Year of the Goose

by Carly J. Hallman

  A deep voice spitting, “Hey, fatty!” ripped Kelly from her daydreams. At once, the children stopped singing. Zhao glared down at a chipmunk-cheeked, blank-faced girl. He lightly kicked her in the back, and she spun around to look up at him with wounded eyes. Zhao knelt down beside her, his hideous face centimeters away from hers. She crinkled her nose and shrunk from Zhao’s rotting breath. “Why weren’t you singing with the rest of them?” he spat.

  The girl didn’t speak. She blinked. Tears welled up in her eyes.

  “Sing!” he shouted in her face. A solitary tear rolled down her crab apple cheek, but she didn’t open her mouth, just stared back at him. He calmly stood up, clapped his hands against his thighs. “Now get back to it!” he called to the lot of them, and then blew the whistle he wore around his neck.

  On cue, the children resumed their song, but it sounded different now, its joyful spirit sapped. Anger welled up inside Kelly again, temporarily replacing her pride and ambition, and she fiercely shook her head—not only was this blockhead inexperienced and unrefined, but he was also a bully, and in her mind, there was little worse. Her nostrils flared and she took an aggressive step toward that ugly Zhao, who had begun slogging back toward the office. She advanced quickly up from behind him, jabbed him hard in the kidney with her pointer finger, and lowered her voice so that the children wouldn’t hear. “That’s a human being you were talking to back there.”

  Zhao spun around, all bulging eyes and outrage, all puffed-up chest. “Yes? And?”

  Carbohydrates are for energy! Protein is for muscle! / If you eat too many of any, you better start to hustle! To burn! TO BURN! TO BU-BU-BU-BU-BURN!

  “It’s pretty inappropriate to speak to anyone, and especially a child, like that.” Her voice came out louder, meaner than she intended. Despite her intention to keep this confrontation subtle, under wraps, the children took notice and cut short their song. Oh, well, she thought, let them hear. This was for their own good. Who knew what damage he’d done already? Who knew what horrible words he’d spat at these delicate souls? Who knew how much weight loss had already been hindered thanks to this bully of a man-child?

  A dozen sets of eyes darted between the pockmarked administrator and the moon-faced heiress.

  “What, are you sent from the public manners bureau?” Zhao spat. He made no effort to keep his voice down. “And anyway, those ‘human beings’ are here to lose weight. I’m only trying to encourage ‘thin behavior.’ That is my job.”

  “You wouldn’t have a job if it weren’t for me.” Kelly narrowed her eyes. “And whether you like it or not, I’m in charge here now, I’m your boss, and—”

  But she never finished her sentence. A bell’s shrill ring sliced through the thick afternoon air, and the voices of all the campers formed into a collective bellow: “Luuuuuuuuunch!”

  “Take cover!” Zhao shouted, and yanked Kelly across the courtyard and into the nutrition classroom’s doorframe. The ground trembled and then full-on quaked as a hundred pairs of thick legs raced down the stairs, bolted across the courtyard, and streaked toward the cafeteria. Kelly squeezed her eyes shut and jammed her fingers into her ears. An iPad-sized chunk of plaster shook loose from the corner of the ceiling. Zhao shielded Kelly’s head with his arms. The plaster shattered against the floor, narrowly missing them both.

  A moment later, the rumbling stopped. The air fell still. Kelly opened her eyes and removed her fingers from her ears. Peace and silence had been restored.

  “Shall we?” Zhao asked.

  Realizing she’d been holding her breath, she exhaled deeply. Her stomach rumbled; all she’d had for breakfast was a small bowl of muesli. But despite her empty stomach, her soul swelled with satisfaction—she’d stood up to Zhao, put him in his place, established herself as the alpha wolf. With numbskulls like him, a few harsh words were usually all it took.

  “We shall,” she said. She walked with rapid, determined, triumphant steps toward the cafeteria.

