Page 50 of Okay, Cupid

“Ba con khỏe không?”

“Vâng, khỏe.” There’s an unsureness to Alice’s tone.

I’m totally forgotten about in the moment, which is fine by me. Reconnecting Alice to Huy’s parents will take me a long way toward where I need to be.

Mrs. Trinh switches to English. “You’re coming to hội chợ, right? I missed your cooking!”

“Oh, Dad wouldn’t let me miss it this year.”

“Good, good.” Mrs. Trinh finally releases Alice from her hug, and notices I’m there. “Oh, hello!”

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Trinh. I’m Jude.”

“Oh, it’s Nguyen. I didn’t take my husband’s last name. That’s a Western thing,” she corrects me. I glance at Alice, watching her hide her face. “Jude? You’re the boy with Huy in the garage the other night?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to bother anyone,” I apologize.

“Huy’s been talking all about you,” Mrs. Nguyen says. “I feel like we already know you.” Now she wraps her arms around me and hugs me so tight I forget how to breathe for a moment.

“We were just going to order some coffee while we study,” Alice says to Huy’s mother.

“You don’t want donuts?” Huy’s mom asks.

“That’ll be Jude’s reward when we’re done.”

“Of course.” Huy’s mother finally lets go of me. “Take the booth in the back. No one will bother you there.”

We order two Vietnamese iced coffees and set our stuff where we’re told. Alice and Mrs. Nguyen make some small talk in Vietnamese as she brings us our drinks. Before too long, Alice is pulling out her textbook, and the moment I’ve been dreading arrives.

Is there anything more boring than math?

“Where’s your test?” she asks.

“Uh … why?”

“So, I can see what you’re missing,” she says like it’s obvious.

“Right, right.” I’m more than a little embarrassed to show her the paper, marked all over in red, but it’s gotten me here, right where I need to be. I just need Huy to show up.

We don’t wait long, thankfully.

There’s a door behind the counter that I’m guessing leads out to a storeroom or something, and just as Alice is walking me through the quadratic formula, the door swings open and Huy walks through.

“Mày trễ vậy!” Mr. Trinh says in Vietnamese.

“I know, Ba!” He moves behind the counter with speed, yanking his apron off a hook and tying it around his waist. “Hương took forever to get out of school. But I got her to her lesson.”

“Đi làm đi.”

“Vâng.” Huy’s voice goes low, and the frustration is obvious on his face the moment his father turns his back. He doesn’t even see us right away, but when he does, our eyes meet, and I give him a sympathetic look.

“Jude.” Alice actually snaps her fingers. “Pay attention.”

“Right, sorry.”

I try to focus on math as the shop gets more and more crowded. When I look over at the front counter, I notice that both Huy’s parents are no longer hovering around, that it’s just him having to bounce from the kitchen to the front counter to the dining area to collect trays and discarded paper bags when he gets the chance.

“Okay, so I want you to do your homework,” Alice tells me, getting out her own notebook filled with her chemistry work. “And when you’re done, I’ll grade it.”