Hot sour salty sweet, p.12
Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet,
p.12
Ana drops into a chair at the table and waits for the water to boil. She rests her head on her arms and watches as bright blue flowers and butterflies emerge from her mother's bag of icing.
“You okay, honey?” her mom asks.
Ana nods, her eyes losing focus. “What a weird day.”
The kitchen door opens.
“Mei, sweet, sweet Mei,” Ye Ye calls in Mandarin, coming into the kitchen. Ana's eyes go wide.
“What?” her mother whispers. “What did he say?”
“He called her sweet,” Ana says incredulously.
Ye Ye puts his arms around Nai Nai's waist.
“Did everything get put away?” Nai Nai asks.
Ye Ye shrugs. “Are you making extra pudding for me?”
Nai Nai shrugs. “Perhaps. For someone who deserves it.”
Ye Ye kisses Nai Nai on the cheek. “We all deserve it,” he says.
At the table, leaning over the cake, Ana and her mom try to hide their surprise, concentrating on the icing blooming into flowers around the corners. Ana shakes her head.
“See, weird day.”
Ana's mom stifles a chuckle. “It's not so strange. I mean, they did make your dad.”
“Gross, Mom.”
On the stove, the kettle starts to whistle. “You sure nobody wants any?” Ana asks, pouring water into a mug. Tea seems like an inadequate offering to the Tabatas, but it's all Ana has.
“We're sure,” her mom says.
Ana's mom picks up a second pastry bag, fat with red icing. With steady pressure from her right hand, guiding with her left, she writes between the flowers and curling borders in careful cursive, HAPPY GRADUATION DAY, ANA, CHELSEA AND JAMIE. After a moment's thought, she adds a blue butterfly next to Jamie's name. Ana sees it and smiles.
“Thank you.” Ana's dad is suddenly standing behind her. Ana almost drops the second mug.
“Yikes, didn't see you there.”
Ana's dad smiles. His arms are full of Tupperware.
“Just packing food away.”
“Thank you for what?” she asks.
He shrugs. “Thank you for standing up for us out there. That was brave and well aimed, if a little awkward.”
He smiles, empties his armload onto the counter and kisses Ana on the cheek. Turning to Ana's mom, he takes a swipe from a bowl of red icing and eats it absently.
“Look at those two.” He points with his chin at his parents, dancing to the tune of his mother's humming. “It's disgusting.”
Ana's mom giggles and wipes the icing off her hands with her apron. “Simply vile,” she says, and leans in to Ana's dad for a sugary kiss.
“For crying out loud, people.” Ana grabs her tea mugs and flees.
21
“Good night,” Ana says. Jamie and his mother were the first to leave, in a cab half an hour earlier. Now Ana leans against the doorjamb and waves as Chelsea and her family leave with Amanda Conrad and her mother in tow.
Amanda hangs up her cell phone. “Mom, can you drop me off at the movies? I can still catch up with those other guys.” She tucks her arm into her mom's elbow.
“Let's just see, honey,” her mother says, and hurries to catch up with Chelsea's dad.
Chelsea's dad's arms are laden with leftovers, and everyone looks kind of worn out. The sky has gone a deep purply blue and the stars are hanging overhead. The air feels like a warm bath. Ana is tired to her very bones.
Chelsea hangs back as the others go around the corner of the hedge. “Yo, Shen,” she hisses. “This is your fault!”
Ana smiles and shrugs. “Blame Cupid,” she whispers back. Chelsea gives a mock frown, then holds her hand up like a phone.
“Call me,” she mouths. Ana does the same and nods.
Back inside, her dad is giving Sammy a bath upstairs. Ana can hear Sammy splashing around. She walks down the hallway and sees Grandpa White taking off his glasses and sitting on the edge of the guest bed.
“Good night, Grandpa.”
“Good night, honey. Thanks for the unusual evening.”
Ana laughs. “Any time.”
In the living room, Ye Ye is watching an action film on TV. “Good night, Ye Ye.”
