It is reassuringly light inside, and a man with thinning hair stands behind the counter in a snow-white coat. His hands are folded together; the few strands of his hair raked neatly from one side to the other like the sand of a meticulously maintained Zen garden. He does not smile at me; he is too busy nodding and listening to another customer. His face is awash with confusion as he concentrates on her moving mouth. She is as small as a child, but her body is that of a woman, hidden under a large hooded sweatshirt. She must be sweltering in it. Dark hair is flung out from the neck, satiny and long. She whispers urgently to the pharmacist, leaning toward him as though she might grab his lapels in her hands. Her voice rises and quivers, but I cannot hear what she is saying. Moving closer, focusing, I recognize her: the worry written in the lines in her forehead, the beautiful hair. It is the woman who stood outside Lillian’s talking to Rilla. The pharmacist drums his fingers impatiently against the glass counter. Time is money. His pinkie finger has a nail longer than mine, yellowed at the tip.
“Excuse me,” I interrupt. “Can I help?”
She jumps when I put my hand gently against her arm.
“Rilla works with me; I’ve seen you at the café,” I murmur in explanation.
Her eyes grow wide with understanding, and she nods. “I … we need some cream, for burns,” she says with a pronounced Filipino accent. I have no doubt she is a maid or helper, taking care of a house and someone else’s children. She must have touched a hot pan, or perhaps it was one of those wild and unruly kids who come to Lil’s with their mums, swinging from tabletops, sprinting around chairs, roaring with a sugar rush. I feel a wave of pity for her. The pharmacist hears our English and motions to his young daughter, who sits on a stool sucking a lollipop. She skips up and removes the lolly from her mouth.
“Cream, for burn, hot, ouch …” I act out for the girl behind the counter, speaking loudly. She nods and explains to her father, who fetches a cream from the third shelf behind him. Printed red and orange flames lick the bottom of the tube, so we know we’ve been understood. The woman reaches into a coin purse. Her hair covers it for the most part, but I can see she has dozens of notes folded into tiny squares secreted inside. It doesn’t look like a few bills an employer would give her for an errand. She carefully extracts one note and hands it to the girl.
“I’m Grace.” I smile at Rilla’s friend and offer her my hand. She doesn’t take it.
She bites on her lip and doesn’t meet my eyes as she mumbles, “Ma’am. Jocelyn.”
“Nice to meet you, Jocelyn,” I reply.
She nods and exits with small, quick steps, eyes fixed on the pavement.
“How ’bout you, ladeeee?” sings the girl behind the counter. She talks through the lollipop wedged into one cheek. She looks like a squirrel, her cheek taut and round.
“Cold. Flu.”
She bugles a translation to her father in Cantonese, and he places the medication on the counter. I look at it for a few grateful seconds. If it works, I can be back at Lil’s in a couple of days. I worry about Rilla and Gigi managing without me. Of course they will be fine, Marjory will probably keep a watchful eye on the place too, but it leaves me feeling surprisingly empty and sick in my stomach. Lillian’s, my baby.
* * *
Eventually, after a few blurry days, the fever lifts. The first morning without it I sit up cautiously, worried it might be teasing me, lurking in a corner. But it doesn’t come back. Pete has already left for work, the mattress indented where he lay, sheets wrinkled. My nose runs and my throat still burns, but there is no fever and Mama has not disturbed my dreams. I get up and have a cool shower, lathering soap to a velvety mousse and sighing happily in between hacking coughs.
Rilla squeals when I come in, Marjory claps, and even Gigi cracks a grin. Yok Lan looks up at me with the softest, gentlest smile. Her face looks tired, but I am so happy to see her, radiating serenity. I put my hand on her shoulder, and she spontaneously lifts it and kisses my palm sweetly.
“You don’t think you’re here to work, do you?” warns Marjory, wagging a manicured finger. Gigi stands beside her, leaning on the back of her chair, a fashion magazine open between them. The model is wearing purple tights and sits awkwardly on a stool. Her mouth is open, red lips glossy and moist.
“I’d love to,” I reply, “but I’m not quite there yet.”
Rilla rushes over from behind the till. She throws her arms around me in a tight hug.
