Soy Sauce for Beginners Read online

  His laugh exploded in my ear. “You’re telling me this?” he said. “Seriously. You are telling me this.”

  Anger spiked within me. But then it struck me that he’d been right all along. I had lacked focus and ambition. I’d spent all my time in San Francisco trying out jobs and earning more degrees, unable to commit to a career because the only thing I’d ever wanted was to be with him.

  “You’re absolutely right,” I said. “You said it first, and now I’m finally taking your advice.” I said good-bye, gathered my bags and walked to the gate.

  Safely onboard the plane, I finally let myself consider the future awaiting me back home. My father would be thrilled by my decision, but what about Ma? She’d opened up the world for me—a world she would now watch me fold up neatly and set aside. I had to make her understand that by freeing me from the family business, she’d taught me that I could do anything I chose. And now, I was choosing soy sauce.

  The plane lifted into the sky. The purser advised us all to sit back, relax and enjoy the flight, and I closed my eyes, determined to try.

  15

  IT WAS MIDNIGHT IN SINGAPORE by the time my cherry-red suitcase sailed toward me on the conveyor belt. Sixteen hours had passed since I’d boarded the plane in San Francisco. My clothes were rumpled, my eyes red and scratchy, my hair greasy enough to wring out like a towel. Changi Airport’s vast high-ceilinged baggage hall, with its polished surfaces and spotless floors, only underscored my raggedness.

  Earlier, at immigration, I’d gone through the citizens-only line, flattening my passport on the scanner while visitors waited in long queues. A machine authenticated my passport, and “Welcome home” flashed on the screen in our four national languages, English, Chinese, Tamil, and Malay. I wondered if any other phrase could ever be so fraught.

  Despite my fatigue, I moved swiftly through the “Nothing to Declare” lane and past the clumps of people in the waiting area. It was still hard to believe I didn’t know the next time I’d be back in this airport—this place that had once been my portal to the real world, but was now a gate about to close.

  I was so focused on getting a taxi that I strode right past my mother, leaning on a pillar with her hands in her pockets.

  “Where are you rushing off to?” she called after me.

  I pivoted on the balls of my feet, dragging my suitcase behind me. Ma’s lips bore no trace of her trademark red lipstick. In fact, she wore no makeup at all. A loose linen tunic and matching trousers hung off her slight frame. What would have looked like pajamas on anyone else, on her appeared elegant, effortless.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. “Did you come alone? Does Ba know?”

  She brushed away my concerns. “You think I climbed out the window while he was asleep?”

  We rode the escalator down to the parking lot, and she yanked the carry-on tote from my arm, even though I told her, several times, that I could manage on my own. When we got to the car, she insisted I take the wheel since she couldn’t see that well at night.

  “Exactly,” I said. “You shouldn’t be driving. I could have easily taken a cab.”

  “Is it so bizarre for me to meet my daughter at the airport? I want to hear about your trip.”

  I didn’t know where to begin, so I adjusted the mirrors, started the car and turned up the radio. To the strains of Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven, we drove out of the parking lot and onto the wide boulevard lined with orange and fuchsia bougainvilleas—a sight so familiar and so distinctly local, it filled me with warmth, no matter how many times I took this road.

  “I’ve always hated his voice. Too whiny.” Ma turned off the radio. “So?” she said.

  I’d hoped to have time to digest the events of the past week and prepare what I wanted to say, but Ma was ready to talk now. When I saw the neon sign of a twenty-four-hour hawker center, I swerved into the entrance.

  Inside the hawker center, we chose a table at a coffee stall overlooking the beach, as far away as possible from a gaggle of middle-aged tai tais who had just concluded a late-night mahjong session and were recapping its highlights. Ma and I took long sweet sips of our kopi-pos, weak coffee with a generous dollop of condensed milk. The breeze off the water was brisk and alive.

