Bloody Fabulous (12 page)

Of course, Nai Nai probably hadn’t had the chance to train Wei Yi in the standards expected of a wedding in Nai Nai’s family. The finer points of bridal fashion would certainly escape Wei Yi.

“Nai Nai only came back to scold people,” said Vivian. “She doesn’t need to scold you for anything.”

The unnatural metallic sheen of Wei Yi’s face went away. Her hair and eyes dimmed. Her mouth trembled.
Vivian expected a roar. Instead Wei Yi shoved her kaya toast away and laid her head on the table.

“I miss Nai Nai,” she sobbed.

Ma got up and touched Vivian on the shoulder.

“I have to go buy thing,” she whispered. “You cheer up your sister.”

Wei Yi’s skin was still hot when Vivian put her arm around her, but as Vivian held her Wei Yi’s temperature declined, until she merely felt feverish. Her tears went from scalding to lukewarm.

“Nai Nai, Nai Nai,” she wailed in that screechy show-off way Vivian had always hated. When they were growing up Vivian had not believed in Wei Yi’s tears—they seemed no more than a show, put on to impress the grown-ups.

Vivian now realised that the grief was as real as the volume deliberate. Wei Yi did not cry like that simply because she was sad, but because she wanted someone to listen to her.

In the old days it had been a parent or a teacher’s attention that she had sought. These howls were aimed directly at the all-too-responsive ears of their late grandmother.

“Wei Yi,” said Vivian. “I’ve thought of what you can do for Nai Nai.”

For once Wei Yi did not put Vivian’s ideas to scorn. She seemed to have gone up in her sister’s estimation for having seen Nai Nai’s importunate spectre.

Vivian had a feeling Nai Nai’s witchery had gone into Wei Yi’s paper cutting skills. YouTube couldn’t explain the unreal speed with which she did it.

Vivian tried picking up Wei Yi’s scissors and dropped them, yelping.

“What the—!” It had felt like an electric shock.

Wei Yi grabbed the scissors. “These are no good. I give you other ones to use.”

Vivian got the task of cutting out the sarong—a large rectangular piece of paper to which Wei Yi would add the batik motifs later. When she was done Wei Yi took a look and pursed her lips. The last time Vivian had felt this small was when she failed her first driving test two minutes after getting into the car.

“OK ah?”

“Not bad,” said Wei Yi unconvincingly. “Eh, you go help Ma do her whatever thing lah. I’ll work on this first.”

A couple of hours later she barged into Vivian’s room. “Why you’re here? Why you take so long? Come and see!”

Vivian got up sheepishly. “I thought you need some time to finish mah.”

“Nonsense. Nai Nai going to be buried tomorrow, where got time to dilly-dally?” Wei Yi grasped her hand.

The paper dress was laid in crisp folds on the dining table. Wei Yi’s scissors had rendered the delicate lace of the kebaya blouse with marvellous skill. Peacocks with uplifted wings and princely crowns draped their tails along the hems, strutted up the lapels, and curled coyly around the ends of the sleeves. The paper was chiffon-thin. A breath set it fluttering.

The skirt was made from a thicker, heavier cream paper. Wei Yi had cut blowsy peonies into the front and a contrasting grid pattern on the reverse. Vivian touched it in wonder, feeling the nubby texture of the paper under her fingertips.

“Do you think Nai Nai will like it?” said Wei Yi.

Vivian had to be honest. “The top is a bit see-through, no?”

“She’ll have a singlet to wear underneath,” said Wei Yi. “I left that for you to do. Very simple one. Just cut along the line only.”

This was kindness, Wei Yi style.

“It’s beautiful, Yi Yi,” said Vivian. She felt awkward—they were not a family given to compliments—but once she’d started it was easy to go on. “It’s so nice. Nai Nai will love it.”

“Ah, don’t need to say so much lah,” Wei Yi scoffed. “OK enough already. I still haven’t done shoe yet.”

They burnt the beautiful cream kebaya as an offering to Nai Nai. It didn’t go alone—Wei Yi had created four other outfits, working through the night. Samfu for everyday wear; an old-fashioned loose, long-sleeved cheongsam (“Nicer for older lady. Nai Nai is not a Shanghai cabaret singer”); a sarong for sleeping in; and a Punjabi suit of all things.

“Nai Nai used to like wearing it,” said Wei Yi when Vivian expressed surprise. “Comfortable mah. Nai Nai likes this simple kind of thing to wear for every day.”

