by Vann Chow
"Oh my God! That's Caroline2absolute and the guy who dated Li Kun's daughter!! And there is Missyonox79 and Jessie Zao! They are all here!" I heard one girl said to another on the top of her voice over the music as they pulled out their cell phones and brandished them at our direction. Because of them, I now remembered that the girl next to me was called Caroline.
I had some premonition when I headed out this morning that something like this would happen, given how after the incident at the Bao Shan Shanghai University stadium that was broadcasted live on TV, people did come up to me from time to time and asked me if I was 'the guy who dated Li Kun's daughter'. Despite that, I was still very surprised. These complete strangers not only knew who I was, but also the names, or usernames of my friends.
Seeing my surprise, Caroline, or Caroline2absolute leaned close to me again and said, "Look at them. They think we're Gods." with a triumphant smile on her face that indicated that she thought it was something positive. "This is the power of social media."
Behind them, a line was forming. It seemed like they had suddenly created an invisible autograph booth around us, as if we were celebrities, and the two girls at the front of the line asked to take photographs with the two of us and the two others friends of Kelvin whose names (usernames) they remembered better than I did.
"Who are they?" I heard an older man in a business suit asked his companions.
"They are internet celebrities."
"And that made them famous?"
"Endless supply of pleasant moments. They are perpetually shopping, drinking high tea with elite acquaintances, all in beautiful clothes and matching branded goods with smart haircuts. Nice food, big birthday parties, lots of friends, and full of clever reflections about life. They are always happy and they live-stream that happiness to anyone who wishes to see online. The kind of pleasurable lives they are leading are what a lot of people in China dream of and could now live it in their heads because of these internet celebrities broadcasting their lives, feeding everyone's aspiration to be just like them, to be happy and loved twenty-four hours a day."
"That can't be real..." he said. He was apparently from the same planet I came from, and that planet had gone extinct, throwing us into this one we were in now where nothing made much rational sense.
"Don't be so loud, they will hear you." A woman tried to hush them.
"I couldn't care less," the older man said.
"You're also not some teenagers hugging your phone to sleep every evening and have no life."
"So all they did is post about themselves online, and they became famous? Why don't you do that?"
"What made Kim Kardashian special?" The man's companion asked the rhetorical question, drawing parallels between my friends and the international sensation from America.
"I don't know," the man answered. Me neither.
"It is her abilities to expose every part of her life, and body, with shameless confidence. I don't have that kind of confidence. Do you have that kind of confidence?" He asked. "Only very special people have that kind of confidence."
"And of course the ability to turn every picture into a piece of art with photoshopping apps," a woman added.
The group snickered.
"Everybody is a brand now. That's what they tell the college graduates. Don't just write a resume and think that it is enough to get you a job. Market yourself like a brand. Be relentless."
"Hmm..." The older man squeezed his lips together, perplexed at the development of the youth from his city.
At some point, I was pushed and shoved and groped at by the group of less skeptical 'fans' of our posse. I did not know anymore whether it was man or woman who did that. All I was thinking was —where is Marvey?
Chapter 4
I finally got out of the club after half an hour of breath-holding struggle with teenagers who wanted to have selfies with me to post on their own personal social media feeds. They wanted to be identified by their peers as the 'cool people' hanging out in 'cool places' where they could run into internet celebrities like myself casually.
It was not the easiest escape I had ever made. For the longest time, nobody really cared whether I was here or there. Suddenly there were fans. I didn't understand why the news about the Li Kun scandal hadn't died down yet. It had already been a year and I thought the short-attention span millennials would have already forgotten about me. How wrong was I.
Caroline showed me a list of what appeared to be my own Weibo, WeChat, and even Instagram accounts when I assured her that I was not on social media.
"Isn't this you? Is any one of them you?" She asked in disbelief. "Ewww, so who have I been following all day? Look at all these food moments, and landscapes with poetry. You have a hundred and nineteen thousand followers! You didn't post any of them? Some of the descriptions were really clever!"
I had to disappoint her in order to make my escape, as she suffered a reality-versus-expectation breakdown and had to take a seat on the couch to calm herself, ending the whole selfie-session abruptly to the disappointment of many fans.
Outside the club, the blast of heat again took me by surprise. I peeled off my suit jacket — one that I bought some time ago on a remorseful shopping spree at the most expensive department store on Nanjing Road after listening to Kelvin's advice on image-building — that befit a celebration party like today, and went about my search for Marvey.
It did not take me long to find her, for she was just right there, in front of the beautiful skyline of the Bund, leaning against the rail, alone. Beside her, couples were holding hands, kissing, and hugging each other under the romantic night sky dotted with beautiful, twinkling stars.
A breeze swept by, and it made her shoulder-length hair flutter in the wind like silk curtains. She shook off a few stray hairs from her cheeks, turned around, and smiled.
How did she see me from so far away? Was that telepathy between lovers? I put out a foot to walk towards her.
Just then, her smile widened. And I realized how wrong was I.
She was not smiling at me. Instead, she was smiling to a man who handed her a cup of soy bean milk. They held up the paper cups in their hands and brought it together.
