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advertised for a Chinese au pair
.
”
    â€œThe ad cut out,” was all I could manage.
Nunchi
forbade me from saying anything more, such as,
Why didn’t you write a shorter ad?
    â€œEd. Could I speak to you in the kitchen? Please. Now.” Beth’s questions fell flat at the ends, like statements.
    Ed Farley let out an exasperated sigh. “If we must.”
    The two got up and left the room. I wondered if I should just see myself out. While I puzzled over what to do, Devon bounded across the room and took her father’s seat next to me.
    I heard indecipherable murmurs coming from the other side of the house.
    â€œIt’ll be okay,” Devon said, patting my hand, as if our roles were reversed.
    I looked over at her, her face contorted into the kind of scrunch that Hannah always yelled at me to fix. Did it bother Devon that she looked nothing like her parents? When I was her age, my hair was much lighter than the black it eventually settled into, and a smattering of freckles spread like wings on either side of my nose. People were always pointing out the differences. It made me grow awkward and tentative in social situations. Yet Devon seemed so assured of her place in the world. She was just like her mother.
    I heard a burst, from Mr. Farley. “. . . about to ask if she’s Chinese over the phone!”
    Beth murmured, “. . . our daughter’s development.”
    Devon put on a bright smile. “Let’s read something.” When she said, “Let’s,” she’d actually meant “I’ll.” She snapped open her newspaper and began to read, in an even, eloquent voice, tripping over fewer words than I would have if the paper had been placed in my hands.
    I heard Mr. Farley’s voice again. “Then I guess you can’t hire her!”
    â€œBut she’s . . .” Beth trailed off.
    Ed Farley walked briskly back into the room. I stood up. Then, standing close enough for me to smell his clean soap smell, he said, “We’ll be in touch.”
    I’d heard those words repeated from enough HR departments to know what they meant: Thanks, but no thanks. I’d bombed—for being the wrong kind of Asian. I couldn’t even land my backup plan, a job that up until a few moments ago I hadn’t even wanted in the first place.
    Devon looked up at me and squeezed my hand. “Best of luck,” she said.
    â€œYou, too,” I said, though she didn’t need it. I squeezed back.
    I told Mr. Farley I’d see myself out. I retraced the circuitous route to the front door. Beth Mazer stopped me in the foyer, breathless.
    â€œI am
so
sorry about that,” she said, taking my hands in hers. “It was just an awful miscommunication. . . .” She studied my face. “You seem like
such
a special young woman.”
    With that she folded me into her arms. It was unexpected. I fell against her with my whole body. “Good-bye for now,” she said.
    When I left the Mazer-Farley house, I still carried the scent of Beth’s touch; she smelled of lavender and fermenting onions. An unpleasant smell, but also oddly comforting.

Chapter 5
Food
    I wouldn’t say my earliest associations with Food were pleasant ones. Sang first opened the store when I was around eight years old. According to Hannah, it took him several years to have enough confidence to start another business, post-blackout. But this time he retreated closer to home, instead of opening in Manhattan like so many of his peers.
    Sang was especially irritable in those early days. All of us—Hannah, Mary, even little George—lived in fear and trembling, never sure of what small thing would trigger his too-quick temper. It might have been the way the toilet paper hung from its dispenser, making the user have to inconveniently search through the roll to find where the trail began. He’d come bellowing out of the bathroom.