by Ovidia Yu
GraceFaith finally unlocked the door in response to Aunty Lee’s persistent knocking and calling after the lift deposited her on the seventeenth floor.
“What do you—”
“Good morning! I saw the light on, so I was sure somebody was already here. Is Sharon here also?”
GraceFaith, expecting a building technician or cleaner, was not prepared for Aunty Lee, who stepped swiftly past her and headed toward the only office with a light on.
It was clearly GraceFaith’s office and Aunty Lee saw at once that GraceFaith had not come in early to catch up on her work. The office was a chaos of box files, plastic bags, and papers. On one side of the desk was shoved a heap of desktop decorations with motivational messages and several pairs of high-heeled shoes. GraceFaith was wearing Crocs and looked as though she had been crying. The girl was packing up to leave, Aunty Lee saw.
“Sharon’s not here.” GraceFaith followed Aunty Lee into the room and sat down heavily on the chair by the door. Aunty Lee saw an empty Styrofoam cup and plastic salad box in the bin next to it. It looked like the remains of GraceFaith’s dinner from the night before. All this was out of character for such a fastidious girl. GraceFaith was exhausted, Aunty Lee realized, probably dazed from lack of sleep.
“You’re packing up your things,” Aunty Lee chirruped even more brightly than usual. “Are you leaving the company? I thought you loved working at Sung Law so much. What happened?”
“I got fired,” GraceFaith said dully. “What are you doing here?”
“My bill, for the catering.” Aunty Lee waved the invoice she had hurriedly scribbled in the car park to serve as her ticket onto the premises should one be needed. “For the party that day. I thought I would save you coming over to the café,” she chattered loudly. GraceFaith winced as though her head hurt. “You know they’ve made us close the kitchen, right? But of course, even with no customers coming in, I still have to pay rent or they will kick me out, so I need the money even more—”
It was not necessary to mention that since Aunty Lee had bought up several shop houses along the row Aunty Lee’s Delights stood on, she was her own landlord and hardly likely to evict herself.
“Oh—about the catering bill. Of course. But the thing is—”
GraceFaith had dark circles under her eyes. She had tried to disguise them with concealer but the thick artificial paste only made her look worse.
“It’s not that I want to chase you for the payment. But since I can’t open for business, I thought I might as well clear up all my back accounts.” Aunty Lee smiled encouragingly at GraceFaith. “Why did you get fired? After big boss died company closing down, is it?”
GraceFaith looked suspiciously at Aunty Lee but the old lady was all busybody curiosity of the most innocent kind. “Well, things are a bit complicated here right now. Not that Mabel left things in a mess—oh no. But handovers are always complicated, right? Now Sharon is the boss and she—”
“She’s jealous of having a pretty girl like you on the staff!” Aunty Lee crowed.
“Of course.” The jealousy of other females was something GraceFaith took for granted. But in such times of upheaval a little reinforcement was always welcome. “I’m sorry I can’t do anything for you. Sharon has frozen all the business accounts, even the petty cash and the charity donations. And she’s been letting people go—firing them—people who have been working here for her mother longer than she has! Even me, and I’m the one that’s been taking care of all her mother’s stuff for her. I offered to stay on until next month, just to explain things to her. I’m the only one who knows how all Mabel’s accounts work and even Sharon can’t figure them all out overnight. But Sharon said she’s cutting all unnecessary expenses. Honestly, I wouldn’t stay on even if she wanted me to. Can you believe she called me an unnecessary expense?”
“Change is always difficult,” Aunty Lee said in her best old-lady voice. “I’m sure something better will come along. And maybe not even another job—I remember you were getting along quite well with that nice young doctor at Mabel’s house that day?”
“Oh, Dr. Yong.” GraceFaith shook her head. This was obviously another sore point, though a minor one compared to Sharon. “Previously he used to come in all the time to talk to Mabel. I used to joke with her that he had a crush on her. It wasn’t true of course, but Mabel thought it was funny. I think they were discussing plans for her son Leonard’s treatment. They didn’t want Leonard to know they were talking about him, so they couldn’t meet at the house.”
