Vanessa's Dumpling

Vanessa’s Dumpling: huge half-canisters lined with doughy white pastries, fried some, steamed others; men with a missing tooth here, a tuft of unbrushed hair there, lifting lids from these canisters and fishing in the oily soup to return with ladels of dumplings; their shells sizzle and crack brown on ivory, pinched tops, the sweet stink of salt and fried foods. No MSG. Vegetarian options. A woman leans on the counter with her midriff bare between a crop-top and low-rise jeans, black hair an untamed mane, she stalks her order number, waits, patient and impatient all at once.  The room is yellow. Not just in color, but lighting, and smells, it really smells golden; I can almost taste it, the thick air, that frying air. Rice piles high on the countertops, they wear no gloves – the chefs, I mean – and one scratches at his cheek. One cracks a joke in Cantonese, another laughs. Both their ears fan far from their heads; brothers? They are lithe and pinched at the cheeks, like the dumplings. Dumplings hiss from their canisters, and the only woman – her hair tucked beneath a serving cap – scrapes them free. Black. Damn, I feel her say. Disappointment is a universal expression.