Beautiful as Yesterday Page 32

  “He usually didn’t do housework, which I don’t mind. But you’re right. He’s been very helpful.”

  Mary takes more food from the fridge, and while Ingrid washes the spinach and baichai, Mary does the chopping.

  “Ma liked to help me in the kitchen,” Mary says, slowing down her chopping to wait for Ingrid to hand her more vegetables. “Every day, when I got home, she had already cleaned and chopped the vegetables and meat. All I needed to do was cook them. She rarely cooked because she was afraid that Bob and Alex wouldn’t like her cooking. But for each meal she’d fix two or three small plates of cold dishes. Alex loved them.”

  “They were very good. I loved them too, especially the spicy cucumber strips.”

  Mary nods and says she also likes that dish. Again, she glances at the empty hallway to the guest room.

  Ingrid follows her sister’s eyes. Both of them stare at the hallway for a moment.

  “I don’t know if you knew, but for years I didn’t get along well with Ma.” Mary looks down at the half-chopped vegetables on her cutting board as she says this.

  Ingrid doesn’t reply but stares at her sister, holding a small bunch of spinach leaves over the washing basin.

  “I went to college when you were only twelve,” says Mary, “so you probably don’t remember things so well.”

  “You came home only once a year when you were in college. And you rarely wrote. When I complained about you, Ma and Ba always said that you were busy studying. ‘Your sister is with the smartest students in the country. The competition is intense and she has to study hard,’ they’d say.”

  “I didn’t study that hard. I just didn’t want to go home.”

  “Why?”

  Mary doesn’t reply right away. After chopping a baichai, she says, “At that age, we only think about ourselves. Nothing matters more than our own pride, our own feelings.”

  “True. I treated Ba poorly when I was at college. Later, I regretted it, but I never told him.”

  Mary turns to look at Ingrid. “Was I too selfish? If I hadn’t asked Ma to stay, maybe she wouldn’t have left us so quickly.”

  Ingrid puts down the spinach leaves and holds Mary’s shoulders and looks into her eyes. “Don’t blame yourself. Didn’t the doctor say that Ma had a weak heart? Even if she hadn’t traveled to the U.S. she might have experienced the same problem, and wouldn’t it have been worse if she had been alone when she died? I think when Ma left us, she was happy that she had lived with you and Alex for so long.”

  “Yes, she was smiling.” Mary’s voice breaks and she cannot continue.

  “I think you were right,” says Ingrid, knowing that she must try to console Mary somehow. “Telling Alex that Ma is in the paradise, waiting for us.”

  Mary knows that Ingrid has said this to make her feel better. “Let’s cook. Our guests will be arriving soon.”

  Ingrid withdraws her hands from Mary’s shoulders and continues to wash the vegetables. “If anything, I was to blame. I didn’t even go back to China to see her once in all these years. I always thought I could do it later. Well, there isn’t always a later.”

  Seeing Ingrid’s pensive face, Mary feels that it’s her turn to cheer her sister up. “Ingrid, today’s vegetables are very fresh! The meat looks good too. I can’t wait to have lunch. I didn’t eat any breakfast.”

  “Neither did I. I forgot it completely.” Understanding Mary’s intention, Ingrid tries to lighten her mood. “When I was in New York, whenever a friend recommended a Chinese restaurant to me, I’d say that I didn’t think the chefs there were as good as my sister. My sister, I’d tell them, could cook just about any Chinese dish they’d ever heard of. Sweet, sour, salty, spicy, bitter, whichever flavor. You were famous among my friends, and they kept asking when you were coming to visit. I’m not kidding—I could see their mouths water when they asked. I want to learn how to cook from you this time. Maybe someday we’ll open a Chinese restaurant in New York together.”

  “Now, I don’t dare go to New York. If your friends found out that you were just bragging, they wouldn’t let you off easily.” Mary glances at her watch. “Mingyi, Yaya, and Julia will be here soon. The lion’s head meatballs are done. The pork-rib soup is almost done. Why don’t you help make the sauce for the chicken? I don’t think I can cook well today, but I’ll try. The good thing is that all the guests are my friends and they won’t be picky. The lunch is more for a get-together.”

