You Must Fall In Love

Chapter Two

Against all odds, Christine Lam managed to graduate from Junior College with a respectable six A-levels; the grades thereof were less respectable than they could have been, but as most countries were sane and had much lower standards than Singapore, she was clear for entry into Real College.

As in American College.

"Go to Treighton," said Lily Lau, munching her microwaved char-siew pau and dashing out a charm with her baby-hair brush. "It's where I went."

"What am I going to study?"

Mum swallowed the last of the white bun and licked the sweet sauce from around her mouth. She was always less tidy at home, even though that wasn't by too much.

"Why are you asking me, Christine? Your cousin Lawrence is doing perfectly fine by himself, and he never went to university."

Christine glared down at the white tiles of their HDB flat, which both shone and felt like sebum. She had grown from a lanky young girl into a lanky young woman, complete with sharp elbows, crooked teeth and haphazard ponytail, which she only wore to get her hair out of the way. She liked to think she was plain enough to repel all boys, but her inner pride told her, as she looked in the mirror every morning, that she wasn't plain at all, only in hiding.

She could potentially find a partner, she just didn't want to.

Also, she was never getting married.

"I don't care about Lawrence," said Christine. "Lawrence can go eat elephant wang."

Mum blew the charm off and put it on the wire-grill that served for her drying rack. Just a year ago, she would have told Christine to be less crude and more cultured, but now it seemed like she didn't even care.

"What I'm saying is that you don't have to go study magic. You can go get your Bachelor's, come back home and learn from me."

Mum wasn't being cool or adult with her, only practical. Most English-educated mothers tried to be either lenient or balls-to-the-walls tiger-helicopter my-son-must-be-the-greatest-scholar-in-history type parents, but Christine suspected that Lily Lau never had a strategy for dealing with her in the first place.

She felt The Marriage Talk coming on, so she took evasive action. Over the years, the Talk had become something like a conceptual veruca, pricking and hobbling all attempts at mother-daughter conversation. And the more Mum talked about getting married, like it was some unalterable decree from the mouth of the Buddha, the more she hated it.

"I'm not learning your magic," she said. "Magic is dumb."

"It is," Mum agreed, pretending to look at her pau, even though it no longer existed save for the single fleck of white on the side of her mouth. "Nothing but screaming clients, angry ghosts and burning paper. But there's money in it, Christine. What else are you going to do? Do you have a plan? Are you going to build a career for yourself? Here in Singapore, with those grades?"

"I can do... I can do Business Studies!"

"Oh, is that so?"

Christine scowled, because in her mind, Business Studies was a cipher for not-magic, and could have just as easily been Horticulture or Queer Theory.

"Why does it matter? You said I had to get married by twenty-one!" she whined, before realizing that her foot was squarely in her mouth.

Ahhhh! Dumbass!

Mum was paying even less attention, which meant she knew she was winning.

"I didn't say you had to get married," she said. "I said you would get married. This is a contingency plan for what happens after. You're nineteen next year, which means you have three."

Christine stomped over to the sofa and threw herself onto it, face-first, bouncing slightly in chagrin.

"You don't know what's going to happen! Your fortune-telling doesn't even work half the time!"

Part of Christine hated acting like a hormone-addled teen, but the other part only got angrier at how she was acting. It was the vicious cycle of her temper-tantrum life.

Maybe if Mum was normal, she wouldn't let Christine get away with it.

Maybe if Mum was normal, she would care.

"My fortune-telling works perfectly," said Mum, putting the last touches on Charm #3. "I know that you're going to be married. I don't know who or where it'll be. That's as much choice as anyone gets."

Christine didn't know what the word choice meant in this context, but she was willing to bet that it wasn't anything helpful. She splayed out wider on the upholstery.

"Some people don't get married at all," she said. "Most people wait. You know, until their lives are stable?"

"Not you," said Mum. "It isn't your fate."

"Fate can kiss my ass!"

There was a piercing screech and a loud clattering bang. By the time Christine realized that the chair was on the floor, Mum's hand was on her shoulder, shaking from knuckles to nails.

"Hey! Stop that! It hurts!"

"Look at me."

"Lay off, Mum—"

"Look at me!"

Christine was so angry, her voice caught in her throat. She rolled over, sat up straight and glared at Mum's tight brown eyes.

"What?!" she demanded. "What do you want?! I —"

The slap turned her head and set her ears ringing. She touched her cheek in complete disbelief. Her face was burning, pulsing.

It hurt.

"Never, ever tempt fate again," said Lily Lau through white lips, finger jutted like the tip of a knife. "Understand?"

The pulse became a throat-throb, tightening and tightening behind her eyes, but Christine didn't yell back. She couldn't, because she knew what was going on.

This was different. This wasn't annoyance, or disappointment, or even anger.

It was fear. Lily Lau was terrified.

Christine swallowed, sucked back her sob and nodded twice. Then she put her head in her hands and burst into tears.