“We are really going to pull this off in a full range of sizes?”
“We’ll do it in the sizes that fit our customer. She’s not runway.”
“Agreed.” Another aspect of the business Jin’s father Wei had ignored was producing a size range that fit all women. Many potential customers were excluded because of that.
“I’ve been concentrating on how this would look on every body type.” Skirt on, she strode over to Jin’s desk with a slightly exaggerated sashay to get some swish out of the fabric. “From an average size, to a larger girl like me to someone petite.”
Watching Mimi’s hips swing from side to side, Jin was almost distracted from the skirt’s design. Her femininity was so overt.
Honing his attention on the garment, he got up to circle Mimi as she modeled. He did like the drape of the full skirt, the length falling just above her knees.
“What do you think? The bit of spandex makes all the difference.”
“We won’t get the stretched-out look as the day wears on that I was worried about.”
“Corduroy is perfect for that nineteen-seventies vibe you like.”
“The jacket is the trickiest.”
Jin knelt down to inspect the skirt’s hem.
“I don’t like that geometric pattern,” he said, “on the swatch for one of the blouses.”
“It’s better than the one with roses.”
“That sort of rose collage? I like that.”
“No. That screams too sweet.”
“It’s kind of retro.”
“No.”
“Okay, boss,” he said, glancing upward while still crouched on his haunches in front of her.
From his vantage point looking up, she was nothing less than a goddess. Despite a lifetime in the often cruel preconceptions of fashion and beauty, Jin was always attracted to womanly figures, not the ultrathin bodies the industry had chosen to carry the clothes.
While he had tried not to think about it too much in the past thirteen years, he’d always found Mimi to be the sexiest woman he’d ever known. A fact that had been cropping up unanticipated as they settled into their life behind closed doors.
It’s just Mimi who you’ve known for years, he’d been telling himself.
Nonetheless, feelings of attraction to her were growing harder to ignore with so much time spent together. Earlier this morning when he’d confided some things about his childhood he’d never said before, he had to rein himself in from hugging her on his bed while naked, which would have been highly inappropriate.
Last night he had done his best to avert his eyes when they were watching television and that maddening blue robe of hers edged open, giving him a glance of bare leg that stretched almost up to her waist. Or, the other morning when, after her shower, she’d breezed past him in the kitchen and the whiff of her light perfume produced a shocking clench in his core. Never considering that living with her was going to be a challenge to his manhood, he needed to gain control of those responses.
They had so much to accomplish together. He couldn’t afford to mess anything up.
Jin had surprised himself at the Maverick Choi show, seething with jealousy when he saw that creep Marc-Claude Robar taking up too much of Mimi’s time. He was almost mad at Mimi for it, which was unfair.
It was no responsibility of hers that Marc-Claude appreciated Mimi’s charms. Yet all Jin could think about was splitting the two of them up, which he did by impulsively taking Mimi home.
His ex, and his father, had turned Jin into a jealous beast. He’d never put his faith in a woman’s promises of fidelity again. After all, Helene had stood up in a white gown in front of a hundred people and lied through her teeth. She hadn’t been faithful to him for one minute of their relationship, despite her wedding vows.
Not that he thought Mimi would ever deceive him.
What about him? What if he followed in his father’s footsteps, if there was some kind of genetic code that led him to become a cheater? Just like children who were abused sometimes grew up to be abusers.
No, Jin was most definitely done with relationships.
Which is how this phony marriage to Mimi came about. No love, no promises, no romance, no disappointment.
Yet it was he who began with a rocky start right off the bat. Because the judge hadn’t pronounced Jin and Mimi husband and wife but one minute before he gave his bride a kiss that neither of them would ever forget.
He couldn’t stop ruminating over it.
It wasn’t planned. It had come out of nowhere. He’d regretted it the moment he’d done it. Then, worried that he might have confused Mimi by saying one thing and doing another, he apologized and promised her it would never happen again.
Furthermore, her reaction had confused him. He’d hoped that she’d be relieved by his apology because he’d assured her that nothing physical was going to be required of her in this marriage contract.
Instead of reassured, she’d seemed disappointed.
Just as it had been the first time around for Jin, marriage was complicated.
* * *
“Mamabai, mine always come out lumpy,” Mimi said in a singsong voice although she was only half joking.
“No, they’re wonderful,” came Bai’s encouragement. The two women stood side by side at work in the Zhangs’ kitchen. “How many years have we been making dumplings to commemorate Lunar New Year?”
“This is our fourteenth. You taught my mom and me how to make them not long after we met you.”
Once the boys became friends, Bai had invited Delia over to enjoy some of the festivities of the Lunar New Year, the most observed holiday in Chinese culture. Mimi’s mother had dragged her along.
Mimi was, of course, reluctant at the time. The last thing she’d wanted to do was go to Jin’s house. She’d felt nervous and clumsy around her brother’s extraordinarily handsome friend with the low speaking voice. At fifteen years old, Jin was the first boy that she’d ever been physically attracted to.
