Eight
QIANG WEN
Qiang Wen has just finished washing the last of his dirty cookware when the front door swings open with a tinkle. “We are closed,” he calls out from the back without looking up. He shakes his head. Did he forget to flip the sign from Open to Closed ? He swears, his memory is getting worse by the day.
“Lei hou, Qiang Wen,” a familiar voice says.
Qiang Wen pops his head out of the kitchen and pauses in surprise when he sees Vera Wong standing in his little dumpling shop. “Ah, Vera,” he says in Cantonese. “Long time no see. How are you doing?”
“Good, good.” Vera smiles at him. “And you?”
“Same old.” He wipes his hands on a towel and heads out into the shop area, where, for a painful moment, the two of them stare at each other awkwardly. He’s always been friendly with Vera, but they could never be accused of being friends. He was much closer to her late husband, Jinlong, and she much closer to his late wife, Yi Mei. “So, what can I do for you? If you’re here to pick up some dinner, I do have some leftover dumplings. I usually have them for dinner myself. Let’s see…”
“Oh, no. Actually, I came by to invite you over for dinner.”
Qiang Wen stops moving. He peers at her. A dinner invitation from Vera? How curious. “What’s the occasion?”
Vera licks her lips. She looks like she’s struggling to find the right words to say what she’s about to say, which is very strange, because for as long as he’s known her, Qiang Wen has never seen Vera at a loss for words. She usually has the opposite problem, in fact. “Well,” she says finally, “I thought maybe you’d want some company, given the tragedy.”
“Tragedy?” Dread seeps through Qiang Wen’s stomach. “What’s happened? Is everything okay?”
Vera gives him a funny look. “Well, everything is okay with me, yes, but you’re the one who has suffered a great loss.”
“I—what?”
And now Vera looks vexed. “Your grandson, Xander? Thomas? What was his name?”
For a moment, the only thing going through Qiang Wen’s mind is Grandson? Then it all sinks in with horrible coldness. “Xander. What about him? Has something happened?”
Vera’s eyebrows have disappeared into her fluffy gray hair. “Are you telling me the police didn’t even inform you about his death?”
It feels as though there is a slab of stone weighing several tons squashing Qiang Wen’s shoulders. With some effort, he manages to stagger to a chair. He collapses onto it. “His death?”
“Oh. Oh no. You didn’t know. Oh, Qiang Wen, I am so sorry. I wouldn’t have—I would’ve—I’m sorry.”
Qiang Wen squeezes his eyes shut, covering his face with one hand. He’s vaguely aware of his hands shaking, and he only hopes Vera would assume they’re shaking out of intense grief. Because the main thing blaring in his mind isn’t My god, Xander is dead. It’s What have I done?
He sits there for goodness knows how long, guilt searing an excruciating path round and round in his mind. After a while, he becomes aware of Vera patting him gently on the arm.
“Qiang Wen, you must be strong. The police haven’t been able to identify Xander, so they haven’t notified his family. You’ll have to tell his parents.”
“I…” Qiang Wen looks at Vera helplessly. “I can’t.”
Vera looks like she’s trying very hard to hold herself back from saying something. Her mouth turns into a thin line and moves like she’s literally biting back her words. Then she says, “Well, surely you can’t leave his parents wondering what’s happened to him. His mother is your daughter, right? You wouldn’t want her to suf—”
“She’s not my daughter!” Qiang Wen snaps.
Vera falls silent. She clears her throat. “Ah. Has there been a falling out?”
“No, you don’t understand. I—” Qiang Wen struggles with what to tell her. “I don’t know who Xander’s parents are.”
“But he’s your grandson?”
Qiang Wen winces. “Not by blood.”
“Oh.” Vera leans back. “I see. An adopted grandson.”
Qiang Wen doesn’t answer. The less Vera knows, the better. Once more, his focus goes toward the heavy black lump sitting in his belly. Xander is dead. And Qiang Wen knows, no matter what anyone tells him, it is all his fault.
“You better come with me,” Vera says after a while.
“Huh?”
“I came here to invite you to dinner, remember? The food will get cold. Come, grab your jacket. And if you don’t mind, I’ll just pack up those leftover dumplings and add them to the menu I’ve prepared for tonight.”