“Four is not a good number,” said Vivian. “Maybe should make extra sarong?”

“You forgot the kebaya. That’s five,” Wei Yi retorted. “Anyway she die already. What is there to be pantang about?”

They threw in the more usual hell gold and paper mansion into the bonfire as well. The doll servants didn’t burn well, but melted dramatically and stuck afterwards.

Since they were doing the bonfire outside the house, on the public road, this concerned Vivian. She chipped doubtfully away at the mess of plastic.

“Don’t worry,” said Ma. “The servants have gone to Nai Nai already.”

“I’m not worried about that,” said Vivian. “I’m worried about MPPJ.” She couldn’t imagine the local authorities would be particularly pleased about the extra work they’d made for them.

“They’re used to it lah,” said Ma, dismissing the civil service with a wave of the hand.

They even burnt the fake Gucci bag and the polo shirt in the end.

“Nai Nai will find some use for it,” said Wei Yi. “Maybe turn out she like that kind of style also.”

She could afford to be magnanimous. Making the kebaya had relieved something in Wei Yi’s heart. As she’d stood watch over the flames to make sure the demons didn’t get their offerings to Nai Nai, there had been a serenity in her face.

As they moved back to the house, Vivian put her arm around her sister, wincing at the snap and hiss when her skin touched Wei Yi’s. It felt like a static shock, only intensified by several orders of magnitude.

“OK?”

Wei Yi was fizzling with magic, but her eyes were calm and dark and altogether human.

“OK,” replied the Witch of Damansara.

In Vivian’s dream a moth came fluttering into the room. It alighted at the end of her bed and turned into Nai Nai.

Nai Nai was wearing a green-and-white striped cotton sarong, tucked and knotted under her arms as if she were going to bed soon. Her hair smelled of Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo. Her face was white with beduk sejuk—powder moistened and spread over the face as a cooling paste.

“Tell your mother the house is very beautiful,” said Nai Nai. “The servants have already run away and got married, but it’s not so bad. In hell it’s not so dusty. Nothing to clean also.”

“Nai Nai—”

“Ah Yi is very clever now, har?” said Nai Nai. “The demons looked at my nice things but when they saw her they immediately run away.”

Vivian experienced a pang. She didn’t say anything, but perhaps the dead understood these things. Or perhaps it was just that Nai Nai, with 65 years of mothering behind her, did not need to be told. She reached out and patted Vivian’s hand.

“You are always so guai,” said Nai Nai. “I’m not so worried about you.”

This was a new idea to Vivian. She was unused to thinking of herself—magicless, intransigent—as the good kid in the family.

“But I went overseas,” she said stupidly.

“You’re always so clever to work hard. You don’t make your mother and father worried,” said Nai Nai. “Ah Yi ah . . . . ” Nai Nai shook her head. “So stubborn! So naughty! If I don’t take care sekali she burn down the house. That girl doesn’t use her head. But she become a bit guai already. When she’s older she won’t be so free, won’t have time to cause so much problems.”

Vivian did not point out that age did not seem to have stopped Nai Nai. This would have been disrespectful. Instead she said, “Nai Nai, were you really a vampire? Or were you just pretending to turn into a kuang shi?”

“Hai, you think so fun to pretend to be a kuang shi?” said Nai Nai indignantly. “When you are old, you will find out how suffering it is. You think I have time to watch all the Hong Kong movies and learn how to be a vampire?”

So that was how she did it. The pale vampirish skin had probably been beduk sejuk as well. How Nai Nai obtained beduk sejuk in the afterlife was a question better left unasked. Vivian had questions of more immediate interest.

“If you stayed because you’re worried about Wei Yi, can I return the cheongsam to the shop?”

Nai Nai bridled. “Oh, like that ah? Not proud of your culture, is it? If you want to wear the white dress, like a ghost, so ugly—”

“Ma wore a white dress on her wedding day. Everyone does it.”

“Nai Nai give you my beduk sejuk and red lipstick lah. Then you can pretend to be kuang shi also!”

“I’ll get another cheongsam,” said Vivian. “Not that I don’t want to wear cheongsam. I just don’t like this one so much. It’s too expensive.”

“How much?”

Vivian told her.

“Wah, so much ah,” said Nai Nai. “Like that you should just get it tailored. Don’t need to buy from shop. Tailored is cheaper and nicer some more. The seamstress’s phone number is in Nai Nai’s old phonebook. Madam Teoh.”

“I’ll look,” Vivian promised.

