Café Con Lychee Read online

  Dedication

  To my grandparents,

  thank you for showing me how

  beautiful love can be across cultural lines.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  One: Theo

  Two: Gabi

  Three: Theo

  Four: Gabi

  Five: Theo

  Six: Gabi

  Seven: Theo

  Eight: Gabi

  Nine: Theo

  Ten: Gabi

  Eleven: Theo

  Twelve: Gabi

  Thirteen: Theo

  Fourteen: Gabi

  Fifteen: Theo

  Sixteen: Gabi

  Seventeen: Theo

  Eighteen: Gabi

  Nineteen: Theo

  Twenty: Gabi

  Twenty-One: Theo

  Twenty-Two: Gabi

  Twenty-Three: Theo

  Twenty-Four: Gabi

  Twenty-Five: Gabi

  Twenty-Six: Theo

  Twenty-Seven: Gabi

  Twenty-Eight: Theo

  Twenty-Nine: Gabi

  Thirty: Theo

  Thirty-One: Gabi

  Thirty-Two: Theo

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Praise

  Books by Emery Lee

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  One

  Theo

  They say your life flashes before your eyes just before you die, but let me make something perfectly clear—whoever’s in charge of that clip better not include a single fucking shot of Gabriel Moreno or I’m pressing charges.

  It’s already bad enough having to look up at him from the soccer field, grass stains so deep into my clothes I’ll have to spend the next week getting them out. He’s got that goofy grin on his face as he stammers out an apology like he doesn’t run me over every other practice.

  Actually, I think it’s more than that by now.

  “I’m so sorry, Theo,” he says, holding out a hand to me.

  I reluctantly take it because I know Coach is watching and I don’t want another “fails to play nice with others” report.

  That’s just the way I am, I’m afraid—bad at school, bad at making friends, and really bad at playing nice with teammates who are quite possibly, singlehandedly, the reason our team hasn’t won a single game in two years. Our motto is literally “Undefeated at being defeated.” And I don’t know, I guess it was naive of me to think that we could turn things around, really take junior year by storm and maybe earn me a couple of bonus points on my college apps so my parents would be a little less disappointed in me. I guess today’s disaster is the universe telling me to stop dreaming too big.

  “It won’t happen again,” Gabriel says.

  Then we stare at each other with blank faces, because neither one of us believes that crap.

  “All right!” Coach shouts, blowing his whistle. He really likes that whistle, like it’s the one thing that keeps him feeling powerful even as he wastes his time coaching the worst soccer team in history. “Let’s just start from the beginning, okay?”

  Coach likes me since I’m the fastest kid on the team and one of three people who can actually aim, but sometimes I think he only sticks around because it makes him feel like less of a loser to see we’re even more useless than he is. What other reason could he have for coaching a soccer team that never wins and wasting all his afternoons trying to make it good? But maybe he just appreciates not having to go home to an empty house since he and his wife got divorced last year.

  When five o’clock finally rolls around, my back aches, either from the fall or carrying the weight of the entire team. Justin Cheng catches up with me on the way home.

  The fortunate thing about living in a town that’s barely ten square miles is that I live only about a mile from campus, so the walk isn’t too bad. The real struggle is during winter, when the snow gets waist deep and you have to claw your way down the street. But considering it’s mid-September, I don’t mind. Of course, the goal would be to live somewhere like New York, where walking is practical and I wouldn’t get stuck seeing Gabriel Moreno everywhere.

  The neighborhood is mostly what you’d expect from white suburbia, and even though it’s rush hour, there are barely any cars on the road. We have to pass the one familiar roundabout to get back to the shop, and everyone’s doing their usual thing of stopping and waving people on before they go. My brother always drags me about how people won’t be so nice if I ever get out of Vermont, but that’s most of the charm. I wanna go somewhere people actually think like I do instead of all this picture-perfect greenery and maple creemees.

  “You took that hit like a champ,” Justin says.

  I shrug. “Muscle memory.”

  Justin laughs like that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. We’ve been friends since second grade. As the only two East Asian kids in our class, it just kind of made sense for us to hang out together. I give him the boba hookup, and he reminds me how lucky I am that my parents don’t disown me for being a solid B-minus student. Symbology, or something.

  When we get to the shop, I find Mom wiping down the front counter, her shoulders hunched. It’s been like that for the past few weeks—me walking in sometime around five to find the place emptier than the stands during one of our games and my mom scrubbing down the same sparkling stretch of counter. This time last year, there would’ve been at least a handful of customers standing in line to get a milk tea or something, but that was also before every ice cream, frozen yogurt, and doughnut shop started selling them too.

  And that doesn’t even touch on our issue with the Morenos. Other ethnic shops have popped up from time to time, but considering the town is so white that most of them don’t even know what mung bean is, they always flop in a year or two. Our shop and the Morenos’ are the only two that have been able to stick it out, like maybe they’re just different enough that people are willing to stop by both, but that also means we’re in a constant game of tug-of-war to keep them from pulling too many customers away from us and taking us out altogether. Which is why, even if Gabriel wasn’t the single biggest nuisance on the planet, I’d still hate his guts.

