For the rest of the week, gifts start arriving like it’s the Twelve Days of Christmas. But it didn’t start with a partridge in a pear tree. It started with a green jade pendant in a yellow silk bag.
On Tuesday, the second day, a Hermès shoulder bag and matching clutch showed up in my hotel room. Both bag and clutch were in soft, supple leather that baby calves gave their lives for, and each was adorned with a gold-plated clasp. The accompanying pink note said, One for everyday use and one for special evenings! Xoxo, Alyssa.
On the third day, a pair of Jimmy Choo strappy heels in my exact size arrived. They had chunky platform heels and looked like they had been dipped in glittering gold fairy dust. That time, the note said, So your every step will shine! Xoxo, Alyssa.
On the fourth day, a ticket for that night’s performance of a modern Beijing opera appeared, propped up against another bottle of Moët. The show was at the National Centre for the Performing Arts—a glass-and-metal-plated dome structure surrounded by an artificial lake in the heart of Beijing and accessible only via a long underwater corridor. Tickets, of course, were superexpensive. The note simply said, Enjoy! Xoxo, Alyssa.
It’s now Friday morning, and I’m lying in bed with the natural-light lamp glowing bright. But it didn’t wake me up because I wasn’t asleep. I’m lying here, wondering why I’m getting presents and pink notes instead of answers from Alyssa. Of course, I’m bowled over by her generosity, but Alyssa’s deadline is almost up. Mid-Autumn Festival is on Monday.
Ugh. My head feels like it’s been stuffed with sludge. It can’t be because of the single glass of champagne I’d drank last night after the Beijing opera.
No, it’s the endless questions running in a loop through my head. Did my mother steal that painting? If not, then what’s the real reason my mother was kicked out of the family? Does Alyssa really have more information about my mother? Will Alyssa actually tell me? Will her mother let her? Those thoughts kept me up last night, and I’d be surprised if I got more than a few hours of sleep.
My phone buzzes at that moment, and I roll over in bed to grab it off my nightstand. It’s Eric.
Hey! How are you doing on the food wish list?
Blinking the crustiness out of my eyes, I text him back.
Nothing left. Glad to hear from you!
I hesitate. Does that last part about being glad to hear from Eric sound too eager? We’ve been texting regularly for three weeks, so you’d think I’d be better at this by now.
Argh! I delete the second sentence. But now the text sounds too abrupt. Why is this so hard? Because there might be some people who are good at flirt-texting, but I, Gemma Huang, am not. I retype the sentence I just deleted. Then I send off my text and spend a small eternity hyperventilating and staring at the three pulsing dots—proof that Eric is texting back his reply.
His text finally pops up on my screen.
Want to go out Sunday night? It’s Mid-Autumn Festival eve. Fun things are happening that night.
Like I need a reminder that Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching fast with no word from Alyssa. As usual, I don’t have plans. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to go out with Eric.
I’d like to say that I hesitate or spare more than a passing thought of all the excellent reasons to turn Eric down. But the truth is that my thumbs fly so fast that autocorrect is challenged to translate my text into an intelligible response. In the end, I delete everything and respond with just one word.
Sure!
We text a bit more and agree to meet at my hotel on Sunday.
Then I drag myself out of bed and into the shower. The reflection in the bathroom mirror makes me grimace. My hair is in tangled knots, and the bags under my eyes are big enough to pack my luggage into. Maybe, I think morosely, Jake will actually like this look for Song. We’re shooting more of Song’s scenes today, and it would be an understatement to say I’m not looking forward to it. Groaning out loud, I turn the taps on and yelp when the icy water hits me. Hastily, I turn the taps to warm.
Apparently, I don’t even have enough mental energy to take a shower. How am I going to play Song on set today? Especially since I still haven’t figured out how to follow Eilene’s advice to stand up for myself.
No brilliant ideas come to me as I throw on clean clothes, run a comb through my hair, and walk to the hotel lobby to take a car to the studio.
The driver is the same man who picked me up from the airport over a month ago. By this time, I know his name is Wei, and we’ve become fairly friendly. Enough so that he looks at me in concern as I climb into the back seat.
“You OK?” he asks.
“Never better.” I smile wanly. “Right as rain.”
Wei is silent, probably running my comment through a mental translation.
I try again. “Wo hao.” Saying I’m good is a total lie, but Wei brightens anyhow. Maybe he just likes that I’m speaking Chinese.
“Na hao,” he says. That’s good. It seems that he’s taking my assurances at face value.
The time passes in silence as Wei drives. By now, I’ve almost gotten used to the fact that driving in Beijing is a competitive sport. Everyone—pedestrians, bicyclists, other drivers—is vying for the same narrow slice of road. And everyone goes at top speed. I’ve hardly ever seen Wei take his hand off the horn when he’s driving.
Traffic slows a bit, and Wei scans the left lane for an opening. I brace myself when our car starts inching to the left. To my cowardly American eye, there isn’t an opening, but Wei’s been known to force a space out of nothing. The window on the car next to us slides down. Uh-oh. Here we go again. More car-to-car angry shouting. Wei seems to anticipate the same thing because he rolls down his window too.
But the two young women in the car aren’t even looking at Wei. And they’re not yelling. At least not in anger.
They’re looking right at me. “Alyssa Chua!” the girl in the passenger seat screams. The rest of it is in Chinese and turns into a dull roar in my panicked brain. I didn’t get nearly enough sleep to deal with this.
Way too late, I scramble for my hat and sunglasses, but what’s the use? I’ve been made. My hands drop limply into my lap. “Roll up the window please,” I tell Wei tightly.
He does so, but it barely cuts down on the noise. “They think you’re Alyssa Chua.”
“Yeah, I figured that out somehow.” Then I feel bad. Wei’s been nothing but nice to me and doesn’t deserve my sarcasm. “Sorry.” Wincing, I press my fingers into my temples. The fans’ shrieking is bringing on a killer headache. And the incessant flash of the camera isn’t helping either. Shielding my face, I say, “I guess the noise and lights are getting to me.”
“No problem,” he says cheerfully. “Let me get you away.”
For once, I’m grateful for Wei’s death-defying driving skills. Again I brace myself and lock my legs as Wei lays on the horn and swerves to the right, slotting us into the next lane. Everyone honks, which doesn’t bode well for my headache. But even worse is that the driver of the car to our left seems to be as much of a risk-taking demon at the wheel as Wei—based on how quickly she slips into the spot we just vacated. That means my fans are next to us again, with their window still rolled down and shouting Alyssa’s name.
In disbelief, I stare at the other car as both girls wave at me in wild elation. “They are batshit crazy.”
“What is this ‘batshit’ and who is crazy?” Wei asks.
He loves to ask me about American slang, but now is not the time for a lesson. “They are.” I point to the fans still waving at me.
Wei looks to the left. “That driver is good, but I’m better,” he says confidently. “We will lose them.” He steps on it, only to slam on the brakes when traffic slows again.
My seat belt cuts into my stomach as I’m thrown forward. “Maybe,” I gasp, “we should just wait until traffic lets up a bit.”
“It’s OK,” Wei assures me. “They are bothering you, yes?” As if to underscore his point, the girl in the passenger seat starts taking pictures of me again.
Resigned, I sink back into my seat, prepared to let Wei do his worst.
Wei shoots ahead when our lane picks up the pace and angles our car toward the left lane. The driver of the car ahead of Alyssa’s fans is a burly man around forty. He glares at us and speeds up to close the gap Wei is nosing toward.
“Wei,” I say nervously, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
Wei doesn’t answer me. I’m not even sure if he hears me. His mouth is set, and he’s pressing on the horn with stubborn determination as he eases the bumper over the line. The other driver is honking like crazy and not slowing down. Great. My life is in the hands of two grown men playing chicken.
“Wei!” I shriek. But it’s too late.
In slow motion, our car barrels into the other car. Again, my seat belt knives across my stomach as my body is slammed forward. All I can smell is burned rubber, and all I can hear is the squeal of brakes. There’s a sickening crunch of metal and glass, and then all is quiet.
“Huang xiao jie, ni hao ma?” Wei cries. “Miss Huang, are you OK?” He’s twisting back to peer at me in worry, and his eyes are round, pupils dark and dilated.
I put my hand to my aching head, half-afraid it will be sticky with blood, but there’s nothing. No bones seem to be broken either, and when I turn my neck, it’s a little stiff but not painful. “I’m OK,” I say weakly. “Are you OK?”
“Yes.” He sighs. “I think everyone else is too.”
The driver of the other car has gotten out of his vehicle and is yelling at us in Chinese. Given that I don’t understand most of what he’s saying, I’m guessing that he’s swearing at us. My parents never use profanity, so that’s a big gap in my Chinese vocabulary.
Even worse is that Alyssa’s fans are getting out of their own car. Leaving it in the middle of the road for cars to go around, the two girls are making their way to us, phones out ahead of them as if they’re scanning for alien life-forms. The air is now filled with honking as the other cars have to make their way around three cars at a standstill.
Alyssa might regularly cause stampedes and car accidents with her presence, but this is brand-new territory for me. I’m not a crier, but tears of sheer frustration bubble at the corners of my eyes. Not only did I get zero sleep last night, now I have to deal with a car accident and two fangirls who are posting this on social media. To top it all off, I’m going to be late to work.
And Alyssa still hasn’t told me if she can reveal the big secret about my mom. I don’t care how many expensive gifts with cheery pink notes she’s giving me—right now, I really hate Alyssa Chua.