“So now the poor boy is dead you don’t get a chance to see Dr. Yong anymore?”
“Oh, Edmond has still been coming to the office. But he only talks to Sharon.”
“Dr. Yong” had become “Edmond,” Aunty Lee noted. And there was a sour note in GraceFaith’s voice that Aunty Lee was quick to capitalize on.
“Maybe the young doctor has got a crush on Sharon!” she suggested with a gossipy nudge.
It worked.
“Oh, no way. I think Edmond’s trying to get her to pay the bills for Leonard’s treatment, what he did for Leonard previously. But good luck to him getting anything out of Sharon! She wouldn’t even give a severance package to people who have been working for her mother for over thirty years!”
“Anyway, if Dr. Yong was interested in Sharon he wouldn’t have brought his PRC girlfriend to the Sungs’ house that day.”
Aunty Lee had been wondering how to introduce the subject of Wen Ling. Would GraceFaith respond? And would she know who Aunty Lee was referring to? These days there were so many Mainland Chinese in Singapore, legally and otherwise. It was clear to Aunty Lee from the way GraceFaith twisted her hands and twitched her mouth that she had something to say but was not yet ready to say it. She added a little salt to her spiel.
“In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Dr. Yong is married to that China girl. These days so many men do that. Sometimes I think that’s so sad. Not for them of course. I’m sure they will be perfectly happy. But that some Singapore men have got no choice but to look overseas for wives because Singapore girls are too fussy and look down on them.”
Aunty Lee was only repeating what women’s lifestyle magazines had long trumpeted as the cause for the rising number of unmarried Singapore women. Singaporean men were looking elsewhere in the region for wives because they claimed Singapore women looked down on them. Singaporean women swore such men were only after subservient women who would stay home to produce meals and children. GraceFaith must have heard it before but still she leaped to Dr. Yong’s defense.
“That’s not true! Not in Dr. Yong’s case anyway. I mean he’s a doctor, of course he’s worth marrying. What he looks like is not so important because you know he’ll always have a job and can make a living. Anyway he’s not Singaporean, he’s Malaysian. He could easily have got his PR and citizenship when he was studying here but he didn’t because he would have had to do NS and he said that was a waste of time.”
Aunty Lee looked thoughtfully at GraceFaith. She felt sorry for the girl and there were so many things she could say to her about the qualities that made a man worth marrying. But this was not the time. Neither was it the time to go into why, despite his years in Singapore, Edmond Yong had not applied for the advantages becoming a permanent resident (PR) or citizen would bring him. True, that would have meant National Service (NS) as a medic. And Aunty Lee, of the generation of Singaporeans born before the independence of their country, did not think much of a man who begrudged spending that time.
“There’s some kind of business deal Sharon and Edmond are working on. That China woman represents their China partners. Mabel set it up, but now of course Sharon’s taken over. I heard her saying that this is worth more than the rest of the firm put together.”
Aunty Lee waited hopefully but GraceFaith could not or would not say more. Instead she picked up a coffee mug with a smiley face, considered it, and dropped it in the already overflowing wastebin.
“How is poor Sharo
n holding up? It can’t be easy, losing your mother and your brother so suddenly and in such a horrible way,” Aunty Lee said conversationally.
“She’s probably depressed. That would explain the stupid things she’s been doing. But she won’t listen to anybody. Good luck to her! It’s not just the firm, you know. The house is also under a double mortgage. They may be kicked out if they can’t sort that out.”
Aunty Lee had heard rumors of the Sungs’ financial troubles, but it was always nice to have inside confirmation. GraceFaith had returned to her packing and dumping. She obviously thought Aunty Lee was just one more of Sung Law’s creditors, and was doomed to disappointment no matter how long she hung around the office.
Aunty Lee could tell from the vehemence with which GraceFaith’s “good performance” plaques and birthday cards were being tossed that the girl was distancing herself from the company once so dear to her. It seemed worth risking another nudge for information. She didn’t know how much time she had before the rest of the office staff showed up.
