Page 55 of A Banh Mi for Two
“I don’t know.” I tell her the truth. Maybe this story we’ve written together is the last thing I’ll ever write. Maybe I can never write anything close to it.
“Take your time, Lan.”
“What if it takes me decades before I can finally post something on my blog again?”
She snorts, and I join in her laughter, our voices echoing through the street. “I’ll wait no matter how long you take. I’m your biggest fan. I’ll take anything.”
Tilting my head toward the sky, I breathe in the Sài Gòn air. Ba’s favorite constellation, the Big Dipper, twinkles. Next to it is the Little Dipper—my favorite constellation. I used to tell him that as long as the Big and Little Dippers are together, me and him will be inseparable. Maybe Vivi is my North Star. Is this how Ba felt when I came into the world? When he told everyone that he found the brightest star? To me, she’s brighter than all the stars in the universe.
I reread the story for the hundredth time, index finger hovering over the backspace button. Vivi swats my hand away. “Stop finding mistakes. This story is beautiful,” she says.
I groan, throwing my arms up defensively. “I’m scared! What if there’s a misplaced comma? What if they hate a sentence and throw away my application altogether? What about the subsections? Do they even make any sense?”
“Lan.” She laces her hand through mine, an action so familiar to us now, but it still makes my heart skip with glee. “I know you’re worried that the things we’ve written about city life and the people may sound boring, but the story sounds genuine. We talk about how hot and humid this city is, and how people’s laughter makes the atmosphere seem cooler somehow. We describe the souls that live here, all the people that make Sài Gòn, Sài Gòn. Plus, with your background as a street food seller, we got to focus on the other side of tourism. The side we don’t see often enough. We even included the flan lady, Bà Ngân, and Bác Tu?n—I like that our story portrays how everyone in this country is so strong. Always surviving and fighting no matter how hard it gets. This story, at its heart, is about the beauty of Sài Gòn and the people living in it.”
Together with Vivi next to me, I open the tab of the journalism contest and with all the bravery I could ever muster, I click the big, blue button.
Your application has been received.
Chapter Twenty-SixVIVI
I wave goodbye to Lan and watch her back disappear into the dark before lifting a finger to my lips, a tingling sensation coursing through me as I replay our moments on that small rooftop overlooking Sài Gòn. It felt like the city was ours—like we could do anything and be all right. I wish I could take a photograph of that moment, of the feelings that fill me when I look at her, and frame it forever in my mind.
Instead of walking to my room, my legs drag me toward the kitchen and into the backyard where Bà Hai’s hunching over a hearth and roasting some squids.
“Bà Hai?”
Surprised, she turns toward me with a burnt piece sticking out of her mouth. It seems tough, already giving me a toothache just from looking at it. “Vivi? You’re still awake? What are you doing up so late?”
I smile sheepishly. “I could ask you the same thing. I just got back and saw that the kitchen lights were on. What are you doing?”
She returns the smile, fanning herself from the heat of the fire. Grabbing a cup of water, she motions for me to come over. I tiptoe toward the backyard, the smoke from the hearth curling around us and into the night sky, fleeing into Sài Gòn’s humidity.
“Here, sit with me.” She nudges pieces of dry squid into my palm while popping one into her own mouth. “Eat some dry squid.”
I smile softly, tearing the squid into bite-size pieces and hovering them over the fire. The flames crackle and the cool breeze tickles our backs. Bà Hai throws more coal into the fire. It hisses back at us, making me flinch, and she laughs.
“It’s tasty,” I say.
“Eating it at night like this reminds me of my days back in Hà Giang, when my family would squat around a fire, roasting sweet potatoes from the fields and fish from the nearby rivers.”
“I didn’t know you’re from Hà Giang.”
She chuckles and moves the logs around, making the fire dance back and forth. “Really? You can’t tell from my northern accent?”
I blush. It’s something that I’ve always been embarrassed about. Another sign of being Vietnamese but not fully Vietnamese. “I can’t tell accents apart in general,” I mumble shyly.
She laughs harder. “I’m only teasing.” She clicks her tongue. “Too bad I don’t have any sweet potatoes lying around.”
“Tell me about Hà Giang,” I ask. “What was it like?”
“Hà Giang was beautiful. The mountains were vast and stretching as high as the sky, as if they were actually steps to Heaven. In Hà Giang’s province, there is also Qu?n B?, or Heaven’s Gate. And from Heaven’s Gate, you can see all the mountains, the open fields, and the rice paddies that gave us our life. But it wasn’t always like that,” Bà Hai says, a look of longing in her face as she tends the roasted squid, probably imagining herself decades ago when she was just a little girl.
“What do you mean?”
“Con, you ask many questions.”
Laughing at my embarrassment, she continues. “It’s a good thing to be curious. You must enjoy your youth. But, from the stories of my family, life was hard in Hà Giang during the French occupation of Vi?t Nam. And it wasn’t just the French. The Japanese came, too, and they were just as ruthless as the French.”
