by Vann Chow
Erika called me one time, and the only time since we exchanged phone numbers so we could be in a chat group together in WeChat for sightseeing plans, that she thought Zhi wanted to break up with Marvey and asked me to think of a way to cheer her up the evening before the Saturday when we were supposed to go to the zoo.
Zoo was one of those places where you either go with your friends when you were single, or you go with your boyfriend or girlfriend when you were not. Marvey must have asked the forever elusive Zhi who declined to join and felt rather upset, which prompted Erika to reach out to me about tomorrow's planning. Marvey was my first foreign friend. She was kind and gentle. She actively seek to learn more about my city and love its culture as if it was her home. She and her friends always treated me like an equal, something that I found it hard to believe given how many years I had been told by the media and everyone who believed the media that foreigners viewed us as an inferior species, and although I knew I do not need to feel grateful, for all men were equal and I deserved just as much respect as the next person, I still felt in debt to her for being my friend. If she was upset, I was upset. Tomorrow, I decided, would be the most wonderful day she had in Shanghai since she arrived under my supervision.
Just wait and see.
Chapter 11: Happiest Day
The last time I had to plan a Happiest Day for someone was for me and my girlfriend's third year anniversary. That was when I proposed to her and it was as far as I remember, counted as one of the happiest moments of our relationship. Her mother was smiling from ear to ear when I sent her home that evening and my mom, when I told her about it, shed tears that turned her azure handkerchief dark blue. That was a decorative handkerchief she tucked in front of her chest which she never intended to used. Dad and I knew what that meant.
I thought to that day as blueprint for Marvey's Happiest Day in Shanghai and as I was thinking back to these happy moments, I saw more of that day that I did not realize before. My ex-girlfriend had a slight frown on her forehead when she saw me kneel in front of her at the Tianai Road after we visited the Lu Xun Museum that day. She was reluctant to put on the Virtual Reality goggles when I offered it to her instead of what she thought might be a box with a ring from my backpack. Little did I notice that her hands were balled into fists when my marriage proposal animation played out virtually on the screen of her glasses in which she would receive a bouquet of a hundred red roses the size of my palm and a diamond ring the size of an egg, bigger than anything you could ever find in real life without breaking your bank. When she took off her glasses a group had gathered around us making photographs.
It baffled me to see those signs of negative emotions now I was replaying the scenes in my head. Had I been really too blind to see that she was already disappointed when I proposed to her. If she was really unsatisfied with my proposal, why had she accepted it. Was it because she thought I could not have done any better? On one hand I was glad she spared me the humiliation in public, on the other hand, would it not have been better for us if she had not let me lived under the illusion that I was making her happy and led me to total destruction only long after I had committed a foul, when I thought nothing could go wrong anymore?
Randomly I stumbled on to her Weibo profile. I had turned off notifications from her and had not read her profile since we broke up lest I would see something that make me sad. Turned out that was a good decision, for I did not like what I saw. Twelves days ago it was her birthday and her new boyfriend had booked a table at Flair Rooftop restaurant and presented her with a three layer pink birthday cake. She perched on the tabletop with her eyes closed and was making a wish on the photograph she posted on Weibo which was now her profile picture. On the side there was a red suede box that said the dreaded letters, Cartier.
How I wish I could afford tearing this computer to shreds for showing me such a post.
To put the record straight, I did buy her a ring. It was a diamond ring and I got it on offer for eleven yuan and fifty cents from the shop down the streets. Big brand sold these Zirconia rings as if they were real, there was no way I would buy the same thing but pay thousands of yuan. My ex-girlfriend, then future-wife even gave me a compliment for being so smart with my money. Obviously her new boyfriend was not as smart as I was, but that was where logic lost out. Women do not think rationally. They say one thing and want another. They praise you but secretly wish you would disappear. Perhaps only after a fair share of these experience with women online that I finally figured out I should not trust what women told me a hundred percent, especially when it comes to compliments.
Chapter 12: Recreating the Happiest Day
You cannot be a hero if you do not have any superhuman abilities nor the wallet for it, my best friend said.
I had asked him to come join me to the zoo not only because I needed some extra help, but also the fact that we had hung out less and less since I started going out with girls. Now that he had recovered from head injury, it was time for him to get out of the house and do something fun, while trying to help me pull this thing together. He was as usual bringing along his pessimistic attitude, which showed me he was really committed.
The next morning, the two of us went early to the supermarket and bought a bunch of classical picnic utilities and food. We even bought three bottles of French wine from the supermarket whose brands nor tastes we did not know but decided that if the prices were above average, they should have above average taste as well. Then we headed to the zoo just when they were starting and poured over the map to plan our traveling route. Here Marvey should be offered a chance to sit on baby elephants. And there Marvey could hold the parrot during the show. Over there Marvey could stroke the tiger and take photographs with it, and here we could do laser game and let us make sure Marvey would be on the stronger team. At 3:30 there would be the dolphin performance and 5:45 pm there would be a special tour inside the butterfly conservatorium. We talked to the security guard and gave them a thousand yuan each so that we would get the best seat and have our spot kept until the time. At 9 pm there would be fireworks and the best view would be by the fountain. We need to have a spot ready so at 7 pm Kelvin would leave the group and try to grab one for the group so that Marvey and her friends could have the best view for snapping selfies. While we would be waiting for the fireworks, the ice-cream truck would appear and it would be handing out free ice-cream to Marvey and her friends. Kelvin also enlisted a professional quality single lens reflect camera to record all of the above mentioned special moments so that Marvey could go home and enjoy them again via videos. The day was perfectly planned and we were satisfied with ourselves.
