CHAPTER NINE
That night, while Daisy’s showering, I curl up in my blankets and call my parents.
“Hello? Baobei?”
The sound of my mom’s voice sends an unexpected wave of homesickness crashing through me. It’s still morning on her end, and I can hear something sizzling in the background; footsteps on hardwood; the lovely, ordinary rhythm of life back home. I imagine my father in the kitchen, flipping an omelet because my mom always makes it too runny, and the homesickness crashes in harder, sweeping the shores of my ribs.
“Hi, Mom,” I say softly.
“How is everything?” she asks. “Your dad’s cooking breakfast right now. I asked him not to—I bet he’s going to burn the omelet again—but he’s been going on and on about how much he misses you. He wanted to call you yesterday, but I told him you’d be busy with all the activities you’re doing.”
“I really miss you guys too. And everything’s … good,” I say, surprised to find that it’s not a total lie. The curtains are still open a sliver, and through them, Shanghai is glowing, all its magnificent buildings bathed in an array of lights. It’s the kind of sight you could never get sick of, even if you stared at it every night. “I’ve been learning a lot. I actually won the first activity today—it was, like, this escape room thing in a teahouse—and I got this really pretty tea set for you and Dad. I’ll show you when I get back.”
“You won a tea set ?” From the sheer pride and enthusiasm in my mom’s voice, you’d think I’d won a whole mansion with cash stuffed into every room and our family name trimmed into the two-hundred-acre front lawn. “That’s amazing. How’s everything else? Did you make any new friends?”
It’s an old question, a familiar one.
Did you make any new friends? she’d asked eagerly that first afternoon after I transferred schools. I’d kept quiet, my lips quivering from the sheer effort of holding back my tears, and waited until she pulled the car away from the curb before my composure cracked. Nobody spoke to me the entire day , I sobbed. I—I don’t know why. Even when I tried to be friendly and ask questions, they just … ignored me. All of them.
Maybe it’s because you joined in the middle of the semester , my mom had tried to comfort me. They’re just getting used to you.
Maybe , I’d allowed, but I knew somehow that it wasn’t so simple.
Did you make any new friends? she’d asked when she picked me up from school the next week, still hopeful. By then, the rumors had reached me. The real reason why nobody wanted to sit next to me in class. To them, I was the girl who’d pushed someone off the stairs at my old school, the freak who’d been expelled for exhibiting violent, unstable behavior, the outcast who’d lashed out at one of the most popular, beloved boys.
During those days, it felt like I would die before the rumors did.
Did you make any new friends? my mom had asked again after I moved to my current school. It had felt strange to call Cate Addison a friend, as if I were imposing, even though we did everything friends ought to: We ate lunch together, shopped together, saved each other’s numbers and made plans for the weekends. But I was too relieved to have someone to eat lunch with, someone who would smile back at me when I greeted them. I did , I’d told my mother, and her relief was even more palpable than mine. See? I knew all you needed was a fresh start , she’d gushed, squeezing my hand. You deserve one.
Now I glance over in the direction of the bathroom, which Daisy had rushed into after I offered to let her go first, promising she’d be done as soon as she could and apologizing three times for making me wait while I reassured her, laughing, just as many times that it was fine. The shower is running loudly enough to cover my next words, so I say, “There’s this girl who’s really nice. Everyone’s been pretty nice to me, actually.”
“I’m so glad,” my mom says. “It might be just what you need.”
I push myself up from the pillows. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you don’t have any friends who are from a similar background. Not that Cate and your other friends aren’t wonderful young women,” she adds quickly. “But the more friends, the better—and you know, you might find that the people you meet on this trip have a lot in common with you.”
Her words are still running in a loop inside my head after we hang up.
I scroll through my phone to find a bunch of new photos posted by Cate: her and the other girls from my class tanning at the beach, their skin smooth and shiny as seals fresh out of the water, books with the same cheerful hot-pink cover placed on the sand next to them; holding up cocktail glasses with the sun setting in the background; mirror selfies at the mall; blurry, zoomed-in shots of them posing in the parking lot. Maybe I should feel left out, but I can imagine what it’d be like if I were with them right now—forcing myself to laugh at a joke I don’t find funny, pretending to be invested in the gossip about some famous British actor I don’t particularly like, swallowing down the expensive champagne when all I really want is a grape soda. I guess we don’t have that much in common, which would matter less if she cared more, but she hasn’t messaged me even once since I left LA.
