What We Were Promised

by Lucy Tan

  “Well.” Rose sighed. “I’ll miss you. I guess I wasn’t going to see you anymore anyway, now that you’re working for the Zhens. How have they been treating you?”

  She was trying to change the subject. Rose was unused to being the vulnerable one in the friendship. For years, she had been the one to advise and take care of Sunny, and now that the roles were reversed, neither of them knew how to behave.

  “Fine,” Sunny admitted.

  “Where are you?”

  “In Yu Gardens.”

  “You’re with them now? Get off the phone. We’ll talk later.”

  “Let’s get lunch next weekend, okay?” Sunny could hear the desperation in her voice. “My treat.” In that moment, she feared Rose would say no. The restrained tone of their conversation seemed to indicate things were now different between them.

  “Ms. Big Spender, ah?” Rose laughed. “I have to warn you—I eat more now that I’m unemployed.”

  “Eat as much as you want,” Sunny said, relieved. “We’ll see a movie after.”

  “Hao ba.”

  There was a moment of silence in which they both seemed to be figuring out how to end the conversation. “Go back to work,” Rose finally said again, and she hung up.

  Later, on the car ride home to Lanson Suites, Sunny watched Taitai sleep in the backseat, Karen wedged between them. When they entered the tunnel running beneath the Huangpu, orange slices of light crossed Taitai’s face, showing the hollows beneath her cheekbones. It should have been easy to hate this woman, who was so blind to another’s ruin. What was a bracelet compared to a livelihood? Here she was, asleep in the middle of the day, while Rose and her husband were trying to figure out how to make up half their income.

  But Sunny didn’t feel much anger toward Taitai. The things that made her insufferable—her mood swings, her privilege—Sunny was used to. Over the years, she and Rose had learned how to work around women like her. They had collected secrets about them, information that confirmed how unreasonable or wasteful or vapid they were. Having less wealth than the residents of Lanson Suites had allowed Sunny to feel morally superior, and that was why she could work for them—the knowledge that she was better than the people she served. She had thought Rose shared the same belief. But Rose’s stealing that bracelet was as good as admitting that these women’s belongings had power over her, that their wealth was worth exactly what they wanted it to be worth.

  The man whom Sunny had been set up with had asked her to meet him in Hongqiao at an Internet café. The ride over on her motorbike was a long one, and she was glad. She loved highways. Crossing the overpass with the wind on her shoulders made her stop thinking and start seeing. All of Shanghai was reduced to a spray of glitter on either side. Above her head stretched another overpass; its underbelly carried twin tracks of neon light that changed from blue to green to red as it ran from one side of the river to the other. Sometimes in the Lanson Suites clubhouse, Sunny looked around at the silver serving trays with lids like astronaut helmets and the floor-to-ceiling windows that curved up from the ground and felt as though she had arrived at some point in the distant future. Other times, far along the outskirts of Puxi, she felt as though she’d been transported to the past. The streets there were closer to one another and the shops filled with items that might have been sitting beneath the counter for five or ten years: battery-operated radios, Nokia cell phones, and compact discs, their cheap inserts faded from the sun. But as she rode the overpass now, Sunny liked to imagine that this view was the best representation of Shanghai as it was in the present: charged and ever-growing, its colors changing as it expanded.

  The Internet café was in the trendy but affordable part of Hongqiao, in an alley between a massage parlor and a seafood restaurant. Sunny parked, removed her sleeve guards, and placed them in the compartment underneath the seat of her bike. Then she slung her purse across her body and tugged at the back of her shirt so that it wouldn’t bunch. She looked up to see that the café didn’t have doors, just strips of green plastic hanging from the entryway. Sunny walked up the steps, parted the plastic curtains, and stepped inside.

  It was a smoke-filled space, dark but for the rows of computer screens and blinking arcade consoles that lined one wall of the room. The back of the café opened out into a shopping mall, and a bank of windows revealed evening shoppers strolling past. Sunny scanned the booths along the windows and knew immediately whom she had come to meet.

