Aside from this fake designer handbag hanging from my shoulder, had I ever chosen something simply because it made me happy? Henri’s baby sneaker-socks with real shoelaces and rubber soles had made me happy. Oli’s mother-of-pearl cuff links that I’d spotted in the window of a little shop in Aix-en-Provence had made me happy. But nothing I’d purchased for myself had ever elicited joy, not even my wedding dress, which I’d chosen for its reasonable price tag and, more importantly, its appropriateness. A silk cady column with a not-too-low V-neck and cap sleeves, it was a dress that made me look slender and flattered my skin tone and that could not, under any circumstances, be considered in poor taste.
In a way, wasn’t this desire to disappear at the root of why I’d gone to law school despite having no interest in the law? Because it was easier and less risky to vanish into the image that my parents—and the world—had of the good Chinese American daughter? I bent over the stroller to make sure Henri’s eyelids remained at half-mast. A long-ago image surfaced of freshman-year Winnie in a pink T-shirt with the words cuty pie plastered across the front in multicolored rhinestones. At the time, my friends and I mocked her behind her back, but now I wondered how she would have reacted if I’d done it to her face.
Her retort rose in my ears. What would you suggest I wear? One of three identical black sweaters every day? Don’t you ever get bored? What do you want to wear? Do you have any idea, Ava, what it is you actually want?
In the Lyft back home, I imagined potential additions to my wardrobe: crimson patent leather heels, a leopard-print swing coat, something, anything trimmed in fur. What if? I thought. What if? What if? This must seem so frivolous to you, Detective, but trust me when I say this new line of questioning was nothing short of revolutionary. Never before had I so casually dismissed the things I believed I should want and should do and should be.
I was still lost in daydreams when a message from Winnie lit up my phone. Bags arrived. They are perfect! Best workmanship yet. Call when you’ve settled to discuss next steps.
I didn’t have time to reply because the car had arrived at the house, and the sight of Oli’s BMW in the driveway wiped away all other thoughts.
The driver hauled our suitcase from the trunk, and I lifted out the car seat holding my still-sleeping son.
Papa’s home, I whispered.
Oli was in the living room, typing furiously on his laptop.
When I set down the car seat, Henri opened one eye, frowned, and tugged on his ear, but the sight of his father halted his tears. Oli took him in his arms and covered him with kisses. He stroked his hair and said, Tu me manques. (You are missed by me—another of those infuriating Frenchisms.)
Over Henri’s tousled head, Oli’s gaze latched on to mine.
Hi, he said.
Hello.
Henri whined and rubbed his eyes, and Oli said he’d put him down for a nap.
I rolled the suitcase into the bedroom, listening to Oli tell Henri how much he loved him. The bed was exactly as I’d left it—the duvet hastily pulled up, my pillow still bearing the indentation of my skull. Oli hadn’t slept here the entire time we’d been away. I opened a window to clear the must.
Eventually I noticed Oli in the doorway, watching me unpack.
Hi, I said.
Hello. The corners of his mouth twitched.
I felt strangely shy.
He said, I’m going to give up the apartment. We’ll move down as a family—when you’re ready.
It was everything I wanted, and yet, when I took in the purple crescents beneath his eyes and the stubble on his chin I said, No, don’t. I know how hard you work.
His eyebrows jumped.
I was being selfish. Keep the apartment for now. I can manage with Maria.
In a timid voice he asked, Are you sure?
I’m sure.
That afternoon, for the first time in weeks, we made love. And for the first time in longer than that, my insides roiled like the sea. When I stunned him by climbing on top and straddling him—something I hadn’t done since the very beginning—he released a guttural moan, a sound so reflexive, so intimate, it filled me with tenderness, pure and honey-sweet.
Afterward we lay on the twisted sheets, holding each other until Henri summoned us with a wail. We grabbed him from his room and ordered in saag paneer and chicken tikka masala. We ate with abandon until our waistbands grew tight. Oli surprised Henri with a shiny train set, and they spent an hour making those little wooden train cars go around the track. When Oli started to yawn, I told him to go to sleep; I’d stay up with our jet-lagged boy.
It was after midnight when I crawled into bed and fit my body around my husband’s, basking in his heat. I awoke at dawn to find he’d already left to beat traffic.
I waited a few hours before calling to tell Winnie there’d be no next steps; our business relationship was done.
These bags are truly stellar, she said by way of greeting. What I need you to do next is open a business credit card, make up a name, something mundane.
I interrupted. There is no next time. I’m not getting involved in all that.
What are you talking about? You’re already involved.
That was different. Those were extenuating circumstances.
Her incredulousness seemed sincere. Come on, Ava, you did all the heavy lifting. This is the fun part, the reward for your hard work. Here’s your chance to make the easy money.
All I had to do, she said, was take my new credit card to the Chanel boutique on Geary and purchase a Gabrielle. And then, a couple days later, I’d return the twin superfake in its place.
It certainly didn’t sound like fun. Even I knew that boutiques posed a bigger challenge than department stores, their salespeople more exacting, their return policies less generous.
When I pointed this out, Winnie said, Ava, your bags are that good. We have to go for it. The boutiques have the widest breadth of styles. That’s where the money is.
It’s hard to explain the feeling her words unleashed inside of me, the tingling in the bowl of my belly, the brightness behind my eyes. I imagined striding into that store, swinging my Kelly bag, slapping down my credit card. What was it like, I wondered, to be so brash, so bold? And what if I could slip on that persona, just for a moment, as easily as I could a mink stole?
Winnie was still talking. In a couple months, we’ll send you to Dongguan to meet Boss Mak and our other partners, introduce you more officially.
I snapped out of the fantasy—because that’s all it was: make-believe, fiction, farce.
Hold on, I said. Definitely not. For even if I’d wanted to go, which I did not, how would I explain it to Oli? We’d only recently made up.
Oh, so he finally apologized?
What do you mean? I asked. I’d never mentioned the frozen bank cards.
Coolly she said, I ran into Oli while you were gone. Didn’t he tell you?
Her studied nonchalance had me on guard. Where? Palo Alto? What were you doing down there?
In the city. At that seafood place in Union Square. Farelly? Farolo? Some funny name like this.
Farallon. I knew the restaurant, the kind of hushed, overpriced joint that appealed to finance guys—and their lovers.
That’s the one.
Who was he with? How did he look? What did he say?
Calm down, Ava. He was with colleagues. They were about to leave, and he looked so glum that I convinced him to stay and have another round.
Of course, I bristled. What must Oli’s colleagues have thought when he’d begged off to have a drink with an attractive woman? Why hadn’t Oli mentioned this?
But Winnie insisted he’d spoken only of me and Henri.
What did you say to him? I asked.
Exactly what I thought. That he’d gone too far. That he was behaving no differently from those old raging patriarchs in China who demand that their wives and children submit to their every whim. That he was better than this.
In replaying this scene, Detective, I see that she couldn’t have run into him by accident. She must have had her private investigator tail him to the restaurant and spy on his table, so she could appear at an opportune time. I wonder how she got Oli not only to open up but also to admit that he was in the wrong. She certainly went to a whole load of trouble to intervene in our little marital spat. But this way I owed her one, this way I was in her debt.