Fortune Cookie

 

It's a good day when I find a broken cookie.

Every morning, while my husband is in the storage room out back, supervising our two Mexican workers with putting the deliveries away, I go over to the cash register. He told me a long time ago, when I took in a fake hundred-dollar bill, that I'm not to go there anymore. I have no business touching the money, but I like hearing the clanging noise of the drawer early in the morning, when the fan whirs softly, the sun streams in through the slits of the long vertical shades, and it is still cool in the restaurant. I look at the small mounds of bills and the compartments of coins that my husband sets out every morning for change. I'll close the drawer softly and make sure that the register area is neat. It's become a habit to look in the shelf under the register where the packets of duck sauce and soy sauce lie piled in small boxes and where the fortune cookies are hidden away.

My husband keeps the fortune cookies in an oval basket behind the sauces. He gives them out to little kids who come with their parents to pick up their food; but otherwise, we charge a quarter for each. One time, a large woman came in, obviously a new customer, and asked for four fortune cookies with her order.

"Fortune cookies one dollar extra," said my husband.

"What?"

"Twenty-five cents each. Look at the sign. Fortune cookies extra, and extra sauce, extra."

"Y'all can't be serious. What kind of Chinese food place charges for fortune cookies?"

My husband looked at her pleasantly.

The woman looked back.

"Alright, then, gimme just two."

"Fifty cents."

Under her breath, she said, "Stingy chinks," but held out two quarters for her cookies.

* * *

Looking for the broken cookies happened by accident. A few months ago, I was looking for a box cutter underneath the register when I came across a broken fortune cookie. It was lying atop the carton of duck sauce and broken in two, so I slipped in into my apron pocket. I mean, nobody wants a broken fortune cookie. The mystery's shattered. The crumbled pieces of cookie with the white slip of paper in plain view though the plastic Ñ the magic is gone. It's just a boring, broken, vanilla cookie. So I figured nobody would notice. My husband would say that so long as I don't take the whole cookies, it is good for me to take the broken cookie, keep the customers happy.

Not that I tell my husband.

I didn't have to worry today, anyway. It's Friday, and we were especially busy. I heard Sumter high school had a pep rally that night, and it seems like the entire town came to our restaurant afterwards to order. We were short on noodles and my husband threw a spatula at me.

I forgot to look under the register earlier, because I had three different sauces boiling in the woks, and then the phone rang; we ran out of hoisin sauce, the customers started calling, then piling in, and I haven't had a minute to myself since.

I'm finally home. My husband will be home in about twenty-five minutes. He went to drop off Emilio and Jose in town to meet friends. This time with myself is almost as nice as the times I have in the morning by the register. I showered and lingered a while in front of my mirror, looking at the blue vericose veins crisscrossing up my ankles. I pull my wet hair back and naked, massage lotion into my face, taking extra time around my eyes. I love the feeling of my still-damp skin tingling with the slightest movement and the sight of my face covered in thick, protective goo, masking my tiredness. If my husband had seen me like this, he would have quoted some verse in the Bible about vanity and I would have felt guilty without exactly knowing why. I quickly pull on my pajamas and slip into bed, pretending to be asleep right on time. I hear the key in the door and am relieved.

My husband and I sleep in separate rooms. We stopped sleeping together around the time I was hospitalized after my second miscarriage. That was about a year ago. My husband's mother came to help my husband during the time I couldn't go to work and I remember all of their nasty conversations.

"What kind of fool spills her child like that? Now I'll never see grandchildren," she wailed, beating her fist against her chest.

My husband tried to comfort her, "Mother we can try again. The doctor says there is no reason that we can't in due time."

"No! Knowing that little fool, she'll just waste another child to spite us! No more! No more, I say! My heart is not strong, and my body can't take it anymore."

After that, he refused to touch me.

* * *

I wake up at 8:00, and quickly wash before my husband is due up. I put on the red Golden Wok tee shirt and old shorts. My apron is at the store. I go out and sit in the car to wait for my husband to come out.

It's a short drive to the store, and my husband listens to the news station. I gauge what the deep, mellow voice of the announcer is saying by my husband's reactions. Sometimes he'll smile; sometimes he'll knit his brows. Today, he is repeating under his breath something the announcer said.

"Summit meeting. Summit meeting." And he smiles.

"Su-mit mee-ting. Sum-it mee-ting," I say in my head.

