Page 24 of Just Another Meet Cute
Before I could explain, she waved me forward with a smile, and I could see that she had the exact same dimple in her left cheek that Ryan had. “Come. You can sit here and eat with me.”
My eyes flickered from the table full of prying adult eyes to the other tables full of teens and kids by the door. I inched a step toward the safer table. “Oh, it’s okay. I can sit over there.”
“No, you’re a guest. Youhaveto sit here,” she said, patting the wooden seat right next to her. Her words were soft, but I could hear the steel command beneath it.
Trapped, I shot a pleading look at Ryan, but he laughed and picked up his bowl of ph? from the other table. “It’s true. Guests get to sit at the fancy table. But don’t worry, I’ll come over and keep you company. Since I’m such a gentleman.”
Still at the stove, Kathy crossed her arms and scowled. “Don’t be fooled. He’s just using you as an excuse to sit at this table.”
His grin stretched from ear to ear. “It’s true. This is the only time I’ll ever get promoted to sit at the adult table. It’s mostly for my grandma, uncles, and aunts. I’m usually tossed in the back to fight for a bowl and chopsticks. And even then, I still have to stand in the corner to eat.”
One of his younger cousins from the other table snorted. “Next time bring your own utensils if you want to eat. Or better yet, go somewhere else. There are plenty of seats at a restaurant. More food for the rest of us.”
“Ha, I’m sure you would love that, Thi. Kicking me out of my own house.” Ryan nudged my arm. “Stay away from her. She makes Kathy seem nice in comparison.”
“I am nice!” Kathy complained as she put a steaming bowl right in front of me.
“Nice like a mountain lion,” a boy cousin said with a booming laugh.
“Don’t you start—”
Ignoring their fighting, Ryan’s Báwaved me over. “Sit next to me, Liv.”
Liv?I glanced behind me, but there was no one there.
Ryan coughed and gently touched her arm. “Bá, she’s Nina, remember? Not Liv.”
“Oh, sorry.”
Wondering who Liv was, I sat in the chair next to his grandma. Ryan pointed at various people around the room to introduce them. It was a blur of names. A few of them stuck out to me though. An uncle named Tuan who was married to a Julie sat across from us. Ryan’s two other sisters besides Kathy. Anh and someone else. A cousin named Kevin. Or was that his uncle?
And to make things even more confusing, there were a couple of people who looked exactly the same. Evidently twins ran in his family. There were at least three pairs, including twin aunts. One of them was named Riley, but I wasn’t sure which one.
After Ryan went through everyone in the room, he immediately dug into his bowl. Everyone did, like there was some kind of silent signal to start. There was still some talking here and there, but it was mainly slurping noises all around the room.
Everyone except for an aunt (either Aunt Lily or Lila) who handed me a napkin with a gentle smile. “Have you eaten ph? before?”
I picked up the hoisin and sriracha bottles on the side and squirted a bit into my bowl. “I love it, but I only get to eat it at the restaurants. Never at home like this. My family doesn’t really know how to cook Vietnamese food.”
She laughed. “Not many people do. I barely cook it at home, and we ARE Vietnamese.”
“So is Nina,” Ryan commented when he took a break from his food to breathe.
His aunt immediately looked confused, and I hurried to explain. “Well, my mom is. My dad isn’t. And I look like him, so it can be confusing.”
This was a conversation I had a lot growing up. How I was Asian but didn’t actually look it. I don’t know why it was so hard for some people to understand. It seemed simple enough to me. Once I even had a little grandma at a restaurant insist on speaking to me in broken English even though I ordered the food in Vietnamese.
Ryan’s Bálooked interested. “Chaú bi?t ti?ng vi?t?”
“D?vâng.” I wish I could have continued the conversation, but I knew that my limited vocabulary wouldn’t be able to keep up. Sheepishly, I held up two fingers an inch apart. “A little. I understand it pretty well, but not enough to talk a lot.”
“You’re still better than most of those kids over there,” one of his uncles said with a pointed glance.
I thought Báwould be disappointed, but she laughed. “It’s okay. Some is better than nothing.”
This was the first time that anyone accepted it so easily. Accepted me.
My smile grew as I looked around. Sure, I was still super overwhelmed by everyone, but it felt … nice. Like,reallynice. Almost like our old dinners back when we still lived with Bá, Aunt Sarah, and Linh. Not that we ever ate with this many people, but the arguments and the teasing. Everyone said and did whatever they wanted. The closeness. It was comfortable. Free.