Not quite understanding her feelings in the beginning, all Mimi knew was that her body overheated when Jin was in the room. Her breath labored. When he looked at her, she could actually sense her face reddening and she’d leave the room mortified. It took her at least a year until she could share a meal at the same table with intense Jin Zhang.
“I remember, Mimi,” Bai replied. “Your mother said she used to take you and Aaron to the annual New Year’s parade when you were young children but had fallen out of the habit. Let’s switch to the vegetable filling.”
Bai and Mimi had already made a tray full of dumplings with the minced chicken stuffing. They went through the same preparations as they did every year. A constant that meant so much to Mimi, especially after her mother had passed away. It was lovely that Bai included Mimi and Aaron in her family’s New Year’s celebrations.
Mimi came to later understand that it meant a lot to Bai as well. Wei was often not around, out drinking or with his latest conquest, having no regard for family traditions. Rather than have the occasion marked by her and her only son being abandoned on a holiday meant for family togetherness, Bai brought the Stewarts into their fold. Something which gave her great pleasure.
For the dumplings they made a dough, rolled it out thin and cut it into round discs. Then they made the fillings. One with chicken and onion. The second, a mix of vegetables with beautiful flecks of orange carrots and green cabbage, were particular favorites at the Zhang house.
A small spoonful of the filling went onto the dough and then it was pinched together to form a packet symbolizing prosperity and letting go of the old to bring in the new. They would then be steamed and devoured.
“Thank you for always letting me cook for New Year with you, Mamabai.”
“This is your kitchen now, Mimi. Someday I hope you’ll do this with your own children.”
There would certainly be no children born of their deal. Although they’d go along and let Bai think otherwise. Goodness knew the woman deserved any happiness they could give her. She’d been through so much already.
Mimi wouldn’t personalize the kitchen, this flat, in any way even though she was theoretically the woman of the house. Giving herself any visual indications that she was living here as Jin’s wife was a bad idea. She should leave everything as it was so that she wouldn’t forget the temporary nature of their arrangement.
In anticipation of Bai’s arrival today, Jin had lugged all the belongings that he had brought into his boyhood room back into the master bedroom so that Bai would assume they shared a bed as husband and wife. It was an exercise that Jin felt he had to perform.
Ironically, it was in his childhood room a couple of days ago that Jin had divulged to Mimi some of the hidden scars he wore that were born under this roof.
How diametrically opposite Mimi’s childhood had been to his. While she knew nothing was as perfect as it seemed, her parents’ marriage had appeared idyllic. A home filled with compassion and work they cared about—Benjamin was a college professor and Delia had a small accounting business—and the knowing gazes they had only for each other were seared forever into Mimi’s mind.
They would go out for their date nights two Saturdays a month, Delia telling Mimi that it was important for a married couple to make time just for themselves away from their kids. Benjamin would pretend he was interested in the romantic movie that Delia wanted to see, even when the new action film he’d been looking forward to had just opened.
Benjamin had also been to every doctor’s appointment with Delia as cancer had slowly claimed the love of his life.
“You know,” Bai said, turning Mimi’s attention back to forming dumplings into parcels of savory deliciousness, “I grew up just like Jin did, a Chinese American New Yorker. But once I had him, I decided that I wanted to create some Chinese traditions for him so we started acknowledging the New Year beyond simply going to the parade.”
Mimi had heard all of this before but listened to the familiarity of Bai’s voice. One thing she didn’t know anything about was Bai’s relationship with Jin’s ex-wife Helene. With this fake marriage clout, she felt emboldened to ask Bai whether or not she truly liked and approved of her first daughter-in-law.
“Mamabai, did you ever cook with Helene?”
If she had, it wasn’t during Lunar New Year. The Stewarts were always invited to the Zhangs’ house for the occasion. Mimi had done her best to have a cordial relationship with Helene even though the thought of her with Jin was like a sore picked to bleeding point. But Mimi couldn’t think of a time when she’d seen Bai and Helene in the kitchen together. In fact, she’d never seen any real closeness between the two of them. Perhaps they had moments, but Mimi had never witnessed any.
“Cook with Helene? What do you think?” Bai snickered with a quirk to the corner of her mouth.
Mimi’s impression of Helene was that of a superficial social butterfly. Always a kiss on both cheeks to everyone. Then she’d launch into a dishy recap of the last fabulous party she’d been to. She was the kind of person who never once asked how someone was doing.
“Helene was not the right woman for Jin,” Bai continued. “I knew it in my heart, but what could I do? It was not my decision to make. For whatever reasons he chose Helene, it was not for me to stop.”
“I was sad when the marriage didn’t work out for him.” Mimi stuttered the half-truth. She did want Jin to be happy. And always tried to convince herself that since he would never feel for her what she wanted him to, he should find contentment with someone else. Although she wasn’t sure if she ever really believed that.
Nonetheless, seeing the misery Jin went through with Helene and the aftermath of his divorce hurt Mimi. Because for Jin to feel pain was for her to bleed, as well.
