Chapter 22 #2
I recognize we’re beside Washington Square Park, where we met that one time, eons ago. But he doesn’t go there and instead takes another turn until we’re in a half-empty alleyway where balconies are stacked in the opposite buildings.
I look to where he’s standing.
It’s as if the restaurant was born into the building fighting tooth and nail.
Just like everything else in New York. It’s a bit crooked, like it was built into an uneven street.
The aroma from the cooking hits my nose and makes my stomach growl.
There’s no name above the restaurant. There are a couple of people inside, slurping noodles from large bowls.
One is waiting on a takeout order. I get the sense its customers are loyal.
I bet this place feeds the entire building it’s based in.
Jamie walks up the little brick stairs, swiping away the plastic curtain.
One of the cooks, a middle-aged man with graying hair, notices him and grins wildly. He starts speaking in another language, and only when Jamie replies in the same one do I realize they’re speaking Vietnamese. He says something, and the cook laughs.
Jamie’s demeanor becomes softer, like the Jamie I’ve come to know, the one who talks freely to me about his life and dreams.
But there’s something else. He’s showing me a side of him I don’t think anyone at the school has seen.
Just as I’ve hidden my Arab culture, he’s hidden his Vietnamese heritage.
I hid my true self from Alexis. I realize now it’s because I never felt safe with her.
Not really. But even before Jamie became Muslim, I didn’t feel any snags, any hesitation to talk about myself entirely.
He looks whole here. This place, speaking his grandmother’s language, it makes his color shine brighter.
The cook nods at me before suggestively raising his eyebrows, and Jamie splutters a reply, his face growing pink. The cook laughs again.
I can assume what he asked, but I’m pretending I don’t know.
Jamie turns to me. “This is a Vietnamese restaurant.”
I look around. “Yeah, I figured.”
“I found it one day when I was just walking around, discovering the neighborhood. I smelled the noodles from a mile away. They reminded me of Bà Ngo?i’s food, and I just followed the smell until I got here.
Chef V?ong was the only one working then, and there was no one else here but me. I’ve been coming here ever since.”
“Gave me a scare when you started speaking Vietnamese.” Chef V?ong chuckles while chopping the onions at the speed of light. His English is lightly accented. “I thought, where did a white boy learn all of that so perfectly?”
Jamie gives me a sheepish smile, and I say, “Nah, Jamie is Vietnamese through and through.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Chef V?ong replies, smiling at Jamie fondly.
Jamie looks at me, his eyes soft with gratitude, and I shake my head lightly.
I know exactly what he was feeling. The fear of not belonging in a culture you grew up in.
The fear you’re too American to be Vietnamese or Syrian and too brown to be American.
I often wondered whether the jellyfish would talk to me like they talked to Mama.
Would they reject me because my words didn’t sound like hers?
Chef V?ong tells us we can sit anywhere we want, and Jamie leads me to a table that’s by the window. We take off our coats and place them over the chairs. I stuff the gloves into the pocket of my coat.
“This place has many halal options.” Jamie sits opposite me. “Chef V?ong isn’t Muslim, but he wants everyone to be able to eat here.”
“I wish Braxton would hire Chef V?ong,” I say, and Jamie laughs.
“If they did, I would start eating at the cafeteria. I never liked the food there. Not even the vegetarian stuff. It’s like it’s trying too hard.” He slides a menu toward me, and I pick it up. “Have you ever had Vietnamese food before?”
I shake my head.
“Then I think for beginners ph? is a good choice. And we’ll level you up from there.”
“Okay.”
He gets up to tell Chef V?ong our order and comes back.
I sit up straight, hands folded in front of me. “So are you going to tell me why we’re here?”
He mirrors me, adopting a serious expression. “Because I’m hungry.”
I raise my eyebrows.
He sighs. “Honestly? I thought you’d like a break from school.”
I nod and, after a second, let the residual tension carried in my shoulders melt away. “But the real reason is to get me to talk about school?”
A quick smile quirks his lips. “Not if you don’t want to.”
I consider him for a long second. “It’s… it’s embarrassing to talk about.”
He frowns. “The bullying is embarrassing for you?”
I massage my forehead. “It’s an irrational feeling.” I catch his expression. “So how much do you know?”
He inhales deeply. “I know about the locker and what Mason’s friends say about you. I didn’t realize they were… asking you to do things until one of them asked me if we…” He looks away, brow furrowed.
