Chapter Thirty-Five: Bảo

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE BẢO

In the morning, a half hour before classes start, I head to the art room, where Linh texted me to meet her. The lights are on low, the sun straining for passage through the blinders. Long shadows cast against the floor. Motes of dust drift lazily across the room. At first I can’t find Linh, but she’s there, on the center stool, facing a blank canvas. She sits empty-handed.

“Why’s it so dark in here?” I ask, approaching her. I lean down, aiming for a kiss, but her lips are stiff against mine. I tilt my head in question. “Everything okay?” A sense of foreboding washes over me.

“Your parents spread a rumor about our restaurant.”

“What rumor?”

She gnaws on her bottom lip. “Rats.”

“What?”

“They said rats are in our restaurant.”

“And you think my parents did it.” The fact that she doesn’t answer right away tells me. A spark of annoyance flares up inside me. “They wouldn’t, though. No way. Linh, they might be harsh sometimes, but to spread a rumor like that… that’s just—”

They’re my parents. This rumor… it’s beyond my mom. She isn’t cruel. They wouldn’t jeopardize Linh’s family restaurant just because of the feud—or whatever happened in the past—would they?

“A customer told my parents they heard it from you.”

Some of the hot air leaves Linh and she leans against me. “I’m only telling you what my parents told me. And they’re pissed, Bảo. I don’t know what to believe. This is serious.”

“She wouldn’t do it,” I answer tersely.

“I’m sorry.” Her apology sounds hollow to me. How would she feel if I came out attacking her mother? “I’m only saying what my mom says. And I can’t help but wonder—about the time we took over the restaurant, if—”

“I’ll talk to them,” I say, cutting her off. Angry at the accusation. Angry at how possible might it be, given the past offenses my mom had against Oh Mai Mai. “I’ll just ask them.”

She folds into me, apologizing again. “I’m sorry, I really don’t want to believe it. I’m just so, so confused. And angry. And—” I instantly wrap my arms around her waist, trying to calm us both down. “I’m just so tired of this, Bảo,” she mumbles into my chest. “How is this ever going to work?”

I’d like to think my parents are good people. They’ve gotten us this far. They have friends, a network of people. They can’t go so far as to create this rumor to destroy competition. They wouldn’t… would they?

“I’ll talk to them,” I repeat, wanting to make it sound like that will solve everything.

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School passes in a blur, my thoughts occupied by Linh, by the rats, by my parents’ potential hand in it. Even Ali, perhaps after texting or talking with Linh, leaves me relatively alone in journalism class. And then I get a text from Linh saying they need to close down the restaurant for a day. The inspector is still coming by, regardless of her parents’ efforts to dispel the rumor.

One day gone; one day of potential profits gone.

When I get to the restaurant, Mẹ’s circle is there at the usual booth. Ba is elsewhere; he might have gone to visit his friends—the husbands of the very wives his own wife befriended. Friends. Followers. Whatever they call themselves. As annoying as their laughs were before, it’s even more grating today, since I know what they may be laughing about. They’re celebrating. Hyenas laughing.

“Mẹ, can I see you for a second?”

“Oh, hi, con. Are you hungry? I just made a new batch of phở and can get it ready for you.”

“Not hungry.” Not while Linh’s—or her mother’s—accusation clings to me like a cloying cologne. I sense the General’s eyes on me, as well as the other women’s. “Can we go to the back?”

In the kitchen, alone with me, my mom moves around as if nothing is wrong. She flicks on the stovetop, reheating a stock pot of broth, seemingly ignoring what I said before about not being hungry.

“I heard there’s rats going around. Not here but at the restaurant across the street. Have you heard anything like that?”

Something passes over my mom’s face, too quickly for me to catch. But her tone, as she answers, is even and as hard as flint. “Yes, I think I heard that too.”

“But they don’t have rats.”

“How do you know?”

I sag against the counter behind me. I hear the challenge in her voice and it confirms it all. I wanted Linh to be wrong. So badly. But this is a deflection. My mom’s purposefully not answering my question, which can only mean…

The rumors. My mom did spread them.

The headache from earlier today comes back full force. Maybe that’s why my next questions come out louder than I expected, louder than I’d ever spoken—dared to speak—to my mom. “Why is it always them, Mẹ? Why are you always trying to ruin them? What, like they’re not people, too? They’re like you, Mẹ. They have this job, it’s what they do to put food on the table, pay for their oldest daughter’s tuition. Linh’s graduating soon, too. This rumor could really ruin things for them.”

