Zodiac pets, p.7
Zodiac Pets, page 7
Despite the happy jolt of horsepower from the Empress Josephine, it took me a long time to finish that feature. On top of the heavy eating, I had to probe a mini-scandal. An anonymous informant charged Jade Sunshine with goosing its MSG the previous year around taste-test time. And in fact Jade Sunshine had done better in our rankings, vaulting from sixth place to a tie for second with the Tiki Shed and just a hair behind perpetual champ Wu Doon Mang. The rankings shift sent shockwaves through Penny stomachs and wallets all year.
I swung by Jade Sunshine to inspect. Mr. Yu had caught wind of the terrible accusations and retaliated with a dose of whataboutism, directed at Wu Doon Mang. During Wu Doon Mang’s inspection, Leo and Wei had remained out back in their luxe booth perfecting the Fibonacci sequence for Siberian Math even as I buttonholed their parents in the lounge to a soundtrack of rumbling thunder. Now Mr. Yu lit into his rival’s excessive debt spending on presentation—including that thunder.
“Ask them, I say, about all these so-called ‘improvements.’ Who needs cement palm trees? Or strip-club lighting they bought from Jack’s Four? I could add a ‘rainstorm’ to Jade Sunshine’s lounge, too, if I wanted. That doesn’t mean the food tastes better. It’s sleazy. What’s happening to standards in this town? This town—”
That phrase—“this town”—was familiar. The restaurateurs didn’t think much of where Pennacook and all souls lashed to it were headed. My research said that, nationally, eighty percent of new restaurants fail within five years. Pennacook’s Chinese restaurants had long bucked that trend (the Golden Dragon series being the rule-proving exception), but how long could this last?
The strife among owners was itself a new and troubling change. Graham had told me they were “all buddies, practically a trust.” Why, then, the scandals and complaints? I was particularly surprised that Mr. Yu was “shooting at the king.” Wu Doon Mang not only bossed our rankings but was easily the most prestigious of Pennacook’s American Chinese restaurants and the first to open, in 1943.
It reminded me of something else from Mr. Susco. It regarded medieval Iceland.
Mr. Susco had explained that, back then, they had a loose, almost anarchical democracy. Each year, the Althing gathered at the Law Rock to recite the laws and settle disputes. In between Althings, families relied on exquisitely calibrated blood feuds to sort out their differences. “Calibrated” in the sense that you didn’t slaughter Egil’s son just because his son killed your servant. No, you went for the servant. And not only the servant, but the right servant: the one at the same level (or, as sanction to aggressors, a shade above). Reciprocity secured the peace. But right in the middle of Njáls Saga (which took place around the year 1000) Christianity with its forced national conversion arrived. By one reading, this upturned everything, all the old anchoring beliefs, and the system broke down and the blood feuds raged with asymmetric fervor. What might have been a tit-for-tat encounter that went up a few ranks to the best horse-hand instead burned down the whole family—as it did that of “Burnt Njál” in the saga’s second half.
I wondered if a similar dynamic was playing out among Pennacook’s Chinese restaurants as a result of the town’s recent destabilizing calamities. I had an absurd image of Mr. Yu battling it out with the Chengs on the canal ice come winter, swinging hockey sticks and brooms instead of Viking swords and pole-axes.
At meal’s end, when I unmasked for the interview piece, the restaurateurs would visibly relax. Shoulders loosened, eyes went wide: at last an Asian face behind the reporter’s notebook. They also marveled that I was a true-blue Asian Penny, not an out-of-towner like them. I indulged them rather than contest my Penny status. If I wasn’t a real Penny, they might well have asked, why was I banqueting on seven pu pu platters in a row and seeming to like it? And in truth, as I ate, I felt that I was partaking of a sacred local sacrament and had the uneasy feeling that I was becoming a Penny.
I liked Mr. Yu. I liked them all—except Mrs. Cheng, who had rejected my friendship for her prized sons. But Mr. Yu’s criticism of Wu Doon Mang was as irrelevant as it was obvious. The insulting subtext was that I, the reviewer, would be so wowed by the way Wu Doon Mang looked that I would not even taste its pu pu platter until after the restaurant had already won top honors in my poor, gullible heart.
