by Amy Cheung
“Why?”
“Someday you’re not going to want me anymore, and I’m going to be a fat old woman that nobody wants.”
“You have a great figure. Just don’t let yourself go after you’re thirty, and you’ll look terrific,” Sam said, wrapping his arms around me.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Isn’t it true that when my figure starts going downhill, you won’t want me anymore?”
“By the time your figure goes downhill, I’ll be an old man.”
“If only that were true,” I said, breaking free from his embrace.
“Tell me—what would you like for your birthday?”
“You already gave me this apartment.”
“This apartment isn’t a birthday present.”
“If you can’t be with me on that day, then I don’t want anything—and I don’t ever want to see you again,” I told him.
“That’s terrible!” He squeezed my hand.
“I couldn’t be with you on your last birthday. I don’t want to go through that again. I don’t ever want to be stabbed in the heart like that again.”
“I already said I’d spend your birthday with you, just as I have for the past three years. Now tell me, what do you want for your birthday?”
“I haven’t really thought about it. Buy me whatever you want. I just want to be with you.” I leaned over his shoulders. “I want to be lying in your arms when I turn thirty.”
On November 2, Yau Ying and Chui Yuk invited me out for Japanese food to celebrate my birthday.
“Happy thirtieth!” Yau Ying said when she saw me.
“Please don’t say the number thirty.”
“I turned thirty three full months ago. I’m so glad it’s your turn now!” Yau Ying said with sadistic delight.
“I still have one year and eight months to go.” Chui Yuk was beaming.
They’d gotten Kwok Seon to make me a birthday cake in the shape of a bra.
“It’s a 34B. Since you’ve been blessed with such abundance, we can only wish you eternal firmness!” Chui Yuk said.
“I wish you eternal firmness, too. You’re carrying an even heavier load!”
“We still have an hour before midnight. Where do you guys want to go celebrate?” Chui Yuk asked.
“Anywhere is fine with me. I drove Daihoi’s convertible here,” Yau Ying said. Daihoi’s German convertible was purple with a white top. The license plate number was AC8166.
“AC doesn’t stand for A Cup, does it?” I asked.
“His father gave him this license plate. I’ve always thought AC stood for A Cup, too,” Yau Ying said.
Chui Yuk hopped into the car. “32A, start your engine!”
Yau Ying got in the driver’s seat and asked, “34B, where would you like to usher in your thirtieth birthday?”
“I want to go . . . I want to go somewhere that’s a day behind Hong Kong time. Where I’ll still be twenty-nine at midnight tonight,” I said.
“I don’t think there’s a place a whole day behind Hong Kong time. There’s nowhere more than eighteen hours behind us, which is what Hawaii is. And also French Polynesia,” Chui Yuk said.
“Let’s go to French Polynesia, then! I want to be eighteen hours younger!” I stood up inside the car and said, “It’s practically dawn here.”
“Believe me, being thirty isn’t the worst thing in the world,” Yau Ying said. “Being thirty and not having a man—now that’s the worst thing in the world.”
“I think having a thirty-three-inch waist is worse than being thirty and not having a man,” Chui Yuk said.
When we arrived at the stunning beaches of Shek O, Chui Yuk asked to stop the car and ran into a little shop. She emerged a few minutes later with a bag and announced, “I just bought a few bottles of French mineral water. Close your eyes and imagine . . . we’ve arrived in French Polynesia. You’re now eighteen hours younger!”
“Wonderful!” I said.
Would anyone on earth actually travel to another place just to be eighteen hours younger? Even if you did, you’d instantly be eighteen hours older when you returned home. Your happiness from the eighteen hours that you gained would be short lived.
At midnight, we celebrated in French Polynesia—or as close as I was going to get to it, anyway. There was no doubt about it: my thirtieth birthday had arrived.
“Doesn’t Chen Dingleung have the same birthday as you?” Chui Yuk suddenly asked me. “Are you going to wish him a happy birthday?”
