The Colour of Tea (15 page)

“Hi, I’d like a cappuccino. Chocolate on top,” she says very quickly while I stare, trying to figure out how I know her.

“Sure. Take a seat; I’ll bring it to you. Magazines are in the stand on the left if you’d like something to read.” As I point she turns her chin and looks in the direction of my finger. When she turns back, I give her a smile.

“Thanks,” she replies curtly. No smile.

She moves from one foot to the other, staying at the counter. She holds her bag in front of her stomach protectively, as though it might be snatched from her at any moment. I wait a few moments for her to say something.

“Anything else?” I ask finally.

“Um, which is the best one?”

“Sorry?”

“Of these … things.”

“Oh,
macarons.
” I move toward the shelf on which their round bodies are lined up primly. “Well, it depends, I guess. I like caramel flavors; some people prefer a lighter taste, like rose, at least to start with. The chocolate-flavored ones are lovely, of course …” I am rambling; it is like choosing a favorite child, practically impossible.

“What’s this one then?” She points at my newest creation, a pale, creamy white with soft flecks of yellow, like glints of gold in white marble.

“
Rêve d’un Ange.
It means ‘dream of an angel.’” She tilts her head, interested, and I shrug. “Hopelessly romantic name, I know. Couldn’t help myself.”

“What’s in it?” she asks, lowering her voice.

“It’s my white chocolate
macaron.
Ganache, that’s a kind of chocolate cream, sandwiched in the middle. I’ve added a little lemon rind and cinnamon. Most people can hardly taste those flavors though. It’s one of my newest. Would you like to try it?”

She has been leaning in towards the counter, peering at it closely, her dark eyes wide. Now she straightens up briskly. “Yeah.”

She takes a seat at a table near the window. I expect to see her grab a fashion magazine, chatter to friends on the phone. But she doesn’t. She props her elbow on the table and rests her head
upon it. Then she picks up the menu and reads it carefully, over and over. When I deliver her order, she looks down at the plate bearing the single
macaron
and then up to me.

“Thanks. I’m Gigi.” The words rush out as if unplanned.

“Hi, Gigi. I’m Grace.”

“You came to see my aunty,” she says, her eyes tracing over my face with a long, serious look. It’s then I remember her in the tracksuit, chewing gum, fiddling with a mobile phone.

“At the temple …” I reply slowly. It is my translator from the fortune-telling. She has that same darting, curious look.

Silence falls between us. Despite her youth there is something in her eyes that seems to suggest wariness, mistrust. That she has seen more than she should, that she has been dealt some bad hands. Something passes between us, and I can’t tell what it is.

“I just help out there. It’s not my real job,” she says.

“Oh, okay.”

“She’s my mother’s sister,” she adds and then looks embarrassed, as if she has said too much. I change the subject, glancing down at her uniform.

“So then you’re a croupier—I mean, a dealer?”

“Was.” She turns her head back to her
macaron
and away from me. It’s too awkward to ask her anything more.

“Well, good to see you here.” I smile and move off to the counter. When I look back, she is staring down at her stomach, arms crossed over it. There is a soft weight there. I wonder … The question sinks my heart like a stone. I brush it out of my mind with thoughts of chocolate ganache, dark, sweet, buttery, and as smooth as paint. Two women come to order coffees. I recognize them as friends of Linda’s. They lift their tortoiseshell sunglasses onto their heads and chat about their latest shopping trip in Zhuhai.

Dearest Mama,

What happened that day Mrs. Spencer told you I was never going to be any good at maths? You always made it the best story. I miss it. You have to tell it to me again.

All I really remember is the part where you rose to your feet and said something like “What exactly did you just say about my daughter, Pamela?”

Imagine—Mrs. Spencer having a first name. Pamela. Then she faltered and put her hand to her throat, touching those pearls of hers and not able to get any words out for a minute.

And you said, “Well?” with both eyebrows raised.

I can almost see her, pursing her lips and gathering up every ounce of courage she had from the soles of her small feet, right up to the pointy tips of her cropped hair.

“Well, Ms. Raven”—with a disapproving buzz on the Ms.—“Grace lacks conviction. She lacks action. If she would actually participate in class, rather than huddling down in the back, maybe she would learn something.”

