Thank God she doesn’t ask me to prove myself. I would have lost it. Unfortunately, it’s because she’s homed in on the negative. “You gave samples to your brother’s wife.”
I know that’s a big problem because they didn’t pay, but I thought we’d have at least another minute of celebration, sixty measly seconds more for me to feel appreciated. But Mom is in action mode, and there’s no choice but to join her.
“I sent her twenty samples.”
“Then what happened?”
My hackles rise. “How do you know something happened?”
“Because you told me it was bad news,” Mom says, narrowing her eyes.
“I don’t know if it’s an issue or not,” I say. “Kelsey said ten of those clients want engagement or wedding luxury gift bags.” Here I am, repeating Kelsey’s favorite phrase.
“Ten of the twenty,” Mom says.
“I guess the other ten didn’t smell it yet?”
“What are you planning to do?”
I stare at her in confusion because I thought my surprise arrival made it clear I had no clue what to do next. “Tell Kelsey?” I hazard. That seems like a reasonable step.
She shakes her head. “No, no. She can’t know.”
The frustration that is part of every conversation with my mother spikes. “Then why did you ask me for my opinion?”
Her phone rings and Mom glances down.
“It’s your brother.” She picks it up. “Hi, Eric. Don’t be silly. Tell your father I have a special surprise.”
Mom hangs up, then looks between me and the bottle, brow lowered as if thinking. “We’ll have to discuss this later,” she says. “We’re late for your father’s birthday.”
Right, Dad’s birthday, which I’d completely forgotten. I pack up as Mom finishes closing the store. Speed walking to the restaurant—Dad considers tardiness the eighth deadly sin—means there isn’t a chance to talk, as I’m panting from dragging my suitcase and am weighed down by the register in my knapsack. Although she offered, I would rather die than have my aging mother carry my baggage. I steal glances at her as we walk across Robson Street; her lips are slightly downturned. Whether that’s from my news or knowing we’re late, I don’t know. All I know is that, as usual, I’ve failed. Even my good news is laced with bad.
15
Hua Zhengyi
1899, late Qing dynasty
Hua compound, near Nanjing
Hua Zhengyi kept her head low, a gesture of obedience at odds withher words. “I won’t marry him.”
“You need to have daughters, Zhengyi. Daughters to keep the Hua line alive. Do you plan to have fairies deliver one to you?” Her mother wasn’t usually sarcastic, but exasperation had leached away her patience. “You are twenty-two years old.”
Zhengyi glared at the ornate inlaid table before her, crowded with the moli fragrances she’d spent years learning how to make. It was unfair of her mother to bring up her age. Although other girls were considered marriageable when they put their hair up at fifteen, the eldest Hua women didn’t marry until after they had their moli ceremonies at twenty.
“I am not ready to marry.”
Her mother waved her hands, her jade bangle clinking against the gold. “No woman is ready to marry, yet it must be done.”
“I don’t love him.”
Her mother didn’t bother to answer this, and Zhengyi knew it had been a silly thing to say. Although her mother admired the strength of the fifth daughter’s power in her, Zhengyi resented that she could so easily bring love to anyone who could pay but not to herself. The Hua moli gift was layered with a curse—they could never use their perfumes on themselves or other Hua women. Only luck could bring Zhengyi her own true love. If one existed for her. One thing she had learned from reading the register was that the women in her family were not lucky in love. Their stories had shown her indifference was one of the best things she could hope to receive from her husband, because that meant freedom to work on her perfumes.
As she was being scolded, she shifted her weight back and forth on the thick-padded cotton soles of her embroidered shoes. She was grateful to her mother for not binding her feet, much against the wishes of her grandmother, who saw it as a badge of their heritage and class in the rare moments she was lucid enough to argue a point. Zhengyi’s mother, although conservative in matters of love, had been determined her own daughter would be able to stand for hours working on her perfumes if she wished, without suffering the pain that so racked her own body.
Her mother’s words drifted over her like woodsmoke as ice crackled on the river outside their isolated country home. The compound had grown over the centuries, incorporating new annexes that housed additions to the family and bigger, airier workshops for the women to experiment in. There was a storage wing where Zhengyi and her mother kept their oils, herbs, and spices, separate from that of the kitchens, although they shared many ingredients. Each was meticulously labeled with the date it had been created or acquired, and sorted by purity or grade. Apprentices tended the large flower, herb, and fruit gardens to the west, where the soil was better and large fences protected the delicate plants from any animals that broke free from their enclosures.
