Chapter 15 Chanel
Chanel
The call comes at five in the morning.
That’s how I know it’s bad news, even before I pick up. Good news respects your schedule—it lets you sleep in and do your
hair and choose your outfit for the morning. Bad news doesn’t really care about any of that, since it’s going to ruin your
day anyway.
“Oh my god, Chanel, I’m so sorry,” Jamie says immediately into the phone.
“What?” I say, rubbing my eyes, wrestling against sleep for clarity. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw the news,” she says.
“What news?” I ask, sitting upright now, already pulling open Baidu. My fingers quiver over the phone screen and I keep typing
my own name wrong, but it turns out that it doesn’t matter because it comes up automatically in the trending searches. It’s
in the top three this morning. I stare at the little red fire symbol next to the headline, the one that’s only used for the
hottest topics.
brEAKING: Coco Cao files for divorce from Cao Yunchen
It takes me three tries to read through the full article. Maybe it’s some sort of automatic self-defense mechanism kicking
in, but my brain refuses to absorb anything on the page. The words keep blurring together on the screen, skipping out of reach,
until I make myself sit down with the phone balanced on my knees and stare at the sentences a stranger somewhere wrote about
the most personal pain I’ve ever experienced.
After twenty years of marriage, nightclub owner Cao Yunchen and model Coco Cao have officially called it quits. A close source
to the Beijing-born billionaire has revealed that the pair split up in late December of last year.
This news may come as a shock to those who have been rooting for the power couple since their famously extravagant fairy-tale
wedding, which was reported to have cost over $25 million. Gift bags alone were heavily sponsored by luxury brands and valued
at $20,000 each, including an all-expense-paid, week-long vacation to Sanya, with some bags resold after the event for $100,000.
An estimated three hundred of the total two thousand guests were fellow celebrities.
A number of eagle-eyed fans from Coco Cao’s official fan club, however, have said there were signs early on. Coco Cao was
first photographed without her wedding ring outside Sanlitun on January 28, though it later appeared in the series of selfies
she shared on Weibo on February 4.
Fans have also connected the divorce to Coco Cao’s recent noticeable weight loss. While she is known for her tall, slender figure, fans expressed their concerns after photos of the supermodel in a low-cut gown at a Bulgari event went viral, noting her “sickly” complexion.
Other sources claim that the couple has become increasingly hostile as legalities proceed, to the point where they’re no longer
even speaking to each other. Rumors of Cao Yunchen cheating with a much younger woman continue to circulate.
Their only daughter, eighteen-year-old Chanel Cao (@chanel.cao), is currently in her final year at Airington International
Boarding School. She’s reported to be living with her mother, though she was spotted entering her father’s nightclub, Club
Sixty-Eight Hours, last night.
Neither Coco Cao nor Cao Yunchen has publicly commented on the divorce.
More articles keep popping up. They’re delving deeper into my family history, connecting the dots, concocting their own theories
about why it happened. My parents’ marriage is now a museum with a full tour and free entry. My childhood photos have now
become the face of the Great Tragic Divorce.
I slam my phone down on the bed, my blood pounding in my ears.
The timing feels too close to be a coincidence. Had someone spotted me at the club last night? Had they witnessed my fight
with my father? Is that why they’re leaking the story now?
Or could it be some kind of extreme effort to sabotage my prom queen campaign?
If so, it’s working. At school, the news has clearly made its way around already.
People still say hi, but there are a hundred unspoken questions tucked into that single word, questions I know they’re all dying to find out.
Is the news true? How long was your father cheating on your mom? When did you first realize?
From all the pitying glances I’m getting, you’d think somebody in my immediate family had died in a freak accident. But underneath
their pity, I can sense their glee too.
Finally. Proof that my life isn’t so blessed, that I’m not so absurdly, outrageously lucky, that I don’t get to have everything.
They’ll go to bed and remind themselves that yes, I might be enjoying the nice cars and the luxury handbags and the TV appearances,
but do they really want to be me, knowing my dad cheated on my mom with someone closer to my age than hers?
It’s a blow to my reputation, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to recover from this. I can feel my vision of myself as prom
queen—perfect, beautiful, admired—starting to disintegrate at the edges, slipping further and further out of reach. Even if
the fated fire hasn’t happened yet, my life seems to be going up in flames already.
Maybe my prime is already over, the way every actor or singer must have a peak and inevitable subsequent downfall. Maybe my
life will never be as good as it once was.
There’s a hot prickling sensation in the back of my eyes, and I’m blinking fast to make it go away when Vanessa Liu stops
me in the hall.
We’re the kind of friendly where we beam and wave at each other and stop to compliment each other’s hair or complain about our classes, but we would never actually hang out together on weekends.
She’s staring at me now, sympathy swimming all over her face as she clasps my hand. “How are you holding up?” she asks.
I remind my lips how to smile. “Oh, I’m fine,” I tell her.
“No, really. It must be so hard.” She keeps this up for a while, with her spoken-poetry-style emphasis on random words, as if everything suddenly becomes
profound when your parents’ divorce is splashed all over the news. “Are you all right? Do you need anything? Because if you do, I’m here for you—you can talk to me at any time.”
“Thanks, girl, that’s super sweet of you. But I am fine. Really,” I add in the same tone she used.
“I just can’t believe it,” she says, apparently still not done with this conversation. “I’m shocked. I’m so shocked—were you
shocked? I mean, did you know?”
I’m trying to figure out a quick escape when someone taps my shoulder. I twist around, braced for another half friend to pry
into my life under the guise of concern, but instead I find myself staring up at Ares.
He holds my gaze for a beat, his lips slightly parted, his head cocked as if to assess something.
And all at once, everything from last night rushes back to me. The confessions I’d made in the darkness of the car, the way
I’d nuzzled against him. He had been so patient and gentle with me, and I’d been so grateful for it that I had let my guard
fall. But now, in broad daylight, regret burns sour in my throat like a nasty hangover. Could he have been the one to leak the story?
“Can you help me with something?” Ares asks.
Vanessa’s brows shoot up with a new sort of curiosity. I don’t think Ares has asked anyone at school for help before.
On any other day, I would be thrilled by this, the fact that he’s the one seeking me out. Proof of progress, a rare sign that he’s interested in me. But I hesitate and eye him warily, my mind still combing through
all the information I’d slipped to him yesterday, trying to connect it with the article, to calculate the chances that he’s
the culprit. “Okay,” I say at last.
He leads me away from the countless pairs of eyes, down the corridor and into an empty Chinese classroom. The door clicks
shut behind him, and he stops under the display of crimson paper fans we’d folded for the spring festival.
I drop into the teacher’s chair and cross my ankles to keep myself from fidgeting. I can’t believe it’s still morning. It
feels like a decade has passed since I woke up.
“Chanel,” Ares starts to say. “Are you—”
“Did you leak the story?” I blurt out.
He had been walking toward me, but he comes to an abrupt halt, his eyes widening with confusion, then surprise, before hardening.
I realize at once that I’ve asked the wrong question, made a fatal mistake.
“Why would I do that?” he asks, visibly affronted.
“I—I don’t know.” I swallow the lump in my throat. Even though the windows have been left ajar, the classroom feels too hot,
too stuffy. “To embarrass me? To ruin my reputation? To make money off the story? Because you don’t like me?”
With every word that comes out of my mouth, the muscle in his jaw winds tighter and tighter, until he takes a step back, shaking his head. “Jesus, Chanel,” he says. “I wasn’t aware you had such a low opinion of me.”
“It’s not you, personally,” I hurry to say, to somehow explain it’s less that I don’t trust him, and more that I don’t trust
anyone, but I can tell the damage has already been done.
“I was just going to check to see if you were okay,” he says slowly. “But if you don’t want to tell me anything, that’s fine.”
“Wait,” I say, reaching for him, as if I can reach through time and reverse this whole conversation, but when I grab his arm,
he flinches like my very touch burns him, his jaw clenched. I pull back, humiliated, blinking fast, trying not to let my hurt
show.
Without another word, he turns to go, as if he can’t stand being in this room with me for even one more second.
Come back, I’m tempted to call after him. I didn’t mean it. But my pride is already lying in pieces at my feet.
The door slams shut after him, and in the following silence, I draw my knees up to my chest, feeling sick. I’m almost impressed
with how badly I’ve fucked everything up. My classmates all pity me, my chances of winning prom queen are lower than ever,
and I’ve just single-handedly shattered whatever goodwill I’ve built with Ares over the last week.