Another week or so went by. By now the hardscape was completed, the sidewalks set and lined with granite curbing, and the roadway paved in the same light gray hue of our very own streets, and then laced with just enough mica to emit the slightest glitter. The young gingko trees were planted and staked. In fact, they decided not to roll out much sod on the double property but instead put in a large playground for all the children of the neighborhood to use, even if there weren’t that many. Oliver had a street sign made up and affixed to the top of a black-painted steel gaslight post set at the head of the drive, the old-style letters embossed and hand-painted: Betty’s Lane. Inside, the houses were nearly completed, with the installation of cabinetry and appliances and electronics and the finishes of the floors. All the rooms had already been painted or papered, the bedrooms laid in with carpeting.
Fan’s rooms in her bay’s three floors — all twelve of them, not including the baths — were painted in white. As with the other rooms in the houses, Betty had multiple scenarios for various beautiful and elegant color schemes for her walls and trim from which to choose, a mix of paints and wallpapers, curtains and rugs and throws, but Fan asked to have it done in plain white, the default, bulk white paint contractors used in the service people’s dorms and public restrooms, which was the same white paint the originals in B-Mor had been given truckloads of long ago and that we never stopped using. She chose it for the sake of familiarity but also because the selecting of all those very particular colors seemed to her a tacit acceptance of a future in which she could not quite promise she would be.
Betty, clearly, had no such conception, instantly agreeing to Fan’s request with the idea that it was a classic look, clean and simple, and she even went so far as to have all of Fan’s furniture covered in the same flat white, if knocked down with the slightest touch of gray so everything wouldn’t be so severe and polar, which turned out to be absolutely right. Fan was at once her au pair, her incredibly capable and independent helper, her sweet little sister, and Betty was now comfortable enough with her to ask more questions about Reg, what he looked like, what he enjoyed eating, his favorite pastimes, all, of course, so she could get a feel for what it would be like when he was here on the “block.” They were in her soon-to-be bedroom suite, surrounded as if in snow. Betty was also naturally curious as to how they’d met, what she and Reg liked to do together, even mischievously inquiring, as a close girlfriend might, about the more romantic details, such as whether he was a good kisser. Fan had never really talked about such things before, but we know she felt comfortable enough with Betty, too, and perhaps slightly dazzled by the woman’s openness and obviously generous heart, that she found herself divulging how Reg had her sit on his right whenever possible because of the small, hairy mole on his left cheek that he was terribly self-conscious about, even with her.
Oh, he sounds so sweet! Betty cried, and soon they were giggling about Oliver and how he couldn’t walk by a mirror without furtively checking the state of his biceps or abs with his new toning regimen of weight lifting and swimming, the latter of which he started up again after taking Josey for her first swim lessons and deciding to do laps while she was being coached. In fact, Betty went on and told Fan how strange it was to have him around all the time, to be reminded of certain of his habits and traits, like his secret vanity, or his addiction to sour jellies and iced coffee, which apparently he steadily fed himself with during his hours at the medical center and lab, and had seriously cut back on now, though who could tell.
It seems it is nice for you, too, Fan observed.
Of course you’ve noticed, Betty said, smiling. It’s been not just nice but wonderful. Maybe you think it’s funny that I’m calling him Liwei, but for me everything feels different. He’s still Oliver through and through, I know, but now he really spends time with Josey and wants to bathe the twins every day and for the first time I think since we were in school we’re watching movies together again in bed at night, with popcorn and wine. We’re not even having to talk that much if you know what I mean, she said, her eyes twinkling. We’re having fun, even stupid fun. Some real joy. We still argue plenty and he drives me crazy with how he has to think everything through a dozen squared times but I guess that’s gotten us where we are. Right? This is truly the place we should be.
Fan did not demur, nor try to judge whether Betty wholly meant what she said or was more hoping she was. It didn’t matter, because, as we know, it is “where we are” that should make all the difference, whether we believe we belong there or not, and as such is the ground on which we will try our best not to feel trapped, or limited, or choose those paths that merely assuage our fears. By this standard, Betty was alive, and so was her Liwei, and Fan could finally now believe that in the near course of time Reg’s whereabouts would be revealed; for she was only human, too, we have to remember, simply a girl with a love who was lost, and if the iron ordeals she endured these past months had made her batten down her longing, in the comfort and relative calm of Betty’s Lane that ache had begun to bristle, steadily untwine.
With the project nearing completion and their having far less to manage, they took short excursions during the day. When Josey returned from preschool just past midday, they all climbed into the Cheungs’ buslike new van and went to town to lunch and shop or visit the children’s museum or zoo before heading to their newly joined private fitness club where Oliver and Josey swam in the full indoor pool while on the deck Fan watched the twins along with one helper, the strapped-in babies loving the sounds and splashing of the water. The club had set up several treadmills in a connecting room with a waist-high wall, to afford an open view so parents could watch their children swim, and Betty slowly walked on one of these while she caught up on some of her evening programs.
This is just how they were situated one Saturday afternoon, Fan passing a rattle back and forth with one of the twins, the helper, Pinah, engaging the other, Josey paddling somewhat frantically in the nearest lane toward the swim instructor, though making her way across the pool, with Oliver motoring back and forth in a far lane, when several groups of men in warm-ups and swimming caps with goggles strapped to their foreheads walked out to the deck. Among them was Vik Upendra, Fan recognizing him immediately even with his back turned, for his extra-long limbs and the way he wildly flapped his arms to loosen them, rather than shaking them like the others did. Apparently, they would later learn, there were seasonal club league swim meets, this being the autumn competition for under-forty men. At this point Betty had also seen him, as she was no longer paying attention to her treadmill screen, and when Vik finally turned and saw Betty, Fan could see the instant falter in his face, like any boy excited for a day’s swim but who had arrived to a completely drained pool. His arms, which had been stretched high, dropped down slowly and he began to walk toward her, keeping his eyes on her, even as she was minutely shaking her head and looking down at her screen, not wanting to meet his eyes. But Vik stood directly in front of her, and although Fan couldn’t hear him for the din of the indoor pool and the whining jogging machines, she could see very clearly that in so many words he was telling her that he still loved her and that she was doing all she could not to tell him the same.