by Diana Ma
I can’t help but ask the question burning in my heart. “Did you . . . ever go to Hong Kong to look for us?” For me. Your cousin.
“No.” Alyssa plays with the diamond-encrusted bangle on her wrist.
A sick feeling of hurt punches me in the gut. But why should it matter? I’ve only just met Alyssa. In fact, I’ve only just found out that I have a cousin. Still, my body is numb with loss as I ask, “Why not?” The air seems to thin out as I wait for her reply.
“Because of my po po. My grandmother.”
“I know what po po means.” Even though I’ve never had reason to call anyone Po Po. But what does her grandmother have to do with anything?
“Of course you do,” Alyssa says politely. “Po Po is the reason your presence in Beijing needs to be a secret. You see, I made the mistake of asking to look for you in my grandmother’s presence, and”—a pained expression comes into her eyes—“she fainted.”
“Fainted?” My voice is skeptical. “Like turned pale, clutched her heart, and collapsed to the floor?” I’ve done that as a character in a scene, but real people don’t faint from shock.
“Yes,” she says tensely. “That’s exactly what happened.” OK, apparently real people do faint from shock. “It scared me so much that I never brought up looking for you again.”
Disappointment clogs my throat. I guess Alyssa must not have wanted to find me that badly. I sit there, the red leather of the booth sticking to my thighs, and moisten my lips, but despite all the questions bubbling up inside me, I don’t know what to say.
The silence stretches out between us until Alyssa leans so close that the light, spicy scent of her expensive perfume wafts into my face. “After the incident with Po Po, Gong Gong made me promise never to mention you or your mother again.” Gong Gong. That was what the little girl at the airport called her grandfather. A mass of emotions squeezes my chest as she continues. “Gong Gong said that talking about your mother is too painful for Po Po to bear. So that’s why Po Po can’t find out that you’re in Beijing.” Her face pinches tight. “Po Po is old and has a bad heart. She pretty much lives in seclusion now. I just want to protect her from—”
“Me.” My voice is dry as an old corpse gone to ashes. I would sympathize with Alyssa’s concern for her grandmother—if I weren’t the monstrous secret that her . . . our grandmother needed protecting from.
She flinches. “I don’t have a right to ask, but could you be careful? I don’t want Po Po to find out about you.”
This is all too much. A cousin who’s a famous social media star. A grandfather who bans talk of my mother. A grandmother who faints at the mention of my mother. Then a question penetrates the fog in my head. “If your grandmother is in seclusion, why do you think she’d find out about me?”
“Po Po follows me on Weibo,” Alyssa explains, as if it’s the most reasonable thing in the world for her elderly, reclusive grandmother to follow her on social media. “She might get suspicious if someone who looked like me were spotted where I wasn’t supposed to be.”
“Fine,” I say tersely. My shock is fading, and I’m thinking more clearly now. There’s more to my mother’s past than Alyssa is telling me, and I need to know it all. Adrenaline speeds up my pulse. “I won’t push myself onto your grandmother, but if you don’t know what happened to drive my mother off, then I want to talk to someone who does. I want to talk to your mother. My aunt. Or our grandfather.”
She taps her fingers on the black lacquered table between us. At last, she says, “I’m sorry, Gemma, but that’s not possible.”
“Why not?” My mouth sets. “At least tell your mother and grandfather that I’m in Beijing and want to see them.”
“I already told my mother. And she doesn’t want to see you.” This time, Alyssa holds my gaze. She’s telling the truth.
A dull ache spreads through my chest. This is worse than thinking that I had no family in China. Now I find out that I do have a family—but there’s a catch. They don’t want me.
Alyssa says, “Gong Gong doesn’t know you’re here, and you’d better hope that he doesn’t find out.”
“What are you talking about?” Is she seriously saying I should be afraid of my own grandfather?
“It’s just that . . . Gong Gong won’t like it.” Dryly, she says, “Sung Shen Yi has made a name for himself as someone you don’t want for an enemy.”
