Hot and Sour Suspects

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  CHAPTER 1

  “You young folks and your weird dating concepts,” my father, William Lee, said with an amused smirk. “I don’t know why the lot of you are opposed to meeting people the good old-fashioned way.”

  My dad, who could sometimes fall under the category of traditionalist, was currently in the middle of explaining to me and my best friend, Megan Riley, why the youth of today struggled with finding lasting relationships. The three of us were standing in the now empty dining room of Ho-Lee Noodle House, our family restaurant and my current place of employment.

  As he went about romanticizing “the good ole days,” he looked rather official in his black pinstripe suit, crisp white shirt, and polished dress shoes. Fresh from showing a luxury home in Pepper Pike, he’d stopped by to see what shenanigans I was up to.

  And who am I? I’m Lana Lee, his youngest daughter, and manager for this fine Asian establishment. At the moment, you could also add “annoyed” to the list of descriptors.

  From time to time, my dad liked to razz me about generational differences. He found it funny—and sometimes I did too—but now was not one of those moments.

  “Because Dad, people like action and spice in their life,” I replied in defense of the speed dating event we were going to host. Granted, it wasn’t a conventional setting for something like this, but Megan had “called in a favor.”

  Over the course of the summer and fall months, the bar where she worked—the Zodiac—had started hosting speed dating events on an almost weekly basis. It brought them a surge of business, and that outcome was something I was highly interested in at the moment. I figured my parents would also be more than happy to cash in on that possibility. Unfortunately, my dad wasn’t totally sold on the idea. His main concerns lay with the fact that online dating was now all the rage, and he didn’t hold out much hope that people would really shell out the money to come to an event like this.

  I—despite my original protests—thought it was an excellent way to drum up extra business and knew the potential that it held. After all, I had witnessed a speed dating event in action.

  There was an admission to get in, so it was an automatic moneymaker. Along with the entry cost, we provided a sampling of appetizers and beverages to all of the participants. If they happened to want meals to go, or shimmy off to a private booth with their newfound honey and a full-sized dinner, who was I to stand in their way? I saw dollar signs, and dollar signs were what we needed after the slower months of business we’d experienced.

  We were nearing the holiday season, yes, but it never hurt to end the year on an even greater note than anticipated. Plus, I was thinking that if I could manage it, I’d like to give our small staff of employees a holiday bonus. It probably wouldn’t be as much as I’d like to give them, but at least it would be something. Without question, it was well deserved. We’d seen a lot of challenges this year, both on personal and professional levels, and in my book, everyone had earned a little extra padding in their pockets.

  “Now I’m no fuddy-duddy”—my dad smoothed his lapel—“but to me this seems like a wackadoo idea. What happened to the days when men picked women up for a proper date and went to dinner … for longer than five minutes? What can you really learn about anybody in five minutes anyways?”

  Megan’s hazel eyes lit up, accepting the challenge my father presented. She opened her mouth to provide a counter argument, but before she could say anything, I held up my index finger. “Allow me to demonstrate.”

  Clearing my throat dramatically and putting on my best smile, I said, “Hi, my name’s Lana Lee. I’m twenty-eight years old—half Taiwanese, half English—live with my best friend, and manage my family’s restaurant. I enjoy lots of browsing in the bookstore, I’m a dog person through and through, and I’ve never met a doughnut I didn’t like. And as we can all see; I enjoy dyeing my hair various colors of the rainbow.” I pointed to my angled bob that now included a mermaid ombré of color. The teal, blue, and purple dyes exposed themselves beneath the contrast of my naturally black hair. It was my most vibrant hair to date.

  My dad pursed his lips, but I saw the amusement hiding in his eyes.

  I kept going. “I’m a lover of all music, but I prefer rock. I enjoy going to the movies, but hate the butter they use on the popcorn. My ideal first date would be getting coffee or drinks with a chance of dinner.”

  My dad crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you finished?”

  “Has it been two and a half minutes?” I shot back.

  Megan chuckled. “You should have added that we always bring our own snacks to the movies. Guys like a woman that plans ahead.”

  “This is true … I always bring my big purse,” I said with a grin.

  My dad inhaled deeply, which I registered as him pulling together all his patience. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea, but your mother is excited about the prospect of the business it will bring in.” He sucked in a breath. “I wouldn’t want to rain on her parade.”

  “Exactly, Papa Lee,” Megan replied. Her ruby-painted lips turned up in a confident smile. “Trust me when I say that the bar is at full capacity when we host one of these events. And we’ve covered the Zodiac in flyers about moving the evening here. People were really excited about a change in venue.”

  “Yeah, and it’s been a long time since we’ve seen this place filled to the brim,” I added.

