by Paige Clark
I took my bite. I took a sip of beer. Then I passed the plate back to the woman.
‘The flavour of the dough is spot on. I’m tasting honey, but it’s subtle. It’s not too honey. It still tastes like pizza,’ she said.
‘It’s the water,’ he said. ‘You can’t use filtered water or the dough loses its flavour. The flavour of the water here is the best. People pay to ship it all over the world.’
‘I also think it tastes like pizza,’ I said.
We passed around the slice until it was gone. The woman and my husband both finished their beers. My husband started cracking his knuckles. Then he tapped his foot against the floor, which was checked like the tablecloth. But I still had beer left. I told him to go outside and have a cigarette. The woman stayed inside and watched me sip my beer.
‘You’ve gone red,’ she said. Through the window I could see my husband. Little puffs of smoke drifted above his head. He stood beneath a naked tree. There hadn’t been a snow that stuck yet.
‘I don’t drink much,’ I said.
‘That’s not why you’ve gone red.’
I looked at the woman. She was wearing a mountain of pale makeup. Her eyes were bloodshot.
‘See, my ears have gone red too,’ she said, ‘and my neck.’ She tilted her head towards me, offering her ear. ‘Touch it! It’s on fire.’
‘I believe you,’ I said.
‘No, c’mon. Feel it. It’ll be funny.’
I looked around to make sure nobody was watching and quickly touched her ear.
‘Very hot,’ I said.
‘Isn’t it?’ She seemed delighted by her own body’s ability.
I finished my beer and we left the shop. We started walking to the next place. The woman noted that the neighbourhood had changed a lot since her last visit. Almost every fourth business was closed, she said. My husband explained that the shops hadn’t closed, they just hadn’t reopened after the lockdowns. The woman said that hadn’t happened where she lived. He reminded her that a lot of people died here. She bit her lip and went quiet. Night had set in. The woman trembled, even though she wore two coats, one on top of the other. I did not bring up that she’d said she liked the cold. I thought my husband would, but he didn’t either.
We visited three more pizza shops. Each place we went, we shared a slice and drank a beer. By the time we emerged from the third shop, the night had gone blurry around the edges. The woman asked if we should take a car home, but my husband wanted to kick on and he suggested we walk and stop off at a bar on the way home. She agreed to walk when my husband mentioned the bar. Even I was in high spirits.
The neighbourhood was mostly residential. The woman peered into each of the brownstones we passed, keeping a tally of the number of people who still had their Christmas trees up.
‘It’s a festive January!’ she said. The number she got to was nine. Then we turned onto the street of the bar. There were a few restaurants that were still open and a few that had shut down. I pointed out a Sichuan restaurant that my husband and I liked to go to.
‘I love Sichuan food!’ the woman said. Then she stopped walking and went quiet again.
Above the restaurant, someone had written in spray paint, Stop eating dogs. I did not even eat animals, except fish, and the woman loved dogs. She had a chihuahua that she talked about too much. We stood there for a long time, nobody saying anything. People came in and out of the restaurant, which was still busy. My husband snuck up behind me and put both of his arms around me. He kissed me on the top of my head. The woman looked over at us. A smile came suddenly to her face.
‘I told you we shouldn’t have had those hot dogs for lunch,’ she said. She tried to laugh, but no sound came out. Even she could not find her joke funny. Then she started walking again. My husband let go of me and lit a cigarette. He went over to her and put his arm around her. He offered her a drag of his smoke.
‘Why haven’t you quit yet?’ the woman asked. ‘Goddamnit.’ She dug her foot into the sidewalk where there should have been snow. She took a drag and then passed it to me. I took one too. The smoke burnt all of the tiny hairs in my lungs. We finished the cigarette the way we ate the pizza.
Afterwards we decided it would be best if we just went back. We were only a few blocks away from home, but my husband ordered a car.
