Back to the Good Fortune Diner (14 page)

Daniel picked up on her mood. “Listen, tomorrow, you’ll get a fresh start. I’ll make some calls, see if any of my friends in the city know of any openings....”

“No.” Tiffany sat up. “Don’t do that. I’m going to find a job on my own.”

“But—”

“I have to do this on my own.” She regretted her biting tone instantly. Daniel was only trying to help, but she couldn’t lean on her family any more than she already was. She had to show them she’d earned every ounce of her professional success on her own merits. That her choices were good ones.

Confusion and disbelief warred on her brother’s face. He raised his hands uselessly and dropped them to his sides. “Fine. Suit yourself.”

* * *

D
ANIEL HAD DONE
his brotherly duty. He’d offered to help, but Tiff had refused. Fine. He couldn’t change his sister’s pissy attitude, and he had no intention of trying. He had his own problems to deal with.

He texted Selena to say he was feeling a little under the weather and was going to bed early, so wouldn’t be calling tonight. A minute later, she sent him a picture of her puckered lips and wrote,
Get well soon, honey bear! XXX.

His spirits sank. He was a liar and a coward. He’d made excuses to cut their conversations short the past few nights, especially when she’d started talking about her upcoming visit and meeting his parents. Now he was outright avoiding her.

The thing was, he didn’t know how he could, in good conscience, deepen or continue their relationship when he had no idea how their future would look. Selena made a whole lot more money than he did, which, now that he thought about it, bothered him. Call him old-fashioned, but he’d always pictured himself as the breadwinner, and when they had kids, he wanted his wife to stay home to care for them. In all their talk about children, Selena had never once said she’d become a stay-at-home mom.

And why would she? She was a doctor with her own practice. What did he have to offer her? A toehold in his parents’ business, a few tidy investments and a well-padded savings account? Selena probably made ten times what he did, plus she came from a fairly well-off family. She owned a condo in Manhattan, for Christ’s sake.

That only led to more questions. Where would they live? Who would be the one to pick up and move? Logically, it should be him, but he had difficulty imagining himself living apart from his parents, not because he didn’t know how to take care of himself, but because someone had to watch over
them.
He didn’t want his grandmother to spend the remainder of her years stuck in the middle of his parents’ bickering. And a retirement residence was out of the question. According to his parents, Chinese families simply did not send their elderly to an institution full of strangers. His father frequently threatened to disown him if he ever considered putting him in a home.

No, Daniel couldn’t leave Everville—for his parents’ and his grandmother’s sake. He owed them too much to abandon them. They’d paid for his education, food and housing. Besides, a condo in the city was no place to raise a family. He and Selena could get a big, roomy house in Everville with a yard for a fraction of the price of real estate in New York. In fact, there was a beautiful old cottage he’d had his eye on that had been on the market the past couple of months. Maybe he should look into making an offer on it....

And then what? Do you really think Selena will pick up and leave so she can be a housewife to a glorified short-order cook?

He might not be a McFlipper, but he wasn’t earning a six-figure salary, either. What he earned was more of an honorarium than a salary. He’d never asked for more—it simply wasn’t done. After all, he was living under his parents’ roof, eating their food. Sure, he helped around the house when needed, but he couldn’t demand a raise.

Not couldn’t. Wouldn’t. He closed his eyes at the bald truth. He was making excuses. His intentions might have been good, but the moment he thought about telling his parents he was off to find a job in the big city, he cringed at their imagined frowns, the disappointment in their expressions and the browbeating he’d receive.

Moh gwai young. Useless.

Depressed, he went to the living room. His mother and grandmother were watching a rerun of
CSI
with the closed captioning on since
Poh-poh’s
English wasn’t very good.

“Come sit and watch,”
Poh-poh
invited in Cantonese. She offered him a plate of orange slices. “Try these. I got them at the market today. Very sweet.”

This was the after-dinner custom in their household—TV and fruit. He knew Selena preferred richer desserts, but cake and pie weren’t typical in Chinese home fare. What would they eat when they lived together? Who would do the cooking? Would Selena want to learn how to make
Poh-poh’
s healing soups? Would she even believe in their medicinal effects?

