Nothing Happened at Zhao’s Kitchen

*some names have been changed to protect privacy

When I first realized that something was wrong, I was attending my third and final semester at a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts and working nights at a Chinese take-out restaurant. Outside: a bright and sunny, crisp morning in late fall. Inside: I stood with a tight grip on the edge of the sink. Harsh incandescent lights overhead flattened everything in the small windowless bathroom; the green linoleum floor, the peach vinyl shower curtain, the reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror. 

People often told me that I looked older than I was. I could see it. Dark, angular eyebrows. Serious eyes. Deep laugh lines that had always been there. I sometimes felt older, too, in that kind of have-no-fear way that a lot of young people do. And in other, more misguided ways, too, like trying to handle all the shit I got myself into with that have-no-fear attitude all by myself, a classic genius move. But right then, I felt incredibly childlike. I drew a deep sigh and tried to think, think, think. How long had it been? I had never kept track because it had never mattered before this very second. 

All day I tried to reassure myself that because I didn’t know, it probably wasn’t happening. I walked languidly along the winding tree-lined pathways on campus to my Politics of Health Insurance class, and later holed up in the library to work on my research paper. In the evening I took the bus to eat dinner with my boyfriend who attended a neighboring school and chatted about our days. Were the housemates still bothersome? How did the exam go? What to do this weekend? At night I cocooned myself in my dorm bed and slept soundly. But I couldn’t avoid that drumbeat of worry no matter how hard I tried, and the next day I rode the bus past my usual stop and got off by the CVS downtown. I slinked down the aisles, trying to act somehow both natural and invisible, until I got to the aisle full of soft pinks and lavenders. I think it’s supposed to feel welcoming for people who want to be here, but that wasn’t me. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to be here. In fairness, I didn’t really know where I would have wanted to be instead. 

I scanned the shelf. So many options. They all promised to be the best, the most accurate, the fastest. It all blurred together in a dizzying pastel swirl. It was too hard to think about, so I grabbed a box that was the second to cheapest, feeling like because I didn’t go for the absolute least expensive option, I was doing myself some kind of service. Still wanting to be anywhere else on Earth, I hurried back to the front of the store, towards the checkout area. My boyfriend’s friend stood behind the only open register, and I felt punished having to do this with him, with his terrible bowl cut and sleepy hound-eyed stare. I kept my gaze down and pretended like I didn’t know him, and he did the same, thankful that he wanted to avoid what was happening as much as I did. I stuffed the box in my backpack and left as quickly as I could.

On the bus ride home, I took a seat by a window and leaned my head against it, feeling the jerking vibrations of the chassis over the uneven pavement below. Up towards the front of the bus I noticed a woman in a red cardigan and chunky Mary Jane Doc Martens talking with a man sitting next to her. I recognized her from campus. We’d never spoken or anything, but I knew who she was. She had transferred in this semester and had already integrated herself. Her mannerisms were soft and fluid. She had an ease about her that was foreign to me, and yet she seemed totally impervious, which I knew couldn’t be true. It isn’t true for any of us. I clutched my backpack tighter to my chest as if I might accidentally throw it out the window, like when you lean over a high ledge and have a full body fear that your keys might fly out of your pocket, so you tense up and move slowly as if that will somehow help. As if that could make a person impervious. Why is it so easy to worry about the freak accidents, the spontaneously flying keys and rogue backpacks, but not the things that will probably actually happen to us? Avoidance should feel pathological, but so often it is the easiest thing to do. I moved my gaze back to the farmland outside rolling past me. 

Back home at my on-campus apartment, I ran up the winding flight of stairs to the third floor, returned to the tiny windowless bathroom, and ripped the box from my backpack. I’ve heard some women say that these minutes waiting are the longest moments of their life, hopefully anticipating the result. But to tell you the truth, I don’t remember a single thing that happened in between opening that box and seeing the little pink plus sign that lets you know you’re fucked. I threw the damn thing in the trash and went for a walk.

Later that night I sat down at the little pine desk in my dorm room and opened up my laptop. Getting an abortion wasn’t something I had to hem and haw over. I had been raised in a liberal community by progressive parents, so I opened a new window and typed “Planned Parenthood” into the search bar. The closest one was nearly an hour away. That was farther than I expected, I thought, biting my thumbnail. I could drive there, but could I drive myself back? How many appointments would I need? Would I have to miss class? What would I say? How does someone ask for an abortion? How much would it cost? I was sure there was no way I could afford it.

Maybe I could put it on a credit card.

That was a stupid idea. I didn’t have a credit card or a clue. I was not equipped for this. I was 19 and pregnant. 

