Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune(54)

He grunted. “I haven’t decided yet if I will block your application. You’re saying the right things. Time will tell if your actions prove it.” He poured himself more tea. “I have to get back to work soon. Is there anything else you want to ask?”

The conversation so far had been civil—a stark contrast to our last encounter. This was my opportunity to ask about Laolao’s recipes. Old Wu had been my grandmother’s peer, and he must have known her.

“Is it true that you knew Laolao?” I asked.

Old Wu’s posture shifted. His shoulders straightened, and his voice thickened like stirred hoisin sauce. “Yes. She was a leader in the community when she ran her restaurant. She was the best cook, and I say this with pride as her former rival.”

“Did anyone ever get sick from her food or did something weird happen as a result of her cooking?”

“No.” He frowned. “Qiao was an impeccable chef.”

Warmth flooded my cheeks. “I mean, is it possible that—”

His lips clamped shut. “Are you questioning the legacy of your grandmother?”

A tremble crept into my voice, the kind of weakness I didn’t want to show the old man. “No, it’s not that. I was just—”

“You act as if it’s your right to claim Qiao’s legacy. She may have been your grandmother, but you and your mother forsook everything she worked so hard for. And you plan on reopening her restaurant? Running a business is not a hobby where you can take time off whenever you like. It requires great commitment. Did you even have financing in place?”

I wanted to say I was working on it, but the words stuck in my throat as if I had swallowed lotus seed paste.

“If you’re going to run it like a hobby, don’t bother. If that is the case, I will do everything in my power to block your application. Running a restaurant is hard work. Nothing your generation is used to. You don’t even know how much money it takes to run the business and keep it afloat.” Every point pricked, scraping the delicate skin of my collarbone hidden underneath my blouse. The tiny cuts bled, stinging.

Was I truly unworthy to inherit my grandmother’s legacy? Was that the reason the recipes had failed to work for me?

“Tell me, Tan girl,” he said. “Why do you want to run the restaurant?”

The answer eluded me. What had once seemed so clear was now lost in a fog of anxiety and doubt. My shoulders rolled inward. I wanted to disappear, to vanish like grains of sea salt into a hot broth.

The old man rapped his knuckles against the tablecloth. “Well?”

I blinked and stammered, “I care about the neighborhood.”

He muttered something unintelligible under his breath, his inflection implying a curse. His hand on the table curled into a fist. Though Old Wu was in his seventies, he possessed a strength cultivated from a life with little leisure. As far as everyone in Chinatown knew, he’d never taken a day off. The restaurant never closed, even for Chinese New Year. His was one of the oldest and most successful businesses in the area. And I was nothing.

“You are lazy, irresponsible, and selfish.” The old man spat out the words as if he were spitting out salted watermelon seeds. “All you ever did was run away. You left home and never looked back. You tell me you care about the neighborhood now? Where were you when your neighbors had to scramble to feed their families? Did you help then? No, because you were traveling, seeing the world, and not caring about what happened here. You abandoned them. You are a disgrace to your family’s legacy. Just like your mother.”

“I care about the neighborhood and the people in it.” And my mother.

He scoffed. “You care about your guilt. You ruined their lives as much as you ruined your mother’s.”

Ma-ma. I wanted him to stop, but my cowardice rendered me mute.

“She threw everything away after your grandmother died. She should have honored her mother by running the restaurant. Instead, she closed it. She abandoned her duty and shut herself in to avoid the shame of disappointing the community. Your grandmother worked hard to make something from nothing, and then you and your mother profited from her while disrespecting her legacy. Selfish. So selfish. Everything you have, you did not earn. You, like your mother, are carrion feeding off your grandmother’s corpse!”

I wiped my face with the back of my hand. His words cut into my skin, leaving a swath of tiny lacerations across my collarbones. Blood bloomed against the cotton weave of my blouse and mingled with the tears of my sorrow and shame.

I stumbled out of the restaurant sobbing with a wounded heart.



* * *





?I ran home, over the fractures in the sidewalk, past the shops. I fished inside my purse for the keys to unlock the restaurant door. The crisscross cuts on my collarbones stung, but the psychological wounds hurt even more. Old Wu’s accusations held kernels of truth that I couldn’t deny: I had ruined my neighbors’ lives, Laolao’s recipes were backfiring because of me, and I was underqualified to run a restaurant. Worst of all, I was responsible for my mother dying alone.

The door unlocked and I slipped inside.

Smoke!

Puffy dark clouds billowed from the kitchen, spilling into the dining room area. Under the thick veil of black, flashes of orange burst through. The fire was coming from the stove.

My grandmother’s recipe book and her photograph were beside it. My family’s history had begun with this heirloom, and I would not be the one to lose it. Shielding my eyes and nose, I plunged forward into the gray, gulping, gasping, burning with each breath. It was as if I were swimming through deep waters, my arms moving in strokes to clear the clouds while my lungs screamed for air.