13
When Michael walked back into the shop, his mom was watching him with her arms crossed. Through the display window, she had a clear view of Stella’s white Tesla as it backed out of the parking lot. He was certain she’d watched the kiss. That was why he’d made it so short when what he’d really wanted to do was kiss Stella until her eyes glazed over.
She had his body tied up in so many knots, he could barely see straight, let alone think, and she’d caught him off guard here in the shop. That had to be why he’d accepted her proposal when he’d already convinced himself to do the right thing and turn her down. She hadn’t teased him, and she hadn’t laughed. Instead, she’d been impressed with his work and with him—the real him. No one wanted the real him. Only Stella. In that moment of weakness, he’d recklessly tossed his reservations aside. He’d said yes for no other reason than he wanted to be with her.
But now everything was spiraling out of control. Lines were blurring, and he couldn’t distinguish his professional life from his personal life. He might not even want to. His mom thought Stella was his for real, and he liked that way too much for his own comfort. Saying yes had been a giant mistake. He already regretted it and felt how wrong it was, even if he wasn’t entirely sure why. But it was too late now. It was just a month. He was a professional. He could handle a month.
“Stel-la,” his mom said, like she was testing out the sound of the name.
Michael gathered up Stella’s clothes and headed into the work area.
She followed right behind him. “I like her much better than that stripper you dated three years ago.”
“She was a dancer.” Okay, yeah, she’d also been a stripper. He’d been young, and she’d had an awesome body and all those pole moves.
“That one left her dirty underwear in a cup for me to find when I came over.”
Michael rubbed the back of his neck. Even after three years of escorting, he still didn’t understand the strange power games that happened between women. “I broke up with her.”
It had just been about the sex anyway. His dad was a cheater, and rather than commit and hurt people, Michael had spent his early twenties keeping things impersonal. To be honest, it had been a lot of fun, and he’d gone a little crazy, pretty much fucking anyone who showed interest. His memories of the time were a rainbow haze of women’s underwear.
When disaster hit and he needed money, he’d thought, why not get money for it? In his previous line of work, he’d dealt with lots of wealthy older women who propositioned him from time to time. All he’d had to do was accept. Plus, it was the perfect slap in the face to his dad—the reason for the disaster in the first place.
“That was an expensive car Stella drove,” his mom noted.
Michael shrugged, put Stella’s clothes with the other items that needed to be sent out for dry cleaning, and seated himself at his sewing machine.
In Vietnamese, his mom said, “She really likes you. I can tell these things.”
“Who likes him?” Ngoại piped up from her place in front of the TV where she was in the middle of watching Return of the Condor Heroes for the millionth time—the old one starring Andy Lau where the kung-fu-fighting condor was a man in a giant bird suit.
“A customer,” his mom answered.
“The one in the gray skirt?”
“You saw her?”
“Mmmm, I had my eye on her from the first second I saw her. She’s a good girl. Michael should marry her.”
“I’m right here,” Michael said. “And I’m not marrying anyone.” That wasn’t an option when he had to escort. He could still remember all the times when his dad had left during his childhood, the way his mom cried herself to sleep, the way she fell apart but still stayed strong for Michael and his sisters and never missed a day of work. Michael would never hurt a woman by cheating. Never.
Not that Stella would ever want to marry him. Why the hell was he thinking about this anyway? They’d been on three dates. No, not dates. Sessions. Appointments. They were in a practice relationship. This wasn’t real.
“Did I raise you to go kissing people’s daughters like that if you’re not going to marry them?” his mom asked.
He stared up at the ceiling in frustration. “No.”
“She’s good enough for you, Michael.”
Ridiculous. Like he was some kind of rare prize.
Ngoại mmmmed her agreement. “And pretty, too.”
Michael smiled then. Stella was pretty, and she didn’t know it. She was also smart, sweet, caring, brave, and—
His mom laughed and pointed at him. “Look at your face. Don’t try to tell me you don’t like her. It’s clear as day. I’m glad you finally got some good taste in women. Keep this one.”
Ngoại mmmmed.
Michael’s smile froze in place. They were right. He did like Stella, and he wished he didn’t. He knew he didn’t get to keep her.
Stella parked at the address Michael had texted her and worried the flowers and chocolates she’d brought were entirely the wrong thing to bring. A Google search of Vietnamese etiquette had told her she really needed to bring something, though the recommendations on actual gifts had been mixed and confusing, ranging from fruit to tea to alcohol. The overall consensus appeared to be that edible was best. Thus, the Godiva chocolates in her passenger seat.
But what if they didn’t like chocolate?