I click away from her page, only to end up overwhelmed by an onslaught of posts from my modeling friends—or ex-friends, since I’ve barely spoken to any of them in weeks. Or maybe we were never really friends to begin with, but forced together by circumstance, in way over our heads and clinging to one another to stop from sinking. As soon as the circumstances changed, those ties dissolved.
I pull my bedcovers up higher, propping myself up on one elbow, and silently flick through the pictures. Magazine covers, glossy double-spreads, a huge brand deal, a new campaign, a special invitation to the fashion show of their dreams. Captions about their whirlwind of a weekend , how they had the absolute best time , how they’re so grateful for the experience , so excited, so thrilled, so happy. A dry, bitter taste creeps onto my tongue, and I know I should stop, leave it alone, yet it’s like prodding at the roots of a rotten tooth. When I first quit, I’d been afraid that the other models would be gleeful, that they would whisper to one another in lavender-candle-scented bathrooms, between quick flicks of mascara and spritzes of perfume, about how I had failed. But the reality is so much worse: They simply don’t care.
It should be proof, if nothing else, that I made the right choice to leave, and I should be searching for something new by now. Another purpose, another dream, something just for myself. But I’ve only ever known how to want what other people want.
I let my phone fall onto the pillow and hug the blanket to my chest. The hotel room is quiet, save for the sound of distant traffic and the water running in the bathroom. Being in Shanghai feels a little like slipping into an alternate reality, but I can no longer tell where real life is: here, in this glittering city, or what I’ve left back in LA.
***
When I caught the word shopping on our travel itinerary, my mind immediately lit up with images of multistory malls; banner ads for designer handbags hanging from the ceiling; groups of friends sipping milk tea and swinging their new purchases while riding the glass elevator up to the next level of clothing stores.
It’s not until we’re walking into the thick of the market—no designer handbags in sight, but plenty of floral shopping caddies—that I realize the shopping in question pertains to groceries. If I were the kind of person with a passion for buying fresh produce, this would probably be my favorite place in the world. The market is so massive that it takes up three whole blocks on its own, its shelves spilling over with natural colors: tangerines and dragon fruit and lychees and about ten different types of apples. It would probably also be the best place in the world to get trapped inside; even with the shoppers streaming through the stalls and haggling over carrots, there’s so much food stocked here that I’m sure it would last all of us well into next year.
“You’ll each get two hundred yuan to spend,” Wang Laoshi shouts at us, which is the most threatening way someone has ever offered me money before. He raises his voice further, straining to be heard over the vendors advertising their newly imported coconuts from Sanya. “I’ve forwarded a grocery list to everyone via the WeChat group—you can check it now. We’ve already paid for all the items at their full price, but for the purpose of this competition, we want you to put your Chinese skills into practice through the art of bargaining. Whoever manages to buy the most items with the allotted money wins this round, and you have one hour before we all meet back here. Do not waste the money on anything outside the list. Yes, I’m looking at you, Oliver.”
I feel myself light up as I pull out my phone. The list goes on for two whole pages, and it’s written only in Chinese, making it a little hard to identify what we’re meant to be buying. But it is, ultimately, a shopping competition. If this were offered as an elective at school, I might get to experience for the first time what it’s like to be at the top of my class.
“We should target different sections at a time so we don’t have to run around the market in circles,” Cyrus says, reading over the list on his phone. “I saw someone selling lettuce from his cart just now—”
“Okay, okay, let’s go,” I tell him, eager to get started. Out of the corner of my eye, I can already see Lydia dragging her teammate to the closest radish stall, her expression so fierce I wonder if her haggling tactics involve intimidation.
We split from the rest of the group and turn left, making a beeline for the lettuce cart.
