by Diana Ma
She lifts her glass to me. “Together, we’re going to take over this film.”
Oh damn. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. Eilene Deng is asking me to hijack Butterfly with her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The second my plane touches down in Beijing, I take my phone off airplane mode, and then texts pop up. Ken, Glory, and Camille all wish me luck, but I don’t have time to text back right now. Instead, I scroll through my emails. I see what I suspected. I’ve been on the plane for just thirteen hours, and my parents have already emailed me three times. The one from my dad is a link to an article about love and money—he sends me random articles, never with any context, clarifying message, or (thankfully) expectation of a response. Another one is from my mother. She and my dad want to fly out and visit me next week. Panic fogs my vision, and cold moisture films my forehead.
The passenger in the window seat, a white American woman, edges away from me. I don’t bother pointing out that if I were going to be airsick, it would have been while we were in the air and not when we’ve finally landed. Come to think of it, I am feeling a little nauseous at the thought of my parents’ visiting. Maybe the woman’s right to worry about me puking on her pretty pastel blouse.
On the other side of me, the older Chinese man in the aisle seat smiles reassuringly. Most of the other passengers are American like me, but this man is Chinese and speaks only a smattering of English. My Chinese is better than his English, but I’m not what you would call fluent.
But despite the language barrier, we’ve still managed to have a conversation of sorts. Mostly, the man showed me about a hundred pictures of his granddaughter, and I exclaimed, “Zhen ke ai!” in my American accent. “So cute!” is pretty much all I said the whole flight, but he still complimented me on my Chinese, saying it was pretty good for an “ABC” (American Born Chinese).
Now he releases a rapid torrent of Chinese, which comes to me in just a few understandable words and phrases. Dao—arrived. Fei ji—plane. And Mei shi—don’t worry. Against all odds, tension uncurls from the tight muscles in my shoulders. It doesn’t even matter that this man with kind crinkles around his eyes has no idea what I’m really worried about. There’s just something soothing in hearing “mei shi”—the same thing my parents have murmured to me all my life, offering comfort for everything from a scraped knee to a fight with a friend.
“Xie xie. Wo mei shi.” I thank him and tell him I’m OK.
I click on the next email from Mom, and all the tension shoots back into my shoulders. She wants to know why I haven’t responded yet. She also sent a potential travel itinerary.
Now I’m hyperventilating, my breath coming in sharp, hard gasps. The nice man’s forehead furrows, and it’s a wonder he isn’t shoving an emergency airplane bag into my hands. The words on the top of the itinerary make me grip the phone in white-knuckled dread. “Budget Economy Ticket.” That means no refunds. Once my parents buy those tickets, it will take a small miracle to keep my parents from visiting, because there’s no way they’ll eat the price of two plane tickets. It’s not that they can’t afford the tickets—it’s that they’re too cheap.
This is bad. Very, very bad. My heart pounds jaggedly as I envision my mom saying to my dad, “Gemma didn’t write back! We should buy the tickets now! Find out what’s happening.” If my parents find out that I’ve broken my mom’s cardinal rule, they’ll never believe in my decisions again—or in me. I’ll have destroyed their trust for good. My chest tightens. I have to stop them from finding out I’m actually in Beijing. Gulping stale airplane air, I lose my head completely and tap frantically on my phone: Don’t come! I’m sick! Quarantined for months.
Uh. No. Sending that would guarantee my parents booking the next flight to LA . . . and calling every Chinese doctor acquaintance they know. Which is a surprisingly large number. Sticky sweat pools in my armpits at the thought of every Chinese doctor within a twenty-mile radius descending upon my LA apartment. I delete the email. Whew. One nightmare scenario averted. But I still don’t know how to dissuade my parents from coming to visit. The plane is pulling up to the gate at the Beijing airport, and it won’t be long before I lose this window to email my parents.
Quickly, I type something about getting a job and long shoots. Could they come in the winter instead? I’d love to see them! The smiley face emoji is too much, but I don’t have time to overthink it. People are moving down the aisle, and the Chinese man says goodbye to me. The woman by the window is sighing loudly and tapping one foot on the floor. Throat dry with nerves, I send the email and hope for the best.