  I inhaled sharply and began. I told Ma about the trade show and how good it felt to represent the family business; about how proud I thought Ba would be of all the contacts I’d made and the groundwork I’d laid in the US market, and how I hoped she could be proud of me, too. I explained why I didn’t think Lin’s would survive under Cal, and why the company had to revamp its US strategy, and I told her about meeting Melody—Yes! The Melody!—though probably nothing would come of it.

  Ma looked bewildered, but I didn’t slow down because there was so much more to say. It was time to reveal that I’d begun divorce proceedings and withdrawn from school. The words were surprisingly difficult to get out. Even now, I couldn’t shut off the part of me that longed to please my mother. “I’ve made up my mind,” I said. “I’m staying here, in Singapore, for good.”

  She tried to interject, but I kept going. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’m sorry you think I’m throwing everything away. But I don’t want the things you want.”

  “Why would I be disappointed?” Ma asked quietly.

  “All you’ve ever wanted is for Paul and me to live happily ever after in America—for us to have what you never had.” I’d already said too much, but I couldn’t stop. “You need to accept that I’m not you.”

  The mahjong ladies pretended not to eavesdrop.

  Ma’s lower lip trembled. “I’m sorry you feel this way.”

  I stared back at her, puzzled and exasperated. It wasn’t like her not to fight back.

  She reached for her coffee mug, but her hands shook so badly, she placed it back on the table. She said, “All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be able to do whatever you want.” Beneath the fluorescent lights, her bare face looked tired, worn.

  “I want this, Ma. I want to work at Lin’s. I want to make soy sauce. I want to be here with you and Ba and the rest of my family.”

  Out on the beach, a wave broke on the shore with a deafening crash. In the heart of the city, where we spent most of our time, it was easy to forget we were surrounded by water. A second wave crested, and I pictured it continuing to rise, coming right for my mother and me. Was she bracing herself? Holding her breath?

  Again Ma reached for the mug, this time managing to take a small sip. She said, “So, you’re getting a divorce.”

  All my anger and self-righteousness surged back through me. “This may come as a shock to you, but your son-in-law left me. I begged him to stay, but he went off to live with his girlfriend. His twenty-one-year-old girlfriend.”

  Across the table Ma looked sad—sad and weary—not at all furious like I expected, and certainly not shocked.

  “He cheated on me, Ma.”

  Ma’s eyelids fell, and when her eyes blinked open they brimmed with tears. “I know, ducky,” she said, pressing her hands to mine. “I know.”

  I was sobbing so hard I didn’t even question how she’d known, who had told her. A moment later, she was wrapping her thin arms around me, rocking me gently from side to side.

  By now, the only other person within hearing distance was the old man behind the counter who politely occupied himself with rearranging plastic cups and plates. I wondered if he could see us for who we were: a pair of women, trying to take care of themselves and each other, falling short time and again.

  When I calmed down, I considered Ma’s reaction. Where was the anger and outrage? Why hadn’t she told me she’d found out about the affair?

  Ma lowered her head. “Maybe this was wrong of me,” she said slowly, a rare admission. “But I wanted you to see him.” At first, she said, she’d wanted me to go back to America to reclaim my life, and then, when Frankie told her what Paul had done, she’d wanted me to confront my choices. The last thing she wanted was for me to retr
eat into permanent hiding in Singapore.

  “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  Her fingers combed through my hair, massaging my scalp. “No.”

  “Is that what you think you did?”

  She gazed up at the ceiling fan, spinning so sluggishly you could see a layer of dust on each blade. Her hands formed two small fists. “When I first came home, I was irate. I thought I could have been a brilliant scholar at a top American university, and instead I was trapped in a classroom of students whose marks were too low to study anything but literature.”

  “I see why that was difficult.”

  Ma shook her head. “Maybe at first, but over time, these obstacles became excuses. I could have pushed harder. I could have finished my manuscript.” She pressed her fingertips to the corners of her eyes, and gave a wry laugh. “If I’d stayed in the US, I would have ended up at a small college in a small town, equally convinced that my talent was going to waste.”

  “And you wouldn’t have Ba.”

  She took another sip from her mug. “That’s right.”