  “Ah, Theo,” Mom says, as if I don’t get home at the same time every day, “you can help me count tips.”

  Mom never asks me to do things. It’s always “you can do,” like she’s granting me the special privilege of being her servant.

  “Hey, Mrs. Mori,” Justin says. “Can you get me a taro bun and one of those cool sunset drinks?”

  I can already feel the tension rolling off Mom before she says, “What’s a sunset drink?”

  “Oh, it’s one of those teas with the cool colors,” Justin says. “Hold up, I got you.”

  He slips his phone out of his pocket, probably pulling up some Try Guys video or something. Finally, he holds the screen up to Mom’s face, and she raises her lip. “What is that? That’s not tea. Looks like a lava lamp.”

  “But everyone’s been posting pictures of them!”

  I lay a hand on Justin’s shoulder and say, “I’m gonna go count tips,” before stepping behind the counter.

  Justin’s voice floats back to me as he pleads his case, but he should know it’s not worth the breath. My parents are traditional. Well, as traditional as a Chinese and Japanese couple really can be, I guess. They only believe in brand names, they never buy them at full price, and most importantly, they don’t follow trends. If it’s not carved into the stone of their recipe books, they won’t make it. Except the boba thing, but I guess it’s that old Chinese nature to steal a drink from Taiwan and claim it as our own.

  Inside the office, the door closes a li
ttle too loudly behind me, but at least it blocks out the argument that’s bound to come from the counter. Justin’s gonna stand there begging for his weird rainbow drink, and Mom’s never gonna budge. That’s just the way they are.

  Sliding into the desk chair, it’s pretty clear to me I’m the most generous person in my family. I let Mom stick to her old Asian ways, I entertain Justin’s quirks, and I even call this space an office even if it’s really only a storage closet with a desk in it.

  I pull out the little Spam tin safe Dad uses to store the tips from the day and start counting. Considering most of our customers are older Asian folk looking for the only authentic Asian pastries in town, we don’t earn a whole lot in tips. It’s fine, though, because I’m always in charge of counting them, which means no one bats an eye when a dollar or two goes missing.

  The crinkled bills slide into my pocket as I jot down the total thus far. A couple of bucks won’t mean a whole lot to my parents, but it’ll make a huge difference for my future, so I ignore the little jolt to my nerves I get every time I close the safe and return it to the desk. We don’t close till eight, but I doubt anyone will be in for the last couple of hours. I know my parents keep the shop open hoping we won’t have to waste the buns and someone will come pick them up, but they usually end up in the trash.

  When I step out of the office, it’s to find that Justin has already left. With or without his order, I have no idea.

  “How are the tips? Good?” Mom asks.

  I nod, handing her the little pad with the total for the day. She looks a little sad as she reads it, but she doesn’t say anything.

  “I’m gonna head to my room and get working on some homework, if that’s all right,” I say.

  “You never want to help,” she says. “Thomas always used to help after school, but you waste your time playing soccer and now—”

  “Okay, fine,” I snap, my voice coming out louder than I mean it to. “You want help? What do you want me to do?”

  Mom turns to me with a sharp look on her face, the angle of her eyebrows more than enough to tell me I’ve crossed another line by talking back to her like that. She’d never admit it, but she’d probably think higher of me if I’d killed a guy than she does because I can be a bit mouthy.

  She eyes the store like she wants to take stock of how many customers we have before putting me in my place. There’s no one here, though, and she seems to realize that pretty quickly, sighing as she says, “No, I don’t want your help if you’re going to talk to me like that. Go make sure you don’t bring home any more bad grades.”

  We live above the shop in a little two-bedroom loft. I used to share my bedroom with my brother, Thomas, but he started college last summer and moved in with some guys I don’t know or care to meet. It’s not twenty minutes away, but I guess it’s enough of an excuse for him to never really help out around the shop anymore or even check in to see if we’re still alive.

  Once my door is closed, I pull out the shoebox under my bed filled with ones and spare change and add today’s earnings into it. Taking a couple dollars a day from the tip jar may not seem like a profitable business, but I started almost a year ago, and now the box is practically overflowing.

  Most of the white kids at school brag about getting an allowance or getting paid to mow the lawn or selling nudes. I’ve spent most nights and weekends working in the shop since I was old enough to count to seven, but I never get paid for my time there, and I definitely don’t get a damn allowance. So really, in the end, this money is only a small cut of what my parents owe me for all the hours I put in.

  And when I graduate next year, it’ll be my college fund, since my parents never started one for me and have made it pretty clear since my ADHD diagnosis that they don’t have high hopes for me in terms of higher education. I don’t know how much I’ll have by then, but hopefully enough to get out of Vermont, even if my grades won’t get me in anywhere impressive. In the end, it’s all about the freedom, not the schooling.

  I just have to ignore the part of me that feels guilty every time I come back from school to see the shop mostly deserted. Sometimes traffic fluctuates, though, so I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before people get sick of the Morenos’ greasy snacks and watery coffee and come crawling back to us.