“I don’t believe that,” Aunty Lee said with casual dismissiveness. “Those are just rumors. Mabel Sung was an icon for all women lawyers. How can Sung Law be bankrupt?” She hoped these words would be provoking enough. They were.
“Mabel used company funds to pay for her son’s medical expenses. And to cover her contractors and home renovations also. This is a law firm, not some megachurch or NGO where you can say the money was meant to fund your singing career or gold bathroom fixtures.”
GraceFaith closed her eyes and shook her head. It was a childish gesture and oddly appealing. Aunty Lee saw the girl was very, very tired.
“You should get some rest. Things will look better after you have something to eat and get some rest.”
“Things certainly couldn’t look worse.”
Aunty Lee only just managed to stop herself from saying “Yes, they certainly can.” Instead she said, “You knew Mabel cleaned out her accounts, didn’t you? Before she handed things over to Sharon. But Mabel is from the same generation as me. She would have needed someone she trusted to help her with the Internet banking and transfers and onetime passwords and things like that. You helped her, did you?”
GraceFaith’s expression didn’t change at all. That was what told Aunty Lee she was right. As when a friend of hers set up a nanny cam in her own bedroom to spy on a maid she suspected of bringing men home when she was out. Madam Pang had found nothing wrong on the tapes. But once Aunty Lee had spotted a cockroach on the wall that did not move for five hours, the game was up. No one’s face stayed so still unless they were trying to hide something.
“And you put a little of that into your own pocket, didn’t you? Even if Mabel suspected, she couldn’t complain about you without giving herself away.”
“I just thought—what difference could it make? She was using it to pay for equipment and contractors—”
“Was one of them Benjamin Ng?” Aunty Lee asked quickly.
“I don’t remember. There were so many. Anyway I didn’t take much,” GraceFaith said. “I was doing all that extra work for Mabel. I just paid myself transfer fees.”
Some people could justify everything they did, Aunty Lee thought. But she nodded. “Sharon is very like her mother, isn’t she? And she knew her mother very well. Does she know what you did for her?”
“No—” GraceFaith started to say, then stopped.
“Now Mabel’s gone she is going to look for someone to blame everything on. And you are the one who did all the transfers for Mabel.”
GraceFaith started to contradict this, then stopped. “She will.”
“Unless of course she’s got other things to occupy her,” Aunty Lee pointed out.
“Hello. I thought I heard voices.” Sharon Sung came into the office. “What are you doing here?”
Aunty Lee realized it was almost seven thirty. Inside the law office, with no windows and artificial lighting, it was easy to disconnect from time in the real world.
“I haven’t been paid for the catering,” Aunty Lee said with a little-old-lady quiver in her voice. She was going to say she needed the money but remembered in time that she had to appear rich enough to pay for new knees. “I don’t want to put my own money into the shop. But now the police say I cannot open the shop and I still got to pay rent—” She hoped Sharon and Dr. Yong had not investigated her finances thoroughly enough to discover she was not only her own landlord but landlord of all the shops along the row where her café was located.
GraceFaith said, “Mrs. Sung prefers—I mean, Mrs. Sung preferred—to pay only after she was satisfied. In this case I don’t know—”
“You have no idea how Mabel really ran things,” Sharon snapped. “Anyway she’s not here now and I’m running things. Write Mrs. Lee a check for the buffet. You ordered it, so you should know how much it cost. I’ll sign it.”
Despite everything, Aunty Lee felt a fondness for Sharon Sung.
“I like to settle everything up front,” Sharon said. “If you pay as you go, it’s easier to keep everything straight. And by the way I heard Dr. Yong say he will be meeting you to discuss your knee surgery?”
“Oh yes, Dr. Yong is coming over to my place later today.”
Aunty Lee had been trying to come up with a way to get Dr. Yong to agree to talk to her on his own. She was sure she could find out more from him without Sharon (who was, after all, a lawyer) present.