When we got to the apartment, the woman did not take her shoes off. She walked over to the couch that would become her bed and plopped down. Then she pulled out her phone and started texting someone. My husband poured three glasses of whiskey. When he handed the woman her whiskey, she shot it back, not bothering to look up from her conversation. My husband sat down next to her on the couch. He sipped his whiskey. I could tell that he wanted to regale us both with what it tasted like. I already knew what it tasted like—it tasted like whiskey—so I did not touch mine. I offered it to the woman.
‘Can I just go to bed now?’ she asked in reply. ‘Do you mind terribly?’
We told her we did not mind. My husband did mind though. He drank the spare whiskey. He put his arm around his friend again and kissed her goodnight on the head. She leant her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. They said something to each other that I couldn’t hear.
I said, ‘We’ll all see each other in the morning then.’ I remembered my meeting with my boss and my stomach turned. I decided not to go. I’d had a lot more to drink than usual and, unlike the woman, I had a weak stomach for booze.
I woke to the sound of her spewing. My alarm had not gone off yet, but there was enough light in the room to tell me it was morning. ‘Your friend’s up,’ I said to my husband. He rolled over in bed so his back faced me.
‘Go check on her,’ I said. I poked him in his tailbone.
‘Leave me alone,’ he said. ‘She’s fine. She’s always like this.’
I tried to imagine all the times my husband must have woken up to hear this woman retching. And then I tried not to imagine. The trying not to was harder.
I got out of bed and walked over to the bathroom. I put my head to the door. ‘Can I get you anything?’ I asked.
The woman opened the door. Without any of her pale makeup on, she looked her age, which was the same age as my husband except slightly older. There were dark circles beneath her eyes. ‘Oh, I hope I didn’t wake you. I’m fine. Gimme a sec.’
She left the door open and I watched as she rinsed out her mouth with tap water and then splashed the sink clean. ‘This might happen again,’ she said. ‘And I don’t want to brush my teeth too many times today. My gums are receding as it is.’
We walked into the living room that now doubled as her bedroom. I started making coffee for us and she started folding up the blankets and the sheets on the couch. We were both quiet for a long time. The woman finished folding and sat down where she’d slept. I brought her a mug of black coffee and perched next to her. I did not ask if she took sugar or milk. The sun finished its morning business and filled the apartment with light. We both sipped on the coffee, not saying anything.
‘Does that happen a lot now?’ she asked.
I did not know that she was talking about the graffiti at first. Then I did know what she was talking about and that was worse. I didn’t want to talk about it really. I could tell that she’d turned to face me. But I just kept looking straight, towards our big TV that wasn’t even on.
‘It happens sometimes,’ I said.
‘I guess stuff like that has always happened,’ she said. She was saying it to make me feel better but it made me feel rotten. Stuff like that had always happened.
‘Will you take me somewhere?’ she asked.
‘Sure,’ I said. I thought about my doomed work meeting.
‘Now?’ she asked. ‘Let’s go now before he wakes up. He won’t mind.’
We both knew he would. But I said, ‘Okay, where are we going?’
‘Take me to Chinatown,’ she said.
I sent my boss an email. The woman threw up twice more. Then she put on her co
at of makeup, brushed her teeth and got dressed, in that order. I knew because she did all of this with the door to the bathroom open. In between each task, she came out to the living room and took a few sips of coffee. She made medium talk, mostly asking me questions about my job, which I found mundane. I wrote my husband a note that said we’d bring him back a pineapple bun. The woman put on both of her coats, one on top of the other. She asked if I had a spare pair of gloves. I gave her mine. I’d keep my hands in my pockets. It wasn’t cold enough yet for gloves. It wasn’t even cold enough yet for snow to stick.
We walked to the train. It was rush hour. The woman commented that many people still wore masks. She said where she lived nobody wore masks. I could tell she didn’t mean to brag. Then she linked her arm through mine. I let her do it, though you used to get told off for behaving like this, walking two by two, at this time of morning.
