by Jade Chang
“Who are you guys even talking about? That lady with the red hair?”
“Dorrie,” said Andrew.
Protective. That’s how he sounded. Which was totally weird, but kind of understandable coming from Andrew. Andrew, who got to go off with some older lady without any questioning from Dad. It was so unfair—if she’d wanted to spend the night with one of those cute boys from the wedding, it would have been a federal case. “Isn’t she kind of old?”
“No! Why does age matter?”
Their father put a hand on Andrew’s shoulder. “No worry. Andrew not going to marry her or something. Not so serious, just fun.”
“Well, actually . . .”
All four of them waited, wondering what he was going to say. God, Andrew really did look stupid in that shirt. Was it a girl’s shirt? Was he going to marry that lady?
“Actually, I think I’m going to stay here for a while. With Dorrie.”
“What? You’d leave me alone?” asked Grace.
He looked down at the counter. “I’m sorry, I just, I think I might be—”
Their father stood over him, protesting. “No, no, no. Is this because of what you say last night? Now you think that you are in love? So you have sex, so what? It is okay!” He looked over at Grace. “Not okay for you. Different for boy.”
And Babs, too. “Andrew! Don’t be so stubborn. Don’t throw away your life on an old woman just because she sleep with you!”
Even Uncle Nash joined in. “I’ve known Dorrie since she was a girl, Andrew, and she’s not the person you think she is. You should stay with your family.”
They talked at him, and Andrew protested, and Grace registered it all, but she couldn’t say anything. It was like there was a drumbeat in her head, except that each beat was a pulse of blood that just said, Gone. Gone. Gone. She’d never see him again. She was thrown in school and now she was yanked out of school and whatever adults wanted just happened. Nobody cared and she was alone and Saina never even answered the phone. She was going to be an adult soon and then could do whatever she wanted without any of them.
The talking turned to shouting, but finally Andrew ended it by just walking out the door, with the adults following him, without even saying goodbye to her. Without even seeing her. It didn’t matter. He was gone anyway. There was Dorrie, sitting in an old sports car with the frizziest hair Grace had ever seen, not looking at her father or Babs or Uncle Nash as Andrew got in the front seat. Uncle Nash ran around to the driver’s side of the car and yelled, but Dorrie, who was supposed to be his niece or second cousin or something, smiled and stared straight ahead and zoomed off like the Snow Queen.
The three old people just stood there in the sun, and Andrew was gone. Useless. Everyone was useless. Suddenly, Grace just wanted to go to sleep. Forget taking up arms against a sea of troubles—what was wrong with just lying down and going to invisible sleep?
三十
Helios, NY
LOVE SAYS YOU. That’s the thing no one told Saina. Or maybe they’d tried, and she’d been too preoccupied with learning that an unconventional life was the only option to hear it. Maybe that’s what crazy Republicans meant when they talked about liberal brainwashing and ivory-tower schools that created unrealistic expectations.
Because this was what she’d been taught: To choose marriage and babies over a glamorous career as an artist would be an unthinkable failure. Love was supposed to be a by-product of a life well lived, not the goal.
And this is what she’d realized: Everything she’d been taught was wrong.
Sometimes, Saina blamed her mother. It wasn’t just that May Lee had died so suddenly and ridiculously, it was that she’d lived that way, too. Even as a child, Saina had felt that there was something wrong in the way that her mother’s mood had shifted based solely on her father’s attentions. In second grade, when the class was learning how to tell time, Saina remembered a worksheet that asked you to write down what your parents did all day. Her Father chart was jammed with entries.
6 a.m. to 7 a.m.—He plays tennis.
7 a.m. to 8 a.m.—He talks on the phone.
8 a.m.—He leaves for work.
8 a.m. to 7 p.m.—He makes makeup at his factory.
7 p.m.—He comes home.
7 p.m. to 10 p.m.—He plays with me and we all eat.
Her Mother chart barely had two.
