Soy Sauce for Beginners Read online

  I was afraid I’d gone on for too long, and was relieved that this little story made Suzanne Silver smile.

  “Listen,” she said. “I love the history and the anecdotes behind this sauce. It’s exactly what we’re looking for.” She dug around in her leather satchel and whisked out a business card, and even though I knew whom she worked for, seeing the words printed on that square of cardstock made me want to do cartwheels up and down the aisle.

  Suzanne Silver explained that Melody’s Christmas episode was the most popular one of the season. “It’s a wonderful opportunity, especially for less established businesses,” she said, as if I didn’t already know what this publicity could do for Lin’s and our premium sauces.

  I handed over a business card of my own—my last one—and packed up bottles of our light and dark sauces for Suzanne Silver to take back to Melody.

  She waved a hand over the row of bottles on the table. “Melody would love all this,” she said. “The battle between art and commerce, tradition and innovation.” Her eyes lit up. “Oh, that’s good.” She wrote this down, too.

  I tried to share more details about our factory and our production process—anything she could possibly want to know—but she smiled kindly and said she thought she had enough for now. Before she left, she said, “So, how do you know Jenny?”

  I told her Jenny and I were classmates at the conservatory.

  Suzanne Silver slid the clipboard in the front pocket of her leather satchel. “Jenny’s still in school. So you graduated?”

  I kept my words vague. “Actually, I do this now,” I said as I straightened a bottle that was out of line.

  The girl seemed satisfied with my answer. She promised to call if she had any news and clicked swiftly out of the hall on high-heeled pumps. As I watched her disappear through the double doors, I imagined the looks on my cousin’s and uncle’s faces if I managed to pull this off. And then I pictured Ma’s reaction. “Aiyah, why are they always whining and sniveling on that show?” she’d say, refusing to admit her affection for Melody. “Good work, ducky.”

  The day after the trade show closed, I’d planned to continue my apartment search. Instead, with the rain showing no sign of ceasing, I sat in my hotel room, reading everything I could find about Melody, compiling a list of all the products she’d recommended in the past decade: hand-poured paraffin-wax candles from France, ultralight premium down jackets, Hawaiian organic raw honey. Once an hour, I checked my email to see if Paul had written back. Only one new email arrived—from James—a mass email addressed to probably his entire list of contacts, notifying us of the upcoming soft opening of Spice Alley restaurant. Twice I called the number on Suzanne Silver’s business card to see if she needed any more information about Lin’s, but she never answered the phone.

  On the penultimate day of my trip, I left the hotel to meet a particularly persistent realtor in the Mission, and emerged from the underground BART station into a stream of watery sunlight that had somehow broken through the clouds. All around me, Latina mothers cried out in Spanish to chubby toddlers, old bearded men argued over chessboards, and hipsters in tight pants hurried to jobs that began in the middle of the day.

  As I stood there in the center of the plaza with my chin raised to the sky, the clouds parted, revealing the full face of the sun. All at once, the wind died down, the air grew warm as an embrace. I yanked my sweater over my head, plunged a hand in my bag, plucked out my cell phone, and called Paul.

  Back at the hotel, I showered, shaved, blow-dried, curled, tweezed, powdered and smoothed on a black jersey dress which, at the last minute, I’d tucked between the dark trousers and suit jackets as my father had looked on, his face betraying nothing.

  Earlier on the phone, Paul didn’t explain why he’d never responded to my email, saying only that he’d love to see me. I felt foolish revealing the reservation I’d made, and sure enough, when I blurted out the restaurant’s name, he seemed to hesitate.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked in the lightest tone I could muster. “You need permission to leave the house?”

  The silence continued on the other end. Then he said, “Actually, she’s not here right now.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant, and I wasn’t about to ask.

  “She’s been staying with a friend. She needs to be closer to campus.”

  A knot loosened in my chest. I didn’t need more details.

