Like I said, Detective, I took great pains to ensure that no one in my life had any clue what I was doing. Not only Oli and Maria, but also my friends Carla and Joanne. The one time the three of us finally managed to schedule an evening out, I stripped my new rose-gold Rolex off my wrist for fear of it raising questions.
Now that Joanne had a second child and Carla a serious boyfriend (this, on top of their already hectic careers as a VP at Banana Republic and an ob-gyn, respectively), we rarely got together. Back when Winnie had reappeared, we’d exchanged breathless witchy text messages, but I hadn’t told them she’d become my friend, not to mention my boss.
I was the first to get to the bar. They arrived together, arm in arm, a few minutes later. Once they took their seats, their questions were rapid-fire: How different did Winnie look? How often did she come to San Francisco? Why on earth was I hanging out with her so much?
Thankfully, before I could answer that last question, our waiter delivered frothy cocktails in mismatched vintage glassware, and my friends paused to take long appreciative sips. It was then that Joanne noticed my amethyst Kelly, which I’d brought along at the last minute, figuring my friends would get a kick out of it.
Is that what I think it is? she asked, reaching for the bag.
It’s a knockoff, I said quickly. I bought it in Hong Kong.
Purple! said Carla, who had no interest in designer fashion. How out of character. Have you ever, in your entire life, bought a purse that wasn’t black?
Joanne deemed it a good copy before she spotted my zebra-print flats beneath the table. We don’t see you for a couple of months and now you’re a whole new person? She turned to Carla. How long have I been trying to get her to branch out and wear color?
Years, said Carla. Maybe decades.
They asked if I’d figured out what Winnie really did for work.
Joanne said, I bet it’s something supershady. Import-export. Sanitation.
They laughed, and I laughed along.
Believe it or not, she was telling the truth, I said. She connects American leather goods companies to Chinese factories, and it’s as boring as it sounds. I should know. I’ve been going over her contracts since I have some free time.
You have? Since when? Carla asked.
Do you think that’s a good idea? said Joanne.
I assured them that I’d done my due diligence. After all, which one of us was the lawyer here?
The look they traded gave me a sense of all the text messages exchanged and lunches grabbed without me.
When they asked how Henri’s preschool applications had gone, I merely answered, Great! We just need to make a final decision! Let’s not discuss that. God knows I’ve wasted too much time on preschool already.
Joanne, whose two kids had attended one of the schools that had rejected us, nodded sympathetically. Later, I’d make up some bullshit story about how we’d had second thoughts about Divisadero Prep and managed to apply to Ming Liang at the last minute. And this is what Winnie had always known: as long as she could convince me to work for her, everything else would fall into place. The secrets I’d be forced to keep would alienate me from my loved ones, so that one day soon, I’d look around and find that the only one left to turn to was her.
Oh my god, said Joanne. We forgot to tell her.
Oh my god, Carla agreed. How was it not the first thing we mentioned?
Joanne’s face flushed in excitement. She said that she’d run into Helena Sontag, our old classmate, at a conference, and learned that she taught at UVA from time to time, in the MBA program.
And? I said, my annoyance rising like baking dough.
Carla assured me this was all crucial background information. A couple years ago, Helena had been teaching a marketing class when Winnie walked in and asked to audit.
I said that made sense since she’d lived in Charlottesville for a couple years while caring for her aunt.
Exactly, said Joanne, by now so riled up the color had spread down her neck. Except her aunt had already died and Winnie was still living there—and here Joanne paused for effect—because she was having an affair with her dead aunt’s husband.
That’s how she got her green card, Carla practically yelled, drawing looks from neighboring tables. By marrying her uncle.
Joanne turned to the gawking women at the neighboring table and clarified, No blood relation.
I tamped down my shock, not wanting to give my friends that satisfaction. I tried to remember the man who’d arrived at our dorm room with Winnie’s aunt all those years ago. The aunt I could conjure instantly. She’d worn a blazer and scarf despite the unseasonable heat, as well as an immense straw visor to shield her face from the sun. The husband, though, had been unremarkable. An average white man, neither tall nor short, fat nor thin. What had we talked about over dinner at Fuki Sushi? He didn’t eat raw fish, that I recalled—odd, but not egregious for the standards of the time.
Is that not the grossest thing ever? Joanne said.
It speaks to who she is at her core, said Carla. She’ll stop at nothing to get what she wants.
Their salacious delivery of this gossip, their knowing looks, their united front—all of it irritated me. I said something like, Maybe you don’t grasp the value of American citizenship. Maybe it’s something we all take for granted.
Ava, said Joanne. She married her aunt’s husband. That’s some Woody-Soon-Yi–level shit.
Don’t get in too deep with her, said Carla. We don’t know what she’s capable of.
I swore that I was barely involved in her business, that I’d committed to nothing, and then swiftly moved on to the topic of our upcoming fifteenth college reunion. It was a full five months away, yet weekly emails were already arriving in our in-boxes, reminding us to register and book hotel rooms and submit pictures for the slide show.
I don’t get why the fifteenth is a big deal, I said.
I’m going since I missed our tenth, said Joanne.
Carla said, If you both go, I’ll go.
They looked at me. I shrugged noncommittally.
Do you think Winnie will come? asked Joanne.
Is she allowed to? Carla asked.
I said I didn’t see why she would, especially since she wasn’t in touch with anyone.
Except you, said Carla.
Joanne peered into the depths of her cocktail glass as though trying to divine a message in the leftover froth. It’s so weird, her sudden reappearance, the way she sought you out.
Carla added, How the hell did she know Oli was a transplant surgeon? She isn’t on social media, and you hadn’t spoken to her in almost twenty years.
The alumni listserv, I said, before realizing that of course Winnie wouldn’t have access to it, since she’d never graduated.
But Joanne and Carla had already moved on.
Make sure you ask her about the uncle-husband and report back, Joanne said, as Carla signaled for the waiter to bring another round.
I longed to call off the order, to get up and leave. I didn’t want to spend another minute in that booth with these women, my oldest, closest friends.
You see, Detective, that’s how deep in I was. Instead of being repulsed by Winnie’s marriage to Bertrand Lewis, I held my friends’ wholly natural reaction to it against them. In fact, in my sick and addled mind, I admired Winnie for once again saying, To hell with the haters, I’m going to do what I have to do. That level of audacity, daring, nerve—well, it was intoxicating.
10
That June, six months after Winnie had first reached out to me, Boss Mak arrived in Palo Alto for a few days of consultations and tests with Oli and the rest of the Stanford transplant team. Winnie went along to translate as well as to provide moral support.