I talked a pretty big game as a feminist, but I never realized until now that an unplanned pregnancy was something that I had always thought about in the abstract. Now it was real and the basic logistics were sending me into a terrified spiral. I could not really imagine writing my parents’ names on a clinic intake form as emergency contacts, or explaining why I was staying home from class. I couldn’t imagine going to the clinic and actually doing it, and I definitely couldn’t imagine telling anyone. It was way too vulnerable, and besides my boyfriend, there wasn’t anyone to tell anyway. Even with all my running around to class and the library and work, my days had been solitary lately. After months of a fraught social life and worsening grades, I had become relatively isolated. I didn’t want to risk the one stable connection I did have, and I worried what he would think of me. But when it came down to it, the real problem was that I couldn’t imagine being someone who this happened to, and yet here I was. 

Shutting my laptop, I decided then and there that I would just be someone who this wasn’t happening to. It was simple: I would not make the hour drive. I would not miss class. I would not figure out if insurance would cover it or how much it would cost or what to say or who would be my emergency contact. And I wouldn’t tell anyone. If I didn’t do any of the things that a person in my situation would normally do, then could I really be said to be in the situation at all? Maybe not. Maybe for just long enough. Or maybe – probably – I was just too young to do any of those things alone. 

Weeks went by, and my plan of secrecy was working out pretty well. I continued going to class. I did my reading at my desk and typed up papers in the library. I ate with my boyfriend in the dining hall with all its greasy, nauseating food, and I answered the phone at Zhao’s Kitchen  where I worked nights. One of those nights, I sat at my usual perch on the stool behind the register. Marc, one of the delivery guys, leaned on the counter next to me, typing something into the computer. He was my favorite out of all the delivery guys at Zhao’s, who were mostly 30-something burnouts who negged me, or tried to sell me mushrooms. But Marc was kind, soft spoken, and made a point of not inviting me to their parties. He clicked around the computer some more and pulled up a YouTube video to show me of Miley Cyrus singing an acoustic cover of Nina Simone’s Lilac Wine. 

When I think more than I ought to think

And do things I never should do

“See?” he said, motioning with his head at the computer. We were only supposed to use it to look up directions for deliveries. “She can really sing.”

“Yeah, I guess she can,” I replied. It was the kind of song that I would have sang, I thought. I wanted to hear it again, but just as I was about to ask Marc to hit replay, Lynn, the owner, burst out of the kitchen and dropped two big armfuls of packed plastic bags on the counter. 

“Marc! Delivery!” she shouted, before disappearing back into a cloud of peanut oil, the kitchen doors swinging shut behind her. 

“Guess we’ll watch more when I’m back,” Marc said to me, smiling. He grabbed the mess of bags in one fell swoop and whistled the hook of the song we’d just listened to as he trudged out into the early winter darkness. 

Just like that, I was alone, and it was quiet. I leaned on the counter and swiveled my stool from side to side. For the most part, I liked working at Zhao’s. The work was straightforward. When the phone rang, I answered it and jotted down shorthand for miso soup, egg foo young and beef chow mien on my little green notepad. Sometimes people called with odd questions, like how to pronounce hoisin sauce. I didn’t know. I mumbled an incoherent answer, then pretended a customer had just walked in who I needed to serve and hung up. 

Sometimes the calls were angry. People wanted their deliveries to arrive sooner, or were mad that the little plastic container of orange sweet and sour sauce had opened up in the bag and made a mess all over everything. In these cases I’d try to explain to them that delivery times were only an estimate, and it was dark, and Marc didn’t have a GPS, and sometimes the containers do just open up on accident and that’s really too bad but the food is still good, and no, they could not speak to the owner. The one and only time I didn’t handle the phones was a particularly busy night when we were out a delivery driver, so Lynn asked me to fill in. It took me over an hour to find the address, and there was no one back at the restaurant who could calm the customer down, who was fuming. That’s why I was there. When I thought about it, a lot of my job was quelling chaos. And I was good at it. I was a disembodied voice through the phone saying, “yes, don’t worry, it will be fine.” Disgruntled customers would hang up in a huff, vowing to never order from us again. But sure enough a week or two later they’d call again to place an order, hungry and determined. 

But right now, things were calm. A stillness had settled in. There was no ringing phone. No angry customers. No Marc and no Lynn. Just me on my stool, trying to decide how to pass the time with no crisis to manage. I straightened my notepad and put the cap back on my pen, then took it off again. I fussed with the display of folded paper menus. I listened to the loud monotonous ticking from the dusty analog clock that hung on the wall, which displayed different types of ducks instead of numbers. Sometimes I try to will that sense of time back, only being aware of the seconds as they ticked by, barely able to conceive of a future beyond 9pm when it was time to close up. Now, in my thirties, it feels nearly impossible to live so in the moment. And this is a good thing, but it has made life quite more boring.