6 a.m. to 11 a.m.—Sleeping.
11 a.m. to 7 p.m.—Shopping. Wait for Daddy.
She hadn’t realized that other people’s mothers had hobbies and charities and jobs. That they didn’t just wait, inert, for their husbands to come home and bring them back to life.
Love saves you, as long as there’s a you to be saved.
Saina tilted her head so that it rested against the rough pillow of Leo’s hair and closed her eyes to the sun. They were sitting back to back on a long bench out behind Graham’s restaurant, sharing the New York Times and mugs of tea, waiting for their friend to finish lunch service so that he could join them on an afternoon hike through the dells to an abandoned farmhouse that Saina had heard about.
“You know, this relationship has really been hard on poor Gabo,” said Leo, knocking his head against hers. “He ended up doing all of the basil yesterday.”
“Leo, why are you a farmer?”
“Why?”
“Yeah, I mean I know it was your job in high school, but did you just love growing things?”
He moved his head rhythmically against hers as he considered. “I do like growing things, but that’s not it. I’m interested in systems. Did you know that plants can recognize each other and will share resources with other plants in the same family? Plants are networked the way our brains are networked.” Saina smiled at his excitement. “And I liked the challenge of creating a system to work with that system, and to profit from it. And I like being outdoors.” She could feel his low tenor buzzing through her chest.
“Talk some more. I like the way it feels.”
“Like we’re sharing a voice box?”
She laughed. “Like you’re talking inside of me. Can you feel me? Or is my voice too high?”
“Talk again.”
“You’re so dreamy,” she squeaked. “Hee hee hee!”
He laughed a low, booming laugh that reverberated in her ribs and lungs, and made her crack up in response.
The restaurant door swung open. “Hey, gigglers!”
Saina wiped a tear from her eye and Leo beckoned Graham—still in his dirty chef’s whites—over. “Here, let’s see what happens with a threesome.”
“I thought you’d never ask!” He ran over, ginger beard bouncing, tripping a bit on his rubber shoes. “What game are we playing?”
Saina and Leo scooched sideways and made a space for Graham. “Okay,” she said, “lean against us and see if we can both feel you talking.”
“My ass is going to edge you guys off this thing,” he said, turning and sitting. As he did, they all felt a buzz. “I’m magic! Is it like static electricity?”
“Actually, that’s my phone.” Thinking it was Grace again, Saina moved to shut off the buzzing when she saw the number. “Sorry, guys.” She jumped up and answered as Graham called after her: “I thought we were a threesome! What’s so secret that you don’t want us to echo it?” In that split second, she also registered Leo’s worried turn towards her. He thought it was Grayson, of course. He thought that she was still susceptible. That would have to wait.
“Hello?”
“Can I speak to Saina, please?”
“This is.”
“Saina, it’s Bryan Leffert. I’m sorry it took us some time to get back to you.”
“That’s okay.”
A week ago, once it became clear that the bankruptcy wasn’t just some dramatic misinterpretation of her father’s, Saina had called her accountant and asked him about the situation. She’d thought of it as more of a precaution—the money was hers, she could give it to her family, everything would be fine.
“Look, I’m just going to get straight to it. We weren’t sure whether this was going to happen, so we didn’t want to worry you needlessly, but it looks like First Federal is attempting to place what is essentially a lien against your trust.”
Except that now it wasn’t.
“I don’t understand. I thought that once I passed twenty-five that was it. That it was just mine.”
“That’s not quite the case. Because of a little creative accounting, your father’s business was shielding the interest on your accounts from the IRS, which now leaves them susceptible to being treated like they’re part of his assets.”
Saina remembered, suddenly, the day Ama told her that her mother was dead. A cold, sunny February afternoon. Slamming the door of her friend Hilly’s mom’s car, looking up and seeing Ama in the driveway, and knowing that something was over.
“So what happens now?”