I sling my messenger bag over my chest, grab my rolling suitcase from the overhead bin, and then join the flow of people disembarking the plane. Jet-lagged and shaking from the possible impending disaster of Mom finding out where I am, I go through customs in a daze, too bleary to attempt my elementary Chinese. Luckily, the customs officials understand and speak English just fine.
At last I get through customs and emerge onto an air-conditioned concourse with bright overhead lights in neat rows. It’s packed with people, but I catch a glimpse of my friendly seatmate. He’s crouching down on the polished pale gray floor, and his granddaughter is diving into his arms with a loud shriek of “Gong Gong!” Her mother watches with a fond smile.
Because the girl called him “Gong Gong,” I know that he’s her maternal grandfather. If she called him “Ye Ye,” he would be her paternal grandfather. The correct Chinese terms of address for relatives is super confusing. But all around, there are people who look like me, being greeted in a way that indicates their precise relationship to each other. Everyone is speaking the language I’ll always associate with family . . . no matter how poorly I speak it.
My eyes sting with tears. In all my anxiety about taking the role and figuring out a way to keep my parents from finding out, there was one very important thing I forgot. I am standing in my parents’ homeland, my mother’s birth city.
I forgot that I was coming home.
I hadn’t even known that I wanted to. Of all the reasons I thought I had for coming to China, none of them were this.
Blinking away the hot prickliness in my eyes, I scan the crowd for a driver holding a placard with my name on it. Because there are no grandparents or relatives coming to meet me. No one knows me here in my homeland. But as soon as I think this, heads start turning. Conversations trail off, and people’s eyes widen as they whisper to each other. They’re looking at me. I didn’t think my sudden wave of emotion was that obvious. Wiping a sleeve across my eyes, I glance down to make sure my shirt isn’t unbuttoned or something embarrassing like that, but everything looks fine.
A group of young girls giggles excitedly as they raise their phones to my face. Flashes go off, and more and more people are staring at me. People are pointing now, and the whispers are loud enough that I can make out words. Shi ta! It’s her! Then words I don’t understand. More flashes go off, the blinding brightness making me flinch, and people are coming closer, elbowing each other in their haste to reach me, their voices growing louder and more excited.
What’s going on?
CHAPTER EIGHT
A man in his thirties materializes by my elbow, making me jump. I relax when I see he’s holding a placard with my name on it. This must be the driver the studio sent. “Miss Huang?”
“Yes!” I all but grab on to his arm. The mob is pressing closer, and in pure panic, I smile dazedly at them.
The voices rise to a fevered pitch. More flashes go off.
“Come with me,” the driver says, having no problem with pushing through the crowd and forging a path for me to the exit. I drag my suitcase behind me and hurry along in his wake, but the crowd follows us all the way. A blast of humid heat hits me as soon as I step outside. My neck itches unbearably, and I pull at my shirt collar, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that complete strangers are dogging my footsteps and calling out questions too fast for me to understand. I feel l
ike I’m in a pressure cooker, about to explode from the heat and all the noise.
At last we reach the car, and the driver opens the back door for me. I can’t scramble in fast enough. Immediately, I’m greeted with blessedly cool air. I’d normally be appalled that the driver had left the car running, but the air-conditioning is such a relief that I send a silent apology to the ozone layer and settle against the smooth tiles of the bamboo seat cover.
The driver puts my suitcase in the trunk (I’ve arranged for a delivery service to take the rest of my luggage to my hotel, thanks to a pro tip from Sara Li) and gets in the front seat. As soon as we pull away from the still-shouting crowd, I ask, “What was that all about? What did I do?” This is nuts. I’ve only been in Beijing for twenty minutes and I’m already being stalked by a rabid mob.
The driver glances at me in the rearview mirror. “You don’t know?”
Obviously. “I have no idea what’s going on.” My shoulders are still tight from being hunched under the gaze of all those eyes. “Please tell me.”