  I left the hotel early—traffic on the Bay Bridge was unpredictable—and pulled into a parking lot with ten minutes to spare. Sitting in my rental car, I watched couples stream out of Andronico’s with reusable grocery sacks and insulated wine totes. Two kids in Cal sweatshirts got in the neighboring car and proceeded to make out for a full three minutes. At first I averted my eyes, not wanting them to catch me staring, but when it grew clear that I’d have to pound on the window and yell before they’d pay any attention to me, I watched how the boy inhaled the girl’s mouth into his own, how his hands moved over her, reading the curves of her body like Braille.

  After a while, the boy turned on the ignition, placed a hand on the passenger-side headrest, and began to back out. Before returning his hand to the steering wheel he ruffled the girl’s hair, and that casual gesture filled me with more longing than anything else I’d witnessed.

  It was two minutes to seven, time to go inside.

  I emerged from the car, smoothed the wrinkles from my dress, and when I reached for my purse, the Queen of the Night’s aria burst forth from my cell phone. The number was unlisted; I knew I had to answer.

  It was Suzanne Silver, sounding slightly breathless, as though she’d sprinted up a flight of stairs. Melody had loved the soy sauce and the packaging and the family history. “She wants to meet you in person, and ASAP. Can you come by the office the day after tomorrow?”

  I almost said yes, but then I realized that in two days I’d be on a plane back to Singapore.

  “I see,” said Suzanne Silver.

  I wondered how difficult it would be to change my flight.

  “Let me check her calendar,” she said. “Would you mind holding?”

  On TV, Melody was energetic yet serene, comforting yet stern—the cool, big sister you always wished you had. In real life, she had to be different: ruthless, efficient. Wasn’t that how these things worked? How many other products had made the cut? How close was Lin’s to actually getting on air?

  I hadn’t mentioned these developments to my uncle in case nothing panned out. Even if Melody ended up choosing us, we’d still need to consider how Lin’s would handle the jump in sales, and export bottles quickly enough, and channel short-term momentum into long-term interest. I paced the gravel by my car, scanning the parking lot for Paul’s green Subaru. I wasn’t surprised he was late.

  Suzanne Silver returned to the phone. “Melody’s leaving for the airport in an hour. If you come right over, you can get in the limo with her. She’ll chat with you on the way there.” She proceeded to give me the address to the mansion I’d driven past several times before.

  “Hang on,” I said. “You mean right now?”

  “I mean right now.”

  Just then I noticed Paul’s dusty red road bike chained to the rack.

  “Well?” said Suzanne Silver.

  “I’ll be there,” I heard myself say, wondering how I’d explain this to Paul, how I’d convince him to meet me later.

  “Great,” she said. “And for what it’s worth, Melody loves the human-interest angle to your sauce. That’s what gets viewers to really connect with a product. She even wanted me to ask for your father’s boeuf bourguignon recipe so we could feature it on air.”

  I promised to be there as soon as I could.

  Instead of getting in my car, I ducked behind a red SUV and peered through the restaurant’s glass doors, and then through the row of picture windows. There he was, seated at a booth by the back window with his head bent over the menu. He’d been on time after all. The stubble on his chin was fuller than be
fore and trimmed so that his jaw appeared more angular. He looked older, gently weathered in the way that was sexy for men. He did not glance up.

  I was fingering my phone, wrestling with whether to call Suzanne Silver back, when a waitress with a perky blond ponytail appeared at Paul’s side with a pitcher of ice water. As she stood over the table, pouring him a glass, he said something that made her set down the pitcher, rest a hand on his shoulder and release a big, full-bodied laugh.

  The back of my neck tightened. My head began to throb. I couldn’t decide whether to rush in that restaurant or to find a better place to hide. Paul had cheated on me with a college girl, and now, the best I could hope for was that he would cheat on her with me. A breeze kicked up in the parking lot, and only then did I notice I was drenched in sweat. Rubbing the goose bumps from my arms, I went to my car and got in.

