Twenty-Eight
“I need a drink.”
We’re back in my suite and I’m curled over the table mumbling into my outstretched arms. Sam is on the couch behind me. “That wasn’t bad.”
“I survived. Do you think anyone knew?” I lift my head with great effort to look at him. “That it was me and not Fangli?”
Sam’s eyes are closed and he’s sitting with his arms spread along the back of the couch, his head tilted to reveal his throat. I try not to remember that several hours ago my lips were tracing a line down that very spot. It’s been a weird day.
“I think they bought it. You two are almost twins.” He cracks open one eye. “It’s unbelievable but a good deal of it is how well you can channel her. I can hardly believe you’re not a professional actor.”
Never has “acceptable” been something to celebrate. I did it. There go all of Mom’s injunctions to stay under the radar and not be noticed. I blew them out of the water. And I liked it.
“How’s Fangli?”
“The psychiatrist came by.” He hesitates. “Fangli agreed to the medications but they’ll take a while to work. She’s started therapy with her and gave her meditation exercises. Fangli says she wants to work tomorrow. She has an understudy if she can’t, so that will give her more time if she needs it.”
“Did you tell her what happened today?”
“She says thank you.” Sam leans forward. “She’s up to talking, if you want to see her?”
“Thanks.”
“Did I hear you mention a drink?” Sam asks.
“Or more than one. I’m open to suggestions.”
“We’re supposed to eat at Honsen’s tonight.”
I don’t know that place. “Is it fancy?”
“Probably.”
“Will people recognize you and think I’m Fangli?”
“Probably.”
“Will I need to dress up?”
“Probably.”
“Will people be watching us?”
“Why are you asking when you know the answer?”
I can’t deal with that. I need comfort. “How about I buy you that dinner I owe you? At a place I choose.”
“Fine.” His quick acquiescence tells me he’s not into being on display tonight either. A relief since I don’t have the energy to deal with his caution about been seen with me in public.
“I’m going to talk to Fangli and then we’ll go. You get ready and look like a regular person.”
He doesn’t even argue but gets up and leaves. He must be exhausted to not give me a hard time on principle.
I scrub my face, put on my new Revelation lipstick and throw on a black tank dress and sneakers. Summer hit with a vengeance today and the deep humidity makes it too hot for jeans.
Then I tap on the connecting door to Fangli’s room. Mei opens it and looks me over.
“I’m about to go out with Sam but I wanted to talk to Fangli. Can I?”
Her cheeks hollow and I think she’s chewing them. She’s so protective of Fangli. I wonder if she’s about to refuse when Fangli’s voice drifts out. “Gracie?”
Mei steps aside.
I walk through the suite to Fangli’s room. It’s a larger mirror-image of mine, and Fangli sits curled up on a couch by the window. She’s in silken lounge pajamas, bare feet poking out from a cashmere blanket draped over her bent knees. Steam from the cup of tea in her hand drifts up to veil her features.
“Hey,” I say.
She doesn’t smile but the tightness around her mouth relaxes. “How was the filming?”
“Sam was happy with it.”
Fangli rests her head on her hand, exhaustion in every line of her body. I take the tea from her and place it on the table, then hesitate. I don’t know what to say but I can’t stand here listening to the silence build.
“Can I hug you?” I say. I’m not a hugger and always tried to dodge them by standing far enough away to make it inconvenient for someone to grab me. But Fangli looks weary beyond belief and in need of comfort.
She doesn’t answer for a minute, then dips her head down in a nod. I sit on the couch beside her and place a tentative arm around her narrow shoulders. We stay like that for a minute until Fangli sighs, a deep and ragged sound.
“I’m tired,” she says in a low voice. “I want to be better. Why can’t I get better?”
I commit to the embrace, pulling her up and over so I can get both arms around her. “It takes time,” I say.
“That’s what the therapist said. I don’t have time. I need to be fixed now. Now.” Her voice rises.
“I know.” I wanted the same thing. She curls against me, not crying but breathing with shallow pants. “You should sleep,” I tell her.
“Don’t want to.”
Don’t want to go to bed, don’t want to wake up. Don’t want to do anything. Been there. “I’ll wait with you until you do. Come on.”
