Amelia had never actually had true, authentic Chinese food; it had always been the Americanized version which she had described, not inaccurately, as “chopped-up stuff with syrup on it.” Someone in a mom’s group who’d moved to Portland from Hangzhou had a little reluctantly suggested Xianghe, saying it was excellent food, very authentic; but that it was Hunan cuisine, which could get, the woman had said, “pretty spicy.”
Which is how Amelia, Gabriella, and Kyle found themselves in the back corner of the Xianghe restaurant, with Kyle in a low-level pride war with the waitress.
The menu – which the three of them had had to wade their way through based on pictures and Google Translate – offered a spiciness range of one through twenty-five. Kyle, proclaiming his love of spicy food, and wanting to go all in on the experience, ordered a stir-fry dish called Gan Guo and asked for a spiciness level of twenty.
The waitress, a small woman in her mid-forties with a pinched face, looked at him sternly when he ordered. She shook her head. “No, not twenty,” she said in a slight accent. “You can have nine.”
Kyle looked at her for a moment. There were only three other tables occupied at the moment, and another nine still empty in the small restaurant. The loudest noise was coming from the kitchen where the crew was simultaneously prepping and cooking.
“I what?” Kyle said, surprised.
“Twenty is too spicy for you.”
“Um,” Kyle said. “I mean, I get that it’s spicy. I like spicy food. I really do. I really think I’ll be fine with twenty. Thanks,” he added nicely.
She shook her head and wrote on her pad, saying, “Nine.”
This got a small laugh from Gabriella and Amelia. Gabriella Garcia said, “You might want to listen to her.”
Kyle was having none of it. “I fully agree that Americans are heat-wimps,” he said. “I am not a heat-wimp. I will be fine.” He sat back. “Thank you,” he added, this time with more of a tone of accusation than gratitude.
“I’ll be going” Amelia said, leaning in, “with the chang-sha noodles with a spiciness level of two, please.” She set the yellowed, dog-eared menu on the table. “Maybe just whisper the names of the peppers and spices over my meal.”
The waitress glanced at her and wrote that down, darting her eyes back to Kyle. “Twelve,” the waitress said. “No more.”
“Seventeen,” Kyle countered.
She pointed her pen at him. “No one gets twenty or up unless we know them personally. I don’t know you at all. I go fourteen, and that’s all you go.”
Kyle thought for a moment and handed his menu to her. “Fourteen. Sounds good. I can’t wait.”
Gabriella ordered and the waitress left them.
“What are you doing?” Amelia hissed at Kyle.
“She doesn’t know me!” he responded defensively. “Maybe I lived in, like, Thailand for several years! Maybe I’ve won chili pepper eating contests!”
Amelia dipped her fingers in her water glass and flicked water at him. “You didn’t.” Flick. “And you haven’t.”
“Maybe,” Gabriella continued, snidely, “You’re a Balrog, one of those fire demons in Lord of the Rings. She doesn’t know!”
“Okay, now,” Kyle replied, holding up a finger. “There could be lots of reasons I’m up for it.”
“Well, way to turn our authentic Chinese meal into an international incident,” Gabriella said.
“I’m a patriot, is what you’re saying,” Kyle replied.
Amelia said, “Let’s just enjoy the fact that we’re together before all the embargos and espionage starts.” Then she added softly, “I kind of wish everyone could have made it. I’m sure they had good reasons, though.”
It had been many years since their entire friend group had gotten together. Since their divorce a couple years earlier, Sloan and Gabriella had either taken turns or deferred to one another. Their divorce had been largely amicable, if still terribly sad, but it was too strange for them to be around each other. Too many open wounds for them to affect any kind of ease.
James was now in Colorado and David was in Palo Alto doing God knows what for Thred, a social media platform that was rapidly threatening to be the heir to the Facebook throne. But more than physical distance it had just been entropy.
Gabriella responded to Amelia, “Life does get full of stuff, doesn’t it?” She felt the need to continue, as if Sloan’s absence was her ‘fault.’ “I know Sloan is jealous; he’s always wanted to try authentic Chinese and never has. I offered he could come instead,” she added hastily. “But he was insistent.”
“Has, um,” Amelia asked, hesitantly, “Has everyone been keeping up with David? On Thred, I mean? Obviously, you’ve been getting his texts and emails.”
“When he responds,” Kyle added.
“Yeah,” Gabriella said. There was a moment of uneasy silence. “I can’t figure out who he is. His texts are so, well, out there, and then online it’s just… like… sanitized? Like a computer is crafting his posts.”
