Chapter 10 Noelle
10 Noelle
June 20, Version 45-ish
Bright and early—which is now ten in the morning for me—I head downtown, armed with a notebook and pen just to prove that I’m taking this research business seriously.
I meet Avery at Magic Dumplings. The interior of the restaurant looks like it has seen better days—well, no. It probably always looked like this, but I find it reassuring. It’s the sort of place that my grandparents might have frequented.
I hold up two fingers to indicate that we want a table for two, and an older woman in a faded apron takes us to a table by the window. We peruse the extensive menu, written in both English and Chinese, each item labeled with a number, and I select the pan-fried pork-and-chive dumplings. Using the pencil left on the chipped table, I write down the number on a slip of paper. Avery chooses something as well. The lady takes our order and sets down two small teacups and a teapot. Aside from a few older women near the back of the restaurant, we’re the only customers.
As I sip my tea, I look out the window. The air conditioner makes a loud rattling sound, but I can’t complain. It’s cooler than it is outside.
The server returns with two plates containing twelve dumplings each, and my mouth starts to water from the smell. I pick up a dumpling with my chopsticks, then remind myself that I’ll probably burn myself if I eat it now, so I reach for the vinegar and wait a couple of minutes.
Finally, I lift the first dumpling to my lips and inhale deeply before taking a bite. It’s just as delicious as the aroma suggests, and it doesn’t take us long to polish everything off.
When the server comes to clear the table, I take a deep breath and ask, “Why is this place called Magic Dumplings?”
“Wah, don’t ask me,” she says. “I didn’t name it.”
“Have you ever heard of dumplings with magical properties?”
She frowns.
“Like, dumplings that could make you fly.” Yeah, great example, Noelle. “Or, random thought here, make you repeat the same day over and over.”
“Why do I need magic for that? I go to work. My son doesn’t call. Same every day.”
“No, I mean exactly the same. Like, say, the air conditioner breaks at noon. Then when you come to work the next day, it’s working again… but it breaks at noon. And the date on your phone never changes.”
After a moment of thought, she says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe you should see a doctor, get head checked.” She taps her temple.
“I tried that.” I manage a chuckle. “Could we get the bill?”
I don’t come down to Chinatown very often. I live in North York, and there’s no shortage of Chinese food there. On the walk to Tasty 8 Dumplings, I stop a couple of times, examining businesses that have changed since my last visit.
The second dumpling place is newer. Sparkling floors. Black tables and chairs. The server is younger than I am.
Our shrimp-and-vegetable dumplings arrive in a bamboo steamer. They’re not quite as good as the dumplings at the first place but still quite tasty, as their name would suggest.
“Excuse me,” Avery says to the server when he returns to clear our dishes, “have you heard of dumplings that make people travel in time? Maybe repeat the same day over and over?”
“Uh, no.” He seems to brace himself, as if expecting some unpredictable behavior on our part, or at least a second weird question.
“Just wondering,” Avery says with a smile. “Can we have the bill?”
By the time we get to the third restaurant, I’m rather full, but I remind myself that my future might depend on consuming the right dumpling, and so I persevere and order some soup dumplings.
After the meal, I don’t bother asking my server if she knows anything about magical dumplings. Neither does Avery. We’re too embarrassed to do it again. All I can do is hope that one of these dumplings did the trick, even if none of them tasted quite like the ones at the night market.
However, as I’m exiting the restaurant, I pass a group of young people—university students?—having an animated conversation at a table near the door.
“And then he swore that time slowed down and started going backward,” someone says.
I reduce my speed as much as I can without drawing too much attention to myself.
“I’m serious!” a man exclaims. “That’s what happened. Then it started feeling like I had, like, chronic déjà vu.”
I come to a stop. Does this have something to do with dumplings?
“Really?” someone else says. “That’s never happened to me, and I’ve done shrooms a bunch of times.”
Hmph. How unhelpful.
Back at home, I pull up Google on my phone and make another attempt at finding the dumpling lady from the night market. I look at vendor listings and photos for other markets, but I can’t find any evidence of her existence. I contact the event organizers, who have no idea what I’m talking about.
Are Avery and I the only ones who saw her?
Was she some kind of ghost? And if so, how do you look for a ghost?
I wish I could spray a little WD-40 on my life to get time moving again, but alas, that’s not how it works—or is it? I consider it for a few seconds before rejecting the idea. WD-40 would probably irritate my skin, and what else could I spray it on, other than myself? No, that seems more far-fetched than my other ideas.