“You look exactly like Alyssa Chua.” He says it as if I should know who she is. Then he lays on the horn and shoots around another car in a move that has me gripping the edge of my seat in white-knuckled terror.
“Who?” I ask weakly when I get my breath back.
The driver tries to lurch into the next lane and then returns to the original lane when no one lets him in, narrowly missing the car behind us. More honking all around. What the hell?
But my driver seems less focused on our near miss than my woeful ignorance. “You don’t know who Alyssa Chua is?” His voice rises in disbelief. “Just look at Weibo.”
Weibo is the social media platform in China, but since I don’t have the app for it, I pull out my phone to try Instagram. Before I left the United States, my friend Sara Li suggested that I do two things: buy a local sim card online to avoid international roaming charges, and download a virtual private network app. Hopefully, the VPN I downloaded will get me past the Great Firewall of China. Without a VPN, Western social media sites like Instagram are blocked in China. I type Alyssa’s name into Instagram and wait. Luckily, my VPN works great.
There she is—Alyssa Chua. A couple million followers (probably double that on Weibo) and a few hundred selfies (at least double that on Weibo) taken in places that make the restaurant that Eileen took me to in LA look like a small-town diner. Every single image looks as if it were shot in a professional studio, and in them, Alyssa is dressed in gorgeous clothes with flawless makeup and her expensively cut hair blowing artfully into her face or loose around her shoulders. Other than her high-fashion style, we look eerily alike.
“Oh,” I mutter. So I have a doppelgänger. And she happens to have millions of followers and an insanely glamorous lifestyle. “So, Alyssa Chua is famous for . . . doing what, exactly?”
The driver shrugs. “She has a life everyone wants,” he says simply.
Got it. Alyssa is famous for having more money than she knows what to do with and partying with a string of other teen celebrities. I look at the image of Alyssa again and think of my mother’s warnings to stay out of Beijing and her refusal to talk about her family. Could Alyssa be related to me? Except that both my parents were only children. So how could I have a relative my age who looks so much like me? No, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.
But thanks to my accidental resemblance to Alyssa, I now have to worry about being mobbed by strangers wherever I go. If I don’t die first. With a jerkiness that makes me worry about keeping my last meal down, my driver finally succeeds in getting ahead of the car in front of us. But the car in the lane next to us rolls down its window. My driver does too. We’re going slowly enough that the two drivers are able to have a heated argument. Then traffic speeds up again, and my driver rolls his window back up like nothing happened.
“First time in Beijing?” he asks.
I swallow my heart back into my chest. “Yes. Um . . . the people seem nice.” If I discount the fact that I was mobbed as soon as I set down in Beijing. And that everyone drives with a death wish.
“Oh yes,” he replies. “You will enjoy your visit here.”
To my ever-lasting relief, we make it to the hotel in one piece. I put on a large pair of dark sunglasses and don’t take them off as I check in. The sunglasses, combined with my jeans and plain cotton top, are enough to get me to my room with no one mistaking me for Alyssa Chua.
My room, like every single interior space so far, is aggressively air-conditioned. Now that I’m not hot and panicked from being hunted down by a mob, my fingers start to numb from the unceasing blast of frigid air. The climate-control remote has a lot of confusing buttons all labeled in Chinese, and after a few half-hearted efforts, I give up trying to turn down the air-conditioning and put on a sweater. Other than the air-conditioner overkill, the room is fine. It’s pretty basic with a double bed, desk, and a small bathroom, but everything seems clean and comfortable.
Well, this has been quite a day. My head droops, and my body aches from tiredness. All I want to do is climb into bed and sleep for about a hundred hours. But first things first. I set the alarm for 3:00 a.m. That will be around lunchtime in LA and I can pretend that I’m calling my parents during my lunch break on the movie set. Which is definitely not in Beijing.
The next morning, I’m gritty-eyed and woozy from lack of sleep when the studio car arrives to take me to the set of Butterfly. This time, the oversize sunglasses I’m wearing are as much to hide the ravages of jet lag and a late-night conversation with my mom—in which I managed to create a semi-fictional plot of Butterfly that does not involve the film being set in Beijing in any way, shape, or form. Needless to say, falling back to sleep after our phone call wasn’t easy.
