widened at my dad. “Can we do it?”
He nodded, jaw slightly clenched. “Yeah, let’s do this.”
We scrambled into the truck. My dad tossed a KoBra T-shirt at me, and I started unbuttoning my flannel to put it on.
“CLARA!” Three voices shouted at me. I looked up to see everyone with their backs turned toward me.
“Calm down, puritans,” I said while pulling on the T-shirt. “Hamlet, don’t pretend like you don’t love it.”
There might as well have been a giant anime sweat drop over his head. He laughed nervously, looking at my dad. Pai made a strangled noise and banged the pots and pans around. “When Clara’s done stripping, let’s make our game plan,” he said.
We immediately kicked into gear. Pai and I were in charge of meats, Rose was in charge of rice and sides, and Hamlet was tasked with drinks and assembly. The truck grew warm once we had the grill and burners on, and an unpleasant sense of panic washed over everything as we scrambled.
And then suddenly: “Ten minutes until judging!” Hamlet yelled.
My dad and I looked at each other. I’d never seen him so nervous. I tried to distract him as I stirred the sauce with a whisk. “So, do you know how the judging works?”
He nodded. “I did my research while you were gone. In ten minutes, they’ll be coming up to the trucks, one by one, and trying our food. Did you know Stephen Fitch is a judge?” His voice almost squeaked.
“I did. That’s why I entered us. We’re basically custom-made for that man. Inventive cuisine unique to the LA immigrant experience? Check and check.”
And then our ten minutes were up. My dad rushed around to make sure the dishes looked perfect, adding touches here and there. Wiping off the edges of the plates with a towel and peering down at each one with hawk eyes. I went over to where Hamlet was pouring drinks and moved a cup closer to his ladle so it wouldn’t drip. He looked at me, his cheeks flushed from the heat and the excitement. “Thanks.”
I winked at him. He turned redder, and I gave him a quick kiss, pressing my cool lips to his hot mouth.
“Hey, you two! No kissing while handling food!” my dad shouted.
And then an air horn blared somewhere outside, making me cover my ears with both hands. Someone spoke into a megaphone: “Time’s up! Judges will be coming by.”
We looked at one another nervously. I fanned my face with a plate. Rose smoothed her hair repeatedly. Hamlet picked up a pen and spun it on his fingers. My dad took a long swig of water from a Tupperware container.
After a few minutes, I stuck my head out the window to see where the judges were. There were about twenty trucks in this competition so this was going to take forever.
My dad cleared his throat. “Well, everyone. I just wanted to say thanks. Thanks for helping me this entire summer, even if you were forced. And thanks so much for this.” He glanced at me. “I never would have done it if Clara hadn’t signed me up. She was right about that.”
I fanned myself with a paper plate. “I’m always right.”
“And humble,” added Rose.
Hamlet threw an arm around my dad. “You’re welcome, Adrian, although all I did was help today.”
My dad threw me a sly look. “You’ve helped in other ways.”
For Pete’s sake.
Suddenly, there was a rap on the window. We froze and Rose came to her senses first, rushing over with a huge smile, ready to charm. “Hi there!”
I scrambled to the stove and took the food out of the oven where we had stuck it to stay warm. My dad and Hamlet ferried the plates over to the window, and Rose handed them drinks.
“Here you go,” my dad said. “I’m gonna hop out to explain what you’re eating there.” We watched as my dad stepped out of the truck and shook hands with the three judges. One was the food editor for a local magazine, one a restaurateur from France, and the other was food critic Stephen Fitch. I held in a squeal at seeing him in person. Pai gave them the rundown on the menu, then stepped back to let them eat the food.
The food editor, a tall Japanese American woman in her fifties, took a bite out of the pastel, and her eyes lit up. The muscular, bearded Frenchman ate a forkful of the lombo and chewed thoughtfully, giving nothing away with his expression. And Stephen Fitch dug into the picanha with gusto, his eyebrows raised as soon as the spice hit him.
A pool of sweat was practically gathered at my feet. I turned away and drank some water to distract myself. Rose did the same. Hamlet kept his head close to the window, watching everything.
Finally, we heard them thank my dad and move on. We got out of the truck and joined him outside. The afternoon sun was dropping lower into the sky, and the hottest part of the day had passed. A jazz band was playing not too far off and a breeze rustled the leaves of the eucalyptus trees.
We sat down, tired and relieved to be done. With the judges still making the rounds of the next few trucks, we had a minute to cool off and catch our breath. It was then that I realized I was starving. I went into the truck to plate some food, and we ate in amiable silence. The last twenty-four hours of emotional turmoil had caught up to all of us, it seemed.
Another air horn blare startled us. The voice came over the megaphone again, “We have a winner! All contestants please meet in the middle of the lot for the announcement!”
Gah! We ran to where everyone was gathered. The crowd was filled with nervous energy, and I looked over at the line of people next to me and squeezed Hamlet’s hand really hard. Please, please, please. For my dad. He deserves it. Please. I didn’t even know who I was pleading with.
The hopeful expression on my dad’s face was unbearable, so I looked at the judges lined up in front of us instead. Stephen Fitch picked up the megaphone and cleared his throat before speaking. “Thank you so much to the contestants this year. As predicted, this was a really difficult task. The food of this city is better than ANY OTHER CITY in the world!” Everyone cheered. “It represents the beating heart of LA: the people.” I felt myself choking up—thinking about how my dad’s love for me had always been tied to food. How I identified with my city through the different flavors of the cultures brought over here by families around the world. By brave people like my dad.
And it hit me then—how much home mattered to me and my dad. How it had kept us anchored through so much uncertainty.
“And so let me just cut to the chase. The winner of this year’s LA food truck competition is—Chili Today, Hot Tamale!”