A noise lifts our heads toward the door. A man peeks in; a full beard frames his chin, white teeth line up in a wide grin. “Is Lillian around?” he asks with a rumbling laugh in his voice.
“Hey, Paul.” Pete struggles to his feet. He wipes his palm on his jeans, then shakes Paul’s large hand.
“I was just passing by. Hey, this place is looking awesome,” Paul exclaims, gazing around as I get up. “Tiles look great.”
“You think so? Taken a bit of work but …” I shrug shyly.
“Yeah. And the sign looks good too.”
Pete cocks his head and looks at me.
“Oh,” I breathe softly. “They must have hung it when we were out the back. That’s what the racket was.”
The three of us walk outside and stand on the pavement. Paul crosses his arms over his broad chest and rocks back on his heels. Pete has his hands on his hips, chin to the sky. It hangs from a brass-colored pole. My sign. Without a breeze it is static, as if poised for our inspection. I can’t breathe for a few seconds while I look at it. Pete lifts his head higher and squints to read it, and Paul grunts approvingly.
“You didn’t tell me,” Pete says softly, turning to look at me with a crease between his eyes.
They’ve done a good job; it is securely fastened, brass screws twisted firmly in place. The paint is fresh and bright. It matches our squeaky-clean tiles—sharp, contrasting black against white. Dark cerise poppies punctuate the i’s in the curling, black script. It is exactly as I wanted it.
LILLIAN’S.
“Perfect,” I sigh, just loud enough for my ears alone. My voice is as high and light as a girl’s.
Dearest Mama,
Tomorrow I open Lillian’s.
Pete says I probably should have made a bigger deal of marketing it if I was really serious, but I am so nervous about the whole thing I feel ill. I put an ad in the International Ladies’ Club newsletter, but I was late so it probably won’t come out till next week. Thank goodness. Sometimes I think I don’t want anyone to even notice the café. I just want to get through this first day and not be sick all over my shoes.
I have stocked up the coffee. There are grinds all ready to go in the machine. Oh, maybe they should be fresh; I can change them tomorrow. I have made three types of macarons, and they’re all good except the Chocolat Amer, which is such a shame ’cause it tastes so divine, but they all came out looking like hats that had been sat on. I have some cakes. And some muffins. The muffins will just need warming in the oven and they’ll be as good as new. I have to make cream-cheese icing for the carrot ones, but I can do that in the morning. I’ll get up in time. Well, if I ever get to sleep.
Mama, what if no one comes? It’s a possibility. I haven’t said that to Pete because he’d just say, “Well, you should have thought about that earlier, Grace,” all frown between the eyes. He looked at me last night over steak and veggies, and I could see right through to his thoughts, I swear. He was thinking, Does she really want to make a go of this? I know I’ve been spending money like crazy, and he wonders if this is just a money pit. He probably doubts if it will make any profit at all. I don’t like to talk about it because I wonder too.
Linda was at the supermarket today. She let out this laugh when she saw me. “Oh goodness, I didn’t recognize you!” Well, Mama, that was not really a surprise because I was wearing tatty old overalls with my hair pulled back, and I was dusty and greasy and smelling like old towels. I’ve stopped wearing makeup these last few weeks, and the wrinkles and freckles are popping out on my face, scaring me each time I look in the mirror. It is not worth looking pretty when you are setting up a café, let me tell you. I sometimes wish Macau wasn’t the size of a bloody Post-it note so you wouldn’t wind up bumping into someone you know every time you go to the supermarket.
Okay, Mama. You need to wish me luck. I feel like there are kangaroos in my stomach. I have to lie down now and go to sleep, and when I wake up it will be the day I open Lillian’s …
Your loving daughter,
Grace
L’Espoir—Hope
Provençal Lavender with a Sweet Fig Buttercream
The sun slides down into the horizon, orange and sticky, like a lozenge. The chairs are stacked on the tables, the benches cleaned. Food is in the refrigerator, lists left out for tomorrow, tiles mopped. I take a chair off a table and put it on the floor, ease my tired bones down onto it and stare out the window at the mango-colored light.
Well. It wasn’t too bad.
