“Isaac,” Rose said with a laugh, ruffling his hair. “Looks like you’ve made a new tennis friend. But you need to get home and have a bath. Why don’t you pick out a bun to buy while I have a chat with Serena and then we’ll go?”
Isaac’s frown persisted as he said, “Okay,” and trudged off to look at the shelves of buns.
Rose gave me an apologetic smile. “Sorry. It’s actually amazing to see him talk so much to someone. I wasn’t lying when I said he’s shy.”
“No problem,” I said. “I love talking about tennis.”
“That’s great to hear because that’s all Isaac talks about.” She shook her head as though she wished otherwise.
“Mummy, I want this one!” Isaac said, pointing at the tray full of cocktail buns.
“Okay, munchkin. Let’s see what else we can get.”
Ten minutes later, Rose and her son left the bakery with a small bag of buns while I stared at a fifty dollar note in my hand. Since I’d used my own money to pay for the baby formula, I swapped the fifty for a twenty, ten, and five in the cash register and stuffed the bills into my pants pocket for safekeeping.
The rest of my shift flew by, as uneventful as possible, with a handful of customers coming and going without drama. Mum returned at 2:00 p.m. on the dot.
“Thanks, sweetie. There’s a letter for you. I forgot to tell you before. I left it on the dining table,” she told me as she took my place at the counter.
“Okay. Thanks, Mum.”
I bounded up the stairs, two steps at a time, wondering what kind of letter someone would send me. My shoulders sagged in disappointment when I got to the table and discovered a standard letter of farewell from school, reminding us to return all our school library books, something I’d already done long ago. I stuffed the letter back into the envelope and dragged my tired legs toward my room.
On the way past Max’s room, I couldn’t resist shouting, “You’re dead for making me take the shift.”
“We’ll see about that after your failed strawberry-choc custard tarts,” he shot back.
Oops. I’d forgotten the details of our bet. The loser took all shifts during Mum’s lunch breaks for the month, excluding the days we had work. Not fun. But I couldn’t motivate myself to start another test batch of tarts right now. The prospect of having to clean up again made me woozy. Maybe after a nap.
I collapsed onto my bed, intent to crawl beneath the blanket and rest. As I threw the covers up and kicked my leg over, something sharp dug into my skin. “Oww.” My hand searched blindly for the offending object, and I grabbed it.
It was the magazine. I’d almost forgotten about it.
Getting into a more suitable sitting position, I ripped open the shrink plastic and pulled out the mag. It smelled nice. Not as great as freshly baked buns, but still nice.
I flipped through the pages until the full-paged interview of Aiden popped up. A large photo of him in a plain white T-shirt and shorts took up the two-page spread. Casual. Cute. Laughing. Holding someone’s hand.
My heart lurched to a stop as my eyes jumped to the girl next to him in the photo. She had waist-length, strawberry blonde hair. And she was beautiful. With rosy cheeks and a smile showing pearly white, perfectly straight teeth. Not an eyebrow hair out of place over her big, doe-like eyes. Model-like beauty. She probably was one. A lot of pros dated them after all.
Off to the side of the image, next to the loved-up couple, were the words, She’s my biggest inspiration on and off the court, accompanied by huge quotation marks. What did that mean? I scanned the page to get more context.
Q: Aiden, who would you say is your biggest inspiration?
A: My girlfriend, Tammy (Tamara Patrickson). I’m the luckiest guy alive to have met the most gorgeous girl ever. She works hard for her job, and that teaches me to work hard for mine as well. If I ever need help, she’s there for me. What would I be without her? I don’t even know. All I know is that—
I closed my eyes, gripping the page so hard that it crinkled. Taking a deep breath, I let go and slapped the magazine shut. You’re being an idiot, Serena. I opened my eyes again, unable to look away from the front cover of the mag.
Aiden Andale. The current youngest tennis player in the ATP top-twenty rankings at the tender age of eighteen years old. He’d made it as far as the quarter-finals in the US Open this year. There had been speculation about him having a girlfriend, but he’d managed to keep it all under wraps. Well, not anymore.
