Twenty-Two
“There will be cameras,” Sam reminds me for the fourth time as the car pulls up to the theater on King Street. “Remember our signal.”
We’ve decided Sam will take the lead, not in a draggy-caveman way, but an easy quarter-step ahead so I know where to stop and deliver a Fangli moment for the photographers.
He watches me fidget with the row of bracelets on my arm before laying a gentle hand on my fingers. “Are you ready?”
Seeing the photo has increased my anxiety but I try to dislodge the negativity and make space for the more imminent issue of the red carpet. “I was born ready.”
This makes him shake his head—but he’s smiling—before he gets out and leans back in to help me exit, providing cover as I do my best to keep from flashing the world because of the slit in my skirt. It’s a good thing this absorbs most of my attention, because by the time I’m out with my smile on, I only have time to make out a blue carpet before it dissolves into a seizure-inducing barrage of camera flashes. It’s not only the photographers who line the carpet, but every person there is calling my name and Sam’s and taking photos.
Nothing Sam told me warned me for the physicality of this experience. The cameras aren’t passive instruments used to capture moments in time; they’re active and hostile participants.
I freeze, nonplussed but smile fixed, and Sam leans down slightly to slide his arm around my waist. He smells like sandalwood this time and I sniff, feeling the scent calm me. I’d picked Coromandel, a rich patchouli that boosts my confidence. Only bad bitches and hippies use patchouli, a fragrance that can go from distinctive to overwhelming in a moment. I’ve never had the nerve to wear it.
“You’ve got this,” he murmurs.
It all becomes a blur. I smile and pose with my hand on my hip and my chin down and slightly to the right, which Mei reminded me multiple times is my best side. My face aches and my eyes tear up when I forget to blink. Earlier today I worked out a series of moves to casually change poses, and I work through them like a Beyoncé backup dancer.
I thought this would be the most thrilling thing that ever happened to me because walking the carpet is the epitome of movie-star glamour but the flashes and screams press up against me in the most maddening way. It’s layered with the knowledge that a single wrong move—a stumble or frown or silly look—can be seen around the world before I even notice I’ve screwed up. Or that someone could point and yell, “That’s an imposter!” emperor’s-new-clothes style.
“Breathe,” Sam murmurs and I take in a short gasp, then another longer wheeze. My chest feels cinched from fear and Spanx, but his hand grips my waist and I manage to get a real breath.
Sam guides me to the end of the carpet and into a main lobby filled with well-dressed people milling around giving air-kisses. Unlike at the art exhibit, the attendees range from formally gowned to downright eccentric. As Sam tucks his hand under my arm and I worry the sweat I feel beading on my upper lip is about to burst through my thick layer of foundation, a man walks by in a chartreuse polka-dotted shorts suit, panama hat tipped low over his eyes. Apparently both style and wealth are appreciated here.
Since I don’t have much of either, it doesn’t calm me.
“Ah, there he is.” Sam waves at someone behind me.
“Sammy!” A short man with a high man-bun comes over, a huge grin on his face. I know who it is because this time I did my research and checked the IMDb for director Eddy Freedman before coming. “Your agent wouldn’t confirm but I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
“You’d never let me forget it.”
“True. Wei Fangli, glad to see you.” He nods and I remember the internet says he has a phobia about touching people. “It must be three years now. Four?”
“At least.” I’m having a conversation with someone who knows Fangli.
“There’s something different about you.” He looks at me and cocks his head slightly to the side as I try not to freak out. “New hairstyle,” he finally decides.
I passed the test. Sam touches my arm in a small celebratory gesture.
A harried woman in a gray dress and a headset tugs on Eddy’s arm and mutters into his ear. He nods. “Right, I’ll see you at the after-party, Sam?”
“We have an early morning tomorrow but we’ll come for a bit.”
That’s it. Eddy is swallowed by the crowd and Sam plucks two glasses of bubbly wine off a passing tray. I take it and resist tossing it back like a shot since Fangli doesn’t drink.
The stars of the movie arrive and Sam and I drift back to the edges of the crowd. I make sure to keep on a small smile. “We’ll greet them later,” he says. “How are you?”
