by Lucy Tan
They played until the reflection of the sun had swum from one side of the lake to the other.
“I should go,” Lina finally said, standing. Qiang looked up—she saw herself coming back into focus in his eyes.
“Tomorrow I’ll bring a third deck,” he said. “We’ll make two rows of five.”
Lina dusted herself off and walked back to her house. When she was halfway to the gate of the yard, she turned around.
“Think what you could achieve if you spent your time studying books instead of cards!” she called across the road to him. But Qiang just kept shuffling his decks. He either did not hear her or pretended not to.
9
On Monday morning, Sunny walked up to the front gates of Lanson Suites instead of the back.
“They’re expecting me in 8202,” she said to the guard, then added, “I’m the Zhens’ new ayi.”
The guard spoke into a mouthpiece, paused to listen, and then motioned her through.
Sunny had been in the lobby only when she was assigned to clean the floors or maintain the seating areas. Each time, she had focused on refilling the fruit basket and straightening the seat cushions as quickly as possible, because the task was an add-on responsibility—she’d still had her regular rooms to clean. Now, as a visitor, Sunny walked through more slowly to take it all in. The space looked like a marble forest, with great stone pillars for trees. Beyond the front desk was a large, abstract painting whose colors matched the Lanson Suites black-and-marigold logo. To the west, past the elevators, a floor-to-ceiling wall fountain sent water misting down into a shallow rectangular pool. Before it stood two armchairs, one couch, and a table shaped to look like the trunk of an ancient tree that had been chopped at its base. Everything smelled of jasmine. Sunny had come to associate the scent of jasmine with Lanson Suites because of the hotel’s soaps and shampoos, but in the corners of the lobby, there were live jasmine plants in tall, fat pots, the blooms’ starry white faces drifting all the way down to the floor.
One place Sunny had never been was inside of the residents’ elevators. The car doors stood open for her, and floor number 20 had already been pushed by the lobby attendant. The interior looked like that of the service elevator, but in place of a padded quilt covering the walls, there was a framed mirror and a little marble shelf displaying a vase of red and coral begonias. By the time the doors opened on the twentieth floor, Sunny felt as though she had walked onto the set of a play. She knew the people whose job it was to wash these floors, scent these halls, and deliver the mail each morning. She was familiar with this production.
A copy of Shanghai Daily sat in the silver envelope holder next to each apartment door. Sunny could read only the translated title and the date, but when she removed it from the Zhens’ envelope holder, she felt how light it was. It resembled a brochure more than a newspaper. She liked the thought of news items being omitted, things that the government did not want these foreigners to know. Not that the government reported whole truths to the Chinese either, but still.
With the paper held to her chest, Sunny rang the bell.
Pahng, pahng, pahng. Footsteps came to the door. It opened with a heavy whoosh, and Sunny found herself looking at all three Zhens at once: Karen, her face puffy with sleep; Taitai, standing in front of the hall mirror and fastening a string of pearls around her neck; and Boss Zhen, who had been the one to open the door.
“Zao,” he greeted her, and he moved aside to let Sunny in.
“Zao.”
“We’re going to breakfast,” Karen said. “Come with us.” She took Sunny’s hand, and while this did not feel unnatural, it was the first time Karen had ever done it. Sunny saw Taitai watching them in the mirror.
“We’d love for you to eat with us,” Taitai said, “but for today, can you stick around to watch the apartment? There’s supposed to be someone new coming to clean and we haven’t met her yet. I’m going to change our cleaning time to an afternoon slot, but for now…”
“Of course,” Sunny said. “I’ve already eaten anyway.”
“Great. There are some things in the fridge if you get hungry. We’ll see you in a little while.” Taitai gave her hair a final tousle so that it fell back in a perfumed whisper. She smiled at Sunny as she sailed past her.
After the door shut behind them, Sunny stood still, listening to the Zhens leaving. The arrival ping of the elevator sounded and Sunny could hear Karen’s voice disappearing between closing doors.