She’d been tempted to ask Michael, but he didn’t need to know how neurotic she was or how big of a deal meeting new people was for her. And these weren’t just any people. These were Michael’s family, important people, and she wanted to give a good impression.
Toward that end, she’d spent the day devising conversation trees in her head so she could minimize the need for social improvising, which often ended badly for her. If she was asked what she did, she had a quick explanation and follow-up questions ready. If they asked about her hobbies and interests, she was prepared. If they asked how she’d met Michael, she’d make him explain. She was a terrible liar.
For several stomach-twisting moments, she ran through her list of presocialization reminders: think before you talk (anything and everything can be an insult to someone; when in doubt, say nothing), be nice, sitting on your hands prevents fidgeting and feels good, make eye contact, smile (no teeth, that’s scary), don’t start thinking about work, don’t let yourself talk about work (no one wants to hear about it), please and thank you, apologize with feeling.
Grabbing the bouquet of gerbera daisies and dark chocolate truffles, she got out of her car and stared at the two-story East Palo Alto house. When she’d first moved here five years ago, this area had been the ghetto. With Silicon Valley’s continued expansion and success, East Palo Alto land values had skyrocketed. All of the homes nearby were now million-dollar real estate—even this modest little gray house with its cracked cement driveway and scraggly landscaping that, upon closer inspection, consisted of thriving, knee-high herbs.
As she walked toward the front door where flies and moths buzzed around the bright porchlight, she ran a palm over the scratchy tops of the plants, appreciating the fresh smell. She loved that Grandma liked to keep busy.
She pressed on the doorbell button and waited. No one came. Her gut knotted.
She knocked.
Nothing.
She knocked louder.
Still nothing.
She confirmed the address on her phone. This was the right place. Michael’s M3 was even parked in the driveway. Before she could drive herself crazy deciding what to do, the door opened.
Michael smiled at her. “Right on time.”
She tightened her grip on the stuff she’d brought, basically having an internal meltdown of uncertainty. “I don’t know if I got the right things.”
He unloaded the flowers and chocolate from her hands with an odd expression on his face. “You didn’t have to bring anything. Really.”
Panic surged. “Oh, I can take them back. Let me put them—”
He set the items on a side table and stroked a thumb over her cheek. “My mom will love them. Thank you.”
She released a long breath. “What happens now?”
The corner of his mouth kicked up. “I think the usual greeting is a hug.”
“Oh.” She held her hands out awkwardly and stepped toward him, certain she was doing everything wrong.
Until his arms wrapped around her, and he pulled her close. His scent, his warmth, and his solidness surrounded her. That was one hundred percent right.
He pulled away with a soft look in his eyes. “Ready?”
At her nod, he ushered her through a marble-tiled entryway, past a formal dining area, and into a kitchen that was open to an adjoining family room. The massive boxy TV in the room grabbed her attention. A man and a woman in traditional Chinese opera attire took turns warbling out similar series of notes. After a particularly impassioned iteration, Michael’s grandma clapped. Sitting next to her at the kitchen table, his mom paused in the process of peeling mangoes to voice her appreciation.
When she noticed Stella and Michael, his mom waved with her peeler. “Hello. We eat soon.”
Stella worked up a smile and a wave. Bracing herself for an evening of nerve-racking social performance, she approached them and asked, “Can I help?”
A wide smile stretched over Michael’s mom’s face, and she set her peeler and the plate she’d used to gather mango peels in front of the empty chair to her left. When Stella unbuttoned her cuffs, Michael flashed her a grin and turned on the gas range.
As she washed her hands in the kitchen sink, she watched him heat a large wok, pour oil in, and add ingredients in the careless, yet somehow intentional manner of someone who knew how to cook. By the time she sat down next to his mom, the air was heavy with the scents of barbecuing beef, garlic, lemongrass, and fish sauce. He’d rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, and she couldn’t help admiring his sculpted forearms as he stirred the contents of the wok.
It took effort to redirect her attention to the mango, and she’d just begun to peel the large fruit his mom had handed her when the tinkling of a piano in another room caught her attention. The opening notes of “Für Elise” clashed with the vibrato trilling from the TV, and Stella blinked as the sounds tore her head in multiple directions, making it difficult to think.
“That’s Janie playing,” his mom said. “She’s good, ah?”
Stella nodded distractedly. “She is. The piano’s out of tune, though. Especially the bass A.” Every time that flat note rang, she winced inside. “You should get it tuned. It’s bad for the piano to leave it untuned too long.”
His mom’s brows rose in interest. “Do you know how to tune pianos?”