“We missed you, Grace,” she gushes. “Everyone has been asking about you. Tea?”
I nod gratefully. As she goes to fill a pot, I call after her, trying not to sound nervous. “Everything okay? Any problems?”
Marjory pats a chair beside her. She whispers as I sit down, “They’ve done a wonderful job, Grace. Run off their feet, but coping so well. You’d be proud.”
“Nothing gone wrong,” Rilla replies as she returns. She has placed a Thé pour Deux macaron on my saucer. The filling is infused with Earl Grey, a sweet contrast to the smooth chocolate. I notice the perfect, unblemished roundness, the frill or “feet” on each shell.
“I made them,” Gigi interrupts, as if reading my thoughts. Her hands rest on her stomach, unself-conscious now. It is tight and swollen against the cloth of her singlet. She wears shorts and black boots, hair piled in a messy bun on the top of her head. Her right arm is loaded with noisy bracelets.
I take a bite, the elegant pink-gray shells crumbling to give way to the soft center.
“Well, it’s good,” I tell her, winking at Rilla, who grins. “Great job, both of you.”
After my tea I stand with Rilla behind the till, and she talks me through the business of the last few days. Details that wouldn’t mean much to most people bring a smile to my face. Léon coming in to buy another dozen box of macarons for his team meeting. A mixed selection, although he admitted that Cirque is his current favorite. A teapot has broken; one of the faux-pearl-handled teaspoons has gone missing. Mrs. Thompson, we say in unison. She wears pearls every day, even in summer, and is prone to thieving, despite having more money than the rest of my customers put together. I’m not concerned; I can buy some more from the supplier next month. We need more cream, more almond flour. Gigi spilled half a bag of sugar when they were cooking macarons, Rilla confesses nervously. I reassure her it is no problem; we’ll add sugar to the list. She goes into the kitchen to see if there is anything else we need to buy. She hums to herself as she goes through the door, dark hair swinging.
“Yoo-hoo, Gracie!” I turn to see Linda waving at me from the corner.
I give her a weak smile.
“How’re you feeling, love?”
“Better, thanks, Linda.”
“Good to see you back,” she says kindly.
Linda’s book club meets at Lillian’s every fortnight. She and three of her friends spend a couple of hours here before their kids need picking up from school. I can’t figure out whether they actually read the books they bring in. They definitely don’t discuss them. Linda pulls out a pen and paper at the beginning of each meeting, presumably to take notes, but the paper goes back into her bag blank when the two hours is up. The other women are slender, with long, well-coiffed hair and big-rimmed sunglasses. They wear sleeveless dresses and high-heeled shoes. One used to be a department store catalog model, Pete has told me; he knows her husband from work. Another is married to a pilot; I overhear her talking about a house in Boracay, the prettiest resort beach in the Philippines. I appreciate the business, despite their loud laughter and chatter, which can make the place feel crowded even when it is close to empty.
Linda comes up to pay her bill. She looks over my shoulder quickly before saying, “Gracie, dear, I’ve been meaning to ask you—where did you find your girl?”
“Pardon?”
“Your girl,” she repeats.
“Oh, you mean Rilla? Léon helped me find her. She’s such a huge help.”
Linda purses her lips together and finds change in her walle
t for her last latte.
“Linda, the kids will be out in a minute,” one of the ladies calls to her from the door. The other two are talking about a new ring a husband has bought. How many carats? Made where? How much?
Linda passes me two twenty-pataca bills. I return some change in coins.
“There in a second!” she sings out brightly. She leans in toward me and drops her voice. “Just be careful, dear.”
“Sorry?”
“Of the help,” she says. “They’re not always what they seem, you know. And they all know each other. All cousins and whatnot.”
I open my mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. I can feel my face start to redden.
“Elsie over there, she had things stolen. More than once. Thinks her maid had, you know, sticky fingers.” Linda holds up her palm and wiggles her fingers to demonstrate.
I assume Elsie is one of the women in the gaggle. The two ladies talking about the ring have started laughing about something. Cackling like parrots. Now they are discussing Japanese hair straightening. The one by the door sighs and rolls her eyes.
“Linda?”
