Chapter Seventeen
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I don’t sleep a wink that night. I lie in bed, turning one way, then the other, then back again, and so on and so forth until I give up and turn on my bedside lamp. Shang and I had a call earlier to say good night, but I didn’t want to tell him over the phone, so I held it back the entire time. Now, as I check my phone, I find a text from him.
I’m missing someone. She’s the funniest woman I know.
Smiling, I text back:
Funniest? That was the best you could come up with?
I’m about to put the phone down when three dots appear.
Shang:
And the most beautiful. And the smartest. And the coolest.
Me:
Thank you, that’s more like it.
I put the phone down, then pick it up again.
Me:
Hey, tomorrow morning can you meet me before the meeting?
Shang:
I promised my mom I’d pick her up to come to the meeting. I can pick her up early and see you at the office before the meeting is due to start?
I gnaw on my bottom lip. It’s not ideal having Shang’s mom in the office as well while I tell him the truth, but I can take him aside for some privacy. All I know is, I need to tell him before I tell his entire family. Ugh, what terrible timing it all is.
Me:
Yeah, that works. Maybe come in twenty minutes early? I’ll make sure to have some breakfast ready for your mom so she can eat while she waits.
Shang:
Thank you, that’s so considerate. X
I place the phone back on the nightstand, flop back into bed, and try to will myself to sleep. It goes about as well as expected.
The following morning, I jerk awake when my alarm goes off. Groaning, I turn the alarm off and push myself up. I must’ve had less than an hour of sleep. I feel rough, as though I have a hangover even though I didn’t have anything to drink the night before. Then reality hits me and I sit up straight. Today is the day when I tell Shang the truth. And his family. And hope it doesn’t blow our deal wide open.
Who am I kidding, it will most definitely blow our deal wide open, or at the very least delay it. But my mother is right, I can’t go forward with either a personal or professional relationship based on a lie. Best-case scenario, the Lis laugh it off and say they knew all along. Worst-case scenario, they lawyer up and sue the firm for all it’s worth, and Baba loses the company he spent the last two decades building from the ground up. Not to mention I’ll lose the best relationship I’ve had in years. Or ever. Great. No biggie.
I take my time getting dressed, applying my makeup with extra care and choosing a navy blue pantsuit. I nod at my reflection and say, “You look like someone who’s about to blow her life up.” Nope, too negative. “You look like someone on a mission. A really impossible one.” Wow, I suck at pep talks. I release my breath in a huff, grab my keys, and leave the apartment.
As promised, I stop by a bagel shop on the way to the office and buy two dozen bagels and four different tubs of cream cheese. I know I am overcompensating and probably trying to assuage my guilt by overfeeding everyone, but at the very least Shang’s mom won’t go hungry while I have the world’s most awkward conversation with her son. When I get to the office, I instruct everyone to please just not call me Mulan when the Wutai Gold people show up.
“Do you want us to call you Zhou?” Josh the analyst says. I guess word has gotten out about me asking Mushu and Gerald to call me Zhou last time.
“No,” I say. I am so tired of being Zhou. The last thing I want to hear is anyone calling me Zhou.
They all look at me with apparent confusion. Mushu raises her hand.
“Yes?” I say wearily.
“Is there a name you’d prefer us to use, or are you in, like, a nameless era right now, like a rapper or a yogi?”
“Oh, right.” I sigh. God, I’m too tired to even put on my Work Mulan mask and say something professional. Of course I haven’t thought of a name for myself. “Just. I need to do something, and can you all just not…mention my name at all until after I do the thing? If you need me, I don’t know, just tap my shoulder or say ‘Hey’ really loudly or something.”
Mushu nods with a satisfied smile. “Yep, she’s in her yogi era. This is Transcendent Mulan. Oops, sorry, not Mulan. She whose name shall never be uttered.”
“Okay, glad that’s sorted.” I hand the bagels over to an intern and instruct him to lay them out nicely in the conference room. Then I signal to Mushu to follow me into my office. As soon as we have privacy, I turn to her and say, “I’m going to tell Shang the truth.”
“Damn, okay,” she says.
“Today. Right now.” I check my watch. “Well, in a few minutes. He’s coming here before the meeting with Wutai Gold.”
Mushu’s eyes widen. “Really? Before the meeting?”
“Yeah, and it has to be before the meeting because”—I take a deep breath—“I’m telling his family the truth, too.”
Mushu whistles. “Wow. Have you thought this through?”
I nod. “I can’t go through with the buyout knowing that I’ve lied to them this whole time.”
“Okay. I’ve got your back no matter what.”
“Thanks, Mushu.”
“Even though I think you’re making a terrible mistake. I’m telling you, changing your name legally is the way to go.”
“Yeah, okay, thank you.” I shake myself, smiling a little as Mushu leaves the office. How does Mushu manage to make me laugh even at a time like this?
I check my phone again. Shang should be here by now. I look up, peering through the glass walls of my office, half expecting to see him arriving with his mom, but the reception area is Shang-less. I open up our text thread and begin composing a message, but then delete it. He’s probably on his way, and I don’t want him to text while driving.
