Lavender and Parsley Read online

  Lavender and Parsley

  By Lisa K. Nakamura

  Edited by Judith H. Dern

  Art by Amy C. Young

  Acknowledgments and Housekeeping

  I first read Pride and Prejudice in my teen years. The story did not cross my mind again until 2005, when the movie was released. It quickly became one of my favorite films.

  A year and half ago, I found myself in a stressful period of waiting. It was then that I discovered the big wide world of Pride and Prejudice variations. I am not kidding when I say I have read over a hundred versions of them. The ones that I enjoyed the most, the ones I read over and over again, took the characters and gave them a realism and truth relevant to whatever setting the author chose to put them in.

  I decided to try my hand at it.

  WARNING: there are scenes in this book that allude to physical violence and Executive Order 9066.

  Murasaki, Elizabeth’s last name, means “purple” or “lavender” in Japanese. Petersilie in German means “parsley”, and is a play on the name Peter. Hence the title, Lavender and Parsley.

  My deep gratitude to Pascha, Melissa, Brooke, Amy, another Amy, Norma, Nancy, Kristin, Carla, Andy, Bev, Su for so generously looking over this work from its infancy to completion.

  A heartfelt THANK YOU to my editor Judith H. Dern for lovingly filing down and polishing up my words and making them shine!

  A huge mahalo to you, the reader, for taking the chance to read this book, and for helping me achieve another dream of mine, to write.

  All characters and corporations or establishments appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Mille Grazie,

  Lisa K. Nakamura

  March 15, 2020

  Praise for Lavender and Parsley

  "Using the template of the classic, Pride and Prejudice, as a backdrop, Lavender and Parsley takes you on a woman's accomplished but horrific journey through professional kitchens; into a Japanese American's family that has been touched by the horror of internment camps, as well as their culture; and the bravery that it takes to follow your heart. I laughed, gasped, and cried. And when I finished, I wanted to read it all over again"

  Carla Hall Cookbook Author and TV Host

  "In Lavender and Parsley, author and Chef Lisa K. Nakamura weaves together a story of culture, family relationships, and a rocky road that leads to love. Outspoken, fiery chef Elizabeth Murasaki and reserved, almost Victorian Peter Darcy’s lives collide after a low-key culinary event leads to a scathing review in a national newspaper. Each negotiates family heartbreak, misunderstandings, and continents as they try to figure out exactly what they mean to each other. Lavender and Parsley packs humor, anger, pain, and love into its pages and will leave readers feeling the impact of Lizzy and Peter’s story, long after the last page has been read.

  Su Ring, journalist and author of the Steel Goddesses trilogy (as Ann C. Brandt)

  Chapter One

  Elizabeth B.D. (Before Darcy)

  “Look Janie, I can fly!”

  I’m running along the beach as fast as my stubby five-year-old legs can carry me. A contraband red- and pink-striped towel, purloined from the highest shelf in the family linen closet, billows behind me like a super hero’s cape. It’s one of Mom’s best guest towels. It snaps and shudders in the brisk ocean breeze, competing with the seagulls in their aerial show.

  “Lizzy, slow down!” implores Jane as she chases after me. Even though she’s two years older and much taller than me, my sister is more reserved and less prone to gallop off at the drop of a hat. She is a picture of the ideal young miss.

  We’ve always been thick as thieves, two sides of the same coin. My sister’s quiet and gentle demeanor is the perfect complement to my forthright and snappy attitude. I’m the one that boldly urges us into adventures and she is the one who cautiously steers us away from the cliff's edge.

  We skip to the ocean and paddle our feet in the lacy white foam edging the waves that lap the beach. We stick our fingers into numerous clam holes appearing as the sea pulls back the petticoats of her cerulean skirt. We find tangles of seaweed stranded in pockets of sand and hurl them back into the water to see which of us can throw the farthest.

  Two hours later, I’m exhausted. Throwing my towel cape onto the sand, I plop down on it with a decided thud. Jane gracefully perches on her toes, rocking next to me. For a few minutes we sit there, almost-twins two years apart, and catch our breath. A few moments later, from the house across the street, we hear our mother calling to us. “Lizzy, Jane, get back here right now! Dinner is almost ready!”