“I …” I start to reply.
“Look, don’t say anything to anyone. Very embarrassing for Elsie. But just be smart, okay? Not too friendly. You’re a sweetie and they can take advantage of that. You know what I mean.” She raises her eyebrows and gives me a meaningful look. Then she straightens up and smiles. She takes the change instead of leaving a tip. Her handbag has fasteners that make a loud snap. “Coming!” she coos to her friends, pulling her sunglasses over her eyes. “You take care of that cold, Gracie. There’s a nasty bug going around. All the kids got it too.”
“Yes, well … I will. Thanks.”
Their laughter and gossip and the sound of their shoes against the pavement drift away, and the cicadas, invisible in the long grass and debris of the nearby construction site, soon feel confident enough to resume singing their summer song.
“Hey, it’s quiet in here.” Rilla smiles as she comes through the kitchen door. She holds a dishcloth in her hands, heat rising off it. She passes it from one hand to the other.
“Yeah,” I murmur.
“You feeling okay, Grace?” she asks, peering at my pink cheeks.
“Oh, yes, I’m fine. Thanks, Rilla.”
She sets to work wiping down the table the women have left: sticky coffee rings, discarded napkins embossed with lipstick prints, and torn-open paper packets of artificial sugar.
* * *
Days later Rilla is shopping for food coloring, so it is just Gigi and I together, figuring out a new macaron recipe. The kitchen seems a little smaller with her in it, especially now that she is so round her belly enters the room well before she does. She is still trying to wear her regular clothes but failing more often than succeeding. One day she reached to grab my macaron notebook on the top of the fridge and her shirt rode up. The zipper of her short shorts was completely undone, gaping to reveal lime green, lacy underwear. She had fashioned a kind of belt out of ribbon and they were holding on, but only just.
She caught me staring and rolled her eyes. “Don’t even say anything. I know it looks dumb, but you should see what they would have me wear otherwise.”
I assumed they meant her mother and grandmother.
“Soooooo ugly. Seriously …” she drawled.
I could sympathize, I guess, on this point. There didn’t seem to be many fashionable options available to expectant mothers in Macau. A lot of the women wore big smocks, which floated down to midcalf, waddling about like Tweedledee or Tweedledum. But since the shorts incident, Gigi has started wearing bigger clothes, mainly oversize T-shirts and leggings. She has bought a pair of sandals just like Marjory’s favorites, so the combination is still hip. Personally, I like the T-shirt slogans with incongruous English translations:
LOVES MAKES PEACE FOR WORLD AROUND. MAKE HAPPY TIME!
TOMORROW IS SUNSHINE, WEAR A SMILE, DANCE TO THE BEAT OF THE HEART.
And my all-time favorite: I GOT JOYFUL LAST NIGHT, WHAT ABOUT YOU?
It was so ironic seeing Gigi, bloated with pregnancy, in that T-shirt. Her English is near perfect, so I’m sure she could guess what the slogan implied.
We are trying to make a yuzu-citrus-basil macaron. I have been inspired by Ladurée’s seasonal flavors, having read somewhere that they created a citrus-basil macaron for an article in Vogue. Or was it French Elle? Either way, it was très chic. I am trying to be très chic too, but for now that means I’m caked in a strange herbal-smelling ganache and shiny with sweat.
“Grace, that smells totally gross,” Gigi tells me.
“I know, it’s not the best, is it? I can’t get it right. Do you eat basil?”
She screws up her face.
“It’s an herb. An Italian one. And I don’t think the bloody thing likes Macau.” I hold up a limp leaf. The color has turned an ominous dark gray-green.
“Yeah, well, neither do I. It’s too hot with this enormous bump,” she complains, dipping her finger in my ganache and pulling a disgusted face, her pretty nose scrunched up. Well, that won’t sell, I think.
“I think I’ll give up on this,” I tell her. “How do you fancy making some dark cherry ganache with me, and we can fill these little yuzu shells with that instead? They can be a temporary special: a macaron de saison.” I scrape the offending basil mixture into the bin.
“Whatever you want.” Her brightening eyes betray her.
