The Imperial

“Isla,” Mum’s voice was gentle behind the door, “Isla, are you awake?  Don’t forget about Austin’s birthday tonight.” 

Isla was pulled from deep, dreamless sleep into a warm summer afternoon.  

“Are you awake?” Mum said again, softly.  

“Yep, thank you,” Isla murmured, “How soon do we need to leave?” 

“About 45 minutes.”

“Ok, I’ll be ready.”

Jet lag was telling Isla that she should still be asleep.  She stretched and looked around the bedroom of her childhood, packed with mementos she’d hoarded almost superstitiously for years.  She’d have to go through them soon.  As a new college graduate and world traveler, Isla was now a bit sophisticated for teddy bear posters and vases full of fabric roses with fiber-optic lights. 

She tried to remember how long she’d been wearing the clothes she had on.  She’d gotten on the plane at Narita in them, worn them during the flights and through some odd, twilit half-days of sleeping at the wrong times while trying hard not to. How long had she even been home? It was definitely time to freshen up, but she probably didn’t have time for a shower until after the party.  She’d go heavy on the deodorant. The laundry bag she’d dumped in her one day at home between graduation and her trip still sat there alongside her suitcase of dirty vacation clothes. She pulled open the drawer of summer clothes that she hadn’t seen since last year; she had a lot of old favorites to choose from. 

“Aw, you’ve always looked nice in that dress,” Mum said as Isla came down the stairs in the Old Navy sundress she’d bought on clearance with the first paycheck from her very first summer job. 

“I’m surprised it still fits,” Isla said, pleased.  

“Well, there was a little room to spare when you bought it,” Mum agreed, not noticing Isla’s slight scowl in response.

The interior of her parent’s car smelled hot.  When she tried to slide into the backseat, the coarse upholstery dragged against her.  She buckled and flipped open her phone;there was a text from Ritso, “Did you like my home country? Call soon, I want to hear your cute talking. When will you come visit me? School won’t be the same without you.” She flipped it shut quickly, blushing, although Mum and Dad were oblivious in the front seat.  

Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash

Uncle Mike and Aunt Pam were just disappearing through the door of The Imperial with a cloud of helium balloons as Isla and her parents pulled up.  Inside, aunts and uncles and cousins were dragging tables together and negotiating child rates with the waitress.  Isla and her parents bypassed a woman who was demanding of the hostess that she be seated RIGHT NEXT TO the buffet so her food wouldn’t get cold.  The hostess grimly prepared to accommodate her. 

Isla waved to Aunt Dot.  “Oh,” Dottie said, punching her husband when she saw Isla, “Oh, Vick, oh look who it is, it’s La La, La La’s home.”  She walked as quickly towards her as her arthritic ankles would allow, arms outstretched for a hug.  “Oh,” she said, kissing her cheek, “How was Japan?  Did you eat sushi?  It’s raw fish, isn’t it? Did you like the Great Wall? Oh now wait, that’s China.  Vick was in Japan on leave during Korea, weren’t you Vick?” Uncle Vick smiled and squeezed her shoulders, nodding shyly. 

Isla laughed, “Japan was wonderful, I’m going back to live there forever.”

“Now, La La,” Aunt Dot said, seriously, “Now, La La, we’d miss you too much, you know.  But the young will be young, I suppose…” 

“I brought you back something,” Isla said, “But I didn’t bring it here.  I’ll come by the house tomorrow.”

“Oh yes, wonderful, only we have the foot doctor in the morning, you know.  Can you come around 1?  And stay for some cards?  Can you make the time for us old folks?”

“I can.  I don’t start work until next week.”

“Wonderful, wonderful, I…”

But Isla had been surrounded by young cousins making various demands.  “Sit by me, La La!” 

“No, me!”

“Well, Austin is the birthday boy…”

“Yes!” Austin pumped his arm in triumph.