Nina had suggested picking him up, putting him in the trunk of her car, and driving him over to the café without any explanation. After all, if he had been carrying out semi-illegal operations in his aesthetic clinic he was hardly likely to complain to the police. But Aunty Lee didn’t think that shoving him into the trunk of a car would make him very amenable to conversation. Instead she phoned Dr. Yong and asked if he could come over for a private consultation. She was an old lady and not comfortable with going to a clinic full of sick people and she had worries about the surgery that she needed to discuss with him. She would of course pay him his standard consultation fee plus his transport costs.
Dr. Yong had agreed.
“I should be getting back.” Aunty Lee started for the door, remembering to limp slightly.
“Just a minute!”
GraceFaith hurried out of the office after Aunty Lee to hand her Sharon’s check.
23
Edmond Yong Visits
GraceFaith had a good heart, Aunty Lee thought. Aunty Lee liked her practical ambition and willingness to work for what she wanted . . . and for whoever paid. In many ways GraceFaith reminded Aunty Lee of herself and of Cherril. Both young women had started off clever, poor, and wanting to improve themselves. Cherril had focused on learning and had been lucky enough to fall in love with learning and knowledge and with a man who loved both these things and her. What would become of GraceFaith, who had worked on building up her appearance and appeal?
Aunty Lee thought of the last thing GraceFaith had said as she left the office: “Edmond thinks he can blackmail Sharon into marrying him. That’s the way he does things. But it’s not going to work on Sharon.”
“Blackmail with what?” Aunty Lee had asked. But GraceFaith had already closed the door behind her, leaving it unclear whether she had been talking to Aunty Lee or herself.
As arranged, Dr. Edmond Yong called on Aunty Lee at her house to discuss details concerning her knee surgery. Nina showed him to ML’s study, which also served as a library and business room. Aunty Lee was all ready to discuss the pains in her knees and the quality of potential replacement joints, but Edmond Yong seemed more interested in the glass cases housing ML’s antique jade and cloisonné collections.
“Are those all genuine antiques?”
“I assume so. My late husband was interested in Chinese and Japanese history.”
“They must be worth a lot.”
“I imagine they must.”
“Did your late husband collect them himself or buy them from suppliers?”
; Aunty Lee shrugged, looking bored and uninterested. Truth was, she loved ML’s collections but for once had no intention of being distracted from her purpose.
Aunty Lee played her helpless-rich-old-lady card. She knew Dr. Yong would not willingly relinquish his position on the medical adviser pedestal that she had carefully created for him.
“It’s very good of you to come. GraceFaith Ang has been so helpful explaining things to me. She knows all about this transplant business. She was also a very good friend of Mrs. Sung and all those praying healers.
“She said they will be willing to help me even if I am not Christian like them. I am willing to go to church and all that, but then some of those Christians are so strict, what if they arrange for me to get that operation and then they want me to take down my husband’s photo? I heard sometimes they will do that, you know. It is just for respect, you know. I must always have his photo around because he is not around. But maybe they will say I cannot, it must take down . . .”
Aunty Lee could see that the young doctor was almost squirming in his seat from the desire to jump in and set her right. Graciously she slowed down and turned helpless, confused eyes on him.
“Be careful of her. Grace Ang, I mean.”
“GraceFaith? Oh, she is a very nice girl,” Aunty Lee fluttered, egging him on. “She is so helpful and she knows so much.”
“Yes. That one. She doesn’t know that much.” Dr. Yong shook his head. “She used to help Mabel. In fact she’s being retrenched.”
“Oh, why? GraceFaith is such a nice girl.” Aunty Lee wondered whether she was laying it on too thick. “She was so close to Mrs. Sung. I thought she would be running things now Mrs. Sung is gone.”
“Yes, we gather she thought so too. But not anymore. Anyway, about your knees.”
“I had been hoping an old friend of my late husband’s could help me. He was a top surgeon. But I left it too late. I saw him just the other day and, aiyoh, his Parkinson’s is so bad. The hands shaking all the time. Now even if he says he can help me, how can I believe him? Hiyah. If only with all your transplanting you can transplant new hands for him . . .”