Now was the time.
Sunny removed her shoes and placed them beside the other pairs lined up near the door. Then she headed straight for the master bedroom. Its door was closed. She hesitated just a moment before opening it and stepping inside.
Tired, gray light came in through the windows, giving the room an ethereal glow. Sunny stopped and took in a sharp breath. Taitai’s side of the room had never been so neat. The bureau was clear of its usual mess. Used cotton pads had been thrown away, and her bottles of lotions and sprays were standing right side up with their caps on. The floor was immaculate. Sunny doubled over to look beneath the bed. Even the bras and panties that often wound up trapped there seemed to have been put back where they belonged.
Sunny hadn’t had an exact plan for how she was going to return the bracelet, but it was clear that she wouldn’t be able to do it today. Taitai had searched every inch of the bedroom for the bracelet since Sunny had last been in to clean. To slip it back into this room without anyone realizing she’d done it would be nearly impossible. She sat down on the bed, suddenly feeling the effects of a sleepless night. How foolish of her to believe that she could help Rose. It was as foolish as thinking she had ever had a choice in whether to take this ayi job. As much as Sunny loved Rose, her first loyalty was to her family. Returning the bracelet would be too big of a risk. Forget five thousand a month; if she was caught with that bracelet, she wouldn’t even be able to get her old job back.
From down the hall came the sound of a door opening. Sunny rose and smoothed out the part of the bed she had been sitting on. She was halfway across the living room when she realized that it wasn’t the front door that had opened, but the service door.
“Zao!” In walked a maid who used to work in Tower Six of the complex.
“Joyce!”
“I heard you’re an ayi now. Congratulations. How’s the family? Easy on you?”
“I just started today,” Sunny said.
“Na, I’m sure you’ll find out soon. You used to have this shift, right? Where should I start?”
“Start in the master bedroom. Sometimes when Taitai comes back from breakfast she goes straight into her room and closes the door and then you can’t clean it until she comes out again. It holds everything up.” She led Joyce back to the south end of the unit, her heart slowing with every few steps. Sunny opened the door and showed Joyce inside. “It’s typically messier than this, so don’t get used to it.”
Joyce started to pull the covers from the bed and Sunny got on the other end of the mattress to help. When the maid began to protest, Sunny waved her words away. “It will only take a minute between the two of us.” Together, they lifted the edges of the mattress. They stripped and tucked and smoothed and creased. They fluffed. Though it had been less than an hour since she’d become an ayi, Sunny performed the quiet, controlled exercise of making a bed with a feeling of loss. She would miss this job, one whose end goal—visual perfection—was both simple and monumental.
Joyce cleared the cups from the nightstands while Sunny took care of the trash. As she kneeled to pull the plastic lining from inside one wastebasket, she found a piece of paper with writing on it. She wouldn’t have noticed it if it had not been deliberately placed in the middle of the bin. The Chinese characters were small and self-conscious, so unlike the English words in his notebooks, that it took Sunny a moment to realize that the handwriting was Boss Zhen’s.
Miss Sunny,
Thank you for your attention, but this is trash.
Regar
ds,
Zhen Zhiwei
Underneath the note was the pair of silk socks Sunny had rescued twice from the garbage bin.
Her face grew warm. She lifted the socks from the bin and laid them side by side on her thigh. They were deep indigo blue, flawless in material and design. She checked for holes, as she had done the first time she found them in the trash; there was no evidence that they’d been worn. She pictured Boss Zhen sitting in his study composing this note, then folding the socks and placing them in the trash can, taking care to center the note exactly on top. How embarrassing. She wanted to melt into the carpet. He’d probably forgotten that today was the day she was starting as their ayi and that there would be a new housekeeper on duty. Or maybe he didn’t know the difference between the two professions. What did it matter to someone as wealthy as he was which of his hired help took out the trash and which was there to watch his kid?