“Is he my enemy, then?” Prickles of cold form between my shoulder blades.
“Of course not,” she says. “All I’m saying is that it’s better if no one else in my family finds out you’re here.”
The tension between us grows thick and palpable. If she thinks I’m going to just lie low and ignore this mystery about my family—then she doesn’t know me at all. Which, of course, is exactly the problem. My cousin doesn’t know me. And she doesn’t want to know me.
“I can see how this seems unfair.” Alyssa’s eyes darken with a sympathy that I don’t want. “After all, you have a right to . . . Well, let’s just say you deserve some compensation.”
“No. I don’t want anything from you!” That’s not true. But the only thing I want—that I’ve ever wanted—is the one thing I can’t have. Family. A feeling of belonging to the country where my parents were born.
“Gemma,” Alyssa says, sounding worried, “I’d still like to do something to make up for all this.”
Fury races through me. Does she think I’m just some problem that will go away if she throws some money at me? Ignoring her outstretched hand, I stand, almost upending the table. “It’s been a long night,” I say coldly. “Good night.”
As I stumble out of the private room, with its red leather and ebony tables, I can feel Alyssa’s eyes following me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Oh hell, I played that all wrong. That’s the conclusion I come to the next day as I replay the conversation with Alyssa in my head. She knew more than she was letting on—I’m sure of it. But instead of pressing her about why my mom was kicked out of the family, I let my anger get the best of me and stormed out without any of the answers I desperately want. If only I hadn’t been so damned freaked out by finding out that I’m related to one of China’s elite rich.
A peal of laughter outside my trailer makes me sigh. I should go out and join my castmates for lunch and celebrate a successful first week of filming. But instead of joining them, I take out my phone.
I haven’t been able to connect to my VPN recently, which my friend Sara Li warned could happen. The Chinese government constantly updates their security measures and cracks down on VPN access—so no more Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook for me. Great Firewall of China strikes again. Google still works—but I’m not about to google Alyssa Chua for the hundredth time. I already know that she’s nineteen, just a year older than I am, and she has oodles of money and a killer fashion sense. What else do I need to know about her?
Instead, I search for “Alyssa Chua’s grandmother.” Nothing comes up. I try Alyssa’s mother next, and some articles in Chinese come up. Luckily Google Translate works even without a VPN, so I skim a few articles. There are some mentions of Alyssa’s socialite mother and her involvement in charities, but no images of her. It looks like Alyssa is the face of the family.
Then I search for Alyssa’s grandfather. Again, no results. Then I remember what Alyssa said about him. Sung Shen Yi has made a name for himself as someone you don’t want for an enemy. I type in my grandfather’s name. At once, I get an error message. That’s odd. I try again and get the same message. Then I google something random and have no problem getting access.
This is so weird. I’ve heard that searches for topics like the Dalai Lama or the Tiananmen Square massacre get blocked by the Great Firewall of China. But it’s not like I’m searching for the kind of sensitive information that usually gets blocked. With my stomach knotting, I google 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Immediately, I get the same error message that came up when I was searching for Alyssa’s . . . my . . . g
randfather. Chills run down my back. Why would information on my grandfather be blocked?
Thoroughly unsettled, I put away my phone. Our lunch break will be over soon, and I’ve frittered it away with Internet searches. Listlessly, I pick at my dry sandwich. It would be unappetizing at the best of times, but the discovery that my grandfather is some kind of shadowy, powerful figure makes the sandwich even less appealing. I’m not sure who’s catering our meals, but they have some odd notions about what Americans want to eat.
Eilene comes by my trailer and smiles sympathetically as I set down the sandwich. “Not doing it for you?”
I make an effort to push away thoughts of my grandfather. “I have a list of food that I will not leave Beijing without eating.” I’ve had all the food on my list before, but I’m dying to eat my favorite Chinese food in China.
She laughs.
“No, I mean a literal list, as in I wrote it down by hand.” I give the sandwich a contemptuous flick. “And a sandwich with processed cheese and mystery meat is not on my list.”