Qiang Wen gapes wordlessly as Vera bustles to the kitchen, already whipping out a container and a pair of chopsticks seemingly out of thin air. She opens the massive steamer without asking for permission and begins collecting the dumplings in her container. “These look great, Qiang Wen! Still the same juicy dumplings after all these years.” When the container is full, she closes it with a quick snap and comes back out. “Got your jacket? Ah, here it is.” She grabs it from the hook and drapes it over his shoulders. “Let’s go, mustn’t keep the others waiting.”
“The others?” Qiang Wen must be in a dream. Or a trance. Or some kind of fugue state. And he’s somewhat grateful for Vera’s unquestionable confidence; now that she has dropped a bomb in his life by telling him about Xander’s death, she isn’t merely leaving him to spiral in his thoughts like he surely would. She’s leading him, as though he were a helpless child, to what sounds like a big dinner, and maybe that’s just what he needs right now? He has no idea, but here he is, locking up his shop and hurrying after Vera.
“Oh yes, the others. They are quite a funny group of people. I think you will like them.” She glances at him sideways. “Or maybe not. I don’t know, but you will like the food, anyway.” With that, she brisk-walks down the block with so much enthusiasm that Qiang Wen has to jog to keep up with her.
···
As Vera predicted, Qiang Wen does like the food. He likes it a lot. When Yi Mei was alive, their meals used to be more like this—varied, with at least five or six dishes to accompany the white rice they ate daily. After she died, Qiang Wen stuck only to leftover dumplings. To be clear, his dumplings are nothing to be scoffed at. They are juicy and flavorful and made from scratch every morning, and he makes six different fillings, so there’s some variety, at least. But all he’s had for the last twelve years are dumplings. Dumplings for breakfast, dumplings for lunch, and dumplings for dinner. His daughter asked him once if he wasn’t tired of dumplings, and he’d wanted to tell her that he saw food only as sustenance, that he ate without really tasting, so what did it matter if he was eating the same thing every day?
But now he finds himself sitting at a table surrounded by strangers. “A funny group of people,” Vera had said, and they truly are, just not in the ha-ha sort of way, but more in the why-is-everybody-here sort of way. He’s still in a daze, and it’s a struggle to remember who everyone is. The Latino man sitting on his left is named TJ, and next to TJ is his teenage daughter, Robin. On Qiang Wen’s right is Vera, and on Vera’s other side is a young Caucasian woman named Amy or something like that, and then on Amy’s other side is a young Asian woman named Millie, who looks like she might jump out of her seat and run away at any moment. Though, Qiang Wen supposes, the same could be said for any of them, really. None of them look like they’re delighted about being here.
And yet, for some strange reason, here they all are, and none of them is making a move to leave. It’s got to be some sort of spell. Maybe Vera is some sort of deity, or maybe some cunning fox spirit in the guise of an older woman. Her food is certainly bewitching. The past few years, food has turned to ash as soon as it enters Qiang Wen’s mouth. He’s been chewing for years without tasting. But now, as he sits there wordlessly, Vera heaps different steaming dishes onto his plate—spicy Mouthwatering Chicken, cold peanut noodles, braised beef shank, tea-flavored eggs—and for the first time in years, Qiang Wen is eating first with his eyes. He stares at each dish with newfound wonderment. They’re all familiar, all of them things that Yi Mei had made before, and yet they’re also different. Gingerly, he takes a small bite of the chicken, and true to its name, his mouth waters, his taste buds bursting to life. He chokes back a sudden urge to start sobbing and quickly takes a sip of tea.
“Now, Aimes,” Vera is saying to the blond girl. “You stay away from the chicken, is too spicy for white people.”
“That’s—you can’t say that,” Robin says. “That’s playing on stereotypes.”
“What is that? Stereo what?”
“Stereotype. Like, making an assumption based on someone’s race.”
Vera looks confused. “So, what I should be making assumption based on? Age?”
“That would be ageist,” TJ says helpfully.
“Okay,” Vera says. “So, base on sex?”
Everyone except for Qiang Wen (who is in all honesty rather lost at this point) groans. “No, that would be sexist,” Aimes says. “Anyway, it’s fine, we can move on from this. I can take spice.”
“So, sexist is not same as sexy?” Vera muses as she places some chicken on Aimes’s plate. “I always thought that when people tell me I am sexist, they mean I am very sexy.”
Qiang Wen wonders about the etiquette of leaping up and running away. Around him, faces are still, like everyone is wondering the same thing.
“Yeah,” Robin says finally. “That’s not what they meant when they said that.”
“Aiya. And here I have been thinking: Oh, good job, Vera, over sixty years old and people still finding you sexy, like Michelle Yeoh.”