  Ten minutes later the doorbell buzzes, and Mary opens the door for Mingyi, Yaya, and Julia.

  Everyone helps. Food is soon served. Mingyi has brought a bottle of rice wine, and everyone drinks a little before starting to eat.

  Mingyi asks Mary about the funeral arrangements in China.

  “Ingrid just got the plane tickets,” Mary replies. “Our flight is tomorrow evening. Bob will take us to the airport. After we land, we’re taking the long-distance bus to our uncle’s village. Our father’s grave is there. My mother’s ashes will be buried in the same grave. When my father died, the villagers were very poor, so his funeral was quite simple. Now my uncle says that we must have a big funeral for our mother. You know what it’s like in the countryside—funerals cost more than weddings. My uncle said that we must invite every villager to the banquet, and on top of that, he proposed to hire a band to play the funeral music and a dozen monks to chant blessings. And of course, we must buy paper houses, paper furniture, and paper money to burn at the grave.”

  Ingrid chimes in. “We told my uncle that hiring monks would be fine, since our mother sometimes visited temples, but not a band—it is too noisy. But he said that the band was essential if we wanted to draw a crowd. Believe it or not, after the funeral music, he would ask the band to play pop music so people would come to listen. He believes that the more people who attend the funeral, the more honor will be given to our mother. He also suggested hiring a dancing troupe. How ridiculous!”

  “I agree with you,” Yaya says. “I don’t like that kind of funeral, either. I still recall very well my grandpa’s funeral, held in his village in Hunan Province. The banquet went on for three days. My uncles and aunts even hired a professional model team to draw the crowd. The grave site was built like a pavilion, and the carving on the marble base itself took two masons a week to complete. My father didn’t want to do all this, but he didn’t have a choice. It was the local custom to have a big funeral, and he was the youngest child. He had to listen to his brothers.”

  Mary says, “We don’t have a choice, either. You’d think that since both Ingrid and I have been living overseas for so long and have had a good education, our uncle would have listened to us. That’s simply not true. When it comes to things like this, we have to listen to the older generation. I negotiated with him on the phone, and he finally agreed not to ask the band to play pop music. We just sent him the money he asked for. Now I understand why having a funeral can bankrupt a family in China.”

  “In my opinion, the banquet, the extravagant tomb, and the monks are all feudal country customs,” Ingrid remarks.

  “You’re too Americanized. It’s China,” Julia says. “Chinese people like big occasions—noise, excitement, and food. Funerals, weddings, a baby’s one hundredth day celebration, which doesn’t need a banquet? Old customs or not, they’re what Chinese people cherish.”

  “It’s much easier living in the U.S.,” Ingrid says.

  “That’s so true. Far fewer hassles,” Yaya says.

  Julia shakes her head, disapproving. “Don’t forget that we’re foreigners here. Even if we wanted to invite a lot of people to our events, where are the people for us to invite? Most of our families and relatives are in China, and they need a visa to visit us. Not to mention how expensive a plane ticket is for them. When Wang Wei and I got married here, we didn’t have a wedding. Of course, we had no money then, but it was also because we knew very few people. If you asked me to choose, I’d rather go into debt to have a proper wedding than not have one at all. That’s a
once-in-a-lifetime thing, you know.”

  Her words make the other women think.

  “Let’s eat!” Mary says with a smile to break the silence. “At least we have one another here now.”

  They begin to eat, praising every dish, and though they manage to have some light discussions and even a few laughs, they are generally reserved and serious; they don’t seem to have much appetite, either. After they put down their chopsticks, most of the plates still have a lot left on them.

  Mary wants her friends to enjoy the meal: she wants it to be a thank-you for their help and a farewell to Mingyi. She lifts her chopsticks, picks a meatball, and pops it in her mouth. After chewing and swallowing it, she says, “That was so delicious! Now, you all must have one. Mingyi, you’ve been very quiet. Still thinking about your volunteer work? You don’t like meat, so how about finishing this plate of mixed vegetables? Julia, you know you’re too thin. You must eat more. Ingrid, you’re my sister. You needn’t be so polite. Yaya, I’ve never seen you eat so little. Don’t be shy. We all know that you ate half a sheep for lunch in Inner Mongolia.”