  When Paul answered his cell phone, I said, “Hey, I’m not going to be able to make it.”

  “What do you mean? I’ve been sitting here for ten minutes.”

  “I have to do something for work,” I said. “Something really important.”

  “What?” he asked, clearly confused.

  I’d never told him I’d started working at Lin’s, and this wasn’t the time to explain. “I’m sorry,” I said, and once I got started I couldn’t stop. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Hey,” he said in that voice that could fold itself around me and pull me to the ground. “It’s okay. These things happen.”

  I pressed the crown of my skull into the headrest. “Thank you,” I said, and willed myself to say good-bye.

  “So when can I see you?”

  I twisted around in my seat, craning to peer in through the restaurant window. He sat there in that booth with his chin in his hand, his face grave.

  He asked, “Are you still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “God, I’ve missed you.”

  I closed my eyes and waited for the sting to subside. “I really have to go.”

  Melody lived in a rose-colored palazzo overlooking the bay. I pulled up in my rental car as her staff piled the last of the Louis Vuitton luggage into the trunk of a black stretch limousine. The palazzo’s vast oak doors swung open, and a statuesque figure in a white pantsuit emerged. With the hem of her trousers brushing the ground, Melody appeared to be floating across the driveway, followed by an assistant, yet another neatly dressed young woman. As they approached me, I saw that Melody was holding her cell phone to one ear. She told me to give her one minute and turned away. Her assistant smiled apologetically and waved me into the limo.

  For almost the entire half-hour ride to the airport, Melody spoke sternly into her phone. Even though she was clearly reprimanding whoever was on the other end of the line, her velvety voice cushioned her words. “I wouldn’t let me down again, if I were you,” she said, running her burgundy fingernails through those buttery blond waves.

  Finally, as the limo veered off the highway for the airport exit, Melody ended the call and dropped the phone in her assistant’s waiting hands. She leaned over and touched my arm. “My apologies,” she said, flashing a pair of perfectly symmetrical dimples. “Let’s talk. I want to hear everything.”

  I didn’t know how much Suzanne Silver had told her. I waited for Melody to take the lead, but she only peeked down at her large, diamond-encrusted watch.

  Based on my research into Melody’s previous gift choices, I’d planned out exactly what to say to convince her to choose Lin’s. Now, with the airport terminal approaching, I opened my mouth and began to speak as fast as I could. I told her how my grandfather had given up a successful career to create his own soy sauce, how my father and uncle had dedicated their lives to carrying on the family tradition.

  “Mm-hmm,” she said blandly. She’d heard this all before.

  In my mind, Melody’s studio audience sprung to life, clapping and whooping, gasping and swooning. These women believed Melody could change lives, and I believed, too. That’s when I dropped my pitch. I told her I was thirty years old and had spent my entire life running from the family business. In fact, if not for my failed marriage and my mother’s kidney failure, I never would have returned home.

  Melody’s eyes seared into mine. They were the color of swimming-pool water on a scorching day. “Go on,” she said.

  I told her I’d always viewed my father as a man who’d been trapped—trapped into preserving his own father’s vision, forced to wage a noble but futile battle against modernizing the company. Now, having worked at Lin’s, I realized I’d missed the point. Traditions were important—and at Lin’s we took great pride in ours—but all Ahkong and Ba ever wanted was to make the best-tasting soy sauce. “How many people get to do that for a living?” I asked, my voice rising. “How many people get to create something they’re truly proud of?”

  The limo stopped in front of the international terminal.

  Melody smiled coolly and offered me her hand. “It’s always a pleasure to talk to people who are passionate about their work. Suzanne will be in touch.” With that she strode in the airport, her assistant on her heels, leaving the driver to deal with the bags.