  The man looked to be in his late thirties. He had too much scalp and a noticeable overbite but seemed all right otherwise. Strong brow, good skin. When their eyes met, the quality of his expression changed from apprehension to—not disappointment, but what? Surprise? She approached the booth and sat down across from him.

  “Are you Sunny?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Li Jun. I was about to order a beer. Should I make it a pitcher?”

  “All right.”

  She removed her pocketbook and placed it next to her in the booth. There was a moment’s silence while he studied the menu and Sunny looked around the room. It was filled with teenagers seated in front of computer screens, their heads bowed under the weight of oversize headphones. When Rose said that Li Jun wanted to meet at an Internet café, Sunny had interpreted his suggestion as an attempt to make the setup feel casual. Now she reassessed the situation. She watched the way he stared at the menu without reading it and wondered if they were there because this was his place, the place where he felt most comfortable.

  He looked up again and smiled. “The chicken wings are good.”

  When the server came over, Li Jun ordered the wings and a pitcher of Tsingtao. Then he took a breath and looked at each of Sunny’s features one by one, as though he couldn’t decide which part of her to speak to.

  “Did you just get off work?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s pretty late.”

  “Some days are longer than others.”

  “I’ve always thought that women who clean homes for a living are hard workers by nature.”

  “I’m an ayi now,” she said. “For a Chinese-American family in Pudong.”

  “Ayis clean too, don’t they?”

  “Not where this family lives. It’s a serviced apartment, so they have staff there to clean. It’s where Rose works too.”

  “Rose?”

  It took Sunny a beat to remember Rose’s Chinese name. When she said it, Li Jun nodded—Dui, dui—and Sunny wondered if he knew about Rose losing her job. Probably not—it wasn’t exactly the kind of news her husband would be eager to tell his friend. But Sunny felt an urge to discuss it with Li Jun, if only to initiate a real conversation. Small talk could be so uncomfortable.

  “And this family—are they good to you?”

  “So far, yes,” Sunny said. “I didn’t know what I was getting into, but the work isn’t bad. I just take their kid around town, to the movies or the mall or the park. It’s funny. The housemaid job kept me pretty busy and I didn’t get out much. But I’ve been working for this family four days and in that time I think I’ve seen more of Shanghai than I have in the past few years. And tomorrow we’re going to the Expo.”

  “Lucky you!” Li Jun said. “I’ve been trying to find a time to go myself. It’s not so easy, you know? You’ve got to devote at least a day to it, and even then I’ve heard there’s so many people that you can’t see more than a couple pavilions. But you—it’s your job to go! How great is that?”

  He was nice. He was making an effort. And it did feel good to have someone help celebrate the only perk of the job Sunny was really looking forward to. By this time tomorrow, it would matter less that she’d never get to leave China—the rest of the world would have come to her.

  “What do you do for work?” Sunny asked. Li Jun relaxed then, as people do when coming into their conversational comfort zone.

  “I run a DVD outfit. We buy movies from all over, burn them to discs, subtitle them in Hangzhou, and br
ing them here to sell during the week. I have a shop on Hengshan Lu.” This was his major selling point, he knew. His eyes widened to take in her reaction.

  “Wah, not bad.” Sunny nodded. “Rent out there must be expensive. I guess your business is doing well?”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “We had a few good years, but now everyone’s watching movies online. Used to be that new releases would bring in twelve times more than the classic titles, but now most of them are just breaking even. Get a new James Bond movie, the Transformers, or something like that, and we can gross. But some of the other ones are just flops for us.”

  She had to admit it was attractive, the fluidity with which he said this. He was clearly a considered, driven person. Li Jun became lost in thought, absentmindedly running his thumbnail along the table edge between the wood composite and its glass top. He inspected the gunk he found there, flicked it into his lap.