  Outside, the sky was growing light, painting the world in hues of pale gray, and the birds had begun to rise. The ocean had receded and now lapped gently at the sand.

  “You’re not me. I know that,” she said. “You’re going to be brilliant at Lin’s, and I’m sorry I ever stood in your way.”

  “Brilliant is a strong word. I think I’ll do well.”

  She stroked my hair. “My girl, my only child. It’s good to have you here.”

  Together we squinted into the distance. Dawn in Singapore was afternoon in San Francisco. It would take my mind a while to stop trying to exist in two places, but I was ready.

  I didn’t fault Frankie for telling my mother about Paul.

  At work the next day, I pulled her into my office and shut the door. “Frankie, you don’t have to explain. I understand where you were coming from.” I expected relief, but saw only confusion.

  “Really? You’re sure?”

  I told her she’d done me a favor: I’d kept the affair from my mother for far too long, and Frankie had given me a much-needed push. In fact, Ma and I had sorted it all out the night before. “Can you tell I hardly slept?” I rubbed my eyes.

  She gave me a worried smile, and I patted her arm. “Paul and I are done. I’m here to stay.”

  Far from being happy for me, Frankie slumped forward in her chair and buried her face in her hands.

  “Wait,” I said. “I thought you hated him.”

  “I hooked up with James.” She squeezed shut her eyes as if bracing for an explosion.

  The muscles in my face went slack. I could feel my smile melt away. “Oh,” I said. “That I didn’t know.”

  Then it was her turn to reach for my arm. “I’m sorry, I really am. It was one time.”

  I pulled away. I sat very still and tried to decide how I felt, but the only thing I could think about was how much I wanted her to get out of that chair and leave my office.

  Finally I said, “We broke up.”

  “I know. I’m still sorry.”

  I turned to my computer screen and told her I had a mountain of email to go through. She mumbled one last apology before getting up to leave.

  It wasn’t just an excuse. I didn’t have time to fixate on whatever had happened between Frankie and James. In the week I’d been away, my father and uncle had moved no closer to a resolution. Something had to change.

  16

  MR. LIU WAS SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD when Ahkong hired him to be the company’s first errand boy. Through the years, he worked his way up to office manager, went back to school at Ahkong’s urging to earn a chemistry degree, and returned as Lin’s food scientist—a post he’d held for the last thirty years. If anyone had insight into how Ahkong would have handled the current family feud, it would be him.

  I found Mr. Liu in his office by the factory floor, looking through files.

  He raised his head in surprise. “Come in,” he said in Chinese. “What can I do for you?”

  I sat down, suddenly shy. As a child, I’d spent hours in this office with a coloring book and a package of rice crackers, while he and my father took care of business elsewhere in the factory. Since my return, however, it hadn’t occurred to me to ask Mr. Liu what he thought of Cal’s mistake, or the fiberglass sauce, or any of the other developments at the company.

  I saw no point in being coy. “I need your advice. What do you think we should do about Cal?”

  Even when he frowned, Mr. Liu’s narrow, lined face radiated kindness. “I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know. A family business is just that—a family.”

  I tried to parse the meaning of his words.

  He said, “Remember this: no matter what your family decides, the boy will remain in your life. He’s not going to disappear. He will always be your cousin, and your father’s nephew, and your uncle’s son.”

  Something clicked into place. Of course Mr. Liu was the one who’d notified my father when Cal arrived for the Mama Poon meeting.

  “I should have come to you sooner,” I said.

  His eyes disappeared when he smiled. “You came at the right time.”

  An hour later, I left Mr. Liu’s office and went to find my father. “Govern a family as you would cook a small fish—very gently,” I said, repeating the Chinese proverb Mr. Liu had told me.

  Ba set down his pen. “Your ahkong used to say that.”

  “You need to give Cal another chance. Lin’s belongs to him as much as it belongs to you, or Uncle Robert.” After a pause I added, “Or me.” Seventy-two hours had passed since I’d announced my decision to stay.

  Ba shook his head. “I already told you I don’t trust him.”

