The Colour of Tea (29 page)

Gigi and Rilla try to keep me steady, acting as though nothing is different. Deciding on cake flavors, bickering like bratty sisters, chuckling and singing in the kitchen. Rilla even rallied some friends to help us clean the floors and strip out the worst damage. They all have the same coffee-colored skin and generous smile as Rilla. They laugh and work with ease, calling Gigi and me “ma’am” and Rilla “Aunty Boss.” She has been so supportive that my remorse over the way I treated her grows and grows. While I put together sandwiches and drinks for everyone, I watch her effortlessly direct the crew in her native language, like a woman who is used to both crisis and chaos. Despite everything—the wet and messy conditions, the extra hours, and the unspoken incident between us—her smile is brighter than ever. Her confidence has soared, radiating from her like a warm light.

*   *   *

Lillian’s is slowly being reborn when Macau slinks into autumn, the winds cooler and nipping at bare ankles. On a morning when my nerves seem to have stopped jangling and the sky is fresh and clear, Marjory suggests creating a new
macaron,
to bring us some good fortune and “make lemonade out of lemons,” as she puts it. Soon enough Gigi and Rilla are in the kitchen, dark heads huddled together, discussing flavors and names and concepts while I listen and try to guide the debate. Rilla is reciting a list of suggestions.

“Chocolate?”

“Boring.”

“Strawberry?”

“Even worse.”

“Lemon?”

“Ugh. I’m so sick of lemon. It’s so … cupcake. We need something unique, more chic.” Gigi looks at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Something like … salted plum.”

Rilla bursts into laughter. “That sounds gross.”

“You have no imagination. It’s
Japanese,
” Gigi retorts. Her face is more drawn these days, dark circles under her eyes. She is probably exhausted from sleepless nights, the pregnancy now impossible for her to ignore. She presses down on the top of her bump and arches backward. Heartburn.

I wade into the fray. “Salted plum might be a little out there, Sorry, Gi.”

She gives me a withering look.

Pete pokes his head into the kitchen and looks to me.

“Hey.” I smile.

“Hey. I’ve got the wallpaper guy here with the samples.”

*   *   *

I leave the girls to their debate. Out in the café, Marjory is leaning over piles of tiny white mah-jongg tiles. Yok Lan sits opposite her and gives instructions in Cantonese. Marjory is trying her best to follow the tone of voice, hand gestures, and context, but mah-jongg is incredibly difficult to grasp, let alone in another language.

The wallpaper samples are beautiful, and this contractor speaks fluent English. He has worked with casinos all over Macau, so the quality is good. I can feel my chest relax, my shoulders loosen. I imagine the walls looking like those of a true Parisian café. Marjory comes up behind me and looks over my shoulder while I point to my final decision. Mint green with gold fleurs-de-lis; it looks like a pretty Indian sari. It will be striking with the black-and-white
tiled floor. Pete moves off to one side to start negotiations on price and delivery.

“Is that the wallpaper you’ve chosen?” Marjory asks.

I nod.

“I like it. You know, I think it’s better than the old stuff.”

“I think you’re right,” I say.

Rising voices can be heard coming from the kitchen, and Marjory turns her head to look toward the door.

“I’d ask those two what they think, but Gigi is in a mood to disagree with everything and everyone. Think I’ll leave them to the
macaron
argument.”

Marjory laughs. “Rilla keeps her in check.”

“Rilla keeps us
all
in check,” I agree. “She’s been a lifesaver these last few weeks. Especially getting all her friends to help. We’d probably still be ankle-deep in water without them.”

Marjory says, “They all look up to her, what with everything she has done for them and everything she has been through. She might be tiny, but she’s a powerhouse.”

“What do you mean, ‘everything she has been through’?”

Marjory frowns. “She didn’t talk to you about Jocelyn?”

My heart sinks a little. “She tried once, but I guess we never found the right time, and we’ve been so busy …” I know this is only half true.

Marjory looks down at her shoes, perhaps sensing my embarrassment. “Well, I’ll let her explain. It’s not my place to talk about someone’s past.”

I feel that familiar knot of shame at the base of my throat. “I was wrong to doubt her, wasn’t I?”

Marjory tilts her head to one side and gives me a little smile. “It’s your café, Grace. You need to do what you think is best. You own the wins and the losses. Besides, I reckon you had a fair bit on your mind at the time.”

