Authors: Kirstin Chen

Soy Sauce for Beginners (23 page)

In the coming days there would be factors to consider, decisions to be made. But on this night, as I walked out of my old friend’s childhood home and into the warm, still air, I cleared those thoughts from my mind.

I pictured my parents awake in the darkness of their bedroom, listening for me to come in, as they had when I was a teenager. By the time I climbed the stairs, Ma would be peering out her room. “You’re back,” she’d say.

“I am.”

“Get some sleep.”

“I will.”

“She’s back,” I’d hear her say to Ba as she closed the door, and he would reply with a grunt.

In reality, they were probably snoring softly in bed.

Beneath the streetlights of Kat’s neighborhood, the empty road curved and disappeared around a bend. In surrounding houses, lamps snapped off and curtains were drawn. For now, I set one foot in front of the other, enjoying the pleasure of being alone, of having no one to hurry home to, and no place I needed to be.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T
hank you to
Michelle Brower for showing me what was possible, and to Liz Egan for asking all the right questions.

T
o Pamela Painter,
Margot Livesey, and all my teachers at Emerson College; to Jill McCorkle at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference; and to Paul Douglass and Nick Taylor at the Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University—thank you for sharing your wisdom and for guiding by example.

T
hank you to
Kwan Lui and everyone at Tai Hua Food Industries in Singapore for teaching me about soy sauce.

T
hank you also
to My Le and Chris Adams, Jesse Froehlich, Michelle Bussarakum, Christopher Lyle, and Jon Ma, all of whom knew me before I became a writer and reminded me that life would go on if this book didn’t sell. And to Lyndsay Lyle, who gave me the best part-time job ever when I needed it most.

T
hank you to
Kim Liao, my fellow girl detective of the human spirit; to Megann Sept and Sean Lanigan for being the perfect writing group; and to Matt Salesses, without whom this book might still be titled “Lin’s Soy Sauce,” or worse.

T
hank you to
Chad Herst and Devorah Sacks for teaching me to feel more and think less.

T
hank you to
Sharayu and Bhal Tulpule for being lovers of books and for raising one, too. And to my brother, Kevin, for urging me, many years ago, to “submit with confidence and let them reject you if they dare.”

T
hank you to
my parents for making me feel that I could achieve anything I wanted and that nothing would change if I did not.

A
nd finally, thank
you to Asmin for being my team.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR