7
Van
The day after Miles left, after Van had driven around Ann Arbor looking for him, after her father had called with the news of his citizenship, Van sat on the carpet-covered staircase in her house for five hours. The pile was thick and plush, just as in an advertisement, and she had a notion that if she did not stir from her spot, then she would be okay, like riding out a storm. Eventually she fell asleep, spread across three steps, rolling in and out of consciousness so that the waking world seemed a half-lucid dream. When she finally got up, aiming for the sofa in the TV room, she was almost glad to feel an ache in her body, distracting her from the absence in the house. It didn’t last long enough.
She called in sick to Gertz & Zarou that week, something she never would have dared before. She slept in a position of waiting, preparing to spring up at any moment if the garage door should rise. At the very least, she didn’t want to leave the house in case he returned. She tried to think of the days as a countdown, even if she didn’t know when the count would be over.
But by the end of the week, Van became restless. She turned off the incessant television that had seeped into her nightmares, mixing laugh-track sitcoms with visions of Miles and Sunil, elephants and motorcycles, a swirl of gold and jade bracelets. She awoke thinking that Miles was testing her. Perhaps he wanted her to come after him. Didn’t he say she should have more initiative, more assertiveness? Perhaps he was waiting for her.
The thought compelled her to get up and shower, shave her legs, and wash her hair with the botanical shampoo Miles favored. Afterward, wrapped in a towel, she tiptoed to the top of the stairs, listening in case he had come home. Then she went to her closet to find something to wear. Miles always liked her in fitted suits and solid-color dresses. His praise words were elegant and stylish. Van pulled out the burgundy cashmere turtleneck he had bought her last year. Moving quickly through the racks at Neiman Marcus, he’d plucked the sweater as if from the air, resolving it out of nothing but his will. The neck of the sweater was slightly cowled, and the fabric fit smoothly over Van’s narrow shoulders. She paired it with gabardine dress pants Miles had also chosen for her that day. They’d had them hemmed in the store, and Van remembered the way Miles watched her as she looked at herself, standing almost tall on the dais, facing the three-way mirror. He had leaned against an opposite wall as if he liked what he was seeing. The seamstress, taking pins out of her mouth, had spoken not to Van but to Miles about when the pants would be ready.
Van realized that she must have dropped off the pants at the cleaners last week. Some of Miles’s clothes had gone too. A feeling of dread washed over her to think of him reclaiming his shirts and leaving her pants behind. What would the woman at the cleaners think? Van made a note to pick up all of the clothes herself first, make Miles return to her in order to get them.
She put on black wool pants instead and grabbed a pair of trouser socks from a drawer. She would wear the black pumps Miles had also bought for her, from the intimidating shoe department at Saks, where Van never went herself. She had been so shocked by the price that she hung on to the years-old Naturalizers he had wanted to toss out, keeping them in her car to change into before work.
Like her sister and mother, Van was slim, small, and short. Mostly short. That was the primary adjective people used to describe her. In a crowd of white students, white lawyers, it was easy to identify her as the short Asian girl. Linny had said it was possible to slip past that; she had a way of dressing to perfect advantage, knowing exactly what worked for her figure. She spoke of how certain prints “overwhelmed” a short girl, and how certain styles had a lengthening effect. Van saw how clothes could transform her sister but didn’t believe they could have as much of an effect on her. Miles preferred suits because they lent her the strongest guise of authority. Of course, he had laughed, someone could also think you’re a little girl playing dress-up. The words stung Van, got to the core of her fear of being unseen, interrupted, dismissed. She couldn’t shake the way Miles said, Come on, Van. It’s a joke. Learn to laugh at yourself. It was a phrase he had invoked repeatedly in recent months. Don’t you know how to take a joke? He didn’t know he was echoing Linny in her teenage years, part of the barbs she and Van had traded.
In the bathroom Van applied a light coating of lipstick, blush, and powder. That was all the makeup she ever wore. All of Linny’s complicated accoutrements—the weapon-shaped eyelash curler, pots of shimmer, a box full of different-sized brushes—seemed foreign to Van. She didn’t know how Linny could paint herself up so unselfconsciously. Wasn’t she afraid of appearing effortful? Even on her wedding day, Van had worn minimal makeup. Besides, Miles had always said he liked the natural look; women who wore too much makeup were probably hiding insecurities.
There wasn’t much to be done about her hair either. It hung limply at her shoulders, plain and unmistakably Vietnamese. It had been this way since high school and, except for the occasional ponytail or bun, she’d never seen a reason to do anything different. This was the body Miles had fallen in love with, after all. Linny, who never failed to offer unasked-for advice on Van’s hair and wardrobe, could know nothing about that. As Van hurried down to the garage, she thought of what Linny had said after she’d met Miles. “He’s nice. Maybe a little too nice. You can tell he really wants to be cool. He’s friendly but calculating, just like a lawyer.” When Van got mad, Linny said, “Hey, I’m just being honest.”
That was Linny’s typical defense, and she got away with it too, because she happened to be beautiful. It was an all-encompassing answer. An acceptance and definition. Matt Staven, Van’s prom date and Model UN partner, had said, Your sister is really something. Her first boyfriend in college saw a picture of Linny and exclaimed, That’s your sister? Beauty was Linny’s distinguishing characteristic and it satisfied people. They needed to know nothing more. Van was the one who had to prove herself, raise her hand to deliver answers, get the grades.
As a teenager she would sometimes confront herself in the mirror, asking: Am I jealous? Sometimes it was yes, sometimes no. She could see how she was the imperfect amateur portrait of Linny. The resemblance was clear, the effort commendable, but the lines just didn’t match. There was a faltering, a fundamental lack. It wasn’t unfair so much as an unchangeable fact. Van even had moments of pride when she considered what her sister possessed. She imagined it was what mothers felt while shooing their daughters onto a beauty pageant stage. Linny smiled and it seemed a bestowal. Surely the world opened up for women like her.
Van remembered a song blaring out of Linny’s high school boom box: I’ve got the brains, you’ve got the looks, let’s make lots of money. Linny sunning herself in the yard, listening to WKLQ. It was mid-June, the end of Van’s junior year, and she was studying for the SAT while Mrs. Luong rolled out cha gio for a party that night.
“That’s a funny song,” their mother said. She tilted her head a little, listening to the chorus coming in through the window. “You and Linny are like that. That’s why you have to stick together. Make money and save money. Together.”
Van glanced up, irritated, from the vocabulary words she was memorizing. “It’s just a stupid song.”
“You go to the same college,” Mrs. Luong said, a grim order.
“No way. I’m not going to end up at some fourth-tier school.”
“Same college,” she insisted. “Stick together!”
Linny came into the kitchen for a can of Sprite. She was barefoot, almost naked but for a pink string bikini, another item “borrowed from a friend” so Mrs. Luong couldn’t throw it out.
Mrs. Luong still glared at the bikini but Linny appeased her with, “I’ll help you with the rest in a minute. The bean cakes too.”
Van concentrated on the vocabulary words, pausing to repeat concatenate to herself. She thought, There is no way in the world we will go to the same college. Her mother arranged a cha gio roll on a platter.
Soon, college pamphlets and applications would fill up the mailbox. Fees waived. Honors programs touted. All for Van.
Linny’s feet slapped on linoleum, the screen door slamming shut.
Van closed her eyes. In one year I’ll be free. I’ll never come back.
Driving toward Miles’s law office in Ann Arbor, those polished black pumps already pinching her toes, Van banished her family from her mind. If things worked out, if Miles returned, no one would have to know that he’d ever left. He had married Van for a reason. He had chosen her above all the prettier, flirtier, taller women surrounding him in law school. But as she headed downtown her heart seemed to grow heavy with worry. It was like the old days, dating Miles, when she never quite knew where she stood. Her sometimes breathless anxiety as she climbed the steps to his apartment. Would he smile? Would he be glad to see her? Or would he turn her away gently, saying I really need to work tonight.
Volker, Voss, and Williams occupied a brick-and-mirrored-glass building surrounded by greenery and Japanese maples. Every aspect of the landscape seemed to anticipate the clients’ expectations of marble and mahogany, low voices commingled with the sense of importance that pervaded the office. It was nothing like Gertz & Zarou. At Volker, the clients were wealthy and white, and owned German luxury cars or gigantic SUVs. At Van’s office the clients were Indian and Chinese; they slipped into the waiting room with as little noise as possible, sat with their hands in their laps.
Miles’s secretary, an early-twenty-something woman whose mother was also a secretary in the firm, tilted her head smilingly when Van walked in.
“Hi, Mrs. Oh,” she called out. “I didn’t know you’d be stopping by.”
“Nice to see you, Holly.” To Van’s relief her voice sounded normal. She was always startled to be called by Miles’s last name, because she had not changed hers when they married. He had claimed to approve, calling it independent, but asked for a compromise: she would keep her name legally, but be known socially as Mrs. Oh, and she would change it for real once they had a child. “Is my husband here?”
“He’s in a meeting but it should be over in a little while. Want to wait?”
“Yes. I think I will.” Van sank into a modernist silver-trimmed leather chair. As she crossed her legs her pants hiked up, revealing the trouser socks she had put on earlier. Van realized that they were dark brown, not black as she’d thought, and they looked silly against her black pants and shoes. Van uncrossed her legs and tried to draw them underneath the chair. At that moment two women walked by, obviously an associate and her client. The lawyer wore a pencil skirt, black hose, and stacked heels; the client swished by in wide-legged trousers. No matter what she wore or how good she might feel about herself, the sight of a pulled-together tall woman could always make Van feel like a short little stump.
“So, how have you been?” Holly asked from her desk. “I haven’t seen you since the Christmas party.”
Van had missed the first half of the party due to traffic coming back from the immigration office in Detroit, and she remembered the dread she had felt at an impending argument with Miles, who hated it when she was late for events. But he hadn’t seemed to register her timing. When she arrived at the restaurant, wearing a red dress and realizing that none of the other associates had dressed festively, Miles had simply waved at her from a conversation he was having in a far corner of the room. It was a gesture of hello, she thought at the time, rather than an invitation. But she’d joined them anyway, stepping into her role as the spouse.
“I’m doing fine,” Van said. “How have you been?”
“Well, great, actually.” Holly grinned, then lifted her left hand to smooth a lock of blond hair. The gesture was so deliberate that Van understood: the girl was wearing an engagement ring, a large one that gleamed flatly in the office light. “I don’t know if Miles told you,” she began.
“You’re engaged!” Van blurted. “How fun! How great! Congratulations! Who’s the lucky guy?”
“You know Kevin Anders?”
“Of course.” Van smiled, but she was secretly shocked. Holly was barely twenty-five. Kevin was a partner at the firm, gym-fit to make up for his advancement beyond middle age. He had once declared he would never get married, sparking rumors that he was gay, and Miles had told Van that all the single women in the building were aiming to find out the truth.
“It’s only been a couple of weeks,” Holly gushed. “But I still can’t believe it. When you and Miles got engaged, did you spend hours looking at your ring or what?”
“Can I see it?”
Holly’s left hand shot out and Van rose from her chair to get a better look. The diamond was thick and oval-shaped, with baguettes on either side.
“I wanted gold,” Holly said, “but Kevin said platinum was better.”
Van lifted her own left hand, where her plain diamond solitaire circled her finger above the channel-set wedding band Miles had selected. She was standing there, her hand almost close enough to Holly’s to bear a comparison, when she heard Miles saying her name.
She blushed, Miles staring at her with an expression of uncertainty bordering on amusement. She could have been a comic moment at a zoo exhibition, or an audacious child. Still, his face, softened since that terrible Saturday night, gave Van hope. Holly piped up, “I was just telling your wife my news.”
“It is very good news,” Miles said, starting toward his office.
When he had shut the door behind them and sat down at his desk, Van remained standing. The room was clean and noncommittal, with recessed lights, stern Berber carpeting, and cherry-stained furniture. A bold white orchid, no doubt a client gift, perched on a filing cabinet, and on the desk one picture frame faced him. Back when he first took this job Van had framed some of his college art photographs so he could hang them in his new office, but he had never even moved them from their box.
He gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk but Van would not be treated like one of his clients.
“I knew you’d come here,” he said.
This deflated her, and for a moment she felt like a stalker. A predictable one at that. “Then why didn’t you call?”
“If I had wanted to talk I would have called.” Miles spoke evenly. He was no longer the sensitive man weeping into his coat sleeve. He was straight-faced, prepared. His tie glowed iridescently, changing from silver to blue and back again.
“I think you owe me an explanation.” The words emerged from Van as though she knew what to say. She didn’t. It was only later that she realized that she’d taken her cue from movies and television shows, probably reaching all the way back to the evening soaps her mother had favored.
He leaned back in his leather chair, looking altogether too relaxed. “I wish you’d sit down.”
“No thanks.”
“Van, all I know is what I’ve known for a long time. I just didn’t realize it until I did. So let’s face reality for once. Do you honestly think our marriage is okay?”
She blushed again, feeling as though she’d been called out in a law school lecture. “I don’t think it’s not okay.”
“Well, it’s obvious we’re not on the same track. Our minds aren’t aligned.”
“Aligned,” Van repeated.
“When we first got together, we were a real couple. You had ambition. Potential was everywhere. And now, as you well know, Van, it isn’t.”
A wave of panic rose inside her, and she fought to keep her voice in control. “You didn’t even want me to work at the International Center. You persuaded me to quit.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t blame me for your mistakes and failures, Van.”
“You did. You said—”
“We’ve both said a lot and most of it is a lot of nothing. We go right past each other. This isn’t just about work. Van. Stop being so literal. It’s about character, personalities.”
“In what way?”
“Shh,” he said. “Please keep your voice down. I have to work. This is my workplace. I’m meeting clients all day.”
“You want me out of here.”
“In a word, yes.”
In the few days Miles had been gone Van had cried only once in the shower and only once while watching TV. It was a strange thing with crying: by herself she could contain it; in the presence of another person she lost control. As a girl, if she was yelled at she would burst into instant, hyperventilating sobs. Even bad customer service could make her throat swell. She’d always been careful to maintain composure around Miles, but she knew he could see that she was on the verge.
“Don’t cry, Van.” It was a weary command. He stood up and said it again, more gently. “Van,” he repeated.
He walked over to her and, hesitating, patted her on the shoulder. “I’ll tell you though—it’s nice to hear you actively disagreeing with me. Not just going along.”
I thought you wanted me to go along, she almost said, but stopped herself. Was she supposed to agree or disagree with what he just said? Van found herself grabbing at Miles’s hands. His face, his eyes were inscrutable—had they always been? She had never understood how characters in books could discern entire ranges of emotion and understanding in someone else’s eyes. Miles’s steady gaze told her nothing more than what his words said. He let her hang on for a moment before drawing himself away. “Now’s not the time for this,” he said quietly. “Get yourself together.” And then, as if to reward her, he put his arms around her.
“We’ll talk soon. I have to come by the house to get some more things.”
She focused on the picture frame on his desk. “When?”
“Whenever I can. I’ll call you.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Don’t worry about it. Here.” He went back to his desk, opened a drawer, and set forth a box of Kleenex. “You have to go now.”
She looked around helplessly. “This isn’t right.”
“It’s okay. We’re going to be fine. Just go home now.” He spoke so tenderly that Van held on to the phrase we’re going to be fine. It was her lifeboat. “Don’t make a scene, okay?”
When Van left the office she moved quickly, letting her hair hang in her face to avoid seeing young Holly’s diamond ring.
It was only in the car, starting back home, that Van remembered something she had meant to do. Just keep going, she told herself, but the need to know was too strong: she did a U-turn and drove back to the maroon-and-glass building of Volker, Voss, and Williams. This time Van ignored Holly and headed straight to Miles’s office. He was standing at an open filing cabinet, briefcase on his desk. “What are you doing back here?” he demanded.
At his tone of trespass, the slight emphasis on you, Van stopped. She realized that she should feel ashamed. Ordinarily, she would. She would have felt like the desperate, needy girl who didn’t know when to walk away, take no for an answer. Now Van felt angry. It came on suddenly, like a boost of adrenaline in the last minute of a timed debate. It was anger, finally, that made her reach out to Miles’s desk. Her hand grasped the one picture frame sitting there and flipped it around. Van let out a breath she’d been holding. All that time, she had been expecting to see Julie.