We found empty seats on the train next to an elderly Chinese man and his canvas shopping trolley, overflowing with produce. There was an entire plastic bag of ginger and another bag of spring onions. The woman smiled and nodded hello to him. I looked at the seats across from ours where two thin teenage girls in masks huddled together. They were wearing their coats loose over their school uniforms. They both had straight blonde hair and groomed eyebrows. The train was quiet without the businessmen and their phones.
‘I thought it would be more crowded,’ she said.
‘You should see the roads.’
The train came above ground and passed a large cemetery. From our seats we could only see headstones and the skyline of the city beyond them. I realised we were on the train I take to work and not the train to Chinatown. I did not mention this to the woman, who did not know how long it took to get places here.
‘As many buildings as graves,’ the woman said.
‘As many graves as buildings,’ I said.
The teenage girls rose from their seats. As they exited the train, one of the girls pulled down her mask, removed a piece of gum and deposited it in the elderly man’s bag of ginger.
The woman stood up and followed after the girls. ‘You fucking bitch!’ she said. The train doors closed behind the girls. ‘Fucking bitches,’ she said. She put her fists to the window. She was still wearing my gloves. Then she walked over to the man and started digging around in the ginger. She pulled out the piece of gum and put it in the pocket of her exterior coat. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.
The man thanked her in Cantonese.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again.
‘Ng sai haak hei,’ I said to the man. ‘Sit down now,’ I said to her.
She bowed her head to the man and returned to her seat beside me. She held out her gloved hand for me to see. ‘You’re going to need to wash this,’ she said.
‘Smells like cinnamon.’
‘Right? I thought only my father chewed cinnamon gum.’ She laughed as she said the word gum.
‘My grandfather chews it too.’ Then we both laughed. I hit her hand from beneath so that the spot where the gum had been launched towards her face.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘I might be sick again.’ She peeled off the glove and threw it at me.
I gave it back to her. ‘Keep it as a souvenir,’ I said.
The train stopped and we got off. It was the station for my office. I looked around to make sure none of my co-workers spotted me. The platform was empty.
The weather had turned while we were in transit. The sun had come out and the wind had picked up. I did not mention the long walk we had to Chinatown. But the woman sensed it. She took out the glove with the gum residue and put it back on. We did not speak of it again.
When we got to Chinatown, the streets were more crowded than I thought they’d be. The woman wanted an egg tart and I’d promised my husband a pineapple bun, so we headed to the Tai Pan Bakery on Canal Street. We entered the bakery through two cushioned doors. Inside, it was warm and smelt like sugar and yeast. There were rows and rows of buns gleaming with egg wash. We got daan taat and two pineapple buns and put them on a plastic tray. There was a long line to pay. All of the customers knew what to do, except for a pair of German tourists who tried to hand their money to anyone that made eye contact with them. I watched as my husband’s old flame directed them to the end of the line. They thanked her in English and again she bowed her head in reply.
After we paid, the woman and I hovered in a corner near the exit of the bakery with our tray. I split open the pineapple bun and gave the woman half. She looked at it.
‘Where’s the pineapple?’ she asked.
‘There’s no pineapple in it.’
She didn’t say anything.
‘It looks like a pineapple.’ I pointed to the ridges of golden topping on the bun.
‘It doesn’t actually look like a pineapple,’ she said. She finished eating her half and I offered her more of mine. She told me to have it and watched as I ate instead.
When I was done, she said, ‘I want coeng fan now. Do you know a place?’
‘There’s actually a rice noodle roll renaissance happening,’ I said.
‘What’s with you and the revolutions?’
‘You know a renaissance and a revolution are different things, right?’ I asked.
‘Of course I do. I’m a writer,’ she said. ‘Duh.’ Then she burst out laughing. ‘Am I embarrassing you or are you embarrassing me?’ she asked.
‘I’ll take you for your rice roll,’ I said. ‘I won’t call it a renaissance again, but no more bowing your head. You look ridiculous.’
‘Deal,’ she said. We pushed back out through the padded doors and were on Canal Street again. Hordes of people pushed past us in each direction. Then I looked for the woman, but she was far ahead of me, lost in a crowd of middle-aged Chinese women. She turned back, spotted me and waved.