Given that there wasn’t much promotion, I had more customers than I’d expected. Sure, there were moments I wished for more customers for the money’s sake, but I put on a brave smile for the curious faces that bobbed past the window but didn’t come in. Maybe they will tomorrow. Maybe the next day. The takings from the till fit in my pocket. Two hundred patacas and some loose change. I won’t even calculate what kind of hourly rate that is. I’ve probably made more in tips some nights.
Paul came in during the morning and had a coffee with a workmate over plans they had to spread across two tables. Latte and a cappuccino, thanks. Linda dropped by with her kids after school, and they tore chocolate brownies apart, half in their mouths, half on the floor. She said she would come back later in the week with some girlfriends, show them the new place. She luuurved the decor. “So chic, Gracie!” Celine called to ask if I could cater for a parents’ “French for fun” evening she was hosting next week. Some sandwiches, macarons, nothing too fancy. Considering her husband is a chef himself, I know the order is a gift. Then there were three Chinese schoolgirls, a macaron each and lots of giggling. Folders covered in doodles and colored stickers. Socks pulled up to their knees. The woman who needed a glass of water after her morning jog but who said she worked for the Macau Daily Times and looked around with approval in her eyes. Another woman, quiet, had tea by the window. That was it.
I have packed up the food that won’t keep and put it in a large bag. I’ll take it home; see if we can’t eat some of it for dinner. Or if Pete knows someone who wants it. Perhaps even the stray cats around Old Taipa Tavern.
So there wasn’t a fanfare; weren’t a hundred eager customers queuing out the door. I feel tired, but in a good way. Purposefully tired. A warm feeling settles on me. I think they call it optimism.
Un Peu de Bonté—A Little Kindness
Watermelon with Cream Filling
The second day the café is open. My café is open. I am yanked from my dreams, body clock terrified I might oversleep, but it is only five in the morning. Lillian’s doesn’t open until ten, so I have five whole hours stretched in front of me. Pete snores softly on his side of the bed, facedown, with the sheet draped soapopera style across his backside. I know I will wake him if I get up now. I feel like I did as a kid on Christmas morning, desperate for Mama to rise. I tick off items on a list in my mind: open doors, chairs down, signboard out front, macarons from the chiller, call Ah Chun about the dripping tap. A little thrill goes through me.
Sliding out of bed as silently as possible, I flick through clothes in the wardrobe. Nothing I own suits this new chapter in my life. Woolen coats hang next to yoga pants. And I refuse to wear a white shirt with black trousers; I’m not a waitress anymore. Skirt with a blouse? I check the time again on the clock radio next to Pete’s heavy head. His mouth is wide open on the pillow. I change as quietly as possible, but when I turn around he is holding on to a pillow lengthwise like a lover, propped up with his head on his free hand. He stares at me unblinking.
“Hi.”
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
He shrugs.
“I had to get up. Loads on my mind.”
“Mmm-hmm.” He is still sleepy.
I start pulling out the contents of my dresser. Armfuls of clothes pile up at the end of the bed. Surely I must have two half-decent things to put together.
“What did you wear yesterday?”
“That dress. The long charcoal gray one, with the belt. And sandals.”
“Oh yeah. Couldn’t you wear that again?”
“It’s not a suit, Pete; women can’t just wear the same thing every day like that,” I say snippily. Certainly not in a kitchen with ovens cranking, I think to myself, rifling through the piles.
Pete rises to stand beside me. He still has creases from the pillow across his left cheek, and hair stands up to attention on that side of his head. “What about this with the pants?” He holds up a bright sleeveless top with a high neck and nods toward a discarded pair of black trousers. It is the top I bought on our honeymoon. To wear to the posh buffet dinners the five-star resort put on every night. We hardly ever got out of bed before midday, so dressing up for dinner felt like the beginning of the day. It reminds me of mojitos and mosquitoes.
“Yeah, okay,” I reply softly. Actually, it will be perfect, I think with some surprise.
“Maybe I’ll drop by for lunch today.” Pete yawns. He turns toward the shower, his bare bum white and radiant against his tanned legs.
