True To You (Taking Chances #2) (7 page)

Melanie had been the one who had persuaded them to print bilingual menus in order to broaden their customer base. That decision had doubled their income, yet her mother still had reason to complain about “those foreigners”. They tipped too little, they tipped too much, they always asked for fortune cookies… the list went on and on. She could only imagine the judgmental comments her mother would make about Ben. Did she want to put him through that?

More importantly, would he accept the challenges of dating her?

But Sam was right, she was jumping ahead of herself. There was a more pressing matter at hand that she needed to address.

“What I need to do now is tell Ma and Ba that Melvin and I aren’t getting married.” If she had learned anything from Ben during the brief time she had known him, it was to seize the day. The sooner she put a stop to her mother’s plans, the sooner she could move on with her own. Her eyes trailed her mother’s petite frame as she headed back into the kitchen. “Say a prayer for me.”

“You go, girl!” Sam pumped her fist into the air. “Holler if you need backup.”

Melanie pushed the sleeves of her black cardigan up and exhaled. She made her way to the kitchen and stepped inside. The clanging of pots and pans, along with flowing water, met her ears from the left, while the sizzle of hot oil met her from the right. She walked over to her father who had just dumped a colander full of bok choy into a wok. “Ba,” she greeted him in Cantonese. “Is that for table four?”

Her father smiled and nodded in response. “Bring me a dish. This will be ready in a few minutes.”

Melanie grabbed a plate from an overhead shelf and set it on the counter. “Do you need me to come help tomorrow night? Business usually picks up on Thursdays. You’re going to be busy.”

“No, no need. Miss Chan said she’ll be back. Her daughter’s fever finally went down.” He waved the metal spatula he held in his hand. “Aren’t you on call this week?”

“I will be starting this weekend.” The sound of metal scraping against the floor caught her attention. She turned around and saw her mother sitting on the stool behind her, her salt and pepper head buried in a bowl of green beans.
Great.
It was now or never. Taking a deep breath, she continued, “Ma, Ba, I need to talk you about something important.”

Her mother’s head jerked up, her fingers pausing mid-way as she snapped off the end of a bean. “Is Billie failing her classes? Did her teachers say she won’t get into a good college?”

“No, Ma, that’s not it. Not at all. School just started and she’s doing well so far.”

“What did you think about her teachers? Are they good? If they are not good, she will not learn anything.”

“Ma, we live in one of the best school districts in the Bay Area. Billie has good teachers.” Her thoughts turned to a specific one with dimples. Memories of her brief date with Ben brought a sudden calmness to her racing heart. “Her math teacher went to Stanford. He’s very smart.”

“Stanford? Why didn’t he become a doctor then? Why waste his education?”

Melanie frowned.
Here we go.
“Ma, not everyone needs to be or even wants to be a doctor. Being a teacher is an honorable job. You want Billie to have teachers with a good education, don’t you?”

“Of course,” her mother replied curtly before picking up another string bean. “So, what do you want to talk about?”

“I’ve, uh, I’ve been thinking and praying a lot and… I’ve decided I’m not going to-,” she halted her sentence when Sam entered the kitchen.

“Hey Ba, is the bok choy ready?” Sam asked in her heavily accented Cantonese. “Mr. and Mrs. Ma keep giving me these looks like we’re starving them.”

Grunting in affirmation, their father transferred the vegetables from the wok onto a plate and handed it to Sam. “Be careful,” he warned with a stern look, “this is hot.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “I know, I know.” She shot Melanie a curious look and mouthed the words,
Did you tell them yet?

Melanie gave a quick shake of her head and mouthed back,
I’m working on it.
She attempted to continue the previous conversation after her sister left the room. “What I was saying is… Ma, Ba, I decided I don’t want to marry Melvin.” She braced herself and waited for the hysterics to start. When her words were met with silence, she wondered if the din of the kitchen had drowned out her voice. “I said I’m not going to-”

Her mother glanced up, her glasses resting on the tip of her nose. “I heard you the first time. You don’t want to marry Melvin.” She pushed the brown frames up with the back of her hand. “I know it’s a big decision, and you are getting scared. I didn’t want to marry your father in the beginning either. It’s normal.” She returned her focus to the bowl of string beans.

“You’re right that it’s a big decision, which is why I know I can’t marry him. He’s a good friend, but not someone I want for my husband. “

Her mother’s shoulders raised and lowered as she sighed deeply. “Nonsense. He is perfect husband material, and he treats you well. Don’t be ungrateful. You will get used to the idea. It just takes time.”

Melanie watched her mother’s quick movements as she snapped off the head of a bean, pulled the fibrous string from one side of the pod, then dumped it into a bowl.
Snap, snap, snap.
For a moment, she felt like the beans in her mother’s hands, dismembered and disregarded without a thought. Did her opinion matter at all? She turned to her father to gauge his reaction. “Ba, you understand what I’m saying, right?”

“Daughter, I want you to be happy,” he answered with a wistful smile. “Sometimes the person we think is good for us turns out not to be so good, and the one who doesn’t seem like the right choice is. You know the relationship between a man and a woman is complicated; you have experienced it yourself.”

“Yes, I know.” Melanie was surprised to feel a lump growing in her throat. She wasn’t sure if the emotions stirring within her resulted from the tenderness in her father’s eyes or the memories his words conjured up. “I know I made a bad choice before, but what happened with Ming… that was a long time ago.” Flashbacks of her first love in Hong Kong crossed her mind. “I was young and foolish to believe he would stay committed when we were thousands of miles apart. I found out the hard way that he wasn’t the right guy. But this time I already know that Melvin’s not the one for me, which is why I’m ending the engagement.”

“His mom emailed me a picture of his son yesterday,” her mother piped up in a regretful tone.

“Who?”

“Ming’s son.”

“Oh.” Words escaped Melanie. How her mother could remain friends with the family of the boy who had broken her heart was beyond her. Not even two months after she had left Hong Kong, he had already moved on to another girl and gotten her pregnant. Although Ming had apologized for his indiscretions, the least her mother could do was pretend her loyalty remained with her daughter. But, as expected, sentimentality wasn’t Ma’s strong suit.

“He has a head of thick hair, just like Ming had when he was a boy. It is too bad Ming didn’t come to America like he said he would. Or maybe it’s good he didn’t because if he had come, you wouldn’t be engaged to a doctor now. Ah, but then I would already have a grandson. Wouldn’t that be wonderful. None of the ladies at church have a grandson.”

“Ma, I don’t think you would have been happy with me getting pregnant in high school.”

“That is a minor detail.”

Melanie bit her lips to stop a snicker from escaping. Where had she heard that line before? “I think it would have been a very big detail. I wouldn’t have been able to go to college or medical school. I wouldn’t be a doctor today.”

“Yes, but at this rate, you may never get married or have children. You are turning twenty-seven next year. When I was your age, I was already pregnant with you.”

Melanie groaned inwardly. It was always a lose-lose situation with her mother. One minute she wanted her daughters to focus on their education and careers; the next minute she wanted them to make her a grandmother. She crossed her arms and clamped her lips shut to prevent herself from saying something she might regret. There was no use adding fuel to the fire; she had long learned it was more useful to stay calm when reasoning with her mother.

“What about Melvin, did you talk to him about this? Or were you going to leave him waiting for you at the altar?”

“I would never-,” Melanie spat out before she realized she was giving into her mother’s goading. “Yes, I did talk to him, and he agrees with me.” Getting a ride from him last night had actually worked out in her favor. They ended up having an open and honest conversation on their way home. She had managed to convince him they were better off as friends… but not before he had recognized Ben’s interest in her. And though he wasn’t happy about it, as a good friend, he decided to back off. “We both want to wait for God to bring the right people into our lives.”

“I know, I know, you want to marry for love,” her mother quipped as she handed the bowl of string beans to her husband. She wiped her hands on the white apron tied around her waist and sighed. “Do you realize I’ve already booked the church and picked out the bridesmaid dresses and the decorations? I have spent every free moment this past week planning your wedding, and now you tell me you don’t appreciate what I’ve done.”

“Ma! I never said I didn’t appreciate your help.” It was probably not the best time to point out that she had never delegated those tasks to her mother in the first place. She turned to her father with wide eyes, pleading for him to inject some sense into the conversation.

He shook his head and shifted his attention to the stove, uncertain of how to help the women in his life. He dumped the string beans into the wok and leaned back as water droplets from the bowl splashed into the hot oil.
Hiss.
Steam rose up from the wok and clouded his glasses, providing a momentary blinder from the situation at hand.

Melanie rubbed her forehead in an effort to soothe her throbbing temples.
How appropriate.
Oil and water, that’s what she and her mother were like. More specifically, she was the latter substance, always sinking underneath her mother’s dominion.

Sam came in at that moment and broke the awkward silence with a singsong voice, “Ma, can you come help with a customer? My Chinglish is not working on this one.”

Their mother raised an eyebrow. “I don’t understand what you are saying.”

Placing her hands on her hips, Sam repeated her request in Cantonese. She watched as their mother left the kitchen with heavy footsteps. “Wow, I guess you told her the news. I could sense the ice queen’s presence when I walked in here.” She faked a shiver and rubbed her hands along her arms. “Ma didn’t take it too well, did she? Let me guess, she did the Chinese soap opera cry?” Clutching her hands to her chest, she dropped to her knees with a look of anguish on her face.

Melanie rolled her eyes as Sam finished her theatrics and stood up. “No crying, just the usual guilt trips.” Even though her mother’s reaction hadn’t been the best, she had to admit she felt a sense of relief after speaking her mind. The tension in her neck and shoulders had disappeared, and she could breathe again. “I hope she doesn’t hold this against me forever.”

“Don’t worry. She won’t.”

The English words that came from her father’s mouth touched Melanie deeply. She appreciated his effort to speak the language, despite his lack of fluency. “Thanks, Ba.”

They all turned as their mother returned to the kitchen. She handed her husband a slip of paper with a new customer’s order and sat down. “Sam, your turn. The white couple at table six want to order.”

“Okay, I’ve got it.”

As soon as Sam left, Melanie spoke up. “Ma, I can call Auntie Wong and let her know we won’t need the church anymore. And I’ll make any other calls that are needed.”

“No need. I will do it.”

“I don’t mind. It will save you the trouble.” She knew, however, her offer would not help her mother “save face”. Her decision to call off the wedding would surely cause her mother some embarrassment in front of her church friends. No doubt there would soon be rumors flying around about the foolish Koo daughter who turned down the chance to marry a doctor. “I can explain my reasoning to Auntie Wong and help her understand why I’m not marrying Melvin.”

The indignant look on her mother’s face made it clear her suggestion was not on the table for consideration. “I will let her know we are postponing the wedding until you finish residency.”

“Ma, you can’t say that,” Melanie retorted, “I’m not going to change my mind. A couple of years is not going to make a difference.”

“We will see.”

Melanie clenched her fists when she heard the finality of her mother’s words.
Fine.
They would revisit this topic later on, when the fumes stopped coming out of her ears. She decided to leave before her head exploded out of disbelief. She stepped out of the kitchen and almost bumped into Sam who was walking in. “Argh, sorry.”

Sam handed their father another order slip and dashed back to the dining area. She spotted Melanie at the cash register ringing up a customer’s bill. As soon as the transaction was completed, she grabbed her sister’s arm. “
Ga Je
, God did His thing!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You asked me to pray for you. I did and
walla
-look who showed up!” She pointed to the Caucasian couple at table six.

Melanie rolled her eyes. If Billie were there, she would have certainly made fun of Sam’s faux French accent again. She contemplated saying something, but the genuine excitement in her sister’s eyes stopped her. What or who had caused the glint in Sam’s eyes?

From where she stood at the back end of the restaurant, she had a clear view of all the tables. She took a good look at the female customer who sat facing her direction. The girl in her late teens or early twenties had long blond hair and a dimple in her right cheek. The male customer had his back to Melanie, which prevented her from seeing his face. But there was something about his head of sandy hair that looked familiar. “Is that who I think it is?” She turned to her sister in awe. “You prayed for Ben to show up?”