Kyle nodded. “I asked him about that. He says he wants to stay connected but refuses to put anything that reveals information about himself on social media. Apparently – and I thought he was kidding at first – he proofreads his posts to make sure there’s nothing personal in them; and if there is, that it’s not too honest. Sometimes, he said, he puts in conflicting things. To trick the algorithm.”
The tea came and when Gabriella reached for it, Amelia stopped her, explaining that they had to fill each other’s tea and water. That it was Chinese tradition. As she poured Gabriella tea she said, “So, why does he do that? I mean, if the guy who helps design social media is afraid to put anything personal on there, should we be, too?”
Gabriella shook her head. “He’s gotten so paranoid, remember that rant, Amelia? Last year? Kyle, you weren’t there, he was, like, mumbling about his mind being his asset and he had to fight against it being co-opted and corrupted.” She took a sip of tea. “It got really uncomfortable.”
They sat with this for a moment.
The food arrived, sizzling and seeming to consume the air with complex aromas. Kyle looked at his food. It even looked hot. It smelled intense. He smiled at the waitress. She smiled back. “Looks good!” he said with a little too much cheeriness. Neither Amelia nor Gabriella ate, because they were watching Kyle. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I,” Kyle said as the waitress left, still holding his smile.
There were enthusiastic nods and murmurs of agreement.
He took a bite and considered for a moment. He gave short nod and swallowed. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Okay, that’s definitely the hottest thing I’ve ever eaten, but I may survive.”
They began eating and exploring each other’s food. It was an interesting blend of familiar and surprising to each of them, and all of them agreed it was impressively made. It resembled the Chinese food they’d had in the past in almost no ways.
Amelia said, “Speaking of survival, it was neat to see the bookstore doing okay when I was in there.” Even as the six of them had drifted over the years, Amelia had made it a point to periodically come in to Gael’s Corner, Gabriella’s bookstore, named for her father who’d been a literature professor before coming to the US.
Just bringing up the store caused a stress response in Gabriella. She loved owning a bookstore, but she was out of her element, and it didn’t help that every time she told someone about it, they made some little joke to the effect of “I don’t if you’ve heard about this whole ‘Internet’ thing.’
Gabriella said, “I don’t know. I’m hanging on. Yeah. There’s some regulars, but I wonder if I opened it for the right reasons.” She thought about that. “Or rather, the wrong right reasons.” She laughed a little. “I think there should be little bookstores. I wanted to make one exist. I wanted to curate it. Inhabit it.” She sighed. “And I wanted to open it for my dad, you know? He would have been really proud of it.” She thought on that for a moment. “My interest isn’t really in the sales, and that may sink me.”
Amelia smiled. “That’s very you. Righteous quest until the end.”
Gabriella started to respond about her, ironically, being too busy to actually be involved with the community service groups she’d always been a part of, when she was interrupted by Kyle letting out a half-breath, half-moan.
“Oh Christ,” he said quietly. He looked at the table. “It’s, um, it’s heating up. Oh, hell.” He looked at the others, his face a little flushed. Everyone stared at him, unsure how to react. “What the fuck are these chilis? These were, like, grown in soil fertilized with the blood of psychopaths. Anybody want a bite?” he asked. “Please?”
Amelia let out a small laugh of decline.
Gabriella said, “You know, sure. I’ll try one.”
“You’re an angel,” Kyle said, scooping up the biggest bite he could. She talked him down to half the amount he was trying to give her.
She took the bite and assessed calmly for a minute, then her eyes got big and she started to cough and laugh at the same time. She frantically scooped some rice to chase it down. After she’d swallowed, she looked at Kyle with pity and almost fear. “Holy God, Kyle. That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever eaten.” She poked a finger in to her chest. “And I’m Mexican.”
Kyle said, “No way that’s fourteen. She went back there like, ‘That tubby son of a bitch thinks he can handle Hunan food?’” He downed some water. “And now I have to eat it all to prove a point.”
“You know water doesn’t help, right?” Gabriella said.
Kyle shot her an accusing look. “Really, Gabriella? You’re going to give me logic and facts right now? You think that’s what I need? I need cold things.”
Amelia said, “Get your mind of it. Um…” she thought for a second. “How’s your mom doing?”
Kyle breathed out slowly. “I don’t understand how she can still keep functioning, physically. Her mind is so far gone.” He took a couple breaths, calming a little. “She has two or three conversation loops she can engage in, but that’s it. I hate the sense of waiting for her body to give out.” Without thinking he took another bite. “We try to visit every couple of—oh, okay,” he spat. “Nope, not going to be distracted. Definitely…” He trailed off and sat back with forced casualness.
Just a moment later, the waitress came by holding a pitcher. “More water?” she asked, looking specifically at Kyle.
