Pete takes me by the hand as I dawdle past the landscape of food; fresh, hot, sweet, sour, and salty. “Come on, we’re late.”
We arrive at a table with one couple already seated and two empty chairs. The couple is deep in conversation.
“Pete! Hey!” exclaims the man, catching sight of us. He has a strong Canadian accent. Thick brown hair springs enthusiastically from his forehead, and his jaw is wide and square. His face is a healthy caramel color; he looks like he should be hiking in fresh air somewhere else. “You must be Grace.” He reaches out to pump my hand.
“This is Paul,” Pete explains. “Paul works on the construction side of the project.”
“That’s me,” Paul agrees and, putting his large paw on the shoulder of the woman next to him, says, “This is Linda. My wife.”
Linda looks up, her pink mouth curved in a polite smile, and leaps to greet us. She is wearing a short floral dress, and her blond hair is pulled back in a ponytail. “Hi, hi!” she chirps.
Pete leans in to kiss her hello. She kisses him on each cheek.
“Nice to meet you, Linda. This is Grace, my wife; she hasn’t met a lot of women here yet, so it’s great that we can get together like this.”
I cringe as he says this, feeling like some sort of charity case. “Nice to meet you both,” I mumble. I stretch my lips in a smile, hoping it looks sincere.
“So good to meet someone new.” Linda beams at me and then adds wryly, “This place is like a small country town.”
I take a pat of cool, homemade butter from the small silver dish in front of me. Rock salt, placed on top of each round, sweats a salty dew. The butter softens against the warm flesh of the bread roll, spreading easily.
Pete and Paul talk of work permits and foreign labor. Their heads are close together across the table, apart from when Pete recalls something funny and Paul leans back and roars with laughter, clapping his wide hand against his knee.
I chew the hot, sweet bread slowly.
“So …” Linda leans in toward me. “You’re not working?”
“No,” I reply. “Well, not yet, I guess. I was working in London, up until Pete got the job offer and we decided it was too good to pass up.”
“Oh, I know what that’s like. When Paul got his offer and told me about the five percent income tax here I said, ‘Honey, you’ve just got to take that job!’ It can really get your whole family ahead, you know?” She flutters lashes that seem impossibly thick. I wonder if she has fake ones glued in among her real ones. I stare a little too long.
The conversation is interrupted as our waiter takes a drinks order. He has glossy black hair and smooth skin, a soft, kind voice. “What can I get for you, ladies?”
Beers for the boys, champagne for Linda, and a cup of hot black coffee for me.
“Strong, please,” I add.
As he leaves Linda drops her voice and pats my knee. “They just don’t get it, do they?”
“Sorry?”
“Coffee. They just don’t do good coffee. I mean, sure, boil some water, drop in a tea bag, but coffee … It’s killing me, living without my morning joe. China.” She shakes her head and rolls her eyes, pale and blue. “It’s not easy to live here, especially when you’re a ‘tai tai’ like us. I get so damn bored.” She pushes back a hair that has escaped the ponytail and grins at me. I nod, and she keeps talking, not seeming to notice that I’m not saying much. I get distracted looking over her shoulder at the buffet, the smells drifting toward me. I catch pieces of what she says.
“I cannot stand a badly ironed shirt. Isn’t that the least you should expect from, you know, them?”
“Ballet and swimming lessons on the same afternoon! Can you imagine? That is just poor planning.”
“There’s only one place to buy your handbags. Don’t worry, sweetie, I’ll show you.”
“So I said, ‘You’ve just got to let her go!’”
I wish I were better at making girlfriends. Or at least understanding other women. Sometimes it feels like they are speaking another language. I can’t keep up with Linda’s conversation, and when I do I grow so bored I start to think about recipes and growing rosemary on our windowsill. Her mouth is perfectly pink, the liner blended expertly into the lipstick. I reach into my handbag for some Chap Stick.
