Chapter 29
The restaurant Hiromi chose for our first date, Mixed, was five minutes’ walk from Garrett’s, on another narrow, doglegged street of brownstones with front stoops.
Mixed looked exactly like the residences on either side, except for a brass nameplate on its door and a handful of diners spilled onto the sidewalk.
I arrived early for our ten p.m. reservation, waiting across the street until Hiromi’s dot grew close.
The June heat had settled in, and I wore Uncle Orrin’s pinstriped waistcoat—the one Garrett had vetoed—over bare skin.
My charcoal, high-waisted linen pants had been the best find on a flea market shopping trip for Jessica Anderson.
Sebastian’s black-beaked skull rested gently on my chest.
“In six weeks, Lyon has his annual party in the Catskills,” Garrett had told me as I dressed. “It’s a chance to see his cult up close, how they recruit, how they seduce. Make sure to be Hiromi’s plus-one.”
“She won’t go.”
“He’s a collector. It’s a professional opportunity.”
“She hates him.”
“Important for you.”
I’d wanted to argue, to say it was too soon to push Hiromi for favors, but my ultimate target wasn’t her. It was Lyon.
When she arrived, Hiromi found me leaning against the iron gate of the stoop beside Mixed, holding myself loosely, like Sebastian at a party. His world-watching pose, Faraday called it.
“You look like yourself,” she said.
“These are my real clothes.”
“We approve.” She was wearing a white summer dress covered with flecks of blue—halfway between sleek Hiromi and her workshop grunge.
“Did you paint it yourself?” I asked.
“Accidentally, at first.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s not done yet.”
We started at the bar, with bright citrus and coconut drinks. I was mirroring Hiromi’s nonalcoholic ways tonight, intrigued to seduce someone without the buzz of alcohol.
We were surrounded by stylish, beautiful, important people shouting in each other’s ears. Hiromi knew half of them—I’d never been hugged by so many ordinaries. Sebastian would’ve been in his element.
“Is it always like this?”
“Crowded? Loud? Yes, but more than usual. It’s the restaurant’s last night.”
Samantha Chan, the head chef, had won culinary awards but was mostly famous for being on TV. Mixed had been a huge success, but now the lease was running out—the landlord was tripling her rent.
“How do you know Chef Sam?” I asked, which is what they called her on TV.
“Friend of the family. Before my starving artist period.”
“We won’t starve tonight. Garrett gave me the gallery’s Amex.”
“You really are his favorite.” She leaned closer, her lips brushing my ear. “How is it, working for him?”
“It would be easier if he weren’t innumerate.”
“Is that unusual for a Morton?”
“Yes. Are you close to your family?”
Hiromi took a slow breath, then spoke in a rush.
“My parents died when I was fifteen. They’d cut all ties when they left Japan—never told me why—and I was an only child. All of a sudden, I was completely alone.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, wondering why Garrett hadn’t told me any of this.
“That must be unimaginable to you.”
I shook my head. “My cousin Sebastian had no family, before we adopted him.”
“The Mortons adopt?”
“Constantly. You’d love Sebastian. He has as many friends as you.”
“A necessary skill for us orphans—making our own family.”
I frowned at this. “Sebastian has us now.”
“Of course. But you Mortons are so daunting,” Hiromi said. “That huge estate. Your grandmother tracking you, and her weird sayings! Hundreds of people—at a funeral for a kid. There’s this immense machine whirring around you, Jessica. You might not see it, but it’s kind of terrifying.”
“Oh, I see it.” The collective that forms whenever we Mortons assemble, swathed in loyalty, tradition, blood.
“When Garrett took me upstate for Peter’s funeral, everyone was so proud of what you had. It was like you all wanted to adopt me.”
I considered this, then leaned closer. “I don’t want to adopt you, Hiromi. I want to fuck you.”
She held my gaze, taking her time before answering. For a moment, her eyes contained a great distance. Then she whispered, “Well, that’s a relief.”
