“How did you know that’s what you wanted to do?” I’m intrigued.
“I always knew.” She flicks the tab of her can idly with a perfectly manicured finger painted with clear nail polish. “My school was chosen to put on a play in honor of a visit from the General Secretary. One of the directors from the Central Academy of Drama saw me and told my father that I would bring glory to China. It was the only reason my father let me apply. He wanted me to be a scientist.”
“Really.” I could be wrong, but I don’t think many North American actors are encouraged to go into the industry out of patriotism.
“That’s where I met Sam,” she adds. “We were in the same year at school.”
“Did you ever…” I wriggle my eyebrows with meaning as I test the ground. I’m nosy, okay? She doesn’t have to answer.
“Never.”
“You’re not a couple?” I feel lighter, which is weird because it’s not as if not dating Fangli means Sam’s open to me.
She shudders. “Sam is like my brother, but people find it impossible to believe a man and woman can simply be friends. I could never see him like that. Ever.” She makes a kind of hilarious choking face.
“Really?” I lean forward. “Not even when you met?” Because I imagine even in the blundering teenage years Sam would have stood out.
“At the Academy, there was no time for dating, and in any case, I had a crush on his best friend.”
“A love triangle?”
“We were young and neither Sam nor I are interested in each other, so more of a one-way love line than a triangle.” Fangli laughs. “Poor Chen. He started a technology company and I haven’t seen him in ages. He lives in Vancouver.” She raises her eyebrows. “The detective said you were single.”
“For two years,” I say. “Riley was—I mean, is, he’s not dead—a nice guy.”
“But?”
“I don’t know.” Talking with Fangli is so comfortable, like talking to the sister I always wanted. Or what I imagine sisterhood to be like. “It was never a raging passion but one day I cooked dinner and we ate and when I was doing the dishes, I knew if I had to do that every night for the rest of my life, I would shrivel to a husk.”
“You cooked and did the dishes?” Fangli frowns. “What did he do?”
I blink. “I don’t know. I always did them.”
“I see. Well, how did he take it?” Fangli leans forward, eyes wide.
“That’s the zinger. I agonized for a week before I decided the best way to tell him. I didn’t want to hurt him, so I wanted to avoid a restaurant in case the place would have bad memories for him. We lived together, but it seemed cold to sit him down in the living room. In the end, I asked him to go for a walk.”
“Why that?”
“I thought it would help distract from the message.”
She nods as if filing this away. “The zinger, as you called it?”
“Right. I do all this planning and then I tell him, Hey, it’s not you, it’s me but I think this is over.”
“Did he cry?” She leans further in.
“Nope.”
“Yell?”
“Not at all.”
Her nose scrunches up. “What did he say?”
Even now, I can’t believe it. “He said, ‘Okay, cool.’”
Fangli waits. Then she asks, “That’s it?”
“That’s it. ‘Okay, cool.’ Nothing else. We turned around and went home. I slept in the spare room and we were very genial roommates for three weeks before he found a new place. He shook my hand when he left.”
I hadn’t told Anjali that tidbit, too stunned and almost embarrassed when it happened. Fangli’s eyes are huge with disbelief.
“A handshake?” she repeats.
“Like this.” I give her the single firm and professional shake that Riley gave me before he walked out the door, like I was a new client he was confident was going to sign on because of the solid pitch he’d given.
I can see her try to control it, but Fangli’s lip twitches. The more she presses her lips together, the more I can feel my own starting to edge up.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, covering her mouth with her hand. “It’s not funny. But a handshake?”
I’ll give her this—she makes a valiant attempt to get herself under control. Then I give her a nod, that sharp, imperious, and excessively irritating dip of the head that Riley’d always given me whenever he’d finished explaining in detail why he was right and I was wrong.
That’s all it takes. Fangli snorts inelegantly into her hand, which sets me off. This in turn starts her giggling, which gets me cackling. Within seconds, we’re both doubled up, laughing until we can’t breathe. Riley might have been the trigger, but this is a simple and much-needed stress release.
“How long were you together?” she gasps.
“Two years.” I wipe the tears away, but when she hears that, her giggles start up again.
“Two years,” she finally whispers to herself as I rub my stomach, which hurts from laughing. She stands up. “What sort of a man does that?”
“Good question,” I say, sobering a little.
She looks at me closely. “One that doesn’t deserve you.”
“He’s out of my life,” I say. “It was easy to shake it off.”
That sets Fangli off again and occasional gusts of laughter follow as she waves good night and goes to bed. I can’t help but smile. I’d always had lingering feelings about that breakup, wondering how boring I was that “okay” was all the emotion Riley could summon. I’d felt lacking but Fangli’s contagious glee had shifted something in my mind. The humor plucked out the remaining sting. Did Fangli give me the validation that I didn’t know I craved, or was it simply relief at telling someone? Regardless, I could put it to rest.
Speaking of rest…I crack a yawn so big it nearly turns my face inside out. Bed for me, too.
Thirteen
Now that we’ve come to our agreement, I prefer being with Sam more than with Mei. She is like the most intimidating executive assistant for the most demanding CEO. She’s precise, unflappable, expressionless, and perpetually unamused. Like, I know I’m not funny but isn’t it common courtesy to at least fake a smile at bad jokes?
Not if you’re Mei.
I should find her easy to deal with, like a robot, but instead I have the dual sense of being judged and anxious. At least with Sam I’m judged and anxious but I have something nice to look at.
Today Mei takes me on a deep dive into Fangli’s art collection. My art collection is two framed posters from IKEA in my living room, so there’s a lot of information to cover. This is worse than an exam, and I tap out after three hours of art that I have no idea how to interpret.
“Time for a break,” I say, slapping the bound booklet on the table and going to the fridge. “Do you want some water?” I drink water. Wo he shui. I better make time to listen to my app today so I can get to good things like talking about the weather.
“Bu yao.” Mei doesn’t look up.
I get the tone if not the words. It’s a hard no.
“I thought I’d go see my mother this afternoon,” I say when I return to the table. “After all, I’m not a prisoner.” The last is a little too defensive because if I’m a prisoner, it’s a pampered one taken out for meals in exorbitantly expensive restaurants.
“There is no time,” Mei says. Her voice is smooth. “You have a facial booked and are then going shopping.”
“What about the clothes in there?” I point at the huge closet.
“Mr. Yao and Ms. Wei feel you would benefit from picking out some of your own things. I have an appointment set for an acceptable brand.”
“Fangli says they come to her.”
Mei doesn’t change expression. “They are coming here.”
It’s time for lunch and I think she thaws a bit when I ask her to eat with me. It’s sashimi today, and I dig in after cracking open a Diet Coke. “Have you worked with Fangli for long?” I don’t know anything about Mei personally.
“Two years.” She’s a delicate eater and I slow down a bit out of shame.
“What did you do before that?”
“I worked in the studio doing odd jobs.”
“Where did you learn English?”