by Lucy Tan
“I saw the note you left,” Sunny said.
“I thought finally we got a good group going here. Everybody was getting to know each other. I thought I would do something nice for us, de-stink the place a bit. Like you—how you always wash other people’s dishes if they’ve been sitting there too long. That’s a nice thing. Anyway, it seems like the two of us are the only ones with the right idea about community living. Everybody else is all for themselves.”
He took a loud sip of his tea and pointed to Sunny’s phone, which had just lit up with a Happy Farm notification.
“Still playing that one, ah? You should try Heroes of Kung Fu. You need a computer for it, though.”
“I have no time for computer games. No money for a computer either.”
Yang Zifei shrugged. “Isn’t that true for us all. Go to a café.”
“Maybe.” Sunny spooned the last of her zhou into her mouth and got up to rinse out her dish. “See you later.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” he said. “There’s a café around the corner. I could show you how to play.”
Men often wanted to be friends with her; she didn’t know why. Maybe it was because she wasn’t pretty enough to make them nervous and didn’t talk very much. They probably liked that she let them do all the talking. After all this time in the city, Sunny still wasn’t sure what the social rules were for making friends or having lovers. She scanned Yang Zifei’s carefree posture and naive eyes. He was too young for her, too young to fall into either category.
“The next time I have a day off, I’ll let you know, okay?”
“Okay,” he said, smirking. “See you never.”
By seven o’clock, the sun was already so high that riding fast on her motorbike did little to cool Sunny down. She passed the ginkgo-lined streets, trying not to breathe in too deeply. Beautiful as the little fan-shaped leaves were, the female trees produced berries that in summertime smelled like boiling vomit. In autumn, the green leaves would burn up into constellations of yellow, as if absorbing the last of the summer sun. Though the trees were beautiful—tourists loved Lu Xun Park for the views—Sunny sometimes wished that she could trade them for the simple plane trees that decorated Xuhui District. Their low canopies provided more shade in the summer heat and a subtler sort of beauty. Yang Zifei had once described how he and the rest of the street crew pruned the plane trees twice a year. Once, in March, to remove dead branches, and the second time, in May, to remove the young ones. When Sunny asked him why the young branches needed to be cut off, he told her that they sucked the tree’s resources. Took up too much room, used up too much sunlight. Plus, when typhoon season comes, all that extra weight puts the entire tree in danger of being blown over.
If only people thought of self-preservation in similar terms. Seemed like nowadays, every baby on the way was good news, regardless of whether the family could support it.
Sunny squinted hard into the wind, trying to keep her eyes protected from the debris that flew in from the streets. She made a mental note to buy goggles from the underground market, no matter how silly it made her feel to wear them. Traffic in Shanghai was too dangerous to be distracted while driving. The last thing she wanted was to leave the earth the way her husband had—dead on the side of the road. She merged onto the expressway between a BMW and a taxi. What kind of car did the Zhens have? Probably a BMW or nicer. Reminded of the job offer again, Sunny felt her heart skip. She leaned in, cut around the luxury car, and sped ahead in the next lane.
At the hotel, the regular security guard was back on duty. Sunny found him sitting at a table in the service hall, inspecting radios and filling out reports. “You have a new schedule,” he said, sliding a clipboard in her direction. She flipped to her name and saw that 8202 appeared next to it every morning for the next two weeks. Usually, she and Rose would rotate.
“What happened?”
The guard shrugged. “Lady knows what she wants.” When she didn’t make a move to leave, he added, “They’d better find that bracelet.”
Sunny was already in the elevator when it occurred to her that she hadn’t looked for Rose’s name on the schedule. What if it wasn’t there at all? She pulled her phone out to send a text but could only stare at the blank screen. She wasn’t sure how to ask a question like Have you been fired? Finally, she settled on How are you? Thinly veiled, but the best that she could do.
Outside apartment 8202’s service entrance, Sunny rang the bell, knocked on the door five times, per custom, and entered the Zhens’ kitchen. The rooms were silent; the family was downstairs at breakfast. Sunny wouldn’t make the mistake she’d made yesterday and spend more time than necessary in the same room as Taitai. She’d clean the southern wing of the apartment first.