“He’s probably out celebrating with other people.”
“I bet he misses you,” Yau Ying said.
“Don’t remind him. He scares me,” I said.
“You’re too cruel to him,” Chui Yuk said. “I’m worried he won’t design the cover for Yu Mogwo’s book, and he’s almost done writing it.”
“Fine, then! I’ll keep stringing him along for your benefit,” I said.
“I wish there were subdivisions to ages, like there are for bra sizes,” Yau Ying said. “There could be three stages of development—30A, 30B, and 30C. They should just make thirty happen over three years instead.”
“Then the goal would be to reach D,” Chui Yuk said.
“What’s Sam getting you for your birthday?” Yau Ying asked me.
“I’ll find out tonight,” I said.
“Sam treats you so well.”
“Doesn’t Daihoi treat you well?”
“How many men are there who’d buy an apartment for a woman, especially when that woman isn’t even his wife? The law firm handles a lot of house deeds, and buying houses for girlfriends is virtually unheard of. Even if a man does buy one, he doesn’t just fork over the whole sum in cash. They all pay in installments, so that they can stop making the payments if they break up. The ones that have real money make their mistresses live in these sprawling mansions under their company’s name. Daihoi and I both have our names on the deed for our place.”
“I’m really touched by it. Sam’s no billionaire. He works his fingers to the bone to earn that kind of money. It comes from holding down a high-pressure job.”
“What do you want in a man?” Yau Ying asked me.
“I want a man who’s first-rate,” I said. “He has to be Grade A.”
“The man I have is Grade A,” Chui Yuk said happily as she lay down on the beach.
“How would you rate Daihoi?” I asked Yau Ying.
“A minus.”
“Why an A minus?” I asked Yau Ying.
“If there’s such a thing as an A minus, then I want to give Yu Mogwo an A plus,” Chui Yuk said.
“He hasn’t asked me to marry him, so he only gets an A minus,” Yau Ying said.
“If Sam weren’t already married, I’d give him an A plus plus,” I said, reclining in the sand.
“Are there any actual Grade-A men in this world?” Yau Ying asked.
“In the eyes of a lover, they’re all Grade A!” I said.
“Why do you think Daihoi is Grade A?” Chui Yuk asked Yau Ying.
“Seven years ago, I saw him in court one day and fell in love on the spot. There was just this radiant glow about him. He was new to the law firm at the time, but I already knew he was an A,” Yau Ying said.
“Grade-A men and A-cup women are like two peas in a pod,” Chui Yuk said.
“Right. I don’t want Grade B. I’d rather be alone than settle for a Grade-B man,” I said.
“Do you know how much work it takes to get yourself a Grade A?” Yau Ying asked me.
“No pain, no gain,” I said. “In order to get a Grade-A man, doesn’t your appearance have to be at least a B?”
“Yes,” Chui Yuk said. “If you go without a bra for a long time, your breasts will start to sag. Likewise, if you don’t work hard to love a man, you’ll lose him. You can’t just take him for granted.”
“No, there are women who seem like they don’t have to lift a finger in order to get a good man. She’ll always be the apple of his eye, even if she doesn’t love him that much,” Y
au Ying said. “Then other women do everything in their power, and still don’t get what they want.”
“That’s why you should consider yourself lucky if you actually manage to reap what you sow,” I said.
“Don’t you want to get married?” Yau Ying asked me.
“I do, but how can I?”
“So you’re going to stay with him your whole life, without any name or status.”
“That in itself is a form of commitment,” I said.
Yau Ying and I clinked bottles. “Here’s to your big commitment. Cheers!”
The three of us took our empty bottles and filled them with sand. We dug a deep hole along the beach and placed the bottles inside, then covered them up with sand.
“When you’re forty, we’ll come back and dig up these three bottles,” Chui Yuk said.
“By that time, you might have to bring two kids. And because you just gave birth, your breasts will be even bigger than they are now!” I teased Chui Yuk.