That’s when she stood up too. A moment of great bravery for Mrs. Spencer, I thought, because she barely came up to your chest, and she knew that before she left the seat of her chair. It was going to give you an advantage right away, towering over her with a face full of fury. Then the best part—you pausing, leaning down, coming in close to her face. Close to that horrendous breath of hers; her mouth smelled like dead fish stapled to a wall for three weeks and allowed to rot. Whispering, “Seems you don’t know a thing about my Grace, Pamela. She is full of conviction, as it happens. She just saves it up. For. Things. That. Matter.”

That was the end of that, wasn’t it? You turned around and never went back for a parent-teacher meeting again. I’d give you the notices and you’d tear them up in front of me, the two of us giggling like a pair of parrots.

So, Mama, you’d like this—it turns out that, contrary to popular belief, a lily-livered waitress can open her own café. She can make it work. And she can make a profit, even if it is a small one … for now.

Your loving daughter,
Grace

Coeur Curatif—Healing Heart

Vanilla with Raspberry Markings and Raspberry Gel Insertion

G
igi, who has been coming to the café and staying for hours, is pregnant.

I can’t pretend that she’s not. Even Rilla notices.

In a rare chatty moment, Rilla murmurs to me, “Should she be drinking
so
much coffee?”

We both know what she means, but I don’t answer her. Pretend not to hear her and keep stocking the fridge with milk. Rude, I know, but I don’t want to talk about it. I cannot help the ache in my chest, looking at the swelling in Gigi’s front, growing day by day. She covers it with long T-shirts and big handbags, sweatshirts if she can, but the weather is heating up and stepping into summer. It’s there. Whether or not either of us prefers it wasn’t. Noticing it always makes me feel heavy, as if I have swallowed stones.

Gigi’s face is normally hunched over the classifieds section of the newspaper, probably searching for jobs. Usually she’s scowling underneath her makeup and dark eyeliner. Except, of course, when she examines the
macarons
in their case. Then her face softens, a strange melting, like butter in a pan.

Her favorite is the same as mine.
L’Arrivée.
That smoky, caramel sweetness, tempered with the sharpness of rock salt, the filling sticky and toffee-like. I watch her pick up crumbs with her finger and lick them off. She never wastes a single piece.

Week after week she is here, circling ads with a bright purple marker decorated with tiny cartoon mice and drinking her coffees. She must go to interviews but not get the jobs. I assume she is a Macau citizen, the most-sought-after employee in this tight labor market. Is it her attitude? Her lack of experience? Or the obvious bulge? I try not to think about it, or I begin to feel that little pinch of pity. One day I suggested she should try an herbal tea. Lightly, trying not to sound patronizing or judgmental. Maternal. She glared at me sharply, then asked again for a cappuccino, please.

But today Gigi has not been in. In fact, it’s been eerily quiet. Rilla cleans the milk frother and looks distractedly out the front window. There is a stillness in the air; even the sky seems to slump limply.

“It’s an odd day,” I mumble, to myself mainly. Rilla nods in agreement, her small, dark eyebrows bunched together.

There have been so few customers today, although Yok Lan came in for a couple of hours in the morning for a cup of tea and three of her favorite pink
macarons.
It was the most she’d ever ordered or eaten; Rilla and I exchanged curious looks. She sat close to the counter and smiled at us over the rim of her cup, happy to watch us work. She is a goddess of peace, that woman; I swear even angry dogs or stormy seas would calm when she is about.

Rilla and I are running out of chores to busy ourselves with. I have refilled all the saltshakers, carefully lining the bottoms with grains of rice to absorb moisture from the humid air. She has folded an entire box of napkins, stacking them in neat triangles,
ready for use. We have scrubbed all the oven trays and cleaned the windows. Rilla finishes with the milk frother and starts to rearrange the magazine shelf.

I place my hands on the front of the counter, leaning my weight against them. Beside me the unsold
macarons
are lined up in orderly rows in their glass case. I notice I am biting my lip, knowing I will have to discard some of these beauties if they don’t sell today. Rilla has refused to take any home, although she will gather up unsold sandwiches. I don’t know why; perhaps she thinks the
macarons
are too exotic and expensive for her, or that I might disapprove? I guess I might treat them with
too
much reverence.