“That’s the enthusiasm I was looking for,” I reply, smiling. “What shall we call them then? It has to be French.”
We surrender to a thoughtful silence. Outside the cicadas are playing their noisy summer symphony. I imagine them boldly serenading one another from old tires, forgotten woodpiles, discarded plastic noodle bowls.
“Something about summer …” she mumbles.
After conferring with my worn, flour-dusted French-English dictionary, we agree on Brise d’Été. Gigi offers to write a Chinese translation of the description on the notice board. I think of Yok Lan coming in and reading the beautiful Chinese characters. I wonder if she will recognize the handwriting, the particular slope of each shape, as her granddaughter’s. We stand back, shoulder to shoulder, and look at it together. I catch the corners of Gigi’s mouth lifting, her arms crossed over her huge belly.
“So do I get to eat one of these things, or am I just your blackboard slave?” she teases, not looking at me.
“Yeah, yeah, all right. But you have to make me a cup of tea first. Tea slave too, you know.”
She grins down at her feet, perhaps thinking I do not notice.
We sit down at my favorite corner table, where I can spot customers if they approach, although I’m not expecting a big rush today. Marjory, who lives in the same apartment block as many of the expat mums, told me it is sports day at the School of the Nations, so most of the parents will be cheering their kids on. It is a swelteringly hot day; I instinctively worry about sunburn and heatstroke. I remember Mama marking me with zinc, like an Indian princess from an old Western film, when we went to Brighton in the summer.
Gigi takes a seat opposite me and serves me a cup of tea before pouring one for herself. I am older than she; she does it without thinking. I take a sip. Black Ceylon with mandarin peel, one of my favorites. Gigi puts an entire macaron in her mouth, sinks her teeth down on it, and leans back in her chair with a sigh.
“Oh, man …” she croaks through her mouthful. And then, when her mouth is empty, “Brise d’Été … well. Holy. That is good.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Here’s to Brise d’Été. And summer.” I raise my teacup, and she lifts hers to make a porcelain clink. She looks happier today. A little lighter, as if being in the empty café gives her some kind of relief.
She looks at me. “Grace, why don’t you have kids?”
The question slaps me like the cold of the ocean. I almost wince. My throat tightens with that remembered sadness and the familiar feeling of my heart fal
ling. I wish she hadn’t asked that question. I glance at her belly and feel a kind of keening in my own stomach.
“It’s complicated.”
She frowns and plows on innocently. “You didn’t want them, right? Marjory said she didn’t ever want them. They tie you down, don’t they?” Her face is soft, showing her youth, even through the makeup. There is a look like fear in her eyes, round as an owl’s.
“No. No …” I sigh. “It’s not that. We did want them.”
She puts her cup down and looks at me again, curious. “When?”
“When did we want them?”
“Yeah, did you change your mind or something?” She speaks gently, as though she’s realized that maybe she shouldn’t have asked.
“No, we didn’t change our minds. I’m not sure when we started wanting them. A long time ago it feels like. We were living in London.”
“But not now?”
“Yes, we want them now. I mean, I guess so.”
I haven’t talked about it with Pete for so long. Our conversations move around it like a split in a stream. It is not that we want to avoid confrontation or argument; we seem to bicker all the time. Last night we fought about whether we should buy a new can opener. He thought our current one was useless and I thought he was being defeatist. Somehow it became something worth arguing about, the stupid can opener. I was so mad the heat practically rose off my skin, and I seethed all night lying beside his dark, snoring shape. Talking about kids just makes us sad. We can always buy a new can opener.
I look up at Gigi and correct myself. “I don’t guess. I know we want kids. We really want kids.”
She stares up at me, waiting for me to finish. The words seem just out of reach.
“But we can’t have kids ourselves. It’s not physically possible for us. Well, for me. I can’t have kids.” My voice falls flat and lifeless between us. Like the hope that ran out between Pete and me.
“I thought maybe you just didn’t want them,” she whispers carefully.
“No, we do. I just can’t.” I sigh. I haven’t said it out loud to anyone else but Pete. I thought I would cry if I did. I certainly didn’t think I would be telling a young pregnant woman over macarons. I find myself saying more.
The Colour of Tea Page 16
