Page 13

JULIE

I’m on the floor of my bedroom with the black-and-white notebook in my lap. Tyler and my family are downstairs, prepping our Sunday supper, and I can smell the simmering black tea sauce that Ahma has been stewing for tea eggs.

I take a deep breath, then flip open to the first page. The first entry is mine. I cringe at how I dotted all of my I’s with a tiny heart. Middle school me lived in Valentine’s Day all year long.

Tyler’s entries are about his crushes and have doodles of red pandas in every margin.

Mercy made lists of books she recommended we read and why.

Randall was super into writing down details for our epic sleepover parties, including themes, like Be Your Favorite Superhero, complete with costumes.

I quickly bypass my entries, because I don’t need to go down a rabbit hole of embarrassment. Plus, dinner is in twenty minutes, and I still can’t find my invisible ink pen.

I turn to the pages that are blank. I run my hands over the blue-lined paper.

“Damn it,” I mumble.

The pen must be somewhere in my desk. I seriously have a problem because I buy too many pens. I blame Mercy, because she always wants to go to Blick Art Materials when we “pretend” to run into each other, and I can’t help myself when faced with a wall of colorful gel pens. I dig through each drawer but come up empty.

There’s a knock on my door, then it swings open. I quickly dump the notebook into the drawer and slam it shut.

“What’s your deal?” asks Tyler.

“You came in here.”

“You look like I caught you doing drugs.”

I roll my eyes. “I’ll be down for dinner soon.”

“You’re not going to share why your desk looks like it’s been through a robbery?”

“Why are you so annoying?”

Tyler pinches my cheek. I shove him toward the door. He’s solid muscle, so it’s like trying to move a mountain.

“Something’s up with you.”

“Bye!”

He’s still not moving, and I’m running out of time. He puts his palm on my head to stop me.

“Get your banana hands off of me,” I screech.

“Dinner’s almost done. Not that you helped any,” he says. “Do you want taro or black sesame tang yuan tonight? You’re the final vote.”

“Taro. I’ll help you roll them in a minute.”

He finally lets me go. I slam the door shut. I turn my attention back to my hunt for the invisible ink pen, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t find it.

I give up. It’s time to go downstairs.

S unday supper started when we were little kids. The four of us each prep one favorite dish. When it started, Ahma wanted Tyler and me to learn how to cook and make the dishes that we sell at the farmers market. In middle school, we spent Friday nights in assembly lines, making each item with care. Now, Sunday nights are solely for rest and cooking just for us, and Mom always takes off night shifts from her nursing schedule so we can be together.

When I walk in, my mom is wearing the Garfield apron I bought her for Christmas last year, and I can’t help but feel happy at the sight. It’s one of the few times we get to see her at the moment.

“Jujube, taste this. What’s missing?”

She thrusts forward a spoon with the red tinge of chili oil on it. I taste it. It’s garlicky, warm on my tongue, but it’s missing more spice. I grab the Costco-sized red pepper flakes and toss a generous handful into the saucepot on the stove.

“Thanks,” she says, kissing my cheek.

“Mom?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Do you ever miss my father?” I don’t think about him often, but today, I’m curious. Ever since The Incident, Randall’s family has been exiled from my life, but hanging out with Randall again, I realize how much I miss his family. Does my mom ever think about my deadbeat dad?

She drops her hands by her side, surprised. But her face softens, and she unties her Garfield apron and places it on the hook by the stove.

She gestures for me to sit. I join her at the dining table.

“Sometimes. We’d just graduated college when I got pregnant with you. He wasn’t ready for kids.”

Other than an occasional birthday card, my dad isn’t part of my life. He might as well be a sperm donor.

My mom reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “If you ever want to talk to him, you let me know.”

I nod, knowing that I’m not interested in talking to him. Between my mom, Ahma, and my brother, I have all the family I need. My brother pops his head into the dining room.

“Yo, get over here,” says Tyler.

“Lose the attitude,” I say.

Ahma claps her hands. “Enough. Fight later. Learn now.”

On the kitchen counter, Ahma has laid out all the ingredients for fan tuan. She’s the expert at making them, but she’s determined that Tyler and I learn how to do it too, something we’ve never quite perfected.