They day went ahead as planned. I had laughed as much or even more than I had planned. While I could easily mapped out the route and events at each attraction of the zoo, I could not mapped out the group's reaction to them. Marvey sat on the elephant, petted the parrot, got splashed by the dolphin that came to shook our hands and had butterflies flying around her making her looked like a fairy in the conservatorium just as planned. Her laughters were heartfelt and the happiest oozing out of her was contagious. Erika came over to me at one point and tried to wrap her arm around my shoulder as a sign of good will. She could not easily do that due to our height difference so I ended up switching with her and wrapped my arm around hers instead as we walked to the next attraction. I taught her how to say I love you in Shanghainese and she kept repeating it in public, to the surprise of the locals. We were like best pals.
Just when I thought everything was going well, Zhi arrived. I did not understand this boy. If you did not come in peace, stay away, I wanted to say to say to him. But that would obviously be poking into Marvey's private business. Marvey's eyes lit up when she saw her boyfriend and rushed over to give him a hug. They embraced for more than I wanted to see and then he torn her away, telling her that people in China were not used to this display of emotions and that she needed to keep it down, which she obliged.
I asked Erika what happened, and
she shrugged. Probably they got back together yesterday late evening over the phone? Who knew. Erika was obviously enjoying herself and found no flaw in the situation. Kelvin though came tumbling towards me from the fried chicken counter with two cups of fried chicken strips that he had been dispatched by two of the South American girls to fetch, and whispered in my ear a news I so very much anticipated.
“He is sleeping with my cousin Jin Na! I saw him yesterday when I visited her to grab the selfie stick.” I think I heard angels singing when the news arrived in my ear. This was exactly the kind of evidence we need to have to get rid of this man permanently from Marvey's life. The veracity of the news was further confirmed when Zhi spotted Kelvin. The guilt on his face was unmistakable. He managed a hi, nice to meet you in English with Kelvin, who nodded with a smirk on his face. I wonder what was going through Zhi's head. Was he more embarrassed to be found cheating Jin Na with Marvey, or to be found cheating Marvey with Jin Na? Either way, he was screwed.
Emboldened by the knowledge of his adulterating nature, I walked up to Marvey then asked Kelvin to tell her what he saw yesterday night. Zhi seemed to have turned into an angry hulk momentarily as soon as he saw Kelvin's mouth open. His arms seemed pumped up twice their sizes and were ready to attack. I prodded Kelvin in the ribs to wake him up from fear of the Chinese giant and he stuttered for a second before he got to the essence of what he witnessed.
Almost all of the girls gasped, except Marvey, who was shaking instead in silence with her head down.
“I hate you!” She screamed at me, and pulled Zhi off towards the exit of the park. Erika rushed forward to ask if she really wanted to leave the group and Marvey even barked her away. Zhi was dragged behind her heels like a deflated balloon, lost in thought.
So much for giving Marvey the happiest day of her life.
Chapter 13: Elusiveness of Happiness
If happiness was elusive to sweet and nice people like Marvey, than what chance did I have?
I admit that I did not have her best interest in mind when I asked Kelvin to expose her boyfriend in front of everyone. My own happiness had gotten priority over her happiness. I did not act on her best interest and humiliated both she and Zhi in public because of some secrete desires to get Zhi out of the picture since the day we met, my best friend told me when he tried to analyze the situation for me. You are in love with Marvey, he concluded.
“No, of course not!” I said.
“Not even a little bit?” Kelvin poked further.
“Not a bit.” I said.
“You have to admit that western girls are lot more attractive than Chinese girls.” He said. I do think there are a lot of very attractive western girls, but not all of them attractive and Chinese girls have its own way of being attractive that could not be explained in words. “They are a lot easier to please. They could find fun in everything and they do not require anything more than some some sweets and snacks to please,” Kelvin was recalling his popularity with the chicken strips.
Indeed if I think back to today, there was not a dull moment nor was there any request that require attention of my wallet. Same as my ex-girlfriend, I would be lucky if the Chinese girls I had been hanging out with did not mention some extravagant merchandise that neither of us could afford the whole day. We could just be kids and play along, instead of being the manly men that were supposed to shoulder all the expense as well as do all the chores, except when we wanted to.
Kelvin thanked me with a cold beer when we sat around the side of the fountain watching fireworks for bringing him along. He found that part where Zhi was embarrassed the most amusing of all while I continued to sulk from Marvey's angry last words to me.