An hour after arriving, we were led from the jam-packed bar by the host—yet another friend of Hiromi’s—into the sudden, expensive peace of the dining room, like plunging into cold water after a sauna.
My ears rang with the quiet.
The host seated us at a counter that looked onto the kitchen, a front-row vantage. At least a dozen chefs were at work, dissecting and dicing produce, steaming, frying, cleaning. Everything gleamed with sweat or polish. Giant, somehow silent, extractors overhung the whole enterprise.
Hiromi looked elated, her eyes gleaming.
“All those beautiful knives,” she said. “You must be happy.”
“You can’t throw chef’s knives.”
“Too big?”
I shook my head, thinking of the magnificent Ziggy. “It’s about balance.”
“With the right knife, could you hit an apple on someone’s head?”
“That’s archery. Which I’m even better at, so yes.”
“Of course you are.”
I recognized Samantha Chan on the far side of the kitchen. She was ignoring the labors of her chefs, taking slow, thoughtful bites from an array of small plates before her.
“Thanks for wearing this tonight,” Hiromi said, lifting Sebastian’s gift. The skull was on a new silver chain Grandmother had sent. “How is it so light? Because birds have hollow bones?”
“All skulls are hollow,” I said. “But yes, birds are airy creatures.”
“Do you ever wish you could fly?”
“No.”
As Hiromi laughed, a chef moved into the spot across the counter from us and began assembling a salad of yellow tomatoes, plums, and a purple fruit I didn’t recognize.
“Hey, Treasure!” Hiromi said. “This is Jessica. She’s interning with Garrett.”
Treasure looked me up and down. “The knife girl?”
“Knife-thrower,” Hiromi corrected.
“Cool. Show me sometime?”
“Sure,” I said, wondering what else Treasure had been told about me.
“Treasure is their actual name,” Hiromi said. “But also what they mean to me.”
“Aww, you,” Treasure said, already on to the next salad. “So Garrett’s your boss. Does that suck?”
Hiromi stage whispered, “Garrett declined to represent them.”
“I’m too pedestrian.”
“Treasure does portraits,” Hiromi said. “Mine has a sparkling metal eye and a zipper scar across my cheek. Hardly pedestrian.”
“The boss doesn’t like figurative art,” I said. “He won’t represent textile artists either. Too close to fashion, which he’s bad at, clearly.”
Treasure laughed, flashing an I-like-her smile at Hiromi.
A waiter appeared, placing tiny bowls nestling tinier spheres before us, while another poured cups of something cloudy from two different carafes.
“First course: eel and grape accompanied by unfiltered makgeolli—minus the alcohol for you, Hiromi. Enjoy.”
Which meant alcohol for me, but the waiter was already gone.
First course? We hadn’t ordered. I remembered a word from a dinner party at the Wolvaardt compound. “Is this a degustation?”
“A special treat,” Hiromi said. “Sam loves a tasting menu, but the margins are too narrow.”
I looked around at the tables, saw nothing resembling what we had. “It’s just for us?”
“They’re tight,” Treasure said, with an emphasis that made me certain that Chef Sam was Hiromi’s ex.
I sipped the drink. Sweet, delicate, and alive, as if the rice were still fermenting. The bottles had looked expensive, the labels entirely in Korean.
Hiromi was a young struggling artist, a nobody, and yet this place was treating her like a celebrity. As if a cobbled-together family could be as powerful, in its way, as my own eternal one.
Hiromi took one of the spheres between her thumb and forefinger, and brought it to my lips. I briefly tasted the salt of her skin before biting into the ball, which burst, fishy, not quite sweet, tart, soft as a grape, with something crunchy inside.
“Your eyes!” Hiromi cried.
I covered my mouth, shy at being caught in such pleasure.
“I’ve never eaten anything like this,” I said truthfully.
Hiromi smiled. “No one has.”
On our tenth course—smoked black cod in a dunkel beer, accompanied by the same beer for me and a heather honey and almond milk concoction for Hiromi—Samantha Chan replaced Treasure at our counter, wiping her hands on her apron.