“Okay, Rilla. It’s time we gave you a proper full-blown tasting session,” I tell her, throwing my tea towel over my left shoulder.

“Pardon me, ma’am?” she asks, looking up.

“A tasting. You and I are going to have a tasting.”

“Oh,” she breathes and smiles wide.

After selecting the
macarons,
I come over to the table where she is sitting with her back poker-straight in anticipation. Her eyes are round under her short glossy fringe. I put napkins in front of us and fill teacups with the steaming hot green tea she likes to drink.

“Here we go. You ready?”

She nods, and I have to laugh at her earnest face, mouth almost turned to a frown.

“All right. We’ll start with
Une Petite Flamme.
It’s our espresso
macaron.
Go on, try it.”

She looks down at her plate. “This one? With the gold?”

“Yup, go on.”

She puts it against her tongue like she’s taking communion.

“Good?”

She nods quickly.

Then I place a purple one on her plate.

Rilla lifts it up. “This one has the jam inside, right?”

“Yes; it’s
Remède de Délivrance.
Black currant filling, in the middle of the cream.”

She closes her eyes while she eats it slowly. So slowly I worry she will need to come up for air.

“What does that mean?” she asks when she has finally swallowed the last tiny mouthful.

“
Remède de Délivrance
? ‘Rescue remedy.’ It’s violet-flavored.”

“This one is so good, ma’am.” She grins, and I grin back. Rilla’s small hands wrap around a teacup, the mouth of it laced with gold filigree painting. Outside the world seems still, suspended.

“I’m sorry, Rilla; it’s so quiet today I should have let you have the afternoon off. I should have let you go home ages ago.”

“It’s okay. Too many people in my house anyway.” The boardinghouse where Rilla lives accommodates dozens of workers, mainly women sending money back to their homes in other countries. She doesn’t speak about it much, except to say that it is a bit crowded. Pete and I have four bedrooms for the two of us, and she is jammed in like a sardine. She says she used to work in Dubai, living with her employers. She doesn’t talk about that much either, but perhaps she had her own room. Here she can’t even put posters on the wall in case they damage the paint.

“You don’t like it there?”

“I like it. It’s cheap, so more money to send home. It’s fun sometimes, people always talking and singing.” Rilla laughs.

It astounds me, her easy generosity. I notice it in her all the time, taking back food to share with her roommates, sending old magazines to her sisters and brothers, mailing money for a niece’s new shoes or schoolbooks. Rilla reminds me of a gerbera. A bright, colorful bloom with a surprisingly strong, wiry stem underneath.

Sipping my tea, I realize that I envy Rilla’s commitments to
her family. In some ways, even though I have four bedrooms and she lives with strangers, she has what I always wanted. For her, sharing is an easy choice. She is part of something greater. Some, not one.

She tries a few more flavors, enraptured, and then stands, picking up the empty plate and her teacup.

“Thank you. So delicious.” She smiles at me.

She goes into the kitchen, humming. It is soft and out of tune; I wonder if she even knows she is doing it. I look down at my teacup. Delicate, beautiful, with heavy bunches of purple grapes painted as if hanging from the rim. The saucer is a bold kind of mauve tartan. It’s the set I always reach for. I think of Mama, of fetching her cups of tea and clearing her plate just as Rilla now does for me. How she would grin up at me as if I’d done the nicest thing and murmur, “Oh, thanks, love.”

There is no breadth to my family, like there is to Rilla’s. I wonder if it gives her a swollen, full feeling to have a big, interconnected family like that. A kind of completeness. Ours was such a small, tight circle. Two was enough. Sometimes too much. I sigh, and in my mind there is a drumbeat of one word:
Mama, Mama, Mama …

When I carry my cup and saucer into the kitchen, Rilla is steaming and polishing cutlery. She is singing now, slipping and sliding out of tune. I had assumed she would be a good singer, her voice as light and soft as a bird’s, as she seems so capable at everything. But, in fact, her voice is truly awful. It shakes me out of my daze and makes me laugh. When she looks up, catching my expression, she starts to sing even louder, and I join her, giggling at our two voices, crooning and keening like a couple of mournful wolves howling to the moon.