"Cheers!" I could tell from reading their lips that was what they said to each other.
Then the man lowered his head to say something in her ear. She was temporarily hidden from my view by the back of this unknown man.
When the man eventually turned around, I saw his face.
It was Kelvin.
Kelvin?
Chapter 5
"Hey!" I stepped out of the shadow of the buildings in front of the two of them and must have appeared as if I came out of thin air. It gave them quite a shock, for they appeared rather nervous.
"Heyyyy..." Kelvin said sheepishly. His eyes darted around in their sockets. "Are you done with your fans?"
"I don't know how I get them. Caroline told me I even have Instagram. I thought it's banned in China."
"But you have Facebook," Marvey said.
"Well, yes. I do." She did not know that I had done that just so I could connect with her online after the first time we met, well, right about here. I had no trouble remembering the exact location of where we first met because this was what was called the ‘Lover's Wall' by the locals since the sixties, a famous rendezvous place since most young people still lived with their parents, and I had always thought it was destiny that brought us together on this spot.
"So, what are you guys doing here?" I asked as nonchalantly as I could, pretending that I was not in the least suspicious of what the two of them were doing, hanging around at ‘Lover's Wall' by themselves.
Kelvin's eyes darted around again, giving me the impression that he was thinking real hard, possibly trying to come up with a lie, adding to my already heightened suspicion. "It's too loud in the club. It was very hard to talk," he finally said. "And by the way, did you tell Marvey that you have moved in with Paula already?"
My blood turned cold
at the mention of Paula.
"Congratulations!" Marvey said to me heartwarmingly and patted me on my shoulder with her free hand.
"No, no, no, no, no..." I did not know why I started to deny it, even though it was true. "It's just temporary, until..." And I did not know how to finish up the sentence.
"That's very honorable of him, I think, to take care of the single mother and his son."
"No, no, no, no, no..." I said again. "I stopped renting the old apartment. It wasn't because I couldn't afford it," I explained hastily. "It's just that my parents do not live in the city anymore."
Marvey cocked her head to listen to my story intently.
"Li Kun has given us a two-floor apartment in the Feng Cheng Tower to settle the lawsuit between us outside of the court. It's not as good as our previous place but it is something. So my parents live there now, where they could be closer to their friends."
"He's married." Kelvin chipped in with a piece of unnecessary information. I frowned immediately at him. He was not supposed to tell that to anybody. What was he doing?
"What?!" Marvey exclaimed. "You didn't tell me! Oh my God! This is huge! Congratulations to both of you!!" She started to put her arms around me to hug me again for the second time today. I wished I had the heart to enjoy it but this time I only felt betrayal, disappointment, and anguish, especially because she was congratulating me as if this was very good news. "When was the ceremony? Did I miss it already?" She jumped in excitement, spilling half of her soya milk on the ground. "I have always wanted to go to a Chinese wedding. What did you wear? Did you both wear red and gold silk with phoenix and dragon embroidery? And those massive Peking-opera-like hats? What about the guests? I would so love to be a part of it." All she could care at the moment was to fulfill her fantasy of being invited to a Chinese wedding and dress up in silly Chinese costumes.
I mentally face-palmed myself.
"No, no, no, no, no..." I found myself saying a succession of no's again. I hated it. "There was no ceremony. We want to be low-profile about it. Nobody knows..."
"Well, except the government, and I."
I now regretted immensely that I had confided in him. He forced me to spill the beans about what was so important in the box that I had risked my life saving in the pile of ruins at the fire a year ago. Since I lied in bed for two months, he had plenty of time to pressure me into telling. Thinking that he was my best friend and that best friends should not have anything to hide from each other, I told him everything eventually. I married Paula so that she and Jessie could finally register themselves as Shanghai residents, being my dependents, and make use of the healthcare system and other social benefits in the city in which they lived.
In the box I saved, were our marriage permits, something that I had to stow away in a safe place away from my parents. I locked them away in the bedroom in the old house because we almost never visited it. Nobody, especially my parents, was supposed to know anything about this because, well, it's not something you want everyone and their neighbors to know. Paula was marrying me just for the benefits. It was a fake marriage.
And fake marriages were illegal.
Obviously, the less attention we get, the better kept our secret would be.
In a year or two, when the two of them have become residents, then Paula and I would get a divorce. And to save our friends and families from feeling like fools, we figured there was no need to alert anybody.
"It's Paula's second marriage." This was the best excuse I could come up with about the secrecy of our marriage. "She did not want too many people to know about it, you know?"
"Why? Marrying a man you love and to start a new phase of life together is such a wonderful thing. She shouldn't feel embarrassed about it! And neither should you. You only get to do this once in your life!" Marvey said. I couldn't help but roll my eyes at the typical girl-logic.
"Why did you make that face?" She spotted the anguish on my face, now impossible to hide. "Anyway, it's your life, I shouldn't comment about it. I'm simply overjoyed for you."
Oh, Marvey. Please don't be.
