The unmatchmakers, p.2
The Unmatchmakers, page 2
He sits down on the lounge chair on the other side of the small table. In his hands is a paperback with an ominous cover. I bet someone gets killed in that one.
“So, what are you up to these days, Neil?” I ask. “You’re an architect in Ottawa, right?”
I haven’t seen him since I started university—he’s been going to school and working away from Toronto—but I’ve seen his mother, and I know a little about him. I also follow him on Instagram, though he only posts a picture once every few months, and never photos of himself.
He grunts. “I moved to Toronto a few months ago.”
“Yeah?” I admit I’m pleased to hear that. “What sort of projects do you do?”
“A lot of condos these days.”
“You married? Got a girlfriend, boyfriend, anything like that?”
He shakes his head.
Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have asked that quite yet. I don’t want to be too obvious.
But I can’t help a smile from spreading across my face, and it grows stupidly large when I take in his corded forearms. I imagine him tucking a pencil behind his ear as he gets up from a drafting table—do architects still use drafting tables?—and takes me in his arms.
Then my thoughts drift to the reason we’re both here at this vacation home: our mothers.
You might think my mother would have casually—or not so casually—tried to play matchmaker with the hot, unmarried son of her best friend, especially since we now live in the same city.
But she never said anything, and I’m not surprised.
Just like my mother didn’t want me to indulge in the fairy-tale fantasies that many other little girls had, she was determined to set herself apart from other moms. Some Asian mothers, like my maternal grandma, think their daughters shouldn’t date at all until finishing multiple university degrees and starting a career. Then they should quickly settle down with an appropriate man. But my mom is anti-relationship, so she would never tell me to get married and have kids.
Not for the first time, I wish Ma were like some other mothers—the grass is always greener, as they say. But I just can’t help wishing she’d tried to set me up with this cute, frowning guy on my left.
Then I pick up a Timbit from the box, which I set on the table earlier, and pop it into my mouth. “Want one?” I shake the box in Neil’s direction. “I’ve got so many great flavors. Sour cream glazed, chocolate glazed, birthday cake…”
“No, thank you.”
Donut holes probably aren’t sophisticated enough for negroni-making Neil. I suspect he’d be horrified to learn that when I mix a drink for myself at home, it’s usually a fuzzy navel: orange juice and peach schnapps.
Maybe I’ll save that little tidbit for later.
We spend an hour reading side by side. Well, I spend about half the time reading, a quarter of the time closing my eyes and enjoying the breeze on my face, and a quarter of the time covertly admiring Neil in his polo shirt as he reads his book. (See, kids, fractions are fun!)
At exactly seven o’clock, long after we’ve finished our negronis, he sets his book on the table. “Time to grill the steak.”
“Do you have enough for me?” I ask.
“I have two. I was saving one for when Auntie Dee cooks…”
I bark out a laugh. “Yeah, I don’t blame you.” Though I haven’t been subjected to Auntie Dee’s cooking in years, it’s hard to forget.
“But you can have it,” he says.
“Are you sure?” I put a hand to my heart. “Such a great sacrifice on your part.”
He grunts as he stands up. “How do you like your steak?”
“Medium rare. Accompanied by Timbits.”
He does not deign to respond.
By seven thirty, our moms are still absent, and Neil and I are sitting at the table on the patio with our steaks, grilled corn, and grilled peppers. My steak is the very definition of medium rare, cooked to perfection, and Neil has made us another kind of cocktail as well. Something with lemon that’s not too sweet.
“So, uh,” he says, “if I remember correctly, you’re an elementary school teacher?”
“Yep. Grade two.” I pause. “To the great disappointment of my mother.”
“Because you’re not making enough money and she doesn’t like you being in a female-dominated profession?”
“Correct.”
He nods and looks thoughtful. I appreciate that I don’t need to explain my mother to him. Sometimes that gets exhausting.