  Jane stands up and gives me her hand. She pulls me up to stand, while I reach down and pick up the towel. I give it a good shake, trying to remove any traces of my crime from it; if Mom finds it covered with sand, it will be one more thing to put on her ever-growing list of my shortcomings.

  “Race ya back!” I’m off like a shot. I careen around the sand dunes, taking the wooden steps up to the road as quickly as my chubby legs can move. As I’m about to pull ahead, my right foot slips. Before I can catch myself, I crumple around a pile of jagged stones at the edge of the path. My right knee is sanded to a fine pink pulp and starts bleeding profusely. Jane is quickly at my side, trying to staunch the bleeding with the striped towel that is rapidly turning red all over with bloody blotches. I’m more worried about the bloodstains on the towel than my cut knee. I know I’m in for it when Mom sees the towel. I push it away, trying to make Jane use the hem of my tee shirt instead but she ignores me. She calls for our father, and there he is in a flash, scooping me up in his arms and carrying me into the house.

  “Oh, Lizzy, what kind of scrape have you gotten into now?” he asks, as he deposits me gently onto the bathroom counter.

  My mother arrives, huffing and fussing, irritated that dinner will be late and cold again because of me. She lifts the towel off my knee, muttering something about me always ruining the good things. She dabs my road rash none-too-gently with a wet washcloth and sticks my knee under the running faucet to wash off the tiny bits of gravel stuck to my wound. I wince and cry silently, but she continues without pausing. Jane watches all of this, her eyes huge with horror and sympathy.

  Mom douses my wound liberally with antiseptic, showing no mercy for how it burns. I clamp my mouth shut and swallow the fierce pain. She presses a few gauze pads onto the cut, secures them with tape, and pronounces me fixed. No kind words of comfort, no wiping away my tears, just an abrupt “you’re all done,” before she returns to the kitchen to rescue the overcooked spaghetti.

  From the bathroom, I hear her fume. “Lizzy! Why are you clumsy all the time? Your last scrapes just healed, and here you are, getting yourself banged up again. Why can’t you be more like Jane, more careful and ladylike?” She berates me as she stirs the tomato sauce and pulls bowls from the cupboard. She’s always been this way, comparing Jane and me against each other. I come up short in her game every time. I’m only five but I’ve already learned my place; it’s at the bottom. I try not to ignite her ire, but always seem to fail.

  Jane helps me down from the counter. I hobble to the dinner table and take my seat. Mom doesn’t look at me or ask how I am, just scoops spaghetti onto plates, and then hands out o-hashi, chopsticks, to everyone in silence. We slurp up our spaghetti with our o-hashi. Dad looks over at me, winking when he thinks Mom isn’t watching. He doles out Neapolitan ice cream for dessert, putting an extra scoop of strawberry in my bowl. It’s his silent way of rebelling against his wife, letting me know that I’m his favorite. As he hands the dish to me, Mom huffs and declares, “David Murasaki, you are spoiling that girl. She’s already a tomboy, you know. No man wo
uld ever want to put up with such a willful female.”

  “Karen, my dear, that simply isn’t true. After all, I married you.”

  I giggle and look up at my father adoringly. He’s my hero, and I would love nothing better than to be just like him. Mom sighs, and goes to the living room.

  Our living room has been invaded by an army of moving boxes. She checks the contents of one of the open boxes, then tapes it shut and labels it “Bathroom.” The bright red marker squawks in protest as it bleeds a crimson trail of letters onto the cardboard box.

  “David, you know you’re going to have to be stricter now with Lizzy. When we start running the Ocean Breeze, you’ll be too busy in the kitchen to discipline her. If you don’t rein her in now, she’ll grow up to be the most headstrong and unmanageable young lady ever. Mark my words.”

