The Middlesteins(31)

They sat together at the table, her mother shifting herself in uncomfortably. Fresh pink tea roses floating in a small glass jar on the table. Robin picked up the menu, but Edie told her to put it down. “Just let them take care of it,” she said. “They’ll bring whatever’s good tonight.”

Robin looked around, at the framed black-and-white photographs of faraway cities that hung on the walls, the raw wood tabletops; it felt like a place she would go to in the city, and definitely not like a restaurant next door to a place called the Billy Goat Tavern.

“It’s kind of cool in here,” said Robin.

“It’s all Anna,” said her mother. “If her father had his way, it would look like every other Chinese restaurant in town. But Anna thinks she can get the yuppies in here.”

“Is it working?” said Robin.

“It’s not not working,” said her mother. “We’ll see.”

Not so long before, her mother had worked for the companies that opened these strip malls all over the suburbs. She knew the businesses well, had seen them come and go. Robin’s father, too, with his one pharmacy left after having three through the eighties and nineties, had his opinions on what made a business work. Robin would put her money on her mother’s opinion over her father’s any day of the week.

“He needs to advertise more. Spend a little more time on the Internet,” Edie said. “I’ve been helping them out. I did some paperwork for them. It was no big deal. I have too much time on my hands anyway.”

Suddenly Robin felt relief: Her mother had a life outside her home, outside of sitting there at that kitchen table, stewing in her own flesh, in the layers of hate and frustration and anger and heartbreak that she had been building up for so long. If she came here regularly, and she was helping people, then maybe she could be saved after all. Edie had always lived to help people, volunteering with the elderly, the synagogue, feeding the homeless every Christmas without fail. All those female political candidates she canvassed for. All those family members who needed pro bono work, and she did it without thinking, staying up late after Robin and her brother had gone to bed. God, where was that passionate, connected, committed woman? Robin missed her so. Was she right here? Sitting right in front of her? Was she still there under all that weight? Robin allowed herself to plant that tiny seed of hope within herself; she watered it with green tea, the bright lights of the Chinese restaurant sunning it.

A Chinese man in a chef’s jacket sidled out of the kitchen, long lines on his face, in his forehead, on his cheeks, arched eyebrows, a tender little mustache on his upper lip; wiping his hands on a towel he then tucked neatly under his arm.

“Edith,” he said.

Sure, thought Robin. It’s Edith on her driver’s license and her birth certificate and her voter’s registration card and then absolutely nowhere else in the world, so why not in this Chinese restaurant?

He stood before the table and then waited calmly until Edie invited him to join them, and then he slid in next to her, patted her hand just once, and crossed his on the table in front of him.

Robin wondered if her mother knew that this man was in love with her.

“You are the famous Robin,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “I am extremely famous.”

“I’m Kenneth Song,” he said. He studied her briefly, his eyes focusing into recognition, and then he broke into a small smile. “You look just like your mother,” he said.

It took a lot from Robin to keep her mouth shut right then, because she wanted to wrinkle her forehead and purse her lips and jerk her head back in disdain, the “Are you high?” look she’d been working on since she was in her teens, popular with no one but effective nonetheless. She wanted to say to him, How on earth do I look like a 350-pound woman?

But maybe he knew something she didn’t. Their eyes were still the same, after all, dark, intense bullets—you can’t hide the eyes—and their hair the same color and texture, black kinks down to their shoulders, and maybe they had the same smile. When they smiled.

Maybe he could see right through Edie, to what was underneath.

“Same eyes,” said Robin faintly.

“I have to go,” he said. “Big party coming in at seven.”

“That’s great!” said Edie.

He slid himself out of the booth, and, before he walked away, turned gracefully to Robin and said, “Your mother is a saint.”

Edie Middlestein, patron saint of Chinese joints everywhere. Well, thought Robin, if my mother lives in this alternate universe in this strip mall, at least it’s nice that they think she’s so amazing.

“He’s got quite a story,” said Edie, and she nodded approvingly at the value of such a thing. A story!

Anna came out of the kitchen and squinted up at the ceiling. “Too bright,” she said, and wandered off. A moment later the lights dimmed, the final piece of the atmosphere in place, and Robin felt herself ease slightly into her seat. The restaurant was adorable. She couldn’t believe that her mother had never brought her here before. She imagined briefly her whole family—minus her father, of course—dining here together, Benny and his wife and the kids. This would make her weekly trip to the suburbs more than tolerable. If there were a place they could all call their own together, in this unfortunate new phase of their lives.