Aunty Lee's Delights Read Online Free Page A

for himself, and he appreciated it.
    “They shouldn’t notice what they are drinking. They shouldn’t notice what they are eating. They shouldn’t even notice how good they feel. Then we’ll have got the pairing right.”
    Perhaps Mark could be a food critic—or a poet—if this latest venture of his failed like all the previous ones, Selina thought. Not for the first time she wondered whether she could still make it as a derivatives trader or real estate agent. If she made her own fortune, she could forget about pushing her husband into succeeding. But she wanted Mark to stay with this, she reminded herself. The Lee fortune was there for the taking even if Mark did not make a profit. And this latest brainwave gave her a chance to keep an eye on Aunty Lee’s Delights. Even if Aunty Lee claimed she only ran the café as a hobby, it was clearly raking in cash. And since it had been set up by the late M. L. Lee with money that should have been Mark’s, clearly Mark should be benefiting from the profits as well.
    Selina conveniently forgot Mark’s sister, who seemed quite happy with how things were. Anyway, Mathilda had never shown much interest in what was happening in Singapore.
    “I hope Laura pulls herself together today.” Selina returned to her current peeve. “Even before she turned into a lush, she was getting all the glasses mixed up.”
    “Maybe she won’t turn up.” Mark turned into Binjai Park. The row of shophouses, which housed a pizzeria and several antiques shops as well as Aunty Lee’s Delights, stood on a side street to their left, separated from the main estate road by a decorative grass verge with the usual trees, shrubbery, and a metal prayer bin. “How many people signed up for tonight, anyway?”
    “Why do you say that?” Selina asked, ignoring his question. “Do you think Laura won’t be here tonight? She’s supposed to come and help with every session. That’s why we gave her a discount. What did she tell you?”
    “Nothing. I can set up everything myself, that’s all I meant.” Mark concentrated on parking. He stopped the CD player to concentrate, and the system switched automatically to radio.
    Even if it wasn’t a murder case, so gruesome to think of all those people enjoying themselves in the holiday resort while there’s someone lying dead on the beach, don’t you think?
    Maybe it’s a publicity stunt by the resort. Next they’ll announce there’s a murder mystery competition—dead body washed up on Sentosa, did the ghosts of murdered dolphins do it?
    “I hate those radio commentators, they’re so stupid!” Selina said. “Mark, what are you waiting for?”
    Mark kept the engine on. He wanted to hear what else they had to say. But there was nothing more.
    Harry Sullivan had arrived early, as he always did. He liked being on time. “Singapore time”—which could run up to thirty minutes behind any set appointment—was one of the things he disliked most about Singapore, and so, while he expected local people to be late for appointments, he himself refused to be late. Harry had never been particular about punctuality before; but here in Singapore, he was an expat, an ang moh and a man to be noticed.
    Back in Oz, he had been stepped on and pushed aside by the greedy, grabbing new immigrants invited in by a soft government, but over here the tables were turned. He was aware that people looked at Mr. Harry Sullivan differently here and the change in him had come naturally in response to that. Harry liked what he had become in Singapore. He was full of new project ideas, his conversation sparkled and impressed even himself, and he was a hit with local women, who loved being seen with a white man. It almost made up for the humid, equatorial heat.
    This evening he was wearing a red batik shirt (considered formal wear in the tropics) unbuttoned over a white T-shirt and Bermuda-length cargo pants. It was the third wine dining he was attending. Not that he didn’t prefer