“It may be that nothing will change. We essentially have to wait and see. If, after all of your father’s assets are sold, nothing remains owing, you’ll be able to hold on to everything in your accounts.”
She’d stood there, close enough to Hilly’s mom’s car that she couldn’t drive off, and thought about getting back in. They had invited her out for dinner. They were going to get Hunan Palace, and she could pretend that she changed her mind and was in the mood for gloppy kung pao chicken after all, but in the end, she’d stepped away, Hilly’s mom had zoomed off, and Ama had reached out and picked her up, even though she was taller and no matter how hard Ama squeezed and lifted, Saina’s Keds still swept the driveway.
“So I can’t draw from it now?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Two minutes ago she was sitting on a bench with her boyfriend and his best friend, and nothing in the world was wrong. Nothing in her world, at least. She looked over at them. Leo was listening to Graham, who was doing an imitation of Sloppy-Joe Man, one of his favorite daily customers who ran a goat farm and never ate a vegetable.
“Saina?”
“Yes? Sorry, it’s just a lot to take in.”
“I know. It, well, it gets a little worse.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your investment account is tied up with your trust, so all of those assets are frozen as well. But look, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure that everything that you brought in is treated separately.”
By the time she finished the conversation, Leo and Graham were looking up at her, quiet. She put the phone back in her pocket as Leo stood and gripped her arms.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Sometimes Saina wished that she had more friends with trust funds. It would just make things easier. Life wouldn’t be as hard to explain. She could complain about losing millions of dollars she’d never earned in the first place without feeling like she didn’t deserve to be upset about it.
“Nothing, it’s okay, let’s go.”
He held on to her. “Hey. Tell me.”
“You’re going to think it’s crazy.”
“I’m okay with crazy.”
“It wasn’t Grayson or anything.”
“I know that. I’m not worried about that.”
And she saw that he wasn’t. She was wrong. He had more faith in her sureness than she did. He was just worried because she was worried. It was a novel thing. A nice thing. A good thing.
“It was my accountant.” She glanced over at Graham.
“Is this a private couple talk?”
“No. It’s just, stuff . . . that I don’t know if I want to be unprivate about.” She had seen people change around her when they found out the selling price of her work or the contents of her bank account. She had seen Grayson change, and in her starry-eyed lust she had just decided that it was him, falling more in love with her. It felt like that sometimes—people would get brighter, louder, quicker to laugh, and more eager—as if the very existence of those dollars were an electric conduit.
Saina shrugged. What did it matter? The money was all gone anyway. She was sure of it. She should be devastated, but instead she just felt numb.
She looked at Leo. “You know how my dad’s going through the bankruptcy?” He nodded. She turned to Graham. “Did Leo tell you?”
Graham swatted the air in front of him. “No way. You think this guy would ever tell me about anything that you might want to keep to yourself? Unh-unh. He’s like a vault.”
“Well, basically, it turns out that my accounts are still completely tied up with my dad’s company, so everything’s frozen right now. And I might lose it all.” Saying it out loud made her heart bottom out a bit.
“So, give us a little context here,” said Graham. “Just how shitty is this? If my accounts were frozen, it would probably be a good thing because then they’d have to stop charging me for dropping under two thousand dollars.”
“It’s a little more than that.”
They waited.
“More like a few million.”
Graham fell off the seat. Leo let go of her arms.
“You ate here when you were a millionaire and you never demanded my best bottle? Not once? What’s the point of rich friends if they don’t buy out your wine list?”
Underneath Graham’s antic tirade, Leo said, “You never told me that.”
“I sort of told you.”
Leo shook his head.
“I told you about my dad, and how the business went under, and how he was losing the house.”
“But you didn’t tell me about you.”
“I guess I just thought that you assumed.”
“That you had a trust fund?”
“Well, yeah.”
“What did you mean by accounts, plural?”
“I had a career, Leo. Have. I have a career. I did well.”
“I knew that. I guess I just didn’t think about the money part—”
“How did you think I bought the house?”
