In the long silence that follows, James wonders how Dagou thinks he’s keeping his relationship with Brenda Wozicek a secret, when everyone seems to know about it.
“I’m telling myself, I’m not a creep because I’m not just going to take the ring from her. And so I offer her ten thousand dollars.”
After a startled moment, James clears his throat. “Wouldn’t that make her feel, well, undignified, Dagou? Wouldn’t she believe that you assumed she could be bought?”
“No shit. Of course. Of course it’s ridiculous, and humiliating, and rude, and awful. I don’t know why I did it. I was desperate, I was a crazy man! Here I am, entirely without dignity, begging her to let me give her ten thousand dollars so she’ll understand we’re broken up and give me back the family ring.”
He stops for a moment, lost in thought. “And of course she won’t take it. She doesn’t need the money. She’s gotten through that fancy law school, and she’s working at this evil accounting firm in Chicago. Katherine is rich.”
This is undoubtedly true. Yet there remains one central question about Katherine, separate from the ring and even from the money. “Why won’t she let you go?”
“Because she says I’ll change my mind. She says she knows I’ll change my mind, that I really love her, and anyone else I ever want is just a fling I need to get out of my system, because we got together so young. She’ll wait, and I’ll come back to her.”
“Um, do you think it might be true?”
“No. There’s someone else. I’m not even sure Katherine thinks it’s true. It’s more like an oath, it’s what she tells herself because she’s decided it’s true. I don’t think she loves me anymore. She smiles at me and I’m afraid she’s going to slap me, but she still smiles, she smiles.”
Surely it can’t be that bad. “Of course she doesn’t want to slap you.”
“Wait a minute, Snaggle. It gets worse.”
He stops, gathering his strength to speak. James waits with a sinking heart.
“Do you think I went to Katherine with a bag of cash and tried to buy the ‘family ring’ outright? That would be bad enough, right? Well, what I did was worse, Snaggle. I didn’t have ten thousand dollars, I didn’t have two thousand dollars. I went to her empty-handed and told her, I need the ring right now. I told her, I’d buy it back but—I’d have to owe her.”
James flinches. “Don’t tell me any more.”
“I have to tell somebody! And who else will listen, who else could love me after I finish this story except you, Snaggle? So, now she knows, Snaggle—she knows.”
“What do you mean?”
“She knows I don’t have any money.” Dagou’s face is wrung up in misery. “I’ve been keeping up an elegant lie, telling her Dad pays me well, driving down to visit her in Chicago, blowing my salary on dinner. She thought she was engaged to a bustling restaurateur. But she figured out I don’t have the ten thousand dollars, and she’s not a fool, she knows if I don’t have ten thousand dollars, I don’t have a cent to my name. So then, to make it even worse, she …”
A half minute of silence passes. What did she do? James waits, determined to hear his brother out, but Dagou won’t finish his sentence.
James prompts him. “Why do you need the ring so much?”
Another silence, even more prolonged and obdurate, this time for longer than James can bear. He blurts, “You’re in love with Brenda Wozicek.”
An intense flame of yearning opens up Dagou’s heavyset features. Then, almost as quickly, a scowl battens them down. “It’s not what you think! I don’t want to give the ring to Ren. Ren doesn’t even care about the ring. She wouldn’t want it.”
“Why do you want it back? For the family? For Ma?”
Dagou hunches his big shoulders. “I want to sell the ring, to these obsessive Qing antique collectors from Taiwan. Because Ren wants to live rich. Money is more important to her than anyone in the world.” He lowers his voice. “I haven’t told anyone—I signed a lease on this swanky eighth-floor penthouse across town, over in Lakeside. Starting January first. I’m going to surprise Brenda with the penthouse, ask her to live with me—”
James recalls his father’s words: And now the dog wants a bigger house! “Did you tell Ba about the lease?”
“I had to! I can’t afford the rent. I asked Ba for more money. He said to break the lease, but I can’t—it would hurt my credit. Ba just laughed. He says, You tried to bite off more than you could chew! So I set up the luncheon, to ask him for the partnership.”
“Do you have to live in Haven? Does Brenda want to stay here?”
“Probably.” Dagou shakes his head. “I’m tired of focusing on geography. It’s a family obsession. There is no perfect place. It’s just that, for people like us—”
“What do you mean, ‘like us’?”
“We Chaos, who are full of passion and inner chaos! None of us can bear to be in our present lives. We’re charged up with unrelenting ambition for the future; it’s why Ma and Ba came to the States. Or we’re sad about what might have been. Ba says he wishes he hadn’t left China. Ma’s trying to get back to a time without Ba. I’m thirty-three and I want to be nineteen again. We want to travel back in time, but we can’t, and so we want to go to a new place instead. Place is what we have instead of time. No. Not true. Money is what we have now, instead of place or time.” He exhales. “Time is money. Place is money. Love, love is money. And power is money. You’ll see.”
“I don’t want to be like that,” says James.
“Ah,” says Dagou. “But you are. You heard what Gu Ling Zhu Chi said to you.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I forget you have such bad Chinese. Well, Ma told me all about it. Gu Ling Zhu Chi read your I Ching and your palm. Then she stood there and told you your fortune. Do you want to know what it is?”
James is certain he doesn’t want to know. But more urgent than this certainty is the desire to know. “If you and Ma know what it is,” he says, “then so should I.”
“Okay. Well, she said you’re going to come into a lot of money, Snaggle. You’re going to find and lose more money than some men make in a lifetime. You’ll live a big, important life, you’ll grow up into a powerful man. You’re going to have adventures—expansive, challenging adventures; you’re going to live in many places. You’ll remember everyone you ever knew, and you’ll take on their burdens for them. Love is going to matter to you, more than anything else, and the love of your life is going to be unrequited.”
“What do you mean.”
“Unrequited. That means, ‘not returned.’” Dagou lifts the tumbler and drains it. “All I know is, kid, when you get your big, important life, when you’re making your deals, don’t forget about your old brother here.”
“Dagou,” James says, “it’s Alice. I want to sleep with her.”
“Give ’em up,” says Dagou miserably. “Women are crazy, Snaggle.”
“But—” James tries again. “Does ‘unrequited’ mean … that I’m not going to have sex with her, Dagou?”
“No, Snaggle.” His brother’s voice is sad. “It doesn’t have to, Snaggle.”
“Dagou. What Gu Ling Zhu Chi warned you about.”
“To stay away from the restaurant.”