Kyle adopted the face of someone who’d never really given the idea of water much thought. “Oh, sure, I suppose. Long as you’re here. Thanks.”
She filled the water with a look of satisfaction and left.
“Hag,” Kyle said, slouching down and drinking the entire glass of water. “Twenty bucks says my spices didn’t even come from the same cabinet as yours. Mine had to be unlocked with two keys turned simultaneously by the cooks. Spices with no names. You can’t look directly at them or they’ll blind you.”
They continued, moving on from Kyle’s mother, instead talking about the food and trying bites of each other’s dishes, pausing periodically to watch Kyle’s struggle. They alternated between deep satisfaction at his suffering, and concern for his well-being. At one point he scooped some of the food into his napkin and went to the restroom. When he returned and sat down, Amelia asked if he’d flushed his food.
“Yeah, obviously,” he replied. “I also drank a fuck-ton of water from the sink.”
Repulsed, Amelia asked, “You drank from the tap of a public bathroom?”
Gabriella added, “How many kinds of hepatitis are there? ‘Cause you’ve got them all.”
“That’s later,” Kyle waved off. “I’ve got to worry about right now. I think convincing her I’m tough as hell is out the window, but if I can avoid vomiting, then I’ve accomplished something.” He reluctantly lifted another forkful. “For America.”
They resumed normal conversations, mostly comparing kid stories and what was new with work. At one point, Gabriella took out her reading glasses to check her phone, and there was a moment of recognition. After the other two had finished, Kyle reached a point at which he felt he could shuffle some bits of food around his plate and it would look like he’d nearly finished. He didn’t look great. Red-faced and glistening. But he hadn’t thrown up.
They paid the check, and the waitress and Kyle exchanged a look. He smiled and gave her a little nod. The tiniest smirk reached her lips, but no more. Kyle was unclear if it was an acknowledgment of respect or triumph. Perhaps a little of both. Kyle felt he could live with being the vanquished foe who fought honorably.
They stepped out into the evening air and Kyle held his arms out. “Oh, that air feels good.” He shook his head. “Between the peppers and spices and water-toxicity level of fluid consumption, my bathroom visits are going to be legendary tonight.”
Amelia pulled a face. “Seriously, Kyle? Gross.”
Kyle let the breeze cool him for another moment, his eyes closed. “You know, my grandmother on my mother’s side was a Balrog.”
“Oh yeah?” Gabriella replied, flatly.
“I’m actually kind of sensitive about it.”
They started walking toward the downtown business district. They spent much of the walking observing the places that were still there, and the ones that had vanished. Mary’s Club, still there. Satyricon and Berbati’s Pan, gone. Kell’s, still there. Shanghai Tunnel, gone.
“It’s funny,” Gabriella said. “A few years ago, I went into this coffee shop I used to go to. And it was like, I not only fully expected not only the same employees to be there, it was like I expected them to still be the same age. I felt this brief flash of self-consciousness that I’d look so much older to them.”
Kyle nodded, “Sounds like the mirror thing – where you look in the mirror and think, ‘wow, I look old from this angle.’ So, you change angles trying to find one where you don’t look old? Then change again?”
As they walked, they passed a group of people in their early-20s. They were all laughing and buzzing with energy. Gabriella watched them and wondered how they’d look to their younger selves if they passed each other on the street. She could remember looking at older people like they’d somehow failed. As if age was punishment for their compromises and mediocrity. And now here they were: the long hair and combat boots gone; gaining weight here, balding there; aching joints and kids. And yet they seemed so much fuller and more complex than when they were younger. So much more at peace with who they were.
When Gabriella focused on the things she had in her life, she was largely happy. It was when she focused on the things she didn’t have that he grew sad or resentful. And of all the gifts this encroaching middle-age brought, an ease for seeing the things she did have was perhaps the most gracious. She’d finally come to make peace with her mom trying, in her flawed way, to protect Gabriella from all the things that had made life so difficult for her dad after they’d come to the US; but doing so the only way she could think to – by endlessly pushing her to blend in. To never draw attention or be too “ethnic.”
It had caused a lot of pain for Gabriella, but one of the great gifts of aging was the sad peace of understanding and self-acceptance. But, nonetheless, it was a melancholy sensation knowing that you’d had your turn at youth, and that turn was over.
Kyle said, “The other night I had to put on reading glasses to tweeze my ear hair.”
Amelia and Gabriella burst out laughing.
“Did you, now,” Gabriella replied.
Kyle nodded and stretched out his arms to cool himself again, starting to look his natural color again. “Every part of that experience makes you feel good about yourself.”
Joel Clements 