Chapter 4
“We’re closing soon,” Jeannie whispered, clinging to Jiyeon's arm behind the counter. “Why won't they leave? I played the Closing Countdown and everything. I did it just like the boss wrote in the giant binder with the Standard Operating Procedures. I was on protocol, and for what?”
“Okay.” Jeannie untied her orange apron, flinging it around her neck in a move she’d inherited straight from Denny.
Then she scowled at the dining room at large, also very much like Denny.
“I’m just annoyed. What's the use of Standard Operating Procedures when people won't operate, like… standardly?”
“Standardly?”
“You know what I mean! That's a real word, and don't play the dunce card with me, only I can play the dunce card, that's my strategy—”
“I promise I'll go over there and talk to them at 8:00, if they're still here. I won't keep you even one second later, and you can skip groceries if you want. Same for tomorrow night.” Wanna Waffle had been closed on Mondays ever since Denny’s departure. They’d extended weekend hours to help make up for it.
“You're not going anywhere near them,” gasped Jeannie, mortified. “Those are Sunshines, the feral kind. They might try to bite you, and then I'd have to bite them, and that's the last thing I want to do when I've been working for twelve hours. I'm exhausted! I don't have the stamina!”
“Pretty sure your shifts are always six hours long, Jeannie.”
“And it felt like double because we were so busy! Saturdays and Sundays were always busy, but now they’re worse. I’m blaming Apollo.”
Jiyeon zipped the cash envelope and didn’t argue.
It was fair to credit Apollo, and the subsequent media coverage, for the surge in customers.
All summer, fans had descended upon Wanna Waffle in droves, crowding in to see the place where their idols had broken free of Emerald Entertainment.
The restaurant was now an indelible part of Apollo’s history.
While the initial furor had died down, Sunshines still arrived on pilgrimage with surprising regularity.
They swarmed over the booths and tables, took photos of every plate and mug and potted plant.
They posed in the parking lot outside the shop with photo cards in decorated cases, clutching light sticks, their arms full of Apollo merchandise.
Some even arrived in outfits carefully curated to match what their favorite member had worn at one point or another.
The more meticulous fans sought to sit in the same spots and order the same waffles, right down to the toppings.
Although Jeannie was quick to label them as feral, Jiyeon thought tonight’s Sunshines were pretty mild.
None of them had tried to approach her, for starters.
She’d had her share of Apollo devotees desperate to wring Emma Han for information.
These girls had attempted a few sly glances in her direction, easy enough to deflect. Small mercies.
In many ways, Wanna Waffle was nowhere near equipped for such an influx of customers.
The pace had never been so hectic, the work never so relentless.
Still, she didn’t mind. There was a time when Wanna Waffle stood empty most days, and Jiyeon remembered it too well.
Even on the most beautiful California mornings, when sunlight drenched the dining room in a wash of mellow gold, there had been something very bleak about it.
The view from behind this counter hadn’t always been reassuring.
Needs people, her sister Janie used to say, chewing gum and pushing an embroidery needle through the cuff of a sweater draped over her lap. That’s what’s missing.
Years had passed. Jiyeon was much older now, so it shocked her every time that same flare of irritation blazed up inside her chest. Sure, they needed people.
They needed lots of people to make the restaurant less of a failure, that much was obvious.
And in her eyes, it would be a failure for everyone in the family.
Not just for their parents, whose money had gone into the walls and floors, into benches with tattered upholstery and a brand new sign to hang above the door.
This failure would belong to all of them. The thought had been unbearable.
It used to make her crazy that her parents had made this investment, but it made Jiyeon even crazier that Janie could sit there, perched on her stool at the register, filling the petals of a flower with one neat stitch after another.
How could her sister see a problem and feel no compulsion to fix it?
But Janie was Janie, in the end, and Jiyeon was Jiyeon.
She no longer needed this reminder from her parents every day of her life.
And Wanna Waffle hadn’t failed. Wanna Waffle was still here.
Still here, bursting with life. The shop felt so small, outpaced by its own growth.
Reminded of the task she’d set aside when it came time to close up, Jiyeon leaned against the scrubbed countertop and traced the bounds of the dining room, eyeballing measurements.
She ran aground on the same conclusion. “I’ve been thinking about what Dad said,” she said to Jeannie, “and there’s just no way.
We couldn’t fit more tables in here if we tried. We’d be at capacity, too.”
Jeannie paused in the middle of refilling napkin holders.
“God, I’m so glad. That’s the best thing you’ve told me all week.
” She tore open another package, then whisked out the exact amount of napkins needed, no more and no less, with a practiced flick of the wrist. “I don’t want more tables.
More tables means more work for me. And I’m overworked okay? I’m above capacity.”
“Hmm.”
“Like, I wasn’t built for that level of activity.
That’s not what I’m good at and I accepted it about myself a long time ago.
I’m not like you and Denny. He wants waffle supremacy and you want a haircut palace.
You guys are crazy, okay? You make me so tired.
What’s next? Another Wanna Waffle? I can’t. ”
“If only,” said Jiyeon, choosing not to comment on the haircut palace. “Denny’s not interested in expanding, you know that. And if we did open another branch, he’d call it Wanna Waffle 2.”
