Barbara’s is packed with Monsters surfers eager to compete. Jen knows at least half of them. Both the men and women wear their big-wave, cold-weather uniforms—beanies and hoodies or puffer jackets with fur, thermal shirts, flannel lounge or ski pants, and shearling boots.
Jen looks out a window toward the bay, where a firm, cold breeze drives little whitecaps toward shore. If it whips up strong and doesn’t change direction, she thinks, it’ll blow out the waves and it’s adios, Monsters.
But none of this wave worry has rocked Jen Stonebreaker’s soul as hard as the arrival of Bette Wu, now being seated by Casey, who holds out the chair opposite his mother. Bette’s dressed like the surfers—in a Rasta beanie, an orange CaseyWear hoodie, snug black pants, and boots with puffs of shearling below her knees.
Before sitting, Bette waves and looks at each person around the table, then slings her purse over the seat back.
“Hi, everybody,” she says. “I’m Bette Wu, Casey’s friend and business associate.”
Jen barely hears it, but half the crowd cheers, and there’s a few hearty whoops. The other diners are silent, having seen Casey’s videos—now taken down from his feeds—that show this Bette Wu working with shark finners, and illegal fishermen and -women, and maybe having something to do with Casey’s dog disappearing. And that suspicion about her family burning down the restaurant.
Jen knows she should just get up and walk out, or maybe—just maybe reach across the narrow table and shake her hand. But she can’t move. Just like she couldn’t move her hand on the jet ski throttle for the split second she took that day twenty-five years ago, when she paused to tell John that she loved him.
Is this a waking nightmare? Is this really her naïve and beautiful son Casey, bringing a criminal into his life? Into hers?
She looks at him in numb disbelief. Sees the shame on his face.
Fact is: Jen doesn’t view the arrests of the Monterey 9 arson suspects as a vindication of Jimmy Wu. Not by a long shot. Jimmy might not have lit up the Barrel but he definitely tried to buy it for a pittance, to extort her acceptance by threatening her son’s fucking dog. And who knows—what if the Monterey 9 guys were hired by “rival” Jimmy? Or even framed by him?
And Jen sure didn’t view Bette’s threats against Mae as forgiven, just because Casey vouched, very emotionally, for Bette’s “misunderstood intentions” and “saying things she didn’t mean.” Casey, god bless him, actually had tears in his beautiful ice-blue eyes.
Now she’s his friend?
Not on my watch.
She stares at Casey but he won’t meet her eyes. Bette gives her a humble, lips-pursed kind of look, which Jen does not answer.
Brock looks amused. He stands and nods, reaches across the table, and shakes Bette’s hand. Jen takes his betrayal almost as hard as she does Casey’s. A smile parts his dark, hard face and his locs sprout and glisten.
“So we meet again,” says Brock.
“A lot has happened.”
Jen knows she should do the same, just shake the pirate’s hand, make peace long enough for her sons to fully and wholly compete with the immense, now-inevitable FreakZilla.
Pastor Mike stands and clears his throat. “May we bow our heads in a prayer of thanks, for guidance and great waves, and for the wonderful food we are about to receive?”
The spirited din of the dining room respectfully lessens as many of the customers recognize Pastor Mike from his streaming Hillview Chapel show on Hulu, his ubiquitous freeway billboards and online vids.
“Bless this food to thy service, Lord, and welcome Bette to our lives. Show us your way forward, that we may follow and learn, and make amends. Our thanks to you, Lord. Amen.”
Jen hears the smattering of “amens” that follows. Could almost puke. She’s way too rattled to say an amen of her own, not at all feeling thankful or like making amends with Bette Wu.
Pastor Mike sits.
The dining room noise hasn’t returned since his prayer, but there’s a steady buzz—customers sensing something important at hand.
Casey pulls out her chair and Bette stands. Jen is silently disgusted by this, but she can’t take her eyes off of tall, beautiful Bette Wu, suddenly holding sway over her son, her world.
Casey, standing beside Bette with a small smile, suddenly sits.
Bette nods to him, then considers the room with a serious face, drawing them in, before focusing for a brief moment on the eight people at her table. Clears her throat and swings a strand of shining black hair back under her beanie.
Silence settles over the crowd, broken only by kitchen clamor and the sound of the waitstaff serving and clearing.
“Thank you for allowing me to be here. I love surfing even though I’m no good at it. I admire so many of you big-wave riders. You are brave and beautiful.”
This gets them going again, hooting and cheering, glasses raised.
“I was born in the United States. But because my family is of Chinese ancestors, there have been hateful, racist suggestions made in news and social media, mostly from the extreme right. My socials are filled with hate. We are taunted on the streets where we live. Our old people sometimes get hit and kicked. We get blamed for disease, communism, and a bad economy. For yellow skin. These are some of the prejudices that led to rape, beatings, and murders of my ancestors, as far back as the California Gold Rush. I, my father, and some of our associates have been interviewed by the Laguna Beach Police, the LA Sheriff’s Department, and the FBI. They found no evidence that anyone in my family or in King Jim Seafood is even related to the fire that destroyed Jen Stonebreaker’s beautiful restaurant. On the opposite, arrests have been made and charges filed against two individuals tied to the Monterey 9 criminal organization in LA. So, I thank you from my heart for letting me sit with you tonight, and see the wonderful contest. Thank you, thank you. Casey?”
Jen watches her son stand. He’s taller than Bette Wu but not by much. His face is flushed.
Bette’s serious words have hushed the crowd, and the waitstaff have paused to listen. Jen stews in the relative silence. The only sounds in Barbara’s Fish Trap are the distant banging in the kitchen, the slow cars out on Capistrano Road, and the raindrops hitting the windows.
Jen dreads what her son is about to say, whatever it might be. Wishes she could cradle him in her arms and carry him away. Maybe elbow Bette in the face on their way out. By the way he looks at Bette, Jen sees that she has overrun him, body and heart.
Casey: “So now you know that Bette’s family didn’t burn the Barrel. I want you all to know that. Welcome her to the Monsters, maybe be, like, cool to her. She’s really great.”
Casey drops back into his chair like a kid who’s being stared at. Looks at Jen with the same dashed expression he got when he was six and asked her if she would marry him someday and she told him no, it doesn’t work that way, son.
Then comes a murmur, followed by louder “alrights” and “yeah, mans” and a strong, clear “Go, Bette!”
Who is still standing. “I don’t want to go,” she says. “I want to stay in this world with all of you.”
She holds up a white letter-sized envelope she’s taken from her purse.
“I’m almost done, really! But this is a check from my family’s bank in Hong Kong, made out to Jen Stonebreaker in the amount of one-hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. It is for restoring of the Barrel. This is a gift from the Wu family to the Stonebreakers. No conditions or obligations are attached, but we would like a small plaque somewhere in the new restaurant. Maybe near that bronze of John Stonebreaker in the lobby, acknowledging this gift from us.”
