by Amy Cheung
“Really? Then why doesn’t he say them first?”
If they each were waiting for the other to say those words first, then they were both going to be on their deathbeds before anyone said anything. I’d never dream of being so stingy with those words.
“You’re afraid to lose,” I told Yau Ying. “If you tell him that you love him first, then he’ll know that you really love him. If you love him more than he loves you, it’ll be like you’re losing. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?” I said.
“That’s how men are, right? If you tell him you love him, he won’t tell you that he loves you,” Yau Ying said.
“Why not?” Chui Yuk said.
“If a man knows that you love him, he won’t bother to say that he loves you because he already has the upper hand. Men only say ‘I love you’ when they lack confidence,” Yau Ying said.
I’d forgotten that Yau Ying was the kind of person who was afraid to lose. When we were little, she refused to compete with me at jumping rope because she knew she wouldn’t win.
“Because you don’t want to lose, you also don’t want him to know that you’re jealous, isn’t that right?”
“Why’d you have to tell him that I’m jealous? Daihoi doesn’t like women who are jealous,” Yau Ying said.
“He thought you didn’t cherish him because you weren’t jealous,” I said.
“He said that I didn’t cherish him?” Yau Ying said, sounding angry.
“Men aren’t as sensitive as women. He doesn’t know the pain that it’s causing you,” I said.
“Why does it seem like you and Daihoi are at war, and you’re both wearing all this armor?” Chui Yuk said.
“We’ve been doing it that way for seven years, and things have been fine!”
I was starting to worry about Yau Ying and Daihoi. Neither one was willing to let the other have the upper hand. That kind of relationship could be dangerous.
The phone was ringing when I got home that night. It was Sam.
“Where are you?” I asked him.
“At the office.”
“If I told you right now that I loved you, would you feel like you had the upper hand?” I asked him.
“How would I?”
“You really wouldn’t?”
“If you don’t believe me, why don’t you tell me right now that you love me?”
“No way. Why don’t you say it first?”
“There are other people around me!” he said.
“So why did you call me?”
“Because I miss you.”
That night, those words—“I miss you”—seemed especially warm and touching. We were better off than Yau Ying and Daihoi. They might live together, but each of them was consumed by their own separate worries. When I had something on my mind, Sam knew. The only thing I didn’t know was how he really felt about his wife.
“When you say that you miss me, I start gloating. Right now you’re losing,” I teased him.
“I’m always losing.” The way he said it was eerily heartbreaking.
“If I let you be the one who calls the shots, would you still say that you’re losing?”
“You can leave me anytime you want,” he said.
“You can leave me anytime you want, too. I’m just a passing traveler who crosses paths with you during your lifetime,” I said sadly.
“I’ve never treated you like a passing traveler.”
I knew that, but I nonetheless felt that way. In my early twenties, I’d never understood how important the social status of being married was for a woman. Then I met Sam. Sharing a love wasn’t enough. I started to understand why some women clung to their marital status, refusing to let go of it even after the love was gone. They protected it fiercely, hoping he’d come running back to them one day. Perhaps the greatest sin a man could commit towards the woman he truly loved was to deny her social recognition of their relationship—and if he were in a marriage he couldn’t leave, he’d try to show her all the love he could to atone for it.
“Do you love me because you feel guilty? You shouldn’t feel guilty. I only have myself to blame,” I said.
“If you don’t love someone, why would you feel guilty about it?” Sam said.
When Sam hung up, I took a hot bath. Afterwards I couldn’t get to sleep. Sam said that if you didn’t love someone, you didn’t feel guilty about it. So if there had once been love, wasn’t there guilt, too? Did he feel guilt towards his wife, since he’d once loved her?
Around three in the morning, the scent of cake started to waft up from downstairs. Ms. Kwok usually started baking around seven, so I wondered why I smelled it at this hour. I got dressed and went downstairs.
I knocked on the door of the cake shop, and Ms. Kwok came and unlocked the door. She looked haggard, and her red lipstick had worn off.
“Ms. Chow, why haven’t you gone to bed yet?” she asked me.
“I can’t fall asleep. Plus I smelled cake,” I said.
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be baking at this hour, but I don’t know what else to do with myself. I can’t sleep, either.” She seemed to have a lot on her mind. “Why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea? The cake is just about ready!”
“All right,” I said. The smell was so enticing. “Is this a cake someone ordered?”
“No, it’s something I’m making for myself. Come have a look.”
She led me into the kitchen and pulled a gorgeous mango cake out of the oven.
She served me a slice. I took a bite. It was delicious.
“Ms. Kwok, this cake tastes incredible.”
“Don’t call me Ms. Kwok. My friends call me Kwok Seon.”
“Seon? Seon as in bamboo shoot?”
“My father loved eating bamboo shoots, so he named me after them.”
“Kwok Seon is a really unique name.”
“The wonderful thing about bamboo shoots is that you can get them year-round. I love eating them myself.”
“How’d you get into the business of selling cakes?”