“Hello.” Léon takes me by surprise. He is dressed in his chef whites. He leans over to kiss Linda, who gives a pleased grin as he brushes each of her cheeks with his lips.
“How are you?” I ask, standing.
Pete’s eyes drift over to us from across the table but then quickly move back to Paul, who is talking animatedly, gesturing with his large hands about some new concrete construction technology.
“I am fine,” he says. “Happy that we are busy today and everyone seems to be satisfied. A relief.”
“Yes, I’m sure it is. The restaurant deserves to be full, though, the food is divine.”
He nods graciously, then quickly surveys the room. When the waitresses or other chefs see him looking their way, they smile.
“I heard that you’re not serving desserts anymore?”
His face falls ever so slightly, but he masks his disappointment quickly. “No, I’m afraid not. Other than the chocolates and some catering we do, no. I am told they are … not financially viable.” He gives a resigned shrug. “It is a pity. My pastry chefs are excellent.”
“It is a pity,” I agree. “The desserts were so good. Especially the macarons. I have heard they are hard to make.”
“Ah yes, the macarons.” He nods. “Well, I haven’t given up hope. One day Macau will be ready for macarons. Maybe not with my brunch here, but one day.”
Linda drums her nails against my shoulder. “Gracie dear, I’m starving. We’re all heading to the buffet.” She takes a sip of champagne before walking past us with a simpering smile, looking at Léon rather than me.
“I should get back to the kitchen,” Léon says. “I hope you enjoy your meal. Make sure to let me know how you like it.” He steps away politely, then turns back. “If you ever want to learn to make macarons, I am happy to share the recipe with ‘the foodie.’ They’re not so hard when you know how.”
“Thanks,” I say with a smile.
Heading to the buffet, I see Linda, Pete, and Paul huddled together by the ham. The thick flesh glistens with a honey glaze, its skin studded with cloves, like neat freckles. It is so large it could feed a family for a week. Linda laughs at something Pete has said. Paul reaches over to him and gives him a couple of good-natured back slaps. Standing together like that, they look like old friends, maybe even siblings. Paul, then Linda, then Pete. A little row. I pause for a moment with my plate loose in my hands. Our waiter comes to stand beside me, tray full of dirty dishes, forks, and knives. We both look over to them like farmers watching cows, separated by fence and species.
“The turkey is good today,” he whispers.
* * *
Later that night a boom thunders through the apartment while I am sitting on the toilet. The throaty rumble of an explosion. It is the fastest piss I have ever taken. Up and wiped, fumbling with my jeans, I sprint into the lounge room.
“Did you hear that?”
Pete is motionless on the couch. He lifts his head sleepily.
I do up my fly and the top button of my jeans, rushing to the window. In the distance there is smoke and light. I squint to make it out better. I put my hands on the glass.
“What is it? Are we safe?”
Pete saunters over, yawning. He puts his hand on my shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “Reckon we’ll be fine.”
Thinking of bombs or earthquakes, I push him away from the glass, but he just laughs as he stumbles back a couple of paces.
“It’s just fireworks.”
“What?”
“Fireworks. For Chinese New Year.”
As he explains, plumes of green sparks flash across the sky and twinkle slowly toward the ground. A few seconds later the noise travels to us, booms
and rumbles like an angry dragon. Steadying himself, Pete pats me on the back.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I didn’t realize…. A new year …”
“Yup. The Year of the Rat.” He walks into the kitchen still talking, raising his voice over the noise. “I think it goes on for a week. You can actually go and let them off yourself, by the water. They’re huge things, apparently. Even the little kids let off these enormous rockets …”
He comes back with a cold beer in his hand, a Tsingtao, the condensation sweating down the side of the bottle. He lifts it to his lips and sucks at the neck. I notice his unshaven chin, dark against the pale, hairless cleft in his throat. He looks back at me, his eyes green tonight, flinted with gold. I realize we haven’t had sex since that day Dr. Lee called.