Just like that, Sunny understood Rose’s impulse to take the bracelet. How would it feel to encounter the waste of wealth day in and day out for fifteen years, as Rose had done? Fifteen was a lot more than the five years Sunny had worked. She tried to picture herself cleaning houses at age fifty-five, at sixty. What would the job mean to her then? Would it still be something she wanted to hold on to? Her mother’s words came back to her. Now that I’m old, my children take care of me. Who will take care of you when you’re old if you’re too stubborn for children?
Sunny could try to convince herself that she’d come to Shanghai because of the higher pay and the pretty building she had once seen on a postcard, but the truth was that she was here because she didn’t know where else to go. She dropped the socks and note back into the wastebasket and stood up. Out of habit, she rolled her shoulders to readjust the stiff fabric of her tunic, only to find she was no longer in uniform. How naked she had felt standing in front of the Zhens this morning in a T-shirt and jeans, dressed as herself for the very first time.
Sunny walked out of the bedroom, down the hall, and onto the balcony. A breeze swept up from below and quieted her nerves. Suddenly, she didn’t care what happened to her. She looked beyond the other towers of the complex, out at the Huangpu River, one of the oldest landmarks in the city. Nowadays it was home to tourist cruises and government-sanctioned holiday floats, but once its purpose was to carry the cargo sent downstream by laborers, people who built buildings and steered ships and carried wares on their backs. People like Sunny. What is it, Boss Zhen? What kinds of problems can you solve that I can’t?
And then she had an inspiration.
From her pocket, Sunny removed the bracelet and unwrapped it. The ivory beads were surprisingly light, almost like a child’s toy in texture. Up close, she saw there was a little carved pattern of trees or animals, but she didn’t pause long enough to determine which before tossing the bracelet from the balcony. For a moment, it disappeared into the glimmer of the water below. Then, with a delicate splash, it was absorbed into the depths of the pool.
Sunny turned to go inside just as Joyce was coming out, watering can in hand.
“The plants look fine,” Sunny said. “It’s been humid lately. You can give it another day.” Joyce nodded and returned to the kitchen, happy to be able to skip a step on her list.
Alone in the living room, Sunny sat down on the couch next to the phone. She picked it up, pressed zero, and waited for the lobby attendant to stop speaking English so that she could ask her question.
“Hello, this is the Zhen family’s ayi. They wanted me to call and request a pool cleaning. They were in there swimming yesterday afternoon and overheard a child saying he’d had an accident.”
“Oh, yes, we can do that,” said the voice on the other end. Sunny recognized her as Clara, a part-timer who had never sent so much as a nod Sunny’s way. Her tone on the phone was twice as sweet as it was in person.
“Don’t just chlorinate it.” Sunny heard herself growing bold. “Taitai wants the whole thing drained and refilled.”
“Of course. Will there be anything else?”
“No, that’s all.”
A pause on the other end as, Sunny imagined, her request was being written down. After she hung up, Sunny took a deep breath, a little giddy at her own cleverness. It would all be handled now—they’d find the bracelet and return it to Taitai, who would think she’d lost it while swimming. Maybe it wasn’t too late for Rose to get her job back.
Sunny had never noticed how quiet it was up there on the twentieth floor, so far above the construction. The only sound she could hear was Joyce shuffling about in the kitchen. Her reflex was to stand and help, but she caught herself and sat back. Today, she would allow herself to enjoy the stillness and the peace. Maybe she could get used to this kind of luxury.
10
On the afternoon his brother was due to arrive in Shanghai, Wei sat in the company stockroom on top of a plastic tote loaded with cleaning supplies. Suddenly, the door opened and the office manager walked in.
“Boss Zhen, what are you doing?”
It wasn’t until then that Wei noted the pain spreading from his inner wrists to the tops of his shoulders. He had been trying to fit his elbows between the shelves on either side of him so that he could type on his laptop.
