Aunty Lee's Deadly Specials (5 page)

“She’s probably still in the office.” Sharon knew she was in the right and her mother
was being stupid. But she still seethed at the suggestion that GraceFaith could explain
anything to her.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would GraceFaith go to the office today?”

Mabel headed toward the covered stone stairs to the pool patio.

Sharon’s questions had not been answered. But she had seen GraceFaith at the Sung
Law office that morning and now she knew Mabel had not sent her there.

“Are you sure this is the right house? Why don’t they let us in? Why do we have to
wait outside?” the woman asked in nasal, tongue-curling Mandarin that marked her as
coming from Beijing or one of the northeast provinces of Mainland China.

“Of course it’s the right house. I am here every day. I told you I am the doctor that
looks after the son of the house.” The man had grown up speaking Mandarin at home
in Malaysia, but all his education since moving to Singapore had been in English.
He suspected the woman looked down on his Mandarin much as Singaporeans looked down
on his English—but not as much as they looked down on the inability of PRCs—as recent
arrivals from the People’s Republic of China like his companion were tagged—to understand
any English outside a textbook. But no matter. He was on the verge of making his big
break. He was going to be rich and more important, he was going to be powerful. And
then everyone would be forced to respect him.

“If you are the doctor, why do we have to take taxi here? Why don’t you have a big
car? And why do we have to wait outside the front gate like poor people?”

“I told you I arranged the meeting for eleven thirty, we are still early.”

“Either I go inside now or I’m leaving.”

Mabel Sung

Aunty Lee was always happiest when she was serving food. And she especially loved
buffets like this. Laying out the stacks of clean plates and utensils, setting up
the decorations (edible in this case), the dishes of
achar
and
sambal
and spicy fried anchovies and peanuts, the baskets of
keropok,
and of course the food. The steaming tubs of white rice, yellow rice, and coconut
rice and the aromas that rose from the warm food all promised comfort, satisfaction,
and fulfillment . . . for a while at least. Aunty Lee wanted to make people happy.
That was at the root of what some saw as her busybody meddling. She was not always
successful because some people seemed determined to live unhappy, uncomfortable lives.
Still, when they came to her table to be fed, Aunty Lee did her best to remind them
what contentment felt like—a little spicy stimulation, sweet and sour sensations,
and the age-old comfort of steaming rice and rich, clear soup.

“Yes, it is traditional
nasi lemak,
coconut rice,” Aunty Lee said to a couple of curious guests. “My own traditional
version of traditional
nasi lemak
. The rice is cooked with coconut cream and flavored with
pandan
”—screw pine—“leaves grown in my own garden. That’s why the smell is so fragrant.
There’s also
nasi kunyit
—yellow rice—to go with the chicken
buah keluak,
and white rice because some people prefer white rice. This is my own anchovy
sambal
paste, if you want you can buy from my shop. One bottle, keep in the fridge, can
last you four weeks, but you’re sure to finish before then. I make it using tamarind
juice, dried chilies, anchovies, garlic, and onions, very
shiok
. These are hard-boiled quails’ eggs, easier to eat than chicken eggs. And more
sambals
—today I brought my cockle
sambal
and cuttlefish
sambal
also. These I’m not selling in bottles, if you want, you must come to the shop. You
can try them with the roasted peanuts or put on the fried chicken.”

There was also stir-fried
kangkong
(water spinach),
achar
(pickles), and generous portions of Aunty Lee’s favorite garnishes: sun-dried anchovies
fried to a rich savory crunchiness and crunchy peanuts roasted in golden-brown rice-paper-crisp
skins.

Aunty Lee stepped back to let the guests pick their own food. That was another thing
she liked about buffets—you could learn so much about people by watching how they
picked food items off the buffet table. At the last family outing to the Ritz-Carlton
buffet, Mark’s wife, Selina, had persisted in taking large portions for everyone at
the table despite their saying that they wanted to help themselves. She had eaten
hardly anything herself, piling her food onto Mark’s plate and saying, “Eat it, don’t
waste,” more like a mother than a wife.

