Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune(48)

Anger was unpredictable: the length of the wick and the force of the explosion varied per person. Ma-ma’s wick had been forged in camphor and bitterness. Coiled for months, it waited for its timed detonation every year in the middle of June when she slammed cupboard doors and stomped until the floorboards creaked. I’d never asked why, for it was obvious. I knew my mother and I had directed our anger at the same target—my absentee father. June was the month he had left her.

Ma-ma had once said that you never truly knew a person until you’d seen them angry.

“I trusted you!” Celia’s voice was a low hiss, like a mother chastising her misbehaving child in public. “I said I didn’t want you to help me. We spoke about your recipes. You manipulated and used me. How many times could you have told me but chose to remain silent?”

I didn’t answer. Nothing I could say would lessen her pain.

“I thought we were friends, but all this time, I was nothing but a pawn in your quest to open your restaurant. Like the others! You don’t care about us. You’re just like Melody Minnows!”

A fiery glow surrounded Celia, Bunsen blue at the core and orange at the edges. I squinted at the light. I fumbled for the right words, but all that escaped was an apology. “I’m sorry, Celia. I wasn’t using you. Our friendship matters to me. It’s the truth, but it doesn’t make it better.”

“I never asked for this. All I gave you was kindness, and this was how you repaid me.” She paused to sniffle. “You should have told me the truth. I deserved that much.”

Her shoulders drooped like the limp bunches of coriander on the last day at the market. “Get out,” she whispered.



* * *





?The cat roused me the next morning by licking my cheek, the roughness of her tongue jarring me awake even though I had no intention of getting up. As the wrecker of lives, I didn’t want to face the damage I had wrought.

I moved to the living room, where my grandmother’s book rested on the coffee table. Pulling it toward me, my fingers sought the place where three pages had been ripped out of the book. What important information was in these missing pages? Could it contain the solution I was looking for?

I’d found nothing else in Laolao’s book, so I closed it.

I wished Ma-ma were here. She might know the answer. If only there were a connection to heaven, I would wait under the stars for a signal and the opportunity to communicate with my mother once more. Perhaps she could tell me how to fix the mess I’d made of the neighbors’ lives:

The Chius were headed for divorce.

Older Shen had a broken leg and was selling the business he loved so it could be turned into an overpriced condo.

Celia hated me and was worse off financially than before.

Fulfilling the prophecy seemed impossible. Save the neighborhood? I’d only ensured its destruction.

“Can I even fix this?” I asked the cat. “I’ve failed them all and myself.”

Meimei butted my side while emitting a series of loud meows.

“There isn’t a solution in the recipe book. We checked, remember? There is no fix-all recipe. Maybe I should choose a different approach? There has to be something that will combat what I’ve cooked.”

Meimei jumped off my lap and hopped onto the coffee table. She batted Laolao’s book with her paw.

“No, I already looked there,” I told her.

She meowed back, continuing to tap the thick book.

“I’ve gone through it many times. Laolao doesn’t have any solutions in there.”

Meimei sat up. Her ice blue eyes focused on me, and her paw tapped the cover again. I couldn’t help but laugh. This tiny little creature was adamant.

“Fine.” I picked up the book and opened it. She batted the pages, her paws turning them back and forth until she found one she decided to sit on.

“You do know this is an important book. It’s also very old, so we have to be careful.” I shooed her off the pages.

“Are you telling me I should cook to get out of this?”

The cat tilted her head.

“Cooking got me into this, so cooking should get me out of it?”

I could see the logic. “But what would be different this time? Maybe it was my fault. I was so busy looking for cures that I didn’t look for any warnings.”

Perhaps I had been searching for the wrong information. I should be looking for guidance on how to use the recipes, not what remedies they provided.

Startling the cat, I began skimming ahead, flipping through the pages in rapid succession, searching for instructions. I came across the word harmony and three recipes referring to one another. According to Laolao, these had to be cooked in unison. This was it!

I yanked a notepad from the counter and jotted down the required ingredients. I could prepare a feast for the neighbors that would bring about harmony to eradicate the discord I’d sown. It would only make sense that the way to fix all this would be to use this triplet of recipes the way my grandmother advised. Simple. I was so busy trying to find a way to reverse what I’d wrought that I hadn’t considered a different approach. Maybe this could work! All I could do was try. Sharing a meal always brought strangers and family together.

I could fix this mess.

I picked up the cat and twirled her around the room. I kissed her little face as I danced. She stoically accepted my joy at finding the solution. I performed one more shimmy before getting down to work.