“You might’ve just saved my life,” he quips.
“All in a morning’s work,” I respond with a smile. I squeeze my hand that touched him into a fist. I remember his question and try to pick the conversation back up smoothly, as though I hadn’t just caressed his shoulder. “As for what I like to bake, um, anything with chocolate like cookies or brownies. Cinnamon rolls. Sourdough bread.”
The man nods. “Very nice. Did you know that sourdough is the oldest form of leavened bread? Food historians believe that the use of leavening was discovered by the Egyptians. Until there was commercial yeast, all leavened bread used naturally occurring yeasts.”
“I…why do you know that?” I look up at him, amused.
“I love learning about history. Mostly so I can whip out interesting facts and sound smart at parties.” He grins.
“I’m sure these random facts come in handy when you’re trying to impress the ladies,” I say, looking away and rolling my eyes at myself. The ladies? Did I just say that out loud?
“Rarely,” he says. “Only when there’s someone worth trying to impress.” He gives me a lingering look, and now I blush.
We curve around tourists taking photos and lines of workers waiting for their breakfast orders. Six minutes later, I realize I’ve completely bypassed my car.
I slow my steps. “I’m that way,” I say.
“The real world calls. Maybe I’ll see you around?” he asks tentatively.
I pull my sunglasses off to get one last good look at him. “Maybe…if you’re even able to afford office space here,” I say.
Bakery Guy takes a step closer to me and pushes his sunglasses above his head. “Then let’s hope prices aren’t too high,” he says with a smile.
My pulse quickens at the nearness of him. I look down at his chest to confirm that I’m just imagining the electric field vibrating between our bodies.
“It was nice meeting you, asshole,” I say with a smirk, sneaking one last glance at his hazel eyes.
Bakery Guy raises his eyebrows, his startled look transforming into a throaty laugh. “Meeting you was a very nice surprise.”
I reorient myself and walk back to my car, reflecting on our interaction. As I think back on Bakery Guy’s traits, I come to a horrifying realization: For the first time in my entire career of being a matchmaker, I didn’t think to consider this man’s zodiac animal sign for a single second.
Chapter 2
I stand in my parents’ kitchen with a box of matches in hand, replaying this morning’s exchange with Bakery Guy. I snap out of my daze and give the giant horse-shaped cake I baked for Pó Po’s ninetieth birthday one more look over. It’s salted caramel chocolate—my specialty and Pó Po’s favorite. At three feet wide and two feet long, the platter takes up the entire kitchen island. Shaping the cake to look like a horse was no easy feat, but given that Pó Po is Year of the Horse, like me, I thought it would be a special and memorable dessert to honor her. The horse lies flat with three layers of chocolate cake, two layers of chocolate and caramel frosting, and an outer layer of chocolate frosting sprinkled with just the right amount of sea salt.
I wiggle the ninetieth candle into the cake and pull a match from its small box. I strike it once. Twice. No spark.
“I’m usually a lot better with matches,” I joke to Auntie Lydia, who’s preoccupied with taming stray hairs back into her shoulder-length bob in the reflection of a frying pan. At sixty-six, she still has flawless, glowing skin. Her youthfulness and elegance remind me of the actress Joan Chen.
“You just have to swipe it right. Isn’t that what the rage is all about nowadays?” Auntie quips. There’s a hint of bitterness in her voice. Like me, she believes in the power of a personally made match, not one made through a cellphone.
A spark ignites at the tip of the match, and I quickly move from candle to candle. A few matches later, I light the last candle while trying to remember where Dad told me he keeps the fire extinguisher.
Auntie and I carefully carry the flaming horse through the dining room’s sliding doors to the backyard where the party is in full swing. With over fifty people in attendance, it’s practically a Huang family reunion. Pó Po’s sisters, children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and close clients came from all over the world—China, England, France, South Africa, New York, Texas, and Washington—to join us in Pasadena, California, for her special day.
Mom and Dad transformed their two-thousand-square-foot bungalow for the birthday party, using the backyard as the festivity’s stomping grounds. And because Pó Po’s birthday usually falls within range of the Moon Festival, she prefers to celebrate both at the same time. Under vibrant red-and-gold globe paper lanterns, crescent moon balloons, and string lights, family and friends hold cool drinks and cluster in groups. When they see us with the cake, everyone in unison starts singing the first low chord of the Happy Birthday song. We sound like an off-key chorus.
Guests part to create a pathway for us as we navigate around wooden folding tables decorated with bud vases. The chorus grows louder as the kids and the ones who were too shy to join in at first contribute their voices, belting out the words with enough gusto to make Andrea Bocelli proud.
When we finally reach Pó Po, my heart swells with emotion. Delighted, Pó Po grins from ear to ear and places a hand over her cheek. When she smiles, her entire face lights up, the creases around her twinkling eyes deepening.
Auntie and I set the cake on the table in front of Pó Po, her face illuminated by the fire. As expected, a few singers go rogue and change the song’s ending, but Pó Po claps along anyways. I give Pó Po a side hug, and we link pinkies and press our thumbs together. It’s a gesture we’ve been doing ever since I could form a fist, as a promise that our love for each other will never change. I don’t know who I’d be without her in my life.
Pó Po closes her eyes for a few moments, wax slowly dripping down onto the top layer of the cake, giving the horse’s coat a healthy sheen. She blows out the candles, resting between each extinguishing to catch her breath. Everyone bursts into cheers and claps when she puts out the final flame. I make some noise for the woman whose past decisions have provided me with my future.
After Pó Po makes her wish, Auntie and I carry the horse cake to the winner’s circle, conveniently located at the dessert table. Mom strategically placed the dessert table by her blooming roses so Sān Pó Po, one of Pó Po’s sisters, could admire her handiwork. The sweet scent of the flowers wafts up in the light breeze. Beside the cake are trays of mooncakes, egg tarts, sliced apples and oranges, fruit tarts, red bean sesame balls, and Bo Lo Baos from this morning’s bakery run. I smirk at the memory of Bakery Guy instigating a trade. I may have lost my pork bun, but at least it was on my terms.
Dad turns Pó Po’s moon-themed playlist back on and Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” blasts from the outdoor speakers. Pó Po slowly waltzes her way over to me. She’s the proud leader of the local senior-citizen dance team and finds every opportunity she can to show off her moves. She holds up two sideways peace signs in front of her eyes and pulls them apart. I extend my arm diagonally up to the sky with a disco finger and then bring it down across my body.