by Remy Lai
Emergencies remind me of Staying Home Alone for Good Sons Who Listen to Their Mothers.
I throw open the cabinet that has cans of tea. I grab the only coffee can, which is a bit rusty. Mama brought it from our old home.
Two hundred dollars of emergency money. It’s shocking a plumber costs that much, but that’s definitely enough for the remaining eight Pie in the Sky cakes that I have to make.
I tuck five ten-dollar bills into my wallet. It feels heavy. Not with cash, but with wads and wads of useless receipts.
I stash the coffee can back in the cabinet.
This is not stealing. This is borrowing for an emergency. I’ll return it as soon as I get my allowance. I repeat these three sentences until Yanghao comes back and fills my brain with his chattering about Anna and Ginger.
“We can make tiramisu tomorrow,” I interrupt him. “I forgot I still have money in my drawer.” There’s no point telling anyone about the emergency money.
Luckily, he hasn’t found out about my loan. He’s actually pointing at the burn mark on the table. Patches of the red ink have rubbed off. Slivers of light wood shine through.
I’d have killed him if my heart hadn’t stopped.
“Better cover it before Mama finds out,” Yanghao says.
When my heart starts pumping again and I’m resurrected from the dead a minute later, I get the marker and block out the spots of light.
33
34
While we wait for the bus, Yanghao drones on and on about Sarah. Sarah said this book is very good. Sarah said that movie is funny. Sarah said the sun rises in the east. I tell him to whisper, but then he sounds like a snake hissing and about to bite. People at the stop are staring. I tell him to shut it, or we’re not going to get coffee for the tiramisu.
We don’t have any coffee at home. Mama doesn’t drink it because it makes her hands tremble and then it’s hard to make cakes. The grocery store has instant coffee, but Papa said tiramisu needs the best coffee, which the instant kind he usually drank is not. So he’d gone to that café, the one where Mama later broke the big news to Yanghao and me, and bought three cups of good coffee. He’d taken all of us along, too, and while everyone else ate their egg tarts, Papa and I watched the good coffee trickle out of a big, noisy machine.
I’ve spotted the same machine inside Barker Bakes, next to the display case, but getting the good coffee there is risky because Mama may find out, and then Yanghao and I will have to tell a real lie about why we bought coffee. Luckily, as we’re standing in the bus station racking our brains, two policemen with coffee cups pass by.
I walk in the direction the policemen came from, and Yanghao follows. There must be another place that sells good coffee nearby. Sure enough, there’s a little cart with the same noisy machine.
“Espresso,” I say to Yanghao, handing him a ten-dollar bill. “Get three cups.”
I could have bought the coffee, but the man behind the counter might ask why a kid is buying bitter black coffee, which isn’t a crime, but then I’d have to reply in English. Besides, Yanghao is happy to do it. He skips all the way to the cart.
Yanghao’s English still sounds like our CR-V when it needed a tune-up, but he keeps repeating himself until the man gets it.
* * *
Today, only one rule is added. Rules for Making Cakes number twenty-three: Yanghao is not to make poop-shaped cakes.
The coffee turns us into vampires.
Not really. Not the sleeping-in-a-coffin part. Or the blood- sucking part. Just the staying-up-at-night part.
I finally understand why the name “tiramisu” means “pick-me-up,” to cheer someone up or make someone more energetic, and why when Papa and I made tiramisu, he let Yanghao and me have only one slice each.
At about midnight I give up staring at the ceiling and stare at the TV instead. Yanghao joins me. It’s nothing but infomercials for a bunch of weird home appliances. If we had credit cards, we’d have bought an all-in-one rowing, cycling, jogging, weight-lifting machine; an all-in-one chopping, julienning, dicing gadget; a cloth so absorbent that if you wrap it around a grape, it will suck out all the moisture and you’ll get a raisin—all things to make your life awesome. I could have just told them to make cakes.