  Yaya laughs. “That was years ago.” She picks a meatball and eats it. The rest of the women start to eat too, finally.

  Mary feels better. She turns to Mingyi and asks her about her trip to China.

  “The more I prepared for it, the more I felt anxious,” Mingyi says. “I pray every day, asking God to give me wisdom, strength, and willpower. I’m actually only an assistant, and my main job is to record interviews, but even so I feel pressure. In the past few weeks, I’ve interviewed more than fifty people over the phone, and some of them cried so much that they couldn’t speak. I wonder what it’ll be like when I meet them in person. I don’t know if I’ll be strong enough to listen to them.”

  Since Mingyi quit her day job, she seems to Mary younger and healthier, her face showing a new, pink glow. Her soft, gentle voice now sounds more charming, as if it contains wisdom from God. Maybe she made the right choice, going to a seminary and becoming a missionary, Mary thinks, looking at her friend affectionately. With Mingyi’s personality and devotion, she will win people’s friendship and trust in the Congo very soon; she will lead a busy life, a happy and eventful one. As for herself, she will just have to accept her flaws, weaknesses, and imperfections Mary decides.

  After dinner, Ingrid leaves: she has to go to San Francisco to pack. Mary and her friends move to the family room to have tea.

  Mary notices that Yaya is winking at Julia, so she asks, “Yaya, what’s going on?”

  “Hmmm, I…” Yaya stammers and turns to Julia. “You start first.”

  “No, you start first.” Julia looks hesitant.

  “Mingyi, you must know what they’re hiding from me.” Mary turns to Mingyi.

  “Yaya and Julia, I think you should just tell Mary. You can’t hide it from her forever anyway. Why don’t you start, Yaya?” Mingyi says.

  “Oh well, you know, it’s like this,” Yaya says, frowning at Mingyi to show her unhappiness at being asked to go first. “Daming has been in China running his business for a year now. Before, I thought that I’d stay here and travel between the two countries. Now I feel more and more worried about him. If I call him and can’t reach him, I worry that he might be with another woman. If he tells me that he must cancel his planned trip to see me, I sleep poorly for days. It’s not that I don’t trust him, but my parents call so often to warn me about the dangers of a long-distance relationship. They say that young girls nowadays go after rich men aggressively, not caring whether these men are married or not. I say that Daming not only doesn’t have money but also owes the bank a loan. My mother says what the girls focus on is potential, and Daming is like a promising public stock to them. I can’t believe that a conservative Communist like my mother actually knows something about stocks!”

  “So you’re moving back to China?” Holding her teacup, Mary feigns a smile.

  “I talked with my boss last week. He said that our company is setting up an office in Beijing and asked me if I were interested in being a manager there. I’d get the expatriate deal for the first two years, with my United States salary and a housing subsidy. Afterwards I could either stay or come back to the United States. I couldn’t have dreamed of a better deal.”

  “Grab it, Yaya. It’s too good an opportunity to pass up. Congratulations. Daming must be thrilled,” Mary says.

  “Yes, he’s very excited. He’ll fly back in a week to help with the moving. We haven’t gone through all the details yet, but I think we’ll rent our house here.”

  Mary turns to Julia. “You aren’t moving back to China, are you?”

  “I won’t follow Yaya.” Julia smiles, then says after a pause, “But we’re moving to Phoenix. In Arizona, you know.”

  “Did Wang Wei find a job there?” Mary asks.

  “That’s right. You know he’s been looking for a job since he was laid off. It’s difficult; few local companies are hiring these days. I can’t make much money, either. Though the real-estate market is still okay, there are too many agents in this area, and competition is fierce. A few days ago, Wang Wei received an oral offer from IBM, but the job was in Phoenix. We talked about it and decided to move there. We can get a four-or even five-bedroom house for less than one third of the price it would be here. Schools there are better too. So Wang Wei took the offer. He’ll start the new job in a week. He’ll go there first. We’re selling the house. Of course, George and Sophia didn’t want to leave their friends, but after we explained our financial situation, they agreed.”

