Page 30 of Make The Cut

They both immigrated to California in the nineties before the Communist takeover of Hong Kong, and that’s when they got married and had me. Their idyllic American dream was interrupted by the discovery of my father’s mistress, and I’ve been torn between my Chinese and Japanese sides ever since.

I finish brewing the tea and stack four handleless white porcelain teacups together along with a white ceramic teapot. I bring the tea out for my mother and her guests, as the clacking of tiles stops and someone yells,sikwu, meaning they’ve won that round.

“I brought you some tea,” I say in my rusty Cantonese.

My mother crinkles her nose at my pronunciation but accepts the tea anyway.

“What a good son,” the other women say. “My son won’t even come home to eat dinner with me, but yours brings you tea without being asked.”

I sit on a nearby couch and bite down on a laugh as the other women’s conversation devolves into a series of complaints about their son and a litany of praises for me, the classic Asian form of complimenting another person by putting yourself down. I must have swung in the complete opposite direction by over-inflating my public persona’s ego and going full Arrogant Jerk.

Guilt sinks my heart like a stone. I’mnota particularly good son. I spent most of my early childhood blaming my mother for the divorce and believing that she must have caused it when in reality, my father was the one who sinned. Then, I spent many of my teenage years resenting the dissolution of their marriage and wishing my life was different.

“Naoya, why don’t you play this next round? I’m tired,” my mother says, meaning she just wants to catch up on her favourite TVB drama.

“Of course.” I oblige, needing something to take my mind off my father’s indiscretions and the bitterness of the ensuing divorce.

As we shuffle the tiles, the women pepper me with questions.

“So, Naoya, when are you going to settle down,lah? You know, my niece is averynice girl. I think you would like her.”

“That’s very nice of you to say, Auntie Sue, but I just don’t have time—“

“Aiyah, you don’t want to marry her niece anyway. She only just got her braces off last year and she still has an overbite,” another of my mother’s friends says, her curly reddish perm barely moving as she nods. “It covers her chin when it rains.”

I choke on a laugh at the image. “I’m sure that’s not true, Auntie Jane.”

We line the tiles into neat stacks of eighteen on each side, making a haphazard square, and roll the dice to see where we start picking the tiles from and who goes first. As we start the game, I stare down at my hand. It’s horrible. I have an assorted number of tiles from every suit and one tile from each of the four directions. I’ll never win with this hand.

I start throwing out tiles at random, barely paying attention to the game.

“You know, your mother is very worried about you. Every time we play mahjong with her, she always talks about how proud she is of you and how she wishes you would get married,” Auntie Gina says.

“I’m surprised she would say that considering how her husband treated her,” I mutter as I accidentally throw out two matching tiles consecutively.Damn it.

“You know, she just wants to see you settle down. And maybe give her grandkids.” Auntie Sue selects a flower tile and lays it down, the number on it matching her position in the game, meaning she’ll earn more points that round if she wins.

I sigh, shaking my head. “I—“

Frowning, I glance down at my tiles again. Wait a second…

“I win!” Somehow, in my distracted state, I’ve managed to play the perfect hand, collecting all the right suits in the correct order to create a win. I tilt my tiles face-up and bask in the sweet, accidental victory.

I guess I missed what was right in front of me.

Chapter Fifteen: Poppy Black

“I’m not shopping for you until you apologize,” I declare, still stung by my phone call with Naoya last night.

A peace offering sits in front of me: my usual order from my favourite coffee shop, an oat milk latte with milk foam in the shape of a smiley face.

“Great, because you’re not shopping for me, you’re shopping with me.” Naoya slides the coffee closer to me. “I’m sorry for what I said last night on the phone, Petal.”

I glare at him for his term of endearment even though I have no reason to be annoyed with him for it. How is he supposed to know that the new nickname makes me slightly weak in the knees?

“Hmm.” I wrap my hands around the cup but don’t lift it to my lips yet.

“I shouldn’t have said what I did. You know I don’t respect you any less for writing that blog, and no one else should see you as beneath them just becauseMuse Unmaskedwas massively successful. Okay?”

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