  The tape screeches in protest as she pulls out a length of it and slaps it onto the box to seal it. We are moving off Bainbridge Island next week and the house has been overrun by an army of cartons. They are grouped by rooms: Bathroom, Girls’ Bedroom, Master Bedroom, Kitchen and so on, with Mom as the general directing their orderly march.

  Our move means we’re leaving the farm that Jichan, Grandfather, started, and then unwillingly abandoned in 1942 when he and his young family were interned. He spent three years isolated in Manzanar and Minidoka. After the war, Jichan returned to the place he called home and resumed farming. He stoically carried on with his attitude of shikataganai, meaning “it can’t be helped,” as if there had been no four-year absence, as if his family’s imprisonment never happened. When Paul, his American-born eldest son, was old enough to purchase land, he bought the plot Jichan so faithfully farmed. It has been in our family ever since.

  There are three generations of Murasakis on this farm now. We all live in the large house Uncle Paul and Aunty Grace built on the property. Childless, they consider Jane and me like we’re their own daughters. Aunty Grace’s affectionate ways soften the harsh words and physicality Mom uses to discipline me. To Aunty Grace, I am not lacking; I am simply Lizzy and I am loved.

  Aunty Madeline, Dad’s youngest sister, used to live with us too, until she met Uncle Eddie. They married and moved to Seattle a year ago, where Uncle Eddie works in a sushi restaurant. Mom sneered behind their backs when they left, commenting how restaurant work was menial labor.

  Mom thinks farm work is beneath her as well. She has spent most of her married life silently seething at her fate. She was only twenty when she married David Murasaki, a man twelve years her senior. She thought she would become landed gentry; the reality is she married into a farming family and was expected to pull her weight in all the manual labor involved.

  Now Mom is angry with Dad because he’s bought an old restaurant on the Washington coast a few hours away from Bainbridge Island. He wants to live his dream of being a chef. He’s always wanted to do this, despite having no training or experience. He has a room full of cookbooks he claims hold all the lessons he’ll need. Mom sniffs disdainfully at this. She turns and walks away in high dudgeon whenever Dad tries to tell her about how much fun it will be to own their own place. Dad remains unruffled at her disapproval and is buoyantly optimistic about the future. He whispers to me how the two of us will rule the kitchen, he as the chef and me as the best junior dishwasher in the county. I believe him.

  Boxes packed and farewells said, we moved south along the Washington coast and became restaurant people. The plan was simple: Dad would cook, Mom would host and serve.

  Twenty-five years ebbed and flowed by like the faithful tides. In the warm high season, they rarely saw each other. They were too busy shuffling guests, plates, and money in a juggling act requiring every bit of their concentration to keep the restaurant afloat.

  In the winter months, they avoided each other and worked diligently on maintenance tasks. Dad refurbished the careworn kitchen. He removed layers of grease from the hood, unclogged recalcitrant drains, and scraped carbon stains off the bottoms of pots and pans. He sanded the floors in the dining room back to their original sheen.

  Mom dusted and scrubbed the nooks and crannies until the dust bunnies scampered away to new homes. She washed the salt spray off the windows every morning, and cursed the deer who ate the flowers she planted out front. The restaurant sucked out what little joy and romance existed in their marriage. They became servants to their business, with rarely any time left over for their children, and definitely nothing left for each other.

  The one thing they never did make an effort to fix was the flickering neon sign outside: “O..EAN BRE..ZE” it read. It became a town landmark as it blinked its way haphazardly into the night.

  When I was ten, I asked Dad why he never had it repaired. “Money,” was all he said. Mom interjected with, “In the winter, only locals are here, and they know where we are. In the summer, the sun doesn’t go down until late and we don’t turn on the sign until then. By that time, most of the tourists are here and have already eaten, so the sign is useless.”

  I think that sign was a reflection of their marriage. It worked well enough, and there was never enough of anything left to fix the broken parts.

  During the summer months, Jane and I were practically orphaned. Left to fend for ourselves, I taught myself how to cook simple dinners for the two of us. A favorite was Lizzy’s Fried Eggs and Rice, a bowl of hot rice covered with two sunny-side up eggs, shoyu, soy sauce, and green onions.