And—not for the first time—a more disturbing possibility seizes me: Am I a ghost?
I try to push that idea out of my head by watching too much reality TV.
Unsure what else to do, I spend the next few days eating dumplings. I go to a few restaurants in Scarborough. Avery joins me at a place in North York. Eventually, I—and I seriously can’t believe I’m even thinking this—become a little sick of dumplings, but that doesn’t make me give up.
One day, I attempt to make dumplings myself, something I’ve never done before. They taste reasonably good, though they look an utter mess.
The next day, it’s June 20 again.
Wanting to do something a little different, I text my sister. I tell her that I’m taking a “mental health” day from work and ask if she’d like to hang out. After Madison gets over the shock of me taking a day off—I’m not in the mood to explain the time loop again, even if she’d believe me—she agrees, and we go to a restaurant on Bayview, not too far from where she and her boyfriend live. The restaurant is rather run-down, and it looks slightly out of place between a patisserie and an organic butcher.
“Are you sure you’re not sick?” Madison makes a show of peering at me after the waiter has taken our order. She’s wearing jeans with holes that are probably supposed to look cool and a T-shirt for a band that she’s mentioned in passing before. We have similar facial features, though her physique is rounder, closer to our mother’s than our father’s.
“I’m not sick.” I pause. “I work sixty hours most weeks. I deserve a break every now and then, right?”
“I mean, yeah, but it’s not like you to say that. I’m just glad you realized that work is never gonna love you back.”
I shrug. “One of my coworkers… I’m supposed to be mentoring him, but he never does his work properly, no matter what I tell him. I keep having to redo his stuff. He’s the owner’s nephew, so if I complain—”
“Oh no,” Madison says. “Yeah, I can see how that might not go over well.”
“What about you?” I ask. “How’s your job?”
“It doesn’t make me want to slam my head into a brick wall every day, so it’s better than the last one, I guess. Low bar, though.”
Unlike usual, I don’t make any comments on her job-hopping.
“We should do this more often,” I tell her. “Hang out. Just the two of us. It’s nice.”
The fact that I’m 99.99 percent sure she’ll forget what I said—unless these dumplings do something that the others haven’t—makes it easier to say things like that.
But I’m hit by a pang of melancholy. Madison won’t remember our lunch; I’ll be the only one with the memory. Sure, we can do it again, on some other iteration of June 20, but it won’t be building on anything we’ve done before.
I’m not much of a gamer, but it’s like my sister—my own sister—is a non-player character in my life, a character fully run by the game’s software. Avery is the only other real player. Everyone else might appear to be here, but at the same time, they’re not truly here.
The server sets two steamers of dumplings in front of us, and I mumble my thanks.
Madison leans forward. “You look like you really needed a mental health day. If that guy at work is getting you down so much, you should tell your boss, even if it might not go well. Maybe he’ll surprise you.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
She shrugs. “Yeah, he probably won’t, but you’ll get another job. You’ve got lots of experience, right? If you feel stuck…”
Ha! She has no idea.
After lunch, Madison has things to do, and I walk around aimlessly.
What is the meaning of time? What is the meaning of life?
Am I trapped in a video game?
Why can’t I figure this out?
With everything I try, I feel like I’m grasping at straws, not making any real progress, and I fear I’ll be stuck here forever.
I stumble upon a brewery, and in my odd mental state, beer seems like a good idea, even though I’m not much of a beer person. A cold drink could be nice after being outside in the June weather. According to the sign, the taproom opens at three, which was two minutes ago.
When I step inside, the first thing I note is the singing. I look around. There are no other customers here, which isn’t surprising, since it just opened and most people are at work. Two men stand behind the bar with their backs to me. They’re singing something about winds and the sea. A sea shanty?
The one on the left is a thick white guy with shaggy brown hair. His voice is lower. The other man, who’s writing the tap list on a chalkboard, is smiling as he sings. I can hear it in his voice, even though I can’t see his face. There’s something very charming about it all, and I almost find myself smiling too, despite my worries about being trapped in a video game.
The first man stops singing when he sees me. “Hey. Take a seat wherever you like.” He gestures grandly around the taproom.
As I pull out a chair at the bar, the other man finishes the song. Then he turns around, and my heart speeds up. Unlike the other times we’ve met, he’s wearing a T-shirt that says “Leaside Brewing.”
“Hey.” He smiles. “Have we met before?”