“We should go down there, check it out—if you want to.” He shrugs.
I watch a red rocket explode into sparkling splinters. When I turn back to Pete, I can see the reflection of the rocket’s light splashed across his cheeks and forehead.
“Hello? Wanna go? Gracie?” He sounds exasperated. I hate it that he cannot wait for me to think for a minute and then reply. He’s impatient these days. When we first married, he would put his head to one side and watch me while I made a decision, his gaze roaming over my hair and eyes and lips. He never shook his keys or told me to hurry up. It was a gift, the patience he once had for me.
“Sure, let’s go then.”
* * *
The fireworks area is cordoned off from the street with tall tarpaulins, which block it from view. It is on the side of the road closest to the water, facing Macau peninsula. There must be a site on the other side too, as fireworks are erupting sporadically in front of the pointed needle that is the Macau Tower. On our way in, there is a warning notice that reads: PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHEN ENTERING THIS AREA. ALL CHILDREN MUST BE SUPERVISED. NO ANIMALS ALLOWED. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM SMOKING. Smoking would be unnecessary, as the air is thick with gunpowder and fumes. Pete rubs my back distractedly, staring at the mayhem. Adults and children have the same look on their faces—round eyes, mouths split wide open in laughter. The delight is almost palpable. A few Filipino maids and nannies sit off to the side jiggling babies and covering their small ears. They seem to be the only grim ones in sight. They look worn down, from the inside out. One of them catches my eye and attempts a polite smile. I nod back at her.
“Did you see that?” Pete cries.
Above us a huge shower of golden light crackles and slaps against the night sky. Pete whoops and cheers, and people nearby turn to give him the thumbs-up, laughing.
“This is awesome,” he sighs, suddenly sounding like an adolescent. “Wait here while I find out where to buy some rockets.”
Before I can reply, he has disappeared into the fog. I lean back against the metal scaffolding holding up the tarp and cross my arms over my chest. Kids scurry in front of me, reaching up to grasp their parents’ fingers or dragging them forcibly by the elbow. I spot a young woman standing off to the side, leaning as I am against a pole. Her face is set in the sulk of a teenager, but her makeup is thick and dark. She wears a deep purple sweatshirt with a high neck, studded all over with printed gold stars. She catches me staring and glares back, unnerving me. She looks a little familiar.
“There’s a bunch of work people here,” says Pete breathlessly on his return. “Paul and Linda are just over there.” He points and coughs.
“This smoke is pretty thick …”
“C’mon.” He slips his finger through the belt loop of my jeans, pulling my hip sideways. His voice croons, like when we were first dating, hair falling into his eyes.
The woman leaning against the pole looks away from us then, chin pointed into the sky. I see her hands move in the deep pockets of her sweatshirt. They crawl over her stomach.
“All right.”
Pete walks ahead, skipping through a few paces to get us there quickly. Linda and Paul must have been there awhile. Linda has a smearing of soot brushed across her blond hair and looks jazzed on whatever is in the expensive silver hip flask in her hand. She is wearing a summer dress and heels, which are getting sooty from their points up. Pete drags over a large paper bag, the tails of rockets sticking out. A grin is slung close up to one ear and all the way around to the other. Linda gives me a wink as if I am part of the gang; then she turns toward Pete, placing a slender hand on his shoulder as he pulls the rockets from the bag, giggling like a girl skipping class.
I stand back from the group and watch. Before long the crowd weaves between me and them, jostling us farther and farther apart, like the tide pulling back from the shore. Linda’s whoops become less loud; she faces the peninsula, watching the bright plumes. Paul has his hands on his hips and feet wide apart. He rocks back on his heels to see up into the sky. Pete’s face glows as he lights the rockets, illuminated by the spark. His tongue hides in the corner of his mouth, and hair curls wildly from his forehead. He looks like a boy. Like the guy I fell in love with.