  The thing is, all my parents really have is the shop. When they moved out to Vermont and put all their time into getting the place up and running, they basically lost all their old friends and never got around to making new ones. And now that Thomas lives across town and almost never comes around anymore, all they really do is work in the shop and nag me about my crappy grades and overall failure as a son. I think it gives them a sense of control to focus on how useless I am and try to make me into someone my grandparents would still invite to Christmas dinner.

  But considering how much their grip on me tightened between Thomas going to school and the shop slowing down, I can only imagine what’ll happen if they lose the shop altogether. There’s no way they’ll be able to look past me skipping town if they don’t have something to distract them anymore.

  There’s a knock on my bedroom door, and I quickly shove the shoebox back under my bed and plop down on my comforter before saying, “Come in.”

  Dad peeks his head in and looks around like he’s not sure where to find me in the eight-foot space. I hadn’t even realized he was home, but it makes sense, since neither of my parents really have a life outside the shop.

  “Oh, Theo,” he says, like he was expecting someone else. “Your mom talk to you about the shop?”

  “No, what about it?”

  He hesitates in the doorway for a minute before taking a step inside and stopping. “The Morenos are stealing our customers again. And with that new place opening up, we need a plan to win them back.”

  “Are you asking for my opinion?” I say.

  Dad laughs, and I’m not surprised. It’d be a cold day in hell before my parents made a decision based on my advice. “We think you can promote the shop to your classmates. Remind them why our shop is still number one.”

  “My classmates aren’t interested.” They’re really more of the basic, hipster-coffee-shop type anyway.

  “You don’t know if you don’t try,” Dad says. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a stack of “graphic design is my passion” business cards. “Just try.”

  I reluctantly take the cards, looking over the tacky font, which reads Golden Tea, Boba, and Bakery—If you don’t like stale bread, try our bao instead!

  I raise an eyebrow. “Try our bao instead of what?”

  “I’ve been standing outside Café Moreno, handing these out to customers,” he says with a wink.

  I roll my eyes, setting the cards aside until I can throw them out without Dad seeing.

  He doesn’t say anything else before he leaves my room, which is standard Dad. Our conversations are always pretty one-sided. I don’t see the point in chatting with a brick wall.

  Two

  Gabi

  Fridays are, inarguably, superior to all other days of the week. The junior-senior parking lot lies largely vacated, since Fridays are everybody’s skip days, and since Coach predicted this when setting the schedule, there’s mercifully no soccer practice.

  But, best of all, the usual Friday foot traffic keeps my parents too busy with the shop to grill me on my afternoon plans. Sweet bliss.

  Clearing the student lot, I take the sidewalk toward the line of three brick buildings that make up our school. The soccer field looms on my right, the baseball diamond to my left, and all my peers look zombified as they groan and stumble in, desperately trying to survive the end of the week.

  My best friend, Melissa, sits on the brick stair lining leading up to the school building closest to the parking lot, earbuds in and head bobbing to the beat. She looks perfectly at home, like nothing can break her focus, but I know she’s waiting for me like she does every morning. After all, I’m her Kiki’s Delivery Service, except I only distrib
ute breakfast and I had to exchange my broom for a used Corolla.

  “Morning,” I call, and she immediately glances up, like she didn’t actually have anything playing. I tuck a low bow before extending a to-go cup and white paper bag out to her. “Your tostada y café, bitch.”

  She rolls her eyes but grins as she accepts the free food. And really, she can’t complain, since I’ve been her resident no-delivery-fee Dasher since freshman year.

  “I love coffee,” she sings, which is the understatement of the decade. I’ve never seen anyone guzzle the stuff down quite like Meli, and she usually takes it black. I only managed to persuade her into trying my family’s café con leche by lying about what the “leche” meant.

  I plop down next to her, snatching the cup out of her hand to take a quick sip before passing it back. I’ve never been a huge coffee drinker, but I always steal sips of whatever Meli’s drinking.

  “Any updates on the float?”

  She sighs, but I know it’s all she really wants to talk about. Meli’s the president of the Homecoming Committee, mostly because her art teacher recommended her last year, and she didn’t know how to say no, but she’s so engrossed in it, it’s practically become her whole personality. She’s always been a perfectionist, so even if she’s not fond of a task, once it’s assigned, she’ll make sure it’s immaculate. I’m on the committee too—since she all but forced me to join—but I’m basically her lackey at this point, since school spirit and sports aren’t exactly my forte.

  I wait patiently as she pulls out her phone and brings up her homecoming Pinterest board. It’s jam-packed with Meli-approved decor—some twists on the cliché Wonderland theme as ideas for the float, red and black decorations for the dance hall, even a formal dress that fits the theme with a buy link. We’re still over a month away, but leave it to Meli to be ready so early.

  Five minutes before class, we head into the hallway. The narrow space lined with metal lockers is already teeming with the students who actually showed up today. Meli passes me her phone to show me two different streamer colors that are pretty much the same. As I pass it back to her, it’s with just enough time to witness my own untimely demise as I run into Theo Mori, who stands with a couple of the guys from the soccer team.