Chapter 8
Helena
“A party?” Linyue exploded at me, her face red. Her tiny little glasses slid down her nose, and it would have been comical if I didn’t feel like I was getting pulled apart from every direction. “You take Cheng Shiyi and run off out of Manhattan to a party with him and you don’t even tell anyone?”
My apartment, normally a safe refuge, was suddenly just walls closing me in with her. I was too grown-up now to be this scared of someone like Linyue yelling at me. “He had a good time,” I protested weakly.
“He had a good time! Well, then that just makes it all okay, doesn’t it?
” She marched in through the door, inviting herself into my apartment, and I wished I had the temerity to stand in her way and shut the door.
Instead, I stepped aside and stood rigidly by the door as it swung shut behind her, and I watched as she paced across the room, a hand to her forehead, and sat at the kitchen table, turning to face me.
“What I think you don’t understand,” she said, “is that this is very, very expensive business. Cheng Shiyi could have financed an entire apartment tower in Shanghai. Instead, he came to look into Shiyun America, even during a downturn. That is more than just dollars and yuan, Ms. Warrick. That is reputation, and reputation is valuable.”
I corralled all the defiance in my body to say, “Is he pulling out of anything because of this?”
“Business is carefully coordinated.” She waved her phone at me and dropped it on the table.
“Do you think I manage these schedules for nothing? We aren’t here to entertain Cheng.
We’re trying to guide him along a carefully constructed path that would lead him to investing.
Every step of the way was planned out before he even booked a flight.
He was not on American soil for one hour before the plan was useless, because now he’s more interested in playing at parties with models. ”
My face burned, and I squeezed my hands tightly. I refused to back down and be small, but I was so crumpled up already that I didn’t have anything I could say, so I just stood there like a statue. She shook her head, adjusting her glasses with a frustrated sigh.
“Why did you not tell anybody?”
“I didn’t think it was a big deal.” That was a lie. I knew it was going to go exactly like this.
“You have never done anything like this before.”
“I… I know, but…”
“Is it Ms. Fong? Did she tell you to do this?”
My throat tightened. “It was my idea,” I lied. She stood up slowly.
“In that case, I think we will have to keep a closer eye on you,” she said.
“You are a representative of the brand, whether you like it or not. And I think you do not understand that. We will make sure you do not have any further dealings with Mr. Cheng so as not to derail the plan any further, and you will be focusing very intently on your reputation.”
“But—” I wrapped my arms defensively around myself, feeling smaller by the second. My voice came out pitifully when I said, “I’m not a child.”
“Then why do you act like one?” she yelled, and I flinched.
She gestured wordlessly at me, her face tinged pink, and I flinched away again, which prompted her to keep going.
“You want to tell me you’re an adult, then be an adult.
You go off to parties, drink and flirt, you damage the brand.
If you don’t want to be treated like a child, don’t act like a child. ”
I withered under the barrage, tears building up behind my eyes even though I refused to cry. I couldn’t say anything, just stood there dumbly, forcing myself to keep looking her head-on, and she sighed again, shorter and harder this time, as she shook her head, shoulders falling.
“Things have been very difficult lately,” she said. “The pressure from Shanghai is getting to be enormous. We are all under a lot of stress.”
I think that was supposed to be her way of apologizing for the outburst. Not with an apology, with an explanation of why she had no choice but to yell at me. I didn’t respond—didn’t have anything that wouldn’t make me sound pathetic—and it wasn’t what she wanted. She turned and went for the door.
“You will be checking in on the app regularly to let me know what you’ve been doing.
I will have to enable location sharing until we have established enough trust to turn it back off.
I hope that we can return to normal soon.
Have a good day, Ms. Warrick,” she said, and she left the apartment, leaving me alone to break, the tears coming now, more out of frustration than anything else.
Or… I wanted to believe, at least, that it was out of frustration. Anything else was too pathetic.
I knew it had been a bad idea. I wanted to be mad at Estelle for convincing me, but I didn’t have it in me. She just wanted me to have a good time. Didn’t know how badly I was constricted over here. And I was happy for her, that she didn’t know.
I just hoped she didn’t overreact when she found out. She’d always been… protective, like that. But even if she tried, I’d just be quietly tending to my responsibilities. Like I should have been the whole time.
∞∞∞
I stayed productive through the day. Attended a meeting with the creative head of a new division of a good brand, someone I was supposed to be working with on a project for the next few weeks, and it went well—deployed my best social graces, and it seemed to work.
Had some conversations after that in the lobby of a nice hotel in Midtown, and one of them escalated to getting coffee together, talking business—or, well, a man talking business while I nodded along.
He didn’t seem too interested in what I had to add to the conversation anyway, so I just agreed with his points and made him feel like a very smart man, and it was a success that left me as hollow as everything else had today.
Once he’d left, I sat with my mind wandering in the back of the pretty gold and brown café with swan-shaped latte art and overpriced muffins, thinking about the party and bludgeoning myself with every bad decision I’d made last night, when the centerpiece of all those bad decisions texted me.
CASSANDRA
Did everything go okay with Linyue?
Cassandra. The married woman who I gave a cute nickname to and spent the evening flirting with, so much so that Estelle started to get worried.
In the moment, I’d brushed off Estelle’s playful comments as just teasing, but she did that…
coached actual concerns in little jokes so it didn’t come across too harshly.
And objectively, she was right: I should not have been flirting with Houdini.
I’d just gotten it in my head she needed to pull her escape act to get away from an evil husband, and go get what she wanted from a girl.
She didn’t really hide that she was attracted to me, and I was flattered by it when I should have been shutting it down altogether.
As if I hadn’t learned anything from last time.
I guess one bad decision led to another, and going to a party I should have ignored led to thinking I could show Houdini what she was missing.
She was a dirty little liar, too. She said she was bad with names, but she’d picked up every name, referenced names constantly, and still remembered this whole thing with Linyue even with how much she’d been drinking when we’d had those conversations. The nerve of her, lying to my face like that.
I needed to stop thinking cute things like that about her. I also needed to stop talking to her altogether. She was charming, but I knew she liked me, and she had a husband, no matter how she felt about him. I texted her back.
HELENA
She wasn’t happy. Told me I’m expected now to do overtime on my regular work to prove to them I can be trusted.
CASSANDRA
They sound controlling as hell.
HELENA
It’s big business. With big stakes, unfortunately. It was nice to meet you, but it will probably be some time before I can see you again, now that I’m being forcibly repositioned.
She spent a while typing and deleting on her end, and my stomach sank more than I wanted it to.
I got to have one night to myself and one fun conversation with someone who didn’t reduce me to dumb-and-D-cups, and now I was paying the price for it.
Didn’t really want to push her away, but I knew what needed to be done.
CASSANDRA
That works.
I frowned, chest tightening. I guess it was better that way, but… I don’t know, I’d sort of hoped she’d be disappointed. I replied petulantly.
HELENA
Oh, yeah? Got tired of me?
CASSANDRA
No, just gives me more time to make my magnum opus before I meet the muse again.
You know, Odysseus on his voyage.
“Oh, shut up,” I laughed to myself, a smile on my face despite everything. I felt my face prickle with warmth, but… very differently than it had been this morning.
HELENA
How many people died during Odysseus’s voyage? Should I be worried?
CASSANDRA
I’m not gonna lie, I don’t know. The music studio gets pretty intense, but I don’t expect to have to blind any cyclopes.
HELENA
As if the cyclops could trap you? You can pull off enough escape tricks on people with two eyes.
CASSANDRA
I’ll save up the most thrilling stories for when I see you again.
What kind of music do you like?
This was going terribly. I tried to push her away and ended up flirting again, and now here she was, getting to know me better.
HELENA
Surprise me.
CASSANDRA
That’s not a real answer.
HELENA
What do you think I like?
CASSANDRA
Dubstep. I can see you headbanging to wub-wub.
HELENA
Uh-huh. I’ll give you something to escape from, Houdini.
CASSANDRA
I bet you like stuff like Adele, Rhianna. Something pop but with soul to it.
She’d gotten too good a read on me after all. She was a dangerous woman. I finished my coffee as I replied.
HELENA
Nope, it was the wub-wub dubstep.
CASSANDRA
Well, then you can count on one tearjerkingly beautiful muse-inspired dubstep performance when I see you again.