* * *
When I get to Lillian’s, there is a woman standing outside, moving impatiently from one gold-sandaled foot to the other. I squint to see if she is real. Long limbs flow from cropped and cuffed white shorts as if she has wandered, lost, from a photo shoot on a yacht. Her tanned arms cradle a dog that is the color and texture of cappuccino froth. I can see she is squinting back at me, even though she is wearing large sunglasses, because her forehead is drawn down and her mouth is straight across in a line.
“Are you the owner?” she calls out.
My heart seems to lift. I wait until I am closer before answering; raising my voice always makes me feel nervous. Her hair falls neatly to her shoulders, the blond of a dessert wine. She looks around thirty-five and smells strongly of ginger lily, bold and tropical. A high-end retail store sprays a similar perfume in all their shops. It is not cheap.
“Yes, that’s me.”
“Oh good. I’m dying for a coffee.”
I swing my watch up, as the face has moved to the underside of my wrist. It is a quarter past seven.
“I’m so sorry, but we don’t open till ten.” I can feel my cheeks warm. This being-the-owner gig is going to take some getting used to.
She leans forward to look at my watch with me. Her dog growls, scrambling like it is treading water. It bares a few small, pointed teeth at me, curling an upper lip, revealing gums as dark and shiny as licorice.
“Damn,” she says, with the sharp spike of an Australian accent, then pleads, “Can’t you open a bit earlier today?”
I think of my list and shake my head, blushing with apology. “It’s only our second day. Maybe next week I’ll start opening a bit earlier. Or you’re welcome to come back after ten?”
She changes position to better handle the wriggling dog. “Never mind,” she replies flatly. “That’ll teach me for being myself in front of those ladies.”
“Sorry?”
She pushes her sunglasses off her face onto the top of her head and rolls her eyes, which are a dark chocolate color, like American brownies. She hesitates a moment and looks squarely into my face as if deciding whether to explain. Then she sighs. “I can’t go to Aurora for a coffee because some of the Ladies’ Club meet there.” Her voice is warm, not what I was expecting. “They don’t approve of me swearing with their kids in earshot. I’m not sure if that’s the whole story. They don’t approve of me in general, is the feeling I get. Seems I wasn’t a hit at the last barbecue.”
I think of Linda and can’t help but laugh. This glamorous creature with the mouth of a sailor.
“Yeah, it’s funny all right,” she says grimly. “What a bunch of snobs. They were all washing their own dishes and changing nappies not so long ago, now they act like the Prada mafia. I’ve been dying to tell them all to go fuck themselves, but Don says I should probably try and restrain myself.” She wrestles with the dog and a large handbag to remove a mobile phone, which is buzzing. “It’s my husband, Don,” she says to me, putting the phone to her ear. “I’ll be back!” She gives me a grin; her dog offers me another toothy growl.
The clip-clop of her shoes echoes in the quiet morning as she strides away. She reminds me of Mama. All mouth, no forethought. I am sure she had more than a few sets of eyes on her at the Ladies’ Club barbecue. Men with gold bands on their left hands, no doubt. Guys must line up at her door, round the corner, and down the street.
* * *
Later, Pete rings and cancels lunch. Work is too busy for him to race over from Macau peninsula to Taipa and then back to the office within a lunch hour. Behind his voice I can hear the sound of his fingers tap-dancing over the keyboard. He forgets to say goodbye as he hangs up. I put the phone down and look across the café floor. It is empty. I imagine a customer tally etched on the wall in chalk and mentally rub out a line. Meaningful and meaningless tasks have been exhausted, and I am left standing behind the counter, limp and useless. The sun pours through the windows and reflects glossily off the clean floor tiles.
I take a sandwich from the counter fridge and move to a nearby table so I can leap up if required. The bread, a baguette, is fresh and slightly chewy from the cold. The filling is cranberry, Brie, and pine nuts. The salty, oily pine nuts are my favorite part. Keeping a close eye on the window in front, I watch as an old lady sidles up to the glass. It’s the same woman I waved to just a few days ago. Now she’s wearing practical thick cotton slacks, dark gray in color, and a short-sleeved navy blouse. She blinks at me with dark eyes. Small flowers blossom across her shirt, the collar sitting up attentively, in Mandarin style. I marvel at her frog clasps, twisted cotton in dark blue, sewn in delicate figures-of-eight.
