Page 71 of Misfortune and Mr. Right

I pullout a stock pot and a large skillet, then I walk to the other side of the kitchen to grab a cutting board and knife.

Olivia glances around my kitchen. “Gran used to cook me dinner sometimes. But mostly I brought takeout from Lin’s on my Sunday visits.”

“Tell me about her,” I ask. “If you want to.”

Olivia doesn’t hesitate. Her voice is animated. “My gran was a ray of light. More like a rainbow or a spray of confetti in human form. Vibrant. So full of life. Never met a stranger. And she had a whimsical view of everything. She believed all the local lore and legends about the spring that brought good fortune to this town. I think she even believed some superstitions about this building.”

Olivia looks around again. Her eyes linger in different spots. I imagine each holds a memory.

“This is going to sound weird, with all these fortune cookies popping up everywhere, but Gran loved opening our fortunes together. It was a ritual for us.”

I’m quiet, fully aware how sacred this moment is. Olivia’s guard is down. I’m a cat burglar in a museum, stepping over laser beams to get nearer to the prized jewels. One false step, and the alarms will sound. The jig will be up. She’ll shut down, and I’ll lose all access.

Olivia’s lost in memories, a soft smile on her lips.

“What would you do with the fortunes?” I ask.

“Hmm? Oh.” Olivia smiles again.

I fill the pot nearly to the top with water, purposely turning my back to Olivia and facing the sink so she feels freer to share.

“After we’d had our fill of dumplings, noodles, soup, kung pao or whatever we ordered, we’d sit together and open our cookies.”

I turn and smile at her. She smiles back.

That smile. I’ll be seeing it when she’s not here. This vision of her standing in my kitchen, wearing only socks, yoga pants and an old BU sweatshirt, her hair a gorgeous mess, the way she’s leaned back on my countertop, talking to me like she trusts me with the most tender of her memories—I’ll never forget what she looks like right now. Or how she makes me feel.

“So, anyway … we’d crack the cookies open at the same time.”

Olivia shakes her head as if the whole ritual was a bit ridiculous, but I can see in her eyes it was serious business—heart business between two generations who loved one another tenderly and fiercely.

“Then we’d take turns reading the fortunes aloud. Usually Gran insisted I read mine first. She’d listen so intently, trying to figure out how this silly strip of paper and the random words inscribed on it could pertain to my life.” Olivia chuckles softly. “If it was one of those more generic compliments like,You are a kind and thoughtful person, Gran would say, ‘The cookies know!’”

Olivia giggles, and I laugh too.

“But if it had even an inkling of prescriptive advice or an actual prediction of something to come, Gran was giddy. Then, when something big or small would happen in my life, Gran would always tie it back a fortune I had opened in the past few weeks.”

“Like what?” I ask, feeling less inhibited the further Olivia goes with her storytelling.

“Hmm … Okay. Like the time one cookie said,You will meet a handsome stranger.”

I interrupt her. “Noooo. You never got that one.”

She laughs. Really laughs.

The water boils. I turn it down, pull the pancetta out of the fridge, and set it on the cutting board.

“You just happen to have pancetta in your refrigerator?” Olivia asks me.

“Yes. And did you really get that fortune?”

“Once. Yes. I did. So, that week Gran and I were on a walk in the park—the one where you tackled those doodles and pulled me into a dog pile.”

“Mm-hmm.” I resist making a comeback comment.

“Anyway, we bumped into a guy who recognized Gran because she had chatted him up at the market. When we left our brief conversation with this random guy, Gran said, ‘You will meet a handsome stranger, and there you go. You just did.’”

I laugh. “I wish I could have met her.”

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