The person manning it is more a boy than a grown-up, old enough to have graduated from high school but definitely not college. He’s playing on his phone when we approach him, and glances lazily up at us without pausing the game.
“How much for two heads of lettuce?” Cyrus asks, straight to the point. A bit too straight to the point.
I attempt to smother my frown, but Cyrus sees it anyway.
“What?” he mutters.
“That’s a horrible way to start a negotiation,” I mutter back to him. “Why would you pose it as an open-ended question? You’re basically asking for a higher price.”
He stares at me. “How else would you ask for the price of lettuce?”
“I’d ask him if it was one yuan or two yuan. He’d pick two yuan, of course, and then we’d go from there.” My gaze flickers to the boy, who’s already returned to his game. “Just try it.”
“Fine,” Cyrus says with a heavy air of skepticism. He clears his throat. “Are these one or two—”
“Two,” the boy says.
I don’t need a mirror to know that the smile on my face screams I told you so.
“All right,” Cyrus says in Chinese, actively avoiding my smile, and begins to reach for his wallet. “Then we’ll have—”
I elbow him, hard.
“What now ?” he says, spinning around.
“You can’t just accept it at two yuan,” I hiss. “There’s definitely room to go lower.”
“You bargain with him, then.”
“I will. Watch. Just don’t judge me for what I’m about to do.”
His brows shoot up. “Why would I judge—”
I switch my smile to the other one. The one I wear way more often in public, the one I’m admittedly a little ashamed of resorting to, but not so ashamed as to stop using it. It’s softer, half-sly, my chin tipping down, my eyes squinting into a smolder that’s as ridiculous as it is effective. Then, after consulting Google Translate, I fluff my hair out and lean forward as gracefully as I can over the pile of lettuce. “Really? You can’t go any cheaper?” I ask in a breathy voice I’m pretty sure I borrowed from a fantasy video game about sexy elves, but it’s perfect for my target audience.
The boy sets his phone aside and looks up for the first time, which I consider a tremendous success. “Two is the cheapest I can offer,” he says gruffly, but I can see him taking me in, his eyes wandering down from my lips to where my halter top is cropped at the waist to the slim length of my ankles, strapped into my black stilettos. This is what I’m good at. This is maybe, probably, the only thing I’m good at: fleeting impressions, tourist-attraction interest, something to admire for a minute before you start getting bored of seeing the same scenery.
“Quick. How do you say handsome in Chinese? Like, in a colloquial way?” I ask Cyrus under my breath.
“You don’t have to tell me I’m handsome in Chinese,” he replies, cocking his head. “English is fine.”
There are a number of things I would like to tell him that are less flattering and far more menacing, but I need to act fast while I still have the boy’s attention. “Cyrus.”
He hesitates. Sighs. “It’s shuaige,” he says, as resentfully as if the information had been tortured out of him. Then, in a lower voice, “I can’t believe I’m helping you flirt with this guy.”
“You’re helping me help us win,” I inform him, and turn back to the boy. “Please, shuaige. Can’t you be nice and let us buy the lettuce for fifty cents?” I doubt my grammar is entirely correct, but I hold out hope that any awkward turns of phrase are smoothed over by the way I’m gazing right at him as I play with a strand of my hair.
The boy blinks at me like he’s only just learned how to do it and wants to keep practicing. He blinks again. Three more blinks, two fast and one slow, and I’m beginning to wonder if he’s actually conveying a message in code when he nods and grabs the lettuce for us.
“Thank you so much, shuaige,” I coo.
“Maybe take the excitement down a notch,” Cyrus mutters in my ear. “Unless you want him to bring you home to meet his parents.”
I ignore him, then swiftly turn to grin at the boy. “Thanks again,” I say, fluttering my fingers in a wave.
I’m still waving to him as we head off to buy carrots next, with Cyrus hauling the bag of lettuce over his shoulder.
“This should be our strategy,” I tell him. “Just charm the vendors, and we might be able to buy things for a cheaper price.”
“I’m not sure I’m a fan of that strategy,” he says, walking faster.
“Yeah, okay, but you’re not a fan of anything.”