The first plate of food at a buffet is always delicious, especially, of course, if you come hungry, which one generally makes every effort to do.  The sweet and sour chicken would be hot and crispy, the sesame balls soft and sweet and chewy.  Isla approached the bounty with high expectations.  But somewhere between the table and the steam table, her rose-colored glasses fogged up to gray ones.  It might have been the abundance of passive-aggressive signs scrawled in sharpie that said, “If the food isn’t hot enough for you, use the microwave.” Or it might have been that the common buffet reminder, “Take all you want; eat all you take” was represented an unusually high number of times on similar hastily made signs, spotted with sauces and oils. Or it might have been the hostess’s brusque, no-nonsense expression, something Isla had begun to note on the faces of people whose businesses were failing, just when friendly optimism was their last hope.

“La La, can you help me?” Austin hungrily indicated a pile of saucy chicken sprinkled with green onions.  Isla mechanically scooped some out for him and didn’t notice the quizzical expression on his round, pink-cheeked little face. 

Isla’s heavy porcelain plate filled with sticky, fried delicacies clattered on the table. She stared at the backs of the chairs throughout the room, their scalloped fan pattern blurred at the top by the thousand grimy hands that had handled them over many years.  She absent-mindedly fished around in an aunt’s nearby diaper bag for the baby wipes and started scrubbing the gray, greasy smudges until she caught the hostess’ eye. Isla couldn’t tell if the hostess was angry or sad or embarrassed or all three. She balled up the wipe and shoved it under the edge of her plate. 

“Now, what are you doing now that you’ve graduated, La La?” Aunt Dot asked over a forkful of lo mein. 

“Back at the daycare for now.  For another summer, anyway.” It was a job that she hated and thought herself ill-suited for, but it was easier than finding a whole new gig during breaks.  She supposed she should try for something related to her major, something in the business field, a nice quiet office job that didn’t involve any diaper changing, but…well, she didn’t know where to start and ennui prevented her from trying very hard.  There was time for that. . .wasn’t there?

“The kids will be glad to see you,” Dottie said, smiling. 

Isla shrugged.  “We’ll see.” 

The happy clamor of her family faded in and out as Isla looked around the restaurant with her “new eyes.” She’d put them on in college without realizing that she wouldn’t be able to take them off again at will. She wasn’t sure whether this new perspective was due to education or experience or merely growing up. She did know that some people considered it a positive thing, a new clarity, a more realistic understanding of what the world really is, not the magic, happy place of childhood, but a stark landscape full of sharp edges, dirt and germs, shards of glass underfoot.  It was better not to be deluded, they said, one needed to watch one’s step. But she found she wasn’t sure if the scales had fallen from her eyes or grown over them.

When Isla left the restaurant, she would remember customers wearing their ballcaps inside, their work boots spotted with black grime, customers with leopard print leggings stretched too thin in spots; she’d remember their plastic flip-flops, their sneakers with detaching soles, their Canobie Lake Park hoodies with letters rubbed off and the Harley Davidson t-shirts with stained armpits.  She would remember the assumptions she made about their politics and education and paychecks. But she wouldn’t remember their faces.  

“Ron?” Dad was saying loudly as he stood to shake another old man’s hand, “Haven’t seen you in awhile! How’s the yard?”

“Can’t complain.”

“Engineers never can; they leave that for us poor slobs.” The two men laughed together.  “Well, I can’t say I regret retiring,” Dad went on, “Gives me time to read my books and pretend to be an intellectual.” 

“You’ve always been the smartest guy I know.”  

Dad shook his head dismissively. “I dabble, that’s all; dabble and babble. How’s Marie?” 

“She’s, well, she’s good, but you know, she has breast cancer.”

“Oh no.  Oh, I’m so sorry to hear it.”

“Well, the prognosis is good at this point, you know.  Still.  This getting old is for the birds.”

“Well it beats the alternative.” 

“I suppose it does.”

“Good to see you, Ron. I’ll be praying for Marie.”

“You too, you too. And thank you.” 

Dad sat down as his friend went to the front to pay his bill.  “Good guy,” he said to Isla.  Then, studying her face, “What’s wrong tonight, Isla?  You seem a little distant.” 

“Oh,” she said, “Nothing.  Just a little jet lag, I guess.” 

“How was Japan, anyway?  We haven’t had much time to talk.  I’d love to go there.”

“Someday I’ll take you there.  And all over Europe.”

