“Over twenty million.”
About ten times the size of Toronto. I can’t even comprehend how big that is. There’s a churro truck nearby, so I grab a couple. We get covered in sugar, lick dulce de leche off our fingers, and shout out the chorus to the song, or at least what we think are the words. It’s fun until I pull out my phone to check the time and see a row of increasingly frantic texts from Sam.
Where are you?
Are you with Fangli?
Then variations on this for the last hour. He must have come by right after we left. The final message sounds like he’s about to call the police so I shoot him a quick reply.
We’re on a walk. All good.
The set ends and people cheer. Fangli turns to me with shining eyes, hardly looking a day over twenty. “That was amazing.”
Yonge Street’s now packed with the dispersing crowd, some yelling out the lyrics in a call-and-response that echoes up the street, so I lead her over to Dundas Street and then down through Nathan Phillips Square, where we walk up the winding concrete path to the green roof. It’s locked so we can’t go in, but we stand on the city hall balcony and hang our hands over the edge, the concrete rough under our arms. “I’d forgotten what it was like to be around people enjoying their lives,” she says.
“What about when you go home?”
She snorts. “My father’s life is his work. I might as well be at my own place.”
“Surely you have friends.” Actors are people, for crying out loud.
“All actors or in the industry.” She runs her hands over her arms. “We can’t escape each other. All of my friends I made in school… I fell out of touch with them.”
“What about Chen, the guy you had a crush on?”
“Only a small crush. Him, too, and it’s hard to meet new people. I don’t know what they want from me, and I work so much I can’t give them the time they deserve.” She speaks matter-of-factly and then glances at the dark sky. “We should head back.”
I check my phone and see I missed a text from Sam. Can I join you?
Damn, he must be really worried about Fangli if he’s willing to be seen with both of us. I shove down the wistful thought of him worrying about me one day and type out a response. We’re on our way back now.
We walk by the fountain pool and are almost at Bay Street when I say, “Why don’t you email him?”
“Who?” Fangli is looking curiously at her reflection in the dark window. “I don’t look like me at all.”
“Chen.”
She shrugs. “Why? Another person to ignore for my career?”
I’m no therapist but I power on. “It could be that. Or you might find someone to talk to.”
“That doesn’t work out for me.” She sounds defeated. “I need to be alone too much.”
I won’t fight her on it, not wanting to wreck the vibe tonight, so I tell her about an epically bad holiday party I endured at a restaurant as we pass it. “No one knew the drinks were doubles and the CEO did a cancan dance on the bar. People were making out all over the place.”
Fangli’s holding her stomach, wheezing with laughter. “Then what?”
“The CEO slipped in the guacamole and put his back out. Didn’t come to work for a week, but the next day, we got an all-staff email about no more alcohol at company parties.” I pause. “Two of the couples making out got married, though.”
We giggle in intermittent bursts all the way to the hotel. Fangli goes up first as I hit a convenience store to grab some chips. The churro whet my appetite and I want to balance the sweet with salt.
A knock on the door comes after we get in, and I open it to reveal Sam. He looks serious but when he sees Fangli, all the tension melts out of him. He comes in and rummages in the fridge for a beer. “Did you have fun?”
Fangli chatters to him in Mandarin as I open the chips and take the beer Sam holds out for me. I guess he’s forgiven me because he smiles as he takes the chips I pass over to him. It’s a good night, I congratulate myself, looking at Fangli. She has gum. I have my Dior.
We’re both happy.
Twenty
I’m riding high on my success of the other night and muttering along to my Mandarin app as I sit on the couch drinking coffee. How I took this language in university for three years and not a thing has stuck in my memory, I don’t understand. I was never close to fluent but now I even need to refresh my numbers. Yi. Er. San. Si. Wu. Liu. Qi, ba, jiu, shi. One to ten, then it’s all very logical. Eleven is ten-one. Twenty is two-ten and twenty-one is two-ten-one. None of this teen stuff or adding y’s.
I think Malcolm Gladwell might have written about how its logic makes for easier math, and I’m about to do a Google search when I decide that’s procrastination and return to learning the numbers instead of learning about them. I wish Mom had spoken Chinese to me at home, but she refused. Until her dementia hit, I’d rarely heard her speak it at all. The past in the past and all that.
Sam and I have an event tonight and I’ve already decided to divide my day between learning about the mainland Chinese film industry—background research, I should know the main players—and working on Eppy. Last night as I was falling asleep, Sam texted me a thought that launched a series of increasingly good ideas and I’m itching to get them organized.
That’s right. Sam texted me about Eppy. He’s been texting me off and on over the last few days and not only when he’s worried about Fangli. I do my best not to read into it but it’s hard. Seeing a text from Sam makes my heart thump and I wish I could get past this reaction so I can be the neutral friend he’s clearly decided I am. Friends is better than nothing, and far easier than adversaries.
My phone lights up with a message and again my heart bangs because it’s from Sam.
I’m in the hall.
At least he didn’t simply stroll in like usual. I need to get that key, though. I do an emotional check and am happy to note my heart rate has subsided and I don’t have any quivers or interferingly strong feelings. I have accepted that this is a job. Good for me, very reasonable.
This lasts as long as it takes me to open the door and see Sam channeling casual dojo, with loose pants and slides matched with an oversize T-shirt. His outfit could cost anywhere from $100 to $10,000 and I wouldn’t be surprised. I step aside and he comes in.
“I thought you were busy today.”
“We’re going for a walk,” he says.
“No, we’re not,” I say. “Fangli is out at an appointment and I can’t be seen with you at the same time.” Even if I go with him without my Fangli disguise, I resemble her too much to not cause questions if caught by a photographer.
“Right.” He goes to the window and stares out. “I want to see the city. My skin itches to get out of here.”
Sam has changed toward me since our talk about Fangli, and it’s a relief to be able to let down my guard around him. “We have a film premiere tonight.” I already had to practice going from standing to sitting in the dress, which is a stunner.
He makes a rude gesture. “Being stuck in a theater.”
“Aren’t you busy?” I repeat the question since he hasn’t answered.
“Finished early.” He doesn’t turn around but rolls his neck as if trying to get rid of a kink.
“Did something happen?”
“No.”
I walk over to join him at the window. He smells good, that same chipped-stone fragrance. It’s a cool, overcast day and the wind has whipped up small white-tipped waves on the surface of the lake. I open the sliding balcony door to let the breeze drift in and Sam closes his eyes.
His restlessness affects me as well. “What do you usually do to relax?”
“Work out. Watch YouTube. Play Candy Crush.”
“What level?”
He glances at his phone. “Three hundred and eighty.”
“I’m four ninety-two.”
This makes him frown competitively. I get an idea. “What if we go to the arcade near the aquarium? You wear a hat and something less”—I wave my hand around—“fashionable.” That might do the trick. No one will wonder who I am if they don’t identify Sam.