“But you’re like this because of me.”
“No. I’m like this because that asshole got drunk behind the wheel and swerved into our lane.”
“You wouldn’t have been out on the road if I hadn’t asked you to pick me up.”
“Shang.”
Alexander cringes. It all comes rushing back to him.
* * *
The flight from Paris to New York is roughly eight hours and twenty minutes non-stop. Shang’s butt is sore from sitting so long. He’s grumpy, too, because he’s running on less than an hour of sleep. Who’s idea was it to allow crying babies onto planes again?
Li meets him at international arrivals just like he said he would.
His mother is noticeably absent.
“Is Mom still—”
“Pissed? Yeah.”
Even though Shang expected as much, his chest still stings. He hasn’t spoken to Xu Hong in over a year and a half. The phone works both ways, of course, but it’s pretty obvious that he inherited his mother’s stubbornness.
It’s another twenty minutes of awkward standing around while they wait for his suitcase at baggage claim. Shang doesn’t know what to say. Neither does Li. Small talk feels like a waste of energy. Besides, there are people around. The one consistent thing in Shang’s life growing up was the fact that his family never aired their dirty laundry in public. Arguments were reserved for behind closed doors, never out in the open.
This is why when they finally hop into Li’s old clunker of a Ford truck and the doors close, Shang isn’t at all surprised when his father blurts out, “You need to apologize to your mother.”
He sighs. “Here we go.”
“Don’t give me attitude, son,” Li snaps in Cantonese. He merges onto the highway. It’s raining so hard that the wiper blades can’t keep up. “This isn’t up for debate.”
“I don’t understand why you can’t be more supportive!” Shang snaps right back. “Sebastian’s already made me chef de partie. He’s promised to make me a sous chef in less than a year.”
“That man is bad news.”
“He isn’t. He’s done more for me in six months than Uncle has my whole life!”
“Sebastian is using you! Why can’t you see that?” Li reaches into the door-side pocket and pulls out a page ripped out from a magazine. “What’s this, ha?”
The page lands on Shang’s lap. It’s a picture of him, posing behind a carefully set prep table with knives and assorted spices and prepared plates of food. Just below the image is a caption that reads:‘Chef Alexander Chen, the next great prodigy?’
“What’s wrong with your real name?” his father demands. “It’s a good name. A strong name!”
“Sebastian doesn’t think that it’s marketable.”
“Marketable? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me!”
“I’m already enough of an outsider. Do you really think someone who looks like me has a chance of being taken seriously doing what I do?”
“Don’t change for them! You are more than enough!”
“Do you have any idea how many times they told me to go back to China? Or to stop fooling around and go back to making dumplings? I’ve never evenbeento China!”
“Don’t listen to them!” his father snaps.