  LEADERSHIP IN SEVENTEEN EASY STEPS: LEARN TO MANAGE OTHERS BY MANAGING YOURSELF

  LEADERSHIP IS THE CORNERSTONE OF EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT… SO IT went, and so went a line in one of the many self-help e-books Kelly downloaded during her era of freedom and stability. She arrived at age fourteen in Los Angeles, no friends, no social life, nothing but incredibly fast Internet. She sat inside, air-conditioning blowing and blinds shut, as the sun rose, sweltered, and set outside. She ate granola bars, drank massive quantities of Mountain Dew, logged on to chat rooms, logged out of chat rooms, obsessively read fan fiction, obsessively wrote rude comments about aforementioned fan fiction, turned the computer off and watched endless episodes of Blind Date on TV, turned the computer back on and sparked short-lived affairs with shooter RPGs, Napster, strangers’ LiveJournals, fetish porn, and The Sims. Finally, she landed on the wide world of web-based self-and professional-improvement. Finally, she was home.

  Upon completing the exercises and self-inventories in a number of e-books, Kelly concluded that it was not simply “bad luck” or “fate,” but her own failure to establish herself as a dominant player in her myriad relationships (father-daughter, mother-daughter, goose-human, et cetera) that had placed her in her current predicament. Shut in her new bedroom, hunched over her Toshiba desktop computer, she also learned that it was never, ever too late to change. Armed for the first time with any semblance of self-awareness and with techniques to help quell her anxiety, Kelly decided to undertake an experimental project to henceforth establish herself as the alpha wolf in all of her American relationships.

  August melted into September, and after weeks of careful plotting and strategizing, she set forth with her leadership crusade, first taking on the Los Angeles Academy for Wealthy Young Ladies. Although her tactics for exuding dominance (including: hacking teachers’ blogs and other online accounts to post and send sexually provocative information, photographing classmates through the cracks in the bathroom stalls for blackmail purposes, and periodically setting pet-store-purchased gerbils loose in the locker room) didn’t win her any friends, the other girls (who, during the course of their high school careers, were so incredibly vicious as to drop a bucket of red paint on one leather-jacket-wearing classmate’s head in a politically correct reenactment of Carrie, to somehow change one classmate’s submitted Yale essay to read only “I has special needs thanks you to read this,” and to purposefully run a Mercedes SUV over another classmate’s foot in an In-N-Out Burger parking lot) left her be save for a few unfortunate albeit unoriginal Asian-stereotype-derived nicknames. Kelly, no stranger to bodily harm and sabotage thanks to the goose, was relieved not to suffer through such physically violent incidences here. A few stupid words she could deal with.

  With her status securely locked in at school, Kelly soon spread her wings, pursuing in the “real world” other minor conquests, which most notably included intimidating Prada and Coach store employees into giving her unheard-of discounts, intimidating bouncers into allowing her access into twenty-one and older nightclubs, and intimidating a chiseled Tommy Hilfiger model into giving her his cell phone number and that of his coke dealer.

  But the home front was where Kelly waged the real war.

  Papa Hui had hired a nanny to accompany Kelly to America and to serve as her live-in guardian. This “nanny,” a twenty-four-year-old peasant named Aunty Minnie, had no actual training in education or child care. She was the daughter of one of Papa Hui’s drivers, and the old man told her to take the job or lose her father’s. But it wasn’t all blackmail. There was also a hefty salary, an extended stay in the United States, and the prospect of landing a Hollywood husband who would finance the breast implants she so desperately wanted/needed—this sugar daddy dream existing despite a bespectacled boyfriend who worked as a computer repairman back in Shanghai.

  Kelly, unwilling to follow orders from such a sorry character, systematically executed a number of carefully planned tactics, including but not limited to: forwarding flirtatious e-mails (both rea
l and fabricated) to and from other men to Aunty Minnie’s boyfriend in China, planting duck hearts procured in Chinatown in Aunty Minnie’s “delicates” drawer, paying a foster kid she met at the public library to rob Aunty Minnie at knifepoint in the front yard, emptying a bottle of vinegar into Aunty Minnie’s blueberry juice jug, and threatening to report Aunty Minnie to the authorities for not having her “papers in order,” the punishment for which, Kelly informed her, was indefinite detainment at Guantánamo Bay, where phone calls were not permitted and where immigration offenders were forced to help the authorities torture terrorists (Kelly remained proud of herself for spinning this particularly convincing tale).