“You’ll still be committed to Sam!” Chui Yuk said.
“Is that a blessing or a curse?” I asked her.
“Forty years old. How scary is that!” Yau Ying covered her face.
“It doesn’t matter how scared you are. The day will eventually come,” I said.
“I’m going to snag a man who’ll be with me when I turn forty, no matter what,” Yau Ying said.
At 9 a.m. on November 3, there was a knock on my door. It was Kwok Seon, who stood there, holding a cake in the shape of a rose. “Happy birthday!” she cried.
“Who’s it from?”
“It’s from Mr. Tong.”
Sam. I should’ve guessed.
“When did he order it?” I said as I took the cake into my hands.
“A week ago.”
“And this is from me,” Kwok Seon said as she took out an exquisite tin box and handed it to me.
I opened the lid to find a batch of cookies. I took a bite of one.
“Thank you. They’re delicious.”
“Your boyfriend obviously really loves you. When are the two of you getting married?”
“I’m never marrying him!” I said, making a face that suggested I didn’t want to get married. “What about you? What’s new with you?”
“Not much. Finding a boyfriend is much more difficult at my age than it is for you. But a few days ago, a friend of mine invited me to go to an alumni association ball. I might meet someone there, who knows?”
“Well, I wish you the best of luck!”
“I hope you have a lovely evening tonight.”
After Kwok Seon left, Sam called.
“The cake is so beautiful!” I said. “Is it just a cake—no flowers?”
“You wanted flowers?”
“I want you to dress up as a flower and come see me,” I said.
“Since when are there flowers that big? I’d make a better tree.”
That evening, I got all dressed up and waited for my tree to show up. Sam had said he’d call me after work, and then he’d take me out for dinner. But he still hadn’t called by eight o’clock. What on earth was he doing? At 9:40 p.m., the phone finally rang.
“Hello . . . ?” In my heart, I imagined the worst. Then again, if there’d been some kind of accident, he wouldn’t have been able to call me.
“Where are you?” I asked him.
“I’m at the hospital.”
“Why?” My heart fell into my stomach.
“Her father’s in the hospital. It’s a relapse of an old illness.”
“Oh.” I didn’t believe him. “What a coincidence.”
I was desperately hoping that he’d give me a satisfactory answer, but he didn’t.
“I’ll call you a little later,” he said.
“Don’t bother,” I said, and slammed down the receiver.
Why couldn’t this have happened a day later? Why did he have to hurt me on this day of all days? Though I had thought I would bawl my eyes out, I didn’t feel like crying. I felt bitter. All I could think about was getting back at him for how he’d treated me.
Wasn’t there a man who had the same birthday as me? Oh, and he liked me, too! I found Chen Dingleung’s pager number. If he was out celebrating his birthday with friends, I could just wish him a happy birthday and then hang up—though he’d definitely think something was up if I called him from my house at ten at night to wish him a happy birthday. He’d start to get the wrong message. But revenge was all I could think about.
Chen Dingleung didn’t call me back. Men are never around when women need them.
At midnight, the phone rang. I didn’t know whether it was Chen Dingleung or Sam. Sam had said he’d call me later. But I didn’t feel like hearing the sound of his voice, and besides, my birthday was already over. So that was how I spent my thirtieth birthday. In this apartment that he had bought me, where I was no more than his pet canary. And I’d never even realized it until now.
The phone rang again. I stood by the window, even though the man I was waiting for was nowhere to be found on the street.
The phone finally stopped ringing. There was a certain bleakness to that final ring. It couldn’t have been Chen Dingleung. It had to have been Sam. If he’d rushed over before dawn to beg my forgiveness, I would’ve opened the door and let him in. But it was dawn, and he hadn’t come. I knew then there’d be no tomorrow for us.
I hadn’t expected to feel so calm and collected. I wasn’t going to shed another tear for this man. I said I was going to leave him when I turned thirty, and that was what I was going to do.
