Chapter Fourteen #2
At eight-thirty the dirty plates were replaced with clean ones and the longevity noodles were served, a sign that the party had reached its midpoint. While the guests ate, someone unlocked the piano. Its keys tinkled like bells, slightly out of tune, and Sai Ma sang.
I’d heard my stepmother sing before, during her parties in the parlor.
Her voice made me think of an underripe mango, green and stiff and a little sour on the high notes.
At its best it was pretty, but it wasn’t strong enough to cut through the party’s din.
Even by the window, I had to strain to hear her.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead. The cook Gu Ma had hired for tonight was asleep on the bench, and Susu and Tingting were washing dishes or refilling teapots. I alone was in the kitchen, swatting away mosquitoes as I decorated Richard’s cake with fresh fruits and cream.
Sai Ma had told me to stay inside, but with the guests listening to her performance, who would notice if I stepped away?
It was a beautiful night. The moon was yolky and bright, hanging in the sky like a pearl. As I stood by the bauhinia tree, my back pressed to the trunk, wind tousled its branches, and violet petals snowed gently upon my head, making me look up.
“Still looking for birds at this hour?” spoke a familiar voice.
My heart skipped a beat. It was the boy who’d nearly killed me with his bicycle.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted.
“I’m a guest.”
That was when I remembered that I wasn’t. “I have to go.”
I scrambled back into the kitchen, hoping he wouldn’t follow.
He did. “A seamstress by day at Chan Kiu Factory, and a cook by night at Madam Chan’s residence,” he mused, entering without permission. “I marvel at you, little hwamei, do you even have time to breathe?”
“Guests aren’t allowed in the kitchen.” I picked up a large cleaver and waved it at him.
“I’m looking for soymilk,” he said.
“We don’t have any.”
“No soymilk!” He pretended to be scandalized. “I thought this was a children’s party.”
“How many children do you see?” I said, pointing at the party with my cleaver. I halved three oranges in quick succession. “Now would you kindly go away?”
He wouldn’t. He leaned against the wall where two spatchcocked ducks were hanging, slowly being wind-cured.
“A bit late in the season for laap aap,” he remarked, flicking a glance at the ducks. “Don’t you find it too salty?”
“Madam Chan likes it,” I replied curtly.
“No surprise she does. It’s pickled in wine and it’s got jowls—just like her.”
A laugh bubbled in my throat. I couldn’t believe this boy’s audacity! I turned back to my oranges. “I’m working.”
“I wasn’t looking for soymilk,” he admitted finally, “I was looking—for you.”
That caught me off guard. “Me?”
“Yes—” He dipped his fingers into his pocket and fished out the missing charm from my bracelet.
I gasped.
“I went back to look,” he said. “It was caught on a bush, a gnarly bristly one.” He rubbed his shoulder so I’d register how much effort he’d undertaken on my behalf. “I hope it didn’t get crushed under my wheel—looks too flat to be a peanut if you ask me.”
It looked the same to me. Mama had never told me the charm was a peanut; I’d simply assumed. A dart of pain rose to my chest. Here was another thing I might never get to ask her.
“I’m not going to thank you,” I said, snapping the charm onto my bracelet. “You’re the one who made me lose it in the first place.”
Amusement showed on his face. “Do you not like me because I almost got you killed? I got the elephant genes from my da, but I promise I’m not so bad.”
“What do you care if I like you or not?”
“Everyone likes me,” he replied. “I’m Tommy. Tommy Yeung. You are . . . ?”
I held up my cleaver. “I’m good with a knife.”
“Funny and mysterious, my favorite combination. How about I tell you a secret, will that make you like me?”
I sliced my oranges into eighths. “What secret?”
“Mum pretended that she was sick so she wouldn’t have to come tonight. She’s vexed with Madam Chan.”
“That’s not a secret, that’s gossip. Which everyone already knows.”
“It is too a secret! Mum would skin me alive if she knew I told you that.”
“Why is she vexed with Madam Chan?”
“Madam Chan doesn’t think we’re rich enough to be her friends, so she only asks my mum to things when someone more important can’t make it. My guess is that we’re last-minute invites.”
“You guess?” I repeated. “If you’re going to spread a rumor, at least have some conviction.”
“I’m certain it’s true.” He tilted his head. “I could ask my mum and find out for sure . . . if you want.”
“Why would I? This has nothing to do with me. We’re not even friends.”
“We might be at the end of this party. All that depends on you.”
His congeniality was infectious, and I bit my cheek to keep from smiling. “You want to be friends with a kitchen maid?”
“Why not? My grandmother worked as a kitchen maid when she moved to Hong Kong, and she was the smartest, funniest person I ever knew.”
“Is she here tonight?”
“She’s dead.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t feel bad, it happened a long time ago.”
“You must miss her.”
“I do. None of my other relatives are funny. Everyone’s boring and works too hard, especially my grandpa.”
“You’re quite unfilial to say such things about your family, especially to a stranger.”
“Trust me, Gong Gong would consider ‘boring and hardworking’ as two markers of great character.” Tommy grinned. “And we’ve met before, you’re hardly a stranger.”
“You don’t know my name.”
“I will when you tell me.”
“I’m not going to tell you.”
“Come now, I regaled you with stories about my family. My mum’s side, anyway. What do I know about you? That you like listening to birds and—”
“Nothing,” I interrupted. I reached for the strawberries. “You know nothing about me. I like being invisible.”
“Invisible.” Tommy was intrigued. “Why?”
Because it’s safer that way, I thought. Because Sai Ma would leave me alone and I wouldn’t entertain any impossible dreams about becoming a famous singer. But instead I said, “When people forget you’re there, you get to see and hear a lot.”
“So, little hwamei,” he mused, “you’re a spy.”
“I’m a survivor,” I said. “Like my mama.”
I glanced down at the dangling peanut on my bracelet. “I never met my mama’s family. My grandfather was a cabbage farmer from the north.”
“My grandfather’s a farmer, too. He grows soybeans.”
“In Hong Kong?”