Powder by Tobias Wolff J ust before Christmas my father took me skiing at
Mount Baker. He’d had to fight for the privilege
of my company, because my mother was still angry
with him for sneaking me into a nightclub during
his last visit, to see Thelonious Monk.
He wouldn’t give up. He promised, hand on
heart, to take good care of me and have me home
for dinner on Christmas Eve, and she relented. But
as we were checking out of the lodge that morning
it began to snow, and in this snow he observed
some rare quality that made it necessary for us
to get in one last run. We got in several last runs.
He was indifferent to my fretting. Snow whirled
around us in bitter, blinding squalls, hissing like
sand, and still we skied. As the lift bore us to the
peak yet again, my father looked at his watch and
said, “Criminy. This’ll have to be a fast one.”
By now I couldn’t see the trail. There was
no point in trying. I stuck to him like white on
rice and did what he did and somehow made it to
the bottom without sailing off a cliff. We returned
our skis and my father put chains on the Austin-
Healey while I swayed from foot to foot, clapping
my mittens and wishing I was home. I could see everything.
The green tablecloth, the plates with the
holly pattern, the red candles waiting to be lit.
We passed a diner on our way out. “You
want some soup?” my father asked. I shook my
head. “Buck up,” he said. “I’ll get you there.
Right, doctor?”
I was supposed to say, “Right, doctor,” but
I didn’t say anything.
A state trooper waved us down outside the
resort. A pair of sawhorses were blocking the road.
The trooper came up to our car and bent down to
my father’s window. His face was bleached by the
cold. Snowflakes clung to his eyebrows and to the
fur trim of his jacket and cap.
“Don’t tell me,” my father said.
The trooper told him. The road was closed.
It might get cleared, it might not. Storm took everyone
by surprise. So much, so fast. Hard to get
people moving. Christmas Eve. What can you do.
My father said, “Look. We’re talking about
fi v e, six inches. I’ve taken this car through worseblond
than that.”
The trooper straightened up. His face
was out of sight but I could hear him. “The road
is closed.”
My father sat with both hands on the wheel, rubbing the wood with his thumbs. He looked at
the barricade for a long time. He seemed to be trying to master the idea of it. Then he thanked
the trooper, and with a weird, old-maidy show of caution turned the car around. “Your mother will never forgive me for this,” he said.
“We should have left before,” I said. “Doctor.”
He didn’t speak to me again until we were
in a booth at the diner, waiting for our burgers. “She won’t forgive me,” he said. “Do you understand? Never.”
“I guess,” I said, but no guesswork was required;
she wouldn’t forgive him.
“I can’t let that happen.” He bent toward
me. “I’ll tell you what I want. I want us all to be together again. Is that what you want?”
“Yes, sir.”
He bumped my chin with his knuckles.
“That’s all I needed to hear.”
When we finished eating he went to the
pay phone in the back of the diner, then joined
me in the booth again. I figured he’d called my mother, but he didn’t give a report. He sipped at
his coffee and stared out the window at the empty road. “Come on, come on,” he said, though not to me. A little while later he said it again. When the trooper’s car went past, lights flashing, he got up
and dropped some money on the check. “Okay. Vamanos.”
The wind had died. The snow was falling
straight down, less of it now and lighter. We drove away from the resort, right up to the barricade. “Move it,” my father told me. When I looked at
him he said, “What are you waiting for?” I got out and dragged one of the sawhorses aside, then put it back after he drove through. He pushed the door open for me. “Now you’re an accomplice,” he said.“We go down together.” He put the car into gear
and gave me a look. “Joke, son.”
Fish Cheeks
Amy Tan
I fell in love with the minister's son the winter I turned fourteen.  He was not Chinese, but as white as Mary in the manger.  For Christmas I prayed for this blond-haired boy, Robert, and a slim new American nose.
When I found out that my parents had invited the minister's family over for Christmas Eve dinner, I cried.  What would Robert think of our shabby Chinese Christmas?  What would he think of our noisy Chinese relatives who lacked proper American manners?  What terrible disappoint-ment would he feel upon seeing not a roasted turkey and sweet potatoes but Chinese food?
On Christmas Eve I saw that my mother had outdone herself in creating a strange menu.  She was pulling black veins out of the backs of fleshy prawns.  The kitchen was littered with appalling mounds of raw food:  A slimy rock cod with bulging eyes that pleaded not to be thrown into a pan of hot oil.  Tofu, which looked like stacked wedges of rubbery white sponges.  A bowl soaking dried fungus back to life.  A plate of squid, their backs crisscrossed with knife markings so they resembled bicycle tires.
And then they arrived – the minister's family and all my relatives in a clamor of doorbells and rumpled Christmas packages.  Robert grunted hello, and I pretended he was not worthy of existence.
Dinner threw me deeper into despair.  My relatives licked the ends of their chopsticks and reached a
cross the table, dipping them into the dozen or so plates of food.  Robert and his family waited patiently for platters to be passed to them.  My relatives murmured with pleasure when my mother brought out the whole steamed fish.  Robert grimaced.  Then my father poked his chopsticks just below the fish eye and plucked out the soft meat.  "Amy, your favorite," he said, offering me the tender fish cheek.  I wanted to disappear.
At the end of the meal my father leaned back and belched loudly, thanking my mother for her fine cooking.  "It's a polite Chinese custom to show you are satisfied," explained my father to our astonished guests.  Robert was looking down at his plate with a reddened face.  The minister managed to muster up a quiet burp.  I was stunned into silence for the rest of the night.
After everyone had gone, my mother said to me, "You want to be the same as American girls on the outside."  She handed me an early gift.  It was a miniskirt in beige tweed.  "But inside you must always be Chinese.  You must be proud you are different.  Your only shame is to have shame."
And even though I didn't agree with her then, I knew that she understood how much I had suffered during the evening's dinner.  It wasn't until many year later – long after I had gotten over my crush on Robert – that I was able to fully appreciate her lesson and the true purpose behind our particular menu.  For Christmas Eve that year, she had chosen all my favorite foods.

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