“Then it’s a good thing tomorrow’s your first day off.”
Excitement wriggles through my body and distracts me from thoughts of Alyssa. “I. Cannot. Wait.”
Eilene’s eyes drift to the ever-present tablet in her hand. While I’m enjoying my day off, she’ll probably use the time rewriting scenes with Henry, the screenwriter. There are new worry lines on her forehead, and she’s been looking a bit pale lately. It can’t be easy to be a co-director and now a co-writer in all but name. Just the thought of juggling those roles gives me a sympathetic headache. My own troubles with Jake and the pressure of not letting Eilene down seem minor in comparison. But I bet Eilene doesn’t have a long-lost cousin and a family secret to contend with.
Eilene visibly tears her attention from her tablet and sets it on my dressing table. “Let’s see this list of yours.”
I pull a steno pad out of my bag, flip to the first page, and hand it over.
She takes it and starts reading. “Hand-shaven noodles, dumplings, radish cake, green onion pancake, egg tarts, hot pot . . . Why is hot pot crossed off?”
“Oh.” I blush, not sure how to explain. “It was always a family thing.” My dad, the cook in our family, would spend hours chopping vegetables to stew in the hot pot, and when the vegetables were finally done, we’d all sit down with a plate of thinly sliced raw meat and long chopsticks. I loved dropping the meat into the electric pot and watching it curl in the boiling stew, bobbing among cabbage and turnips. I’d want to pull my meat out too soon, but my mom would tell me to be patient, until I finally learned when it was the right time to pull the meat and vegetables out to be dipped in a little dish of soy sauce and sesame paste.
Just the memory is making me salivate, but it’s not just the food I’m missing. It’s the warm, scented steam rising into my face as we talk, laugh, and mock fight over the “best” corner of the pot. But sometimes, through that steam, I’d catch a look on my mom’s face as she looked around our small table. Like she was searching for faces that weren’t there at the table with us. Who the hell is my grandfather and why doesn’t my mother want me in Beijing?
A frown passes over Eilene’s face. “It doesn’t feel right to eat hot pot on your own, does it?”
She’s seconds away from offering to take me out for hot pot, and that’s time she can’t spare, so I rush to say, “I’m looking forward to seeing Beijing on my own, eating at those little food stalls with no one to tell me to hurry and get into costume!”
“Well, you deserve it.” Her smile is tinged with relief. “Have fun!”
When I get back to the hotel, one of the receptionists sees me and hurries over—completely abandoning the middle-aged couple she was checking in. They glare at me as if this is my fault.
But I’m just as confused. Is this another case of mistaken identity?
“Miss Huang,” the receptionist says, shooting down my assumption that she’s mistaken me for Alyssa. “I’m happy to tell you that your room has been upgraded. Please come with me so I may show you where you’ll be staying.”
Huh? “There must be some mistake,” I say. “No one has told me about an upgrade.”
“There’s no mistake,” she assures me.
Maybe the film studio is feeling generous. “Just let me pack my things.”
“Your belongings have already been moved.”
“Um, OK then.” Wow, they really want to give me this upgrade. “Thanks.”
The couple bursts into complaints as the receptionist turns to lead me to my room, and she answers them politely in Chinese. “I’m sorry, but this is an important guest.” She clearly doesn’t realize I understand Chinese.
My eyes widen. Important guest?
The couple is staring at me in speculation. “Shi ta,” the woman says, her eyes glued on me. It’s her.
Great. Questions can wait. My first priority is to get away from Alyssa’s fans.
The receptionist takes me all the way to the top floor. Here, the halls are lined with metal sconces that look like art pieces, and my footsteps echo on richly veined granite floors. She wasn’t kidding about an upgrade. The receptionist opens one of the doors and then hands me the card with a little bow.
The card almost falls from my nerveless hand. This isn’t an upgrade. It’s a superpowered boost into the stratosphere.