Mẹ’s mouth falls open. Then closes. Opens again. Stunned. “How do you know all of this?”

“Know what?”

“Linh. It sounds like you know her.”

This is it. Maybe if she accused me of this earlier in the year, before I knew how I really felt about Linh, I’d waver and deny being close to Linh. I remember Linh in my arms, trembling from anger and worry.

“I know Linh because I’m friends with her. Been friends with her for a few months now.” And we’re more than that now.

“Gì?” she asks me to repeat myself.

A river of laughter from her circle reaches the edges of our space, but it dies down, engulfed by the tension between me and my mom.

“We were partnered up for an assignment,” I continue, watching her expression. “The newspaper. And I’ve been spending time with her. The articles I’ve been writing—the one about the Vietnamese chef, and other places—I’ve been going with her and she’s been making the sketches. We’re partners.”

“How’s that possible?” she asks almost in wonder, before her tone switches up, reprimanding me. “I told you never to talk to them. Never to interact with them.”

“Which never made sense to me. It’s impossible to avoid them.”

“Yes, it is possible if you make it so. If you listen to what I told you.”

“Well, I’m sorry, I didn’t listen to you,” I say, my voice gathering strength. I’ve gone this far, and I don’t see a way back. “But I like Linh, Mẹ. I realize she’s just like me. With a family just like ours. She’s one of the nicest people you’ve ever met. And I don’t know what you have against her family—”

“What has she said? About our family?”

Her question throws me off. I cross my arms, suspicious. Instead of chewing me out for admitting that I was friends with her, she asks that question? “Why does she have to say anything about us?”

Mẹ closes her mouth. “Never mind.” She swiftly turns. A line cook steps into the kitchen, AirPods in. She barks at him, bringing him out of his musical reverie, to clean up the prep table a bit more. I could feel her anger, even if it were miles away. Most of the time I keep it separate, observing it from afar. Sometimes my dad and I can laugh it off. Simply steer clear. But now, the anger is like tar. I’m a part of it. I’m the reason for it. I feel what she feels.

“What do they know about us? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing for you to worry about.” She turns her back, busying herself with moving around pots and pans. The line cook, sensing the mood of the room, quickly departs, leaving me to ask:

“Mẹ, is this about what happened in Vietnam? What Bác Xuân knows?”

She slams an empty pot against the stovetop before whirling around. Before I know it, she’s around the table, yanking me toward the back entrance to our alley, until we’re both outside, standing between a heap of black trash bags and broken-down cardboard boxes. “How did you—why are you asking these questions?”

“Because I’m trying to figure all of this shit out!” I yell freely. “All of the secrets. The way you’re acting. Why I can’t even mention Linh and her family’s name without getting this kind of reaction from you! Or maybe it’s because I don’t want to think that you, Mẹ, could do this to another family. This can’t be you, Mẹ. I didn’t think you could be this cruel.”

“Cruel?” My mom sucks in a breath. A movement catches my attention, rendering me speechless.

Tears.

Falling like snowy specks.

I look to the side, hating to see them. My body screams at me, my heart thudding at the idea of betraying her—you made her cry; you did this! But another voice inside me protests: She is crying because she’s guilty.

“It wasn’t me who said it,” she finally whispers. “It was Dì Nhi. It was said inside this restaurant; I didn’t think anyone would take it seriously. It wasn’t meant to leave here. I’ll talk to her.”

The admission doesn’t help. Not one bit. “That won’t help. This is Dì Nhi we’re talking about. Everything she says takes on a life of its own. And you should have stopped her. And now their restaurant’s in danger.”

“Con being dramatic. It will go away. Like all rumors. So Mẹ not sure why con being so—”

“Linh told me a health inspector’s coming by. Making them close down for the whole day. Imagine if you had to do that, Mẹ.” I turn my back on her. “Linh’s just like me. And she’s scared of what’s going to happen to her parents, to their restaurant. It’s their only means of living.”

I can’t be near her, not right now. I almost turn to go back into the restaurant, when suddenly her voice stops me.

“Your uncle died because of that girl’s family. My brother died… because of them. They are murderers.” Her voice cracks at the very end.

I pivot, reaching for the words to lead me back to my mother, who brushes past me, escaping into the depths of the kitchen. In my imagination, her words keep echoing back at me.

What the hell?

What the hell is going on?