“Jin belongs with you,” Bai stated plainly. “He always has.”
“What?”
Bai’s words gushed through Mimi like a raging river. Nobody had ever given voice to the very thoughts Mimi had never dared to utter.
“Come with me.” Bai finished the dumpling she was crimping, placed it onto the tray and moved over to the kitchen sink, gesturing for Mimi to join her. Together, they washed their hands and dried them on opposite ends of the same towel.
Bai led Mimi to a closet in the hallway between the living room and the master bedroom. She opened its door.
“Did I ever tell you about the New Year’s tradition of huìqì?”
“No.”
“During the New Year period, some people thoroughly clean out their houses to rid it of any huìqì, or bad spirits.”
The closet held a rack with coats and jackets. Folded clothes filled the top shelves and a few small boxes were stacked on the floor. Bai bent down, pulled out one of the boxes and opened it. Inside was a pair of women’s shoes and a scarf.
“What are those, Mamabai?”
“Helene’s. She left them behind.”
“Jin kept them?”
“Not intentionally. He never noticed them. I was the one who put them in this box.”
“Why?”
“For this very moment. So that when Jin was ready for love in his life again, I’d have something to throw out to make room for it.”
“Jin doesn’t know about this?”
“No. And if he had gotten involved with another woman who was wrong for him, I would never have shared this with her. But I’m sharing it with you, Mimi. Do you understand?”
Only too well. When Mimi told Bai that she and Jin were going to get married, Bai had said something about knowing this day would someday come. Mimi suddenly suspected that Bai knew her secret even though she had never told it to her.
Feeling exposed, whether it was warranted or not, all Mimi could do was alternate her stare between the box with Helene’s things and Bai’s face. Didn’t Mamabai understand that Jin wouldn’t love her that way? He had never considered Mimi a possible mate. Never would. It was not their destiny.
This year would pass and the two friends would amicably divorce. Maybe in time Jin would be able to open his heart to another woman after the betrayal of his first wife and the mistake of his second.
Perhaps someday Mimi would meet someone who would give her the camaraderie and pleasantry that she ached for. Someone she cared about, although never as much as the person who owned her love. Who could never be hers.
She wanted children. Maybe children would compensate for a future marriage that was likely to be more of a partnership than a romance.
The front door opening yanked her from her thoughts.
“Hello? Gung hay fat choy.” Jin called out the New Year greeting.
“We’re in here,” Mimi yelled out as Bai shut the closet door and they came forth to greet him.
A pleased grin came across Jin’s face at the sight of Mimi and Bai. When Jin wore a happy expression it was the most glorious sight the world could ever see. It was as if he was bathed in light.
Jin Zhang, with all of his magnetism, his penetrating eyes and the smile that only broke out when it was sincere, could turn a gray sky blue. All of this discussion about finding the right person was quite simple. Because Mimi knew there was no one on the planet who compared to Jin.
He kissed his mother on the cheek. Mimi steeled herself in preparation for his kiss onto hers. She’d gotten pretty good at anticipating his kisses and cautioning herself not to read anything into them. They were only evidence of how well Jin and Mimi were
performing the masquerade they were starring in.
“I have something for you and Mimi,” Bai said to Jin.
“You do?”
Bai went to her coat and pulled from the pocket a red paper envelope. “Do you remember when I would give you kids eight dollars in red packets for New Year’s?”
Bai always thoughtfully prepared three envelopes so that Mimi and Aaron would have a present alongside her own son. It was custom to give a gift of money for New Year’s. Eight was thought to be a lucky number so presents might be amounts that were multiples of that. And red was considered lucky as well, hence the color of the envelope. Bai’s gesture was always appreciated. The three friends would go off and spend it on a treat of fancy coffee or pizza eaten on the street, which never tasted better.
Today when Bai handed her the envelope, Mimi’s eyes squinted at the contents. Not wanting to be tactless and count it out, she estimated Bai’s gift this year was eight one-hundred-dollar bills.
“I want you to buy something for this apartment, Mimi,” Bai said, and squeezed her hand. “To start making it yours.”
Mimi glanced up to Jin. Both knew that they had to keep the truth from showing, had to continue this lie to Bai that they had begun.
In an instant, Mimi was holding back tears. Because this house would never be hers. Perhaps pretending otherwise in front of Bai might be more than she could manage.
Next year she and Bai would make dumplings again. Shortly after that, Jin would tell his mother that he and Mimi had decided to split up. Mimi would remember to leave some huìqì things behind when she moved out so that Bai could find them and throw them away if Jin was ever to find his true love.
Mimi offered, barely above a whisper, “Gung hay fat choy.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“JIN, COME LOOK at Mimi,” Bai called out. Jin dutifully crossed the apartment to the master suite. Mimi and his mother had finished preparing the food for the New Year’s feast and had busied themselves with something in the bedroom. He got quite an eyeful when he saw what.
His Convenient New York Bride Page 9