For one thing, it’s not so much a room as it’s a full-size apartment bigger than the one I shared with Glory and Camille in LA. A sitting area with white couches and pillows in muted golds greets me, and the polished wood floors are piled with soft white rugs that come up to my ankles when I walk inside. Next to the sitting area is a full kitchen with a stocked bar. Copper accents and warm wood make the whole space seem bright and lavish.
The receptionist says proudly, “This is our best suite, and I hope you will be comfortable here.”
Comfortable is an understatement, I think dazedly. I blink in astonishment as each new shiny luxury is revealed. A game room with a state-of-the-art gaming system and huge projector screen. A balcony garden fragrant with flowers. I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.
Next the receptionist shows me the bedroom, which has a stunning view of the city skyline. As for the tall four-poster bed with a bronze-colored silk throw draped at its foot and fluffy pillows at its head . . . Well, that looks like it will give me the best sleep of my life.
Then she opens the bamboo sliding door to the bathroom. Everything is gorgeous, but the most arresting feature—displayed on a wooden platform with steps leading up to it—is a gigantic jetted soaking tub. That’s when my brain snaps out of its luxury-drugged state. There’s no way the studio would spring for this suite.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think this suite is supposed to be mine.” I cast a longing glance at the bright hammered copper bowls set next to the tub. They’re filled with bath salts of various colors and . . . Holy crap. Are those actual rose petals? Discreetly, I wipe the drool that no doubt must be oozing down my chin.
“Ah,” the receptionist says. “Perhaps this will make things clearer.” She takes me back to the sitting area and gestures to the heavy wooden coffee table, where a bottle of champagne rests inside a copper ice bucket.
Is she actually suggesting that alcohol will clear things up? The drinking age is eighteen in China, but still. Then I notice a pale pink envelope propped up against the ice bucket. My fingers itch to rip into it, but I glance at the receptionist. Maybe I should wait until I’m alone before reading the note.
“I leave you to enjoy your suite,” she says tactfully. “Please call down to the front desk if you need anything. By the way, room service is included in your upgrade, so feel free to order anything you want. The bill will be taken care of.” After dropping that earth-shattering information, she leaves.
I snatch up the envelope and register that it smells like Alyssa’s expensive perfume. Inside is a brief note on pale pink paper that matches the envelope
.
Dear Gemma,
Sorry about how weird everything is. I know you don’t want anything from me, but I wanted to give you a better welcome than the one you got from me last night.
Xoxo,
Alyssa
Reading Alyssa’s note makes me even more confused. Is this a bribe so I’ll lie low and keep quiet? Or is this a goodwill gift? I know which one is more likely. A self-centered social media darling wouldn’t think twice about buying me off with a hotel upgrade. But I want to believe that she’s being sincere. I know it’s naive, but I want to believe that Alyssa is genuinely trying to make things right between us.
With a sigh, I put the note down. I’m not going to solve the mystery of Alyssa anytime soon, so I might as well enjoy this unexpected luxury while I can. First order of business—a glass of champagne in a jetted tub. With rose petals.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The next day, I wake up disoriented as a rosy glow lights my room. It’s coming from the round lamp on the nightstand. Blinking, I think about sitting up, but the soft nest of blankets and pillows is just too cozy. Since when was my hotel bed this comfortable?
That’s when I remember setting the wake-up time on my natural-light lamp . . . and why I have such a thing as a natural-light lamp in the first place.
I bolt upright on the bed. Gold silk curtains. Matching silk chairs. A dressing table with a mirror framed in lacquered rosewood. A walk-in, lighted closet—that’s where my small collection of clothes hangs on velvet hangers and flutters sadly in the cavernous depths.
So, this fairy-tale suite wasn’t a dream after all. I don’t even know how to reach Alyssa to thank her for this fantastic upgrade. I feel a little bad that I got so angry at her when we first met. But my chagrin doesn’t stop me from ordering a big breakfast from room service as I plan out my day of sightseeing on one of the plush couches in the sitting room.