Pride and Preston Lin by Christina Hwang Dudley EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Christina Hwang Dudley
- Language: English
- Genre: Asian American Literature & Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
It was a fact of life that if anyone worth looking at came into the
restaurant, Auntie Rhoda put him in Jenny’s section. Rhoda didn’t
care if it meant double- or even triple-sitting her oldest niece, and
she didn’t care if her second niece, Lissie, was just sitting around
rolling silverware. Good-looking young men went to Jenny.
There were two reasons for this: first, Jenny had graduated from
college, and God knew when Lissie ever would; and second, Jenny
Cheng was beautiful and therefore ought to be, as Lissie put it, “the
face of the franchise.” Not that there was more than one Four
Treasures restaurant. Starting this one seven years earlier had taken
every penny Auntie Rhoda and Uncle Mason had, and pennies hadn’t
been plentiful to begin with.
Therefore, giving any and every eligible young man a chance to fall
in love with Jenny just made sense, while families with kids who
dropped half their food on the floor, picky middle-aged Peninsula
women who asked for ingredient substitutions, and tired couples
with nothing to say to each other were earmarked for Lissie.
But this Saturday night was an exception. One of the local tech
rockstar founders was having a banquet for his board, in celebration
of some milestone, and despite the hoodies they loved to wear, you
never knew which one might turn out to be an actual billionaire.
“Sixteen people, Jenny!” Auntie crowed. “Maybe one of them is
single. Maybe two!”
“Is Lissie going to help me?” asked Jenny, as calm as Auntie Rhoda
was excited. “Sixteen is a lot.”
“No. Jeremy will help you,” Auntie replied, frowning as she did
lately when she mentioned their cousin.
“You trying to marry him off now, too?” Lissie grinned, glancing up
from the booth closest to the kitchen doors, where Auntie always
placed diners she hoped wouldn’t come back again. All the silverware
and chopsticks were rolled neatly in Four Treasures’ signature
crimson napkins and stacked in a pyramid, leaving Lissie free to tap
away on her laptop.
“Someone might need an intern,” insisted Auntie, giving the back of
Lissie’s head a gentle push. “So more tables for you tonight, Lissie,
and no smarty pants, okay? And no fake Chinese accent.”
“It’s smart aleck, Auntie Rhoda, not smarty pants.”
When the doors opened at five, Lissie was doing her best Jenny
Cheng imitation, trim in a black cheongsam with gold piping, her
shining dark hair twirled up and jabbed with a lacquered stick. She
didn’t have her sister’s hourglass figure, but she would do.
The Fongs came at 5:15 sharp—the Fongs came every Saturday at
5:15 sharp.
“Lissie, how are you today? You look so nice. Are you expecting a
special young man?”
“There’s no special young man, Mrs. Fong.” It was easier to take
this kind of teasing from the Fongs because they were old enough to
be her grandparents.
“Lissie, you did your hair today. Is it my birthday?”
“If it is, I’ll bring you a lychee pudding, Mr. Fong, but I don’t know
if Ray can fit a hundred candles in it.”
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