I spun the stool around and scooped a small handful of fried wontons out from the giant metal bowl that sat on the table behind me. When I took this job, I assumed I was getting a good deal with free meals, but Lynn never offered that to me. She didn’t speak English, and I didn’t speak Mandarin. Our conversations were limited to the bare necessities and relied on a lot of nods, gestures, and exaggerated facial expressions. It was a very intuitive way to communicate with one’s boss. At the end of my shifts, she would walk to the counter, look at the register, and say “okay” to no one in particular. That was my sign to start packing up while she pulled $27 in ones out from the register. She’d hand me the cash, we’d exchange smiles, and I’d be out the door, sputtering away in my Camry back towards campus. 

I wanted to ask about the food, but was too nervous. I worried that it might be rude, or uncalled for. I didn’t want to offend Lynn and get myself fired. Then she’d find another college student on Craigslist to sit at the counter and deal with the customers. Even worse, I’d have to get a job that had me do more than pick up the phone a few times every hour. So when Lynn was back in the kitchen, I covertly ate fried wontons, spinning around and stuffing one in my mouth on the return spin so no one would see.

I drummed my fingers on the counter and considered what else I might snack on, eyeing the opened box of fortune cookies on the opposite counter. The grease from the fried wontons that coated my lips started to taste bitter and sour. God, I thought, how long have they been sitting out in the bowl? A wave of nausea washed over me, just barely at first and then with full force. I sat up a little straighter and braced my palms against the edge of the counter, my fingers splayed out over the laminated menu taped on top of it. 

Marc was still out making deliveries, and Lynn was still out back helping the chef in the kitchen. I figured I could stay like this while the nausea passed and hopefully no one would call an order in. But the nausea rapidly worsened, and my palms became damp with cold sweat. A dull ache turned over in my stomach like I was about to vomit, and then turned into a sharp pain. It shot through me like a knife, twisting around and pulling at places I could not even describe. It pierced through my abdomen straight through to my lower back and I doubled over, nearly losing my balance. Slowly, I inched myself off my stool. My feet planted on the floor, but I couldn’t stand right. The twisted knot in my abdomen pulled me down while the knife in my back pulled me up, all the while too nauseous and lightheaded to see straight. This was happening, and it was happening to me. I couldn’t pretend anymore like it wasn’t. Gingerly, I paced down the hallway to the bathroom. 

Once inside I slammed the door shut and leaned my back against it. Another windowless bathroom. I remembered that Lynn didn’t heat this part of the building to save money, and I hated her for it when my skin met the freezing porcelain as I sat down on the toilet, arms gripped tightly around my stomach while I hunched over, my head on my knees, eyes squeezed shut. I stayed this way for a while waiting for the pain to pass, but acutely aware that there was no one waiting by the phone. I thought about the duck clock on the wall. 

When I opened my eyes, there was red. It was everywhere. Soaked through my underwear. On the inside of my thighs. Dripping out of me. It was bright except for a dark clump of something that I wiped off the inside of my thigh. I stared at it, rolled and stretched it in-between my thumb and forefinger. It was wet and gelatinous and thick. I wanted to throw up. No, I wanted to die. No, I was dying. No, I wanted to be tucked in and held. No, I just wanted this to stop. I wanted it out of me. I wanted it out now. I was supposed to go to school and graduate and get a job and have normal problems like flat tires and a noisy neighbor. Not this. 

Unsure of how much time had passed, but anxious that I might hear the phone ring from the front room, I washed the blood from my thighs, rolled up a wad of toilet paper which I stuffed in my underwear, and unzipped my black hoodie. I tied the sleeves around my waist like I did back in middle school. How much had changed, really, since then? I wondered while I washed my hands in scalding hot water, and took note of my pale face in the mirror. 

My eyes were tired. I looked like a ghost. I felt like one, too, light and unsteady, and still hurting. When I try to think back to that moment, I want desperately to take that ghost in the mirror by the shoulders and say you need help! Go lie to your boss and leave! Get out of there! Instead, I dried my hands by rubbing them on my jeans, flipped the light switch off, and made my way back to the restaurant area. 