Nai Nai got up, stretching. “Must go now. Scared the demons will don’t know do what if I leave the house so long. You must look after your sister, OK?”

Vivian, doubtful about how any attempt to look after Wei Yi was likely to be received, said, “Ah.”

“Nai Nai already gave Ah Yi her legacy, but I’ll give you yours now,” said Nai Nai. “You’re a good girl, Ah Lin. Nai Nai didn’t have chance to talk to you so much when you were small. But I’m proud of you. Make sure the seamstress doesn’t overcharge. If you tell Madam Teoh you’re my granddaughter she’ll give you discount.”

“Thank you, Nai Nai,” said Vivian, but she spoke to an empty room. The curtains flapped in Nai Nai’s wake.

On the floor lay a pile of clothes. Moonlight-sheer chiffon, brown batik, maroon silk, and floral print cotton, and on top of this, glowing turquoise even in the pale light of the moon, the most gilded, spangled, intricately embroidered Punjabi suit Vivian had ever seen.

The Faery Handbag
Kelly Link

I used to go to thrift stores with my friends. We’d take the train into Boston, and go to The Garment District, which is this huge vintage clothing warehouse. Everything is arranged by color, and somehow that makes all of the clothes beautiful. It’s kind of like if you went through the wardrobe in the Narnia books, only instead of finding Aslan and the White Witch and horrible Eustace, you found this magic clothing world—instead of talking animals, there were feather boas and wedding dresses and bowling shoes, and paisley shirts and Doc Martens and everything hung up on racks so that first you have black dresses, all together, like the world’s largest indoor funeral, and then blue dresses—all the blues you can imagine—and then red dresses and so on. Pink-reds and orangey reds and purple-reds and exit-light reds and candy reds. Sometimes I would close my eyes and Natasha and Natalie and Jake would drag me over to a rack, and rub a dress against my hand. “Guess what color this is.”

We had this theory that you could learn how to tell, just by feeling, what color something was. For example, if you’re sitting on a lawn, you can tell what color green the grass is, with your eyes closed, depending on how silky-rubbery it feels. With clothing, stretchy velvet stuff always feels red when your eyes are closed, even if it’s not red. Natasha was always best at guessing colors, but Natasha is also best at cheating at games and not getting caught.

One time we were looking through kid’s t-shirts and we found a Muppets t-shirt that had belonged to Natalie in third grade. We knew it belonged to her, because it still had her name inside, where her mother had written it in permanent marker, when Natalie went to summer camp. Jake bought it back for her, because he was the only one who had money that weekend. He was the only one who had a job.

Maybe you’re wondering what a guy like Jake is doing in The Garment District with a bunch of girls. The thing about Jake is that he always has a good time, no matter what he’s doing. He likes everything, and he likes everyone, but he likes me best of all. Wherever he is now, I bet he’s having a great time and wondering when I’m going to show up. I’m always running late. But he knows that.

We had this theory that things have life cycles, the way that people do. The life cycle of wedding dresses and feather boas and t-shirts and shoes and handbags involves the Garment District. If clothes are good, or even if they’re bad in an interesting way, the Garment District is where they go when they die. You can tell that they’re dead, because of the way that they smell. When you buy them, and wash them, and start wearing them again, and they start to smell like you, that’s when they reincarnate. But the point is, if you’re looking for a particular thing, you just have to keep looking for it. You have to look hard.

Down in the basement at the Garment Factory they sell clothing and beat-up suitcases and teacups by the pound. You can get eight pounds worth of prom dresses–a slinky black dress, a poufy lavender dress, a swirly pink dress, a silvery, starry lamé dress so fine you could pass it through a key ring—for eight dollars. I go there every week, hunting for Grandmother Zofia’s faery handbag.

The faery handbag: It’s huge and black and kind of hairy. Even when your eyes are closed, it feels black. As black as black ever gets, like if you touch it, your hand might get stuck in it, like tar or black quicksand or when you stretch out your hand at night, to turn on a light, but all you feel is darkness.

Fairies live inside it. I know what that sounds like, but it’s true.

Grandmother Zofia said it was a family heirloom. She said that it was over two hundred years old. She said that when she died, I had to look after it. Be its guardian. She said that it would be my responsibility.

I said that it didn’t look that old, and that they didn’t have handbags two hundred years ago, but that just made her cross. She said, “So then tell me, Genevieve, darling, where do you think old ladies used to put their reading glasses and their heart medicine and their knitting needles?”