Boss Zhen’s study looked out over the river through a bay window that stretched the length of the room. Along the left side of the wall ran a set of wooden cabinets that held glass trophies and a parade of family photos. In these vacation shots, Karen appeared at all different ages, but Taitai and Boss Zhen looked the same, she with her chin tucked into a practiced smile, one arm around her daughter, he carrying something that ultimately ruined the aesthetics of the shot—his wife’s backpack slung over one shoulder, or a map that had been opened and refolded the wrong way. He seemed weighed down by practicality in a way that his wife was not. Although his study was cluttered, his belongings were mostly functional. Along with the cheap notebooks, there were great reams of paper on which large English words appeared on color-ink backgrounds. Twenty words per page, at most, some filled with graphs and images, all binder-clipped together and sitting in the corners of the room beneath little notes that read Q1, Q2, Q3, et cetera. On his desk, there was often a banana peel curled up on a dish, empty teacups. Occasionally, a discarded pair of pants could be found draped over the armchair, the belt hanging loose from the loops. Evidence of a hurried existence made him relatable to Sunny; unlike Taitai, Boss Zhen was under pressure from the outside world.
Sunny shook out a pair of pants by its waistband and felt weight in one of its pockets. She reached in and found a stack of business cards held together by a rubber band. The cards were dual-language, one side printed in English, the other Chinese. On the Chinese side was his company’s name, MEDORA GROUP, and then, in smaller letters, GENERAL MANAGER, SHANGHAI; VICE PRESIDENT OF STRATEGY, GLOBAL. None of the maids had any idea what this meant, but once, when Rose was ill and Sunny was double-teaming a shift with a stand-in girl, the girl asked him to explain what he did. He’d looked startled. “I’m a problem solver,” he had said.
Sunny thought about that statement a lot. Boss Zhen’s job didn’t sound too different from her own when he put it like that. She couldn’t help thinking that if she had been born a city kid, maybe one with more patience for schoolwork, a contender for one of those fancy degrees that hung on Boss’s wall, she might have been good at his job too, whatever it was.
Sunny was just a few minutes away from having the master bath cleaned when the front door opened. Within seconds, she heard Karen come down the hall, enter the bedroom, walk through the closet, and stop in the doorway of the bathroom. She grinned at Sunny, then glanced reflexively at the toilet.
The toilet in the master bath was motion-sensing, with a lid that rose whenever someone came near it. It was also self-flushing and self-warming, with little blue lights at the base of the tank that blinked when it was active. A couple years ago, Karen had admitted to Sunny that she and the toilet had an agreement: she would never step foot in the master bathroom if the toilet would never come out of it. There was something about the way it blinked, she had said, that made her sure it could move in other ways too. Although she had since proclaimed herself too old to believe in such things, she still seemed unwilling to take any chances.
“I heard Mom asked you,” Karen said. She stood with one hand on her hip, the other holding a paper cup of coffee. “You’re going to say yes, right?”
“What are you doing with that coffee?” Sunny
said. “That’s for grown-ups.”
“It’s not coffee,” she said. “It’s a latte. So, are you?” Sometimes, Karen’s persistence was cute. Other times, it was rude.
“Let me ask you something,” Sunny said. “What does your family do that requires you people to shower three times a day?”
“Swim? Don’t change the topic!”
Sunny picked up the towels that had been tossed in the Jacuzzi and added them to the growing pile of laundry inside the closet.
“Daddy thinks you take initiative.” Karen, changing tactics, had said the last words in English.
“What’s take initiative?”
She scrunched up her face. “I’m not sure. But he says that all the time about people he wants to hire. Basically, it means you’re smart.” Sunny thought about this and came to understand the quiet power Boss Zhen had over Taitai and Karen. She, too, warmed in the light of his approval.
Zhen Taitai appeared behind her daughter. She looked relaxed this morning, with her hair pulled back from her face. In one hand, she held a paper cup that matched Karen’s.
