“I Eat It All the Time”
By James Yeh, originally published in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern (2022)
Image by Wesley Allsbrook
One day at the café, Charles is absorbed by a small drama going on at the table next to him. A father around his age sits frustrated with his little girl and a woman who, based on her sparkly ring and secondary role, he assumes must be the stepmother. The dad ricochets between hectoring and hugging the little girl; at one point, he gives her a stern talking-to. In response, she crosses her arms, turning her back to everyone in a precocious, diva-ish way, and this amuses the father—he pulls her close.
Watching this all play out, Charles feels not unlike the little girl: wounded and wound-up, wounded and wound-up. He catches her, while the father is away, burying her face in her hands. Then rapidly wiping her eyes, before his return.
Asks the wife: Is the sauce a chipotle sauce?
It’s a ginger sauce, answers the man. I eat it all the time.
Suddenly, his brow furrows violently.
So you’re going to just sit there and not eat? He yanks the little girl’s seat so she is right up next to him.
This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen, he goes on. You’re embarrassing us in the restaurant.
Here’s the thing: Charles can’t stand to hear it, but it’s also none of his business. He’s not the hero of this story, just some guy at the table beside them, listening in. So what that he too has a kid, a son who lives with the mother, which is why Charles now cares about children? This little girl and her dad, and to a lesser extent the stepmom—now speaking quiet Spanish to the little girl—they’re the ones who this is really about. If the stepmom is secondary, Charles is tertiary, more or less last. The little girl looks over at him, this curious stranger next to them, and the friendly stranger squeezes a smile. Rueful but, he hopes, reassuring.
When the father goes for forks, his daughter chases after him, anxious. When they get back, she feeds him a fry. She holds out her hand, patiently, painterly, as though finishing her masterpiece.
He takes it.
Originally published in McSweeney’s Quarterly.