“I promised my mom that, too.”  Dad’s eyes were a little sad, a little wise, but mostly grateful, as if the promise itself were the gift rather than the fulfilling of it. Isla didn’t notice.

“I ate eel there.  I wasn’t too sure about that, but it was delicious.” Isla described the little pot of perfectly cooked eel, the white fluffy rice, the decadence and restraint, the elegance.  For awhile she forgot her new eyes while Austin opened his presents, matchbox cars and dinosaurs and army guys and finally the large RC monster truck from Aunt Pam and Uncle Mike that he couldn’t wait to get out of the box.  He was about to fall into a whining fit until Isla suggested ice cream. 

As Austin gravely pondered his selections, Isla watched the other people at the buffet, especially a young girl and older man, perhaps her grandfather.  They passed by the well aged hot and sour soup with its thick caul that clung to the side of the steel soup pot, passed by the prawns lined up with beady black eyes staring, and pinched up an egg roll, a crab Rangoon, a scoop of pork fried rice. The old man was small, wizened, stunted almost, scruffy with shaggy hair under his cap and something loose about his stubbly jaw that probably denoted poor dental health. But she also noticed that he was gentle with the child, patiently describing and letting her consider each dish, carrying both plates back to the table despite a lurching gait. 

She passed by their table, Austin’s hand in one of hers and his frosty metal dish of strawberry ice cream in the other.  

“Renee likee Chinee food?” the old man was saying to the little girl, smiling, “Is it leally good? Chinaman make velly good food?” 

Isla’s stomach clenched and she hustled Austin by.  She glanced at the hostess, hoping she hadn’t heard, but the hostess was looking down with the same hard face as earlier.  She hoped Austin hadn’t heard; she hoped everyone hadn’t heard.  

She sat down hard in her seat.  She was off balance, because the man was racist, because the man maybe didn’t know he was racist, because the man thought this crap food, this gristle and grease, was the food of a great ancient civilization, but mostly, because the abhorrent words had been the vehicle of real affection and neither her old rose-colored glasses or her foggy new grey ones told her what to do with that. 

After the chaos of reuniting everyone’s purses and coats and bottles and bibs and toys with their owners, there was a round of hugs and goodbyes. 

“Oh, that’s fresh,” Aunt Dot was saying, using the teeth at the front of her mouth to chew up a fortune cookie, “Try one, La La, these are good fresh ones.” 

Isla silently obliged.  They were good fresh ones. 

Pam and Mike were arguing about leaving a tip. 

“It’s a buffet, we have to get our own food.” 

“But they take away plates and refill our drinks a hundred times. They work harder than a normal restaurant. Look, I’ve been a waitress…”

Isla listened, idly studying her distorted reflection in the door. She didn’t see the breezy adventurer that she had imagined when she left the house.  She saw a sundress that was a little strained across her chest, wide biceps with no tone, hair that had gone frizzy, thick ankles, cheap jewelry.  Who was she really, then? 

“I’ll leave a tip,” Isla interrupted tersely, and opened her wallet with the generosity that is easy for a person with few expenses. 

In the parking lot, she stepped carefully around a pile of vomit left by someone who had overindulged. Across the front of the restaurant, Christmas lights were hanging. Isla watched them blink on and off, some icicle style and some strings, some white wires and some green, and some that stayed dark.  She noticed a flicker in the neon lights of the “Imperial Buffet” sign sponsored by Pepsi.  She noticed the pile of dead bugs in the corner of it. 

“Between you and me,” Dad said as he buckled his seatbelt, “I think the old Imperial has gone down a little bit.”

Aunt Dot is my favorite side character. Read a story about her here, Dottie's Parapet. It takes place about 15 years after this one.

Photo by Sean Foster on Unsplash

“Where was Robby tonight?” Isla asked about her cousin, the best friend of her high school years. 

Mum and Dad looked at each other and Mum said, “With friends, I guess.”

“He couldn’t come to his own brother’s birthday?”

“We don’t see a lot of him lately.” 

Isla sighed and flipped open her phone.  “Where were you?” she texted Robby.  

But she didn’t expect an answer.