by Vivien Chien
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About the Author
Copyright Page
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For Margaret, Thank you for encouraging me to chase my dreams.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In the fall of 2008, I created the character of Lydia Shepard for a college course I was taking on fiction writing. The main objective of the class was to create a short story in the mystery genre by the end of the semester—a task that seemed rather daunting as I was not that familiar with the genre at the time.
However, with the guidance and knowledge of an amazing teacher, I learned more in one semester of her class than I ever had before … (and actually retained it!). Her clear love of mystery helped me cobble my way through a short story featuring a female private investigator with a sassy attitude and one heck of a story to tell. I was a little skeptical on how the story would turn out, but I had my fingers crossed it would at least get a passing grade.
Then three things happened that I hadn’t expected: I got an A!, my teacher suggested I submit the short story to a mystery magazine (which I never did end up doing), and I fell so in love with the story and the characters that I wanted to turn it into a full-length novel. And though I began that process, the project took a backseat as life went about its business.
Fast forward a decade later, on a drive in to work, I began to contemplate my writing journey as a whole, thinking about the twists and turns that it’s taken along the way. I started to contemplate the idea of our different selves through various parts of life, and wondered what past versions would think of future ones. And that thought turned into characters I have created over the years. While Lana and Lydia are vastly different people from myself, they both contain a piece of me and my life at very distinct times, shaping the development of their character. What might they think of each other and how would they interact if they met? I loved the thought so much that it inspired the sub-story for Egg Drop Dead.
With all that in mind, it seemed natural to dedicate this book to that wonderful teacher who changed my life and set me on a path I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams.
And even though Lydia’s full story has yet to be told, I am so happy to awaken her voice on the page with Lana Lee. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
CHAPTER
1
“I am not going to wear a qi-pao to Donna Feng’s party, Mother!” I was standing in front of the mirror that hangs on my bedroom closet door while my mother, Betty Lee, held the Asian-style dress against my body, the plastic hanger pushing firmly into my neck.
“Why not?” my mother returned in somewhat of a whine. “You look so cute.”
I think most of us can agree that women in their late twenties do not want to be labeled as “cute.” And you could definitely put me on that list. Who am I? Lana Lee, nice to meet you. I’m your not-so-average Asian American gal, recently turned twenty-eight, with not a clue in the areas of martial arts, math that goes beyond long division, or how to speak any dialect of Chinese. But I can use chopsticks like a son of a gun. So that’s something, right?
If you had to find me in a crowd, it wouldn’t be a problem because 50 percent of my hair is currently pink. I love hamburgers and pizza almost as much as I love noodles, and if you asked me to cook you a proper Chinese meal, we’d both starve that night. That’s why I manage my parents’ Chinese restaurant instead of cooking there. Trust me when I say, no one wants me behind a wok.
In recent weeks, I’d come up with the idea of adding a catering service to the family business as a way to help bring in extra money. Summer months at the noodle shop could be slow, and we were dead smack in the middle of July. With Peter’s artistic help, we put together a flyer advertising the new service and left a healthy stack at the plaza’s community center and included them in all our take-out bags.
Our first catering job was for Donna Feng, the owner of Asia Village—the shopping plaza my family’s restaurant was part of. It was Donna’s birthday, and she wanted to have a fancy dinner party at her house. When she first proposed the idea, I of course jumped at the opportunity, thinking that it would include food for maybe ten to fifteen of her closest friends and family.
That was not the case. It turned out she was thinking more along the lines of a small, intimate gathering of fifty. You know, because all of us have a close-knit group of fifty friends. Regardless, I was up for the challenge, which was nothing Ho-Lee Noodle House couldn’t handle. At least that’s what I had to keep telling myself in order to keep the butterflies from causing a frenzy in my stomach.
I’d had a very specific dress in mind for the party, and it did not resemble this navy-blue qi-pao covered in dragons and clouds that my mother had picked out. The black dress I had chosen, with its high lace collar and cap sleeves, was feminine, sleek, and most of all mature. It didn’t make me feel like a little kid playing dress-up.
My mother is a small Taiwanese woman with an extreme desire to keep me at the age of seven, and this dress was evidence of that. She released the hanger’s hold on my neck and waved the dress in front of me. “But this is so beautiful. If Mommy was younger, I would keep this for myself.”
“Well, Mother, as they say, age is just a number. It looks like it will fit you just fine.” I smiled sweetly at her.
She scowled in return and laid the dress on my bed next to Kikkoman, my black pug, who had been watching our every move with intrigue. Kikko sniffed the satiny material before letting out a groan that might be mistaken for a very human sound of misery.
When my mother turned around to face me, she planted her dainty hands on her hips—as was her customary stance when speaking to me—and jutted her head forward with determination set in her dark-brown eyes. “Everyone else who is working will wear the same dress. This will show high class.”