  Mary puts her teacup on the table and clasps her hands on her lap. She feels a cold wind blowing. Noticing that her friends are looking at her with concern, she controls her emotions. “Wow, more good news. Julia, you used to say that California’s sunshine is priceless. Well, I guess Arizona’s sunshine is very nice too. The good thing is that we’re not that far apart. The flight is only two hours from San Francisco to Phoenix.” She turns to Yaya. “Yaya, ask your boss to let you travel to the U.S. at least once a quarter. When you’re here, you stay with me.”

  “That’s for sure. Maybe Daming’s company won’t do well and he will want to come back to the U.S. You never know,” Yaya says. “Maybe I’ll be back in two months.”

  “I’ve not seen a woman like you who doesn’t wish her husband a success.” Mary pours tea for Yaya. “I’m sure you’ll like living in Beijing. It’s a nice city.”

  “As for Mingyi”—Mary now pours tea for her third friend—“I can call you every week, right? So, it’s not that bad.”

  “We should set up teleconferences at least once a month. We all have computers,” Yaya says enthusiastically.

  “I like the idea. Wang Wei can be our technical support,” Julia says.

  For a while, everyone discusses this high-tech possibility with much laughter and suggests more ways to keep in touch, though each knows that their overly optimistic conversation is just a way to hide their sadness about their upcoming separation.

  “Is something burning?” Yaya suddenly asks, sniffing.

  “Oh, my goodness.” Mary leaps from her chair and runs to the kitchen. “I forgot the dessert!” She turns off the oven and opens the door. Smoke pours out.

  Mingyi, Yaya, and Julia all follow Mary to the kitchen.

  Mary puts on an oven mitt, takes out a tray, and drops it on a pot holder on the countertop. “Well, the taro cookies are burned. I’m sorry. When we had dim sum in Milpitas a month ago, you all said you loved the taro cookies there. After I came back, I tried to make them. I failed twice, but I thought it’d be okay this time. I can’t believe I forgot them. I’ve never burned my food before.”

  Mingyi takes a pair of chopsticks and flips over a few cookies that are blackened on the top. “Maybe they’re only burned outside.” She picks up a cookie with a napkin, blows on it to cool it, peels the charred skin, and bites off a morsel. Mary stares at her and asks eagerly, “How is it? Still okay?”

  Ming
yi doesn’t reply right away but closes her eyes and chews slowly. After she swallows it, she smiles. “Mary, it’s ten times better than those we ate at the restaurant.”

  Yaya grabs one and bites it before it’s cooled. She purrs her approval.

  “Don’t try to make me feel better.” Mary takes a cookie. So does Julia.

  After peeling the skin, Mary nibbles at the cookie, feeling the fine taro paste, sweet and soft, melting on her tongue, leaving its fragrance and a desire for more. “Yeah, it’s not bad. Not bad at all.” She can barely hide her joy.

  “I need the recipe!” Julia says after eating her cookie. “I’ll make them as soon as I get home, so my husband and children know that I can make good dessert. Just the other day I spent a whole evening baking an apple pie, but George and Sophia didn’t even touch it. I tried hard to persuade Wang Wei to take a bite. You know what he said afterwards? He said, ‘Please, no next time.’”

  Within a few minutes, Yaya finishes five cookies. “The skin is good too. Very crispy. If you don’t want yours, give it to me. I like the skin. Mary, I’m telling you, it’s the tastiest cookie I’ve had in a long time.”

  “Even tastier than stinking tofu?” Mary teases, extremely pleased by her friends’ praises.

  Yaya smiles. “Nope. I’m sorry, but nothing can beat stinking tofu.”

  They go back to the living room and eat more cookies. They chat, catching up with what’s new about themselves and their families in the past week.

  After swallowing her tenth or eleventh cookie, Mary gulps some tea and delivers a loud and satisfying belch. She covers her mouth with her hand and is about to apologize to her friends when she hears Yaya’s belch, even louder. She bursts out laughing, and so do her friends.

  The phone rings. Mary picks it up. It’s Bob, on his cell phone from Marine World, asking Mary if she is okay and telling her that they are watching killer whales perform. “Alex has stopped crying. He likes big animals,” Bob says, then adds, “I miss you.”