An infomercial comes on about a tree that has five different kinds of fruit growing on it, and I remember the tree I’m supposed to grow for Mrs. Lim.
“Yanghao, are any of those fruit on that tree a family? I need to bring a family tree tomorrow.”
His eyebrows take turns going up and down, like a seesaw, and I know I must be way off in my guess. “Family” must not have anything to do with fruit. But it’s too late. Yanghao falls off the sofa laughing and then rolls around on the floor cackling. He only shuts up when I warn that he’ll wake all the ghosts.
“Family,” Yanghao says, “is you, me, Mama, Papa, Ah-po, and Ah-gong. And Mango.”
“Ah,” I say. My homework is to make a chart that shows the people in my family, from the very old to the very young. I get up to go to the kitchen, where my backpack is, but Yanghao grabs my T-shirt.
“Where are you going?” His eyes are wide and darting left and right.
“I was only joking, dopey. There are no ghosts here.”
“I know!” he says, but when I continue to the kitchen, he leaps off the sofa and sticks to me like a sweaty T-shirt.
I don’t think there are ghosts in the house, but when Yanghao is scared, it gets me scared, so I let him be my shadow. I draw a family tree, which is easy because I did one in my old school some time ago. A time when Papa was still actually part of the tree. I cough to clear the lump in my throat and tell Yanghao to give me the Martian words to use.
I stare at “father” on my family tree. There has never been a word this familiar and this strange at the same time.
When we finish, Yanghao and I go back to watching TV. It’s the latest we have ever stayed up, and it is glorious. We are fools. Mama has been working this shift for two months, and we’ve only just thought of disobeying our bedtime.
At three in the morning, we shuffle back into bed because Mama gets off work in half an hour. I’m still awake when she comes home. She pads into the room, and I pretend to be asleep. I feel her kiss me on the forehead and tuck my hands under my blanket. I hear her do the same for Yanghao. She yawns a big yawn and shuffles away. I peek one eye open and get a heart attack; she hangs her head so low her silhouette looks headless.
If only I could tell her about the cake making, then she could have a slice of pick-me-up.
35
In the morning, I pay the price for last night’s glory. I’m so sleepy I almost drown in my congee. Which doesn’t worry me as much as the possibility of Mama asking why I’m so tired.
It’s very hard keeping my eyes open during class. There’s little difference in how much I learn when I’m asleep or awake, but I don’t want the teachers to call on me. Besides, I have to be on my feet for social studies. I copy what Ben and all my other classmates-not-friends are doing and place my family tree on my desk. Then I join everyone else to roam around the classroom and study one another’s projects. Everyone else’s family trees are so much better than mine. They have color and photographs. Mine looks pitiful. Which is quite fitting, anyway, since my family tree is broken and forever missing an important branch.
But I’m too tired to dwell on this. While shuffling along like a zombie, I fall asleep and bump into someone in front of me.
Maybe I am a zombie. Or as scary as one. I’m definitely feeling as lifeless as one.
Thankfully, I don’t have enough energy to worry about Joe, and I shuffle back toward my desk. That’s when Ben’s project catches my eye.
Ben’s and his grandfather’s hands are all blurry, probably because they didn’t stop working their dough for the camera. But their smiles are as clear as the tears that have somehow formed in my eyes.
I immediately rub my eyes while pretending to yawn.
For the rest of scho
ol, I wonder if Ben’s grandfather, who looks even older than Ah-gong, is still actually on the family tree. Or has he been chopped off, too?
I also wish I had a photograph like Ben’s, of Papa and me making a cake. In English, there are things called past tense and present tense. Miss Scrappell and Anna talked about these before, and even though I still get confused sometimes, I can say I wish I’d known when Papa was still an is that he’d soon be a was. I’d have taken so many photographs. If I’d known, maybe I wouldn’t have been so ashamed of him and our cakes and done those terrible, shameful things. And now I wouldn’t be so ashamed of being ashamed.