“Writing an e-mail.”
May didn’t move from where she stood with her hand on the doorknob. “Why aren’t you at your desk?”
“I just got back from a meeting. They were shooting in front of my office so I came in here to work while they finished.” The heat from the laptop had made his knees sweat; Wei set the machine on the ground and massaged his wrists.
“I can tell them to shoot somewhere else,” May said, plucking a box of tissues off a shelf. “They’re only there because they wanted a background with the company logo.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, but May seemed reluctant to leave.
“You should probably know that there are people waiting outside your door.”
“Is it the TV-show director guy?”
She poked her head out into the hallway. “No. It’s just Chris over there now.”
“Can you tell him to come in here, please?”
A moment later, Wei’s chief of staff appeared in the doorway.
“There you are,” Chris said. “Can you come out to Mint Lounge next Friday? We’re taking Rumi out for their quarterly event.”
“I don’t think so,” Wei said. “My brother’s coming to town.”
“The account team told me to beg you. All of their higher-ups are traveling. I said I’d go, but the Rumi people might be offended if you weren’t there too.”
Chris was in his early thirties, but his demeanor was more suited for someone twice his age. Wei had a soft spot for young men who took themselves too seriously—it was what he was guilty of too. But unlike Wei, Chris wasn’t good at the social aspects of the job. He was not a partying kind of guy, and Wei knew that it wasn’t the account team that was begging for him but Chris himself.
“We’ll see,” Wei said. “Maybe just one drink.”
“Thank you. Thanks. I’ll put it on your calendar.” Chris made to leave, and then stopped, perhaps noting the incongruity of his boss sitting in the stockroom, his laptop and a cup of coffee by his feet. “Are you hiding from the cameras?”
When he didn’t get an answer, Chris cleared his throat and backed out the door. “Okay, so next Friday,” he called. “Don’t forget.”
* * *
Wei entered the apartment to the scent of steaming wanzi and fish stir-fried with ginger and scallions. The last time Lina had made this flounder dish was back in Collegeville, and its smell reminded Wei of the cold nights he’d arrived home after taking Acela Express from New York. There would be a single light on in the kitchen and smoke creeping along the ceiling of the living room. American kitchens weren’t designed for wok use, Lina complained. She had tried the American recipes and decided people here didn’t know what real cooking was. All that boiling and baking? Those were safe ways
of preparing food. Oil was meant to be splattered on walls, the wok lid held in front of your body like a shield. Cooking, she said, was an act of love and creation. Danger should be somewhere in the mix or it didn’t count. You had to put yourself on the line; you had to sweat. Chinese cuisine required more energy and a higher flame.
Now, as Wei walked into their kitchen on the other side of the world, he could see the concentration on his wife’s face. He stood beside her at the stove, and Lina stopped managing the hissing and steaming in front of her long enough to kiss him on the cheek. Her lips were soft and warm, and between her eyebrows was the V of focus she wore when things were going according to plan.
“Boss Zhen.” A voice greeted him from behind. He turned, startled, to find the ayi they had hired standing at the opposite end of the kitchen near the sink, snapping string beans. It was disorienting to see her wearing an apron that matched Lina’s.
“Sunny, ni hao.”
“You told Little Cao he needs to go directly to the airport to pick up Qiang, right?” Lina asked.
“He knows,” Wei said.
“But he forgets.”
“He knows,” Wei said more softly. He could sense a fight about the driver coming on and he didn’t want to argue before his brother showed up. “It smells delicious,” he said before leaving the kitchen.
In the darkness of the bedroom, Wei undressed, hung up his shirt and slacks, and put on a pair of drawstring pants and a cotton tee. Only then did he turn on the light to look at himself in the bathroom mirror. Older, yes. That couldn’t be helped. He smiled to expose his teeth and watched the lines on either side of his mouth stretch down to his chin. It looked as though he’d been gouged by a pair of claws. Easy on the smiling, then.