Page 26 of From Beijing, With Love

Before Yang could introduce Daniel, she set two Tsingtaos in front of them and greeted Daniel in English. “Welcome! Where from?” She met Yang’s quizzical look with a broad smile. Sliding her glasses down the bridge of her nose, she flashed him her phone screen with its comically large font. “I learn from app, but no one to practice.”

“I’ll practice with you.” Daniel smiled. “Learning a new language is hard. It took me ages to learn Dutch.”

“I like him.” She gave Yang a thumbs-up, which for some reason made him blush. Turning to Daniel, she pointed to the handwritten plaques on the wall. “Sorry, only Chinese menu.” She turned to Yang and said in Mandarin, “Help him order. Make sure he has a good meal,”

“Trust me?” Yang asked, and Daniel nodded. Raising two fingers, Yang said, “Two zhajiangmian and two yaroujuan, please.”

Mrs. Wang gave him another thumbs-up before yelling their order back to the kitchen, loud enough to shake the walls.

“What did you order?” Daniel sat ramrod straight on the wood stool, looking every bit like someone who was pretending to be at ease and was very bad at it. He let out a weak chuckle. “You’d think I’d know Chinese food a little better, because”—he gestured to himself—“you know.”

“Did you have Chinese food at home while growing up?” Yang asked with a gentle carefulness. He wanted to know more about Daniel, but he understood the need for space around the topic of a parent who was gone.

“Not really. Not after my dad … you know. And I don’t remember much before that.” Daniel shrugged apologetically. “Poppy and I used to go to this Chinese spot for egg rolls in Amsterdam, if that counts. I don’t know how authentic the place was, though. It also had sushi and pad Thai on the menu.”

“In other words, not at all,” Yang said before he could stop himself. At that, Daniel laughed again, but a little brighter this time. Yang felt heat creep up his neck. “Well, I think dinner tonight will make up for that.”

“Confident, are we?”

“Very. Both dishes are chef specials. Yaroujuan is roasted duck wrapped in a scallion crepe, and zhajiangmian is the most iconic noodle dish in Beijing,” Yang said. When he met Daniel’s curious gaze, he continued, “Mian means noodle, and zhajiang translates simply to fried sauce.”

“What’s in it?” Daniel asked, showing more interest in the dish than he had in the entirety of the Forbidden City.

“I’d tell you the ingredients if I knew. I don’t cook much, unless you count boiling water for instant ramen,” Yang said with a rueful smile. He was a twenty-six-year-old who lacked basic life skills. “While most of my friends back in Xi’an took on real jobs and started families, I’m the perpetual student.”

“I suck at adulting too.” Daniel raised his Tsingtao. “Cheers to that.”

“Did you just use adult as a verb?” Yang laughed, taking a swig of his own beer.

“As all adults who are bad at being adults do, but I can cook.” A proud smile stretched across Daniel’s lips. “And you are literally getting a PhD. It doesn’t get more adult than that. What’s the plan after you graduate?”

“Stay in academia … if my adviser offers me the postdoctoral fellowship. I’m not the only candidate, though. Certainly not the one with the most publications,” Yang said. His own candor took him by surprise, but he went with it. There was something about Daniel that made him want to open up, to be honest. Picking at the label of his beer, he continued, “One of my papers had a good number of citations. That helps. And if the paper that I’m working on right now—the one you helped with—gets published, it’ll even out the playing field.”

Four years into the life of an academic, he was well accustomed to the numbers game. He lifted his beer. “Publish or perish—the true motto of academia.”

“You’ve got another year.” Daniel took a sip of his beer.

“Not really. The decision will probably come out in the next two months. Tsinghua likes to lock in the people they want. At least that gives the rejects time to apply elsewhere.”

Except for Yang, there was no elsewhere.

“Well, I believe in you,” Daniel said, like there wasn’t a single doubt in the world. His words would have been comforting if Yang weren’t a cynic at heart. A brief silence hung between them, only broken when two porcelain bowls were plunked down in front of them in synchrony.

“Eat up,” Yang said, taking a pair of chopsticks out of the bamboo holder for Daniel, his own appetite suddenly nowhere to be found.

CHAPTER TWELVEDaniel

A porcelain bowl with a heaping portion of noodles sat in front of Daniel like the eighth wonder of the world. He had never seen Chinese food like this. The thick strands of noodles were smothered in a meaty brown sauce and topped with julienned cucumbers and scallions. The savory aroma lured Daniel forward like a siren’s song. His mouth watered.

Every part of his body begged for him to dig in, except for his meddlesome brain, which just had to interrogate everything. Unfortunately for everybody, that brain called the shots, rattling off a list of concerns like a person complaining to the manager.

A)Raw vegetables, a breeding ground for bacteria.

B)Mystery meat in the brown sauce. Enough said.

C)Yang looks grumpy again. What did you do this time?

“If you don’t like it …” Yang said with a hint of curtness. So he was mad at Daniel.