She shuffles closer, leaning on a cane. As she moves it punctuates her slow steps. She leans in until her nose is almost touching the glass and I can see her wrinkled face. It is framed by short gray hair in a bob, held back with a headband, which makes her look girlish. She spots me, my mouth full of baguette, and gives a shy grin. I jump up and brush my hands against my apron. The chime on the door makes an angelic tinkling. Then she wobbles up to the counter fridge, hovering over the macarons, oohing and nodding. It makes me laugh.
“Macarons,” I explain with a smile.
She grins broadly but doesn’t reply. She points at the muffins and then the cakes and then the rolls. I start to wonder if she is mute, but she begins to talk in Cantonese. I can’t tell whether she’s speaking to me or to herself. She rests against the counter, holding an English menu, not yet translated, to her face.
“Sorry …” I murmur, but she continues to hold it close as though it might become legible through some kind of osmosis. Then she shrugs and orders simply.
“Cha?” Tea. A word I know.
“Cha. Sure. Cha.” I nod idiotically. I gesture to the tables, and she plods to a seat at the very front of Lil’s. She settles down into the chair, rests her cane against the tabletop, and folds her hands neatly in her lap.
I stare at the rack of herbal infusions and caffeinated teas, then look back to her. She smiles again, the soft purple of her aging lips spread wide across her brown face. There are dark streaks of youthful black among the silvery strands of hair. She turns back to the window, closing her eyes, and sunbathes her eyelids. I open a box that is a deep blue with white clouds printed across the corners. “Calm”—a soothing blend of chamomile, lavender, and mint.
When I deliver the tray—teapot and cup, a macaron resting on the saucer—she points to her thin chest and says, “Yok Lan.”
“Yok Lan,” I repeat.
She nods happily. I look over her tray, wondering if she is asking for something. Sugar perhaps. I fetch a bowl of white sugar cubes and place it next to her.
She grins and points to herself again, index finger pressed to her clavicle. “Yok Lan.”
“Yok Lan,” I say again, and she nods. Then she points at me and raises her eyebrows, which are mere wisps of graying hair in the center, fading to baldness by the outer corners of h
er eyes. “Oh, you are Yok Lan.” I point at her. Yes, she nods. “I am Grace.”
Her soft cheeks fall and pouch with confusion.
“Grace,” I repeat, finger to chest.
“Grrr-ace-ah.”
“That’s me, Grace.”
“Grrrrace-ah. Graça!” she repeats enthusiastically, the Portuguese version of my name rolling easily from her mouth. “Graça, Grr-ace. Hai-a.”
She pats my hand, and I leave her to her tea. She turns back to the sunshine. I slink behind the counter to finish my sandwich, watching her. Later, when I am in the kitchen, I hear the bell on the door chime. When I come out she has gone, tea drunk and macaron finished. She has left some money on her table, not enough to cover the bill, but perhaps as much as she would pay in a local diner. It doesn’t bother me.
Yok Lan is my only customer for the day, but when I clean and lock up that evening, humming “Amazing Grace,” it feels as if Lillian’s has been consecrated.
And then, over the rest of the week, customers start to come in. A trickle at first, then a drizzle, then a stream.
Rêve d’un Ange—Dream of an Angel
White Chocolate with Hints of Lemon Rind and Cinnamon
How it gets to be April I have no idea. Time might fly when you’re having fun, but it’s like a fighter jet when you are running a café in a little patch of China. Lillian’s is even busier than I had hoped, but I’m exhausted from trying to do everything myself. Exhilarated, but exhausted. I crawl into bed each night around eight o’clock and leap out again around five-thirty in the morning, head full of macaron recipes and lists, lists, lists. Pete and I have become ships passing in the night. I see him only in the morning half-light when I tiptoe around his sleeping figure. A mouth wide open in snores, a foot kicked out of the sheets. Back of his neck, curve of his toes.
The Colour of Tea Page 9