I can hear Pete discussing the job with the contractor. How many days? How much labor? We both look over at him, and he, obviously sensing our gaze, gives us a thumbs-up behind his back. Then he shakes the man’s hand, and the contractor leaves, setting the new bell above the door ringing. I’m getting used to this new relationship between us. Not fixed, but not completely broken either. We are being kind to each other again. We are being friends.

Pete comes toward us. “Well, he says he can get it done in two days. Ten percent off if you’ll make lunch for him and another bloke.” Pete shows me the quote. I smile.

“No kidding. I’ll give them coffees and breakfasts too for that price.” I give his arm a gentle squeeze in thanks.

Something crashes in the kitchen, and all of us, including Yok Lan, look up. The door swings open, and Gigi storms out. Her weight is the only thing slowing her down. Rilla follows. I look to Yok Lan, but she just shrugs and goes back to reading her Chinese newspaper.

“What was that?”

Rilla sighs and holds out her hand. In her palm is a mobile phone in pieces. Pieces of the plastic studded with diamanté stickers. I turn to head after Gigi, but Rilla grips my arm to hold me back.

“Just let her go. It’s that boyfriend. He called and they had another fight.”

We all watch Gigi waddling down the street as fast as she can.

“That guy sounds like a loser,” Marjory says, shaking her head.

“Oh, he is a loser. A no-good daddy,” Rilla agrees.

“Poor Gigi.”

“She hasn’t got long now,” I murmur.

The air stills and returns to calm. The scent of cool breeze and almond flour drifts around us.

Rilla takes a breath and smiles. “Well, we came up with a new
macaron.
” Her dark eyes are shining in her small, round face.

“You finally agreed?”

“Oh yeah,” she says. “It’s a good one too.”

Un Petit Phénix
is born as Lillian’s is resurrected, even more beautiful than before, with new wallpaper, new windows, and repaired chairs. It is a cinnamon
macaron,
pressed together with dark chili chocolate ganache. The result is surprisingly delicious—spicy, sweet, lingering long in your mouth, like a bowl of Aztec hot chocolate. It tastes best with a shot of the blackest coffee.

*   *   *

The following week I wake up too early, dreams of Mama and Paris still clotted thick in my dozy mind. Pete has moved back into the master bedroom but sleeps close to the edge of the bed, respectfully distant. I reach out to put my hand against his back as if to steady myself. It moves with his breath, in and out, like cool waves against a shore. I shut my eyes, willing myself to drift back to sleep, but there is a pulsing, pulling ache in the lower part of my belly. I lay a hand on it. Lights travel across the ceiling, a sign of cars already driving on the roads. I wish to hear the sound of a bird, celebrating a new day. Instead there are just car horns and roller doors screaming open in their tracks.

I get up to go the bathroom; perhaps something I ate hasn’t agreed with me. Pete groans and stirs in the bedroom.

There is a shift between my legs; I tentatively spread them to look down into the toilet bowl. A stain spreads. Blood meets the water, curling like paint dropped from a brush. I stare down at it, blinking sleep from my eyes. The water slowly turns pink and then red.

Pete calls, “Are you all right in there?”

At the back of the cupboard is an old box of tampons, four
left. I insert one and stand at the sink. The doctor said I still might have a period or two with my condition. Not so many as to get my hopes up. Just the body’s last-ditch efforts, the final few words at a retirement party. My reflection stares back at me, my vision suddenly clear and sharp. I look older without makeup, two or three silvery strands in my red hair, face pale and drawn. There is dry skin on my cheeks, lines radiating from my eyes. I breathe out a sigh of surrender. It leaves my body in a long, warm stream of air.

“Gracie?” Pete opens the door.

The evidence is still in the toilet bowl, and he sees it. He looks back to me.

“The doctor said it can happen,” I say softly.

He takes my hand and squeezes it. His eyes are sad.

I pull him in closer, lean into his chest, which smells of sleep and freshly cut timber. He wraps his arms around me. It is a relief to be in his embrace, like all the pieces of myself are slowly coming together, and I don’t feel as rattled as I have since the typhoon. It feels like I can breathe again. I put my lips near his neck and sigh.

“I missed you,” I whisper, just realizing it myself. He glances down at me and then back over to the toilet, his face falling a little.

