Page 15

Chapter Fifteen

LAN

“Are you free right now?”

I blink, looking up from the baguettes in my hands to Vivi, and suddenly, I’m all too aware of my pulse and the dampness of my palms. I’ve spent the last few nights tossing and turning, my heart skipping when I think about her arms around me and how the sky was so pink and red and orange, and how her eyes shone at the sights of this city.

“Vivi—good morning? What are you doing here?”

She smiles. “Can’t miss the best bánh mì in Sài Gòn from my favorite food blogger.”

My face burns. I hadn’t realized how lost in thought I was. I force my mind to shut up, locking away all the fluttering feelings and hot cheeks and fidgety hands that come up when she’s near me.

But Vivi has no idea. She’s distracted by my notebook. “Have you been writing? Did anything inspire you? How many pages? I’m sure we can use what you wrote for the contest—”

She starts rapid firing questions at me, and I struggle to follow, but her eyes are so bright that I can’t help but nod along. For the first time since Ba’s passing, someone else is excited to hear about my writing. What I’m up to, what I’ve been thinking about. Maybe I can share the words in this notebook with someone other than Ba.

“Well, there are a lot more words after our little brainstorming session at Café 1975—”

“Brainstorming? We just talked.”

“It helped.” I shrug. “Or it did something because I’ve been writing nonstop, and… I don’t hate my words as much anymore.” For some reason, I want to tell Vivi everything, to not hold on to the pages so tightly and keep them as backlogged dreams like before. She sparked something, and though I’m still not sure what it is, the words haven’t flowed out of me like this for a long, long time.

“Lan, this is good ,” she gushes, holding the leather-bound notebook gingerly in her hands. Unlike the night when we met, I don’t feel defensive over Ba’s notebook anymore. Instead, I want her to touch it, to run her hands over my inked words, and I want to watch her reaction. It reminds me of when Ba and I would brainstorm in the kitchen, the scent from the boiling vat of Má’s ph ? wafting from the stove.

“This part is about how Sài Gòn comes alive at night? Let’s throw in some adjectives, like ‘Sài Gòn’s vibrant colors emerge when the sky is the deepest blue,’ and you’re solid.”

I burst out laughing. “Okay, that is so corny—I love it.”

She grins. “Looks like it’s slow right now. Let’s go do some field research.”

I cock my head. “Field research?”

“I was googling things last night and found this alleyway in District Ten that’s basically a giant street food market and thought maybe we could go.”

“Sounds like you want a free ride to District Ten so you can go eat.”

She rolls her eyes at me, a hand on her hip. “Fine. That was part of the plan, too—but can we go? The colorful flan with tapioca balls looks so good I think I’ll regret my entire life if I never try it before flying back to California.”

I hadn’t said yes much since Ba’s passing, but ever since Vivi crashed into my life—literally—I have been saying yes more than no. Like right now, driving across the city on my motorbike with her arms wrapped around my waist, all I can say is “Yes.”

District 10 is one of the innermost districts of Sài Gòn, situated next to District 3 and my home, District 1. There are tall buildings reaching for the blazing sun, motorbikes lining the streets, plastic stools wet from spilled drinks, and street food carts—lots and lots of them.

We veer into an alley, the wandering smell of bánh tráng n ?? ng salting my tongue. Vivi fumbles with her purse before pulling out a photograph. She positions the photo in front of her, eyes narrowing from the alleyway full of street food before us to the picture in her hand.

“Look,” she says. “Here’s my mom in front of a small street. I just can’t wrap my head around that, the fact that I’m where she grew up.”

I take the photo from her, my eyes zooming in to the huge smile on the woman’s face. “She looks really happy.”

“I know. Do you think my mom ate all this street food when she grew up here?”

I nod. “Street food has always been here in Sài Gòn. But I don’t know if she ate the same food as the ones in front of us. Food is always changing, and new dishes pop up all the time.”

To our right, a girl cracks an egg on top of a bánh tráng and mixes the thin omelet on the rice paper, sprinkling on green onions and sausages before finishing the round pancakes with spreads of mayonnaise and ketchup.

“What is that ?” Vivi points in the direction of my gaze.

“The bánh tráng n ?? ng? It’s a popular street food. It’s egg, sausages, and condiments on top of grilled rice paper. I think some people call it a Vietnamese pizza.”