  Within a matter of well-played weeks, Kelly earned free run of the house—if she craved dumplings exactly like Grandma used to make, Aunty Minnie would dress up just like Grandma—gray wig, dentures, and all—and make them. If Kelly needed someone to complete her homework for her so that she could play Dance Dance Revolution at the mall arcade for hours, Aunty Minnie would circle multiple-choice answers until the sun came up. If Kelly needed an advance on her allowance, or someone to arrange the purchase of Adderall, or most frequently of all someone to just leave her the hell alone and get out of her damn way, Aunty Minnie was her girl. And if Kelly, on her eighteenth birthday, needed someone to leave America, return to China, marry a wiry computer repairman-boy with thick glasses, and never speak of her trying time in America or of the spoiled socio-path who robbed her of her chances of riches and foreign citizenship and of the desire to ever bear children of her own, well…

  WHERE’D THEY GET THIS COOK? A PRISON?

  KELLY AND ZHAO REACHED THE FRONT OF THE LINE, WHERE THE COOK plopped a ladleful of steamed vegetables and a second ladleful of some unidentifiable gelatinous material onto their plates.

  “Yum,” said Kelly. Facetiously, of course. Zhao grunted.

  There wasn’t enough space around the few shoddy tables to seat all the campers, so many stood, shoveling food into their faces. Others squatted. Still others plopped themselves down on the tile. Kelly and Zhao maneuvered their way through this multilevel maze of flesh and fat and took a seat at the counselors’ table in the corner. Kelly introduced herself to those seated as “Kelly Hui, Bashful Goose Snack Company. I’m here to help you with whatever you need. We’re a team here. We must work together,” before launching into the same short speech she’d given Zhao about saving not only calories, but lives.

  The counselors nodded, smiled—no teeth, all pursed lips—fidgeted, picked at their food.

  Kelly pushed her own food-like substances around her plate with her chopsticks. The blob left a slime trail. A successful leader speaks from the heart, makes him- or herself relatable to others. “Where’d they get this cook?” she said to the table, trying to lighten the mood. “A prison?”

  Everyone around the table, with the exception of Zhao, emitted robotic laughter.

  Kelly, failing to notice their insincerity, grinned. “And if so, then I’m going to hope for the death penalty!”

  Zhao picked up a piece of his gelatinous blob with his chopsticks, held it up, studied it intently. “Delicious food is what got these kids here in the first place.”

  Kelly dropped her chopsticks and returned her hands to her lap, balled into fists. Yes, her jokes were incongruous, but they were nonetheless chuckle-worthy, hardly deserving of such a stark response. Hey, hey, the nimrod was back for round two; not going down without a fight. Well, she’d give it to him. “Yeah, well, starvation isn’t the way to go about it,” she snapped. “Their metabolisms will shut down. It’s better that we teach them healthy eating habits and to eat sensible portions of nutritious foods.” She looked to the others for backup. They all chewed their lips, played with their food, peered down at their trays.

  Zhao placed his chopsticks beside his tray. “I didn’t realize you were a medical doctor.” He picked at a whitehead on his jawline.

  “No, but I have the Internet and something called common sense. Have you heard of either?”

  A half-dozen set of eyes darted between the thick-maned heiress and the balding administrator.

  Zhao dabbed his ooze-gushing zit with the side of his hand. He picked up his chopsticks, used them to maneuver the gelatinous blob into his mouth. “Extreme obesity calls for extreme solutions.”

  “Oh, so you have heard of the Internet. Fantastic. And you’ve read the back of a Miss Mian’s Laxative Tea box. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe that’s their official slogan. Extreme obesity calls for—” Zhao’s cheeks flushed red. Flustered. She was getting to him.

  “Yeah, well, I made some of my own slogans too: fat kids grow into fat adults, so let’s cut down the weeds before they spoil the garden.” As he spoke, she caught glimpses of that nasty blob resting on his white-fuzz-coated tongue like a tumor, like some rare disease. “And then—”

  Another bell rang, thankfully cutting short his foray into Mad Men territory. Prepared now for the worst, Kelly instinctively covered her head and ducked under the table. But this time there was no earthquake. The ground was still. The others remained unfazed. She waited a moment—safety first!—before she crawled out and retook her seat. Campers lazily stood and lumbered toward the doors, some lingering only to steal a few last licks from their trays. The counselors returned their own trays to the kitchen and left without a word.