Thinking these thoughts makes me have to pretend to yawn again, but luckily Ben distracts me by passing a note that says What is today’s cake?
I write back, Blueberry cheesecake.
Yummy!
Cool!
* * *
Yanghao also pays the price for last night’s coffee glory. When I meet him at the gates after school, he has a big red splotch on his shirt. I almost die, thinking he’s gotten hurt, but he says he nodded off during art class and spilled red watercolor paint on himself. I laugh and laugh because I’m too sleepy to differentiate funny from not funny.
“Jingwen, you’re a booger,” Yanghao says, running for the bus. “Hurry up, slow turtle. It’s blueberry cheesecake time!”
But after Mama leaves for work, I end up being the only one making blueberry cheesecake.
At least he’s not breaking any Rules for Making Cakes.
I don’t know how, but somehow, even though he isn’t helping at all, Yanghao gets flour on his cheeks. Little brothers are simply magnets for messes and troubles that big brothers have to clean up. I huff and use a damp paper towel to wipe his face. He doesn’t even stir. His flour face powder reminds me of that photograph of Ben and his grandfather.
All along I’ve been thinking Ben talks to me about cakes because he just likes eating them, like everyone else in the world, but maybe he likes making them just as much. Maybe cakes mean a lot to him because of his grandfather, just like with me and Papa.
* * *
The oven timer rings, jolting Yanghao awake. “Cakes!” he yells. I tell him to wipe his drool as I open the oven. A puff of smoke billows out, and the top of the cheesecake is burnt to a crisp. Coughing, I look up at the smoke alarm in the living room, right above the coffee table. If the alarm goes off, I’ll have to run over to Anna’s for help or call the police. Either way, in the end I’ll have to explain what caused the fire, and that’ll be the end of cake-baking magic.
But there’s no loud beeping. The only din comes from Yanghao.
My second blueberry cheesecake is perfect, but it turns out to be the kind of cake that’s two slices maximum. Anything more, and Yanghao and I would have puked. He gives Anna the two slices he has left.
I decide to give my two leftover slices to Ben, partly because cakes also mean a lot to him, and partly because the button on my shorts is already screaming for mercy. It won’t be nice if the cheesecake rots in my bag overnight and gives Ben the trots, so I pack the cakes into a plastic container and stash it next to the knob of butter behind the caramel-flavored milk boxes, to stuff into my bag in the morning when Mama isn’t looking.
36
But What Actually Happens on Friday Morning: I stop at hi.
Because what if he asks other questions? I won’t have the replies ready, and I’ll be staring at him like a frozen booger. I can’t possibly prepare all the questions and all the answers. The number of questions he could ask is infinite. My English is very, very finite.
So the cheesecake stays in my bag, and Miss Scrappell comes in to start the day with English. But when recess comes around, I’m still not brave enough to be an English-speaking booger, and I’m left alone in the classroom, with my lunch and the cheesecake. The cake doesn’t smell sour, so it should be safe to eat. I take my first spoonful and open the cookbook. I’ve read this book front to back a couple of times, but it’s better than staring at the empty room or looking out the window at the other happy students.
That’s when Ben comes back in. He says he forgot something—he didn’t say “something,” but another word I didn’t catch—and rummages in his bag. He glances at the cheesecake. “Cakes?” he asks.
I nod and pretend to be busy flipping pages. Offer him some, Jingwen. Come on! Come on!
Ben fishes out his wallet from his bag.
I get to the tiramisu page and remember how Yanghao spoke to the man behind the coffee cart. I cannot be lousier at speaking English than my little brother.
Ben nods and drags his chair to my desk. I hand him my unused fork. He takes a bite and looks at the open cookbook, his eyes focused on the cake pictures, not the words that would be Martian to him. I flip it to the first page and pretend to read it again. When I think he’s admired the pictures long enough, I flip the page. When we come to the page on Semolina Cake with Orange Syrup, Ben points to the picture and says, “This was my grandfather’s favorite cake.”
Was. Past tense.
My family was as sad as I was when Papa became a past tense, but knowing that someone else in the world, someone outside of the family bubble, has gone through a similar experience somehow feels different. Grandfathers and fathers are different, and I really don’t know much about Ben, but suddenly, in this vast universe, there’s someone who is different but the same as me.
Just knowing that someone else understands is enough.
“What is ‘fa-favorite’?” I ask.
“It means my grandfather liked this cake the best.”
After that, Ben and I finish the cheesecake without saying another word.
37
Chiffon cake isn’t more difficult to make than all the cakes Yanghao and I have made, but I rank it the seventh-hardest Pie in the Sky cake because of caramel sauce. When Papa and I made it, it took us three tries. I wonder how many Yanghao and I will need.
On the fourth try, we finally get the caramel sauce right, and Yanghao is in heaven. After the caramel has cooled, he keeps breaking rule number five and turning his fingers into caramel lollipops.
“Rule number five is for batter. This is not batter,” he says between licks. “Jingwen, from now on, let’s add caramel sauce to all the Pie in the Sky cakes. Imagine rainbow cake with caramel sauce.”
I pour the caramel sauce over the chiffon cake. “I’ve told you. Rainbow cake is not a Pie in the Sky cake.”
But he’s not listening.
38
Saturday and Sunday pause everything.
Luckily, Mama’s too tired to take Yanghao and me anywhere. I’ve been dreading another outing like last Saturday’s library trip.
So we stay in. Mama cooks and cleans. Yanghao reads The Little Prince. I flit between helping her, annoying him, and watching animal documentaries.
All the time, I wonder if the little prince and the pilot ever find their way home.
39
At the start of math class, Miss Scrappell says something that makes all my classmates-not-friends scuttle about. They chat excitedly as they drag their own chairs to other desks.
I’m the only one who’s still, like a broken-down car in the middle of a big, busy road. Most of my classmates-not-friends are now gathered in twos and threes. I have no idea what we’re doing, but I’m not supposed to do it alone.
Joe calls Ben and beckons him over. Max has already joined Joe at his table. Ben walks toward them, but he stops before he gets there and says something. I can’t hear him over the din. Neither can Joe and Max because they shout, “What?”
I wish I had a phone to take a picture of Joe and Max, looking like they’ve had a bucket of ice poured on them.
Ben turns to me. “Is that okay?”
Yes! Yes! Yes! I clear my throat. “Okay.”
Miss Scrappell talks some more, walking up and down the rows of tables. As she passes my desk, she places an envelope on it. The envelope is the long white kind that you k
now contains important letters like the phone bill or something from the bank. On it is typed Meixin Chen.
A letter for Mama? What did Miss Scrappell write to Mama about? That I’m failing class?
I slip the envelope into my bag. Miss Scrappell catches my gaze, glances at Ben, back at me, then turns to the board.
Among the Martian words on the board, I recognize these: Group, 2 to 3 students in a group, fractions and decimals, to be, math, in four weeks, you can make, or, whatever you want.
When Miss Scrappell whirls around to face the class again, she looks at me. I get the feeling she’s written all those detailed instructions just for me. I jot them down, even though I have no plan to look up those words. I don’t have time, not until I’ve made all the cakes.
I’m still on the second group when Ben rips a page off his notepad and hands it to me. He has copied all the words for me.
With cakes, nothing can go wrong.
40
But something does go wrong with cake number eight.
The chocolate raspberry torte looks perfect but ends up in the garbage because I used salt instead of sugar. And of all days, Yanghao chose today to not break rule number five: No sticking dirty fingers in the batter. By the time we cut the cake and take a bite and spit it out, it’s almost eight o’clock, and we don’t have enough raspberries to make another one.
Yanghao suggests we make a chocolate caramel torte.
“No, the Pie in the Sky torte is chocolate and raspberry.”
“Why raspberry? It’s sour. Caramel’s better.”