The Kiss Quotient(67)

Stella closed her fingers around the jar. Feeling a lot like Snow White with her apple, she brought it to her nose. On the first whiff, her eyes watered. It was fishy, shrimpy, and potent. Upon her second and third sniffs, however, the smell lost some of its force. “You just put it in the soup?”

M? spooned a dollop into Stella’s bowl. “Like this. And lime and chili sauce.” She squeezed lime in and added a spoonful of red spicy-looking sauce.

As she picked up her chopsticks and soup spoon, Michael watched her with wide, apologetic eyes. She mixed everything together, twirled the noodles around her chopsticks, and placed them in her spoon with broth like she’d seen Sophie do. Then she put it in her mouth.

It tasted . . . good. Salty, a little sweet, a little tangy. She grinned as she had another spoonful. “I like it.”

“It’s good, right?” Sophie asked. “High five, you.”

Stella high-fived Michael’s sister, feeling silly but also like she’d made up for refusing to eat the BPA-laced food. His mom was smiling, Ngo?i was mmmming, and Janie and Maddie were muttering to themselves.

“They refuse to try it,” M? said, pointing to the two youngest.

“It smells like death,” Janie said.

Maddie nodded emphatically. “Dead bodies.”

M? blasted them with a harsh string of Vietnamese, and both girls cowered.

Under the table, Michael squeezed her leg. He leaned toward her to whisper in her ear. “Do you really like it? You don’t have to eat it. I can get you something else.”

“I really do.” She’d still eat it even if she hated it, though. His mom looked proud and vindicated. And it wasn’t poisoned. Not that she knew of.

He brushed his lips over hers once before pulling away with a cough and a laugh. “I can smell it on you.”

She stuffed another spoonful in her mouth, glaring at him as she swiped the hair away from her face with a forearm.

“Here, let me get your hair.” He unlooped her rubber band from his wrist and gathered her hair away from her face in a ponytail.

“Thank you.”

He smiled and pinched her chin. By the look in his eyes, she knew he would have kissed her if his family hadn’t been watching—and she didn’t smell like Fine Shrimp Sauce and dead bodies.

“Gross, stop undressing her with your eyes,” Sophie said.

“Seriously,” Maddie chimed in.

“And since when do you keep rubber bands handy for her hair? Whipped much?” Janie added.

Stella contemplated diving into her soup bowl.

Michael merely shrugged and grinned. Then he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple.

Dinner passed in a blur as his sisters alternated between bickering and teasing. His mom interjected now and then with firm mediation or withering glances, but Stella had a feeling the woman was content. Once everyone had finished their soup and filled themselves with skinless grapefruit, M? ordered Janie and Maddie to clear the table and wash the dishes.

Michael took her hand, preparing to take her home, but his mom waved them toward the family room.

“Stella, I have something to show you.”

Michael groaned. “M?, no, not today.”

“What is it?” Stella was helplessly curious.

“How about next time?” Michael asked.

“He was really cute,” M? said.

“Baby pictures?” Stella all but danced in place. “Michael, I want to see them.”

He grudgingly followed as she towed him after his mom into the family room. M? handed Stella a fat picture album, and mother and son sat on either side of her on the couch.

She smoothed her fingers over the velvet cover of the album. The one her mom kept for her was almost identical to this one. It was the kind with sticky pages and the thin plastic cover sheet that peeled off. The first page was a grainy ultrasound printout and a picture of a wrinkle-faced infant who looked like he was a thousand years old. As the pages progressed, however, he cuted up quickly.

There were pictures of Ngo?i holding him, of him learning to walk and trying to pick up a watermelon. In one picture, chubby toddler Michael wore a little suit—was it his first suit?—in between a young couple. The woman was a very young, very beautiful version of his mom wearing a white traditional Vietnamese dress with pink flowers embroidered on the front. The man had to be his father. He was tall and blond and had Michael’s crooked grin.

“You were beautiful, M?,” Stella said, running her fingertips down the flowing dress. “I love the dress.”

“I still have that aó dài. You can take it home with you tonight if you want.”

“I can really have it?”

“It doesn’t fit me anymore, and Michael’s sisters aren’t interested. They only fought over the jewelry, but that’s all gone.” M?’s voice was subdued, and her eyes lingered over the blond man’s face. “This is Michael’s dad. Very handsome, ah?”

Michael turned the page without a word.

His chubbiness was gradually replaced with gangly limbs and male beauty. He smiled often and was full of life and fun. There were dozens of pictures of him and his baby sisters surrounded by passels of full-blooded Vietnamese cousins. He looked out of place next to them with his paler skin and non-Asian features, just as he must have looked out of place next to all of his peers at school for the exact opposite reasons. What had it been like not fitting in anywhere?