imagine,” Uncle Michael said to me as Ma and Aunt Evelyn continued to discuss their nephew. The wrinkles around his eyes deepened, making him look closer to his true age.
I plucked a piece of the spider roll from the tray. “I’m excited about Paris.”
I always wanted to go for the art and food, but I never went because I didn’t want to go alone. It wasn’t that I cared about what people thought, it was more that I wanted to experience the city with someone. No one else in the family had mentioned any desire to go, and if I had known Aunt Evelyn was interested, I would have been tempted to ask despite knowing that we would quarrel.
“Now is your chance to see the Mona Lisa in person.” Dad held my hand. “Evelyn knows what she’s doing. You’ll come back a master fortune-teller.”
A narrow scar curved along the base of his thumb from a fishing accident. When I was ten, Dad tried teaching me to fish at Lake Tahoe. In my first attempt to cast the line, I threw the rod back, and the hook caught him. After some iodine and a bandage, he asked me to try again, but I’d sworn off fishing, terrified I’d injure somebody else.
“Also, I’ll be in Germany soon and close by if you need me,” Uncle Michael added.
“Thank you,” I replied.
I popped the piece of spider roll into my mouth. The crunch from the deep-fried soft-shell crab complemented the velvety avocado. Tasty, but not my ideal.
My perfect meal would consist of a platter of sixty oysters on ice and a bottle of Chablis. It would be more perfect if there were a wonderful man sharing them with me, someone who loved and appreciated them as much as I did.
Uncle Michael heaped two more of the spider rolls on my plate. “Where did you go just now?”
“I was thinking about my perfect meal and how satisfying it would be to share it with someone special.” I refilled my glass with more prosecco.
Ma and Aunt Evelyn stopped their conversation.
“What did the matchmaker say?” Ma asked.
I told them what happened.
“Aiyah, you’re going to be alone forever,” Ma wailed. She grabbed the wine from across the table and started drinking straight from the bottle.
“Linda!” Aunt Evelyn pried my mother’s fingers from the neck.
Ma’s teary eyes bore into me. “I want you happy.”
“Calm down,” Dad said to her as he took the bottle from my aunt. “The matchmaker didn’t say she’d be alone forever. She said it was tricky.”
Ma nodded. She sniffled and reached for the Kleenex box on the sideboard. Tissues flew out of the box as if my mother was a magician performing an endless-scarves trick. If she weren’t so concerned about my love life, I’d be laughing right now.
“After I’m in control of these prophecies, then, maybe, we can worry about what the matchmaker said.”
Aunt Evelyn set her chopsticks down. “Linda, I told you multiple times to not interfere in Vanessa’s love life. She can’t maintain a romantic relationship. No amount of meddling from you can change this reality. She is a clairvoyant, that is her future and her fate.” My aunt sighed. “I can see where her stubbornness came from.”
I narrowed my eyes at Ma before burying my face in my hands.
Ma had always contested this fact, and she, like the rest of my aunts, chose to believe what they wanted. On this point, I felt my mother’s maturity was lower than my own.
She stopped dabbing her eyes and waved her hand. “I just don’t want her to be alone. It’s sad. No one should be alone unless they choose to.”
“Did everyone know?” I asked. “Why did they spend so much money on the matchmaker?”
My aunt rolled her eyes. “It isn’t a secret. I told them all so many times, but do you think that would stop them once they get an idea in their collective heads?”
I laughed because what she said was true.
Ma shrugged. “I thought your warnings were a mere suggestion.”
“If I can help Vanessa, it will change the quality of her life, but not her love life,” Aunt Evelyn said. “What’s important is controlling her gift.”
A resigned silence fell over the meal.
“Had she followed in her education the way I did, she would be in full control by now. Death predictions manifest during the teenage years. To be so delayed is strange,” my aunt continued. “We’ll find out more in Paris.”
The more I listened to Aunt Evelyn, the more I felt