  In Chinese, I said, “One cannot refuse to eat just because there is a chance of being choked.”

  “I see you’ve been talking to Mr. Liu.” He gave me a tight-lipped smile.

  I admitted I didn’t necessarily trust Cal either, but I also believed he wouldn’t dare behave so recklessly this time around, not with so many people watching him. In the end, he, too, wanted Lin’s to thrive.

  Ba wrapped one hand in the other and cracked his knuckles.

  “Must you do that?” I asked.

  He dropped his hands. “What kind of message would it send if I let Cal come back?”

  “That you believe that being a Lin makes you uniquely suited to running this company.”

  He said, “The boy has already proven he cares more about money than soy sauce.”

  “You and Uncle Robert don’t agree on everything, and yet you’ve worked together for years. There might be hope for Cal and me.”

  Ba pointed his index finger at me. “You think you can do this. You think you can work with him.”

  I said I wasn’t sure, but I also knew I had no choice.

  My father held my gaze as he lifted the telephone to his ear. “Di-ah,” he said into the mouthpiece. Younger brother. “I’m with Xiao Xi. Come over. And bring the boy.”

  Later that afternoon, the four of us emerged from Ba’s office and headed to the conference room, where the entire company had assembled for an important announcement. I quickened my pace to keep up with my father and uncle, but Cal took me by the elbow. “Gretch, I wanted to say thank you.”

  I’d never expected to hear those words from Cal. But then again, I’d spent so little time in Singapore these past years, I hardly knew the adult him. People changed with age; they outgrew their stubbornness and volatility.

  I said, “I’m really looking forward to working with you.”

  Cal’s mouth twisted in a half smile. “You just saved the venerable Lin’s Soy Sauce from going bust.”

  It was a joke—an inappropriate joke, and I told myself to let it go.

  As Cal and I made our way to the front of the conference room, where our fathers stood, I studied the scuffed tips of my shoes, ignoring the weight of my co-workers’ gazes.

  Uncle Robert
thanked everyone for gathering here. “Effective immediately,” he said, “Cal and Gretchen will be Lin’s co–vice presidents.”

  Around the room, heads turned, eyebrows raised, eyes met. In one corner, Shuting smiled smugly at Fiona, as if this were the outcome she’d predicted all along. On the opposite side of the room, one sales guy whispered to another as they shot sidelong glances my way.

  My uncle went on: Cal would continue to oversee the Mama Poon deal, which was progressing so smoothly the launch date had been moved up to early March. I, on the other hand, would manage the premium line, which from now on would be known as the heritage line. Thanks to my success at the trade show in San Francisco, our premium sauces would soon be exported to the United States, albeit in small quantities.

  Beside me, my cousin beamed. He folded his fingers into a pistol and pretended to fire at someone across the room. That our responsibilities were far from equal was clear to him and me and the entire company. His project was Lin’s largest and potentially most profitable growth opportunity. Mine carried mostly symbolic importance.

  Finally, Uncle Robert wrapped up his announcement. “Lin’s can indeed have the best of both worlds,” he cried, taking his son’s hand and thrusting it in the air like they were a pair of Olympic medalists. “Here’s to the future.”

  The room burst into applause.

  Uncle Robert shook my hand in a manner that was surprisingly formal. “Welcome to the team.”

  “Congrats, partner,” Cal said, holding out his palm for me to give him five.

  I put aside my animosity and slapped his palm. “Congrats.”

  My father gave me a big hug and said in a low voice, “So far, so good.” My mother was doing well at home, and he looked better rested than he had in weeks. Later, when Ma asked what had made him change his mind about Cal, Ba would wink at me and say, “We all make sacrifices for the people we love.”

  At the opposite end of the conference room, Frankie stood apart from everyone else with her back against the wall, her face shielded by that curtain of hair. Though she’d tried several times to talk to me since her confession, I’d managed to avoid her—no simple feat given that we passed each other in the hall a dozen times a day. Ours appeared to be another one of those female friendships doomed by attraction to the same man, and not a very worthy man at that.