“Good,” I say. Then I repeat it. “Good.” I am. My smile hasn’t slipped and I managed the Running of the Photographers, safer but somehow more intimidating than the bulls of Pamplona. “What’s next?”
“Since we timed it to arrive a bit late, we can avoid most of the mingling. We’ll be asked to go into the theater. We watch the movie. Clap. Follow everyone to a room. Decline a drink. Stay fifteen minutes and leave.”
“Sounds like a hot date,” I say.
“Only the best for you.” He drops me a cheesy wink.
A low voice carries over an intercom. “Please take your seats. Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats.”
There’s a slow turn of the crowd as they move to the open doors of the theater. I know from Sam the film is a comedy of errors loosely based on the Oscar Wilde play Lady Windermere’s Fan. Sam sits beside me and we both smile at the people in our row, who seem to know who I am without saying they do. We engage in some light chatter about the weather and how hot it is in LA this time of year; they thank God they had the jet because it makes traveling so much more convenient when you don’t have to wait for customs, and I thank God the lights dim before I need to continue this inane conversation.
In the dark, I am very aware of Sam sitting next to me. We’ve already done some polite elbow jujitsu over who gets the armrest between us but I end up ceding my hard-won territory to him when I realize the prison of women’s clothes makes it more comfortable to sit with my hands primly clasped in my lap and my back straight as a ruler. I shift around to find a comfortable position, but to my dismay, the Spanx start slipping. Only a bit, but like when your socks inevitably come down your calves to land in wrinkled cups by your ankles, the edges roll and my stomach struggles for release. When I get up, I’m going to have a tube right around my hips. While I want to fight the good fight for body positivity, I do not have the courage to do it in front of an A-list crowd.
“What’s the matter with you?” Sam hisses in my ear.
“My Spanx are falling down. If I stand up, they’ll bind my legs together.”
“Your what are falling down?”
“My underwear.” It’s the easiest way to describe them without getting into a discussion about women’s foundation garments.
He doesn’t even reply, merely covers his eyes with one hand as if attempting to gather his emotional strength.
“It’s not my fault.”
More silence.
“What do I do?”
He turns to me, stupefied. “How should I know? I don’t wear women’s underclothes. Surely by this age, you’ve mastered wearing them.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.” This conversation has been conducted in whispers, as if we’re sharing a private conversation that is absolutely not about my underwear.
“Good.”
“Good.”
The film starts right in without any trailers. I want to enjoy the movie, at least enough that I’ll be able to talk about it in the party after, but my clothes make the experience endless. By the halfway point, my thighs are shaking with the effort of trying to keep myself upright and unmoving. It’s no use. With every breath and tiny fidget, the Spanx continue their inexorable trip down my body and they’re now cutting into my lower hips.
Sam puts a hand on my knee, and while at any other time in my life, I would have been left stunned at his touch, right now all I can think is that delicate pressure might bring the Spanx down another centimeter. I can’t risk it and I knock his hand away.
“Then stop squirming around,” he mutters.
“Can I go to the washroom?”
“No.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, do rich people not pee?” This is a very not-Fangli thing to say and the dark look Sam shoots me confirms it.
“I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think,” he whispers.
There’s some solace in knowing he’s probably right. The chances of anyone looking at my stomach for the three minutes it will take me to get to the washroom for some adjustments are minimal. That is, as long as the Spanx don’t fall down completely. I take a few deeper breaths and wince as the elastic cuts into the fleshy part of my hips. That’s going to leave a mark.
What I need is distraction, like when you’re trying to get through the last ten seconds of a plank pose. The movie is good but not good enough, so my mind sorts through all my current issues: looking for a job, worrying about Mom, getting caught as a fake Fangli. Then it lands on the one that looms largest because he’s physically right beside me.
Sam.
There’s always an intimacy in a dark movie theater, and having him so near and in that suit is enough to send my imagination into overdrive. Sam taking my hand and pulling me close. Sam, his arm wrapped around me as he laughs in my ear at an excellent joke I’ve made. Sam watching me get ready before he pulls me back on the bed, his black hair and tanned skin a striking contrast to the white sheet. Sam giving me that same look as the first time in Fangli’s suite, but this time meaning it. Sam seeing me and not Fangli’s double.