I urge her to her feet and she walks over to the bed, where she lets me pull the covers over her. I settle down beside her. “Want me to tell you a story?”
Fangli gives a watery laugh. “Like a kid?”
“There’s a reason bedtime stories work,” I say. “You want to hear it or not? It’s one my mom told me.”
She sniffles. “Yes.”
“It’s called the balloon hotel. You know when a kid lets a balloon go and freaks out? This is where the balloons all go when they escape into the sky.”
I draw the story out, speaking slow and soft until Fangli’s eyes flutter shut. Soon she’s asleep. I stop the story and wait for a moment, feeling my courage ebb away at the thought of telling Fangli I’m done. I can’t leave her like this. How can I turn my back on her because I feel bad that some people think I’m her? Fangli is flesh and blood. The others are abstract. They’re people but Fangli is a person.
Even Laurence. It made him happy to meet who he thought was Fangli, and can’t that be enough?
I have to stay.
I stand up from the bed. I’m not perfectly happy with my choice but it’s only for another few weeks. I’ll learn from this. I have learned from it.
Mei isn’t there when I leave. I head back to my room and take a few minutes to compose myself. When I’ve splashed some water on my face, I text Sam and tuck the power trio into my bag—card, key, and lipstick. Sam arrives in black pants that hit at his ankles and a light gray shirt. I’d have huge sweat stains under the arms of a shirt that color within seconds.
He looks into my face. “Gracie?”
“Fangli was fine.”
“I’m more concerned about you.” He comes into my room and shuts the door. “Was that difficult for you?”
“I’m fine,” I assure him.
“Fangli likes you,” he says. “She hasn’t had a friend in a long time apart from me.”
“Poor woman.”
“Yeah, you’re okay.” He smiles. “You still want to go out?”
“You bet.” More than before. I want to be surrounded by noise and people and eat greasy things so I don’t have to think for a couple hours.
“Where are we going?” He falls into step beside me as we leave.
“Surprise. Meet me outside the lobby.” It’s safer to go down separately since I’m dressed as myself.
Although I expect him to press me for details, Sam seems happy enough to follow me outside and onto the subway.
“I can tell you our stop if you want to sit alone,” I say before the train arrives.
He rubs the back of his neck. “Why would I do that?”
“So we’re not seen together?” Obviously?
Sam glances down the platform. We’re the only people waiting. “Seen by whom, exactly?”
I nudge him with my shoulder. “Funny. I mean on the train.”
“I’m sure a car will be empty.”
“Up to you.” An interesting change from the man who is paranoid about everything. He hasn’t even mentioned the security cameras, although the chance of being recognized from grainy black-and-white footage is probably slim. It’s nice that he’s loosening up about it.
He’s quiet as we wait for the train to arrive. As he predicts, we find seats that are relatively isolated.
“I like trains,” he says as we sit down on the stained red velour seats.
“I thought you took cars everywhere.”
“Mostly,” he agrees. “When I think it’s safe, I like to use public transit. More people to watch.”
“Safe?”
“If I think no one will recognize me.”
“People watching is that important to you?”
He glances down the subway cars. We’re on one of the interconnected trains so we can see all the way down to the end. “I can’t get ideas for how to play characters from being alone inside my house. Look there.”
I know exactly who he’s referring to because a few rows away is a man in a full tuxedo and a dotted bow tie carved of wood with polished combat boots who’s reading a Georgette Heyer Regency romance. The questions ask themselves. Who is he? Where is he going? Is this his usual look or a special occasion look? Why that book?
We have the manners to not talk about the man right in front of him, but the moment we get out, we compete for who gets to tell the man’s backstory first. I win and regale Sam with my narrative—that he’s a modern Miss Havisham pining for his lost cat and the bow tie used to be Lady Fluff’s—for the block it takes us to get to the bar. It’s one of my local places and I’m one hundred percent confident that not a single person there will recognize or care who Sam is.
We take a booth in the corner. Sam sits facing the wall, which is decorated with framed black-and-white photos. “Mugshots?”
“It’s called the Mugshot Tavern.”
“Of course it is. I see James Brown and Robert Downey Jr.”
I point down the line. “Paris Hilton. Bonnie and Clyde. Lindsay Lohan. Macaulay Culkin.”
Sam nods. “What I’m hearing is that if I get arrested, I can look forward to being on this wall of infamy.”