  Sunny looked out the window into the mall. Every so often, a person would catch her eye and, in passing, turn his or her head to observe the man across from her. Did she and Li Jun look like a couple? She couldn’t really imagine walking hand in hand with anyone the way these evening strollers did. She wondered how many of them were in relationships bound by love, not just marriage. How would it feel to put one person above all others, to have one person to whom you owe nothing—no family ties—one person that you have chosen? Impossible, it seemed to her. But it did happen. Here she and Li Jun were, trying to make it happen.

  “Maybe you should stop selling to young people,” she said to him.

  “What?”

  “That rent on Hengshan Lu is too expensive. Sell them out here in Hongqiao during the day instead of to drunk people coming out of bars at night. Make classic movies, stuff old people will like.”

  “Old people.”

  “Shi a, old people don’t know how to watch movies online.”

  Li Jun started laughing, then looked at her with heightened interest. “You know, that’s not a bad idea. You study business or something?”

  “No.” Did he think she’d gone to college? Would it be dishonest not to correct this assumption from the beginning? “Like I said, I’m an ayi.”

  “I know,” Li Jun said softly. “It was just a joke. I just meant—that was a good point you brought up. I hadn’t thought of it.”

  Two plates of chicken wings appeared in front of them, still covered in plastic wrap. The café had made no attempt to disguise the fact that the food was premade, and Sunny was okay with that. Li Jun poured beer into their glasses, held his up to gan bei. They clinked, and he continued to watch her, even as he lifted his beer to his lips.

  They kept talking as they drank—about their families, their rent, the food they missed from home. He was from a village just outside of Fuyang, the youngest son of parents that, like Sunny’s, had barely survived the Great Leap Forward famine. Growing up, they’d both seen their parents count grains of rice in their palms. It did something to you, witnessing the tail end of poverty. It didn’t necessarily change your ethics or your discipline, but it did make you more careful. You became someone who took stock of all your available resources, who held on to details longer than most people might. Sunny matched him glass for glass. Once the pitcher was finished, Li Jun stood up.

  “Want to keep me company outside for a smoke?”

  In March, the city’s ban on smoking in public had been expanded to include Internet cafés, but the law was almost universally ignored, especially in out-of-the-way places like this one. Sunny mentally ticked a box in his favor. Rule-following was a good sign.

  Outside, they found a spot in the shadows of the steps leading up to the café. He pulled a pack of Double Happiness out of his pocket, and just like that, Sunny felt closer to him. Her father smoked that brand. As did half of China, but still.

  Li Jun took one and held the box out to Sunny. Smoking wasn’t ladylike, but Sunny accepted one for something to do. He pulled a lighter out of his pocket, and a flame bloomed between them. She leaned in, watched the tip of her cigarette catch and curl, and then released a jet of orange smoke. It changed from orange to blue to purple, reflecting the colors of the neon sign in the window of the seafood restaurant. Li Jun was beside her, and she could see only his profile. His head was bald and smooth except for a half-circle of hair that went from above his ears to the back of his head. He turned the lighter in his hand once, then twice, before returning it to his pocket.

  “So,” he said slowly. “I would like to be straight with you. I like you. You’re smart and a hard worker. I am nobody’s dream man, but I have some good qualities—qualities I think you’d appreciate. I’m good at finding opportunities. I’m efficient.” He paused here, as though he’d lost his train of thought. But when he spoke again, his voice was sharp with intent, his words sounding almost practiced.

  “Neither of us is young and I would not like to waste time. I don’t want to try to take this further if there is no road for us in that direction. So. What do you think? Am I acceptable?” He didn’t look at her and didn’t try to lighten his words with irony.

  The pitcher had done its work on Sunny. It was like she was seeing the events take place from two points of view: from where she was, crouched beside Li Jun, staring into the foreign recesses of his ear, and from across the street, where she watched two people conversing in the dark, their knees turned slightly toward each other. A scene from a movie, she thought. How many women had he made this proposal to? And what was she to say?