“No.” She laughed. The idea of trying to tune her Steinway herself was ludicrous. She’d probably destroy the instrument with her bungling. “You should never tune your piano yourself.”
“Michael’s dad used to tune ours,” his mom said with a frown as she focused on cutting the giant seed from her peeled mango. “He did a good job. He said it was a waste of money when he knew how.”
“Where is he? When can he fix it?”
His mom pushed away from the table with a tight smile. “I have something for you to try. Let me heat it up.”
While Michael’s mom dug in the fridge, his grandma pointed to the bowl of already sliced mango. Stella dutifully plucked a small slice from the bowl and ate it, enjoying the sweet tang of the fruit. His grandma mmmmed and returned to peeling her mango.
Stella released a small breath as her stomach relaxed. She liked sitting with Grandma most of all. The language barrier made conversation next to impossible, and that was perfectly fine with Stella. “Für Elise” ended, and the tension in her head eased as the sources of sound dropped from two to one.
A youngish sister in jeans, a T-shirt, and a messy ponytail flopped into the kitchen, picked a bean sprout from a colander on the center island, and popped it in her mouth. When she noticed Stella, she waved. “Stella, right? I’m Janie.” She plucked another bean sprout from the colander, but her mom slapped the back of her hand, and she yanked her hand back with a yelp. Her mom stuck a container in the microwave and shooed her toward the table with a fast torrent of Vietnamese.
Janie sat across from her with an easy grin that was higher on one side—Michael’s grin. “So how do you like the Vietnamese opera?”
Stella lifted her shoulder in a noncommittal way.
Janie laughed and ate a large mango slice. “That good, huh?”
Before Stella could think up a response, Michael’s mom set a plastic container on the table and opened the lid. Steam rose from a light green spongy cake. “Eat, ah? Bánh bò. It’s very good.”
Stella set her peeler and fruit down and stretched a hand toward the container when she noticed it was cheap plastic, like the kind takeout came in. “You shouldn’t microwave these kinds of containers. The food probably has BPA in it now.” It was basically poison as far as Stella was concerned.
His mom pulled the container close and smelled the cake. “No, it’s fine. No BPA.”
“Glass or Pyrex are more expensive, but they’re safe,” Stella said. How had no one told Michael’s mom this? Did they want her to get sick?
“I use these all the time, and no problem.” Blinking rapidly, his mom held the lid of the container to her chest.
“You wouldn’t notice right away. It’s repeated exposure over time. You should really invest—”
Janie snatched the plastic container from her mom and stuffed a piece of green poison cake into her mouth. “These are my favorite. I love them.” Sending Stella a pointed look, Janie had a second one.
Michael marched to the table and took the container from his sister before she could eat a third piece. “It’s true, Mẹ. These containers really are bad. I never thought about it. You shouldn’t use them.”
When he tossed it in the garbage, his mom protested in Vietnamese. Was the lady upset because Stella didn’t want anyone to eat poison?
Janie pushed away from the table and left the kitchen as two girls stormed inside. They were both twenty-something with long dark brown hair, pale olive-toned skin, and lean, leggy builds. If Stella hadn’t already learned the hard way that questions like this irritated people, she would have asked if they were twins.
“You fat cow, why didn’t you ask before you took it and spilled wine on it? While you were making out with my boyfriend?” one girl shouted.
Stella flinched, and her already anxious heart squeezed. Fighting was her absolute least favorite thing. When people fought, it always felt like a personal attack for her. It didn’t matter if she was just a bystander.
“You said you two were through, and I was curious. Also, I wouldn’t have spilled all over it if it fit right. Who’s the fat cow now?” the second girl shouted back.
Grandma picked up a black remote and squinted at the buttons. As vertical green lines crawled across the screen and the volume climbed, the music went from distracting to unpleasant.
“That’s it. I’m taking back all the jeans I gave you.” The first girl shouted even louder to be heard over the TV.
“Go ahead and take them. Show what a selfish bitch you are.”
Grandma muttered and increased the volume yet again.
Stella set the peeler down with shaky hands and tried to slow her breathing. This was getting to be too much.
Two more girls walked into the kitchen. One was shorter and darker than the rest and looked to be about Stella’s age. The other one was high school young. They had to all be his sisters. One, two, three, four, five of them.
The short one stabbed a finger in the twins’ direction. “You two are going to stop fighting right now.”
They scoffed and crossed their arms in almost the exact same manner.
“Ever since you moved out and left us with Mom’s problems, you lost the right to say anything to us,” the first sister said.
The short sister rolled forward like a tank. “Now that she’s stable, it’s time for me to live my life, too. Try to think of others for once in your lives.”