At that point Erika came over and asked what we were discussing so secretly in Mandarin. She asked us not to forget that they were all students of the language and we laughed, for they would need to study much harder to even catch what the topic was about based on the level of command of the language I observed from them. Erika clanged her can of beer which appeared from nowhere with mine and Kelvin's and downed it with a wink.
At least someone was having a good time.
Chapter 14: Regret
“I am sorry.” I texted Marvey. She did not reply. In fact she seemed to no longer check her WeChat messages anymore.
When Erika invited me to her farewell party, Marvey was nowhere to be found. After asking around, it seemed that Marvey took a flight two weeks ago back to America, to Alexandria in Minnesota, if I remembered it correctly. Her friends told me there was nothing there. If I should ever visit the US, I should go to New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles or Miami, not anywhere in Minnesota.
Holding a sparkler, we sang Katy Perry's Firework swaying our bodies to the tunes under the night sky at the beach. Behind the little sparks of fire, I vaguely saw Erika grabbed her glass of champagne and took a big gulp from it. Our eyes locked as she wiped her mouth with the back of her right hand. She rose and walked, as if in slow motion like in a movie, towards me swaying her hips still to the tunes of the song that I could no longer hear but my very own heartbeats.
Then she kissed me on the lips. Hard.
She bit and she sucked. As she was ruffling my hair with both hands I could hear the others cheered and snickered beside us. Over the suckling noises of our kisses, Kelvin's “Ta ma de!” (His way of expressing amazement) resonated. I reached out to grab Erika's sparkler and planted it upside down into the sand before it could burn our hair and at that moment, Erika pushed me backwards on the sand. It took me by surprised but I was relishing it. We laid on the sand, kissed and made out for god knows how long.
The others could not stop giggling on the way back. Luckily I had to carry a lot of stuff in my hand, all the leftovers that I did not want to waste, so I was not confronted with the awkwardness of should I or should I not hold Erika's hand like a couple. Erika did not mind, she was so high from alcohol she was leaning on anyone she could find. In the end the two girls from South America shouldered her to the bus back to the university campus.
“Good night everyone!” Kelvin and I waved as the door of the bus was about the shut. Kelvin poked me in the ribs and I knew what he meant. “Good night Erika,” I added. Everyone laughed, except Erika, who already passed out on her friend's lap.
“Wow! You're my hero!” Kelvin screamed at me as soon as the bus left the stop. “You're the first one I knew who had a foreign girlfriend.”
It seemed like everyone was more excited about it than I did. There was no way Marvey was really in love with me. She was beautiful beyond my league. Even a fool like me could see her rejecting suitors left and right back in Switzerland in my mind's head. This was her farewell party, she probably thought she should do something that she would regret, the traditional unwritten goal of almost all farewell parties.
The regret, these two words were etched into my forehead, I was sure.
I knew it sounded strange, but I could not stop thinking about Marvey, despite everything that happened today.
That evening, I went home and looped the only Mandarin music video with a foreign actress I knew, Jay Chou's Couldn't Say, until I felt so miserable I had to shut my laptop and go for a cold shower.
The imagery of Jay riding a spacecraft through the meteoroid fields to look for his alien lover kept looping in my dream. “Through the clouds I came, trying to run towards you. Delivering my love to you, but you're already in another man's embrace. It's just because I couldn't say it.”
Chapter 15: Brain Damage
“Did you fry your brain?” Paula said sarcastically as she nudged my forehead with her pointy index finger after she heard me talk about Marvey. She took a drag of her cigarette as she sat down on the couch, crossing her legs. The whiff of smoke stung my eyes. I blinked reflexively.
Paula did not stop her verbal abuse. She continued on as if what I needed the most was to hear her insult me. “You are not good-looking, you barely speak English, you are a decade older than that white girl and w
orse still you haven't got a penny in your pocket. How on earth are you getting to America? Even if you get there their immigration office will kick you out. I mean, look at you! Even I can't bare to look at you for more than two seconds. If I do not need you to watch my kid, I would not let you even stay here. You're a nobody. Don't dream of eating swan's meat!” Eating swan's meat was part of a Chines expression to mean that something so desirable it was out of my league.
I eyed the innocent kid, her son, who had to be subjected to the nonsense of adults and listen to such discussion between us, my chest swelled with pity.
“I have to go. Don't let him fall asleep before he finishes his homework!” Paula cried over the sound of the rattling metal gate as she pulled it open. As a karaoke escort, she would be singing and drinking until way past the boy's bedtime to know if I shall not fulfill her request.
As usual, I went out on a date with a beautiful woman I met online some time ago and found myself in the arms of someone who wanted more from me. Interestingly, Paula was not looking for material or financial support, she was looking for a male au pair to take care of her son. I wonder which part of my profile implied that I ran a day, I meant night, care center but I took a liking to her son after the first time meeting him. With a slut of a mother, he could use a fatherly figure. I had coached eleven- year-old soccer, but that was a long way from providing fatherly love. For the last four months I had been coming over to Paula's place at least once a week long after Paula and I no longer wanted anything to do with each other to hang out with the little guy.