I scoffed and reached for an empanada, not at all comfortable with Aleisha’s description. Champion? These days, I felt more like a thug.
Aleisha kept her attention on Emma. “You can trust her. So can your friends.”
Emma shifted on the cushion, clearly as uncomfortable about the situation as me.
I nodded at the plate of food. “Have an empanada.”
The simple act of eating calmed us both. “How long have you been here?”
She shrugged. “Couple of weeks.”
“Good food, right?”
She laughed. “Very.”
I poured us both a glass of iced tea and drank.
“Are you a lawyer?” she asked.
I coughed and sprayed out the tea.
Stan answered on my behalf: “Lily steps in a bit earlier in the process.”
“A cop? No way.” She glanced at my racer tank and spandex shorts. “Unless you’re undercover.”
Stan smirked. “She’s more of an…independent contractor.”
I raised my glass in toast. “Good one.” Then I turned to Emma. “I deal in rescue and recovery.”
“Recovery? What, like therapy?”
“No. Like recovering your life.” I chuckled at the irony: Who would help me recover mine?
“I don’t see how that’s possible,” Emma said, dropping her empanada on the plate and glaring at me in challenge. “When your life’s gone, it’s gone.”
I’d come here to reconnect with Aleisha and Stan, not to argue with their latest rescue about the impermanence of life. That said, I didn’t want to minimize Emma’s concern. I decided to stick with a practical description of the work I did for the refuge.
“There are a lot of situations a woman can get into, for whatever reason, that she can’t escape. Physical extraction doesn’t always solve the problem, but it’s a start.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“It can be.”
“Illegal?”
“Not usually.”
“Then, you know how to fight?”
I smiled. “Little bit.”
She brushed the crumbs from her hands and looked away. “Well, I’m past that now.”
Was she? The tendons around her jaw tightened as she fixed her gaze on the coffee table.
“How about your friends?” Aleisha asked. “Couldn’t they use someone to fight for them? Someone to help them get out—start a new life or get back to the old? I’m sure their moms and dads are plenty worried about them.”
Moms and dads? How old was this girl?
Emma shrugged, picking off bits of turnover and letting them fall in her lap. I doubt she had spoken to her folks in a while. But hey, who was I to talk? I’d been avoiding my mother for days.
“Just because parents worry doesn’t mean they’ll understand.” Was I talking about my mother or hers? I wasn’t sure, but it seemed to do the trick because Emma stopped crumbling her pastry and turned her attention on me.
“What if they don’t forgive me?” Emma asked.
“What if you don’t forgive them?”
That made her pause.
“Believe me, Emma, everyone’s got their own demons. And everyone, at some time or another, needs forgiving. But does it matter? This is your life not theirs. What’s important is that you are able to forgive—yourself and others—and get on with rebuilding your life.”
I took another bite before I could say any more. My words had returned like a boomerang to smack me in the head.
Demons? Check.
Forgiveness? Not so much.
Rebuilding my life? Working on that.
Aleisha smiled at me, all puffed up with pride. “Didn’t I tell you? Our Lily’s a champion.”
I stared down at the mountain of empanadas on my plate. Champions didn’t drown their sorrows in meat pies. And they didn’t avoid their own families while lecturing wayward teens to face theirs.
Chapter Five
My father’s restaurant sat on the northwest edge of Culver City. To get there, I pedaled past a host of restaurants that charged too much, served too little, and never came close to the authenticity of neighborhood spots like Paco’s Tacos or my father’s own Wong’s Hong Kong Inn.
Sony Picture Studios loomed on the left, occupying a mammoth triangular lot with its top chopped off by Madison Avenue. The movie folk and the families who lived in the area kept Baba and his kitchen staff busy from morning until night, which was exactly why he had chosen this spot—a mile from two major freeways on a boulevard that ran straight to the beach. Vern Knudsen might have been raised on a farm in North Dakota, but he had the business acumen of the savviest Angeleno. He was also humble enough to realize that a non-Asian Chinese-cuisine chef would have a tough time opening a restaurant in an Asian-centric city like Arcadia, where he lived with Ma.
I sped through the intersection, turning left before the light changed, and dodged into the alley behind our building. Up ahead, DeAndre Jones, Baba’s youngest employee, unloaded empty thermal totes from the back of our delivery car.
I coasted up behind him. “Sony run?”
He yelped in surprise. “Damn, girl. You gotta stop doing that.”
I gave his arm a playful punch. “But it’s so much fun.”
I liked DeAndre. He bubbled with enthusiasm and had the deepest set of dimples I had ever seen. Seriously. When he smiled, which was constantly, his cheeks resembled balls of clay stabbed with chopsticks.
“Where you been all day?” he asked. “Your dad’s been acting twitchy.”
“Twitchy? I doubt that.”
“Okay, maybe not twitchy but checking the back door every time someone clanks a pot. The last time I came in, he turned so fast he damn near sloshed hot grease onto Lee’s arm—and I don’t need to tell you how unhappy Lee was about that. Not at your dad, at me. So I’m thinking, you lead.”
“First in, first to die?
“Somethin’ like that.”
“And when has Uncle ever hit you with anything?”
“Never,” DeAndre said, shaking his head and bouncing his dreads. “And he’s not going to as long as you’re standing in front of me.”
I laughed. DeAndre was right: I was the only recipient of Uncle’s swinging pans or flying cooking utensils.
“Fine, you big chicken, I’ll go in first.”
I lifted the racing bike up the steps and opened the door to the sizzling aroma of garlic, ginger, and scallions. My stomach rumbled. As hungry as I’d been, I had only finished one of Aleisha’s empanadas and none of Paco’s tamales. I looked forward to whatever Baba might be cooking. But before I could peek down the aisle of woks, a dart-like object flew through the air. I fanned a protective hand in front of my face as a bamboo skewer pierced the sack of rice on the shelf behind my head. Across the kitchen, Lee Chang scowled.