“So now we’re the selfish ones?” the second sister asked. “You’re out hobnobbing at work parties, and we’re home holding Mom’s hair while she vomits after her chemo treatments.”
“She’s not doing chemo right now . . . Right?” The short sister looked at Michael for confirmation.
His mom snatched the remote from Grandma and maxed out the volume on the TV before she went to putter around by the sink. Stella rested damp palms on the glass surface of the table. This had to stop eventually. She just had to outlast them.
“She was, but she didn’t respond well, so they switched her to a drug trial,” Michael provided.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Because you’re so goddamned busy with your important crap, why else? Mom didn’t want to stress you out more than you always are,” one of the twins said.
“Finding out this way is stressing me out worse.”
“Boo-hoo, Angie,” the other twin said.
As the sniping continued, a harsh beeping sounded, and his mom took a white colander out of the microwave. Using tongs, she put steaming rice noodles into a large bowl along with the beef Michael had stir-fried and an assortment of greens.
She placed the bowl in front of Stella with a polite smile. “Michael’s bún. You’ll like it.”
Stella’s chin bobbed on a jerky nod. “Thank—” A suspicion rose, and she snuck a glance at the colander. She pushed the bowl away. “The colander is made of plastic. No one should eat this.”
His mom froze, and a tide of red swept over her face as she stared first at Stella and then the bowl. “Let me make new noodles.”
Before his mom could touch the bowl, Michael grabbed it. “I’ll do it. Sit, Mẹ.” His expression was strained as he removed the poisoned food, and Stella had the horrible feeling that she’d said The Wrong Thing, but she didn’t know how else she could have navigated the situation.
His mom sat down and eyed Michael’s sisters as they continued their argument in a loose square by the refrigerator. Sighing, she picked up her peeler and resumed where she’d left off with her last mango.
Stella kept her eyes on her own work, growing more and more nervous with every passing moment. She was painfully aware of the lack of conversation between them, and her instincts urged her to fill the silence—if silence was even the right word. His mom wasn’t speaking, but his sisters were, and the TV had been blasting this whole time. When the piano started playing again, her nerves stretched to the breaking point. That flat A note rang one, two-three, four times. Had anything ever been so irritating?
“You really should get the piano tuned,” she said. “Where is your husband again?”
When his mom continued peeling her mango without answering, Stella assumed she hadn’t heard the question.
So she asked again. “Where is he?”
“He’s gone,” his mom said in a final tone.
“Does that mean . . . he’s passed away?” Should she offer condolences? She wasn’t sure what to say now.
His mom sighed, keeping her eyes on her mango. “I don’t know.”
The answer tripped Stella up, and she frowned as she asked, “Are you divorced, then?”
“I can’t divorce him if I can’t find him.”
Stella stared at Michael’s mom in complete bafflement. “What do you mean, you can’t find him? Was he in an accident or—”
A large hand gripped her shoulder and squeezed with firm pressure. Michael. “The noodles are almost done. Do you eat peanuts?”
She blinked at the interruption. “Sure, I’m not allergic.” When he nodded and went to the kitchen island, she refocused on his mom. “How long has he been gone? Have you filed a missing-person re—”
“Stella.” Michael’s voice split through the air, a startling reprimand.
His sisters stopped arguing, and all eyes locked on her. Her heart pounded louder than the TV and the piano. What had she done?
“We don’t talk about my dad,” he said.
That didn’t make any sense. “But what if he’s hurt or—”
“You can’t hurt someone when they don’t have a heart,” his mom interrupted. “He left us all to be with another woman. I want to divorce him, but I don’t know where to send the papers. He changed his phone number.” His mom pushed her chair back and stood. “Mẹ’s tired. You kids eat, ah? Maybe go buy something for Michael’s girlfriend if she doesn’t like what we have.”
His mom left, and the piano music ended abruptly. His grandma turned off the opera, leaving the room quiet but for the crackling of the TV’s static discharge. The sudden quietness was a relief, but it felt ominous somehow. Her blood rushed, her head throbbed, and her breaths came in short gasps like she’d been running. Or maybe she was preparing to run.
Janie hurried into the kitchen. “What just happened? Why is Mom crying?”
No one answered, but seven sets of eyes accused her. It was worse than all the noise from before, far, far worse.
She’d made Michael’s mom cry.
Stella’s face flamed with embarrassment and guilt, and she jumped to her feet. “I’m so sorry. I need to go.”
Ducking her head, she gathered her purse and fled.
Michael stared at the doorway Stella had rushed through, feeling like he’d watched a car accident in slow motion. A mix of unholy emotion coursed through his veins. Anger, horror, shame, disbelief, shock. What the fuck had just happened? What did he do now? His instincts urged him to chase after her.