“Why aren’t you talking to your girlfriend?” his mother asked.

“She’s working tonight.” Another lie.

“Are we ever going to meet her? I wonder some days if she’s even real. We haven’t even seen a picture of her.” She smiled crookedly. “You didn’t make her up, did you?”

“I don’t own a picture of her.” Not one he’d show anyhow. Most of them were of her in various stages of undress. The ones that weren’t...

He sat back in shock. Oh, God. He had plenty of pictures that would have been fine, but he
hadn’t
shown his parents. It’d been a conscious decision with an unconscious reason.

Tiffany was right. If race didn’t matter, then why wouldn’t he show them a picture of Selena? Was he simply afraid of what his parents would think? Was that why he was telling himself he wasn’t good enough for her?

“The kids these days,”
Poh-poh
said with a snort. “They don’t do any of those things anymore. They don’t know the value of these small things. Back when
Kung-kung
was courting me, I had to save up a lot of money so I could have a nice picture taken to give to him.” Sadness crept into her eyes as she nodded toward the photo on the mantel. “I never got one of him when he was young. He was saving to bring us here, instead.”

“You should ask Selena for a photo,” his mother told him, her admonishing tone sharpening his guilt. “What’s the matter with her? Is she ugly?”

“I don’t have one printed out. They’re all on the computer.” That should keep her quiet. His mother wasn’t fond of technology and didn’t even like sitting in front of a computer monitor if she could help it.

“Well, no matter. When we meet her, I’m sure she’ll be everything you say she is. She doesn’t have to be perfect—just a good Chinese girl. That’s all we want.” She patted his knee and smiled so benignly up at him, the only thing he could do was smile back.

CHAPTER NINE

T
IFFANY TOOK A
deep breath as she faced the Jamieson house once more, book bag clutched to her chest. She had barely believed it yesterday when Chris had called, and in a terse tone, asked her to come back. She’d readily agreed, apologizing profusely, practically groveling for forgiveness. She wasn’t sure, exactly, that she’d gotten it, but she was here now, which had to mean something.

She watched Chris as he walked out onto the veranda, thumbs hooked in his back pockets, his expression unreadable as he squinted against the blazing sun. She was mad at herself for still being so drawn to him despite everything that had happened. She understood that he only wanted what was best for his son. She wasn’t sure how Simon would react to his father’s hovering, though. On top of that, if Chris was going to watch her tutor his son, she’d need to step up her game. No more terrible translations. She had to get serious with Simon.

“Thanks for coming,” he said as she approached. “Before you go in, can we talk?”

She swallowed dryly. “Of course.”

A wet breeze gusted, sweeping tendrils of hair out of her loosely tied ponytail and into her face. She’d dressed more conservatively today. The three-quarter-length-sleeved white collared shirt and knee-length brown pencil skirt made her look like the bookworm she’d been as a teenager, but she would put on her old Coke-bottle glasses if it would convince Chris she meant business.

He was silent on the short walk to the fence surrounding the paddock. A big chestnut mare plodded toward them. Tiffany stepped back as the horse nosed at her arm.

“Don’t worry. She won’t bite. She’s just seeing if you have any treats.”

She didn’t want to think about the dirt the animal was leaving all over her freshly ironed shirt, but she didn’t want to act like a prissy sissy, either. She held still and studied the musculature and fine red-brown coloring to distract herself from the mare’s snuffling probe. As much as she was fascinated by the creatures, she didn’t like the thought of those big teeth chomping on her. Chris pulled a carrot stump from his pocket, and the horse turned her enormous head and lipped up the proffered treat, slobbering all over his hand.

“Simon and I have a...difficult relationship.” He patted the horse’s neck. She trudged away once she’d ascertained there were no more treats. “Actually, I’m pretty sure he hates my guts right now. I’ve tried my best to understand who he is, who he’s becoming. But we’re not there yet.”

Tiffany waited for him to say more. She wasn’t sure where he was going with this.

