Page 36 of A Shade of Myself
8
Ten minutesof being awake on Thursday and I was already hot and sticky. It was day one of a five-day heat wave and like many homes in Vancouver, I didn’t have air-conditioning, just a couple of fans. My entire house was as muggy as a swamp, complete with its own little monster in the form of my daughter.
Sadie lay a hand against her forehead, wilting dramatically over the counter. “I’m dying. Will you make my lunch?”
“Talk to me when you’re having hot flashes on top of everything.” I had just stuck my head in the freezer, so my words were kind of muffled, but it did nothing to douse the fire burning within me. A pox upon both perimenopause and sexual frustration. Even though I’d gotten off in about ten seconds last night fantasizing about Laurent, it was hollow and unsatisfying. Hmm. If my daughter went to her dad’s right after dinner on Sunday, how soon was too soon to go over to Hotel Terminus for my long-awaited booty call?
Would five minutes later seem desperate? Did I care? Ooh, should we have sausages for dinner? I could defrost them and BBQ.
“Mom!”
“Ack!” I jumped, whacking my head on the freezer door. I rubbed it. “What?”
“I need the mini ice pack to keep my coconut buns from getting too mushy in the heat.”
I pulled it out for her, along with the sausages, and shut the door. “Tell me that’s not all you’re eating.”
“And strawberries.” She placed the ice pack in her lunch bag.
“Whatever. I’m too hot to care if you die of malnutrition. We’ll revisit this in November.” I threw the meat in a metal bowl and placed it in the fridge. “Hold up, missy.”
Sadie blinked at me, the picture of innocence, about to grab the last sweet roll filled with a delicious coconut paste from the bakery box and add it to her already bulging Ziplock.
“Are you seriously not leaving me a single one?”
“Ah Ma got them for me.”
“Guess again. Dad said your grandmother specifically mentioned that I should get at least one.” My former mother-in-law had gotten me hooked on these cocktail buns, which originated in Hong Kong, back when Eli and I were still married. While Mae and I didn’t have a ton of contact after the divorce, and even less so now that Sadie could make her own arrangements to see her grandmother, she still made sure that I got my occasional fix.
It was very kind of her, even if her reasoning was that whitey here couldn’t be trusted to trek out to the neighboring city of Richmond where the (in Mae’s opinion) best Chinese bakery was, rather than just go to the closest place that sold them. She wasn’t wrong.
And since she wouldn’t have her precious granddaughter eating subpar gai mei bao, it was a big win with zero effort on my part.
I motioned for Sadie to hand one over, which she did after pretending to lick it first. “Like that would stop me,” I said, biting into it.
“Gross.” Sadie checked her backpack, naming off each item under her breath to make sure she had everything for work. “Let’s go for ice cream tonight at Casa Gelato.”
“Good idea.” I swallowed another bite. “We can ask Jude.” And I could get a more honest response than an emoji.
“It’s a date.” She pecked my cheek. “Bye, Mom.”
“Bye, kiddo. Have a good day.”
With one child accounted for, I finished the coconut bun, washed my hands, and went to check on my other baby. “Hi, sweetheart.” I stroked a hand over the wine-colored velvet sofa. “You doing okay in this heat? Do you need a fan?”
I’d spent more on this couch than any other single item of furniture that I owned. For the first three days, I’d banned people from sitting on her, but then I’d relented and thrown a transparent tarp over top. That way everyone could still admire her beauty, but not grubby her up. It was a very sensible idea, even if a little voice in the back of my head whispered this was the first step to wrapping my entire house in plastic and buying a lifetime supply of air freshener.
However, after a week of Jude calling me Bubbe Miriam and dropping off the most hideous chachkas she could find from second-hand stores, along with doilies to put underneath them, I relented and declared my sofa open for use.
Satisfied that my precious was holding up all right in this heat, I went outside to water the newly planted arugula and pea plants along with the rest of my garden. There was a water ban on lawns, which meant mine would be brown in no time, but we were allowed to hand-water fruit and vegetable plants early in the morning and later in the evening.
Some people found gardening a soothing activity. I was not one of those people. Eli planted most of my garden and I reluctantly watered it, soaking each section up to a count of sixty. I had no idea if that was long enough, but I hadn’t dried anything out yet with this system.
Truth be told, I did love the smell of wet, rich earth.
After I’d rolled the hose back up in its holder, I headed upstairs and got dressed in the thinnest sundress I owned, an orange and white Hawaiian print–inspired ankle-length maxi. I threw my hair in a ponytail, swiping on some light shadow, mascara, and tinted gloss. I’d have foregone makeup entirely because I was shvitzing so hard, but Giulia was the kind of creature one made an effort for.
After opening all the windows in my car to cool it down to the sixth level of Hell, I drove downtown to the condo complex where she resided. It was a good thing I remembered where to go because my phone was totally dead. I’d plugged my cell in to charge but it didn’t even have enough juice to turn on yet, and I couldn’t call Laurent for directions.