“Is this one of the new street food dishes you are talking about?”

“Yup. I think the original bánh tráng n ?? ng was from Da Lat, a city in the Lam Dong Province, north of Sài Gòn, but a modern version made its way to this city. Now it’s a quintessential Sài Gòn street food.”

“So you’re saying, fusion food can be Vietnamese food mixed with Vietnamese food?”

I laugh, finding her innocent question endearing. “There are so many different Vietnamese cuisines. Sài Gòn is considered southern, but there are also northern and central regions. Each one has their own special ingredients in their food.”

“That’s so cool. I want to try all the Vietnamese food. I think I remember you wrote about bánh tráng n ?? ng. It was from a post years ago… about the best things to eat after school with friends?”

My heart lurches at Vivi’s attentiveness. She does know A Bánh Mì for Two . “I can’t believe you remember that.”

“I always remember the things you write.”

My face feels hot. I match my pace with Vivi’s, so our hands swing side by side, not quite touching.

We watch another street food seller grind long sugarcane sticks through a hand-powered machine before pouring the juice into plastic pouches. Next to the sugarcane juice is a vendor passing out plates of fresh fruits and chewy tapioca balls piled on colorful flans. Then we see a stall across the street, with heaps and heaps of bánh tráng tr ? n full of quail eggs, l ? p x ?? ng, fried onions, and the tangy sweet-and-spicy sauce that makes me salivate. More stalls line the winding alleyway on both sides, smoke and chatter floating through the space and twinkling string lights hanging from wall to wall.

“I can’t believe you found this. Are you sure you don’t live here?”

Vivi laughs, tugging me back toward the sugarcane cart. “Lots of research on the internet. I told you I’m all in for this contest, which means finding you some inspiration.”

Whatever she’s doing… is working. This is the heart of Sài Gòn’s street food squeezed into a small corner of the city. Suddenly the mundane work I’ve been doing, the street food I’ve been selling, seems larger than I had realized. Street food feeds Sài Gòn, and I’ve been a part of that for so long. I want to write about the sight before me, the people weaving around us, and the food that shapes my home.

We can’t decide on what to get, so Vivi and I settle on two pouches of sugarcane, grilled shrimp on sticks, and a plate of b ? t chiên, or fried rice flour cake.

She pokes a straw through the top of the sugarcane pouch before slurping, her eyes widening as she drinks. “Okay, this is strangely refreshing—it tastes like grass, but also like honey?”

“Vivi, can you write that down? What you just said.”

She laughs before shaking her head and pointing to her temple. “Don’t worry. I’ll remember it. I learned how to describe food from you. There were so many nights when I was drooling over everything you wrote.”

“Thanks,” I say, the corners of my lips tilting upward again.

She digs into the fried cake with scrambled eggs, serving me first. We both go for the utensils at the same time, our hands brushing again.

“Can I ask you something?”

She nods and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear before biting off a piece of fried cake.

“Why Sài Gòn? We could… make up another city to write about—what about somewhere in the States, where you’re from?”

She snorts. “Do you know how many people worship NYC or LA? It’s so overdone.”

I narrow my eyes. “Sài Gòn is overdone, too. What do we have that other people don’t? How are we any different?”

“We’re not,” she says, her eyes locking mine. “I don’t think we can ever come up with something so wild and so different that it’ll blow the judges away.

“But we don’t need to be different.” She points to the houses that surround us, their angular structure shaping the alley we’re walking through. “Everything looks so imperfect here. I know that’s probably not the right word! But people are hanging their laundry on these crisscrossing pipes. There are plants poking out from the walls. I see water bottles being used as plant pots. And the houses! They’re so skinny.”

“You like the messiness of Sài Gòn? So many tourists complain how it’s not clean or—”

“I love it.” She smiles sheepishly. “It makes the city feel alive. Like it has a personality. No two things look the same, and I’m seeing something new every time I walk outside.”

I find myself looking at my city the way Vivi’s looking at it. All this messiness and chaos is mine, my city and my Sài Gòn that I grew up in. She’s right. Things are always changing. The same clothes on the rusty pipes will be brought in tonight. Flowers will soon bloom from single-use plastic cups. Even Vivi will be leaving in a couple months.

But that’s what makes this city so special, it changes. It lives.