“Sunny, zao.”
“Zao, Taitai.” Sunny stood. “I wanted to talk to you about your offer. I’ve decided to accept.”
At these words, Karen let out a squeal. But Zhen Taitai only smiled faintly and put her arm around her daughter.
“I’d like you to start as soon as Monday. Can that be arranged?”
“Yes. What time should I come by?”
“Around eight fifteen. Don’t worry about your other shifts—I’ve already given the manager a heads-up that I’ve made you an offer.”
She tipped the last of her coffee down her throat and set the cup on top of a stack of shoe boxes in the closet.
As Taitai turned to leave, it occurred to Sunny that her new employer had never once entertained the idea that her offer might be refused. She thought of Taitai sitting at her desk with a calculator, figuring out the precise salary that would be too high for Sunny to refuse. When the wave of disgust passed, she picked up Taitai’s coffee cup from the stack of shoe boxes. Before throwing it out, she turned it in her hand, marveling at what had just occurred. Despite the messes Taitai left behind, despite her willingness to live amid disorganization, there were some things in her life that the woman had arranged so perfectly.
Sunny’s shift ended at noon. There had been no one in the service hall to check her bags, and she wondered if this was an issue with security or another result of Zhen Taitai’s orders. Outside, the sun’s rays were magnolia white, and Sunny stood still for a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust and her courage to build. Finally, she opened the text message she’d received from Rose.
My schedule has changed.
Sunny took a deep breath. If that was all, it wasn’t too bad. Mine too, she wrote back. Should she tell Rose she had accepted the job? Or would Rose think that was what had caused her schedule change? Her phone buzzed again.
Will you be around the Bund area tomorrow? We can have lunch.
I’ll be there, she wrote.
Sunny took a deep breath, got on her scooter, and rode home.
* * *
The Bund did not belong to people like Sunny and Rose. But neither did it belong to the newly rich fu er dai or the tourists or even the government. This part of the city had grown into something bigger than just a wide riverbank, its western side fitted with a raised boardwalk. It was the mantelpiece of Shanghai, a place to display the things China had collected from other countries over the years. In the old days, there were European trading houses and banks. After that, there were consulates. Now there were nightclubs and haute couture—Armani, Gucci, Prada. It was a place to buy a luxury handbag and then take it out for a walk along the river.
But lovers still met here, and old Shanghainese families out on weekend strolls. There were vendors selling flying toys, laser pointers, and goopy balls that splattered and stuck to the pavement. You could find paper lanterns here during the midautumn festival, and jasmine garlands woven by old women. The Bund was as inclusive as it was discordant, and that was why Sunny and Rose continued to meet here when they could have met somewhere more convenient.
On that Sunday afternoon, they balanced their thermoses on the metal railing facing the river and unwrapped their lunches. For Sunny, it was pork baozi that she had steamed in the microwave at home that morning. For Rose, it was leftovers from last night’s meal, rice fried with sausage and bai cai. Rose had invited Sunny over for dinner a few times, but she had always declined. She imagined that eating someone else’s home-cooked meal would bring about the most painful kind of nostalgia—like hearing the Anhui dialect spoken, only to turn around and find that it was neither family nor anyone she knew. Since accepting the position as the Zhen family’s ayi, Sunny had been thinking a lot about the risk Rose was now exposed to; she wasn’t young anymore. At forty-five, she was certainly hirable but would never be at the top of anyone’s list. Sunny comforted herself with this thought: Job or no job, at least Rose wasn’t alone. Her husband and sons were there to help bear whatever came her way.
“Was there a security check yesterday when you left?” Sunny asked.
“Yes,” Rose said. “It was fine. You know they don’t really do anything to you during those checks. They’re just a hit to your pride.”
“You’re tougher than anyone I know,” Sunny said. This had always been true, but Sunny told Rose now because she felt she needed to hear it.
“Sunny, ah. I used to be tough and now I’m brittle. You bend me and I break. Suddenly—pah! Like that.” She clapped her hands together and looked at Sunny. Rose had a small slack of skin underneath her chin that hadn’t been there when they first met. Today, her eyes seemed darker than usual, and abruptly, Sunny couldn’t hold her gaze anymore. She turned toward the water.
