Kitchen Chinese Read Free Page A

hibernation…it all just seems a little…unusual. I would really like to talk to him. Are you sure he’s out of contact? He’s not checking e-mail or anything?”
    “I doubt the monks will let him, kid.” She laughed. “Apparently they’re very strict. Must be all that yak butter tea.”
    “But…I really need to verify everything.”
    “You can try to reach him, kid, but believe me, it would be a waste of your time. I used to be a fact-checker. I know you probably have a million other things to finish today.”
    “Are you sure you don’t have a telephone number or anything for him?”
    “No.” Her voice sharpened. “I told you, he’s in Tibet. He doesn’t want to be contacted. Trust me.”
    I felt uneasy, but Nina’s words came echoing back to me: Zara Green was a highly respected journalist. Why would she inventher sources? And so, I finished up my conversation with Zara and put the article through to production. The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur as I made Nina’s photocopies, answered her phone, and ordered her son’s organic, gluten-free, vegan Wiggles birthday cake. Three days later, when the issue hit the newsstands, even I had to admit that the article looked stunning, illustrated with Annie Liebowitz’s photos. Yet despite my best intentions, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
     
    T he morning of my review, I searched the skies for an omen and decided that the bright sun and puffy clouds could only signal a positive outcome. Three people smiled at me on my walk to work, I found a penny on the sidewalk, and the Starbucks barista started making my nonfat cappuccino the minute I walked through the door.
    My good luck continued at the office, where someone had left a glazed doughnut on my desk. I took a sticky bite and turned toward my phone, whose message light was flashing more frantically than an ambulance siren. “You have…eight…new messages,” announced my voice mail. That’s odd, I thought, as I punched my code into the phone. But maybe Nina was having a crisis. She once left me fourteen voice mails while I was in the bathroom just because she couldn’t find her metro card.
    In fact, the first message was from Nina. “Iz, could you come down to my office, please!” she said cheerfully.
    My heartbeat slowed. Nina sounded perfectly normal in her message. She probably wanted to discuss next week’s production schedule, or something.
    Except, messages two, three, four, five, six, and seven were also from Nina, her tone growing increasingly sharp. “Where are you?” she said finally. “I need see you now .”
    Before I could cross the hall to her office, she was there at my desk.
    “Do you know anything about this?” she demanded. “Did you have any idea?”
    “What?” I asked. “What is it?” Searching for clues, my eyes slid from her ashen face to her hands, which held a copy of the latest issue of Belle .
    “I just got a call from the legal department,” she said, her hands trembling slightly. “Jolly Jones is threatening to sue us. She’s furious about Zara Green’s article.”
    I swallowed hard. “Oh, no…”
    “She’s claiming that,” Nina leaned in and enunciated slowly, “some of the quotes were fabricated.”
    “Are you sure?” I said, and managed to keep my voice from cracking.
    Nina started pacing the corridor in front of my desk. “How could she have done this to us? How could we have let this happen?” She leaned in close. “You spoke to every single source, right?”
    “I—I…” My pulse skyrocketed. “Have you spoken to Zara?”
    “Not yet.” Nina’s lips thinned. “Get her on the phone for me, okay?” She bolted back to her office and closed the door.
    Zara was not at home and her cell went straight to voice mail. I pressed redial again and again, willing her to answer, and when she didn’t, slumped back in my swivel chair. This could not be happening to me. Zara Green could not be a pathological