“It’s okay,” I say. And I actually mean it.

*   *   *

It is the lull of the afternoon, when the mothers have left to pick up their kids from school. The sinking sun at this time of the year fills the café with a golden light. The new wallpaper is bright and regal, the tabletops polished to a high gloss. The phone rings.

Rilla answers while I sweep the tiles. She presses the receiver
to her ear and looks up at me with a frown. She repeats something a few times and then listens in silence.

I pick up a napkin that has sailed to the floor, still folded neatly in a triangle.

Rilla says something fast and then hangs up. She lets out a loud whoop.

“Yeeha!”

“Are you okay?” I shake my head at her as she sings a few lines in Tagalog. It’s a song I’ve never heard before.
Something, something, baby, baby.

“Yes, I’m okay!” she cries. “That was Yok Lan—well, it was a nurse translating for Yok Lan.”

I look up sharply, my thoughts moving to Gigi, who is having her day off.

“Gigi just had her baby!” Rilla laughs.

“What?” I drop the broom.

“There was a nurse who could speak English. Yok Lan told her to say that Gigi wanted Rilla and Grace to know she’d had her baby. A long labor, but everything is okay.” Rilla is grinning so proudly you would think it was news from her own sister.

“Well.” I pause, wordless.

“It’s a
girl,
Grace, it’s a girl.” She sings some more lines and grabs both my hands. The joy is contagious. I start to laugh.

“You are nuts!” I say, giggling.

“A girl!”

“A girl.”

“She’s seven pounds something, she said. Healthy as a little bear. Isn’t it great?”

“It is.” I smile.

“Gigi had a girl, Gigi had a girl!” she sings to me, swinging my hands from side to side.

I shake my head again. “Wow. Gigi had a girl.”

It’s a girl.

Our young Gigi has had a girl.

It’s a girl.

No one will ever say that to me.

It’s a girl.

But they said it once to Mama.

La Foi—Faith

Wild Strawberry Filled with Pink Grapefruit Buttercream

I
t is a Sunday morning, and Lil’s is closed to customers. I put the final
macaron
in an eggcup and place it gingerly on the top of the cake as the bell over the door chimes an entrance. I know it is Pete letting himself in. I have started to know his walk, the sound of the fall of his feet. Things I hadn’t noticed before but which became familiar to me during those long days of silence.

“Wow. This place looks amazing. How long did it take you?”

I come out of the kitchen and see his hair is still wet from a shower, face flushed from a morning jog.

I had planned on a few streamers, but once I got started I couldn’t stop. You can barely see the walls for crepe paper, hung in strips, as if it is carnival time in Rio. Dozens of balloons bloom in bunches, and the tables are covered in luminous lipstick pink fabric I bought at Three Lamps.

“A little while. Do you think it’s too … bright?”

Pete picks up a polka-dot balloon from the floor and fixes it to a cluster in the middle of a table. “I think it’s wonderful. I think she’ll love it.”

I laugh. “Well, that’ll be a first. Gigi doesn’t get excited about
much. It’s not ‘cool.’ But maybe she’ll like it, just a bit—that’s all I was really after.”

Pete puts his arm around me. He smells fresh, like the thick green skin of an apple. It is the scent of the conditioner he has used.

“What’s that?” he exclaims. He is pointing at the top of the cake behind the kitchen counter.

“Oh, you’ll have to see. Come have a look.”

I had been inspired by a cake I saw in a bridal magazine. When I opened the pages and saw the photo, my heart almost skipped a beat. It is the amateur cake maker’s equivalent of scaling Mount Everest. A soft blush-pink four-layer cake, the layers alternately square and round, completely covered in tiny
macarons.
Perched at the very top is a small porcelain dish cradling a single
macaron.
I had been studying the picture every day since Gigi had her baby, figuring out how to re-create it. It wasn’t easy, but I’ve done it—finished the beautiful cake, with a pretty eggcup replacing the porcelain dish.

Pete walks around it like he is observing a museum exhibit. His hands are plunged deep in his pockets, as if to stop himself from touching it.

“This is amazing, Grace.”

“You think?”

“Oh yeah, it’s really … amazing,” he repeats. He turns from the cake to me, his head slightly cocked. “You’re good at this stuff, aren’t you?” he says quietly.