“Watch me,” commands Ahma.

Tyler and I focus our attention on her small hands, which deftly place a rice paddle full of sticky rice in the perfect rectangle on plastic wrap. She sprinkles in her favorite toppings: scallions, pork floss, yellow pickled radishes, and a generous chunk of youtiao—a kind of Chinese churro.

“Now, pull up both sides of the plastic wrap so the rice surrounds the fillings. Twist the ends, and you’re done,” says Ahma.

Her fan tuan is perfectly shaped. Tyler and I exchange glances. We make ours and the fillings ooze out of the middle.

“Ah,” says Ahma, “You keep practicing and you will get better.”

“It’s still tasty,” says Mom.

I shrug my shoulders.

“It’s better when you make it, Ahma,” says Tyler.

“I’ll keep practicing,” I say.

Tyler rolls his eyes at me.

Ahma pinches his cheek. “I saw that,” she admonishes.

“Sorry, mei mei,” says Tyler, using the Chinese word for little sister to placate our grandmother.

Tyler turns his attention to the tang yuan he’s making for dessert.

On the lightly floured cutting board, he has small white orbs lined up in a neat row. I join him.

I pick up one piece and press it between my palms until it becomes a flat white circle of sweet rice dough. I scoop up a quarter-sized amount of purple taro paste and place it in the middle of the dough. I pull the edges around the taro, then roll it between my palms. When it’s the size and shape of a golf ball, I put it down with the others Tyler has made.

“I heard from Ricky,” whispers Tyler.

I give him two thumbs up. He grins happily to himself. He starts whistling, which means he has much more to tell me.

“Post-dinner meeting?” he asks.

“Of course.”

I can’t wait to hear his latest gossip. Tyler and I always head to my room after dinner to talk about our goals and how we’re going to achieve them. It started when I struggled in math in sixth grade and Tyler tutored me.

Now, we mostly talk about college and crushes. Solid Sunday discussions.

We each bring our dishes to the lazy Susan on our circular dining table. I grab the woodear mushroom salad I made last night. Tyler will boil the tang yuan when we’re ready for dessert.

Instead of chatting, we spin the lazy Susan and scoop up servings on our plates. I serve baozhong, a Taiwanese oolong tea, to each of them.

Then, we eat. I don’t know how to describe the sensation of eating my grandmother’s home cooking. It’s different than the farmers market. The long rice noodles that she crafts by hand melt in my mouth. I drizzle Mom’s chili crisp on the woodear mushrooms I made. The crunch in my mouth is the perfect ratio of spicy ginger and black vinegar.

We don’t talk until we are full.

“Ahma, I heard the Hur family now shoves business cards in customers’ bags,” comments Tyler.

For a second, I panic. Is he straight-up revealing that the Hurs took half of our catering order? He wouldn’t dare.

Ahma nods and points at Tyler with her chopsticks. “One of our customers showed me. Too pushy, that family.”

Tyler nods. I feign interest in another serving of noodles. Usually, I chime in, but my stomach clenches at the thought of adding my two cents.

My mom adds, “I bet they were happy to have Saturday markets all to themselves.”

Ahma huffs, then grabs more woodear mushrooms. “Chung Hi must have talked to Enrique to give her Saturdays and push us to Sundays, so she would have better business.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” I say.

Everyone looks at me like I dropped a dish on the ground. There’s absolute silence, and I can feel the air around me get warmer from the heat of Tyler’s glare.

I stare down at my bowl. When I look up again, Tyler watches me intently.

“Why do you think we got stuck with Sundays then?” asks Tyler.

“Enrique said that he had to separate us because of all the bickering.”

“The whole Hur family pushes to get what they want, and they give Enrique a whole bunch of free food to sweeten the deal,” says Tyler.

Ahma nods and points her chopsticks at Tyler. “I’ve seen it happen before we got kicked out.”

My mom nods, and I realize I’m not going to win this argument. Our grudge against the Hur family is going to last until the end of time.