Selina needed to have children quickly, Aunty Lee thought, then she could focus her
energy and attention on looking after them. And Mark? Mark helped himself to what
he liked best. Three oysters, perhaps, with a wedge of lemon and capers. Aunty Lee
wondered whether Selina had been trying to get Mark to serve her. She would bring
it up with Mark another time, along with the suggestion that it was time to start
a family. Nina would call this interfering, but if Aunty Lee did not talk to Mark,
who would? Wasn’t this her responsibility as a mother substitute? (Aunty Lee conveniently
forgot both ML’s children had been grown up when she married their father. They had
been welcoming but hardly in need of mothering.)

But Selina already thought Aunty Lee was a
kaypoh
busybody, so it would hardly make any difference. Aunty Lee was glad Mark was married,
even if his wife made it clear she didn’t trust her. Married men were always easier
to handle. And as for Selina? With life as with food, a little sourness often brought
out the best in the rest of the meal.

Mark would never have helped to cater a celebration buffet like today’s, especially
if they were being paid to do so. More familiar with inheriting than earning money,
Mark Lee had been trying on and discarding careers since dropping out of two different
Ph.D. programs because he lost interest in them partway through. Though supportive
of his last venture, Aunty Lee had suspected from the start it would only be a matter
of time before Mark tired of the wine business. The best thing that had come out of
it was Cherril. Cherril had been one of the regulars at Mark’s wine-tasting sessions
and her husband’s sister had been one of the women whose murders Aunty Lee had solved.
Cherril had time on her hands until the children started showing up. And after that?
Aunty Lee was sure she could persuade Cherril that it would be good for her children
to have a working mother as a role model. Perhaps they could help create a children’s
menu for Aunty Lee’s Delights . . .

The two women were very different. Cherril, an expert in food and beverage service,
could greet and seat customers in nine different languages and handle potentially
life-threatening emergencies in high heels. Aunty Lee talked to customers in Singlish,
treated them as guests in her own home, and only wore shoes that made her feet happy.
But the two women bonded over a common love of current gossip—what Aunty Lee called
“caring about people” and Cherril described as grassroots culture.

The only problem now was Mark’s reluctance to formalize the handover of the business
to Cherril. Was it the contents of the specially constructed wine room he found it
difficult to let go of? Or was it Cherril’s eagerness to take over? Was Aunty Lee’s
stepson one of those people who only valued what someone else wanted, the archetypal
Singaporean who joined lines because anything worth queuing up for must be worth having?

Aunty Lee shook herself. Mark and Cherril had already agreed to the handover and would
sort things out between them. It must be so nice to be someone like Mabel Sung, Aunty
Lee thought. You founded your own successful law firm and when you wanted to make
your daughter a partner you just did it, without having to worry what your son thought
about it. Aunty Lee looked around for Mabel Sung and her daughter, but neither seemed
to be in the vicinity.

Aunty Lee did not cope well with spare time on her hands (the buffet was already set
up and there was nothing more to be done till people started eating seriously and
top-ups were needed). Aunty Lee looked to see whether Cherril and Nina could use her
help but they were standing together by the giant drinks coolers, equally idle and
unemployed.

Aunty Lee decided it would be wrong not to take the opportunity to explore the way
that rich people lived—in particular that little pool house that might be a guesthouse
or private chapel.

Aunty Lee’s late husband used to tease her for her
kiasu, kaypoh, em zai see
approach to all food and all life.
Kiasu
in Singaporese meant “scared to lose,” a very Singaporean trait that induced citizens
to take excessive precautions against being left out or left behind. Aunty Lee went
further, going out of her way not only to be the first one in on whatever was happening
but doing her best to make sure no one else was left out. As for being
kaypoh,
or busybody-like, as far as Aunty Lee was concerned what everyone else did was of
great interest to her . . . which therefore made it her business. And her being
em zao see,
or not afraid to die, especially when following her nose or her instincts, probably
explained why she usually got what she wanted. Right then she wanted to find out more
about how people lived in this place.