I wish I could understand more of what the newscaster was saying. My husband says that I'd never be able to understand English, being as ignorant as I am. He says I shouldn't even try. I've tried to learn some on my own, but it is so difficult. Maybe heâs right. But the voice said something about Korea. This much I know. K-O-R-E-A. Korea. Itâs on the passport I used once fifteen years ago.

When we drive up to the store, Emilio and Jose are standing next to the boxes of cabbage, green onions and broccoli that are stacked up neatly outside the side door. The delivery came early today. My husband parks the car and hurriedly unlocks the front door. I walk in after him. While he directs Emilio and Jose in the storage room, I look in the shelf under the register and sift through the cookies. He hasn't set out the change yet, but today, because the delivery came early, he'll have to do it later. By that time, I'll have made the egg rolls and marinated the shrimp.

But rummaging in the pile of cookies, I feel a familiar one.

It'll be a good day today.

I tie my apron, put the broken cookie inside and smile.

* * *

I take the usual route home tonight, taking care to walk on the grassy shoulder along the main road. A car rolls by; the driver recognizes me as the woman who works in the only Chinese restaurant in town and calls out, "Eveninâ ma'am." I smile and raise my hand to him. The fuzzy weeds skim my ankles and the steady, humming sounds of the busy lives under the brush keep me company. The muggy air and the wafer-thin outline of the moon in the twilight, the occasional modest home planted in the fields that surround it Ñ this is Sumter, South Carolina, the second home I've known since we emigrated from Korea. I love the industrious serenity, especially after the noisy, dusty streets of Chicago. Time and time again, the smell of grass and manure awaken anew memories of my village. My husband has had a harder time adjusting. He speaks of all of his old friends and business acquaintances still in Chicago and talks of our moving back some day, maybe after we retire.

I see our little home by the squat post office and quicken my pace. I walk through the wooden gate and up the gravel path, when I realize I left my keys at the restaurant. I decide to wait for my husband to come home after closing. Tonight, he doesn't have to take Emilio and Jose into town, so he should be home sooner. I lean against the door and remember the cookie. I take it out of my pocket and open the plastic, taking care not to let the crushed pieces fall to the ground. I try to make out what the red lettered fortune says, but cannot.

I recognize the headlights of my husband's pick-up truck and stuff the cookie back into my pocket. He parks the car on the lawn, and shaking his head, opens the door.

"Wash up quickly first. I'm going to make some phone calls," he calls out over his shoulder.

* * *

I hardly notice the chill of stepping out of the steamy bathroom as I hear the staccato of my husband's excited voice on the telephone. I hold my clothes closer to my towel-clad body.

"I just heard it this morning. It's just wonderful, wonderful, isn't it? Maybe we can even find father some day, and who knows what else can happen for us?"

"Did they settle where they will meet? Ah Ñ What tour? I didn't know that was already happening! I miss so much out here. Tell me more," my husband shoots his questions and commands loudly over the receiver, his free hand gesturing toward the ceiling, preacher-style. He is then quiet, earnestly listening, and I know the furrows between his brows have deepened with concentration.

I enter my room and empty my pocket of the fortune cookie, gathering the crumbled pieces with the lint lining the pocket before I put my dirty shirt and shorts in the hamper. I put the plastic wrapper and the inedible cookie in the trash bin but hold on the slight slip of paper. I sit at the edge of the bed and the towel secured around my breasts loosens. I reach under my bed and feel for my frayed marble composition book. I flip through the pages of the notebook, admiring the symmetry of the white tabs of paper with the neat red writing. I bought this book in Chicago, envisioning it filled some day my own thought-out and composed English passages, to use as journal of sorts. It was a na•ve, luxurious dream.

I now have six pages of fortunes carefully taped to the pages. I know each brings cheerful messages. Good messages. Messages that even disgruntled customers will buy to read, smile at, and carelessly toss away. I tear a small piece of tape from the roll of scotch tape I have on my nightstand and add the newest one the collection.

I hear my husband's voice muffled through the door. "Really, now back then, the students were real students. I knew this time would come sooner or later. Yes, yes, as I was sayingÉ"

THIS IS A GOOD TIME TO FINISH UP OLD TASKS. ONE FRIEND WILL CONTRIBUTE TO YOUR HAPPINESS. YOU WILL INHERIT A LARGE SUM OF MONEY. AN EASY LIFE DOES NOT TEACH ANYTHING. AMONG THE LUCKY, YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE. FRIENDS LONG ABSENT WILL COME BACK TO YOU.

I add YOU WILL BE THE BEARER OF GOOD TIDINGS to the pile.

I stare at the page, hear my husband laugh loudly, and try to make sense of it all.

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