  Much to Mom’s disappointment and Dad’s delight, both Jane and I followed in their footsteps into the restaurant world. When she was fifteen, Jane started working at the Ocean Breeze. She has been our hostess, server, bar tender and manager all rolled into one. I worked as dishwasher and salad maker until I escaped at eighteen. I finally returned for good at age thirty to claim my dubious inheritance behind the stove.

  Jane, as the eldest child in an Asian family, was expected to be dutiful and obedient, the role model for her younger sisters. Her lot was to take care of her parents in their old age. At birth, this heavy load was placed on her slender shoulders, but she's never complained and now bears these responsibilities well.

  Sprouting from a wayward branch of the family tree, I was born adventurous or as Mom would say, willful. I tried to follow in Jane’s dainty path, but there were too many detours and roundabouts tempting me. I picked up my father’s satirical view of the world and my mother’s iron will, the combination making me bound and determined to have my way in this world while laughing at its absurdities. I am the best and worst of both my parents.

  As we grew up, life in a restaurant family meant many nights with Jane and me doing our homework on upside-down milk crates in a kitchen corner while Dad and Mom worked. Dad would occasionally take a break and coach us in geometry with cucumbers and carrots cut into rectangles, triangles and trapezoids. He taught us the French words for ingredients, and then made us parrot them back to him. Mom tested our math skills by having us calculate totals for customer checks in our heads. Our classroom was a bustling one with edible props and real life equations.

  When I was fifteen, my parents thought they had successfully maneuvered through the minefield of raising adolescent girls. Fate had other plans and gave them one more chance. When my mother was a sturdy forty-three, Lydia was born, a surprise baby for everyone.

  Now, as a fifteen-year-old teenager, she is halfway there to becoming a juvenile delinquent. Jane and I try our best to guide her, but what she really needs—and craves—is the firm hand and attention of her absentee parents

  Lydia is by far the most excitable and exuberant of us daughters. She is also the most undisciplined. By the time she was born, Mom and Dad were too busy and tired to pay attention to her. Her care-taking was foisted off on Jane or me. Mom was scurrying to curb another one of Dad’s extravagant ideas and anxious to keep the restaurant afloat. They ignored Lydia. Unchecked through the years, Lydia became impulsive and rash, doing things to demand the attention she’s missed.

  Regardless,
Mom spends any extra energy she has trying to raise us to be good “wife material.” She is afraid we will follow in her footsteps and be sentenced to doing hard labor, as she calls restaurant work. She wants us to marry doctors, lawyers and bankers. So far, she’s coming up empty-handed. The only daughter who thinks marriage is a great goal to have in life is Lydia, and she’s too young to even be daydreaming about her wedding. Jane and I are intent on marrying only for the deepest affection, not as an escape to a comfortable life, much to our mother’s frustration.

  I want to be a chef, and live my life the way I choose. I’ve inherited a love of food from my dad and have been working steadily towards becoming like him. Every attempt by my mom to discourage or intimidate me from this goal has only made my courage rise to defy her. Her doubt in me makes me more compelled to succeed and prove her wrong.

  Dad urges me to follow my dream. He’s given Jane up to Mom’s haranguing and scheming for matchmaking. Lydia he deems the silliest daughter in the state. He remarks about her antics with his sarcastic wit, which she thinks is approval. He tells me I am the one person in the household with whom he can have an intelligent conversation. Like him, I poke fun at the world around me, adopting his ways of hiding my weaknesses and fears behind a sharp sense of humor. When Mom becomes especially unbearable, Dad and I escape to the sanctuary of the walk-in and pretend to take detailed inventories.

  I’m 30 years old now. I’ve used the razor wit I learned from Dad to protect me as I toughed my way through kitchens, rebuffed attempts from male cooks and chefs attempting to get me to quit. It’s been my shield against the pain of loneliness and isolation in an overly male-dominated field. I have yet to meet a man for whom I will even consider giving up some of my independence. It’s taken me too many years to attain it, and is what I value most.