“You better go check on Mom,” Janie said.
That was right. His practice girlfriend had just put his mom in tears. What a great son he was. He went to look for her without a word. With heavy feet and a heavier chest, he climbed the stairs, walked down the carpeted hall, and paused outside his mom’s bedroom. The door was ajar, and he peered around the edge, finding his mom sitting on her bed. He didn’t need to see her face to know she was crying. It was written in her slumped posture and the way her head hung.
The sight destroyed him. No one got to hurt his mom. Not his dad and not his past girlfriends. Not even Stella. “Mẹ?”
She didn’t acknowledge him as he entered the room and padded to her bedside.
“I’m sorry about all the things she said.” He tried to keep his voice low, but it came out unnaturally loud. “The piano, the food, Dad . . .”
He didn’t know how Stella had managed it, but in just a few minutes, she’d found every sensitive spot his family possessed—their tight financial situation, his mom’s lack of education, and his fucked-up dad—and poked right at them. Accidentally. That was clear as day.
Holy shit, she was bad with people. He’d had no idea how bad until tonight. When it was just the two of them, it wasn’t like this.
His mom grabbed his hand. “Do you think your dad is okay?”
“I’m sure he’s fine.” His lips twisted as he imagined his old man lounging on a yacht in the Caribbean next to his latest wife.
“Can you email him for Mẹ?”
“No.” He was never talking to his dad again.
His mom took a ragged breath and covered her face. “Your Stella was right. He could be hurt. He’s so evil no one would care to help him, certainly not his new woman. She’s only with him as long as the money lasts.”
He fisted his hands as a familiar rage threaded through his muscles. “That amount of money should last a long time.”
“Not the way he spends. He thinks he’s a big shot. Nothing was ever good enough for him, remember?”
Not this again.
Michael clenched his jaw as his mom launched into another retelling of a story he’d heard a thousand times. He sat down next to her and listened with half an ear so he could make the appropriate sounds when she paused.
Words like uses women and bad person and liar stuck out, and he couldn’t help noticing how well they applied to himself. Look at all the lies he told. Look at what he did to pay the bills. Look at him taking money from Stella for doing what any other guy would do for—
Cold horror soaked into him. This was why it had felt so wrong to accept Stella’s proposal. It was wrong. He was taking advantage of her. What kind of man accepted money from a naïve woman to teach her things she could learn for free?
He’d finally taken the last steps and become his dad. That couldn’t be right. That wasn’t him. He was better.
Their arrangement had to end right now. Where was she? Fuck, was she waiting for him outside?
He shot to his feet before his mom’s story was half finished. “I have to go, Mẹ. I’m sorry about . . . tonight, about everything.”
“There’s no need for sorry. If you love her, we’ll learn to love her, too.”
At the mere mention of that word, sweat broke out over his brow. “I don’t.” That made his actions worse, didn’t it?
His mom waved his protest away. “Bring her back another day. Mẹ won’t microwave the plastic when she’s here.”
“You shouldn’t microwave it any time.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She said the words in such a manner that he knew she would continue doing things her way regardless of what she’d been told, and Michael swore to himself he’d throw all her plastic away and replace it with something safe. Right after he spoke to Stella.
“Good night, Mẹ.”
“Drive careful.”
He escaped the house in record time, but he came up short as he stepped outside.
She was gone.
He gripped one of the porch’s wooden support pillars and dragged in deep breaths as his heart rate slowed and his mind cleared. Cool air, the buzzing of bugs, and the distant whir of a car’s motor.
Maybe it was best that she wasn’t here. He needed time to compose a decent parting speech. Something short but nice. It was him, not her, and—
No matter what he said, she was going to cry. The thought twisted his guts into knots. She’d think it was her fault. Because of how awkward she was in bed and out. Because of the unintentional debacle tonight.
He walked to his car and got inside. After he turned the ignition, he sat with his hands on the wheel. He didn’t know where to go. Her place or his? They needed to talk, but he wasn’t ready for her tears on top of his mom’s.
The new box of condoms on the passenger seat caught his eye. He’d bought countless such boxes over the past three years. He hadn’t looked forward to opening any of them as much as this one—because Stella was different. Now, he’d be back to using the contents of the box with countless Fridays of women, providing a simple service for fair payment. It didn’t hurt or take advantage of anyone. That was better than what his dad did. Michael could do that and still be himself. Too bad he didn’t want any of those women like he did Stella.
He pushed the box onto the floor and out of sight before heading to his own apartment. Tomorrow. He’d do the right thing tomorrow.