Again with that, when I see you again. No if, just when. She was hard to shake. I’d have to play unfair.
HELENA
I look forward to it.
No trouble on your end after last night?
CASSANDRA
Only the normal amount of trouble I am.
Why?
HELENA
Your husband didn’t find out about your excursion?
CASSANDRA
Oh that.
I haven’t talked to him.
I don’t think he heard anything.
Oh… come to think of it, she had mentioned a small apartment in Queens. Tiny, but the way she liked it. Were they separated? They’d have to be recently so if she wasn’t used to attending things without him.
HELENA
Glad we didn’t get you in too much trouble.
CASSANDRA
Ah, you know me. I’m always trouble.
Sorry about everything with Linyue and your family.
HELENA
It’s fine. I had my fun. Time to get back to work.
Take care, Houdini. I’ll probably be hard to get a hold of while I’m deep in the trenches.
But I hope everything goes well for you.
CASSANDRA
Do what you need! Just don’t forget about me.
Kingmaker and I are going to be out here changing lives until I sail over the wine-dark sea and return.
Where did she get off being so romantic? Why was it always the ones you couldn’t have who knew how to be romantic?
Well… she wasn’t a bad person. It was probably for the best we broke it off early and with only good things between us. So I indulged in a reply back.
HELENA
May swift winds bring you safely home, Odysseus.
I’d only just sent the text when I saw someone waving at me from the corner of my eye, and I looked up and quickly hid the text log like a guilty secret, turning my phone face-down, when I saw Estelle come around the bar and towards me, smiling with a note of concern in her eyes.
She was dressed casually today, in a loose Dior sweater and a baseball cap, which meant she was probably out and about just for fun.
“Hey, babe,” she said. “What are you doing lurking in a secret back corner? Crime? Can I join?”
“Sorry, crime ring’s full,” I said, sliding my phone into my bag. “Just had a meeting here a minute ago. What, are you stalking me now?”
She grinned, dropping down in the chair across from me. “You should be so lucky.” But her smile fell, replaced with something artificial and thick with concern, and she said, “I hear you’re on, um… overtime?”
“Who told you?”
“Bella’s on scheduling talks with Linyue, said she was a bit terse, asked me if I knew anything. I figured I could probably put the pieces together.”
I looked away, cupping my coffee in both hands. “I had fun last night. But you know, hangover comes after the party.”
“So, she had a fit.”
“She just wanted me to be more communicative.” I’d rehearsed this conversation, and with the emotional distance now from Linyue’s incident this morning, I could see things more rationally.
Like that Linyue was right, for one. This was big business, and a party wasn’t worth that much.
“So I’m concentrating more on my work now. ”
She leaned in, folding her arms on the table. “When you say your work, you mean being a good little doll for Linyue and your dad.”
I shrugged. “I’m a model, Estelle. It’s what I do. And I intend to do it well.”
“I know you do it well, but you want to do more than that.”
“It’s fine. I was just curious about what the scene was like.”
She pouted. I didn’t like that look. Always meant she was scheming something. At length, at last, she said, “I guess she really tore you a new one, huh?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I said delicately. “It’s a bit embarrassing…”
She made a face, and slowly, she stood up. “Well,” she said, “I am going to get a coffee, because I’m looking at that, and my soul is crying out to have some too, and then we’re going to go shopping together?”
I laughed dryly. “I don’t need retail therapy, Estelle. Honestly, I’m fine. And I should probably get moving. I’ve got people to check in with.”
“I thought this was going to be a free evening for you,” she said, hands on her hips. I finished my coffee, and I stood up with her.
“It is, and I can spend my free evenings how I like. In this case… getting a headstart on my work for next week.”
She scrunched up her face looking at me for a while before she stepped back, plastering on a smile that a blind man could see through.
“Ooh, a headstart!” she said. “It’s good to see you so eager.
Well, have fun. I’ll let you know if I see anything in the shop that you’re going to be sad you don’t have, so I can give you FOMO and make you totally regret not coming with me. ”
“I am devastated in advance. Okay, you. I’ll see you around.”
I didn’t want to know whatever she was planning. It didn’t matter anyway. I was moving forward. That was what counted right now.