Ovidia Yu - Meddling and Murder - An Aunty Lee Mystery

‘You better bring me back to the shop,’ Aunty Lee sighed. She got into the police car then lowered the window to call out to her new friends: ‘You must come to my shop to eat!’

Truth be told, it was not just because of Nina that Aunty Lee was feeling a bit out of place in her own shop these days.

Aunty Lee’s new partner, Cherril Lim-Peters, was a very skinny, very smart, young woman who never seemed to get tired. Aunty Lee liked Cherril’s energy. What she found difficult to deal with was Cherril’s constant need for change and improvement. She was always coming up with ways to do things faster, better, and to greater profit.

Selina Lee, Aunty Lee’s stepdaughter-in-law, said Cherril was compensating for growing up in a Housing Development Board flat and studying in a government school. Selina never missed a chance to correct Cherril’s pronunciation or grammar. But Cherril knew far more about business productivity.

Given that Cherril’s determination was directed towards building the business and making more money, taking Cherril on as a partner had certainly been good for the business side of Aunty Lee’s Delights. It also made Nina’s temporary absence possible. (Aunty Lee had picked out several honeymoon packages to start off the marriage Nina was rejecting). Before Cherril came on board, Nina had taken care of Aunty Lee’s accounts, ordered supplies, and planned menus as well as helping with the actual cooking and serving.

Initially, Cherril had only taken over the drinks side of the business that Aunty Lee’s stepson, Mark, had started and given up. But lately Cherril had been talking about introducing new healthy alternatives. She had also taken over the accounts and balancing the books after taking an online course on cost-effective business accounting. Nina was just Aunty Lee’s assistant in the kitchen again. And not even the sole assistant, now that Cherril had hired two Chinese nationals to help in the shop during peak hours. Avon and Xuyie were both fair, pretty girls who claimed to speak English.

Aunty Lee could not understand their English any more than they could follow her Singlish. Luckily Cherril could give them instructions in Mandarin. Aunty Lee wondered if Nina felt left out, listening to the three Chinese girls chatting and giggling incomprehensibly. Aunty Lee certainly did. Both Aunty Lee and Nina were comfortable enough with Chinese dialects to do their marketing, food ordering, and scandal gossiping in Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese. But neither had studied the government-sanctioned Mandarin. In the old days, newcomers to Singapore had learned English to integrate. The recent influx of Mandarin speakers no longer seemed to find that necessary.

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