The images on the screen pass by without me noticing what’s occurring because I’m thinking about Sam. Just for this little while, I promise myself. Only for the amount of time it takes for this movie to run will I let myself dive into the fantasy of what it would be like to be wanted by Sam, to be one of the few to know the man beneath that public exterior. To have him only want me.
I stifle a heavy sigh. It’s sweet that he and Fangli are such good friends but I’m even jealous of that. Not of Fangli specifically, but of the strength of their relationship. There’s a level of trust between them that can only have been forged through supporting each other in the hard times, when the work is difficult and you’re going to collapse because every muscle aches from fatigue. They know they can turn to each other.
The movie ends too soon and I reluctantly bid my dreams goodbye. I’m back to being fake Fangli with her Spanx cutting off her circulation.
“Beautiful tones,” approves the man beside me. “That palette was perfect.”
“Gorgeous,” I agree. Sam stands, and when I do, my Spanx slip down further. Sam senses my sudden grab because he glances back and then down. His eyes widen slightly.
Ah, so it is as bad as I thought. I can’t decide if this means vindication or humiliation.
I hobble out of the row after him and he puts his arm around my waist with his palm flat and spread against my hip. His touch is firm because he’s trying to keep up the damn elastic. We walk as if we’re in a three-legged race to the washroom, Sam with his dazzling social smile and me beside him. He leaves me at the door.
There’s a line. I can’t believe it. The men are probably swanning up to the urinals without a care in the world. Between my underwear, hunger, and this stupid aching yearning for Sam that I did to myself, I’m so done with tonight.
Sam is talking to a strange woman when I come out with my precarious undergarments now under control. Our gazes catch as I head toward him. He doesn’t stop his conversation but the eye contact lingers about two seconds longer than it should and I try to avoid stumbling over my own feet.
Don’t read into this. All that happened is that he looked at me as I approached. He’s looked at me before. He will look at me again and see me as part of a job.
I don’t want to be his job. I want to think he was looking at me, Gracie, the person who loves a generously poured glass of wine and thinks way too much about organizational planners, and not an alternate Fangli. This isn’t safe.
Then someone grabs me by the arm, hard, squealing into my ear.
“I can’t believe it’s really you!” A wide-eyed blond woman leans close, too close, and her grip on my arm doesn’t soften. “Can I get a selfie?”
This is what Fangli meant by people acting as if she’s nothing more than a robot. Sam’s at my side in a moment, but she doesn’t take her eyes off me.
If I humor her, it will end faster. “Of course,” I say politely.
“Your face is so cute! I loved you in Sin Eater.”
I stare at her, racking my brain for Fangli’s movies. I know that’s not on the list but it’s familiar. Comprehension hits Sam and me at the same moment.
Ellen Gao is the only Chinese actor in Sin Eater. She thinks I’m another person.
Deciding discretion is the better part of valor, I pose and smile as expected. She disappears almost as quickly as she appeared and Sam reaches for my arm. His smile fades and he glances around and makes a hand signal. In seconds, there’s a man in a black suit and earpiece beside him. Sam has a hushed conversation and the man nods once, looks at my arm, and leaves.
“She thought I was Ellen Gao,” I say, almost laughing. It’s not a funny laugh. I’m a little breathless and my adrenaline is up.
“That shouldn’t have happened. She snuck in and security will get her out.” Sam gestures to my arm, and I raise it to see the livid marks from her fingers. He strokes the skin gently, his expression hard. “Does that hurt? Do you want to leave?”
“No.” I steady my voice. “You said fifteen minutes at the party?”
“Only if you’re up to it.”
“I’m up to it.” I said I’d take this job seriously and I’m going to. This time, I lead Sam.
* * *
“I didn’t get a chance to eat,” I tell Fangli when I arrive back. She came over to my suite after I had peeled off my layers, and now my body flaps around like a crab that’s rid itself of a too-small shell.