His gaze slices up to my face. “That’s not true.”
“Sure.” I let out a scoff of disbelief.
“I just don’t like relying on my charm to get the things I want.”
“That’s not what you were like before,” I say. When he doesn’t reply, I quicken my steps and peer over at him, curious. “You clearly can be charming, Cyrus. You were one of the most popular guys in our class, I remember. But these days … it’s like you’re going out of your way to make sure that nobody warms up to you, and to be honest, I have no idea why. ”
He looks away. Switches the lettuce over to his other shoulder, conveniently blocking my direct view of his face.
“Fine, how about this,” I say. “I’ll do all the charming, and you help translate a few compliments and carry the vegetables. Happy?”
“Never,” he says.
“Great.”
***
Our system works surprisingly well. With the exception of one grumpy vendor who looks like he’s in the business of selling leaves in another, more illegal form, I manage to charm and barter and beam my way down the entire length of our grocery list, until Cyrus has both his hands full with sacks of grains and vegetables. We must have walked around the entire perimeter of the market, because only half an hour in, my phone buzzes to let me know I’ve doubled my daily fitness goal, and my feet start aching. My feet are almost always aching, and it’s usually mild enough for me to ignore it, but the longer we walk, the deeper the straps of my heels press into my flesh. I feel like the little mermaid walking on land for the first time, wincing with every step I take.
I’m practically hobbling as Cyrus drops our purchases down in the designated cart, where the bus is parked and waiting. Most students in the group haven’t returned yet, but Lydia’s already standing there with bags of groceries so close to bursting I have to wonder if she simply robbed the vendors of their entire stalls. A small, self-satisfied smile flickers across her face when she looks over at our bags, which suddenly seem almost empty by comparison.
“I think she’s going to win this one,” I worry out loud to Cyrus.
I expect a much stronger reaction, but he appears distracted. “Is that so?” His gaze flickers down to my feet, and then he abruptly twists around in the other direction. “Come with me.”
“What? But we’ve already finished buying everything—where are you going?” I ask. It doesn’t take very long to catch up to him, and it’s not because I’ve developed a sudden tolerance for pain or my stilettos have magically reshaped themselves to accommodate my feet. Cyrus’s strides are much shorter, slower than they were before, and he glances at me every few seconds, as if to make sure we’re moving at the same pace.
I limp along until we’ve left the market behind us, the fresh breeze clearing away the smell of orange peels and sliced watermelon.
“In here,” Cyrus says, making another sharp turn toward a pharmacy on the corner of the street. He holds the door open and nods for me to enter.
The cool blast of air-conditioning hits me with full force as I hobble in, the sweat on my bare arms drying within seconds. The entire pharmacy is barely larger than our hotel rooms, but its blue-and-white shelves appear to be stacked with a bit of everything: rows upon rows of facial creams and toners and eye masks promising to reverse all signs of aging; cheap mascaras and lip tints and nail clippers; about twenty different kinds of vitamins sealed in orange jars. A gorgeous celebrity grins down at customers from a massive banner, holding up a new shade of lipstick like he’s proposing with it, his name scribbled at the bottom: Caz Song.
Cyrus is already at the counter, saying something in Chinese to the only retail assistant in here. I pick out the words do you and where before they both turn toward me .
“This for her?” the retail assistant asks in English, stepping around to speak to me. Two minutes , I note to myself with a mental grimace. I’ve been inside for two minutes, and that’s all it took for her to deduce that I can’t speak Chinese. By this point, I doubt I could look any more like a confused foreigner even if I glued my passport to my forehead.
The jade beads on the retail assistant’s bracelet clatter noisily as she reaches for something on the upper shelf to my right. “I have very good shampoo for you,” she declares, brandishing a hot-pink bottle.
“Oh,” I say, confused. I demand an explanation from Cyrus with my eyes—did he drag me over here to ask for shampoo recommendations ?—but he looks just as bewildered.