  The easy answer was yes. He was more than acceptable. This was a good man. She felt the goodness leap from him. This was a man who had a home to share and who could run a business. If only he had not asked her so soon. If only he had let her tally points for and against him until her mind was distracted long enough for her heart to decide. But hadn’t it already? She looked down at her cigarette and recalled how she had taken it without thought of the impression it might give to him. Didn’t that mean something about her natural inclinations—that she didn’t care what he thought of her? But what a trivial thing for a person to consider. Who did she think she was, a woman with no personal prospects looking for something as impractical as love? If her mother had been there, she would have told her to use her head. The heart was the most senseless organ there was—yet the most essential. No wonder people were doomed to be fools from the beginning.

  “I have lived alone for so long,” she heard herself say. “I’ve become used to it. Maybe too used to it.”

  A lesser man would have pressed her on the issue, but Li Jun caught her meaning right away. He was still for a moment, and then he nodded dreamily, as if to some sound track she couldn’t hear. The halo of color around his silhouette went yellow, green, blue, and the movement of his head was locked in a visual echoing effect. She could see him—from up close, and then from far away—stuck in this scene, playing a role he had played many times. She wondered what upsets life had shown him, and for a moment she regretted that she had not taken the opportunity to know him for a little while longer. But he had asked her to be straight with him, and she had.

  15

  Oh, freedom! Within months of entering Chujiao University, Lina couldn’t imagine how she had ever felt content in the little village that was her hometown. In her letters to Qiang, she tried to explain how much more fun it was to be a college student than a high-school student. He would have liked the school grounds, made up of low-slung boxy buildings almost swallowed up by the surrounding trees. It was said that a boy could climb from the roof of his dormitory onto one of the nearby redwoods and jump from tree to tree until he landed atop the girls’ lodgings. No one the students knew had succeeded in this yet, although a few attempts had been made. What the girls received instead were crudely whittled arrows that sailed through windows, private messages tied to their tail ends. Messages, of course, that turned out to be anything but private. As soon as an arrow made its twittering entrance, there was a wild scramble for that piece of folded
paper. But the moment it was seized, the room settled into controlled anticipation. The others made way for the victor to stand atop a dormitory chair and read aloud the name of the addressee and the details of the date requested—a cup of tea at the school cafeteria or a short walk around the campus grounds. Following this was a round of cheering and hollering from the girls who already had boyfriends and exaggerated teasing from the ones hoping to hide their disappointment. Secretly, everyone wanted to hear her own name read aloud.

  How unfair, these girls must have thought, that the name on the slip of paper was so often Lina’s. Lina, who never took any of these young men seriously. Lina, who was pretty but not the prettiest; smart, but not the smartest; and nowhere near the most capable of making a home. Look at the way she left her pants rumpled in a heap at the end of her bed! Look at the way she kicked her shoes off so carelessly that she had to get on her knees to retrieve them from beneath the bunk!

  Maybe it was because Lina was already betrothed that she felt comfortable around the other sex. She knew instinctively how to make boys laugh and tell her their secrets. Although she kissed a few, she never went any further than that. But she made them feel as though she had. She had heard from one of the other girls that the boys considered her kind of charm “intimate.” They also thought that she was a bit of a tease, to act so reservedly when she practically flaunted herself in her bell-bottoms and high heels and the lipstick that she wore when she went off campus.

  Lina knew that her way of winning hearts was a little cruel. A little cruelty suited her. Meeting Cloudy that day in the gambling house had struck something in Lina. It made her want to know how it would feel to be someone men found daring instead of precious. Cloudy’s sophistication came from the fact that she had seen more of the world than Lina and was willing to be changed by it. The way she described their gang family’s dynamics showed that she had her own ideas about how things should be run, and the others respected her for it. Cloudy was not a person bound by convention, and Lina decided she didn’t want to be either.