“Hmm? Oh, good night, Ana. Good night.”
Ana smiles to herself and walks back to the kitchen, where her grandmothers are packing up the last of the cake and pudding.
“Thank you, Nai Nai. Thank you, Grandma. It was really good.”
Ana's grandmothers smile at her. “You're welcome, baby girl,” Grandma White says.
“Yes, Ana. It was our pleasure,” Nai Nai adds. Ana gives them a group hug. Maybe Jamie was right about them.
She grabs a leftover slice of watermelon and steps out into the backyard. A breeze has finally risen from the ocean and Ana can smell seaweed and brine in the cooling air. Her mom is on a stepladder, taking down the graduation banner.
“There she is,” her mom says. “So, honey, you've graduated and had your first dinner date. What do you think?”
Ana laughs. “Like you have to ask.”
“So, no love connection?” her mom asks.
“More like a therapy session.” Ana pulls a chair over and helps take down the other side of the banner. “But it was good. I had fun.”
Her mother looks over her shoulder at Ana and smiles. “Yeah, that's what first dates are like.”
“I don't think it counts as a date if your entire family is there,” Ana points out.
Ana's mom shrugs and climbs down from the ladder. “It counts as much as you want it to.”
They fold the banner into a sloppy version of a square and Ana's mother puts it in a box in the garage. “Well, what are you going to do now?”
Ana shrugs. “Go to bed, I guess. I'm kind of tired.”
Ana's mom stifles a yawn. “Yeah, you're not the only one.” She pulls Ana into a hug and kisses her on the forehead. “Congratulations, honey. I'm very proud of you.”
“Yeah, Mom,” Ana says, embarrassed.
Her mom's smile fades. “No, Ana. I'm really very proud.”
Ana looks into her mother's eyes and nods. “Yeah. Me too.”
• • •
Upstairs in her bedroom, Ana opens the window to the evening breeze. The light wind ripples her pajama top and feels good along her skin. So much for my big day, she thinks. She looks at the clock. It's not even nine-thirty. Sad. She stands in the window a little longer.
Jamie and his mom seemed okay when they left. Like they'd handle things together somehow. I wonder what's going on at their house right now. Down the block, a dog starts to bark. Ana rests her head on her arm against the windowsill. She wonders if Jamie will get to keep his car. But that's the least of his problems.
Ana breathes in the night air. This was not the day she expected it to be. Not. At. All. But still, it was pretty interesting.
She lowers the window halfway and crawls into her bed. In the light from the window, her skin is a pale shade of moonlight, her hair Midnight BlueTM. She yawns and tucks her head against her pillow.
I still haven't kissed a boy, she thinks. But Jamie Tabata likes me . . . and high school doesn't start for another seventy-four days.
SHERRI L. SMITH has worked in animation, film, comic books, and construction. Her first novel, Lucy the Giant, was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a Book Sense 76 Pick, an ALA Amelia Bloomer Selection, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, and a Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year. She is also the author of Sparrow, another New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age and an NCSS-CBC Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies. Sherri L. Smith lives in Los Angeles.
Published by Delacorte Press
an imprint of Random House Children's Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Sherri L. Smith
All rights reserved.
Delacorte Press and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.randomhouse.com/teens
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith, Sherri L.
Hot, sour, salty, sweet / Sherri L. Smith.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Disaster strikes when Ana Shen is about to deliver the salutatorian speech at her junior high school graduation, but an even greater crisis looms when her best friend invites a crowd to Ana's house for dinner, and Ana's multicultural grandparents must find a way to share a kitchen.
[1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Family life—California—Los Angeles— Fiction. 3. Cookery—Fiction. 4. Graduation (School)—Fiction. 5. Parties—Fiction.
6. Racially mixed people—Fiction. 7. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S65932Hot 2008
[Fic)—dc22
2007015035
eISBN: 978-0-375-84639-7
v3.0
Sherri L. Smith, Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet
