Aunt Evelyn glanced under the counter. “At least your wine fridge is full.”
“For whites and rosé, yes. The reds are in the rack near the living room,” I said with a wobbly smile. “I do have proper cutlery and plates, so there is that.”
My aunt laughed. “I’ll order dinner. Tonight calls for sushi.”
* * *
* * *
Uncle Michael and Ma arrived at the same time. I didn’t entertain often. When I did eat at home, I ate at the quartz countertop in the kitchen. My formal dining room was pristine from disuse. Crystal and sterling silver barware along with bright, colorful cocktail glasses filled the modern hutch near the circular dining table. Each had been gifted by various aunties last Christmas.
I sat between my parents. We picked at the various maki rolls packed in a large round plastic tray. Uncle Michael poured prosecco into flutes and kept the open bottle between him and my father, ready for refills.
“I will ask Gene to manage your work. It won’t be a problem. You’re due for a vacation anyway. Three weeks is definitely doable,” Dad said, sipping his wine.
Ma waved her chopsticks in the air. “If Chester complains, I’ll clip his—”
“Linda! Faye will keep him in check,” Aunt Evelyn said.
“Not how you expected today to unfold, I’d imagine,” Uncle Michael said to me as Ma and Aunt Evelyn continued to discuss their nephew. The wrinkles around his eyes deepened, making him look closer to his true age.
I plucked a piece of the spider roll from the tray. “I’m excited about Paris.”
I always wanted to go for the art and food, but I never went because I didn’t want to go alone. It wasn’t that I cared about what people thought, it was more that I wanted to experience the city with someone. No one else in the family had mentioned any desire to go, and if I had known Aunt Evelyn was interested, I would have been tempted to ask despite knowing that we would quarrel.
“Now is your chance to see the Mona Lisa in person.” Dad held my hand. “Evelyn knows what she’s doing. You’ll come back a master fortune-teller.”
A narrow scar curved along the base of his thumb from a fishing accident. When I was ten, Dad tried teaching me to fish at Lake Tahoe. In my first attempt to cast the line, I threw the rod back, and the hook caught him. After some iodine and a bandage, he asked me to try again, but I’d sworn off fishing, terrified I’d injure somebody else.
“Also, I’ll be in Germany soon and close by if you need me,” Uncle Michael added.
“Thank you,” I replied.
I popped the piece of spider roll into my mouth. The crunch from the deep-fried soft-shell crab complemented the velvety avocado. Tasty, but not my ideal.
My perfect meal would consist of a platter of sixty oysters on ice and a bottle of Chablis. It would be more perfect if there were a wonderful man sharing them with me, someone who loved and appreciated them as much as I did.
Uncle Michael heaped two more of the spider rolls on my plate. “Where did you go just now?”
“I was thinking about my perfect meal and how satisfying it would be to share it with someone special.” I refilled my glass with more prosecco.
Ma and Aunt Evelyn stopped their conversation.
“What did the matchmaker say?” Ma asked.
I told them what happened.
“Aiyah, you’re going to be alone forever,” Ma wailed. She grabbed the wine from across the table and started drinking straight from the bottle.
“Linda!” Aunt Evelyn pried my mother’s fingers from the neck.
Ma’s teary eyes bore into me. “I want you happy.”
“Calm down,” Dad said to her as he took the bottle from my aunt. “The matchmaker didn’t say she’d be alone forever. She said it was tricky.”
Ma nodded. She sniffled and reached for the Kleenex box on the sideboard. Tissues flew out of the box as if my mother was a magician performing an endless-scarves trick. If she weren’t so concerned about my love life, I’d be laughing right now.
“After I’m in control of these prophecies, then, maybe, we can worry about what the matchmaker said.”
Aunt Evelyn set her chopsticks down. “Linda, I told you multiple times to not interfere in Vanessa’s love life. She can’t maintain a romantic relationship. No amount of meddling from you can change this reality. She is a clairvoyant, that is her future and her fate.” My aunt sighed. “I can see where her stubbornness came from.”
I narrowed my eyes at Ma before burying my face in my hands.
Ma had always contested this fact, and she, like the rest of my aunts, chose to believe what they wanted. On this point, I felt my mother’s maturity was lower than my own.
She stopped dabbing her eyes and waved her hand. “I just don’t want her to be alone. It’s sad. No one should be alone unless they choose to.”
“Did everyone know?” I asked. “Why did they spend so much money on the matchmaker?”
My aunt rolled her eyes. “It isn’t a secret. I told them all so many times, but do you think that would stop them once they get an idea in their collective heads?”
I laughed because what she said was true.
Ma shrugged. “I thought your warnings were a mere suggestion.”
“If I can help Vanessa, it will change the quality of her life, but not her love life,” Aunt Evelyn said. “What’s important is controlling her gift.”
A resigned silence fell over the meal.
“Had she followed in her education the way I did, she would be in full control by now. Death predictions manifest during the teenage years. To be so delayed is strange,” my aunt continued. “We’ll find out more in Paris.”
The more I listened to Aunt Evelyn, the more I felt that there was so much she was keeping from us. Even when I was a child, she was shrouded in an air of mystery. While the rest of my aunties were clear windows into their personalities, Aunt Evelyn always held a part of herself back. She was like a misty forest where darkness dwells and fairy tales were born.
“We will treat this as a mini vacation. You’ll stay with me at my flat and help with the tea shop during the day,” Aunt Evelyn said. Then she smiled at me. “It’ll be fun to spend more time with you.”
“I will help you pack,” Ma declared. “We need to make sure you bring nice clothes just in case. They dress well in Paris. You need to impress!”
I covered my eyes with my hand and groaned.
“The flight is tomorrow morning. Everything is arranged. After we land, Linda, you’ll need to tell the family, start with the women. They can’t, under any circumstances, interfere with this. Vanessa and I need to be given our space. Harry, smooth this over at the firm. They can’t suspect anything beyond a sabbatical. Michael, handle the info with the rest of the family. Sell it as a vacation. We all need to work together.” Aunt Evelyn refilled everyone’s wine flutes. “I promise you I’ll do everything possible to help Vanessa.”
Uncle Michael raised his glass. “I promise to use my charm and convince everyone that everything is fine.”
“I promise not to fly out to Paris even though I really want to,” Ma said. “I promise to let you two handle everything on your own and not to call my daughter too often.”
“I promise to do my best to hold my wife to her promises,” Dad added with a smirk.
I listened to my family and held up my hand like a Girl Scout. “I promise to do my best with my lessons and listen to Aunt Evelyn.”
Of course, given our history, that would be easier said than done.
Seven
Impending lessons notwithstanding, I was excited to experience Paris. My parents and I had trotted all over Asia and North America, but we’d never visited Europe. Having studied European art history, I pined to be in the physical presence of these masterpieces. Exhibits at local museums and galleries had only brought a fraction of what I wanted to see. Staring at a Degas for an hour and studying every brushstroke on the canvas was the closest to a religious experience I’d ever had that wasn’t triggered by sublime food.
When traveling abroad with my family, the language barrier was our biggest hurdle. Ma was terrified we’d become lost in places where we couldn’t converse. I’m not sure why she worried: even without asking, she located every Louis Vuitton store in the vicinity.
When I was younger, Uncle Michael had taken me to a showing of Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart’s classic Sabrina at the Stanford Theatre. I imagined myself as the girl in the tree, watching the wonderful life I craved happening below me at one of the glittering Larabee soirees. The scenes of Paris were enchanting, while the grand romance between Sabrina and Linus captured my heart.
Early the next morning, Uncle Michael drove Aunt Evelyn and me to San Francisco International Airport. My parents had made arrangements to meet us there.
“Linda’s bringing the battalion, isn’t she?” Uncle Michael asked.
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” I replied.
“They shouldn’t interfere,” Aunt Evelyn added from the back seat. “We have her promise.”
If the aunties were coming, I worried about delays. A requisite lineup of goodbyes with the fourteen women, including Ma, where each was certain to have some piece of sage advice and, possibly, an object of great importance I had to bring.