“They all need to be presented uniformly. You know this. Can you get one of the boxes in back?”
“I came to have lunch, not work, Mom.”
My mom shook her head like she didn’t understand. She wouldn’t because she never left the store. It was her baby, her home, her first real child. My father passed away from a heart attack not long after she became pregnant with me. This store they’d built together, it was the last thing, other than me, that tied her to the love of her life.
I was the little minion that came after their firstborn and I gave her all the hell a second child normally did, or so she told me.
Hell was getting one A minus my senior year and partying in college, which most kids did.
“We are eating.” My mother carried out to go boxes from the back and placed them on the glass display counter where her sculpture of Yue Lao sat. She rearranged him pointedly in front of us.
Jay jumped at the bait. “What’s the story behind that guy there, Mrs. Chang?”
I rolled my eyes and groaned but my mother was already revving up. “Oh! How nice of you to ask. No one asks about this man here.”
Everyone asked about him.
“This is Yue Lao. He is an old man on the moon that knows who will marry who. He’ll tie a red string to you and your partner’s ankle connecting you forever. That will be your soulmate, the one you will always find your way back to.”
“Oh.” Jay smoothed a finger over the top of the sculpture’s head. “That’s an intriguing story, Meek. So, you and Dougie are tied together?”
I swear he was baiting me, but my mom jumped in. “Of course they aren’t. Dougie’s tangled up her string. I’m very frustrated with it all.”
So she’d told Dougie specifically the last time he visited.
“Wow, Meek. Should we discuss this?”
I grabbed the food. “I’m not engaging with either of you. What do we have to eat?”
The gold nipple rings and expensive BDSM jewelry shined brightly in the window case below our food as my mom said, “Well, you will be happy to know, I ordered from the good restaurant. Wren made special take-out for you.”
My mom liked to claim Wren made special things for me. He didn’t. Wren was also Taiwanese and owned a business. My mother therefore saw him as the perfect suitor for me.
I saw him as a slimy creep who came on to me every time I was within ten feet of him.
“Did Wren make special takeout for Jay, too? This is my friend, Jay. I work for him in LA. He wanted to tag along today.”
My mother squinted as if debating her options. After a couple seconds, she cocked her head, “Will you be helping restock?”
I rolled my eyes. “No, Mom, we won’t be here that long.”
My mother scoffed and curled her lip at him, completely unaffected by his smile the way most women were. “Then, no. There isn’t any extra food for Jay.”
A laugh burst from him. “Don’t let your daughter speak for me. I’m happy to help restock. I told her I would spend the rest of the day here if you needed help.”
Her beady brown eyes lit up, all of a sudden utterly taken with him. I wanted to kick him or punch him in the arm. Instead, I grabbed my takeout and stalked to the back of the store. “This is rude. I didn’t come here to work. I came to visit.”
My mother’s voice carried over the vibrator aisle. “You should come to work. I need help.”
I heard Jay mumbling that he would be happy to help any time and my mother giggled, a sound I’d never heard out of her.
I grumbled to myself and texted Dougie that I might get back to LA later than expected. He’d be thrilled I was spending extra time here with her. It meant he wouldn’t have to visit her with me any time soon. They had a mutual dislike for one another. My mother thought his lack of a job was stunting her daughter’s potential. My boyfriend thought my mom was way too uptight for a Taiwanese woman who owned a porn shop in the middle of San Francisco.
They were both right in their own ways.
“Jay!” I peered around the aisle to see my mother happily chatting with him over the nipple rings and Yue Lao, munching on Chinese food. Weirdly, the picture of them calmed me. Two of my favorite people getting along had me sighing and succumbing to what I knew would be a day of dick jokes from Jay and commands from my mother. “If we’re staying, we have to talk over the movie script.”
His blue eyes sparkled and crinkled around the edges. A tiny dimple appeared next to the others over his cheeks. It was how I knew his smile was genuine. “I’ll do anything to stay here forever, Meek.”