  Peace and quiet. Absence. Her stomach growled. Kelly poked her own gelatinous blob with her chopsticks. She’d dealt with Zhao, his insubordinate attitude, satisfactorily. Now she needed another form of gratification. She lowered her voice and leaned toward him. “Hey, so you must have some real food in your office, right?”

  Zhao nodded. His cheeks had taken on a greenish hue. Kelly realized that he still hadn’t brought himself to swallow the blob and couldn’t spit it out now in front of the cook, who was intently pushing in chairs the campers had left askew. Zhao stood, wobbly on his feet. “Let’s go,” he murmured, his words slightly garbled. “It’s growing in my mouth.”

  Kelly followed Zhao to his office, where he shut the door and spat the blob into the wastepaper basket. He sputtered, hunched over the basket, strings of blob-infused drool falling from his mouth before finally wiping his face on his sleeve and composing himself. He marched over to his desk and unlocked one of its drawers, revealing an impressive stash of cookies, chocolate bars, and potato chips.

  “Is this stuff you’ve confiscated from campers?”

  “Contraband, yeah. Some of it,” Zhao said. He tore open a bag of Lays. “Some I bought myself.”

  Get to know your people. The best managers become actively involved with what their people are trying to accomplish.

  Kelly narrowed her eyes. “Can I ask you something?”

  Zhao set the open bag of Lays down on his desktop. He sat. He shrugged.

  “Why are you here? Was your old man owed a favor by someone in the government or something?” A mocking tone seeped into her voice—she didn’t want to be this, she was losing control, she was better than this. “Was your dad one of those guys who refused to let the government tear down his shit-hole of a house to build a shopping mall, claiming unjust compensation and to ‘stand for something’ until the government upped the price a bit and offered his son a job in return? Or was he—”

  Zhao stopped her, saying softly, “My father is dead.”

  Kelly tossed her hair over her shoulder. She tried her best to appear unfazed. “Yeah, okay, whatever. So I’m just so rude now, aren’t I? You probably think, Oh, why is she criticizing me when she’s not qualified either. Well, I am qualified. I have a business degree from America and I am the head of—”

  “Corporate social responsibility at Bashful Goose Snack Company,” Zhao finished her sentence.

  She crossed her arms, puffed out her cheeks, and stared down at him. He leaned back in his chair. Sighed. Leaned forward again. Tapped his fingers on the desk’s edge. “Look, I know what you’re thinking. I’m hardly qualified for a pos
ition at McDonald’s, much less here. I’m a loser. I’m hideous.”

  She uncrossed her arms. She wasn’t expecting him to come over to her side so easily.

  “But if you must know, I got this job through an agency. I don’t know why they hired me, okay? There looked to be several other attractive, more authoritative applicants waiting when I went in for the interview. Why they chose me and not them, I’ll never know. But I’m glad they did. I’m glad to have a paycheck is all I mean. And, hell, a little prestige. But truthfully, I hate working. It’s exhausting. I’d rather be watching TV or fucking around on the Internet. But no one gets paid for doing that, do they? That doesn’t earn anyone any respect.”

  But of course people got paid to do that—how about that government official, living it up right this minute in Macau’s ornate casinos; how about her father doing Sudoku puzzles at his gold-rimmed desk; how about the past two years of her own life?

  “So,” he continued, “I wasn’t going to question their decision. Why would I? I accepted happily, gratefully. Not because I’m passionate about weight loss or because I thought I’d be the best person for this job or even because I think I know what I’m doing, but because I needed the money, and I also needed to get my mother off my back. That’s it. That’s all.”

  Kelly, noticing another swivel chair against the wall, wheeled it over to Zhao’s desk, dusted it off, sneezed, and sat down. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on a stack of papers. “Look, I didn’t mean to go off on you like that. I can be, well, I can be pretty ambitious sometimes, and I’m not really used to talking to people much anymore, and sometimes I say things I don’t mean. Okay?”