The Way You Make Me Feel(40)

Was it just me, or was this kitchen getting a bit too warm?

He glanced over at his grandmother then. “Whatever, Nainai. You’re American, too. She was born here,” he said to me.

“You think being born here seventy years ago is the same as being born here sixteen years ago, child? Stop bothering me and go check on Yeye. He wants to clean out the rain gutters with that back and those knees. Rain gutters in July!” She poked Hamlet with a long-handled wooden spoon. “Anyway, go tell him a story or something. He needs to rest if it kills him.”

I was still giggling when I followed Hamlet upstairs. His grandfather was lying down in a spacious bedroom with high ceilings and sliding doors leading to a balcony. It was sparsely furnished, with a luxurious Persian rug and two large Chinese landscape paintings.

He was playing video games in bed when we walked in. On a huge TV that could be seen from space.

“Hi, Yeye.” Hamlet bounded into the room and flopped down on the bed, making his grandfather groan and pause his game with a little beep-boop sound. “I brought my friend Clara to hang out.”

His grandfather looked up at me with a smile. “Hi, Clara. Fun first date, huh?” Unlike Hamlet’s grandma, his English was slightly accented. “Sorry you were forced to come here unnecessarily. I know Hamlet was looking forward to this.”

Hamlet kept his eyes on his grandpa, his face a mask of keep cool. “Anyway. Why are you insisting on cleaning rain gutters? Nainai’s about to put a tracker on you.”

“You know I like to drive her crazy,” he said with a wink.

Were Hamlet’s grandparents me?

He continued, sitting up straighter. “It’s not like I’m dying. Our rain gutters are packed. What if we have a summer rain?”

There was a second of silence before we all cracked up. Summer rain was simply not a thing here.

Hamlet and I chatted with his grandfather for a bit, then got pulled into playing a really creepy video game. It was so scary that I eventually crawled onto the bed next to Hamlet, making for some tight quarters. My knee brushed against his, and we sprang apart.

At one point Hamlet’s grandma hollered at us to come down for dinner. The table was laid out with a platter of that yummy toothpick lamb (given that name because each little piece had a toothpick poked into it for easy eating), bowls of rice, a dark red soup with dumplings, and a pile of steamed pea shoots.

Needless to say, I ate a lot. His grandparents were hilarious—bickering nonstop while placing food on each other’s plates. His grandpa even brushed a strand of hair out of his grandmother’s face, gently and with such love, before launching into a complaint about the dumplings in the soup being too cold.

I sat next to Hamlet, but barely talked to him as I shoveled seconds, then thirds, into my mouth.

“I’m impressed by your appetite!” Hamlet’s grandmother exclaimed at the end of the meal, nodding toward my absolutely pristine plate.

I looked down, a little sheepish. “I love to eat.”

“Good,” she said, getting up to clear our dishes. Her approval pleased me.

Hamlet jumped up from the table to take them from her. “Here, we’ll do that. You guys go watch a show and relax.”

“Thank you so much, everything was delicious. I’ll have to share your lamb recipe with my dad,” I said as I carried the dishes over to the sink.

“She never shares her recipes! Greedy,” Hamlet’s grandpa said with a belch.

Hamlet froze next to me at the sink so I whispered, “My dad and I have burp contests.”

The chair scraped loudly against the linoleum floor when his grandpa stood up. “You’re going to make your date do dishes?”

I held up a hand, already soapy. “He also said I’d have to do your laundry tonight, so…”

Both his grandparents cackled all the way to the family room. “She’s funny,” Hamlet’s grandpa declared, and I flushed with pleasure. The words to my heart.

Hamlet and I stood side by side washing the dishes, me scrubbing and Hamlet rinsing then drying.

“So, we have a dishwasher, but we never use it,” he said at one point, gesturing toward it.

I nodded. “Let me guess, you use it as a dish rack?”

“Yes! I thought it was a Chinese thing?”

“It is very much a non-American thing. My dad still inspects every dish afterward, like he’s trying to ‘catch it’ not working right.”

He laughed. “Your dad’s the best.”

“I guess,” I said, handing him a glass. “Your grandparents are pretty cool, too.”

“You’re probably wondering why I live with them.”

I scratched my face with a soapy hand. “Oh, um, yeah, that did occur to me.”

“My parents moved back to Beijing because their business was growing so much. That was a couple years ago. So now I live with these guys.” He lifted his chin toward the living room. “Who aren’t my real grandparents.”

I looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, they’re my parents’ friends’ parents. So, family friends, essentially.”

Hm. I turned the water on a little more forcefully. “Oh, okay.”

“I know that sounds weird to you. But my parents wanted me to stay here for my schooling.”