“Are you planning on a new career in crime?”
He sucks in his cheeks as though considering it. “Never say never.” Then he smirks at me.
The server slaps down a couple of menus and we order wine. I’m not Fangli tonight, so I have no qualms about drinking. I look at the menu. “I want fries.”
“As long as they’re not sweet potato.”
“Those are a travesty.”
Because Sam has a photo shoot the next day, he doesn’t want to order anything with a lot of sodium, which will make his face puff up. That limits his choices to a green salad, and he finally sighs and orders a burger. “I’ll drink a glass of milk before bed.”
We sit in a companionable silence with our wine. The bar is about half-full and I casually eavesdrop on the conversations around me. Everyday person things: gossip, work complaints, and a bumpy first date.
“Weren’t you going to tell me something?” Sam asks. “Before Mei called?”
“Can’t remember,” I lie. No point going into my concerns now that I’ve decided to stick with the contract.
“You did well today.” Sam finishes his glass, sees I’m almost done, and orders two more.
“You were patient.”
Now that it’s over, I can barely recall the day. Like most crisis situations, it comes to me in flashes of perfect recall among a background of vaguely acknowledged impressions.
“Was the kissing as bad as you thought it would be?” He glances at me over his wineglass and his tone is more curious than mocking.
I choke. “It was fine.”
“Gracie.”
I rub my nose. “It was strange, that’s it.”
“Do you want some advice?” Sam looks at me intently under the low brim of his hat.
“On my kissing technique?” I ask with utter dismay. “No. Of course not. Jesus. What is it?”
“Your kissing was fine,” he assures me. “It’s your face.”
“My face,” I echo. The problem Sam has with kissing me is my face, excellent news. I’m going to melt from shame but this is like watching a horror movie. I need to know. “Weren’t your eyes closed?”
“Before you kissed me, you looked away.”
“I didn’t.” Surely I would have known that, plus how could I have looked away from Sam about to plant one on me?
“You did it when we were practicing, too. When I’m about here,” and he holds his hand about fifteen centimeters from his face, “your eyes go to the left as if you were looking for an escape.”
I clutch my wine and hunch into the red leather back of the booth. “It’s probably because of the context. I think with a real kiss I wouldn’t.”
“That’s why I told you to look at me.”
“I thought it was part of the scene that I forgot.”
“Ad-lib.”
“What does your girlfriend think about you kissing Fangli?” I’ve been trying to find a way to confirm what Mei said, and the internet was no help. This is as smooth as I can make it.
“What?” He drops his burger and swears when it falls apart. Not so smooth, then. “My what?”
“Mei said you had a girlfriend, or hinted at it.”
“I don’t. But if I did, we’d talk about it. I wouldn’t do anything to make her uncomfortable.” He mashes his burger back together. “Why do you ask?”
“I think it would be hard if that happened,” I say thoughtfully, trying to pretend that my goal was a deep dive into relationship maintenance instead of nosiness.
“It can be. All jobs have their pitfalls.”
“Not like that, though.”
“I’ve heard actuaries can get fairly wild.” He starts eating again.
I share my fries and he shares his onion rings and we don’t say much more until we’re done eating and have a third glass of wine in front of us. It’s a cozy silence. Sam pours a glass of water and pushes it across the table to me. I drink it down because I want to work on Eppy and see Mom tomorrow as well as do my Fangli practice, and although I deserve a damn break after today, I don’t want to do any of that with a hangover.
“What happened at your last job?” Sam asks, breaking into my relaxation with his unerring ability to home in on uncomfortable subjects.
I already have an answer ready for job interviews so I trot it out. “It wasn’t a good culture fit for me. I wanted a place open to testing out new ideas.”
“If you’re going to give that answer, don’t scrunch up your body,” Sam says. “They’ll sense you’re lying.”
I look down and see both my arms and legs are crossed. “I wasn’t lying.”
“How many times do we need to have this fight? For a woman who’s currently pretending to be someone else, you’re a very bad liar.”
“I don’t like lies because I always forget what I’ve said.”
“Yet here we are. What really happened?”
“I hated my manager, the one you saw at the art gallery.” It comes out in a burst. “He was a weasel and then he fired me when he saw that photo of me in the coffee shop.”