“So Peter’s going to wear that dress?” I responded with a smirk.
My mother did not find it amusing. “You are not funny, Lana Lee.”
I glanced back at the dress on my bed. “Neither is making me wear that dress.”
“Why?” my mother asked. “Your sister is okay wearing this dress. She did not give Mommy such a hard time.”
“That’s because she’s a kiss—”
“Hello!” a cheerful voice yelled from the living room.
“We’re in here!” I shouted back.
It was my best friend and roommate, Megan Riley. And hopefully she could talk some sense into my mother. Kikko hopped down onto the floor and wiggled her curly tail as she went to greet Megan, who was on her way to join us in my bedroom.
Her blond hair was ironing-board straight, and she was dressed in a black T-shirt and skinny jeans, most likely coming home from a shift at the Zodiac, the bar where she works. Lately she had been working a mixture of random hours due to staffing problems they were having. I couldn’t ever be sure when she’d get home, and when she’d need to run off to start pouring drinks. “Oh hey, Mama Lee,” she said, giving my mother a hug. “It’s nice to see you.”
My
mother looked up at her, squinting as she assessed her. “You look skinny.”
“Ma, you always say that.” She squeezed my mom’s arm playfully and turned to me. “What are you guys up to? Want to get some dinner or something?”
“You came just in time,” I told her, grabbing the dress from my bed. “My mother wants me to wear this.” I shook it at her. “Isn’t it ridiculous?”
Megan took the dress from me and looked it over. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit cliché?”
“I think it’s cute.”
I threw my hands in the air. “Exactly.”
My mother groaned.
Megan laughed and handed the dress back to me. “Stop being so stubborn, Lana. It’s just one night.”
“I’m not being stubborn,” I replied as I gave the dress in my hands the stink eye.
Okay, in truth, when it comes to the must-knows about Lana Lee … stubborn makes the list.
* * *
The next evening, after lots of internal debate on the merits of wearing the dress I had purchased for myself versus the dress my mother was insisting I wear, I decided not to create unnecessary waves and give in to her request. So I dutifully put on the qi-pao and a pair of black patent-leather stiletto heels to add some edge and went on my way to Donna Feng’s house in Westlake, one of the wealthier suburbs of Cleveland, without another thought about it.
The upper-class widow lived with her two teenage daughters in a house that was large enough to host two full-sized families. Donna had confided in my mother on a few occasions about how difficult things had become after her husband, Thomas, died. She found herself struggling to handle a lot of the affairs that come along with taking care of a house that size. And what with raising two teens, the charity work she did within the Asian community, and her mild involvement with Asia Village, she’d quickly found her hands full. So instead of minimizing her responsibilities, she’d recently hired a maid, a live-in nanny, and a gardener to help with the various tasks around the house.
I pulled onto Donna’s street and parked a few houses down behind my sister’s car. We’d been instructed to park a little way away from the house itself to give the guests the best parking options.
It was approaching sunset, and the humidity of the day had mostly dissipated. A light, refreshing breeze ruffled the leaves on the trees ever so gently.
The dress was a little tight—probably from all the doughnuts I’d been eating recently—and I shimmied myself out of the car, thankful for the respectable slit down the side. As I walked along the sidewalk listening to my heels click-clack, I began to regret my choice of footwear—like I always do.
My sister, Anna May, and Peter Huang, our head chef, were in Donna’s driveway unloading the food trays and dining accessories that we needed for the evening. Peter had borrowed his cousin’s beat-up work van, and it stuck out like a sore thumb in this ritzy neighborhood. I made a mental note that we might need a catering van if we were going to get serious about this side business.
Peter noticed me approaching and gave a casual nod in my direction. His normally ball-cap-covered head was bare, and his shaggy, black hair looked like it had been trimmed and slicked back. Also missing from his typical apparel were the beat-up combat boots he wore in the kitchen at Ho-Lee Noodle House every day without fail. In their place were polished, square-toed dress shoes. He noticed my assessment and spoke before I could say anything. “My mom said I had to, so don’t give me a hard time, okay?”
“I wasn’t planning to say anything,” I lied, biting back a quip about being a mama’s boy. Even though we often teased each other about these kinds of things, I knew that him dressing up was a no-joke zone. “You look sharp.”
“Thanks. I feel weird, though. And they’re so not cool to cook in. I told my mom they were going to get ruined, but she didn’t care.” He shrugged. “So whatever.”
Anna May batted his arm. “Stop saying you look weird. You actually look like a grown-up for once.”