Until now, I’d convinced myself I was a big fan, not some love-sick girl crushing on a celebrity.
I walked to the bookshelf in the corner of my bedroom. Dragging out a thick album from the top shelf, I placed it on the bed and riffled through it until I reached the middle of it. My thumb slid over the plastic covering the tiny instant photo. Me, with my awkward half-smile, and Aiden with his broad grin.
My stomach clenched tight as I stared at his smile in the photo, trying not to compare it to the smile he’d worn in that magazine with the beautiful girl. Maybe I should have asked him for his number back then. Maybe we would’ve been best friends by now if we’d stayed in touch.
Ugh. What was wrong with me? Following any news about Aiden Andale. Now I was jealous because he had a girlfriend? Meanwhile Mum tried to set me up with her customer’s sons.
I closed the album and went to slot it back onto the shelf. Then I crammed the magazine onto the bottom row of my bookshelf. I would urge Liz to take it away from my prying eyes next time she came over. Far, far away.
Be more positive, Serena. It wasn’t all bad that I’d bought the mag. I did get a free expensive drink bottle. Plus I got to see Aiden Andale happy and in love. If I could see that as a positive. Maybe one day, I would find that kind of love with someone too.
I slumped back onto my bed, pulled the blanket covers over my head, and squeezed my eyes shut.
I could only hope.
Chapter 6
One year later (19 years old)
The last thing Dad made me promise him before he passed away was to study hard and be happy. Had he meant if I studied hard, I would be happy, or as two separate things? Study hard, but also be happy? Whatever his stance had been, he wasn’t here to tell me now. Mum’s stance, however…
“Aiya. You should stick it out for a few more years,” she told me for the hundredth time.
After locking the front door of our shop, I flipped the sign so that the “Sorry, We’re Closed” message was visible from the outside. Then I pulled the blinds shut. “What if I really don’t want to, Mum?” Like, really, really didn’t want to?
Mum collected all the empty trays from the transparent display cabinets, leaving me to get all the leftover buns from every other cabinet. She stacked the trays onto the counter and gave me a reproachful glare. “You’ll regret quitting just to make life easier. You’ll be making a big mistake, Serendipity Tsang.”
She only ever used my full name like that when she meant business. She was basically saying, You’re stuffed if you do this.
She was probably right.
I sighed, picking up the remaining red bean buns with a pair of tongs and dumping them into a plastic bag. We’d sell them tomorrow for a discounted price. I dropped the bag onto the counter on top of the trays.
“Even if I finish my law degree, it’ll be hard to find a job. Maybe it’ll be better if I just help out at the bakery more?” Though the workload wasn’t easy, I’d choose baking any day over boring lecture slides and sleep-inducing research assignments.
“What are you talking about?” Mum’s voice rose to a higher pitch. Uh-oh. “You want to drop out to work at the bakery?”
“Never mind.” Good thing I didn’t mention more of my great ideas, like my silly childhood dream. That would never go down well. “I was just joking.” No, I wasn’t, but I had to change the topic while I could. “By the way—who was that guy who came just before closing time? He seemed really friendly.”
Mum’s face instantly brig
htened, her eyes rounded and eyebrows arching high. “That was Kelvin Lee. His mum comes to the bakery a lot too. He’s studying at the same uni as you, you know.”
I paused as my tongs clamped around a sausage bun. “Are you trying to set me up again?”
“No. He’s a nice boy, and you two could be good friends.”
Yeah, right. Good friends, my ass. She was setting me up. I placed the bun into the plastic bag. “Can you stop trying to find me a guy, Mum? I can do that myself if I wanted to.”
“But I can find you a nice Chinese boyfriend—”
I raised the pair of tongs to point at her. “No, Mum. Just no.”
“But you’re lonely and—”
“No.” I groaned. “I can do whatever I want with uni and whatever I want with guys. Stop being a busybody.”
Mum exhaled loudly, glowering at me. It was the same kind of look she made when she took buns out from the oven and found that one wasn’t perfectly presentable. A showcase of eternal disappointment. “Fine then.” She pointed threateningly at me. “Live a lonely life by yourself!” She stormed off and slammed the kitchen door shut, leaving me to mull over what had just happened.
Live a lonely life? Was that how she saw it? Between Mum’s expectations and my promise to Dad, there wasn’t much room left for a guy in my life. Besides, I wasn’t desperate. Maybe if I was twenty-nine, not nineteen. Why was she so adamant to play matchmaker? Ugh.
I packed the rest of the unsold food by myself. A few minutes into my angry bag-stuffing, the kitchen door creaked open. I half expected it to be Mum, back for round two, but it was Max who slipped in, his hair sticking up in odd directions. Freshly woken from his nap, no doubt. Lucky him.
“What happened?” he said, stifling a yawn. “I heard Ma shouting.” Max liked calling our parents by their Cantonese equivalents, just like he preferred me calling him Gor Gor. Ma was Mum, Ba was Dad.
“Sorry to wake you from your beauty sleep,” I sneered.
“Meh.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Any more sleep and it would’ve been a nightmare.”
“Reality looks pretty much a nightmare anyway.” I shoved the last of the buns into another plastic bag and carried the whole tray of them into the kitchen.
Max followed me. “What’s got you in a twist, Dippy?”
“Uni, Mum, life,” I muttered, placing the plastic bags of buns into the cupboard.
“Uni,” he repeated in disbelief. He adjusted his glasses and squinted at me. “Thought you were acing uni, unlike me.”
“Acing it doesn’t mean I like it.” I stalked back to the storefront and hefted the empty trays to bring them to the kitchen. I chucked them in the sink and started scrubbing one furiously, a pathetic outlet for all my frustration.
“Woah, take it easy,” Max said after I’d cleaned three of them at top speed. He helped stack the washed trays on the dish rack. “Why don’t you like uni?”
“It’s not what I thought it would be.” And I hadn’t really known what I’d wanted to do fresh out of school, so the obvious choice had been to take something academic to make Mum happy. Except that had backfired now.
“So what do you want to do? Drop out?” Max asked.
I massaged my temple with a wet hand as a throbbing pain began to form. “Maybe. I don’t know. Mum’s already countering everything I say.”
“Obviously,” he said. “You need to butter her up first before you break the news.”
“Butter her up? What’s next? Put her in the oven?”
“Ha ha.” He slapped me on the back. “Welcome to the real world, Mui Mui.” Little sister. Of course the only time he called me that was to make fun of me—not that calling me Dippy wasn’t making fun of me. But he tended to use Mui Mui whenever he wanted to highlight that I was the younger, inexperienced one.
I huffed out an exasperated breath, put the last washed tray on the dish rack, and made my way to the staircase. The telltale thumping from behind told me Max was still following. “Speaking of the real world, what’s got Mum in a temper today?” Despite her constantly finding new guys for me to “befriend,” I’d never once set her off so badly for telling her not to. Something else triggered her mood. Unless it was the combination of me wanting to quit uni and not wanting a boyfriend.
“Don’t you know? Not very observant, Dippy.”
We reached the second floor landing and I headed for our smaller kitchen. “What is it? Another Mr Zheng vying for her affections?”
A year ago, a persistent single man Mum referred to as Mr Zheng had visited our shop daily, chatting her up. But unlike her playing the wingman in my love life, Mum was happy being staunchly Team Forever Alone when it came to herself. Or more like Team Never Betraying Dad. Last December, Mr Zheng had left our bakery, shoulders sagging and empty-handed. I hadn’t seen him since.
Max collapsed into a dining chair. “Hah, maybe. But that’s not what’s bothering her.”
I pulled open the fridge and scoured for a simple meal to heat up, finding takeaway boxes with some leftover steamed fish, tofu, and rice. That’d do. I scooped some of each into a bowl, set the timer to microwave the food, and then rounded the kitchen bench toward Max.
“So,” I said, plopping into a chair beside him, “what’s bothering Mum then?”
He shook his head, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. Without them on, he looked strangely different. Like another person impersonating him. My brother but not quite my brother. “You really don’t remember? It’s their wedding anniversary today.”
A painful lump of guilt tightened my chest. “Oh my gosh. I’m an idiot. I totally forgot.” Mum always got extra emotional during special occasions like anniversaries and birthdays without Dad. That explained everything, especially the whole “live a lonely life” part she’d shouted.
“Hey,” Max said. “Did Ba make you promise him something before…?” He trailed off, unable to finish.
Before he died. That was what he didn’t want to say—or couldn’t say. Sometimes Max had more trouble expressing his feelings than me. His way of coping was sitting in front of a computer screen for hours until he fell asleep. Yeah, not healthy. “Did Dad ask you to promise him anything?” I questioned in return.
Max’s throat bobbed. He slid his glasses on again, back to looking like himself. My not-so-brotherly gor gor. “That’s not important,” he said so quickly that I picked it up as a lie. “What did you promise Ba?”
With the way he brushed off my question, I doubted he would spill anything to me. Yet he still expected me to share things with him? Typical. But I’d learned some time ago from a certain someone that sharing feelings actually helped. And who knew? Maybe sharing with him would convince him to share with me.
Pain twisted inside me as I thought back to the last time Dad spoke properly to me. “I promised him I would study hard.” And be happy, something I still tried to figure out the exact meaning of.
“Hah. Study. At least one of us is doing a good job then.”
“What—”
The microwave beeped.
I jumped up to retrieve my food, all the while trying to decipher Max’s words. What did he mean? What had he promised Dad? Something he hadn’t been doing a good job of… To make sure Mum stayed happy? I could help him with that. Unless it was to hook up with Kelvin Lee. That was another story.
And it wasn’t like I was doing a good job keeping my own promise. Study hard, yet here I was telling Mum I wanted to drop out.
As I carefully took the bowl out of the microwave with a hand towel, steam rising out, I imagined Dad’s reaction to my predicament with uni. Encouraging Dad would say, You can do it, Sere. Discouraging Dad would say, Your ma’s right, Sere. Think about what you’re doing.
Which version would he say if he were here now? I placed my meal on the dining table and slumped back in my chair. My breath came out in uneven gasps, catching Max’s attention. His eyes bored into mine, a sad, knowing look in them.
“I miss Dad,�
� I choked out.
Max turned his face away, staring off into the kitchen. Did he also picture Dad cooking there like he used to every day?
“Me too, Dippy,” he finally whispered. “I miss him too.”
I stretched my legs out under the desk and rolled my shoulders. How long could two hours possibly last? Very long if it was this lecture, apparently. One hour in and it felt like a lifetime had passed.
Angling my neck around the tall guy sitting in front of me, I scrambled to copy the notes, my fingers typing on my laptop keyboard at lightning speed. Our lecturer was explaining new boring terminology. With the notes, at least I could search the terms up afterwards. At nine in the morning, it all sounded like “blah blah blah” to me.
As soon as I’d jotted down the last bit of his explanation, the contents of the projection screen faded into the next slide. A daunting new heading materialised in large font. Group Assessment 1 (weight: 30%). “Now, I’ve made it easier for everyone by grouping you randomly into pairs,” the lecturer began.
Grouping? Randomly? Oh, no. Not this. Randomly assigned group assessments were the worst. It was like a lottery. You had a slim chance of winning a good group member, but you’d more likely lose and get the useless ones who contributed nothing.
“If you log in to your accounts on the student portal, you’ll find your partner’s name under the allocated assessment folder.”
The lecturer droned on as I opened up an internet browser on my laptop and navigated the student portal, searching for the dreaded group assessment. After several clicks of my mouse, the guidelines of Assessment One popped up on my screen. A few words stood out to me on the core list of objectives marked off for a high distinction. Because a HD was, as always, my aim.
Shows advanced ability to work together as a group. Essay highlights all required information in significant detail. And on it went.
Whose brilliant idea was this? An essay written by two random people together. Great start to the uni year. Not. Could I quit now? But I still hadn’t come close to an idea to “butter Mum up” as Max had put it. At the rate my ideas were going, I may as well put myself in an oven to roast.
Chances for Serendipity Page 5