Tick Tock

tended to focus on Del Payne and give Tommy only scant attention. Even rain-soaked—again—and bedraggled, she was an attractive woman. In her wet and clinging white uniform and black leather jacket, she possessed an irresistible air of mystery.
    He was glad she wasn't wearing the Santa hat. That would have been too much novelty to ignore even for a roomful of industrious Vietnamese fixated on their work. Everyone would have been staring at her.
    The manager's office was in the right front corner of the room, elevated four steps above the main floor. Two walls were glass, so the shift boss could see the entire bakery without getting up from his desk.
    More often than not, Gi would have been on the floor, working elbow to elbow with the bakers and their apprentices. At the moment, however, he was at his computer, with his back to the glass door at the top of the steps.
    Judging by the tables of data on the monitor, Tommy figured his brother was putting together a computer model of the chemistry of a new recipe. Evidently some pastry hadn't been coming out of the ovens as it should, and they hadn't been able to identify the problem on the floor, with sheer baker's instinct.
    Gi didn't turn around when Tommy and Del entered, closing the door behind them. “Minute,” he said, and his fingers flew across the computer keyboard.
    Del nudged Tommy with one elbow and showed him the red-flannel cap, half out of her pocket.
    He scowled.
    She grinned and put the cap away.
    When Gi finished typing, he spun around in his chair, expecting to see an employee, and gaped wide-eyed at his brother. “Tommy!”
    Unlike their brother Ton, Gi Minh was willing to use Tommy's American name.
    “Surprise,” Tommy said.
    Gi rose from his chair, a smile breaking across his face, but then he registered that the person with Tommy wasn't an employee, either. As he turned his full attention to Del, his smile froze.
    “Merry Christmas,” Del said.
    Tommy wanted to tape her mouth shut, not because her greeting was completely off the wall—after all, Christmas was only seven weeks away and supermarkets were already selling decorations—but because she almost made him laugh, and laughter was not going to help him convince Gi of the seriousness of their plight.
    “Gi,” Tommy said, “I would like you to meet a friend of mine. Miss Del Payne.”
    Gi inclined his head politely toward her, and she held out her hand, and Gi took it after only a brief hesitation. “Miss Payne.”
    “Charmed,” she said.
    “You're terribly wet,” Gi told her.
    “Yes. I like it,” Del said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Invigorating,” she said. “After the first hour of a storm, the falling rain has scrubbed all the pollution from the air, and the water is so pure, so healthy, good for the skin.”
    “Yes,” Gi said, looking dazed.
    “Good for the hair too.”
    Tommy thought, Please, God, stop her from warning him about prostate cancer.
    At five-feet-seven, Gi was three inches shorter than Tommy and, though as physically trim as his brother, he had a round face utterly unlike Tommy's. When he smiled, he resembled Buddha, and as a child he had been called “little Buddha” by certain members of the family.
    His smile, though stiff, remained on his face until he let go of Del's hand and looked down at the puddles of rainwater both she and Tommy were leaving on his office floor. When he raised his gaze and met Tommy's eyes, he wasn't smiling any more, and he didn't look anything at all like Buddha.
    Tommy wanted to hug his brother. He suspected that Gi would return his embrace, after a moment of stiffness. Yet neither of them was able to display affection first—perhaps because they both feared rejection.
    Before Gi could speak, Tommy hurriedly said, “Brother, I need your advice.”
    “My advice?” Gi's stare was disconcertingly direct. “My advice hasn't meant much to you for years.”
    “I'm in deep trouble.”
    Gi glanced at Del.
    She said, “I'm not the trouble.”
    Clearly, Gi doubted that assertion.
    “In fact,” Tommy said, “she saved my life earlier tonight.”
    Gi's face remained clouded.
    Beginning to worry that he was not going to be able to make this connection, Tommy found himself babbling:
    “Really, she did, she saved my life, just put herself on the line for me, a total stranger, got her van bashed up because of me, she's the reason I'm even standing here, so I'd appreciate if you'd invite us to sit down and—”
    “Total stranger?” Gi asked.
    Tommy had been plunging forward so