We weave our way through the restaurant. Past plush wooden booths and more public tables that are covered in linen and decorated with silver candles and delicate sprays of fresh flowers. I’m wearing my designer duds from Sidney, last night’s shirt still wrinkled and smelling like cigarette butts. Maybe it’s dark enough so no one will notice.
Finally we reach what has to be the best table in the house. A table for two against a huge expanse of window looking out over the lights of the CBD.
The hostess clasps her hands and does a little bow to the figure sitting at one end. “Cao xiaojie, ninde keren laile.” Your guest has arrived.
If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought Meimei was a teenage boy, a pretty one, like a Korean pop star. She wears a white silk suit with a silky sky blue T-shirt beneath it, her short hair slicked back from her face.
She smiles and gestures at the seat opposite.
I sit, trying to do it gracefully, trying not to groan. I manage with a wince and a grunt.
“What would you like to drink?” Meimei asks.
I stretch out my leg. She has a wineglass to her right, half full of something white. Next to the table is a silver ice bucket on a stand with a partly submerged bottle inside.
“Whatever you’re having would be great.”
Meimei turns to the hostess. “Zai lai yige jiubei.”
The hostess nods and quickly retreats. I swear it’s less than a minute before a waitress hustles over with a wineglass and pours me some of whatever Meimei’s drinking.
Meimei lifts her glass. She’s lounging in her chair with one arm draped on the chair back. I lift my glass in return. Sip.
It’s wine. White. Tastes great. That’s all I need to know.
“I hear you are a soldier,” Meimei says.
This is not what I was expecting.
“I was in the National Guard.”
“Is this not a soldier?”
I shrug. Take another sip of wine. A large one. “We’re supposed to defend the home front. Bunch of us ended up in a war instead.”
“Ah.” She sips her wine. “So you were in combat?”
I’m twitching like I’m hooked up to a live current. I hate talking about those times. “I was a medic.”
“But you got hurt. How did that happen?”
“Mortar.”
“I see.” She looks a little disappointed. Why? Because I wasn’t out killing bad guys when I got blown up?
“I was outside the wire plenty of times,” I mumble. Like that matters. Like that makes me some badass.
Outside the wire wasn’t where the worst shit happened anyway.
“I envy you this experience.”
I feel this rush of anger so strong that I’m sure it shows on my face. I swallow hard. Don’t fuck this up, McEnroe, I tell myself.
“There’s nothing about it to envy,” I say. And I drink.
She leans forward, her face lit up with a weird enthusiasm. “But you serve your country. You prove yourself in challenging situation, like a man. I think this is admirable.”
If she knew what I did during the war…
“It’s not what people think it’s like,” I finally mutter.
I glance to my right, at the view of the CBD and the night sky. Lights and neon, giant characters and logos, skyscrapers like ghosts, softened by smog. For a moment I feel like I’m floating in space.
“I fly small planes,” she says. “In fact, I have thought about applying to China’s air force.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Flying is wonderful.” She pauses abruptly. “Shall we order appetizers?”
“Sure.”
What I want is another drink. I’m feeling rattled. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that she knows something about my history. Sidney’s got the money to hire any kind of private detective or private spy he wants. So does Meimei, I’m guessing. She would’ve had to have worked fast, but with all the information that’s out there on the Internet? It wouldn’t take much time.
I let Meimei order the appetizers. I’m not hungry, and I don’t know what half the stuff is anyway. (“Duck Liver Terrine with Sweet Kaffir Lime Liqueur.” “Truffled Capicola with Lenticchie di Montagna and Chopped Preboggion.” “Crispy Sweetbread and Lobster Ragu.”) It all tastes good, but mostly I just want to drink.
Except not too much. I can’t afford to lose it.
“So you help my father with his museum project,” Meimei says after doing the swirl-sniff-taste of a new wine, a red one this time. She nods at the waitress, who pours fresh glasses for both of us.
“I’m… consulting.” Which seems as good a way as any to put it.
“Interesting. I know that you represent some modern Chinese artists here in Beijing.”
I nod. I’ve got this hollow feeling in my gut, like she knows all about Lao Zhang and the trouble he’s in. If she had me checked out, she’d have to know something. There’ve been a few articles, here and there, about the “disappeared” Chinese artist, the rumors surrounding that, and I’ve sure been asked about it enough times. Is he in jail? Is he in hiding? Is he in trouble? Do you know where he is?
Meimei holds her wine up to the table light, tilting it and watching the rivulets of wine run down the inside of the glass. “The legs,” Harrison explained to me once. Though he never did explain why anyone was supposed to care about this.
“Art is not really an interest of mine,” she says. “Of course I like to have nice things. But my father is really obsessed about this. Don’t you think?”
“He’s… uh, an enthusiastic collector.”
For the first time, she smiles in a way that suggests she might actually be amused. “Yes. I think he always hoped Gugu would take an interest in this, too. Art is not for Tiantian. And it is not for me. But Gugu, he has this artistic temperament.”
And here’s where I need to think fast. Because this whole thing started as a pretext for me to evaluate Gugu’s creepy American friend, Marsh, and now, somehow, the whole crazy family’s involved in a museum project that I pretty much pulled out of my ass.
“I think your father would just like to see the three of you work together on this, a little. I mean, it’s his life’s work, and it’s not like it needs to be yours. But he sees it as… you know, his legacy, and you’re his children, and…”
Which is where I totally run out of things to say.
“Yes, yes,” she says with a dismissive wave. “I can call Tiantian. Even though he does not approve of me. Shall we order our primo?”
“Sounds good.” Whatever it is.
Meimei pays for dinner. No big surprise there. I thank her as enthusiastically as I can fake.
“It was my pleasure,” she says, taking my hand. “You are an interesting person, with interesting experiences.”
“Not really,” I manage. “That’s nice of you to say.”
She lets go. I reach into my little black leather messenger bag, another gift from Sidney (Vicky didn’t dig the old canvas one I usually travel with) and pull out a card case, extract a card. “In case you need to get a hold of me,” I say, doing the two-handed handover.
She studies it politely. “I think I will. For our meeting with Tiantian.”
What a fucking waste of time.
I mean, I don’t particularly want to meet Tiantian. I don’t want to work on Sidney’s museum project. I especially don’t want to spend any more time evaluating Marsh for his moral character. Yet for some reason, I need to do all these things to fulfill my obligations to Sidney Cao. Who, okay, it must be said, did save my life, or his people did anyway. But with Lao Zhang coming back to Beijing, my life just torqued into another level of complicated.
I’m thinking all this the next morning while I’m taking Mimi out for a walk. We’re doing our usual thing, wandering through the hutongs around the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower, and on top of everything else I’m feeling all kinds of guilty for not taking very good care of my dog. I mean, I’m not terrible. She gets her walks. She gets as good dog food as I can find here, and lots of people food for treats. But it’s not like I take her out for a long time or she gets to run around much. My mom and Andy probably spend more time with her than I do.