Mr. Yu had even asked, “Where’s Graham? I thought he’s supposed to do this part. This town—”
“I’m the inspector,” I interrupted, voice rising. Judges don’t often respond well to motions to recuse (a lesson I learned the hard way in high-school mock trial).
The MSG tip didn’t pan out (it’s really hard to prove that), but I nailed Jade Sunshine for something else. I went back in disguise (black beret, sunglasses) for a second taste test. I wasn’t ashamed to max out my budget (especially now, since I liked the food), so long as I kept my pencil moving. When my pu pu platter with the Sterno fire arrived, I found only two chicken fingers in my tray. Worse, it was bereft of beef teriyaki, no mere ornament but the pu pu platter’s greatest charm. In contrast, the flavorless pork disks with deceptively brilliant borders like pink lips had been piled high with little care and spilled over to fill the would-be beef-teriyaki compartment—as if to unload them!
I stripped off my costume and confronted Mr. Yu at the nipple-high counter.
“Nonsense. Why would I do that?”
“A cash grab from customers too loyal to call you out on your decline.”
He looked at me sideways. Direct challenge to the town’s American Chinese food was unheard of (impaired judgment being loyalty’s price). Back at the Beat, I marked Jade Sunshine down as a 2 for portion control and a 4 for taste. They slid back to sixth. No one would unseat Golden Dragon XV at the bottom of the rankings, unless, in another year or two, we unhappily arrived at Golden Dragon XVI.
On the Monday after we went to press, Mr. Yu’s lawyer, Attorney Delahunt (big eater, worked for buffet tickets), showed up at the Beat to serve Jade Sunshine’s bias complaint. Graham wouldn’t have it.
“You’re gonna attack a kid? In my office? Git outta here!”
Delahunt fled.
Graham meant well, but I didn’t like being called a kid, not when I was doing adult work that I was proud of. I could have defended myself—and did. After school the next day I confronted Mr. Yu at the restaurant. He immediately disavowed Attorney Delahunt’s tactics.
“He’s a bad lawyer,” Mr. Yu said. He stepped out from behind the counter. “But cheap.” He puffed his cheeks and slapped his paunch.
He also said desperate times call for desperate measures. His father had opened Jade Sunshine in the early 1960s, and he did not want to be the one to bury it. He even sermonized a bit on the tiki ambience. Tiki was made up. Even Martin Denny, who penned the soundtrack, called tiki music fictitious. In Pennacook and all over America, supposedly tacky places like Jade Sunshine had preserved tiki culture—the exotic drinks, décor, and music and, most important, the essentially harmless and hospitable escapism of it all—during the fallow decades after hippies scorned it as hopelessly passé: a theme better suited to the rest home.
“I’m proudest of our food,” he concluded. “Have a mint.”
Before he let me go, he promised to retrain his staff on portion control and get his pu pu platters back to standard in time for the weekend rush.
I Pitch a Story
I made a lot of enemies with that piece—
the fate of all who dared put their names to the annual-rankings byline—and felt the flak I took and my work’s quality had earned me a promotion to something less binge-eating based. With Mr. Susco’s civics program in mind, I set my sights on the politics beat. I already had some leads I was determined to explore. My first task was to get them past Graham.
After Delivery one Saturday in mid-May, I made my way to his desk. He was hunkered over, working intensely. When my shadow crossed his hand, he looked up.
“Why do you keep your desk out here?” I asked. “You’re Editor in Chief. Why don’t you have your own office?”
“Taylorism.”
“What?”
“Scientific management.”
“What?”
“Cat’s away the mice will play.”
He jammed his pencil in the electronic sharpener. He had said he kept the device at his desk to monitor workflow. I suspect it was the clamor that he liked. His sharpening fit complete, he returned, grunting, to the document before him. His pencil moved with fury, as if this was a special war bulletin going out before the hour.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Proofreading?”
“What? What is that? Give me that.”