Tyler gets up to boil the tang yuan. I join him to work on the sweet ginger syrup. He still gives me the stink eye for the one comment I made that wasn’t disparaging against Randall’s family.

“How’s it going with Ricky?” I ask tentatively, hoping to change the subject.

“I know what you’re doing, Jules,” says Tyler.

“I am asking about your life, dear brother.”

“You’re up to something.”

In a separate pot, I add several lumps of white rock sugar into a cup of water. I hold one large chunk up to show Tyler. “Remember when we used to think these were clear quartz crystals and tried to manifest our crushes to like us back?”

I finally get a smile out of Tyler. “Yeah, we put them on my Margaret Cho altar and then later discovered a trail of ants,” says Tyler.

“Mom was so mad!” I say.

I take a silver spoon and flick off the thick tan skin of a ginger root until I reveal the yellowish flesh inside. Then, I grate fresh ginger into the simmering water. I swirl it patiently.

Tyler drops the taro tang yuan into boiling water. The sweet white orbs bob up and down.

He puts his arm around me, gently tilting his head into mine. I release a sigh.

At the table, Ahma is discussing next week’s market and possibly offering samples of a new dish. My mom nods along, asking her questions.

I lean into the pot and inhale deeply. The scent is sugary and spicy. The liquid has now turned the perfect shade of gold, almost honey-like. I dip my spoon and taste it. It’s perfect.

Tyler scoops the tang yuan into the same red-and-white bowls we’ve had forever. I pour the sticky sweet syrup into a small glass dish.

Ahma goes first and adds my freshly made ginger sauce to her bowl. She sips.

“Perfect, Juju,” she says. “Ty, you make best tang yuan. Your ah-gong would’ve been very happy.”

Tyler smiles and bows his head.

Ahma leaves one taro ball in her bowl to set in front of the black-and-white photo of my grandfather. He’s wearing a suit and tie, and his jet black hair is shaped perfectly around his head. He looks stern, but really, he was a big marshmallow. He loved sweets, so he was forever sneaking candy to Tyler and me, even when my mom forbade him to.

Tyler lights a stick of vanilla incense to burn next to Grandpa’s picture. White smoke rises from the stick. Grandpa loved fresh vanilla bean pods so we bought these to invite his spirit back into our kitchen.

I chew my tang yuan.

“Juju, you know why we eat these?” asks Ahma.

I nod. I know the symbolism of the sticky rice ball dessert.

“It means we stick together as a family.”

“That’s right,” says Ahma.

She cradles my face in her hands. The wrinkles in her hands still feel smooth. She kisses me on my forehead. She grabs Tyler’s arm and drags him over to her.

Ahma plants the loudest smooches on him. He squirms, but I know he secretly loves it.

I’m down to my last tang yuan. I generously drizzle it with more ginger syrup. It was Grandpa’s recipe that he taught me how to make when I was five years old. I was responsible for stirring the rock sugar while he shaved the ginger root.

I place my bowl next to Ahma’s on the altar. I whisper, “I miss you, Ah-Gong. Hope my syrup is as good as yours.”

Tyler and I are in charge of washing the dishes; Ahma and my mom sit down to watch their TV shows while flipping through the Chinese newspapers, their Sunday ritual. Ahma is addicted to reality shows. Her current favorites are dating shows.

Tyler gathers the dirty dishes while I start washing. I wait until I hear the TV turn on.

“Remember that notebook we used to share?”

Tyler’s eyebrows shoot up. “Yeah, that was kid stuff, Jules.”

“Do we still have the invisible ink pen? I thought it might be fun to use it again to pass notes in class.”

I’m a terrible liar, like the worst liar on planet Earth, but I am desperate to know where this stupid pen is so I can read the note that Randall wrote.

“Hell if I know. Haven’t used it in years. Since, you know, then.”

We wash dishes in silence. I want to tell Tyler about the resurgence of the notebook and my growing crush on Randall.

“Catch-up sesh?” asks Tyler as he dries his hands on a dish towel.

“Be there soon,” I say.

We used to always talk about who we liked with each other, but if I reveal my secret crush this time, he’ll hate me. My whole family will hate me, so I keep it to myself.