“Well,” he says, “I can easily imagine you with a class of seven-year-olds. I suspect you’re good at it.”
“Why, Neil Choy, did you just pay me—of the Timbits and unicorn beach towels—a compliment?”
“It did pain me greatly,” he says dryly. “But things that are considered feminine are often devalued and…”
Intelligent words are coming out of his mouth, but my brain is struggling to piece them together. I’m struck by how much I like this man. I can easily picture us together on vacation several years from now, just the two of us. A quiet dinner by the water, his arm around me—and, ooh! Let’s add a sunset.
I rather doubt he’s having such romantic thoughts about me, though, even if he’s staring at my mouth.
My lips are about to curve into a smile, but then I hear tires crunching on gravel and a car door opening. A very loud voice shouts, “Leora! We’re back!”
Chapter 3
When I tell people that my mother is Henrietta Leung, the usual response is, “Oh, the woman on the billboards?”
Yeah, that’s my mom.
She’s a successful real estate agent, and she’s got her face plastered on billboards and buses and benches in the Toronto area. A lot of people know who she is, particularly in the Chinese community.
I’m proud of what my mom has been able to accomplish; she’s succeeded even though life has been tough for her. She was a teenager when she came to Canada, and a few years later, she met my father.
Once upon a time, Ma did want a man to save her. She felt like she was drowning under the weight of her parents’ expectations. They kept telling her how they came to Canada for their children and how she needed to be a good role model for her sister.
My father was a married man, a businessman from Hong Kong who traveled regularly to the Toronto area. Ma hadn’t known he was married at first, but then she got pregnant, and he confessed he had another family but would leave his wife and be there for her.
Then he disappeared, never to be heard from again, when she was six months along. And she was all alone and had to drop out of university, her parents having disowned her. Though they eventually began to talk to her again, their relationship has always been strained. As has her relationship with her sister, who blamed my mom for the increased scrutiny she faced from their parents as a teen.
As I grew up, I felt guilty at times. I knew that I was, in a way, the source of the rift between Ma and her family. I knew that if I hadn’t existed, things would have been different and she would have been able to finish university and she wouldn’t have screaming matches every time she spoke to her mother.
And because of that, sometimes I was very obedient. I didn’t want to cause more trouble for her.
Eventually, however, that became impossible because she was trying to mold me into someone who wasn’t me, and she was just so weird. Yeah, yeah, all teenagers think their parents are weird, but nobody else seemed to have a mother who was quite like mine. I could see how some of it was a reaction to the trauma caused by her own parents. She didn’t want me to suffer the way she had.
I grew up in an area with a large Chinese population, and many of the other kids in school—not all of them, but many—had rather strict parents. My mother, on the other hand, let me go out with friends and didn’t demand perfect grades; she just told me that good grades might give me more opportunities, but there were other pathways to success outside of university. Marriage, however, was not something I should aim for, but she acknowledged that many people had “needs” and sex would probably happen and could I please demonstrate that I knew how to roll a condom onto an eggplant? (She’d bought extra for this purpose.) Ma was big on safe sex, and when I went off to university, she also told me to get on the pill if I needed to.
I suppose I’m thankful for her attitude there, despite the awkwardness of those conversations, but being against romantic relationships…forever? Not just until I was finished high school or university, but…forever? Telling me to never, ever get married rather than, I don’t know, educating me about unhealthy relationships?
Other kids could bond over dealing with their parents, whereas when I tried to describe my mother to other people, they just looked at me like I was a wacko.
Sometimes it pains me when I see those billboards with her face. Because in addition to success, I see expectations. Different expectations than her parents had for her, but expectations nonetheless. Not that she thought I should have the same career as her, but she wanted me to be some sort of successful businesswoman, and that’s, well, not me.
And she never nurtured my romantic, fanciful side.
When Ma’s working, she dresses in pantsuits, but when she comes around to the back of the vacation house, she’s wearing shorts, a faded New York City T-shirt, and a big visor. She looks a little unsteady on her feet, and her short hair is a bit of a mess. She’s followed by her friends Tanya and Dee.
“Leora!” she shouts again as she approaches me. Ma is always loud, but she’s particularly loud after she’s had a few drinks—though that doesn’t happen often. “What are you wearing?”
Tanya hugs her son from behind, but Ma doesn’t hug me; instead, she fingers one of the frills on my shirt and wrinkles her nose. She sees such clothes as too feminine and, therefore, weak.
I don’t bother acknowledging her question. “Hi, Ma! How was the bar?”
“Aiyah, everyone was wearing flannel! In this weather!”
I agree it’s too hot for flannel. But knowing my mother, who has a tendency to fixate on tiny things and blow them out of proportion, there was probably only one person wearing a flannel shirt.
Indeed, Tanya calls her out on it. “That was just one man.”
They bicker about this for a while, in the way that my mom and her friends always bicker, and I smile—in part because the conversation is now directed away from me, but also at the familiarity of it all.
“Leora, I thought you were arriving tomorrow,” Tanya says.
“Why would you think that?” Ma asks. “I told you she was coming today!”
“No, you didn’t.”
And with that, they’ve got a new topic to argue about.
I look over Ma’s head to see Zoey walking toward the table. Two years younger than me, Zoey used to follow me around and get on my nerves at times, but I suspect a lot has changed in the last decade.
With that thought, I sneak another glance at Neil’s forearms. But it’s only the briefest of glances because I don’t need Ma or her friends, one of whom is Neil’s mother, to notice me checking him out. And I don’t mention that I nearly fell in the lake when he said my name.
“Anyone want a Timbit?” I ask, holding up the box.
The remaining Timbits are demolished in sixty seconds, my mother and her friends descending on the box like a pack of hungry wolves. I catch Zoey’s gaze, and we share a chuckle.
“This is quite the place,” I say, gesturing to the house.
“We worked so hard in life,” Ma says. “Now, time to enjoy it!”
“If you could do it without shrieking in my ear, that would be grand.”
“Ah, why are you such a grumpy stick-in-the-muck?”
I get even grumpier when Ma grabs my glass and takes a healthy swallow of my cocktail. She rarely hugs me, but for some reason, she likes sharing my drinks.
“Make me one of these,” she demands.
“I didn’t make it. Neil did. And, uh, maybe you already drank enough?”
“Wah, one more drink while we play mahjong!”
Another argument ensues, this one about whether they should play regular mahjong, with four players, or three-player mahjong.
“Norman’s not coming, right?” I interrupt, looking at Dee.
She shakes her head. “He’s fishing with some friends. Leora, you can be our fourth player?”
“No, I’m tired from the long drive and all those Timbits.”
“Zoey?”
“I’ll pass,” Zoey says. “Going to sit by the water.”
“Good plan,” I say, then look at Neil to see if he’ll join us, but before he can answer, Ma cuts in.
“Neil, you must make us some drinks,” she says.
He agrees, Dee gets out the mahjong tiles, and Zoey and I head down to the dock after dousing ourselves in bug spray. We take off our sandals and stick our feet in the water.
Yes, I may be used to corralling a group of seven-year-olds, but for some reason, dealing with my mom and her friends is way more exhausting. Besides, I’ve been on summer break for the past month.
Neil comes down a few minutes later and sits beside me.
“I can’t believe you made them more drinks,” Zoey says.
“Very weak drinks,” he replies.
I’m acutely aware of the fact that we’re only a few inches apart, and it would be easy to “accidentally” knock my knee against his.
I’m actually rather looking forward to the next week, despite being in close proximity to my mother. I hadn’t seen Neil Choy in a while, but after a few hours, I’m already half in love with him and…
I slap a mosquito away from my shoulder, then freeze.
This is a problem of mine: I have a tendency to quickly fall for unsuitable men, if they shoot me a sexy scowl and barely quirk their lips. It’s been less of a problem in recent years, but I have no desire to go back to my old ways. It’s not like I ever expected a man to save me…but maybe I didn’t expect enough of them. See, rather than setting up unrealistic expectations, my romantic side has made me in love with the idea of being in love, and when I was younger, perhaps I was a little desperate.
Yet despite some bad experiences, I haven’t sworn off love with age; I’ve just become a little smarter about it, a little more cautious, even if my daydreams are still sometimes over-the-top. Love is something I want, but I shouldn’t rush into it, and considering anything with Neil would be a bad idea.
First of all, the man seems to be barely tolerating me, though that might describe his interactions with a lot of people.
But more importantly, he’s Auntie Tanya’s son. My mom is weird about me wanting a relationship at all, but with Neil? She’d be even weirder about that.
And it’s more than it being awkward—what if it screws up their friendship? There are endless possibilities for a messy situation, especially since Ma has never been particularly kind to my boyfriends, and Tanya wouldn’t react well to her treating Neil like that. Tanya’s also pretty anti-relationship, and I’m not sure what she’s like with her sons dating.
No, even if Neil was interested, I couldn’t do it. Auntie Tanya is one of Ma’s two best friends, and it’s not as if Ma has siblings and parents she can lean on.
Unlike Ma, Tanya was born in Canada to Toisanese parents. She got married soon after she graduated from university, and when they had two small children, he walked out, leaving her for a younger woman and rarely seeing his own sons.
Dee married the son of a family friend in Taiwan, and they came to Canada when Erin was a baby. She left him not long after Zoey was born. I have my suspicions that her ex was abusive, but my mother has never told me the details.
When I was young, I had lots of friends whose parents had also come from Hong Kong, but I always felt a bit different from them, raised by a single mother and not knowing my father. I know Ma felt that way, too, but with Tanya and Dee, she found the support she needed. Three mothers raising their kids alone. Three women who’d sworn off men, although Dee has since remarried—she and Norman have been together for about ten years. I wouldn’t want to do anything to get in the way of that friendship.
And besides, I hardly know Neil as an adult. I’ve teased him about his towel and complimented his cocktails and steak, and we’ve talked a little about our lives. It’s not like there’s much there. I was getting way ahead of myself with my romantic fantasies—which is just like me. But at least now, I’m able to be logical about it.
I glance at his profile, admiring the sharp angle of his jaw, then snap my focus to the stars that are beginning to light up the sky.
Better to admire the twinkling stars than Neil Choy.
It really is lovely up here, and I’m determined to enjoy it, despite the untouchable man sitting next to me and the fight I can hear breaking out over mahjong. Neil’s probably still annoyed I interrupted his time alone, even if he was a gentleman and made dinner for me.
Alright, I won’t entertain more romantic thoughts about him.
Nope, instead I’ll remind myself of what happened the very first time we met, which was also the day that Ma made me a promise.
The day I was introduced to Neil Choy, more than twenty years ago, I slapped him.
I was six years old, and it was New Year’s Eve. Ma said we were going to visit her new friend Tanya for a small party, and Tanya had two boys about my age, and wouldn’t that be fun?
I admit I was confused. I hadn’t realized grown-ups had friends.
Ma laughed when I told her that and said yes, she’d been pretty busy and hadn’t had time for friendship, but adults could indeed have friends. Tanya had another friend who was going to be there as well, and this friend had two little girls.
Something was different about Ma that day. She seemed similar to how I’d felt before my first day of grade one. Nervous.
When Ma parked the car in front of an unfamiliar house, she turned to me and said, “One day, when you’re older, we’ll have a house like this, okay? You’ll have your own bedroom by the time you’re ten, I promise.”
Ten? I could barely imagine being that old. And the only home I’d ever known was a tiny one-bedroom unit in an apartment building. So I didn’t think too much of it, but Ma was speaking as though this was Very Important.