She leaned across to kiss Hiromi on the mouth. Perhaps they were still lovers.
“My taste buds explode!”
“Your lips to god’s belly,” Sam replied.
Hiromi giggled, like they’d exchanged these words many times before. It was a magic spell that recalled all the meals, all the individual bites, that Chef Sam had placed in her mouth.
I wanted to say something clever, but all that came to me were Morton aphorisms—Knives are sharper in the dark. My verbal reflexes were wrapped in fuzz. It occurred to me that after ten small, curated pours of matching wines, beers, and spirits, I might be drunk.
I watched mutely as Samantha pushed a lock of hair behind Hiromi’s ear.
“Nice to meet you, Jessica,” she said, switching her gaze to me. She looked older than her videos. Her hair was shorter too, buzzed close to her scalp.
“Thank you for doing this for us.” For Hiromi. “It tastes like…”
Chef Sam didn’t hear. She was pulled away by urgent words whispered in her ear.
“Emergency at station eleven,” Treasure said, sliding back into place. The two of them laughed, as if all Chef Sam’s exits went like this, and my unfinished compliment trailed away.
Wobbling taupe half globes with flecks of glitter were placed in front of us.
“Last course: savory cocoa and gold flakes, accompanied by a botrytised Sémillon; pear cider for Hiromi. You’ll like the bitter notes in this one, Jessica.”
I did. By now the staff understood my palate almost as well as Aunt Veronica. I tasted leather, smoke, salt, the mouth-drying tang of unsweetened chocolate. Dessert with no sugar. Sebastian would hate it, though he’d enjoy the cloying sweetness of the wine I’d abandoned after a sip.
A scraping sound came from behind us—the tables being pulled to the edges of the room. It was two a.m., the restaurant’s last service over; the farewell party had begun.
The overflow crowd from the bar, family and friends, thronged into the dining room. Miyeon, Danny, and Ayana were among them, and Crystal, who didn’t hide her scowl when she saw me.
Treasure caught it too, whispering to me, “She’s just mad you stole her spot as designated white friend.”
Hiromi laughed hard. “Treasure!”
A chair was placed in the center of the crowd, and when Chef Sam came out of the kitchen, we broke into applause.
She stood on the chair, wiped her hands, then realized she wasn’t wearing an apron—she’d left a smear across her shirt.
“Shit,” she said.
Laughter rippled.
“You all know what you mean to me.”
“You can still tell us!” More laughter. Most of the new arrivals looked drunk. A few were already slumped in chairs around the perimeter of the newly cleared dance floor. The alcohol in my own blood lay heavier than usual.
“Best fucking crew I’ve ever worked with,” Chef Sam said.
Her voice broke a little, and the room went quiet, emotions at the edge of spilling.
“You never miss a funeral,” I whispered to Hiromi.
“A celebration.”
“Same thing.”
She slid her hands around my waist, resting her cheek on my shoulder blade as Chef Sam went on. Stories of skittish investors, nervous health inspections, spherifications gone wrong, flubbed lines on TV. About community, hard work, and survival.
That’s when I saw him—in the corner behind Hiromi’s friends. In dark clothes, he was pretending to be lost in his phone. But he was aiming the camera, taking pictures of me and Hiromi together.
The man I’d seen following her.
I turned in Hiromi’s arms, shifting our position, so the man could capture more of her face and less of mine.
It was a grievous Morton sin to be photographed like this, but the light was low, and this was the plan. Rage had flitted across Lyon’s face as he’d watched Hiromi depart the gallery with her friends; a long embrace, here in public, would leave him jealous, grasping, spurned.
I turned to face her, giving the man my back.
“Kiss me,” I said.
When she did, my thoughts scattered. All I felt was her body against mine, fragile, soft, insistent. The taste of salt and cider on her tongue. Her lips moving against mine, whispering something soundless.
The man, clicking away, didn’t matter anymore.