I got dressed and went to work.
“Did you have a good time last night?” Jenny asked me.
“Went out for a candlelight dinner,” I told her, smiling.
After work, I passed by a realtor. I went inside and asked how much I could get for my apartment. To my surprise, it had gone up by $200,000 since Sam had bought it. She asked me if I wanted to sell it, and the broker gave me her business card.
When I got home, I suddenly felt hesitant to part with my apartment, where I’d experienced so many happy memories. But was I going to spend the second half of my life hiding away in here? The answer was no.
I took a hot bath. The thirty-year-old me had turned out to be a total failure. I was just a woman who sold bras and panties for a living. What a loser!
I heard someone open the door and come in. I put on my bathrobe and stepped out to find Sam standing in my living room. He pulled me into his arms and kissed my neck.
“What about your father-in-law? Aren’t you supposed to be at the hospital?” I asked him coldly.
“Why didn’t you answer the phone?” he asked me.
“We’re through, that’s why!” I said.
“I really was at the hospital last night. If you don’t believe me, there’s nothing I can say,” he said, looking dismayed.
“I believe that you were at the hospital last night. I know you wouldn’t make that up. You’re not that kind of man. If you had been trying to deceive me, I’d lose all respect for you.”
Sam held me tightly, then started to loosen the belt on my bathrobe.
“No.” I pried his hands away. “Last night I came to my senses. The problem isn’t whether you spent my birthday with me; it’s that you’re someone else’s husband and someone’s son-in-law. That’s a fact that’ll never change. We’ve just both been slow to realize it.”
Sam let go and didn’t say a word. What could he say, after all? He and I both knew that there were certain realities that we couldn’t change.
“You can call me after you get divorced,” I said.
“Please don’t be this way . . .” He pulled me towards him.
“It’s the only thing I can do. You’re someone’s son-in-law. I should never forget that. You can’t imagine what it’s like to love someone who will always be part of someone else’s family.”
“Do you think I’m so happy?” he asked.
“I don’t know. All I know is that
I’m paying for my happiness with pain. Sometimes love can be a kind of suffering, and I can’t handle it anymore. It’s over between us.”
Sam said nothing. He probably knew that this time it was for real.
“I’m going to sell this apartment, and after I sell, I’m going to give you the money.”
“Do you have to sell it?” He sounded irritated.
“There’s no reason why I should leave and take your money with me.”
“Everything I’ve given you is yours to keep.”
“When you bought this apartment, you thought we’d be together forever. Since that’s impossible for me, I have to give it back to you. If you don’t want to sell it, I’ll move out.”
Sam grabbed me hard and said, “Don’t leave!”
I held him close. I was sure this was more painful for me than it was for him. He was the person I loved most in the world.
“You still haven’t wished me a happy birthday,” I told him.
He looked at me. He pressed his lips together and didn’t say anything.
“You owe me a happy birthday,” I insisted.
“Don’t go,” he said.
“Happy birthday.” I prompted him.
“Happy birthday.”
“Thank you,” I said, smiling. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”
“I bought you a birthday present,” he said.
“I don’t want it. I don’t want your gifts anymore.”
“You don’t even want to know what it is?”
“I don’t want it to become a gift to commemorate our breakup. You already gave me a very nice gift, which is that you made me come to my senses on my thirtieth birthday. I don’t want to know what it is. If I don’t know, I’ll wonder about it every single day. I’ll wonder what it is until I’m old and gray, and even then I’ll still be wondering about that year when I was thirty and what you bought for me. That way, I’ll always remember you.”
He let out a bitter laugh. “Are you really going to wonder every single day?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’ll never guess.”
“Great,” I said.
I could feel his body trembling as he held me.
“Are you crying?” I stroked his face.
He wasn’t crying. I’d never seen him cry before. He wasn’t the type of man who’d cry. I’d overestimated him.