“I learned from my mother. She was a housewife and a very talented cook. She was known far and wide for her cakes. I’m still not as good as she was. When I was eighteen, I got married and moved from Indonesia here to Hong Kong. I had a son, then a daughter, and I worked the whole time I raised them. I couldn’t get used to eating Hong Kong cakes, and suddenly the idea came to me: I’d bake and sell my own cakes. But running your own shop is such hard work! It turns out that just being a wife is a much more comfortable life.” Kwok Seon rubbed her shoulder with her hand.
“Let me help you.” Standing behind her, I massaged her shoulders.
“Why, thank you.”
“Is your husband against the idea of you working?”
“We’re divorced.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Not at all. My marriage gave me not only a son and a daughter but also a generous alimony. Even if I never work again, I won’t ever have to worry about my retirement.”
“What about your son and daughter?”
“My son is in England, and my daughter is in the States. They’re both grown up now.”
“It’s too bad they’re not here to eat your cakes.”
“Do you know why I got divorced?” Kwok Seon asked me.
“Was it because there was another woman?”
Kwok Seon nodded. “She was twenty years younger than my husband. The first time I saw her, I was startled. She looked just like me. The only difference was that she was a younger version. The thought that my husband was in love with her was surprisingly comforting. It was proof that he’d once loved me deeply, since he’d gone and found someone who looked just like me.”
Did I look like Sam’s wife? That was something I’d always wondered about and hoped to find out someday.
“I cut quite a charming figure when I was younger!” Kwok Seon was growing nostalgic.
“I can imagine.”
“I used to have a waist,”
she said.
I nearly sprayed out a mouthful of tea. Kwok Seon’s words, which were so sincere, were also completely hilarious. I was about to hide a smile, but Kwok Seon herself was grinning.
“It’s true.” She stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Before I got married, my waistline was twenty-five inches. After my first child was born, it was twenty-nine inches. After my second child, well, that’s when things really went downhill.”
“I’ve never had a twenty-five-inch waistline. Even at my thinnest, I was only around twenty-seven inches,” I said.
Kwok Seon pinched her love handles. “My waist is like something from the distant past. Now that it’s gone, it’s not coming back.”
“Believe me, your waist is not that thick.” I estimated her waist to be about thirty-three inches.
“You really think so?” Kwok asked me.
“You have a very shapely bust, which makes your waistline look narrow. You’re lucky that way.”
I imagined that she must have been quite a stunner back in the day.
“My bust? Let’s not even go there. I’m drooping all the way down to my waist. The way I look now, it’s a travesty.” Kwok Seon let out a bitter laugh.
I didn’t quite know how to respond to her honesty.
“After I got divorced, I went through two boyfriends. But I jumped ship when things reached that pivotal moment,” Kwok Seon said.
“That pivotal moment?”
“When we were about to become intimate. I broke up with them before we got intimate.”
“How come?”
“I was afraid to let them see my flabby figure. I was afraid they’d run. Just this evening, there was a man who ran,” Kwok Seon said dejectedly.
“Hold on a second. I’ll be right back . . .”
I sprinted upstairs to my apartment and grabbed one of my business cards, then went back down to the cake shop.
“Here’s my business card. Come see me tomorrow.”
Sure enough, Kwok Seon walked into the lingerie shop the following afternoon. Kwok Seon’s figure wasn’t nearly as terrible as she’d made it out to be. Her skin was smooth and pale—a rare quality in someone her age—and she wore a perfectly respectable size. Her breasts did sag a bit, but not all the way down to her waist.
“I used to be flatter,” Kwok Seon said.
So bigger breasts weren’t necessarily such a pleasant thing.
The waist problem was easy enough to solve. With the aid of a corset, she could narrow it by three inches.
I soon discovered that Kwok Seon’s biggest problem was the flab around her belly, which was full of wrinkles. When Kwok Seon turned left, the belly flab also turned left, and when she turned right, it also turned right. When she bowed, so did the belly flab.
“I’d seriously cut off my belly flab if I could,” Kwok Seon said angrily.
I had Kwok Seon try on a new bra, corset, and shaping shorts. Fastening her corset all the way up was no easy task.
“This ensemble is going to pull it in as much as possible. You can wear it on special occasions or under something that’s slim fitting. For everyday wear, there are looser-fitting ones,” I said.
Kwok Seon scrutinized herself in the mirror. At that moment, she had a 36-27-36 figure.
“It’s a miracle!” Kwok Seon gushed as she gazed at herself in the mirror. “How can this be possible?”
“It’s all the work of wires and elastic,” I said.
“Elastic and wire are truly great inventions!” Kwok Seon cried out.
“This woman you see with the stunning figure is actually made of heaps of wires,” Kwok Seon said as she paid for her purchases.
“I’ll be waiting for good news from you,” I said.
That evening was the last class in my fashion design course, and the dozen or so students in the class had organized a dinner for Chen Dingleung. After dinner, we all headed over to a dance club. Some people in the group clamored for Chen Dingleung to sing a song.
“The only song I know is ‘I Will Wait for You,’” Chen Dingleung said, flashing a grin my way.