I snatched it from him. I had little doubt that whatever Graham was working on, I could improve it.
It was a Chinese zodiac-themed placemat from Wu Doon Mang. Graham had circled his own sign and added details (whiskers, claws) to the drawing.
RABBIT
1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023
Most fortunate of all signs, you are also gifted and well-spoken. Loving, yet wary, you crave serenity in your life. Marry a Boar or Sheep. The Cock is your opposite
He had marked the errors. Why or for whom, I have no idea. He bit his bottom lip and with an impish smile pointed to his cork board, where he had pinned an old fortune. Failure is the path of lease persistence.
“Sound financial-planning advice I never took,” he said, giggling.
“So you’re mindlessly doodling while we’re all at work.”
His eyes narrowed. “I am modeling a ‘flow state.’ ”
I leaned forward. He had a browser open: DOGTV. Ducks and retrievers relaxed by a pond. This was the kind of programming that Pennacook’s internet was willing to rouse itself for.
“I want to do a story. A few, actually.”
“On what.”
“Have you heard of Lion Diner?”
“That’s not a story. That’s just some old diner. Semi-retired guy named Stu runs it. Real sweetheart. Opens it a few times a year. Nothing special. Great food, though. An old favorite.”
He put his pencil down and leaned back so far that he had to grip his desk to avert a tumble.
“All our lawsuits and this chair-balance peril persists,” he observed. “It’s as relentless as copier machines, which maybe one day on Mars with its more merciful gravity will work, but not here and not anytime soon. Though Mars has the dust problem.”
He had absorbed much from Science Corner, and we all agreed Sally would be a scientist.
“I’d like to look into it,” I said, walking him back to my story idea. “It’s very strange the way they cover it up.”
“Not on my dime.”
“I mean, bamboo and palm fronds? In Massachusetts? They’re hiding something. I’m sure of it, Mr. Bundt.”
“Graham: please.”
“I’m sure of it, Graham. And there was this e-bird—some type of drone, I think—and it tried to kill Arnie! And this funny little patch! A-and—”
“And I’m sure your time would be better spent elsewhere, cub.”
Free-style balance-bouncing on his chair, he tugged loose a folder from his piles and tossed it at me.
“Here’s a real story. My water bill’s ballooning. What’s up with that? Gravy Poole isn’t the only one complaining. They’re out of control.”
“How boring.”
“Welcome to the workforce.”
Something sweet and familiar steamed from him. My chin dropped, and I turned to walk away, but then thought better of it and edged right up to his desk, where I towered over him in his low-slung chair.
“How about this ‘town for sale’ business everyone’s talking about? And the Pennacook Dome. Can I do that?”
He stopped bouncing and, with a shiver that reminded me of Arnie when he was overexcited and I ordered him to sit, gathered himself and looked me in the eye.
“You want something meaty. I respect that.” He tented his fingers. “Reminds me of me when I was young.”
“Look, just because you’re always wearing a black pocket T-shirt—”
“From L. L. Bean.”
“—and I’m always wearing a black pocket T-shirt from L. L. Bean, doesn’t mean we have anything in common.”
“Cool your jets,” he said, looking over his antique-style half-eye frames. “As to your question, the dome thing came first. I caught wind last summer. It’s somewhere north of a rumor, but how far it’s gotten? No one knows. We don’t even know who’s behind it. Maybe the people who bought up the Bounty Bag land when they ditched us? Whoever that was. Maybe not! Same story with the sales pitch.”
With a magician’s flourish, he plucked the “Town for Sale!” ad from a drawer.
“But I’m not hearing a peep from my contacts.”
“How can a town sell itself? Why would they do that?”
“You tell me,” he said. “The man to ask would have been Archie. That’s Selectman Archie Simmons. You may want to write that name down, BTW. Guess where he is? In a coma. After his ‘accident,’ the others rammed it through and sprung the ad. That’s about all we know about that.”
The implication—attempted homicide—escaped me.
“There’s an e-mail for bids,” I said, “and a hearing in eight days. It seems we know a lot. Are we reporting?”