TJ looks horrified at the combination of the words “Vera” and “sexy.” Qiang Wen can hardly blame him; Qiang Wen’s own cheeks are burning with embarrassment. But then he takes a bite of the tea-steeped eggs, and he wants to weep because he feels like a little boy again, running indoors after an afternoon spent climbing trees and biting into a tea egg. He can almost feel the comforting pat of his mother’s hand on his head as he chews. He’s forgotten what food made with love tastes like.
“Everyone have some dumplings,” Vera says, plopping the dumplings on their plates. “Qiang Wen made them especially for tonight.”
A bald-faced lie, but Qiang Wen doesn’t trust his own voice to say anything, so he merely nods and watches as they all bite into his dumplings. There are murmurs of appreciation, and again that feeling of needing a good cry comes over him. These young people remind him of Xander. Qiang Wen sees in his mind’s eye the look of delight on Xander’s face when he first bit into a pork-and- chive dumpling. He had spoken so enthusiastically, with such sincerity. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? He was such a charismatic kid. And Qiang Wen is a foolish and lonely old man. His daughter and grandkids are on the East Coast and unlikely to ever move back, and all that’s left for Qiang Wen to do is tick along until, one day, he stops ticking.
“These are really good. Thank you, Uncle,” Millie says to him.
“Yeah, these are delicious,” Aimes says, popping a whole dumpling into her mouth.
Qiang Wen nods, still unable to speak for the lump in his throat.
“Not to be rude,” Robin says in that monotone way that teens have perfected over centuries, “but why are we here again? I mean, food’s great, thanks, but seriously, who are you? Who are all of you? My dad won’t tell me shi—”
“Language,” TJ jumps in. He gives everyone an apologetic grimace. “Uh, sorry about her.”
“She speak her mind; I think that is good thing,” Vera says. She nods at Robin. “I tell you who I am. I am Vera Wong, famous tea connoisseur and intermediate murder investigator.”
They all stare at Vera. Qiang Wen’s mind moves like sludge as he tries to work out what she’s just said. Even after decades of living in America, Qiang Wen’s grasp on the English language, though on the whole pretty solid, isn’t good enough to capture the finer details. Did she really just say “intermediate murder investigator,” or was that some subtle English joke that Qiang Wen can never seem to understand? Qiang Wen raises his hand slowly, like a hesitant schoolboy.
“Yes, Qiang Wen?”
“What do you mean, ‘intermediate murder investigator’?”
“Good question!” Vera beams at him. “Well, I am not quite a professional because no one has pay me to investigate murder yet. I’m sure they will start paying me soon, but now I will do the investigation to expose myself.”
They all stare at her some more, the awkwardness growing in the room until it’s almost a solid presence. Then TJ clears his throat and says, “Uh, Vera, did you mean you’re doing it for exposure?”
“Yes, that is what I say. You young people need to listen better. Anyway, I am not amateur investigator, because I already solve a big murder case last year. Even the police cannot figure it out. They say, ‘Vera, only you can solve this because you are a Chinese mother, you are very good at sniffing out wrongdoing.’?”
“The police said that to you?” Robin says in a tone of voice that clearly sounds unconvinced.
“More or less,” Vera says, completely unbothered by Robin. “Anyway, so now we are investigating new murder.”
“We?” Aimes says.
“Well, mostly me. Because you all still beginner. Also, you all might be suspect, I don’t know. Last year I make mistake and think this person is suspect, that person is suspect; now I learn from experience. I don’t anyhow accuse you all of being suspect. Even though you might be.” She gives them all a stern look.
The back of Qiang Wen’s neck crawls as his skin breaks out in a cold sweat. He’s somewhat dazed by what Vera has said, and he’s only about seventy percent sure that Vera isn’t actually able to read people’s minds as easily as one would a glowing neon sign. His sign would read, I AM GUILTY . He shrinks lower onto his seat and wonders if Vera is in good enough shape to pounce on him if he were to make a break for it.
“Wha—” TJ sputters. “When you said to bring my daughter and come by for a home-cooked meal, this wasn’t what I was expecting.”
“Well, is dinner and a show,” Vera says. “You know, is good to underpromise and overdeliver. This is business advice for you, TJ.”
“Cool,” Robin says. “So, whose murder are we investigating?”
Vera’s smile widens into a shark’s grin. “I like you. You can be my apprentice. And now, let us begin.”