I am standing with my back against the tarpaulin. The noises aren’t distinct now; the bangs and pops and whirs could be any of the rockets, laughter belonging to all the groups, huddled around their fun. The sounds become thick and murky, as though I am holding my head underwater. Somehow, in all the noise, my thoughts still. It feels as if I might be invisible, standing here alone in this sea of people laughing and cheering, among the smoke and the bangs.
“What are we supposed to do now?” Pete’s question from the other night floats through my mind. Yes, what now?
Above me the night sky is pale and quivering with smoke, a temporary quiet, spits and sparkles silenced. A break between sessions. The guts of rockets and burned ends of matchsticks litter the ground. The crowd moves and sighs as one great big animal, heaving, swirling around me like water around a stone rooted deep in the bed of a river. Out of it I hear my name. It gets louder, like a song, over and over.
“Gracie! Gracie! Grace!”
The air has turned cold. I warm my arms with a brisk rub. Above me a final, rogue rocket soars and erupts in the gray sky. It glitters sapphire blue and bright. The crowd looks up, mouths in silent circles. Something deep inside me dislodges. Tears off, falls away. I feel a kind of unpeeling. It happens in under a second, and then I know that my mind is made up. It is so bold it is probably stupid. It’s more like Mama than me. A little bit of Mama’s shamelessness and courage. The kind that was always getting us into trouble.
My arms drop back down to my sides, warmed now, as Pete shuffles toward me, pushing through the throng. He has black soot on his wide hands and across his shirt. He keeps looking back up to the sky, distracted, checking to see if a rocket is going off.
“There you are,” he murmurs. “I was wondering where you’d got to.”
Un Bon Début—A Good Start
Coconut with Passion Fruit–Spiked Buttercream Filling
I have already programmed in the number, all I need to do is press one button.
“Hello … I’m calling about the shop?”
The man who answers the phone is not speaking English. He is yelling, but not at me, perhaps at the small child who is letting out the great dramatic sobs that I can hear from my end of the phone. It sounds like Portuguese. Now he turns his attention back to me. “Eh?”
“I was wondering about the shop. Is this a bad time?”
Now there is a woman speaking in the background. The man clucks his tongue and says something conspiratorial to me, which I wish I could understand. Then neither of us says anything and we both listen to the woman. She is loud but firm. The child whimpers. The woman says something soft, soothing. There is quiet. A mother’s touch. The man and I remain quiet for a few more moments.
“English-a?” says the man, in what sounds like a tone of distrust.
“Yes. I’m English. I speak English,” I stammer.
“Okay,” he says. “You come tomorrow to the shop? I bring my friend. He speaks the English.”
“Two o’clock, no problem, okay?”
“Okay, yes. No problem. Um, my name’s Grace.”
“Okay, Grace.” He hangs up.
* * *
Pete drops his bag and coat onto a chair by the dining table and shakes his head, his mouth a thin line. He flips on a light, which makes me realize I am sitting in the dark. I sip from a glass of wine.
“Bad day?”
“Bloody nightmare.” He sighs.
He’s come home irritated every night this week, normally making a beeline for the computer to check his sports betting and zone out. He wriggles out of his leather work shoes; they fall with heavy percussion against the floorboards. He pulls at his tie so that the knot hangs around the third button of his shirt—defeated. Then he comes over, sits next to me, and looks out the window. He glances at my hand, which is propping me up, as if he might pick it up and hold it or kiss it. Instead he turns his head to stare back out at the night sky.
“Everything okay at work?”
“It’s not even worth going into. It’s just a mess.” He shrugs.
I imagine what he does not tell me. The mass of problems and glitches that bloom during the opening of a new casino. The deadlines that have been missed, the poor performers who continue to drag the team down, the unrealistic expectations of the investors and the board. Pete has been through all this before, but his shoulders still droop with disappointment, as though he had hoped for something different. He pulls his hand over his face, rubbing, as if he is trying to wipe off the day.
The Colour of Tea Page 6
