There, at Baiyun, I’d find the store run by Winnie’s contacts, where I’d inspect and pay for fifty Chanel Gabrielle Hoboes in all the latest colors and fabrics.
This, too, gave me pause. What the hell was a “Gabrielle Hobo”? What exactly was I supposed to inspect?
You can do this, she said firmly. Look at the bag from all angles. Smoosh the leather—it should be soft and pliable. Make sure the zippers pull smoothly, that the stitching is even, that the trims and seams line up. Check the hardware. Read every word on the authenticity card.
I scribbled notes as quickly as I could.
What if I can’t tell the difference between a good and a bad fake?
Take pictures—close up, interior and exterior—and send them to me.
This final directive set me more at ease, but also prompted me to ask why she couldn’t handle all this from L.A.
Winnie let loose an exasperated exhale. Ava, we’re not buying from some reputable name brand. These people are crooks. They could charge me for one-to-ones and ship me a bunch of crap. You’re the only one I trust.
Hearing her refer to her own associates as crooks shook me from my trance. What was I thinking? I’d never done anything remotely illegal in my life, and the last thing I wanted was Winnie’s trust.
No, I can’t do this. I’m sorry for wasting your time.
Don’t hang up.
The command immobilized me.
All I’m asking is that you show these people they’re being watched. A favor for an old friend. You’re not doing anything criminal. You’re harming no one.
Again, I demurred.
She said, Look, I’m not going to ask why you suddenly need money, but if it’s really as urgent as it seems, this is the easiest cash you’ll ever make.
She told me that after I’d inspected and paid for the bags, they’d be sent on to Dubai, where they’d be split into small unremarkable parcels that would escape notice in the US.
Once she received the shipment confirmation, she’d send my commission.
I asked, Five percent of what? The cost price or the retail price?
Retail. I’m not a cheapskate.
I did the math. If each bag’s real counterpart sold for four grand online, she’d earn double that amount after returning the fake to an unsuspecting department store.
When I pointed this out, she released a short bark of a laugh and said, Good point, good point. I should know better than to go up against a Stanford grad.
Before I knew it, we’d settled on doubling my commission, to be doled out in three installments.
I said, I still don’t feel good about this.
Winnie’s tone melted like butter on toast. You’ll feel better once you see how smoothly everything goes—and once you get paid.
She advised me to open a mobile wallet on WeChat for convenience and privacy, pointedly refraining from asking what was going on with my bank account. (As you and I have already discussed, she had other ways of getting answers.)
I’ll send all payments to your WeChat, she said. I heard the wink in her voice when she added, No one will ever need to know.
6
Winnie’s driver arrived at seven o’clock sharp the next morning to make the two-hour journey to Guangzhou. Gathering my things, I stopped at the dining table, where Henri sat in between my uncle and my aunt, gnawing on cornflakes.
I bent to kiss him on both cheeks. Bye, Cooks, I said. Be a good boy.
He tossed a handful of cornflakes after me, as though they were grains of wedding rice. If I weren’t in such a hurry, I might have been amused.
My aunt leapt up to gather the scattered cereal.
I rushed back to the table and smacked his hand. Cookie, we don’t throw food. I bent down to help my aunt.
Henri giggled and tossed another handful right in my face. I grabbed his arm. No. We don’t do that.
My uncle whisked the bowl away. You don’t get to eat cereal if you throw it.
I’m so sorry, I said.
Neither my aunt nor my uncle responded, but I caught the look that passed between them and guessed they already regretted their offer to watch Henri. My cell phone chimed—the driver making sure I knew he was here. Henri whimpered and tugged his ear.
Now, Cooks, no crying, I warned.
He slapped his high-chair tray, demanding more cereal.
I slowly backed toward the door, still clutching his discarded cornflakes in my fist. Don’t. Cry.
His gaze locked onto mine.
Be. Good.
His eyes filmed over.
Go, said my aunt. Don’t be late.
Have a good time with your friend, my uncle said.
That’s what I’d told them—that I was going to meet an old law school classmate.
Thank you, I said. Really, thank you so much.
As I shut the door behind me, my son’s whimper rose to a screech. I darted into the elevator and jammed the close button. All the way down, I stared up at the security camera, urging it to note the face of the world’s worst mother. In the less than twenty-four hours we’d been in Hong Kong, my aunt and uncle had already endured one tantrum and were well into their second. I half expected them to tail me into the lobby, shouting that they’d changed their minds.
Have you taken him to a specialist? my aunt had asked gently the night before. I can get Karina’s advice? I reminded her that his father happened to be a doctor, too, and she let the subject drop.
In the lobby, I deposited my child’s cereal in the trash. Beyond the glass door stood my driver, a middle-aged man with a small paunch and thinning hair. It wasn’t too late to cancel. I could empty my wallet of the last of my dollars and send him away with a simple apology. I could go upstairs to my crying boy.
And then what? How would I explain why I had no money? How could I reveal what my husband had done without raising alarms? Oh, how the family would pounce on the gossip. If my mother were still around, my aunt would have messaged her right away to make sure she knew, and my cousins, too. In fact, at this very moment, Aunt Lydia was probably calling Karina to report on Henri’s issues, and to ask whether it’d be okay to give him a tiny bit of Benadryl to settle him down.
Later that night, as my aunt and uncle got ready for bed, she’d say, Can you believe that Oli? Jana told Ava to keep her own bank account, but she refused.
American kids, my uncle would say. So stubborn.
Perhaps they’d touch hands, secretly thankful that Karina wasn’t the only one whose husband had proven to be a cad.
No, I could not reveal the truth. Letting down my guard seemed as unthinkable as stripping naked in my aunt and uncle’s living room. And now I’d taken on the additional burden of not wanting to disappoint Winnie.
Maybe all this is difficult for you to understand, Detective, but when you grow up as I did, schooled in the supremacy of “face”—the figurative face, the image, reputation, honor that must be fought for and preserved at all costs—breaking free from constraints to think for oneself becomes a Herculean task.
And so, I went outside, and greeted the driver, and climbed into his minivan.
We wound our way through teeming city streets, flanked by buildings packed so closely together they formed an endless wall of gray. From time to time, the driver tried to make conversation, but my Mandarin was limited to cursory discussions about food and the weather, and my Cantonese was worse. Eventually, he turned up the radio and listened to the news.
I must have nodded off because the next time I checked, we were careening through traffic on the wrong side of the street. In crossing the border, it was as though we’d passed through a mirror: everyone here drove on the right side of the road, and we did, too, except that my driver was still on the wrong end of his van. When he signaled and made a sharp left turn, my stomach lurched. We were misfits, he and I, aliens in this strange, exotic land.
My driver weaved in front of a lorry filled with wooden crates of cawing chickens and pulled up to a peach-colored tower, one of five that spanned an entire city block.