Shit, I’ve said too much. I forgot I was hiding that. Stupid wine.
Sam puts his glass down. “He saw what?”
Time to come clean. “I called in sick the day that was taken and told him it wasn’t me but he knew it was because it looks like me. My hair, my bag.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“Not in a way that would affect Fangli.”
“You’re lying again.”
I uncross my arms. “I have a lawyer, okay? It was handled.”
“There’s more you’re not telling me.”
“Can we not talk about it? I assure you I have it under control.” This time I keep my body open and look him in the eye.
After a long beat, he sighs. “I can’t force you into talking, but between you and Fangli, I’m drowning in secrets.”
I have no answer to this because it’s true. We drink quietly, pay up—my treat since I owe him dinner, even though he protests—and leave to go back to the hotel without saying much else.
Fucking Todd spoils the party again.
* * *
Fangli is able to get to work the next day. She pops her head through my door to give me a hug before she leaves, and though she’s pale, her shoulders and gaze are straight. “Thank you,” she says.
“It got better for me,” I blurt out. “Once I got help. It was hard though. I felt weak, like I couldn’t handle my own problems. Talking to someone about how I felt…yeah. Hard.” Of course it was. I can barely bring myself to talk to people I like about my issues, let alone a stranger.
Her gaze flickers down. “Hard. Also easier?”
“Because you don’t feel like you’re burdening someone with your problems.”
“Yes.”
“It’s not going to happen all at once,” I say. “Slow but steady.”
“The turtle, not the hare.” She pulls her hair around her shoulder and looks at the ceiling. “That’s what the therapist said to me yesterday.”
I raise my fist high. “To turtles. Long may we prosper.”
This has her smiling—only a small lift to her mouth but I’ll take it—as she leaves, Mei muttering into her phone beside her. I’m in a better mood after talking to her. I like Fangli. Sam said she considered me a friend. I want that, although I also know she’ll be back in China soon and I have trouble enough maintaining friendships with people in my own city. I consider this. It’s also possible that our short but intense relationship, much like people get on cruises, is fooling me into seeing more than there is. I hope not. I’d like to keep her in my life.
I push all these worries away and pull out Eppy. Today is the day that I’ve decided to test it out, and I happily log all the things on my mind into the neat columns. It takes about twenty minutes for my total brain download and then another ten to check my calendar to make sure I’ve logged in all my events and appointments. I need a calendar sync feature and jot that down in the “App” column.
Then I manufacture a coffee from the pods and simply smile at my laptop. It’s there. My idea is there, in front of me. It might be dumb to be proud of creating a to-do list, but I am. This isn’t like anything else out there.
Time to start. First thing is to pull together what sets my app apart because I’m going to need money to hire a coder and launch it. I’m building the plane as I’m flying but I feel good.
By lunch, I’ve found a few problems, and after I make notes, it’s time for a walk to get the blood flowing. No one can be creative stuck at a table for hours. It’s a bright and sunny day and my steps are light as I wander around without a destination. I text Anjali, who wants to know if Sam continues to be hot and I continue to be alive.
Yes. We kissed, I reply.
Anjali: Sorry WUT and why do you always tell me this shit when I’m in a meeting OMFG was it awesome how why when.
Me: For a promo. Fangli couldn’t make it so I had to play her.
Anjali: I repeat was it awesome
I stare at the phone for a minute before I write back, Yeah.
She sends back seven eggplant emojis.
I wish Anjali was in the city to talk to but she’s off on a work trip. Stop that.
More eggplants. I need details when I’m back.
I send a thumbs-up emoji because my feelings about Sam are too complicated for me to deconstruct, let alone summarize on text. How do I try to explain kissing Sam over and over? The film crew took multiple takes and each time he moved us a bit differently, touched me a new way so that I forgot about everything in the world but him.
I suppose my feelings aren’t complicated at all. I know what the issue is. I’m falling in love with Sam. In the most clichéd of clichés, I’ve got a thing for a movie star who is going to bye-bye out of my life in weeks.
The least I can do is keep it to myself, so he doesn’t know. That’s a risk that I’m not willing to take, not even at my bravest. The shame of rejection would be too much. Sam said he was surprised that I could act at all. Well, let’s keep that going.