“This smells like oranges,” she continues, every word punctuated by an enthusiastic nod of her head, her high bun bobbing with it. “A favorite for our customers. Many girls say their boyfriends love the scent too—won’t stop following them around just to smell their hair. Very easy to wash out and will make your hair smooth and shiny and healthy, like a mermaid. Once you start using it, I promise you will never be able to pick up another shampoo brand again.”
Cyrus clears his throat. “We’re just looking for Band-Aids,” he says, switching to English too. “Do you have any—”
“Check the back,” the woman says briskly, and waves the shampoo higher in front of my face, her eyes gleaming. “But you will regret it for all your lifetimes to come if you leave without trying this shampoo. We have other types of shampoo too: papaya, mango, cherries, vanilla. There’s one for frizzing—does your hair frizz a lot?”
“No,” I say, distracted, tracking Cyrus’s movements out of the corner of my eye. He disappears behind one of the shelves, and reemerges seconds later with a small pack of Band-Aids. For me? I wonder to myself. It’s the only explanation for why he brought me here, and it’s surprisingly thoughtful. Suspiciously thoughtful. Two years seems too short a time for someone to grow a heart from scratch.
No, it must be a ploy of some kind. Another trick up his sleeve. The fact that I can’t be certain of what he’s aiming for, exactly, unsettles me. Maybe he has plans of his own to humiliate me yet again, or maybe he just wants to get to my aunt through me. Either way, I can’t let my guard down around him. Not now, not ever.
“There’s another one for hair damage,” the woman continues, reeling my attention back to her.
“Thank you for the recommendation,” I tell her, “but I really don’t need any shampoo—”
“Everyone needs this shampoo,” she says, undeterred. “ Everyone. Your favorite idol uses it. Your favorite idol’s idol uses it. I use the shampoo myself and it was the best decision I ever made—better decision than marrying my husband or buying an apartment in Puxi before the prices skyrocketed. If it’s the money you worry about, we have discount for first-time purchases …”
“That’s okay, but thank you,” I tell her, stepping back.
“We’ll just have this,” Cyrus speaks up, dropping the Band-Aids onto the counter.
Her face falls with such obvious disappointment that I almost consider buying the shampoo to cheer her up.
As soon as Cyrus finishes paying, he guides me back out onto the street and gestures for me to sit on an empty bench.
“She certainly loves that shampoo,” I can’t help remarking.
“Maybe they sponsored her,” Cyrus suggests, tearing open the pack.
“Maybe her grandparents founded the shampoo brand.”
“Maybe the founder of the shampoo brand was hiding in the pharmacy and listening to us the whole time.”
“Maybe the founder saved her life many years ago and asked only that she passionately promote their product in exchange.”
“Maybe the shampoo saved her life,” Cyrus suggests.
I snort. “How would that work?”
“Say a robber had been about to attack, but the shampoo made her hair so shiny that they completely forget what they were doing and stopped just to admire her glossy locks.”
“She did have pretty shiny hair,” I recall. “You know, I actually kind of want that shampoo now …” But the rest of my sentence screeches to a halt when Cyrus bends down before me and reaches for my left heel, his hand hovering an inch away from my bare ankle.
“Let me help,” he offers, his face angled down, sweet and pliant, his lashes enviably long, his eyes so dark that someone less careful would go tumbling straight into their depths, never to resurface again.
I keep my feet rooted firmly to the ground. “That’s fine,” I try to say, but he’s already untying the delicate straps of my shoe with quick, nimble fingers, sliding it off slowly and bringing my ankle down to rest on his bent knee. He sucks in a quiet breath when he sees the angry red blisters marring my heel, the skin rubbed raw and a short walk away from bleeding. There’s hardly any inch of skin that isn’t damaged in some way, between the mottled purplish-yellow bruises and the dark lines from where the leather edges dug in too deep.
“I know you like your high heels, and I’m not here to get in the way of that,” he says, “but do you have to wear them everywhere you go? Don’t you own a single pair of comfortable walking shoes?”
“It’s a habit,” I tell him.
“But it’s hurting you,” he says.