Across the river, Pudong was barely visible. Clear days were getting rarer in Shanghai. Whereas the buildings had once stood beaming bright rays of sunlight off their mirrored faces, now their shapes could barely be made out through the smog. Everything looked the color of tombstones: a light, marbled gray.
It wasn’t until Rose also turned to observe the skyline that Sunny allowed herself to understand what she had been trying to ignore: A change had occurred in Rose’s voice. A dangerous tone had broken through her usual calm.
“Are you trying to tell me something?” she asked.
When Rose didn’t say anything, Sunny knew.
“You didn’t.”
“I brought it with me. I just need your help putting it back.”
“No. Rose, I can’t.”
“I didn’t tell you yesterday, but it’s bad. Lilly heard from the hotel manager’s son that they’re going to let me go.” She looked Sunny straight in the eye now, and her expression was almost childlike. It took Sunny a moment to understand that this was what Rose looked like scared.
“You can’t put this on me. I’m the only other person accused. Now that the Zhens are off your schedule, I’ll be the only one of us who has access to their apartment. How is it going to look if the bracelet reappears now?”
The smile on Rose’s face looked impersonal, loosely attached. This was not someone Sunny recognized. Her best friend had suddenly turned into a stranger. From the time they had been accused, not once had it crossed Sunny’s mind that Rose might have stolen the bracelet.
“Well, if you can’t, you can’t,” Rose said, squinting across the water in the direction of Lanson Suites. A moment passed. Sunny felt that she should explain herself to Rose but also that there was nothing to explain. If anything, it was Rose’s turn to explain.
“Why did you do it?” Sunny finally asked. There was no anger in the question, only curiosity.
“I don’t know. It was impulsive. Stupid. I’d had a bad week.” Rose shook her head.
“But what were you going to do with it?”
“I didn’t think—I just took it. We’re machines for them, aren’t we? They program go and w
e go.” She was stirring the contents of her thermos but did not lift her spoon to her lips. Finally, she turned and leaned her back against the railing so that she and Sunny were no longer facing the same direction.
“It’s a job like any other,” Sunny whispered.
“Boss Zhen has a job too. What makes him sit high in the clouds while we’re there mopping at his feet, taking his leftovers out in the trash?” Sunny had never heard her sound like this before. Whenever they complained to each other about work, it was always out of frustration and camaraderie. Never had she sensed any deeper resentment.
“Aiya…It’s not about that, really. It’s just, there comes a point when you wonder, ‘What is there left to lose?’ Only my dignity. Ha! Stealing from a fujianü and a lao ban.” She shook her head. “At the time, it felt like power.”
Rose opened her purse and took out a package wrapped in tissue. “Here,” she said, reaching over to stick it into the pocket of Sunny’s jeans.
“No. I really—”
“You do what you have to, but I’m giving it to you anyway. I have no use for this.”
Sunny could feel the beads being stuffed against her thigh, and then Rose grabbed both her hands so that she couldn’t fish them back out of her pocket. “I’d rather leave it to the next generation. May you prosper.”
Her tone was bitter, but it was also tinged with relief. Sunny had said no, and now Rose could save herself the effort of hoping.
“You’re only a few years older than me,” Sunny said.
Rose shook her head. “It’s not about age. It’s about how much you can stand. The foreigners are one thing, but these Chinese-born…it’s sickening to watch them accumulate their handbags and their fancy cars. To clean up after their parties. They’re not so much younger than us. We’re all Chinese, aren’t we? Our parents all grew up under Mao and Deng Xiaoping together. The entire country was poor—together. They act like they weren’t raised in a place where for most people, breakfast was watered-down rice, too thin even to be called porridge. They think they’re so much better than us because they got schooling and went abroad…” She stopped, took a breath, then continued in a quieter voice. “It’s not about age,” she repeated. “It’s that you’ve still got strength to deal with this nonsense. I’m on my way out.”