I regarded my sister with a quick assessment. Of course, we looked very similar in our matching qi-paos, but she had gone for classy and I’d gone for sassy. Her hair was impeccably done, a French bun, not a hair out of place. Classic pearl necklace and matching bracelet, French-manicured nails and sensible kitten heels. Whereas my hair was French-braided and swept up to the side in a messy sort of way with strands of pink left down to frame my face, thanks to Megan’s ability to copy hairstyles from magazines. I’d chosen bold silver jewelry, chunky rings, a cuff bracelet, sparkly chandelier earrings, and of course these blasted stilettos.
As I thought about them, my sister’s eyes landed on my feet and she snorted. “Lana, you’re going to die in those shoes within the first hour.”
“I’ll be fine. Let’s hurry and get this stuff inside so Peter can move this van. I’m surprised Donna hasn’t said anything about it yet.”
As the three of us walked inside, I cringed as the toes of my shoes started to pinch. But you know how sometimes you focus on the smallest inconveniences of life, not realizing that things could be so much worse?
Yeah, it was going to be one of those times.
CHAPTER
2
Donna Feng is the kind of woman that makes a statement just by walking into a room. She is bold, she is coiffed, and she exudes the kind of confidence any woman would covet. Even when her husband was killed several months ago, she’d carried herself with a poise that seemed almost superhuman. I often found myself searching within for the same type of self-assurance. Only rarely had I seen her at all flustered.
When we entered through the front door, we found Donna in the sitting room standing next to a slightly shorter woman in a sleek black suit, barking orders at a team of people in crisp white shirts and black dress pants. I had no idea who any of them were, but my best guess told me they were here to help make Donna’s party the best in the city.
Donna, though, in a stunning, dark-gray A-line dress, appeared less than confident for the first time since I’d known her. Her fists were clenched at her sides, and I could see the anxiety in her eyes as the other woman spoke to the lineup of staff members. We stood off to the side so as not to interrupt.
“Okay, people, guests will start to arrive shortly, and everything has to be absolutely on point! I expect nothing less!” The woman clapped her hands together in quick succession. “Flower arrangements on all the tables, settings placed to perfection … if anything is out of place, put it in place. Now move!”
The workers left the room in single file.
My sister and I shared a look as we followed behind Peter. Donna caught the movement from the corner of her eye and clasped her hands in excitement. “Oh, Lana, darling,” she cooed, ignoring both Anna May and Peter. “You’ve arrived! Come in, come in. I’m so happy you’re here!”
She greeted me and my sister with a hug and gave a respectful nod to Peter. “Lana, I’d love for you to meet my party planner. This is Yvette Howard, and she is absolutely brilliant at what she does. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
The shorter woman stepped up and smiled brightly. She had the exact same air of confidence that Donna carried, and I could see why Donna would choose her. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Yvette,” Donna said, putting an arm around me. “This is my caterer, Lana Lee, her sister, Anna May, and their cook, Peter Huang. Lana was so gracious as to handle all of the food prep, and since she’s a family friend, you can see why I didn’t need any help in that department.”
Donna and I had sort of bonded around the time of her husband’s death a few months back, and ever since then she’d seemingly taken more of a liking to me, while continuing to regard Anna May with the same cool politeness she used with most people. She wasn’t a huge fan of Peter, because he happened to be the illegitimate son of her deceased husband. However, because of this, she did show him a level of respect. I knew it must be painful for her to see him since he was a
living reminder of her husband’s infidelity, so considering the circumstances, I think she handled her encounters with him pretty well.
“That’s wonderful,” Yvette replied with what was clearly fake enthusiasm. “It’s really nice to meet all of you, but I should go check on things on the back deck and make sure we’re just about ready. After all, time is of the essence.”
Donna patted Peter on the shoulder, gesturing to the kitchen entrance with her other hand. “Let’s get you three situated. You can set everything down in here. You’ll have to excuse the mess, it’s been absolutely chaotic all day. I can’t seem to find any competent help except for Yvette, and the girls have been driving me nuts since the moment they got out of bed this morning. I feel as though I’m living in a zoo.”
Jill and Jessica Feng were Donna’s twin teenage girls, who were a bit of a handful these days. Both of them had decided it was a good time to go through their rebellious phase. I had a suspicion it might have something to do with their father’s death, and everything that came out about Peter being their half brother didn’t help the situation.
No one talked about it, either … including Peter. The girls never spent any time with Peter and he had never offered to get to know them. According to my mother, neither Donna nor Peter’s mother, Nancy, had ever encouraged the half siblings to become friendly with one another.
I set my armload of items down on the flawless marble countertop of the kitchen island and assessed the room. The stainless-steel appliances were sparkling and definitely cleaner than anything you’d find in my apartment. The ceramic floors were equally clean; you could’ve eaten off them if the situation called for it. “Donna, everything is immaculate as usual. You’re worrying over nothing.”
She released a heavy sigh, leaning against the island. “Everything just feels absolutely out of order. How’s my hair?” she said, quickly changing subjects.