  The three of us took a moment to examine the restaurant. I don’t know what the other two were thinking, but I was thinking about the crazy things that had happened since I began working for my parents on a full-time basis. There was the whole mess of being held at gunpoint just past booth number six, or the awkward conversations I had with witnesses and suspects at table eight, and meetings with a PI at lucky number seven.

  Behind those memories were fonder ones. But they were further in the past and a little harder to grab on to. I’d grown up in this restaurant and it was an enormous piece of my childhood. I’d played in the dining room—much to my mother’s dismay—skipping and weaving between tables just to pounce on the swinging kitchen doors and plant myself in the employee lounge. When I say “lounge,” I use the term loosely. It’s really a small, cluttered back room with enough space for an old couch, an even older TV, and a dinette table for two. How many days had I sat in that back room, watching cartoons on Saturday mornings while my parents worked in the restaurant? Or struggled with my math homework after school? By the way, Asians automatically being good at math is a myth … I’m proof of that.

  “There she goes off in la-la land again,” Megan teased, giving my arm a nudge. “You care to join us?”

  I shook my head, loosening the grips of memory lane. “Yeah, sorry, I’m here. Just thinking about all this restaurant has seen in the past thirty-odd years.”

  My dad nodded. “It’s been an adventure, kid, that’s for sure.

  “Dad, I need you to be okay with this, all right? Trust me a little bit.”

  “Well, as they say, you’re the boss,” my dad replied. “I guess it’ll be fine, right? I mean, what do I know about modern dating anyways?”

  I smiled at him. “It’s going to be great. I promise.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Ho-Lee Noodle House is located in an Asian shopping plaza, Asia Village, and sits unexpectedly in Fairview Park, Ohio. In case you’re wondering where the heck that is, it’s conveniently located roughly fifteen minutes away from downtown Cleveland.

  I say “unexpectedly” because even though there is a decent population of Asian Americans living on the west side of greater Cleveland, it’s not a huge demographic. All things Asian can predominantly be found on the east side either near Payne or Rockwell Avenues.

  But the late Thomas Feng—former property owner and founder—had a vision to expand the offerings of what you could find on the other side of town. Clevelanders tend to have loyalties to their sides of the city and so this provided a solution to that “problem.”

  Asia Village became a beautiful hidden gem in a suburb that has continued to build upon itself steadily over the years. My dad has been known to say things like, “I remember in my day, you couldn’t take the freeway to this area because it was still being built.” Then I usually teased him and made a general reference about the time of horse and buggies. On an especially playful day, I’d bring up dinosaurs.

  But today was not a day to be playful. No, I had the proverbial manager hat on, and I was getting ready to be hostess of the century. I didn’t just want these people to come in, sit down, stuff their faces and f
lirt. I wanted them to have an experience. I wanted them to tell their friends about the amazing Asian restaurant they had stumbled upon. And then I wanted them to bring those friends here.

  The restaurant was closed to the general public for the evening. I’d locked the doors at five o’clock—just as my dad had surprised us with his visit—to give myself and the staff enough time to get organized. The event would start at seven and go until nine, when a majority of the plaza closed.

  The square tables in the dining area had been moved to the center of the room and I’d had Peter Huang—best friend and head chef—help me move the excess chairs into the back room. My plan was to have people begin rotating throughout the booths that lined the walls, and then, if we had enough people, they would fill up the tables in the center of the room. Though most of the tables sat four, I cut the seats down to two per table for a little more privacy. I’d gone on a tangent about getting partitions for the tables so people didn’t feel like others were eavesdropping on their conversations, but Megan assured me that this wasn’t necessary. We had two larger round tables, and Peter shoved those against the far wall near the banquet area. The banquet area would house all the main appetizers, and the round tables nearby would be the drink and dessert stations.

  Megan had tried to talk me out of the dessert station, but hey, for twenty-five bucks, if it were me, I’d want dessert. Plus, if we had leftovers, who did you think would be taking those home?

  At around six p.m., as I stood surveying the tables, anticipating when they’d be filled, and as I was running over what else I had to do, my mother and grandmother showed up outside the restaurant. I felt like a high school kid trying to have a sleepover where their parents didn’t pop in the room every fifteen minutes to “see how things were going.”

  My mother unlocked the door, and the two women came shuffling in. My mother’s critical eye scanned over the restaurant, assessing the changes I’d made to the setup of the dining area.

  “Mom, what are you doing here?” I asked, greeting them near the entrance. I had broken out my stilettos for the evening, so I was exceptionally taller than both her and my grandmother.

  None of us is a tall woman, but I was standing at an impressive five foot eight with these shoes on, so to me, they seemed a lot shorter than usual. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I took at least a little pleasure from towering over them.

  “I came to check on your party. Make sure everything is okay.” My mother, who is about five foot two, had to look up at me, and after her eyes met mine, they traveled down to my feet, inspecting my shoes with a discerning eye. “You will break your neck this way, Lana.”

