Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune(62)

“Very good, and unlike your laolao’s style. Different but in a good way. You have convinced me that you have what it takes to continue your grandmother’s legacy. I will answer whatever questions you may have for me.” The tone of his voice had changed. I recognized it, for it was the same one he reserved for Celia.

The animosity I had grown accustomed to was gone. Tension melted away from my neck and shoulders. Perhaps I would get the answers I so desperately hoped for. “I want to ask you about my grandmother.”

“Is this related to you opening the restaurant?” he asked.

“Yes. It’s all related. However, I can’t open anytime soon. The damage is extensive. I was lucky the fire didn’t reach upstairs, or spread,” I confessed.

Old Wu took a sip of the tea. “If you want to, you can make the impossible possible. The women in your family are steel because they refuse to bend under the direst of circumstances, Ye Ying,” he said.

Ye Ying. Nightingale. Its songs were the most beautiful in the bird kingdom, and legend had it that its magical song had cured a dying emperor. It was a name worthy of a new beginning. Meimei slinked her way onto Wu’s lap. I expected him to push her off, but he surprised me by smiling and rubbing beneath her chin. She mewed happily.

Wu smiled. “It’s funny that you mention Qiao. You remind me so much of her. You have inherited her spirit.”

Was this the beginning of a strange friendship between nightingale and tiger?

“Before I can speak of her, I want to apologize,” Old Wu said before sipping his tea. His dark eyes were direct. “I am a bitter old man. I have never been fair to you or your mother. I judged Miranda harshly. To compare her to Qiao was not fair. Miranda was her own person.

“When she decided not to continue with the restaurant, I was angry because I was there when Qiao arrived from China with nothing. I was a new immigrant myself having come from Hong Kong four months earlier. Qiao and I became friends at the market. We’d always fight for the best vegetables and fish. She lived in an apartment with three other women near where you live now. Her roommates were seamstresses. When she spoke about food, I knew she was a cook.

“But in this new world, life was hard and jobs, scarce. I’d been lucky. My uncle helped me get work at the restaurant. Qiao had no family here to advocate for her. No one wanted to take a chance on her, but she prevailed. She proved them wrong with one taste of her cooking. I thought Miranda was throwing away everything Qiao had worked for, but I realize now, she was saving it for you.”

“You really were close to my grandmother,” I said. It confirmed what I’d read in Ma-ma’s journals.

A wry smile crossed his lips, softening his usually stern countenance, and I caught a glimpse of the man who might have been a good friend to Laolao. “Qiao was not perfect. Her temper was legendary.”

The faraway look in eyes suggested he was losing himself in nostalgia. “When she was hired as a cook in one of the busiest restaurants in Chinatown, she found out that she was earning only half of what the other cook was making. The other cook was a lazy man—the son of the owners. She was furious. She quit the same day and sought out her former employer’s rival, offering her services for a low wage with the caveat that if business doubled, so would her pay.”

“I’m guessing she triumphed?” I asked.

“No. Her new employer was as shifty as her former one. Business doubled but she never received what she’d been promised. So she cursed them both. In her anger, she went blind for a week. The two restaurants suffered so much ill luck afterward that, eventually, they went out of business. Even though Qiao regained her eyesight, her anger never subsided, so her curse remained. There was another restaurant across the street, but as you can still see, nothing survives there.”

Curses were like salting the earth. Hearing about Laolao from Old Wu’s perspective filled in the gaps for me. He was the connection to the woman I’d never met but had always wanted to.

“You eat up my stories about your grandmother like a child nibbling on sweets. Did Miranda not tell you much about your laolao?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“I think it is because she might have found it too painful to speak of her. I was the same way for years after Qiao died. Such is the case when one loves too much.”

“So you did love her?” I asked, recalling that my mother had thought the same thing.

He cradled his teacup. “How could I not? I was one of many that loved Qiao. She had a way about her that attracted people. Her temper was as famous as her capacity for kindness. Qiao welcomed all new immigrants into the area with a meal and connected them to what they needed. Helping people was one of her many specialties. Yes, I loved her. I have always loved her, but she only saw me as a good friend.”

“Was it because of my grandfather?” I asked.

He refilled his empty teacup. “The day she told me she had lost her heart to the Shanghainese hotelier, all I could do was be happy for her. I could tell by the way she looked at him, everything and everyone else disappeared. At the time, I would have given anything for her to see me in the same way.”

The old man’s voice softened like fresh pork buns from the steamer yielding to a fork.

“When Qiao found out she was carrying Miranda, I knew she’d made her choice, and it wasn’t me. She never ended up marrying the hotelier because she didn’t want to move back to China. She was determined to raise her child on her own. I’d been foolish in thinking she’d accept my affections, but when she refused, I didn’t take it well.” He paused, lowering his eyes for a brief moment. “I was also very upset when your mother decided not to continue with your grandmother’s restaurant. The neighborhood needed it. It felt like Miranda had turned her back on all of us. But I shouldn’t have been so harsh on her. She had a sickness that prevented her from leaving the house after your laolao died. In retrospect, I should have been kinder to her.”