She shoves over a container of celery that she’s been nibbling on and a tub of hummus that she hasn’t touched. “Here.”
I scoop a huge glob and stuff it into my mouth. “How was your day?” Please let her not mention how I nearly trashed her reputation by dropping a towel and making it look like she was going to give Sam head in the hallway. Sam has assured me it was taken care of without Fangli even knowing, which gives me some confidence in the ability of their people to deal with the tabloids if news of what I’m doing for Fangli ever gets out—but I hate thinking about what might have happened.
She makes a face and drinks her seltzer. “My father called.”
The light in the suite is dim and in the background, some music I don’t recognize is playing on her phone. It makes me think of nostalgia. “Sounds like it wasn’t a great conversation.”
“He disapproves of me working out of the country,” she says. “He thinks I should stay in China.”
“Parents.”
“I know. I always wish I had a sibling to take off some of the pressure. I wanted a sister. My stepmother was not amenable.”
“I wanted a sister, too.”
“Why didn’t you?” she asks. “For us, it was the one-child policy. I was born after it started.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I never asked my mother. I suppose I always assumed she thought I was enough.”
Fangli leans over and touches my hand. “You were. I would have loved to have known my mother.”
We sit quietly for a moment. Then she speaks again. “Would you like to come to the show tomorrow?” she asks. “It may be an experience for you to see what it’s like.”
I nearly jump out of my chair. “One hundred percent. Am I going as a regular guest or your makeup artist?”
“Guest.” She tilts her head as she assesses me. “Mei will get you a ticket and we’ll go separately so we’re not seen together but it should work.”
“I haven’t seen a play in ages,” I say.
Fangli pulls the celery toward her. “Your dossier said you acted in school.”
“I did and I went to shows all the time.” I trace my finger around the table. “When Mom started getting sicker, it got harder for me to go out.”
“Physically leave the house, or find the energy to do it?”
“Energy. I had to decide on the show, get the tickets… I was so overwhelmed that it was too much.” I shake my head. “That sounds dumb when I say it out loud, that it was too hard for me to buy a ticket off a website.”
But Fangli is beside me, nodding. “It happens to me,” she says. “There’s too much choice, and since all of them have merit, it’s exhausting to choose. At least I have Mei to help me whittle them down.”
“Outsourcing decisions.” I take back the celery from her and start eating. “I like it.”
“Most of my days are managed for me,” she says. “I’m told where to go and someone else gets me there. I wonder if it’s made it hard for me to think for myself.”
Fangli’s face drops with a sudden blank expression, as if introspection has taken over. I gave a little wave. “Hey. Earth to Fangli.”
“I was trying to think of the last time I made a big choice,” she says. Then she grins. “It was when I decided to come after you.”
“Not even acting in this play?”
“I wouldn’t have considered doing it without Sam. He was the one they approached first and he thought it would be fun for both of us. They agreed, and so did I.” She wipes her fingers on a napkin. “Sam usually gets what he wants. I think it’s the streak of Lu Lili in him.”
“His mother.”
Fangli’s huge eyes say it all. “She’s an über-diva. Absolutely in a class of her own.”
“Have you ever worked with her?”
“Once.” Fangli pulls her robe closer around her shoulders and speaks in the hushed tones you’d use to describe a force of nature. “Lili was magnificent. She never raised her voice, not once, but you knew exactly when you made a mistake. She knew how every scene should be shot, the best angles and lighting. And she was right, every time. Poor Sam.”
“Why poor Sam?”
“She doesn’t run her personal life any differently than her professional one. She’s tried to push him into countless projects, and even if he says no to most, he has to agree to some for the sake of family peace.” She glances at the clock. “I should be going. I’ll make sure Mei gets you a ticket for the matinee. We don’t have an evening show tomorrow. Sleep well.”
She leaves and I go through my nighttime cleansing ritual. I instinctively hid the marks on my arm from Ellen Gao’s one-woman fan club but now I examine them closely. She grabbed me hard enough to leave little half-moons from her nails. I shudder. Fame and money would be nice, but at what expense? That was a minor incident. This fame thing is nothing like what I thought it would be.