  My grandmother hardly speaks any English—she’s much newer to the U.S., like less-than-a-year new. Aside from a couple of words she’s picked up over her time here, she generally speaks through my mother, who translates how she sees fit.

  A-ma followed my mother’s line of sight and also investigated my shoes. She tilted her head to the side and said, “Jin swee.” Which meant “very beautiful” in Hokkien, my family’s Taiwanese dialect.

  I knew these sparse phrases from growing up around my mother chattering away in her native tongue. I couldn’t speak it myself, but I was able to understand quite a bit and could usually cobble enough together in order to keep up with the conversation.

  My mother’s main objective while my sister and I were growing up was to Americanize us as much as possible, so pushing us to learn multiple languages and go to Chinese school weren’t at the top of her list. Of course, later on in life she wanted us to learn Hokkien, Mandarin, and if possible, work our way into Cantonese. But by the time we’d grown, my brain was too Westernized to retain anything new. In high school, I took French, and I swear I left that class knowing less than I knew going in. Figure that one out.

  Though I understood my mother’s perspective in raising us the way she did, it was a little frustrating as an adult to not speak the language of my cultural background. People assumed—by looking at me—that I knew how to communicate in some sort of Asian dialect, but sadly all I could do was roughly follow along with what was being said.

  “See, A-ma likes them,” I threw back at my mother. “I can’t walk around here in boat shoes tonight.”

  “Boat shoes?” my mother asked.

  “Never mind,” I said with a shake of my head. “Did you only stop through to give me a hard time?” I had a lot to do, and I was getting nervous the closer we got to start time. My eyes drifted to the clock above the entrance.

  “Ahh, no, we only stop by to take a look. Now we are leaving for the casino. Dad is coming too.”

  This surprised me since my father wasn’t a huge fan of gambling. He’d rather be relaxing with the Wall Street Journal or some yawn of a history book talking about pivotal wars throughout the ages. My dad was a total guy.

  My dad came out from the kitchen and smiled when he saw that my mother had arrived. I love their marriage. Even after all these years, they are still as smitten as they ever were.

  “Betty, my love,” my dad sang, extending his arms.

  The two hugged and my dad kissed her properly—as a gentleman would.

  I made gagging noises. “You guys are grossing me out.”

  My dad chuckled. “I think we should get out of this young lady’s way for the night.”

  “Yes, shoo shoo.” I waved my arms, gesturing for them to clear out.”

  “Call me tonight and let me know what happens,” my mother said, digging for her keys. “I cannot wait to hear how much money we made.”

  We all said our goodbyes, and after they walked out the door, I locked the dead bolt and took a deep breath. Finally! Now with my family out of my way, I could focus on the task at hand.

  My heart started to thud as I realized how close we were to the evening beginning. I headed back through the kitchen to my office. Peter was jamming out to his usual heavy metal ballads while he cooked up the appetizers we’d be serving in what was now less than thirty minutes. Peter spared no expense in putting together our spread for this evening. We had teriyaki skewers—both beef and chicken—mini spring rolls, panfried and steamed dumplings, lettuce cups with kung pao chicken and cashews, crab rangoon, shrimp toast, and steamed pork buns. If these people didn’t meet the person of their dreams tonight, the least they could take away from this experience was a full and happy belly.

  Megan had disappeared to make a phone call, so she’d been saved from being reprimanded for her shoes. If they thought mine were bad, they should have seen hers. I think “stilts” would have been an understatement. She was in mid-conversation when I entered my broom closet of an office, and held up a finger for me to wait while she wrapped it up.

  “Oh my God, Seth talks more than a teenage girl,” Megan said when she’d hung up the phone. “I don’t need to know every single detail going on at the bar right this very minute. He was the one who wanted me to handle this speed dating situation. I can’t be two places at once.”

  “What’s going on over there?” I asked. She was sitting at my desk, so I opted for one of the guest chairs. It felt weird sitting on this side of things.

  “Oh, nothing worth repeating, really,” she waved the idea away. “He’s being … well … a man. He’s being a man.”

  “As men do,” I replied.

  “Are we ready to go?” she asked, moving on. “What’s left on our to-do list?”

  “Nothing, really. You missed my mother and grandmother stopping by. I’m glad I got them out of here before everything started.”

  “You realize this dating event is going to be the talk of the town, right?” Megan stood up from my desk and adjusted her black pencil skirt. “I wouldn’t be surprised if people wanted to do even more events here. Think of all the money you guys could make if you became a party place.”

  “Let’s focus on getting through tonight,” I said, standing and following her out of the office. “If we can pull this off without a hitch, I’ll feel more confident.”

  “Relax,” Megan said, looking at me over her shoulder. “When have I ever steered you wrong?”