  On the return trip to the city, I settled back in the limo and tried to analyze Melody’s elusive reaction. I wanted to call someone—Ba or Ma, maybe Frankie—and recount the whole crazy story, but something stopped me. What if nothing came of this meeting? What if Melody had already dismissed me, and I never heard from Suzanne? I was so caught up in the moment that I didn’t pause to think about what I’d said to the talk show host, the questions I’d answered, the decisions I’d made. There was so much I couldn’t acknowledge to myself, much less share with my family.

  That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay with the pillow over my face, then sat up in the darkness, then paced the strip of moonlit carpet by the window. More than once I thought about calling Paul, and yet, each time, my fingers stalled over the keys.

  Looking back, I’d like to be able to say that this was my moment of recognition, that what had eluded me in the limousine grew clear, and there in that darkened hotel room, I finally knew what I wanted. In truth that knowledge didn’t come until morning. That night, I thought only of the waitress, her high blond ponytail and easy smile.

  Late the following morning, almost afternoon, I awoke to discover I’d slept more soundly than I had in weeks, and knew it was time to go home.

  At the Office of Student Services at the San Francisco Conservatory, I explained to the girl at the counter that I needed a refund of the deposit my father had paid several weeks earlier.

  She accessed my file on the computer, bit her lip as she scanned the screen, and told me I couldn’t take another semester off without withdrawing altogether. “Sometimes they make exceptions,” she said, snapping her gum. “You know, for special cases?” She studied my face, trying to figure out if I qualified. “Want the phone number?”

  I shook my head.

  “Fine. The money will be credited to the original account within seven-to-ten business days.” She slid over a withdrawal form and showed me where to sign.

  In my pocket was the crumpled sheet of hotel notepad paper on which I’d made up a to-do list. Earlier that morning, I’d canceled my last apartment viewing, and now, upon signing my name with a flourish, I’d quit school. My only remaining task was to make a few phone calls before I boarded my plane.

  I stepped out onto the sidewalk as my bus hurtled past. Instead of chasing it down, I crossed the street to the practice rooms. My ID card no longer worked, but the security guard assumed it was a problem with the magnetic strip and held open the door.

  Downstairs, I heaved my shoulder into the thick, soundproof door of the small basement auditorium and the familiar musty smell of ancient velvet drapery washed over me. I switched on the lights and hoisted myself on stage.

  Seated at the grand piano, I adjusted the height of the bench and flipped up the once-glossy black cover. With my hands poised dramatically over the keys
, I searched my mind for a piece suitable for the finale of my life in San Francisco. After attempting a flashy Rachmaninoff prelude I’d never truly memorized, my fingers found the Debussy piece I’d watched my mother play so many times over the past month.

  I was about a third of the way through, willing the melody to pour through me, swaying my body in time, when my fingers stopped. I started and stalled, started again and lost my spot. Gazing out into the darkness, I questioned what I was doing here, why I was trying to stage this theatrical good-bye. Then my laughter rolled out of me, filling the empty hall. I’d never been a performer. I’d never even wanted to teach music. This city had been good to me, and I would miss it, but there was no need to try to feel things I didn’t feel.

  On my way out I waved at the security guard.

  “Leaving so soon?” he asked.

  “See you later,” I said automatically, even though it wasn’t true.

  By now it was late afternoon, and the slanting pre-fall light cast long sharp shadows on the sidewalk. Back in Singapore, it was dawn of the following day. Children with backpacks waited for school buses, the elderly practiced tai chi in public parks, and the sun began its slow, inexorable climb.

  In the airport lounge, I tackled the last item on my to-do list. I called Paul.

  “I don’t know how else to say this,” I said. “I got in touch with a divorce attorney. You should hear from her soon.”

  “Wait,” he said, sounding genuinely shocked. “We need to talk about this.”

  For the first time in my life, I felt sorry for him.

  “Stay,” he said.

  And, “What about what I want?”

  And, “It’ll be different this time.”

  I said, “Paul, I don’t live here anymore.”

  “Of course you do. You love it here.”

  I wished he would actually listen to me. “We’re not kids anymore. We don’t just go around doing whatever we want.”