Oh, right. Mid-Autumn Festival is next Friday. How is it already almost the end of September?
The sign looks more like an invitation instead of the warning that it is. But that’s exactly what I want. No,need. Good fortune.
This is what happens when very bad days strike. It’s impossible to resist anything that might make me feel better. After a quick, soul-crushing trip to the New York City Clerk’s Office, I went to Sweet Escape, my favorite candy store. Then I went to dim sum to satisfy my sudden cravings for BBQ pork steamed buns. The restaurant had just sold out of char siu bao, the only thing I wanted in the first place. I overcompensated by ordering ten dishes off the cart. After all, I did wait two hours for a table, so I was getting my money’s worth. I paid sixty-five dollars for an assortment of fried, steamed, boiled, and baked dishes and treats—taking most of it to go—not worrying about it until after. I haven’t splurged on dining out in, well, who knows how long.
The good news is that I now have leftovers. Red bean sesame balls and shrimp rice noodle rolls may just be my saving grace later.
I take a steadying breath. I’m already here, and the birds are waiting. “Okay. Sure. Doc and Marty, I’m Hazel Yen. I was born on October 13, 1996, and I’d like to know… what does my future look like? Please. And thank you.”
I don’t know how to talk to birds, exactly, but I figure good manners couldn’t hurt.
Under the orange glow of the lights, Wendy lifts both cage doors open.
Doc, the bird in front of the box with the red cards, hops out first. Marty steps forward onto the box with the orange cards. Doc moves his beak along several of the cards, taking his time with each one. My heart beats in anxious response.
Please pick good fortunes, please pick good fortunes.
I catch myself as a flicker of hesitation pulses through me. This is self-sabotaging at its finest. In an instant, this all becomes too real.
I pick up my stuff and wait for the right time to make my escape. But then Doc makes his selection from the back of the box. A few cards are dragged up together, but Wendy picks the highest one before giving Doc a grain of rice as a reward for a job well done.
My heart lurches. There, lying right in front of me, is an actual card with a prediction about what my life might look like.
Who knows? Maybe that card will be calming instead of cautionary. Maybe the cards will shed light on why, just hours ago, I was laid off without any explanation. And maybe, on the day of signing my divorce papers, I’ll get reassurance that there’s love—a lasting love that I can count on—out there for me.
Maybe I’ll learn that today wasn’t actually a very bad day, but instead a very lucky day.
Oh god. I sound like Dad.
Worst-case scenario, it’s all bad, and life will be exactly as it has been.
Doc repeats his steps as Marty takes a couple of hops forward and lifts a card from the front. This time, only two cards are dragged up. The most prominent one in the stack is what Wendy begins to reach for.
I lean in closer, 100 percent of my attention on the cards and what they’ll reveal.
Possibilities swirl around my mind. Like a life buoy, I cling to potential answers about my future like maybe these cards just might save me. Like maybe—
“Toffee!” someone shouts behind me.
What happens next is a blur.
There’s a smear of white, black, and red, the sounds of bird wings flapping, paper shuffling, and… meowing?
In reaction, I hold my arms up over my face and shut my eyes. My bag of leftovers swings out of my hand.
A few seconds later, it’s quiet.
“Are you okay? I’m so, so sorry,” a man’s voice says.
I slowly lower my arms and open one eye to find a frazzled Wendy, with Doc and Marty back in their cage with slightly ruffled feathers, and a white guy in a tie-dye, long-sleeve Henley holding a black-and-white cat in a harness. He and his cat are drenched.
I blink, my eyes adjusting to the neon tie-dye like I’m seeing sunshine after stepping out of a dark movie theater. It’s as though a pack of highlighters leaked all over his clothes. The man—who looks slightly older than me, thirty maybe?—comes into clearer focus. As he steps toward me, I have to tilt my head back because he takes up so much vertical space, his blue baseball cap a shade darker from the rain.
The man apologizes profusely. To his credit, he does look sorry. Under the bistro lights, the cat’s tea-green eyes seem to match his. On second glance, this guy’s pupils are rimmed in teal, warmed by the outline of thick brown lashes.
I follow his mesmerizing blue-green gaze as it drifts from me to the ground.
All my stuff has been knocked over, my bag of leftovers split open. Now the siu mai and lo bak gao are covered in… street. There goes my midnight snack.
