A car horn startled me as I stood looking at the Bartolinis’ yard. I turned and saw Beto’s Aunt Quynh behind the wheel of a huge SUV. She waved as she pulled in off the street. I walked up the drive and waited for her to park.
Quynh was Mrs. B’s older sister, a smaller, less pretty version of Tina. After the Americans pulled out of Vietnam, because Quynh had family in the U.S., the Hanoi-based government sent her to a re-education center, where she was sentenced to work in the rice paddies somewhere outside Saigon until, by some mysterious means, she managed to escape. From a Red Cross camp in Hong Kong, she was able to contact Bart. It was only then, maybe a year after the fact, that she learned that her sister was dead.
I remember the excitement when Bart brought Quynh home from the airport shortly after she made contact. She lived in her sister’s house, taking care of Beto, until he was ready for college. We all loved her. It was clear, though, that for Beto, Quynh was his aunt, and never a replacement for his mother.
“Quynh,” I said. “How nice to see you.”
Grinning, she placed her palms together and bowed, the traditional Vietnamese greeting. “What is this ‘Quynh’ you say? You don’t call your auntie ‘Auntie’ no more?”
“Auntie.” I bowed to her, though I wanted to throw my arms around her. She opened the SUV’s back hatch and handed me a five-gallon plastic bucket full of live lobsters without preamble.
“You can take two?” she asked, holding up a second.
“Sure.” I reached for the handle. “Are these for the party Saturday?”
She nodded. “You want to take one home, make a nice dinner?”
“Thanks,” I said, turning a bit to show her the shopping bag dangling from my shoulder. “But I stopped by the deli and Beto gave me enough food to hold me for a while.”
She grinned, stacking three long, foil-wrapped roasting pans together. “That Beto, he takes care of his friends. He tells me you have a new boyfriend.”
“When a man is fifty, do you still call him a boyfriend?” I walked beside her into the house.
She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “What else you gonna call him?”
“I call him Jean-Paul.”
“You better bring him Saturday so Auntie can get a look at him.”
I smiled, and did not tell her that Jean-Paul and I had made no plans past Friday night. I looked around the immaculate kitchen for a place to set the buckets; the lobsters scrabbled their banded claws against the sides, looked up at me with sad, beady eyes.
“Auntie, you’re here!” Zaida, Beto’s wife, came in from the backyard. “And Maggie!”
First she took the pans from Quynh, leaning in to kiss her cheek.
“Anything else to bring in?”
“Whole car full,” Quynh said.
Zaida opened the back door and called out, “Boys, need some help, please.”
Carlos, the younger of Beto’s sons, came in and took both buckets of lobsters from me as his mother gave instructions to the trio of teenagers trailing after him to finish unloading Quynh’s car.
“Carlos,” she called after her son. “Put those bugs in the garage refrigerator. They’ll go to sleep until Grandpa is ready for them.”
“Looks like you have your hands full,” I said to Zaida as she closed the back door after her son.
“Everything’s under control.” She wrapped her arms around me and smooched my cheek. She was lovely in a way that Gracie would call zaftig, deliciously curvy. “How’s it going over at the house, Maggie?”
I held up my hands. “It’s going. Thanks for the estate sale referral, but I think we’ll just donate stuff and be done with it.”
“Anything I can do to help.” She squeezed my arm. “Just whistle. I’ll send the boys over to work and bring a bottle of wine for you and me.”
The boys were back with the bags, pans, and cartons from Quynh’s car.
“I might take you up on the offer,” I said as Zaida gave instructions to her adolescent help about where everything should be put. “And right now I think I can help you best by getting out of your way.”
“Bye, sweetie,” she said, looking up from the refrigerator. “Can’t wait to meet the new guy.”
Quynh walked me out, but first we stopped in front of the memorial niche in the entry, at one time a telephone alcove, and placed a ripe plum and a pink rice cake next to the golden Buddha presiding there. She gave me a joss stick to light, lit one herself, and placed them in a brass holder. Again she put her palms together and bowed, this time to the spirit of her deceased sister. We shared a quiet moment, each left to her own thoughts.
At the door, when I said good-bye to her, she hugged me, as she used to.
Feeling a bit nostalgic about the old neighborhood, so full of memories, I made my way up the hill to Mom’s house. Just as I was unlocking the front door, my mobile phone buzzed in my pocket. The I.D. screen said Jean-Paul Bernard, the boyfriend, new guy, the fella. I checked my watch as I answered the call; the woman from the university housing office was due to arrive in only a few minutes. I sat down on the front steps to talk with Jean-Paul while I waited for her.
I wanted to invite him to come home with me after the Friday night reception in San Francisco, but felt oddly shy about doing so. I liked him very much, enjoyed being with him enormously. But, so far, we had proceeded into our relationship with caution, first because we were both fairly recently widowed, and second because, as the appointed French consul general to Los Angeles, he served at the will or the whim of his country’s current administration and could be recalled to France at any time. My home base was LA, and probably always would be.
Cautious or not, when I opened the phone and heard his voice, I flushed all warm and girly.
“I arrive in San Francisco early tomorrow,” he said after the usual I’m fine-you’re fine was taken care of. “But there are official duties that will occupy me for most of the day. The reception opens at eight so we need to be there by seven-thirty to meet the French museum contingent and check on arrangements. I have commandeered the San Francisco consul’s car and driver. What time should I come for you?”
“Don’t even try to pick me up,” I said. “Evening traffic out of San Francisco is impossible. I’ll hop on BART and meet you.”
There was a little back and forth, but when I explained how long it would take for him to make the round trip from the City to Berkeley and back again during rush hour, he reluctantly agreed. We decided I would meet him at about 6:45 at the San Francisco consulate on Kearney Street, near Union Square, giving me time and a place to freshen up before the event.
“Exactly what is the dress code?” I asked. He had only extended the invitation the previous afternoon during a brief conversation that was soon interrupted on his end by a work-related issue.
“Dress code?” he asked.
“Where on the scale between street sweeper and Marie Antoinette should I aim my attire?”
“Ah. I didn’t tell you? So sorry. What an idiot I am.” I heard papers rustle, then a muttered merde before he came back on the line. “The worst, I’m afraid. Black tie. Is that a problem?”
“No,” I lied. Who packs formal evening gear to go clear out the family manse? There was enough time, however, for me to come up with something; the Bay Area is hardly a shopper’s wasteland.
“Chérie,” he said before I had found my opening to invite him for the weekend. “How is the house clearing progressing?”
“Slowly,” I said. “I didn’t realize how much there was to do.”
“I have no reason to be back in Los Angeles until Monday morning.”
“If that’s an offer, I accept,” I said. Bless his heart.
“The weekend dress code is what you call grubbies?”