I decided to sacrifice washing my hair in favor of sleeping in a bit longer this morning, and that’s why I have a hat jammed on my head. I figured it also couldn’t hurt my plan to keep from being mistaken for Alyssa Chua again.
The car drops me off on the outskirts of Beijing where we’re shooting on location on a blocked-off street guarded by security, who check my ID before letting me onto the set. My first impression is one of chaos. Dozens of grips and personal assistants are running around, setting up lighting, microphones, and props. There’s a little group of people standing off to the side that seems to have nothing to do—the other actors, probably. I dodge around busy PAs to walk over to them, and they all introduce themselves. None of them have major roles, and when I tell them I’m playing Sonia Li, there’s more than one look of surprise. A sudden attack of doubt hits me. It’s clear that I’m the youngest actor by far. Are they wondering why I got the lead actress role?
Maybe that’s a question I should be asking.
My gaze swivels to Jake and Eilene, who are at the epicenter of the set’s bustle and action. What if I got this role because I look like Alyssa Chua? My whole body goes numb with cold. Murmuring an excuse to the other actors, I hurry over to Jake and Eilene.
Stomach knotted in dread, I hold up my phone to show them an image of Alyssa. “Is that why I got this role? Because I look like the rich social media queen of China?”
Jake shrugs, making my heart plummet. “Why else would I agree to hire an untried teen actress?” He points to the screen. “That girl has millions of social media followers—and she looks like you. You can’t buy that kind of publicity.”
I feel sick. That’s how Eilene convinced Jake to pick me over Vivienne. Was all her talk about changing the movie a lie? Throat dry, I turn to Eilene. “Is this why you wanted me for the role?”
A wrinkle forms between Eilene’s eyes. “It’s true that I noticed the resemblance when you auditioned,” she says, “but that’s not why I wanted you for the role, Gemma.” She holds my gaze. “You’re the right actress to play Sonia, and that has nothing to do with Alyssa Chua.”
I want to believe her. I do. But with Jake still staring greedily at the picture of Alyssa, it’s hard to know what the wh
ole truth is. After all, Eilene neglected to mention my resemblance to Alyssa in her pitch for us to hijack the film together.
She seems to know what I’m thinking. “I’m sorry, Gemma. I should have told you.”
“Told her what?” Jake snorts. “That I wouldn’t agree to cast her for the part until you told me who Alyssa Chua was and how much Gemma looked like her? Please. You did her a favor, Eilene. Yeah, her audition wasn’t bad, but she was still lucky to get this role fresh out of high school.”
Eilene’s mouth crimps. “That’s enough. Like I said, Gemma is the right actress for the part, and that’s why I fought for her to get the role.”
My spirits lift at her words. “I appreciate this role.” I do understand how lucky I am, but it still stings to find out that I hadn’t gotten the part on my own. “But I’ll earn my place here through my acting—not because of who I might look like.”
“I absolutely believe that,” Eilene says.
“Fine,” Jake says. “Now, if you’re done with your daily affirmation, can you please get to hair and makeup? We don’t have all day.”
Gritting my teeth, I do a slow spin because there are a dozen trailers set up, and I have no idea which one is hair and makeup. Taking pity on me, Eileen points me in the right direction. Jake tells me not to “take too long.”
I hurry to the trailer Eileen pointed out, still irritated by Jake. It’s going to suck if the director is holding a grudge against me for not being the actress he originally picked.
The woman in charge of my hair and makeup is American and introduces herself as Liz. She’s an older white woman who clucks in distress at the dark circles under my eyes. The two women assisting Liz and doing general cleanup are Chinese, and neither introduces herself to me. They seem to be under the impression that I don’t understand any Chinese because they talk freely about me. But like a lot of American-born Chinese, I understand a lot more Chinese than I can speak. Still, even if I didn’t understand the language, their repeated mention of Alyssa Chua would’ve clued me in to the topic of their conversation—how much I look like the glamorous social media star. From their talk, I gather that Alyssa is the daughter of a socialite mother and a rich businessman father.