Soy Sauce for Beginners Read online

  “I should be the one thanking you,” I said.

  Frankie looked confused.

  “If not for you, I don’t think I would have given Lin’s a chance. I never would have decided to stay.”

  She let out a honking laugh. “It’s true, you were pretty awful at it in the beginning.”

  I playfully punched her arm. “Excuse me, Miss Fiberglass-and-Clay-What’s-the-Difference-Anyway.”

  As we grinned at each other across the kitchen table, I knew we would never again be as close as we’d been in college. Eventually she would move on from Hong Kong to yet another new city, and our paths would cross less and less. Already I was wistful for the girls we’d once been, as someday I’d be wistful for these months we’d shared in Singapore.

  At last, Frankie said, “My flight leaves at six a.m. I should probably start saying good-bye.”

  “I’ll be first,” I said, getting to my feet and hugging her tight.

  “Bye, Gretch,” she said, and pushed open the door.

  I lingered in the kitchen, staring into my empty glass. In its watery depths I saw Frankie’s mom, standing in the driveway of her squat, single-story Fresno home, receding into the distance as she waved.

  When the maid returned, I was still staring at the same spot. She laid the empty platter in the sink and turned on the tap. “Still here?” she asked gently without glancing my way. “Have everything you need, nah?”

  My eyes followed her quick, assured motions. I told her I did.

  Outside, Frankie was moving around the living room, tearfully hugging her new friends. A dwindling plate of homemade cupcakes was being passed around. As the plate traveled toward me, someone turned and nearly smashed the remaining cupcakes, frosting first, into my chest.

  “Oh, shit,” said James.

  “Close call,” I said. An unexpected calm settled over me. I took a cupcake just to have something to do and passed on the plate.

  We ate in silence, and then I said, “How’ve you been?”

  “All right,” he answered. “You?”

  I saw Kat watching me from across the room. “I’ve been great,” I said, licking the crumbs from the corners of my mouth.

  “I hear you’ve decided to stick around.”

  “The rumors are true.”

  “For what it’s worth,” he said, “which is probably nothing, I’m sorry.”

  I turned to face him and imagined leveling those spiky tufts of hair with my palm. “For what it’s worth, I think you should reevaluate your hairstyle,” I said. “And I forgive you.” I excused myself and went to join Kat.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  I reached an arm around her, my dear old friend who never let me get away with anything, who always took me back.

  In the entranceway, Frankie stopped to slip on her shoes and gave us all a final wave. I waved back. How wondrous it felt to be one of the many staying behind.

  As she disappeared around the door, her eyes met mine.

  I mouthed the words, “Call when you land,” and she mouthed back that she would.

  After that, people began to stream out the door; it was a weeknight after all.

  Kat yawned languidly, and Ming laughed. “We’re getting old,” he said.

  “It’s not even midnight,” someone else said, but she was yawning, too.

  “Finish off that last bottle before you all leave,” said Kat, bossy even through her fatigue, but this time no one listened.

  “Does anyone need a ride?” James asked.

  I shook my head along with the others.

  When everyone had left, I helped Kat and Ming shuttle glasses and plates to the kitchen, and then I too said good-bye.

  Alone outside the house, I buckled the ankle straps of my sandals.

  The following day I would try, once again, to get in touch with my cousin. Since charging out of the office, he’d boycotted all family gatherings. Even Auntie Tina hadn’t heard from him, and my uncle still refused to say his name. I’d sent emails, left voicemails; I’d driven to his house and banged on the door—all in an attempt to make him acknowledge what he and I both knew: that the fragrant, tawny broth my grandfather had created would always bind us together. Lin’s was as much his as it was mine, and this would always be the company’s greatest weakness and its greatest strength.

  I knew I might fail to convince Cal to return, that by the time I got a hold of him I could be too late. But when I stopped to look beyond the surface, I saw my cousin was not so different from me: someone hell-bent on living his life one way, only to realize, years later, that he couldn’t remember when and how he’d made that choice. Eventually, I might have no other option than to take him to court to save our soy sauce, and if forced to do it, I would. But I’d proceed with compassion, never downplaying the difficulties of adapting to a world that wasn’t at all how you thought it would be.

  In the coming days there would be factors to consider, decisions to be made. But on this night, as I walked out of my old friend’s childhood home and into the warm, still air, I cleared those thoughts from my mind.

  I pictured my parents awake in the darkness of their bedroom, listening for me to come in, as they had when I was a teenager. By the time I climbed the stairs, Ma would be peering out her room. “You’re back,” she’d say.

  “I am.”

  “Get some sleep.”

  “I will.”

  “She’s back,” I’d hear her say to Ba as she closed the door, and he would reply with a grunt.

  In reality, they were probably snoring softly in bed.

  Beneath the streetlights of Kat’s neighborhood, the empty road curved and disappeared around a bend. In surrounding houses, lamps snapped off and curtains were drawn. For now, I set one foot in front of the other, enjoying the pleasure of being alone, of having no one to hurry home to, and no place I needed to be.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to Michelle Brower for showing me what was possible, and to Liz Egan for asking all the right questions.

  To Pamela Painter, Margot Livesey, and all my teachers at Emerson College; to Jill McCorkle at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference; and to Paul Douglass and Nick Taylor at the Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University—thank you for sharing your wisdom and for guiding by example.

  Thank you to Kwan Lui and everyone at Tai Hua Food Industries in Singapore for teaching me about soy sauce.

  Thank you also to My Le and Chris Adams, Jesse Froehlich, Michelle Bussarakum, Christopher Lyle, and Jon Ma, all of whom knew me before I became a writer and reminded me that life would go on if this book didn’t sell. And to Lyndsay Lyle, who gave me the best part-time job ever when I needed it most.

  Thank you to Kim Liao, my fellow girl detective of the human spirit; to Megann Sept and Sean Lanigan for being the perfect writing group; and to Matt Salesses, without whom this book might still be titled “Lin’s Soy Sauce,” or worse.

  Thank you to Chad Herst and Devorah Sacks for teaching me to feel more and think less.

  Thank you to Sharayu and Bhal Tulpule for being lovers of books and for raising one, too. And to my brother, Kevin, for urging me, many years ago, to “submit with confidence and let them reject you if they dare.”

  Thank you to my parents for making me feel that I could achieve anything I wanted and that nothing would change if I did not.

  And finally, thank you to Asmin for being my team.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Author photograph by Sarah Deragon

  KIRSTIN CHEN was born and raised in Singapore. A former Steinbeck Fellow in Creative Writing, she currently resides in San Francisco.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication Page

  CONTENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

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p; 11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication Page

  CONTENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR