Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials

by Ovidia Yu

  “Is he good?” Aunty Lee thought you could never know too many doctors.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t go through with it. It was some time ago, before I married Mycroft.”

  “You were having health problems?”

  “No—I was thinking about getting enhancements. Some enhancements, some reductions, some adjustments . . . just the basic package. But in the end I decided against doing it at Dr. Yong’s clinic.”

  “You weren’t comfortable with Dr. Yong?”

  “My friends said it’s a lot cheaper in Korea.” Cherril did not look up from arranging the little glasses of juice in the bowl of ice.

  Aunty Lee studied Cherril with new curiosity. Even her sharp eyes told her nothing about whether the younger woman had received her assets from God or a plastic surgeon. But Aunty Lee would have plenty of time to find out more about her new partner. Now she had a party full of interesting people to examine. Mabel Sung herself, for example. Studying Mabel Sung’s appearance with some attention, Aunty Lee could not see any signs of either enhancement or reduction, not even where these procedures might most usefully be applied. Mabel’s whole look said, “I am more powerful and important than you, fear and respect me!” yet she was nodding docilely as she listened to the long-haired woman.

  “That PRC woman with your Dr. Yong. Do you know who she is?”

  “Sorry, never saw her before. And he’s not my Dr. Yong.”

  Aunty Lee felt something about the tall, long-haired woman was out of place. It was not wrong or even unpleasant, just not quite right. This was not any kind of supernatural intuition. Consciously cooking to please others had conditioned Aunty Lee to register the tiniest variations in how people (and their food) looked, sounded, and smelled. Though not always aware of what triggered it, she could sense when something was out of place. Like sweet tapioca paste that had been stored in a jar formerly containing clove or garlic oil, there was something about Dr. Yong’s woman friend that didn’t fit here. Or perhaps it was Dr. Yong himself who was out of place . . . ?

  Mabel Sung left them, waving a vague “I’ll be right back” at all her guests before heading toward the stairs to the main house. Edmond Yong and the PRC woman continued talking in low voices. Aunty Lee edged closer to the pair in much the same way she would have turned up the volume on her television at home. Where was Nina when she needed her?

  Another young woman walked up and joined them, grabbing and squeezing Dr. Yong’s arm in a playful greeting.

  “Drinks? Edmond? What about your friend? Hi, I don’t think we’ve been introduced. My name is GraceFaith Ang. I work with Mabel and Sharon and I’m also a member of Never Say Die, so you could say I’ve got a double reason for being here today!”

  The woman said something to Edmond Yong and walked away, ignoring GraceFaith, who made a humorous moue.

  “She doesn’t like other people talking to you? Who is she?”

  “She’s just a business contact,” Edmond Yong said. “Nobody important.”

  “Important enough for you to invite to a private party,” GraceFaith said, her playful manner dropped. “Does Mabel know you brought a stranger to her house?”

  “Wen Ling is not a stranger. In fact she came to meet Mabel. It’s a potential business arrangement, but right now it’s still confidential,” Dr. Yong said.

  GraceFaith immediately switched into coy girlish mode and shrieked demands for information but Edmond Yong walked away. At least Aunt Lee had learned the long-haired woman’s name.

  GraceFaith was the carefully turned-out young woman who had come to Aunty Lee’s Delights on Mabel Sung’s behalf to commission the brunch buffet. Despite Aunty Lee’s attempts to push her superspicy sotong balls and unagi otak, they had settled on a fairly conventional menu.

  “Some of the guests are not so adventurous when it comes to seafood.” GraceFaith explained.

  “Vegetarian?” Aunty Lee guessed. Inspired by an American vegetarian acquaintance, she had recently started experimenting with vegetarian versions of traditional Peranakan dishes.

  “No, of course not! All the people coming are Christians!”

  Aunty Lee was always open to learning new things about her customers’ beliefs.

  “Some Hindus and Buddhists are vegetarian for religious reasons but there are vegetarian Christians too, right?”

  “Oh, I daresay there are some weirdos. But don’t worry, you can prepare normal food. Lennie would scream if anybody tried to make him eat vegetarian!”

  “And Lennie is . . .”

  “Leonard is Mabel’s son.” GraceFaith lowered her voice slightly. “He is having some health issues, so praying for him is the main focus of Never Say Die now.”

  Aunty Lee had heard of Never Say Die, a group that conducted focused prayer and active healing sessions. Indeed her late husband had been invited to join the group after his cancer was diagnosed but had dismissed them as “rich camels.”

  “I remember you, you came to my shop to make the booking for Mabel,” Aunty Lee said to GraceFaith. “You look very nice, by the way. So many young girls these days don’t bother to dress up nicely. Just now you said you are part of that Never Die group. What is wrong with you?”

  “Never Say Die. It’s a prayer and healing group that Mabel joined when her son got sick. She got the staff at the law firm to join too, to pray for him.” GraceFaith’s eyes roamed the growing number of guests as she spoke till they settled on Henry Sung, who was talking to an older woman at the foot of the stairs. Henry was still holding the tray of food his wife had prepared for their son. Mabel was nowhere to be seen.

  “Excuse me.”

  As she watched GraceFaith heading toward them Aunty Lee wondered why the woman Henry Sung was talking to looked so familiar. The woman caught Aunty Lee’s eye and waved at her with apparent delight, gesturing for her to join them. Aunty Lee waved back but stayed put and tried to look busy. She would try to recall the woman’s name before they met up.

  6

  Sudden Death

  Looking back on events later, Aunty Lee decided the real excitement of the day had begun with the commotion at the back gate. There was shouting followed by a painful crash as Henry Sung dropped the tray of food he was balancing on the stair rail. Aunty Lee winced for her dishes but hurried away to the gate which Edmond Yong was trying to slide shut despite the man’s arm caught in its heavy metal frame.

  GraceFaith ran up and pulled him away. “Stop it. Edmond, are you mad? Stop it!”

  “He’s a troublemaker,” Edmond Yong said.

  “You’re going to break his arm! Stop it!” GraceFaith pushed Edmond Yong away and released the man’s arm. “What do you want? This is a private function.”

  The newcomer also looked familiar to Aunty Lee. Was this the beginning of Alzheimer’s? Aunty Lee put the thought aside as she pushed her way through the murmuring guests to get a better look at him. Yes, the man definitely looked familiar, but unlike the woman with Henry Sung, he did not seem to recognize her.

  “I need to speak to Mr. or Mrs. Sung,” the man said. “I tried calling their offices but I couldn’t get through to them. It’s about a friend of mine who’s missing. He was working on a project here. His name is Benjamin Ng.”

  “No one here by that name,” Edmond Yong said. He sounded like a schoolboy bully. Aunty Lee thought he had probably been bullied in school and was getting his own back. “You are trespassing. You better just get out of here before we call the police!”

  “Wait. Please,” the man said. “I know he was here working on something. Is he still here? I just need to reach him. Or can they get a message to him at least?”

  “What is the message?” Aunty Lee asked helpfully and hopefully. She had no idea who Benjamin Ng might be but she intended to find out.

  The man turned to her, but before he could answer, GraceFaith pushed him out and shut and locked the gate.

  “Come on, the food will get cold and then everything will be wasted,” she said, sounding l
ike a bossy school prefect.

  Sharon said, “I don’t believe it. She’s got the key to the back gate but I’ve got to phone the house if I want to drive in. Can you believe that? Anybody would think she’s the daughter of the house! You know, GraceFaith got Mabel all worked up before the party because there was algae in the pool. I told Mabel nobody was going to swim, but of course she didn’t listen to me. Now look. After all that fuss nobody is swimming and nobody is eating.”

  It was obvious to Aunty Lee that people had, in fact, been eating. Her buffet was already looking tired in parts. The nasi lemak had been a great hit. The advantage of a nasi lemak buffet was that as long as the rice was kept steaming hot, everything else—crunchy anchovies and peanuts, folded omelets, otak, fried chicken chops, and fried fish fillets—could be kept warm on heaters. Aunty Lee took pride in her rice soaked in coconut cream before it was steamed with knotted bundles of her homegrown pandan (screw pine) leaves and crushed stalks of lemongrass. For today’s buffet, Aunty Lee had included chicken frankfurters, fried fish cakes, and luncheon meat as well as a vegetable curry that food purists would have objected to. Still, these side dishes had come to be part of the Singapore nasi lemak experience and Aunty Lee believed the best menu was one that suited dishes to the tastes of the eaters. And though it was not part of nasi lemak, guests were clearly enjoying Aunty Lee’s special chicken buah keluak.

  “We should let Mabel and Henry know somebody is looking for them,” Aunty Lee said.

  “Why?” Sharon asked. “Why should they be bothered just because some nutcase is bugging them?” she added as GraceFaith joined them.

  “Sharon’s always so intense,” GraceFaith said. “I’m not criticizing you, of course. That’s what Mabel always says: ‘Sharon is so intense.’ The problem with some clients is they have no respect for boundaries.”

  “I have to get something else for Lennie,” Henry Sung said, looking helplessly at the buffet spread. He picked up a fried chicken wing and looked at it, then put it back on the warmer. The tray he was holding was smeared with food and there were splashes of gravy on his trousers. Aunty Lee saw Nina and Cherril cleaning up the rest of the mess by the steps.

  “I’ll take care of that, Dad. Go and change before Mabel sees you.” Sharon Sung took the tray from her father.

  “Let me do that for you,” GraceFaith said.

  Sharon snatched the tray back from her without answering.

  About the same height as GraceFaith, Sharon looked much thinner in a black dress and pumps. Yet GraceFaith seemed more comfortable in her body than Sharon was as she smiled, shrugged, and moved away.

  Sharon arranged several bowls on her tray and saw Aunty Lee watching her.

  “I don’t suppose you remember me. I’m Sharon Sung. I was in school with Mathilda.”

  Sharon Sung had red bloodshot eyes. Aunty Lee hoped that Mathilda, her stepdaughter, was getting more sleep than this young woman.

  “Will he eat chicken buah keluak? It’s my special dish.”

  “He asked for it, apparently. I don’t know if he wants to eat it or throw it at the maids.”

  Aunty Lee watched as Sharon ladled chicken buah keluak into a bowl and added it to her tray along with a plate of rice with fried chicken drumsticks and fried anchovies. She would have made a good cook, Aunty Lee thought, seeing how she instinctively arranged the food to its advantage. Too many cooks forgot that presentation was part of preparation.

  “I don’t see why everybody makes such a big fuss about buah keluak. People only think it’s so special because they have to make an effort to dig it out of the shell, which means they have to slow down and taste what they’re eating. Otherwise they just shovel the food in without tasting it!”

  Sharon spoke fast. She made Aunty Lee think of a student trying to get attention by making smart-aleck comments. “I don’t know why I’m bothering. Once when he didn’t like the dinner the maid prepared, he phoned KFC to come and deliver. Dad scolded him for wasting money and Len said Dad should take it out of the maids’ salary because if they cooked better he wouldn’t have had to order in!” Sharon laughed awkwardly.

  Mathilda had already been away at Warwick University when Aunty Lee married her father, but home on vacation, she had hosted a school gathering at the Binjai Park house. Aunty Lee remembered one of the girls saying loudly, “Just wait until that woman has a baby and your dad leaves everything to it instead of you!” followed by that same awkward laugh. Aunty Lee had not been hurt by the girl’s words. She knew other people were probably thinking far worse things.

  In fact she liked Sharon Sung for saying what others didn’t.

  “This is supposed to be a law-firm party, right? I mean this is supposed to be to celebrate me becoming partner, right? So I thought I should dress like a law partner. I don’t know why some people seem to think that just because a party is held in somebody’s home, it must be supercasual. Maybe we should have put down a dress code on the invitation. But then if it’s a law-firm party, you assume that people are going to know how to dress, right?”

  Sharon might be trying to make her colleagues feel uncomfortable about dressing up, but GraceFaith, the only one in hearing range, smiled serenely and fluffed out her hair.

  While talking, Sharon kept one arm folded protectively across her stomach, palm cupping the elbow of her other arm as she emphasized her words with jerks of the plate. Her defensive body language reminded Aunty Lee of her domestic helper, Nina, when she had first came to work for her. At that time Nina’s previous experiences had taught her to be afraid of everything and everyone in Singapore. Now, of course, Nina was not afraid of anyone or anything, even telling off her employer when she felt the need.

  Sharon scooped up some of the buah keluak gravy in a spoon and tasted it.

  “Why did you do that? Isn’t that for Lennie?” GraceFaith stepped up.

  “I always taste food I’m serving,” Sharon said. “It’s a personal rule. Then nobody can blame me if something’s wrong with it.”

  “I do the same thing!” Aunty Lee said.

  “That’s what makes you a good cook.”

  Aunty Lee could also tell that Sharon was trying to be “nice.” And it was obvious from her body language that this unfamiliar behavior made her uncomfortable. Her voice had the high artificial note people adopt to talk to strange babies, her shoulders were tense, and her smile was almost a grimace.

  “I hope your brother likes it.”

  At a safe distance, Aunty Lee followed Sharon up the steps to the main house. If anyone asked she would say she was looking for the toilet. But it was curiosity about Leonard Sung that was really driving her.

  “Oh, Rosie, so nice to see you again. You don’t remember me? It’s Doreen, lah.”

  It was the familiar-looking woman. Of course Aunty Lee knew Doreen Choo. They were not close friends. But as their generation started dropping off, the survivors drew closer naturally. But—

  “I had a little work done,” Doreen said. “Looks good, doesn’t it?”

  “You mean plastic surgery? I heard it’s dangerous, right? Didn’t some famous writer go for chin tuck and then die of heart attack?”

  “I also go for tai chi meditation. No need to do anything, just imagine the moves. Can do it while watching k-drama.” (Aunty Lee nodded agreeably though she did not understand why women like Doreen were so fond of Korean TV miniseries. Wasn’t real life far more fun even if the characters were not as good looking?) “Are you going up to the main house?”

  “Well, I was looking for the—”

  “Me too. Let’s take the lift. Just one person; I always feel bad, so you come with me.”

  The little chairlift ran up the slope alongside the stone steps and into the house, not stopping till it reached the second floor.

  “We should have pressed ‘one.’”

  “The toilet up here is nicer. Got real flowers instead of plastic like downstairs.”

  “Shh—” Aunty Lee heard something.
<
br />   “Dad, you have to do something about Mabel!” It was Sharon’s voice, coming from one of the rooms. It was harder to make out Henry’s mumbled response.

  It was interesting, Aunty Lee thought, that while Mabel’s daughter addressed her by name, her husband called her “Mum.” Aunty Lee would not like to be called “Mum” by a man who had to be at least seventy.

  “We shouldn’t stand here listening,” Doreen said.

  “Then how will we hear anything?” Aunty Lee asked reasonably and very quietly.

  “I can’t hear anything anyway. I got my eyes fixed, so now I can see better, but I still cannot hear properly.”

  “What did you do to your eyes?” Aunty Lee asked. “Cataract removal, is it?”

  “Cataract and some kind of corny transplant. Henry got that young doctor of his to do it for me.”

  “That Dr. Yong that’s looking after his son? I thought Henry Sung is a doctor, right? Why can’t he take care of his own son?”

  “Henry is a very good doctor but we are all getting on a bit, so they have that boy here to take care of the daily things. And also he is in Mabel’s prayer and healing group, so she can keep an eye on him and everybody is happy.”

  “He prays while operating, ah? Like that’s how to concentrate? Must be like talking to God on mobile phone while driving, right?”

  “No lah! Other people pray while he operates, lor. And it is not just praying, they are very scientific. Last time Mabel told us about this man in America who was cured of stage-four liver cancer by Plácido.”

  “Plácido Domingo?” Aunty Lee hazarded a guess. “One of those man singers who sings Christmas songs?”

  “Maybe. Oh, I don’t know. My ears are not yet fixed to hear properly. I was supposed to have some hearing thing put in, then the clinic at BTP burned down so it was postponed until I don’t know when. Ah, GraceFaith. Come here. You must tell my friend Rosie about that man cured by Plácido. You know, that one Mabel was talking about. I must stay up here in the air-con for a while. I can’t stand the heat. I don’t see why people have parties outside in Singapore. Even Lee Kuan Yew uses air-con.” It being a truth acknowledged among Singaporeans if not universally that their country’s first prime minister could do no wrong.