“They probably don’t have that song,” I said.
“In that case, let’s dance—if I may have that honor,” he said to me.
So we hit the dance floor. Chen Dingleung wasn’t much of a dancer. He just sort of swayed his body in time to the music.
“You don’t dance much, do you?” I said.
He took my hand and pulled me to the center of the dance floor before letting go.
“Do two people with the same birthday have any chance of becoming lovers?” he asked.
If it weren’t for Sam, maybe I’d have given Chen Dingleung a chance. But I wasn’t about to cheat on Sam. If one of us was going to cheat, I’d rather have it be him.
“People with the same birthday don’t necessarily become lovers. Most people don’t have the same birthday as their lovers,” I said.
“They just don’t have many opportunities to meet someone else with the same birthday, that’s all. The probability of two people having the same birthday is one in three hundred sixty-five,” Chen Dingleung said.
“Well, this really must be fate, then!” I said. “I just hope we don’t die on the same day.”
Chen Dingleung was annoying me so much that I didn’t know what else to say.
“You said you were going to design the cover of Yu Mogwo’s next book. He’s back now,” I said, changing the subject.
“Oh, really? You should have him get in touch with me,” Chen Dingleung said.
“What about my new piece? When’s it going to be ready?”
“I haven’t started yet. I told you not to rush me.”
As soon as I changed the subject, he seemed to lose interest. He never made his intentions clear, and I never told him that I had a boyfriend. Sam was special to me. I didn’t want to talk about him. I had a strange fear that someone might know one of Sam’s relatives or his wife’s relatives and tell them about Sam and me. I knew the chances of that happening were slim, but I still didn’t want to risk it.
Chen Dingleung led two other women from the class out to the dance floor. He looked like he was having a good time with them, and I wondered whether it was a move aimed at making me jealous. It didn’t work, though. Why would I feel jealous, since I knew perfectly well that he wasn’t interested in them?
As we all left the club, someone suggested going to get a late-night snack.
“I have to work in the morning. I can’t go,” I said.
“I can’t go, either,” Chen Dingleung said, looking over at me with deep sincerity in his eyes.
I suddenly felt terrified. I saw a taxi coming and ran to catch it.
I jumped into the cab and avoided looking back at Chen Dingleung. He’d given me a ride home after almost every class, and I was worried he might have wanted to take me home tonight. He must have realized I was trying to get away from him when I dove into the taxi like that.
I only felt truly safe once I set foot inside my apartment. I wanted to call Sam and say, “There’s a guy who likes me and is bent on pursuing me, and I’m scared.” But I knew he was most likely at home, sleeping beside his wife at that hour.
I started to understand how people who are unfaithful are pitiful. They don’t mean to be unfaithful; they’re just afraid of being alone. It takes a lot of love to be loyal and accountable to another person. If I didn’t have so much love in me, I’d never be able to handle the loneliness.
When Sam called me the next day, I didn’t tell him what had happened the night before. I knew he wouldn’t like the fact that I’d been getting rides home regularly from some other man who had shown a romantic interest in me.
On the first Wednesday evening in October, Sam brought over a bunch of giant crabs he’d bought.
“I don’t know how to cook these,” I said.
“Who says you’re cooking? I’m going to cook them for you. You don’t have to do a thing.”
He jauntily we
nt into the kitchen and started washing the crabs.
“Not so fast . . . ,” I said.
“Why?”
“You need to put on an apron first.”
I took out a red apron with lace trim and gave it to him. I’d bought it when I first moved in and only worn it a few times.
“That won’t look too good on me, will it?”
“What are you worried about? I want you to wear it.”
I couldn’t help laughing at the sight of him in my apron. It was the first time I’d ever seen him in one. With that apron on, Sam looked like he was really, truly part of this household.
“You can’t take off that apron tonight,” I said, hugging him.
“What are you talking about? It looks so bizarre on me.”
“I like you this way,” I said, feeling audacious.
When the crabs were done, Sam removed the shells carefully and methodically. The golden roe oozed out.
“I’ll pick out the meat for you. These parts aren’t any good. You can’t eat them.” He picked up a chunk and tossed it in the garbage.
After we ate the roe, only the legs and claws remained. I didn’t want to eat them.
“Why not?” he asked me.
“It’s too much work!” I said.
Sam took out a tiny fork and started picking the meat out of a crab leg for me. He became so engrossed that he forgot about his own food.
“You don’t have to do so much for me,” I said.
“All I did was cook some crabs.”
“Why did you choose this particular night to cook for me?”
“This afternoon I passed by a Chinese market and these crabs looked so good, I just had to buy some so we could enjoy them together. No special reason. What, you suspect I’m up to something?”
“In a month, I’ll be thirty,” I sobbed.
Thirty had always seemed a long ways off, but it was fast approaching. Shouldn’t a woman assess her own needs when she turns thirty?
“You said you’d leave me when you turned thirty,” he said.
“It’d be better if you left me,” I said grimly.
“I can’t do that. I’m never going to leave you.”
“I hate you!” I snapped at him.