much. Most were modest single-family dwellings. Only, in the crazy real estate market that was SoCal, these houses could be worth close to half a million dollars.
Aunt Mimi’s house didn’t stand out in any particular way, just a single-story ranch-style in cream stucco with a composite roof. You had to step inside to see just how lucrative the fortune-telling business could be. Mimi had clients all around the world. Trisha had once overheard Má say that Auntie could charge several thousand dollars for a reading.
Mimi wasn’t really her aunt. She was part of their sprawling extended family, some second cousin of her father’s. But she was probably the most powerful member of the Tran family. Trisha had tried to explain to Tommy how it worked. In Little Saigon, a fortune-teller wasn’t like those psychic hotlines advertised on cable television. There wasn’t a neon sign of a palm flashing outside Auntie’s door. Mimi was well known and highly respected, a high-class clairvoyant. Unlike a lot of astrologers and fortune-tellers in the area, her influence stretched beyond the immigrant community. Mimi often bragged about her prestigious clientele, many of whom were Westerners.
Trisha pictured Auntie in her head. Mimi favored St. John suits and gold jewelry. Lots of it. Trisha remembered one family gathering during Tet, the Vietnamese festival for the New Year. Tet was the most important celebration of the year and took weeks of preparation. For the Vietnamese diaspora in Little Saigon, Tet marked the arrival of spring and the day every man, woman and child grew one year older. At just such a gathering, Trisha had admired a heavy emerald cuff on Mimi’s wrist. Má had told Trisha the bracelet clocked in at close to $10K.
Trisha wondered about that sometimes. If it was really okay to make that kind of money off people’s fears and dreams…Not that she’d ever say anything bad about Aunt Mimi. No way.
She pulled up in front of the house and took a deep breath. But her heart kept hammering in her chest. She tried to channel some of Tommy’s faith. It’s going to be okay, Trish….
She helped Má out of the Honda, then hurried ahead to open the wrought-iron gate. Her mother wasn’t getting around so well these days. Arthritis, the doctor said.
Opening the gate, Trisha noticed with surprise the heavy iron bars over the windows of Aunt Mimi’s house. She frowned. Those are new.
The courtyard smelled of jasmine. The lush tropical growth covered the fence, practically hiding the white stucco house from the street. White ginger as high as Má was tall bloomed across the entry like a fragrant screen. Trish wondered if the plants were an attempt to shield clients from nosy neighbors.
She held her mother’s arm as they climbed the two short steps to the front entrance, pretending with a nod of her head to listen to her mother’s stream of advice on how to act and what to say. Má used Trisha’s Vietnamese name, Tuyen, which meant “angel.” All Vietnamese names meant something.
Tommy had started calling her that lately, after he’d overheard her parents use it. Trisha was her middle name, her Anglo name. Tommy said it made him feel special to call her Tuyen, and he did make it sound romantic with his American accent. But then Tommy could make just about anything sound sexy.
She smiled. Sometimes he just called her Angel.
She helped her mother sit down on the wooden bench set against the wall of the brick entry. She rang the doorbell and was a little surprised to find a thumb-size camera lens staring out at her from beside the door. She didn’t remember Aunt Mimi having some mega security system—not that it didn’t make sense. Mimi lived alone and she had tons of expensive stuff to protect inside.
Trisha sat down next to Má on the wood bench in the entry, hoping they wouldn’t have to wait long. The place was all decked out for visitors. A lion, believed to be an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, as well as a symbol of the power of the king, drib-bled water from a toothy grin. Baskets and planters overflowed with florescent pink impatiens and fuchsias. It was a pleasant place for Mimi’s desperate clientele to wait. Trisha figured Mimi was really part seer, part therapist. People were willing to pay for advice on just about anything.
Trish reminded herself she had come for Má’s sake. Some of Trisha’s earliest memories were of her mother lighting the joss sticks that smelled of sandalwood, and setting out a bowl of sweet rice alongside fried melon seeds and sugarcoated strips of coconut dyed pink, yellow and green. The meal was meant for the departed spirits of her ancestors. Somehow, in her mother’s mind, ancestor worship didn’t conflict with Catholicism.
Like many Vietnamese, her mother’s life revolved around thay boi, oracles hired to divine wedding dates, burial schedules, store openings and just about anything else. Every autumn Má bought moon cakes; every New Year she tended to Bà’s grave in preparation for Tet.
Trisha frowned. Hadn’t she challenged her parents’ beliefs enough with her decision to marry Tommy in the first place? She didn’t want them to think that she was giving up who she was just because she was marrying a Caucasian.
Only, when her mother launched into what was sure to be another long-winded lecture, Trisha glanced at her watch. Gawd. How long is this going to take? She excused herself and stood to knock on the door.
To her surprise, when she banged the door knocker, the door drifted open, unlocked.
Which was pretty weird. Why the camera and the bars over the windows if Mimi was going to leave a door open? Trisha looked back at her mother, who rose slowly to her feet. Suddenly, Má pushed Trisha aside and rushed through the door, calling out Mimi’s Vietnamese name.
Má’s barging in didn’t surprise Trisha one bit. Her mother and Mimi were pretty tight. Mimi came to the house for tea all the time. Usually, she gave Má pretty good advice. There was only this one time she had Má in tears. Má never said what Mimi had told her, but two weeks later, Bà, Trisha’s grandmother, passed away. Weird.
Since she could remember, Trisha had studiously avoided the woman she called “Auntie.” Mimi used Tarot cards, and some of her readings could be eerily accurate. Like the thing with Bà, and the time Mimi warned the family to beware of the “friendly snake.” A couple of weeks later, they found out her father’s business partner was embezzling a bunch of money. There were a ton of stories like that about Mimi. Really, it gave Trisha the willies to think that someone could see her future.
She felt a cold, hard ball in her stomach as she stepped inside the foyer, her high-heeled mules making a staccato sound on the marble tile. The house seemed strangely quiet.
It bothered her, this growing fear. She wanted to shut out her mother’s voice inside her head. What if Tommy isn’t the right one, Tuyen? Or more likely, what if Mimi told the family he wasn’t? Could Trisha really elope as she’d threatened?
She frowned, finding herself face-to-face with the most gawd-awful painting. The enormous oil took up half the wall in the living room and showed a squat, grinning demon sitting happily on a heavenly throne. Mimi had told her the story behind the image. It came from a Buddhist text, about a demon who fed off the anger of others. A heavy red mist oozed from his scaled body, forming a bloodred aura.
Aunt Mimi collected all sorts of demon paraphernalia. She’d told Trisha her little demons protected her. Walking past the canvas, Trish glanced nervously away from the bug-eyed figure in the painting, thinking, Right…
Aunt Mimi had a really posh setup. Furniture made of exotic tropical hardwoods stood on beautiful Oriental silk rugs. A huge mirror hung over the fireplace, with an intricately carved Chinese frame depicting a phoenix. At the other end of the room stood a beautiful lacquered screen inlaid with mother-of-pearl and