I was the one overjoyed when I first found out that Marvey would be around in Shanghai again for the summer and we could hang out like we used to. But now, just a few hours later, I had fallen to the lowest point of my life; the hope of being happy for the rest of my life with someone I truly loved slipped through my fingers like sand.
"I am leaving." I had to go home and cry my heart out as I shoot some guys dead in Halo 3.
"You're leaving?" Marvey repeated as if she heard me wrong. "It's only eleven."
"He has to put the kid to bed, and say goodnight to the wife," Kelvin answered for me, again with too much information. Now this certainly etched the image of me as Jessie's dad and Paula's husband forever in Marvey's mind.
"Thanks for the party," I said to Kelvin. "I really appreciate it." I guess he didn't get my sarcasm because he said I was very welcomed. So I tried to make it clear. "I wouldn't have seen Marvey had you not contacted her about it."
"Don't worry about it." He nodded.
That was when I realized something. — Kelvin had been contacting Marvey behind my back.
My heart hurt.
Chapter 6
You know what they say about sequels. Whether it is a movie or a chapter in my life, sequels are almost guaranteed to be worse than the original. You just cannot have the same thing twice without being disappointed.
Meeting Marvey the second time in Shanghai was destined to be a disappointment because the writer of your life decided that it would be funnier if the girl of your dreams thought you were married and your best friend betrayed you. Only a loser with a sadistic mind could come up with such a plot.
I had to quickly leave my melancholy behind, as there was a lot to deal with when you are trying to be somebody's hero. I might be a loser in my own plot, but I was the hero in Jessie's plot. There was just no one else who could fill this role for him.
At 6 A.M. on the next morning, I woke up to the buzz of my alarm, rolled off my makeshift bed that was in fact the sofa in the living room, freshened up with a cold shower, got dressed and went two streets down from Paula's apartment to get freshly made deep fried dough and rice porridge for 'my family'. When I got home with the food, Jessie was already awake and he was beaming. He was rarely awake at this hour. It appeared that he had set an early alarm as well to make sure he would wake up in time for the important appointment we had today at the local municipality.
"Where's your mother?" I asked.
"She's still snoring like a pig in the room."
I expected that much. "Go wake her up. I bought food. Let's eat then we'll go. We can't be late today." I explained to him the flow of the morning for the fifth time.
"Yes, sir!" The little boy gave me a salute and saw to fulfilling the order immediately as if he was in the military and I was his supervisor. I must say that I enjoy the level of respect I got from him. Not every parent enjoyed this privilege.
"Wake up! You're so lazy!!" I heard him yelling at his mother, who grunt some curse words to her own child for interrupting her sleep.
"Let me sleep a little bit longer!" She said on the top of her lungs, pulling up her crummy and wrinkled fake Hello Kitty blanket over her head. "We still have plenty of time!"
"No!" The boy said, as he climbed on top of her mattress and started thrashing everything on it, making what was already a mess messier than before. From a gap in her bedroom door, I saw a pair of black gloves, as well as a bright orange laced bra, fell off the side of her bed into the pile of dirty laundry that had been there — I couldn't imagine that was true but it surely looked like it — the day I moved in a few months ago.
"I've only just lied down!" She protested, which led the boy to resort to one of his most annoying attacks. He started to run his hands randomly over her hair.
"Erggg! Stop it!"The witch bolted upright and screamed. "Enough is enough!" Then she started to hit Jessie with one of the many
stray pillows that were haphazardly lying on and around the bed. As soon as that happened, as it had happened before, Jessie scrambled out of the bedroom triumphantly into the living room and hid himself behind my legs. His ridiculous, angry mother wearing nothing but a bright orange underwear that matched the bra I saw earlier stumbled after him. Her bare tits flying in every direction.
The boy started to laugh. "Mom is naked in public!" He appealed to my sense of humor.
His mother quickly wrapped her arms around her breasts. "If I had known you would be such an unrespectful, difficult child, I would have aborted you when you were still a fetus."
That was a very harsh thing to say to any child, you would think. But no, this was Jessie, Paula's child. It would take a lot more than verbal abuse to have his self-confidence crumbled to ashes. He simply laughed his mother's stupid abortion joke off with childish giggles as I looked on this horrific family feud with trembling hands.
"Your birth father must be an asshole to have inherited such bad manners to you."
That comment also went almost unheard. It surely wasn't the first time I had heard it as well since I moved in. Everybody in this house and outside knew that Paula had gotten pregnant from having sex with one of the many no longer identifiable men she escorted about seven years ago.
"Just quit it, the two of you, and get on with breakfast!" I decided that it was time for me to intervene before more bad things were said in this house. Jessie might be oblivious to what his mother was saying, our gossipy neighbors in the same paper thin row of houses not.
Jessie quickly took a seat at the table in front of me and started digging in. He loved fresh rice porridge with meatballs for breakfast. It was something that his mother had never woken up early enough to buy in all seven years of his life.
"I need to effing change!" Paula directed her anger at me.
"You're going to make us late. Hurry up, mom!" The boy yelped.
Chapter 7