I grip my knees tightly, keeping my breaths steady.
He clears his throat. “Anyway, it nearly turned into a fight, but the teachers were there. I thought—hoped—it had stopped.”
I blink. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shakes his head slightly. “What would I say? I talked to the teachers about your locker. I tried to do something, but nothing came from it.” He holds my gaze. “You’re right. It doesn’t work if you don’t do it yourself.”
I lean forward; the banged-up armor I’ve put on is on its last legs. I’m exhausted, my energy existing in wisps, but I say, “Don’t look at me with pity. Just because that’s happening at school doesn’t mean I’m helpless.”
He frowns. “You’re absolutely not helpless. I’ve seen the way you fight back. Not just with your art but talking back. I’m worried it’s getting to you.”
I quirk a half smile. “No. It’s not.”
Chef V?ong is at our table, balancing a huge tray filled with food. Two large bowls of steaming noodles and several other dishes of different foods.
“Here you go,” Chef V?ong says, placing the tray in front of us.
“Two ph? tái for the lady and gentleman. Bánh cu?n filled with beef.” He places the dish with rice rolls, decorated with cucumbers and parsley, onto the table.
“And bánh xèo filled with shrimp.” Two crepes folded beside each other with lettuce on the side and topped with cilantro.
“As the English would say, bon appétit!”
This makes Jamie and me laugh, and Chef V?ong grins.
“C?m on, Chef,” Jamie says, and mouths to me, “Thank you.”
I repeat it and earn smiles from Jamie and Chef V?ong.
“You’re welcome. Let me know if there’s anything else,” Chef V?ong says.
I feel the warmth from the ph?’s broth before I taste it. The aromatics are wonderful, hints of ginger and onion.
For a while, we don’t say anything. Just letting the ph? melt the cold that clung to us. I haven’t had a proper meal like this in ages. I’ve been surviving for so long off za’atar and cheese sandwiches, I’ve forgotten what a real meal is.
I’ve been hungry for so long, and I haven’t noticed. It unlocks memories I’ve hidden away. Cooking and baking with Mama, her holding my fingers as we traced the handwritten recipes in her cookbook. Tears brim in my eyes, and I start crying right into the ph?.
“What happened?” Jamie says in alarm. He drops the chopsticks and spoon, reaching for me before taking his hands back. “Jihad?”
I don’t answer, just shoving more of the broth and the noodles into my mouth, not caring how it burns my tongue and throat. I eat until every part of me sags with relief.
Jamie watches me for a while before going back to his bowl.
I cry silently, trying not to dribble the broth onto my clothes, and Jamie pushes the napkins on the table toward me. I take them, spreading one over my lap and using another as a bib. I keep crying, but the tears slowly stop as I get fuller.
Afterward, when the bowl is wiped clean, no drop of broth left, I hiccup and dry my tears.
“Are you okay now?” Jamie asks.
I nod. “This was so delicious,” I whisper. “Thank you.”
He takes in a shaky breath and closes his eyes for a second. “I’m glad you liked it. Do you want more?”
I shake my head. My stomach has ballooned up.
“Try the bánh cu?n.” He picks one up with the chopsticks and places it on the empty plate beside me before drizzling a sauce on it. “It’s really good with n??c ch?m. It’s fish sauce.”
I take a bite, and it’s a burst of flavor. It’s not heavy, which is a blessing for my already filled stomach. I eat one more and then one of the bánh xèo Jamie nudges toward me.
“I’m full.” With my stomach satisfied, my tears have all gone. The world around me looks laxer, the colors sweeter and hazy as if I’m waking up on a quiet Saturday morning.
Jamie doesn’t push me to eat more. “Good. I still think about that zucchini lunch you got first day of school.”
“Oh, mehshi. Literal translation is ‘stuffed.’” I laugh a little at how funny that sounds to my ears.
He grins. “So you stuff zucchini with rice and meat, right?”
I nod. “Potatoes and eggplants too. Even tomatoes. It can also be vegetarian.” I smile, remembering how Mama taught me to use the vegetable corer to remove the zucchini’s insides. “I used to cook a lot with my mom.” I blink, gazing far away. “How did I forget that?”
Jamie leans forward.
“It’s grief,” I say slowly, feeling the ripples of that word along my body. “She made this huge breakfast every weekend, and Amal and I used to help. She baked everything from scratch and taught me how to create the perfect fatayer shape.”