This threw him. “All that stuff’s in the ad. It’s hardly a story.”
“Jeez,” I mused, fishing for a big word, “with this pricey ad and everything, we’re practically complicit.”
He leaned back and recommenced bouncing. It was as though, in an act of self-defense, he had switched his allegiance from our business meeting back to whatever he’d been drinking (watermelon schnapps—that was the smell).
“Yeah, but what is it? Who’s behind it? Have they gotten any bites? Is it tied to the dome? I don’t want a witch hunt please. This”—he tapped the advertisement with his finger—“is good revenue.”
“So not only are we corrupt: we know it.”
“Just hit the story,” he growled. “And don’t forget my water bill!”
He had toggled back to his tough-boss persona. It surfaced at least daily, usually in the afternoon, when he rose from his couch-naps grouchy and depressed. This was the Graham who said things like: “I only care about two things, kids, both of them lines: the bottom and the dead. Now, get back to work!” At night, he’d rally and be sunny and kind, which most of us found baffling (though not me).
Yet I walked off feeling good about the bold addition to my assignment, and that I had extracted it by force where force was required. Behind me as I left, Graham leaned back and fell over.
Yes, I was proud, but the personal picture was altogether different. That night I noted in my diary that I’d made no friends yet, at either the Beat or Pike Middle. My Bedford Corners friends, I added, had become distant, the time between their texts ever longer and their contents brief and generic (“I hope UR [cartoon of a well]”), and all my Snapchat streaks had broken. As much as I’d cursed it, I couldn’t chalk all this up to Pennacook’s tottering internet. We were long past the puppy-like age when kids make fast friends and, after a brief, wrenching interval, just as easily separate. This is why it hurt so much. I did not realize, so did not put in my diary, that it was not so painful for the others, the friends I left behind. To them I was forever the girl who had moved. If they owed our friendship anything, it was merely to preserve and remember it. Since I, as a person, had to change, I could only get in the way of this.
What I did know then, early A.D.D., was that my failure to connect with new kids and my distance from old friends didn’t shock me. To the contrary, it felt quite natural, like my comfy old slippers. I took heart from this and told my diary it was all for the best, that I’d only grown stronger.
“In sum,” I wrote, “I’m happier alone.”
Senior Week: Friday
June 4, 2032
Dear Diary:
I’ve finished a bunch more chapters of Zodiac Pets, preceded by an odd something that I’m calling “Spring Break.” What if I add these interludes periodically? That way, I can reflect on my relationship with Lena Ko and what it was like to touch base with my old Beat colleagues while traveling with her to research my college thesis.
If I do this, I may need to go back to the beginning and recast my opening diary entry about this rewrite as a prologue (or interlude or something) that tells the reader about the Senior Week project. Is this too confusing? There must be a way.
WZ.
Worcester, Mass.
Spring Break: Virginia
Looking this over, I see that, so far, I’ve made myself out to be something of a brawling, friendless, fingerpainting mess. B.D.D., I had been another girl entirely (though not the hail-fellow hero of my B-grade college thesis).
I had loved many things and done them well. I first learned most of them at Camp Molly Ockett, the life-changing Girl Scouts camp I mentioned earlier. I painted. I square danced. I tied many knots. I piloted a motor boat twice around an island on Lake Winnipesaukee. I could dive underwater for two minutes and thirty seconds and seize a ring at the lake’s bottom. For fifteen minutes and twenty-two seconds, I could stand on one rubber inner tube piled atop another. I sewed and I speed read. I was a rotten sprinter, but thanks to Ms. Devlyn Pierce, the old lady who superintended the camp year-round, I played decent hands of tennis and bridge. I liked shooting best and spent days at Rifle Range. My high score was 96 out of 100 on our 50m rifle-shooting targets, and I could sustain a 92. Once—once—I pulled a 92 skeet-shooting shotguns with Ms. Devlyn Pierce on the open field above the camp: MQS for the Olympics. Archery was a side hustle, but I was third-best at that, too. In Environmental Science, I was scared of spiders and anything else creepy but a true friend to turtles, if not always to the other girls.