When we got to Yi Ji Chang Fen, it was the part of the day when women eat together. There was a line that wrapped around the restaurant but the wait time was short. We waited for ten minutes. Then we were inside and at our table. The waitress brought us hot tea. One of her arms was blotchy and discoloured. It looked like a birthmark, except that it was raised and webbed. We ordered a shrimp noodle roll, a barbecued pork one and a deep-fried dough one.
The woman had never had deep-fried dough coeng fan before. I told her it was my husband’s favourite. She said my husband hadn’t been as Chinese when they were dating. It was the first time she had mentioned aloud that they had dated. I said he still wasn’t very Chinese. I told her about our trip to visit my family in Mainland China. My six-year-old cousin offered to teach my husband the language but taught him Mandarin instead of Cantonese as a joke. After his lesson with my cousin, my husband tried to speak to me. I had to break it to him that I didn’t know a word of Mandarin.
‘I don’t know if I’d know the difference either,’ she said.
Then the waitress with the stained arm arrived with our plates of coeng fan. When she was out of earshot, the woman asked me if it was a burn.
‘Acid, right?’ she said.
I nodded my head.
We did not talk about what the food tasted like. We just ate. The noodles were hot and glimmered in the bright lights of the restaurant. Each savoury dish was dripping in sweet soy sauce and topped with coriander. The dough rice roll was light and crispy and tasted like stale oil. We dipped it in a sauce of peanut butter and chocolate. The woman struggled to pick up her pork noodles with the plastic chopsticks.
‘I was sorry to hear about what happened to your husband,’ I said.
She smiled at me and a rice noodle slipped from between her chopsticks onto the table. She picked up the stray noodle and ate it. She scooped up the pork filling off the table with her fingers. Her eyes filled with tears.
‘You know my husband really loves you,’ I said.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I really love him too.’
All around us, there were tables of Chinese women speaking. To a foreigner, Cantonese is a
harsh language. But the women dining here were not harsh. They talked about the same things women talk about everywhere. They talked about their husbands, about their lovers, about their children, about their lives. They talked about what they had for breakfast and about what they wanted for dinner. The woman and I were talking about those things too.
‘Do you get scared sometimes?’ she asked me.
‘I do, sometimes,’ I said. ‘A lot of the time.’ Then the old flame of my husband reached out and placed her hand on the table palm up. I put my hand in hers. The waitress with the burnt arm came and cleared away our plates. The voices of the women dining with us grew louder and louder still, until it did not sound like talking anymore—it just sounded like noise.
‘Okay, enough,’ she said, after a while. She released my hand. ‘Let’s go get a drink.’
And I knew then that all this time, I’d been wrong.
I’d thought the only thing we had in common was him.
CRACKS
The unflappable Elisabeth P Loo, of sound body and mind, vowed she would work harder in Chemistry for the next three weeks. Even though the amphibian Mrs Moore with her see-through skin and extraterrestrial fingers gave her the creeps. Even though Austin Kim was a Chemistry genius, according to everyone. But if she wanted to win the St Monica Award this year, she’d have to apply herself. That was that.
‘Careful,’ she said to her little brother, Trifford, who was walking ahead of her to school. ‘Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.’
‘Original,’ said Trifford.
Originality aside, better not to chance it. Elisabeth you-don’t-have-to-tell-me-twice Loo was the first person out the door when a smoke alarm went off. Why wait to be sure things had gone wrong?
‘Better safe than sorry,’ she said.
‘Better dead than bored,’ said her brother.
‘That’s not a saying.’
‘It’s still true.’
There was a chance she could win. It was hers to lose even. Austin Kim won last year, but last year Elisabeth had been too chickenshit to light her own Bunsen burner with a match. And her Neanderthal lab partner, Brian, had been exactly zero help. Austin Kim had singed off his own eyebrows in home experiments before Brian even knew what a molecule was.