“We bring these all the way from California for you—I tell Gracie that the personal is the most important for business.”
“Well, I just think that is so sweet, I really do. Trip is going to flip when he sees all this—he built a special shelf and rigged up lighting and everything.” Ellie tore into a box right there on the street, using her keys to rip apart the packing tape and scattering the Styrofoam shells out onto the street. Inside, row upon gleaming row of boxes made of the palest, blush-colored paper stock, MAGNOLIA GENERAL STORE printed in gold using a typeface that Ellie herself had designed. She pulled one out reverently.
“I can’t believe we did it. Mr. Wang—”
He broke in. “No, no Mr. Wang, please call me Charles.”
She smiled. “Charles, we never would have thought this big if it hadn’t been for you. Thank you.” She held the box up to her nose. “Oh it smells good!”
His heart swelled. It was his factory and his ingenuity, his powers of persuasion, that allowed this southern girl to dream of more than a lovely store in a dying town.
And then they all saw it. Oil had soaked through the bottom of the box, mottling its perfect blush. “Uh oh,” said Ellie, joking, nervous. She opened it up and pulled out a glass jar of bath scrub. The label was beautiful. The crystals twinkled in the sun. And the whole thing was covered with a slick, sick sheen. Ellie wiped her hand on the leg of her jeans and looked up at him.
America was ruining everything. Ruining it with her embarrassing heat, with the sticky swelter between her fat white legs. They opened box after box, and each one was the same—a brief, optimistic moment when the contents shimmered in neat, packaged rows, and then the inevitable crash of disappointment as the leaky interiors made themselves known.
The old-towel smell of his own sweat mixed with the sweet magnolia perfume made Charles nauseous. His heart hammered inside his chest with an alarming insistence. It would be incredibly embarrassing to die right now; Grace would never forgive him for it. His head buzzed. He couldn’t look at Ellie. With each failed box, the numbers ticked higher in his mind, the tally of money he’d never be able to claim.
“I’m so sorry,” said Charles, finally.
The two of them sat on the back of the U-Haul surrounded by a spent pile of cardboard. Styrofoam peanuts swirled along the street. Grace had retreated to the backseat of the car with an excuse about the sun.
“Of course I will refund your deposit.”
She nodded. Of course. She would expect nothing less from the accomplished, wealthy businessman in the bespoke suit she and her husband had met sitting in first class, the man who had name-dropped a list of his clients and been so generous about their ambition.
Ellie got up.
“Or maybe we try again? And you can just, you know, ship everything the way you normally do? September in Alabama is hot as hell—it must have been a surprise coming from L.A.”
Charles jumped up onto the sidewalk next to her, and before he could stop himself, the words piled out of his mouth.
“There is no try again. When we meet, I have very successful business. Now it is gone. It didn’t have to be, but it is. Not my fault, but all my fault. You are young. You don’t know the things that can happen in a life.”
Ellie’s eyes opened wide. “I had no idea, Mr. Wang! Are you, is your family alright?” She looked over at the car where Grace and Barbra were sitting. Charles could see her taking in the age of the car, making some allowance, perhaps, for the fact that it was at least still a Mercedes; scanning the backseat, which was completely covered with Grace’s torn-out magazine pages, making it look like a set for some puppet minstrel show. Bird shit was splattered on the roof, and dead bugs were smeared across the windshield. He cringed as his daughter rummaged through an open suitcase. Was that underwear hanging out the side? The Wangs were less than a week out of Bel-Air and already they looked like they’d come from a trailer park.
“We are always alright! We just think of this as a vacation. Look, I will write you a check for your deposit now.”
Charles pulled the business checkbook out of his pocket. In some small way, he must have known that this might happen. As he signed his name, he thought about a line from an old gangster movie he remembered seeing as a teenager in Taiwan. “His mouth keeps writing checks that his fists can’t cash.” No one’s fists were going to be able to cash this check because the account was locked, no matter how many gangsters wanted to threaten it.
She accepted the check and folded it in half without looking at the amount. In fact, the bright and lovely Ellie was so well-bred that she helped pack the boxes back into the U-Haul and sent them on their way with a bag of spiced nuts made by a local baker and a giant hug for Grace.