“Why? So you can tap my phone or something?”
John punches the horn again. “Sha bi,” he mutters. Dumb fuck. Turns to me, eyes hard, jaw tight. “Yili, they look at a lot of people right now. Maybe they decide you aren’t so important. But if someone watches you for them, you should hope that it’s me.”
I hesitate.
And think, What difference does it make? If John’s going to do something, plant a bug or something like that, he’ll do it anyway.
The guy hops on the bike, practically stands on the pedals to get it moving, pulls out of the way.
“Okay. Fine.”
We roll up to the gate, where the security guard sits in the box reading a paper and drinking tea and waves us through without a glance.
John parks the car. He hesitates, letting the motor idle, his hand on the key. “Yili,” he says, “they maybe don’t even trust me. That’s why… it’s good how you answered them today. Because this is what I tell them also.”
And I’m supposed to believe this?
I don’t know if he’s playing a game or, if he is, what level we’re on.
I BARELY GET MY key in the door before my mom opens it. I see the strain in her face turn to relief in an instant, and she reaches out and gathers me into her arms. “Oh, honey, I was so worried. What happened?”
“Nothing,” I say. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
I don’t want to be hugged. Don’t want to feel how upset she is. I don’t want to feel anything right now.
She glances up, peers over my shoulder. “Oh, who’s this?”
“John,” I say, stepping out of her embrace. “John, this is Cindy. My mom.”
“You are Yili’s mother?”
I swear to God, he blushes, like this is high school and we’ve been on a date and are maybe getting back a little after curfew. “Very pleased to meet you.”
He takes a hesitant step across the threshold.
“Well, pleased to meet you, too, John.” My mom may be a flake when it comes to the Jesus stuff and the men in her life, but she’s not stupid, and the way she’s standing, shoulders tilted back, arms crossed, she’s suspicious. “How do you two know each other?”
“We met last year, at a party.” He ducks his head, convincingly embarrassed, and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was this nice, awkward guy wanting to make a good impression on his date’s mother. “We have traveled a little together.”
“Oh, how nice.” She gives him a long, appraising look. “I don’t think Ellie’s told me about you.”
“Kind of a crazy time,” I mutter.
“Would you like some tea, John?” my mom asks.
I snort. “He likes jasmine,” I say. “Excuse me.”
I go into the bathroom. Splash some cold water on my face. Sit on the toilet, my head in my hands. My gut’s killing me, and my leg hurts like hell, and I wonder if I take a Percocet, is that going to make me puke?
I decide I don’t care.
I check my phone. There’s a text waiting for me that I missed somehow, probably while I was drinking tea.
RETURNING TO BEIJING TOMORROW, it says. IF YOU CAN MEET, LET ME KNOW.
TOMORROW IS FINE, I text back. THE TEA WAS INTERESTING.
WHEN I COME OUT of the bathroom, John and my mom are sitting at the little table in my living room sipping tea. My mom’s smiling and stretching out her hand across the table, like she’s going to pat his. John sits in the chair, torso straight, his hands resting parallel to each other on either side of his teacup.
“It was nice of you to bring her home all this way, John.”
“Oh, it wasn’t so far,” John says, smiling and nodding.
“I didn’t know that Yili was your Chinese name,” she says to me.
“Guess it hasn’t come up.”
Shit, I think. Are the three of us really going to sit here and drink tea? John, my mom, and me?
Fuck the tea. I need a beer.
I grab a cold Yanjing from the fridge, open it, and sit at the table.
“Honey,” my mom says, “you’ve barely had a thing to eat today.” She turns to John. “I was going to make tacos. That’s Mexican food.”
“Ah. I will let you have your dinner, then.” With that he rises. “Yili, may I call you this week? We can… go eat dumplings, if you would like.”
How am I supposed to answer this?
“Sure… if I’m in town,” I finally say. “I was thinking about taking a little trip. You know, a vacation. To someplace warm.”
John’s eyes narrow. “I see,” he says. “Yes. Leaving Beijing this time of year can be a good idea. But call me. Maybe I can make some suggestions.”
AFTER HE LEAVES, MY mom starts working on the tacos. “Are you really taking a vacation?” she asks as she rubs spices onto the beef.
“I dunno,” I mumble. “Probably not. It was just something to say.”
“Don’t you like him?”
“He’s okay. It’s complicated.”
She gives me a look. “Is he married?”
“No. He had a fiancée, but they broke up.”
This, I’m pretty sure, is actually true.
“So how did the two of you meet?”
“At a party, like he said.”
“Huh.” She grabs the big knife and starts chopping, the blade hitting the cutting board with a thunk only slightly muffled by its passing through the meat. “He told me that the whole thing with the police was a misunderstanding.”
I don’t want to lie to my mom. I’m also not sure if I want to play this game with John, the one where I’m supposed to trust him.
But the last thing I want is my mom freaking out about shit-this tends to make my own freak-outs worse.
“Yeah, it looks that way.”
“Well, he seems like a nice young man.” Whack. A little smile. “And really cute.”
My mom likes Creepy John.
Meaning I should stay far, far away from him.
CHAPTER FIVE
“THIS COULD GET COMPLICATED.”
I sit across from Harrison Wang, distracted by his sweater. It’s this dense charcoal grey, has to be cashmere, and I just want to stroke it.
The sweater, like Harrison, is way out of my price range.
“You think?” I say.
Harrison is a good-looking man. The way that something perfectly constructed out of the best-quality materials is good-looking. You know, like a Ferrari. I’ve never seen him with a woman-or a man, for that matter-but I’m pretty sure anyone on his arm would be the same kind of expensive: a supermodel built like a gazelle or some genius artist with tragic cheekbones.
We’re meeting for dinner at a French-Vietnamese “bistro” in a restored courtyard building not too far from where I live-Harrison’s call (“The bo nhung dam is particularly good”). Though I’m more comfortable eating jiaozi in some dive dumpling house, I have to admit I’m liking this gourmet lifestyle way more than I should, considering that I don’t understand it and I can’t really afford it. This place is classy, with worn grey stone floors, antique furniture, and hand-woven tapestries on the walls, smoked paper lamps with yellow light hung on the thick ceiling beams.
And Harrison’s right, the bo nhung dam is delicious.
As long as he’s paying, I guess.
“I’m assuming Zhang Jianli isn’t in China,” Harrison says. He gives me a look, like he thinks I might know, and he’s searching for a hint on my face.
Here’s the situation: My friend Lao Zhang, got involved with someone he shouldn’t have and disappeared about a year ago. I got chased all over China because of it, and some bad shit happened. The outcome of all said shit being I ended as the manager of Lao Zhang’s art. I know he’s okay; we have a means of communicating. But I don’t know where he is. I don’t want to know. It’s better if I don’t. That way I can’t confess or let something slip to people like Pompadour Bureaucrat and Creepy John.