“It’s upstate New York. I just figured that a down payment out here was like rent in New York.”
“I don’t have a mortgage.”
“Whoa.” That was Graham again. “Okay, that’s probably like the most baller thing you can say as an adult. From now on, my goal in life is going to be to say that someday. Mortgage? I don’t got no fucking mortgage!”
Saina laughed and turned back to Leo. “Are you mad?”
His hands returned finally, one spanning her waist, the other back on her arm. She felt instantly warmed and leaned against him. This was what she’d missed, what had made her seek out Leo as soon as Grayson had packed up his pile of T-shirts: Their shared physical shorthand, the way they responded perfectly to each other’s bodily cues so that they knew when to entwine and when to separate without a word of discussion.
“No, Saina. No.” He kissed her, inhaling slowly as his lips pressed against her cheek. “I’m just surprised. And I like us to tell each other things.”
Saina turned to face him, pressing her body against his. “I know, but this was a hard thing to tell. I guess, in a way, it’s easier to say it to you now that the money’s all gone.” Gone. The word echoed in her head and she repeated it. “Gone.” It echoed again, making her feel hollow inside, her brain tumbling down her throat and pounding against her heart, as if the money were the only thing that had filled her up and kept everything in its proper place.
“Hey, you don’t know that, right? You said might.”
“It’s just . . . nothing’s worth as much anymore, but the loan is still for the same amount, you know? So they’re going to sell off the house where I grew up and pretty much everything in it, and all of the factories and stock, but I don’t think that will cover the original loan, and that’s when the bank will go after what I have. Not this house, I don’t think, because the title’s under my name, but everything that’s still tied to my dad in name, probably.” She leaned closer to Leo, pressing her forehead into his chest.
“What’s your dad going to do?”
“Oh god. He has this crazy plan where he thinks that he’s going to roll up to the old village in China and somehow be able to reclaim the land that his father lost.”
“Wait,” said Graham, “are you a princess or something? Or, like, the Last Empress? Who just has land to reclaim?”
“And what would he do with it?” asked Leo.
“Become a farmer? You can give him tips. I don’t know. I don’t think he’s thought that far. To be honest, I think he’s lost his mind a little bit.” She paused, picturing them. Generations of Wangs that had things, and then three that lost things. “It’s just old family land. I don’t even know if it’s real. He says it is, but he’s never even been back to China.”
“Why not?”
Why not? Saina wasn’t really sure. When he was living in Taiwan, travel between the two places was restricted, but America had lifted its ban before he’d immigrated. “He probably didn’t want to go unless he could own the whole country.”
“But he’s coming here now?” asked Graham.
“Yep. Plus my stepmother and my brother and sister. They stopped off at my uncle Nash’s house in New Orleans, but I think they’ll be here the day after tomorrow.”
Graham nudged Leo. “Ready to meet the in-laws?”
Leo looked at her. “Are they ready to meet me?”
“I think so. They’ll just be glad that you’re not, well, that you’re not Grayson.”
“See,” said Graham, “one step up already!”
Saina looked at them and for a moment she was bitterly, intensely jealous. Life was so weightless for some people. She wanted to call her father right now and tell him not to come. Just wash her hands of the Wangs altogether, never mind that family was family and she should be glad that she was going to give hers a home. A homeland.
Should she even tell her father about this latest setback? He was probably counting on her reserves to finance the pursuit of the land in China, but what was that going to get them? Leo was right, what could her citified father possibly do with it? Even if he got it, which seemed impossible, it would probably be farmland out in the middle of nowhere. Saina tried to picture him out there, far from the modern towers of Beijing or Shanghai, demanding that some poor peasant boy make his cappuccino bone-dry, asking villagers if there was a better restaurant in town, realizing that he couldn’t gossip about the man next to him in Chinese—which sometimes seemed to be his and Barbra’s sole pastime—because everyone around him would be Chinese.