Jamie looks at me questioningly.
“They’re savory pastries. For Eid, we made atayef, little Syrian pancakes filled with pistachio and cream.” I press my hands to my cheeks. “I can’t believe I forgot that.”
“Not entirely,” he says gently.
I smile. “What about you? Did you cook with your Bà Ngo?i?”
He nods. “Oh, yes. It was one of the ways she felt close to Vietnam. I’m guessing it was the same with your mom.
” I nod, and he continues, “She loved making this one noodle soup from her childhood called bún cá, which is fish noodle soup. Her mom came from Hanoi, and she made it that way. It’s amazing, but there are some local ingredients that were difficult to find here.
Like this plant called doc mung, so we have to substitute celery. ”
“Oh, same here. Sometimes we can’t get the good brand of labneh, which is strained yogurt, so we make it ourselves by literally straining yogurt.”
He smiles, a deep look in his eyes. “There’s something about cooking food your great-grandparents and ancestors cooked, and every time, it’s slightly different, but it’s still the same dish. Like it connects you to them. Things change around you, but the food is there.”
I mull over his words. “Makes you feel less alone.”
He nods.
From where he’s sitting, the afternoon sun peeking in slivers through the alleyway paints him in gold.
I really like how brown his eyes are. A color that exists only in certain places on earth.
The velvety texture of the soil, the flecks in a supernova, crystallized ambers.
But when the light hits them, they become the sun itself.
I change the subject. “Black hair looks good on you.”
He runs a hand through it self-consciously. “Thank you.” He hesitates, then says, “Can I ask why your parents named you Jihad? I know it doesn’t mean what the media says. But why would they name you that, knowing how hard it would be?”
I’ve been expecting this question. “Mom was in labor with me for thirty hours.”
He lets out a low whistle.
“For some reason, her pregnancy with me was difficult. And the birth was full of complications. The doctors said I was breeched, and they’d have to do a C-section, but then I decided to just come out the natural way.
They were already doing the C-section. For about ten seconds, I didn’t have any oxygen.
The doctors worried it was going to affect my brain, but I was okay.
I was a fighter.” I scratch the table. “My parents looked at each other and knew this was my name. Names in Arabic all have meanings. And as Muslims, we believe the meaning of the name represents the person. So we like to give our kids good names. Jihad means to strive. To battle something big. I fought for my life and won.”
Something shifts in his gaze like his understanding has grown. Like he’s seeing more of me now, when before he saw parts.
“It’s the same in Vietnamese. With names having meanings, I mean. Bà Ngo?i said it’s a wish parents give their child. But Mom was worried about me getting bullied for my name here, so they settled on Jamie. But I do have a Vietnamese middle name.”
I lean my elbows onto the table. “And what is it?”
He smiles, and I think this is an eager one. “Hai.”
“Hai.” I taste the name, the colors that come with it. “What does it mean?”
This time the smile is playful, like he’s hiding a secret. “The ocean. Or sea.”
My heart pitter-patters for a strange reason I can’t name but can definitely feel.
“Sea,” I repeat.
He nods.
“What was your bà ngo?i’s wish?”
He looks out the window. “I suppose to have a heart as big as the sea.”
I study his profile, the slope of his jaw and his eyelashes feathering along his cheekbones. My fingers itch with the want to sketch him. And I think if the world were kinder to me, then I would think of those thoughts I’ve hidden.
Afterward, when I move to pay the bill, Jamie tells me it’s already been taken care of.
I frown at him but don’t get the chance to say anything when Chef V?ong comes out of the kitchen with two plastic bags weighed down by food containers.
He hands one to me and one to Jamie. “For dinner or breakfast or lunch. Heat with care. I placed the noodles and broth in separates boxes, so they don’t get soggy.”
I glance at him, bewildered. “Wh-why?”
“I make a lot of food,” he says. “This is your first time trying Vietnamese cuisine, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you like it?”
I nod. “A lot. Thank you.”
“Then have some more.”
I open my mouth to say something, then reconsider. “Th-thank you.”
“Don’t fight it,” Jamie says to me, and thanks Chef V?ong, who sends us off with a goodbye.
Outside, I stare at Jamie and hold up my plastic bag. He mirrors me.
“He does this all the time,” he says. “Sends you off with a little something.”
I swallow hard, peering through the plastic bag, and my heart feels full of the kindness that no longer tastes strange.