Remarkably, nothing had changed while I was gone. Marc had not returned. Lynn was cooking away in the kitchen. The answering machine showed no signs of a missed call. The second hand on the wall clock softly ticked past a green mallard. Everything was just as it was. I poured myself a glass of water and sat back on my stool, trying not to look so obviously out of sorts. My abdomen and my lower back still hurt, but the nausea was beginning to fade. I knew I should tell someone I was sick, or that I was pregnant, or that I wasn’t pregnant anymore, or that I needed to go home. But I don’t think I fully understood that this was bigger than any problem I had successfully ignored before. And, to my credit, or just my dumb luck, it seemed like I had done it again. It never crossed my mind that several weeks later, during my first birth control consultation, I’d be asked if I had ever been pregnant before, and that it would matter, or that when I finally told my boyfriend months later, he would have felt like he should have had a say, as if I had a say it any of it, either. And regardless, it was just as easy to sit here as if I had never left, as if what had happened hadn’t happened at all. 

Eventually Lynn stepped out of the kitchen and walked toward the register. I instinctively reached for my backpack and jacket, but she didn’t say her usual parting word. Instead, she paused and looked away from the register, nodding her chin towards me. 

“You want food tonight. Two things. Small size. Not dinner items.”

She wasn’t asking me, she was telling me. Wasting no time, I wrote down my shorthand for a small hot and sour soup and a small house fried rice on the green notepad. I tore the slip and handed it to Lynn. She turned on her heel and headed back into the kitchen just as soon as the paper touched her hand. My shoulders relaxed a little. I hadn’t realized they had been so tense. Then the phone rang and I reached across the counter to pick up the receiver from its cradle. 

“Zhao’s Kitchen. How can I help you?”

Back home again, I slowly trudged up the familiar winding flight of stairs to the third floor, dropped my bag in my room, and walked back into the tiny bathroom. In the shower, I watched the bright red turn to a soft pink as it swirled down the drain, unseen and unknown, winding through the depths of the plumbing system until it vanished. Out of sight, and out of mind. I imagine the lives and stories of other women like me, women who this kind of thing happens to. And all of us are swirling down the drain along  with the evidence that we were ever here at all. It would be several years before I really started talking about it. When asked about the reasoning behind my secrecy, I felt so angry I was almost offended. It seemed obvious to me, but I couldn’t articulate it until I realized that it’s exactly what I was supposed to do. For so long, and in so many places, women have been taught to conceal. Maybe because it’s bloody. Painful. Uncomfortable. Inconvenient. Sad. Scary. Formidable. Confounding. 

What’s wrong? It’s nothing. 

And what is “it?” It’s all of us, of course.

Once showered, I sat down at the little pine desk in my dorm and took my food from the plastic take out bag with that cartoon yellow smiley face plastered on it and big lettering: 

HAVE A NICE DAY. THANK YOU.

Fuck you, I thought in the direction of the bag, and peeled the round plastic lid off of the soup container, dripping oil and chili flakes, and unbent the thin wire handle that kept the fried rice firmly inside the fold pak box. Thick steam poured out and filled my room with an aroma both salty and sweet. 

I quietly ate and attempted a sense of resolution until I realized that I would have to pack up the leftovers, walk them all the way down the three flights of stairs, and fight for a sliver of shelf space in the communal fridge. I’d probably encounter one of my thirteen housemates and at least one of their partners who were here more often than I was. I frowned at the take out containers on my desk. We were one and the same, in a way. Inside them was something that I didn’t really want to deal with.

The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of forces in the world who wish we would just waste away and avoid the mess of our life out in the open. Through my chaotic and frightened teenage logic I chose avoidance, but I didn’t choose to have a miscarriage, and it is terribly convenient that it happened the way it did, out of sight. And it is beyond convenient, almost maddeningly so, that it happened in a time and place that was relatively safe. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the United States, over 400 people have been charged for “pregnancy-related crimes,” many of which were miscarriages. This kind of criminalization is basically asking people to refuse to deal with what is happening to them, whether they want to or not, and bear the consequences, no matter how deadly. It could have been deadly. Because to refuse is quite literally to avoid.  

The thing with avoidance is that it works. But eventually everything becomes too big to ignore, or you grow up, or you just get so goddamn angry that you actually want to look the thing in the eye because you hate that you couldn’t before. And you realize that you can’t avoid yourself, a woman, a human being, even if you’re supposed to. So, years later, when I finally started admitting to myself that something had happened, that’s what I did, and I loved it. I talked to lots of people over the hotline phone, telling them where to go, how to get the money, what to say, who to tell. Sometimes I talk to myself sweetly now, too, like it’s me on the other end of the phone line, like yes, it’s alright. Everything is okay.