As if you actually care. My pain has never meant anything to him before—it’s all just for show, it must be. But whatever his real motive is, he’s more committed to this act than I expected. I can only stare as Cyrus Sui peels the pink Band-Aid and presses it over my broken skin, smoothing it out with his thumb, his touch shockingly tender. And for just a few seconds, I remember him from the time before he ruined my life. When he was only a boy who’d picked up a wounded bird after it had slammed into our classroom window, cradling its tiny, shivering body in his palms, insisting on caring for it even when everyone else told him to let it go. I remember the look in his eyes, concern and fear and stubborn hope. I’d done my best to banish those memories, to destroy any evidence that suggested he might not be a wholly horrible person, because then it was too confusing. It made hating him too difficult.
My confusion only deepens alongside my suspicion when he helps me slide my shoe back on like it’s a glass slipper, chivalrous and fake as a fairy-tale prince. It’s ridiculous behavior. Borderline disturbing. Like a murderer stroking your hair after stabbing you in the back.
“What is this, Cyrus?” I demand, unable to take it anymore. “What are you trying to achieve here?”
He blinks up at me with perfect, pretend innocence. “Preventing you from limping the rest of the trip? You’re welcome, by the way.”
I grit my teeth. I have no idea how to talk to him when he’s like this.
Relief sings through my body when I see two familiar figures heading out of the market just ahead of us. Oliver is carrying a single, half-empty basket, which he swings about as he walks, with Daisy following after him, her head down and elbows squeezed in to move past the other shoppers.
“That’s all you got?” I ask Oliver, peering around him in the very unlikely event that he might be hiding a cart of vegetables behind his back. “Did you guys lose your money halfway through?”
“Don’t even,” Oliver says, setting their basket down. It’s so light that it doesn’t even make a sound when it lands on the concrete. “Daisy refuses to bargain—”
“I didn’t refuse,” Daisy protests feebly, her round face flushing.
“No, no, listen to this, guys,” Oliver goes on, holding up his hands as if getting ready for a dramatic reenactment. “I had just managed to convince this man to drop the price for the radish down by fifty cents—he’s literally about to hand the radish over to us—when Daisy pops her head in and tells him that it’s okay. As in, it’s totally okay to sell the radish for the full price. Then she apologizes . For volunteering to pay him more money . Before she offers to pay him extra . Have we time-traveled straight to Christmas or something?” he asks, deadpan. “Because I don’t recall it being the season of giving.”
“He said that he had children,” Daisy mumbles.
“Didn’t you hear Wang Laoshi say that everything’s been prepaid for us? Plus, I’m sorry to break this to you, but a lot of people have children,” Oliver says. “If you really think—”
“Oliver has no concept of money,” Daisy blurts out.
Oliver’s jaw drops, obviously stunned that he’s not the only one doing the tattling.
“It’s true,” Daisy insists, her face turning almost the same red as the single tomato in their basket, while Cyrus and I watch the exchange with growing amusement. “He kept asking me, ‘Is two yuan cheap?’ ‘Is three hundred yuan cheap?’ It’s like he’s never been inside a market before.” Somehow, this commentary is a thousand times more entertaining when delivered in her quiet, tentative voice. “He nearly had a mental breakdown when he discovered the price of an egg. There were tears in his eyes.”
“Just goes to show I’m in touch with my emotions,” Oliver says without any shame. “But also, like, we couldn’t find half the things on the list. We looked everywhere for the jackfruit, and every time we thought we’d spotted it at last, it turned out to be durian.”
“Well,” Cyrus says casually, locking eyes with me, “if you’re ever searching for shampoo, we know just the place.”
Laughter springs out of me before I have time to stifle it. It’s my real laugh—an embarrassingly loud, honking sound that would be put to better use as a fire alarm. I clamp my mouth shut, my skin heating at the slip in my composure, but Cyrus is grinning at me.
“Uh, what?” Oliver asks, looking lost.
“Ignore him,” I say, but I’m talking more to myself. Ignore Cyrus, don’t trust him, don’t let yourself laugh at his remarks. Only one person is going to get their heart broken at the end of this trip, and it’s not going to be you.
I look down at the Band-Aid on my heel and make a mental note to rip it off as soon as I can.