Jeannie dropped some napkins, aghast. “You can’t let him do that. Forget about the salon, you need to come up with a better name than Wanna Waffle 2.” She poked Jiyeon in the cheek. “If you guys open another restaurant, you’ll make more money. I’ll retire early and you can support me.”
“One restaurant is hard enough to manage. I love this place, but I’m giving it back when Denny gets home.
” Jiyeon eyed the parking spaces in front of the restaurant.
“We could look into outdoor seating. It might be doable.” She took a pen from the jar next to Denny’s gong, intending to scribble a note about permits and city requirements on the back of her hand.
“You don’t have to write on yourself anymore,” said Jeannie, clucking her tongue. “Just put it in your Notes app. Remember? You’re here in the space age with us now?”
“Oh. Yeah, you're right.” Jiyeon regarded her phone with a wariness that was deeply ingrained. She knew that it made sense to switch to an actual smartphone again, but her heart kicked up its pace when the phone was in her hand, and not necessarily in a good way.
She felt ridiculous. Most people thought nothing of their phones, which were more like appendages nowadays, integral to so many aspects of life.
Shiny and new, Jiyeon's was an even flashier model than the one she'd urged Eunjae to borrow when he first arrived; he’d wanted to keep the original, out of what Denny called ‘maudlin sentimentality.’ So she’d gotten another, albeit reluctantly.
Video calls, nicer photos, a staggering catalog of apps for every purpose under the sun — it offered these things, and more.
Jiyeon didn't want more. Against her own practical nature, she still found herself staring at this phone and craving less.
She typed out her thoughts on a potential patio, then checked her messages.
Still nothing from Eunjae. She responded to a few tags on the Wanna Waffle account, careful not to stray into Emma’s territory.
Jiyeon avoided that old account, as a rule, and maintained a policy of keeping the notifications turned off.
She never opened anything, no matter who it was from.
“Yeonnie,” her mother called from the kitchen. “Hey, where’s your dad, huh? Gotta go soon. Still need groceries for tomorrow.”
Jiyeon peered through their main window, past the strokes of Evan’s latest artwork on the glass.
The sky had darkened to violet. Her father stood just outside the entrance, framed by palm trees marching in a row along the street.
Their slender trunks swayed with the breeze as Joey made small talk with some ladies from Sunday night mahjong, not to be confused with the more dramatic ensemble from Thursday night mahjong.
“He’s with the Bright Valley bus,” she told Lizzie, “helping them load up.”
“And he’s yapping,” Jeannie chimed in. “Yap, yap, yap.”
“Well, go tell him no more yaps. This guy! It’s 7:55 already!”
Jeannie bounced over to relay this message, ponytail swinging.
One of the ladies shot a pointed glance at the Sunshines leaving with their Apollo plushies and photo cards.
The shop’s regulars had grown increasingly discomfited by the wave of ‘outsiders.
' They complained that Wanna Waffle was crowded now, that their cozy brunch spot just wasn’t the same anymore.
It wasn’t the same. Jiyeon couldn’t argue with that. But was it so wrong to make Sunshines feel welcome here? For the most part, they weren’t any trouble.
The trilling of the shop’s landline cut through her thoughts. “Wanna Waffle,” she said into the receiver, her brain still making calculations. There was no response to her greeting. The line crackled and went dead.
Weird. Wrong number, maybe. Or a spam call.
Jiyeon forgot about it within seconds, what with Lizzie emerging from the kitchen to ask about a ride back from her haircut later that week.
“You should call Gloria, tell her you’re coming,” her mother went on.
“Let somebody else cut your hair, yeah? Take a break.”
“I just trimmed it myself last month.”
Lizzie waved a dishtowel at her. “That boy is coming home and you don’t want to look nice?”
“So you’re saying I should make an effort?” Jiyeon asked, laughing. “And anyway, that boy needs a haircut more than I do.”
“Ask Ryan if he thinks she needs to make an effort,” teased Jeannie. “Bet he says nope.”
“He’s smart. Knows the right answer.” Lizzie watched as the trio of Sunshines made their exit, still recording as they went.
Then she bustled to the door and flipped the sign from OPEN to CLOSED.
“Only joking! Pretty with no work, just like Mom.” In Korean, she added, “But I’m not joking about taking a break, Yeonnie.
You’re working too much. And don’t give up just because you couldn’t get the place you wanted.
Go tour some more, you’ll find something else you like. ”
“I’ll take a break when Denny’s back from Seoul.”
She wasn’t giving up. Why did everyone act like she’d abandoned her own goals?
Was that really fair of them when her to-do list was a million miles long?
Keep the shop going, sell Denny on building a patio, pacify the grouchy regulars.
Jiyeon was also supposed to pretend she wasn't crazy about a guy she found outside her family’s restaurant.
Otherwise, his career might go up in flames.
And hadn’t her own career gone up in flames? Didn’t she put it to the torch herself?
Jiyeon stopped to hang her apron on its hook in the pantry. Life would balance out soon. There would be time to breathe, time to get back to the goals she’d set aside. They’d figure out what to do next. Things would go back to normal.
Normal was possible, right?