“He insisted I not blame you for what happened,” he said. “He accepted full responsibility for his actions. He doesn’t do that a lot.”

She was surprised and warmed by the thought of Simon defending her. At the same time, she hated that she’d come between father and son. Chris studied her face, searching for the secret to earning his son’s esteem.

“Anyhow,” he went on, “I wanted to get that out. You have a...hold on him that I don’t. But I guess you’ve always been able to wrangle us Jamieson men that way.”

Feeling undeservedly relieved and flattered, she asked, “Is he still working on
The Tempest?
”

“Far as I know.” He scratched his nose and his brow furrowed. “Actually, I’m not sure.”

“If you want, I can give you a daily update on his progress. Let you know where he’s at in the class, what he’s studying.”

“Yeah. That’d be good.”

She hesitated, unsure of how to approach the next question. “Are...
we
good?” she asked in a small voice.

He met her gaze shrugging slightly. “I guess so.”

Well, that was something. She hoped she’d win back his appreciation with time. She’d never thought about how frail that kind of personal esteem was—and she’d shattered it so easily.

At the house, she found Simon sitting at the dining-room table, a three-ring binder open in front of him. He was doodling on a lined page with his right hand. The white bandage was already fraying and stained with a splotch of mustard.

“That’s cool,” she said as she put her bag down. Upon closer inspection, the geometric shapes really were quite beautiful, a mixture of art deco and Celtic patterns he’d made into knots and borders all over the page. “I take this to mean you can write okay?”

“It stings a little, but yeah, I can use my hand.” He flexed it to demonstrate, lips tight.

“Simon.” She waited till his eyes met hers. “I want to say again how sorry I am about putting you in that situation and getting you hurt. I shouldn’t have done so.”

“It’s okay. But whatever, you know?” He picked up
The Tempest.
“Can we get started?”

Chris loomed in the doorway behind his son. Her eyes met his over Simon’s head, and he lifted his eyebrows.

“So, where did you last leave off? Do you need me to help you understand any of the text? We can go through it if you like.”

“Actually...can we not do that line-by-line stuff? I do have some questions, though.”

Tiffany almost jumped for joy. Finally.

She caught Chris’s half smile as he went into the kitchen.

* * *

C
HRIS DID HIS BEST
to stay quiet and unobtrusive, catching the little bits of conversation they were having while he poured himself a coffee and studied some pamphlets about a water reclamation system he wanted to install. Simon asked why he was hanging around the house when there was so much to be done on the farm, but Chris simply said he was waiting for Grandpa to finish with some numbers, which wasn’t untrue—William was working on a new budgeting scheme he’d insisted on trying out. Chris wasn’t about to tell his son he was hanging around to make sure things went smoothly between him and Tiff. Or that he just wanted to be around.

About an hour later, he heard William leave his office. Simon said hello as he pounded up the stairs for a bathroom break. “Well, look who’s come back,” Chris heard his father say. “You taking over my dining room again?”

“Hello, Mr. Jamieson,” Tiffany said. “Yes, I’m still working with Simon on his English course
.
”

“As if it’ll do him any good. We should all be learning Chinese for when you people take over.”

Chris’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t find a single word to rebuke him as his father headed out the front door. He looked at Tiffany, who’d focused back on the book in front of her.

“I’m so sorry. That was...uncalled for,” Chris said quickly, hating himself the moment the words were out of his mouth. He raked his fingers through his hair. “No. That wasn’t just uncalled for, it was plain rude and...and...”
Ignorant.
Racist. Rednecked. Xenophobic.
All those words and more surfaced in his mind, and while his dad could be a real bastard, he’d never thought he was this special brand of backwater asshole. Anger twisted through him. “I’ll get him to apologize.” He started for the door, utterly humiliated.

“Chris, forget it.
Stop.
” She’d shot out of her seat, and her hard-edged command made him halt, one hand on the doorknob. She gestured wearily with one hand. “Leave it alone. I’ve heard worse.”

Cold trickled down his spine. “He’s said more, hasn’t he?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She returned to her seat and made a show of flipping through her notes.