Because the little building on the other side of the swimming pool looked oddly out
of place. Unlike the graceful (though modernized for air-conditioning) pseudo-Grecian
colonial look of the main house, this obviously new construction was all brown brick
and red trim with something greenish on the walls. It made Aunty Lee think of a factory-packed
moon cake that had begun to turn moldy.

It triggered Aunty Lee’s “Other People’s Place” response: Can I live there? How would
I decorate it if I lived there? Size-and location-wise, it made a very pretty little
dower house or granny flat. She could happily live (with Nina of course) in something
that size if either Mark or Mathilda decided to move
en famille
into the Binjai Park bungalow. Entertaining and major celebrations would of course
continue to be held at the main house and Aunty Lee would continue to be in charge
of the kitchen operations . . . But the decoration would definitely need to be seen
to . . .

Aunty Lee peered at the wall for a closer look (if she had had a scraper at hand,
she would have cleaned it up) and saw that what she had thought was mold was really
thick paint. Green dots were painted on the wall—in fact, standing back, she saw that
what she’d taken to be a creeper was actually a mural painted on the side of the building,
cleverly seeming to send tendrils around the pipes. Aunty Lee prodded at a painted
leaf with a tentative finger. It had a slightly spongy texture, as though the paint
had puffed up after settling on the brick. Or as though it was cake icing. Aunty Lee
wondered whether the artist who had done this would be willing to decorate cakes . . .
he or she had real talent. Aunty Lee might make Singapore’s softest sponge cakes but
her decorating skills stopped at arranging peach slices on them. She could not resist
scratching at the paint with her fingernail just to see how firmly it was anchored
to the painted wall . . . Suddenly a hand grasped her wrist firmly and pulled her
away from the building.

“Rosie Lee! How lovely to see you! Your food all looks so good!” Mabel Sung said chattily
to Aunty Lee as she linked an arm through Aunty Lee’s and led her back toward the
buffet table. Mabel sounded slightly breathless, as though she had been running. Aunty
Lee wondered whether to feel flattered by her welcome. Most clients, however friendly
or concerned, did not expect her to be anchored to the food display.

“It looks so professional. I mean like a restaurant or hotel caterer would do.”

Aunty Lee agreed. It was not enough for food to taste good (which her food definitely
did), and the range of the heated food display trays now gracing Mabel Sung’s poolside
tables would not have looked out of place on any four-star hotel buffet counter.

Mabel was wearing a pink-and-white floral-print dress. She looked older in person
than in her photographs—somewhere in her late sixties, Aunty Lee thought. Her broad
face still showed scars of adolescent acne and her assertive, commanding manner made
her high, breathy little-girl voice a surprise.

“I’m sure everybody going to love it. My assistant says your
otak
is the best in Singapore! If you want to hand out cards for your café, I don’t mind.
You can treat this like a chance for free advertising. I’m sure your business will
go up. All the people coming today are big fans of local food and they don’t mind
spending if it’s as good as yours!”

Mabel paused, giving Aunty Lee the chance to bond with her by offering to waive the
cost of the brunch. Such a generous gesture, it was implied, was enough to transfer
her from paid caterer to old family friend. But Aunty Lee had already inherited far
too many family friends from her late husband to take the bait.

“Your assistant already sent me the ten percent deposit. Can I pass you today’s bill?”

“Oh, today’s party is all company expenses. If you just send an itemized bill to the
company, somebody there will take care of it.”

“If your company people are here today, maybe I can pass the bill to one of them?”

Rich people, Aunty Lee thought, were the hardest to pin down when it came to money
matters. They thought nothing of writing a check for a twenty-thousand-dollar donation
if it got their name up on a wall but they never had enough change to leave a tip
at the café.

“Henry, look who’s here—”

Henry Sung had already spoken to Aunty Lee. In fact it was he who had shown her where
to connect the power supply for the chafing dishes and had unlocked the garden tap
(“Can’t have the gardener using water without supervision”) for her.