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CHAPTER ONE

VERA

Vera Wong Zhuzhu should be having the time of her life. She is, in fact, having the most wonderful, lovely, delightful time. Today, like every day, she wakes up at four thirty in the morning and jettisons out of bed like an army general with a new troop of terrified soldiers to scream at. And today, like every day, she puts on her gear, protecting every inch of her skin from the sun, and bustles out of the house to go on her extremely aggressive morning walk. But today, unlike most other days, Vera does not open up her tea shop after her morning routine. No, today is Sunday, Vera's favorite day. After a freezing, character-building shower and a simple breakfast, Vera marches to the kitchen, where she gets to work.

She's planned the menu with the meticulous care of Ralph Fiennes's character from that strange movie The Menu, and she's rather excited to get going, because tonight's meal will include mud-baked chicken. Vera rarely makes this dish because, to be honest, the idea of cooking with mud seems like something a hippie would do, but she is making it tonight because she knows how much it would delight little Emma, and she would do anything for Emma. She lugs the bag of clay she's bought from the garden center for this occasion alone outside of her teahouse and mixes in some water.

"Aiya, why are you making such a mess so early in the morning?" someone calls out in Mandarin. Someone extremely irritating.

Vera scowls before she even turns around. "Mind your business, Winifred," she says.

"What?"

"I said, 'Mind your business, Winifred'!"

"Eh, don't shout so loud so early in the day!" Winifred shouts back. "People are trying to sleep."

Vera sucks in a deep breath and goes back to mixing the clay. Aiya, thanks to Winifred, she's poured in too much water. She grits her teeth and shakes out more clay from the bag.

"Playing with clay, are we?" Winifred says, walking out of her bakery while stretching her arms over her head. "I'm glad you're finding a hobby, Vera. I was starting to get worried about you."

Vera straightens up so fast that her back clicks. "Why would you be worried about me? I have a roaring social life. It is you who people should be worried about."

Winifred raises her eyebrows. "Oh? I have twin grandbabies. I barely have time to run my extremely successful patisserie—"

"Chinese bakery," Vera mutters. The mention of twin grandbabies stings. To make matters worse, against all rules of nature, Winifred's grandkids are actually cute. Considering their genes, Vera thinks sulkily, those two babies should have been born with fangs and a forked tongue, but no, they are so adorable they belong in the pages of parenting magazines. How unfair life can be sometimes.

"My extremely successful French bakery," Winifred continues. "And every day I get to see my little baobei—oh, they love me so much, you know! The other day, little Frieda actually said, 'Ah Ma!'"

"They're two months old, they're hardly going to be saying anything," Vera says flatly. "Maybe you hallucinated it because you're going senile."

Instead of looking scandalized, Winifred merely smirks. "Oh, you know my little grandbabies, they have such good genes. They are geniuses, of course. I expect any day now, they will be invited to join MENSA."

Vera wants so badly to say something snippy about MENSA lowering its standards, but when she thinks of Winifred's chubby little grandkids, all she wants to do is snuggle them and squish their round cheeks and tell them what precious treasures they are. Damn it, if she can't bring herself to be mean about them, she'll lose this round. Oh, who is she kidding? She was always going to lose their sparring matches. Those annoyingly cute little bundles are Winifred's trump cards.

"Well," Vera huffs, "if you'll excuse me, I am very busy cooking a feast for my weekly family dinner." She stirs the bucket of clay mix so aggressively that it squelches, and droplets of sticky clay splat onto Winifred's trousers.

"Aiya!" Winifred cries. "Look what you did! These are pure cotton, you know. My daughter-in-law bought them for me from that fancy organic shop down at Union Square. They cost three hundred dollars."