The minutes crawl along, painfully slow. I sit at my desk, one foot wagging nervously, picking up my phone every now and again in case I’ve somehow missed a text from Shang. Just then, a message arrives. But it’s not from Shang. It’s from his mom.
Auntie Jiayi:
Hi Zhou, this is Auntie Jiayi. Shang told me to message you because he is driving. There was a car accident on the road, looks like we will be late to the meeting. Shang is very sorry.
“No!” I groan out loud. “Damn it.” I quickly type out a reply thanking Auntie Jiayi for the update, then bury my face in my hands. Now what? I don’t want to ambush Shang with the news in front of his family; after everything the two of us have shared, he deserves to be told this in private. My palms are so sweaty by now that my phone slips out of my hands and drops onto the floor. I barely register it. Breathe . But I can’t. There’s a fist around my chest and it’s squeezing. Stop that. Stop. Get a freaking grip . I force myself to take a deep inhale and count to five before releasing it in one long, continuous exhale.
The answer comes to me slowly. It’s too late for me to cancel the meeting now; the Lis are probably all on their way. So the next-best thing would be to stall. Yes. I’ll tell them that there is a slight delay, that the legal department is still ironing out small kinks—yes, that’s good, every contract has kinks—and that we will be ready later today. Or the day after, whatever works for the Lis. And as soon as I can get Shang alone, I will immediately tell him.
I grip the armrest of my chair, tightening and loosening my hands as I go over the new plan. As far as plans go, it’s not a brilliant one, but it’s decent, and that’s the best I can hope for under the circumstances. The Lis aren’t going to be pleased about having their time wasted, but they’re businesspeople—they are not unfamiliar with delays and minor disruptions like this.
By the time the Li family arrives, I’m as ready as I can be. I greet them at the reception area, giving each one a firm handshake, telling them how nice it is to see them again. I’m leading them into the conference room when Shang and his mother arrive. He hurries out of the elevator as soon as the doors slide open and greets his family but doesn’t stop walking until he’s in front of me.
“Hey, I’m so sorry I couldn’t get here earlier,” he says.
“That’s okay, don’t worry about it,” I say.
There’s an awkward pause as we both notice everyone in the office—the Lis and my colleagues—watching us. I clear my throat. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here. Let’s get inside.” The last thing I need is for the rest of Shang’s family and my colleagues to find out about my relationship with Shang. We’re not exactly hiding it, but we haven’t announced it officially yet, and this is definitely not the most auspicious of times to be doing that.
Everyone files inside the conference room. Mushu is the last one in, and she closes the door behind her.
This is it. I stand at the head of the conference table and force a smile as I gaze down at the expectant faces. “Good morning, everyone, I’m so glad you could make it here today.”
“It’s very good seeing you again, Zhou,” Uncle Hong says. “You are an impressive young lady and we are excited to sell our company to you.”
James scowls, but everyone else nods genially.
“Thank you, Uncle Hong,” I say. “I’m so honored that you’ve decided to sell Wutai Gold to us. I know how much the company means to you and I promise you that we will do right by it and preserve your legacy. And that is why we are taking extra care with the contracts to make sure that everything is perfect.” The words feel leaden, thunking out of my mouth, awkward and obviously untrue. I keep going. “There are a few kinks that we still need to iron out, but—”
There is a knock at the door. I frown at Mushu, who jumps up.
“I’ll let them know not to interrupt,” Mushu says, hurrying to the door. She opens it and slides out.
I face the Lis once more. They’re looking somewhat less pleased now, except for James, who’s looking smug. “Are you saying the contract isn’t ready?” he says.
“James,” Shang says in a warning tone.
“Well—” I begin, my voice faltering. This is not good. In fact, it is bad. Very bad.
There is a knock at the door again. “We’re having a meeting here,” I call out. My nerves are pretty much shot by now, and I can hear the shrill tone in my voice. Can’t possibly get worse.
Then the door opens and Baba totters inside, holding a walking stick and wearing a huge smile. “Ah, I am so sorry to interrupt, but I insisted that I must meet all of you in person while we sign this momentous contract.”
Nobody speaks. Everyone stares at him. My brain implodes. I stand there, frozen, my insides warring over what to do. Currently, the part of me that’s screaming at me to just up and run and never stop is winning.
Then James blurts out, “Who are you?”
“I’m sorry, I have forgotten to introduce myself. I am Zhou. Hua Zhou. The managing partner of this firm.”
I was wrong. It can get worse after all.
After that, there is no saving the meeting. The conference room explodes with noise—mostly angry questions fired like a machine gun, overlapping one another.
“I’m sure there’s an explanation—” Auntie Jiayi begins, but is quickly shushed by the others.
“What do you mean, you’re the managing partner?” James demands.
“Maybe there are many partners in this firm?” Auntie Lulu says.
“Are there also multiple Hua Zhous here?” Uncle Jing snaps.
Within the sheer panic building inside me, my major concern is Baba’s health. All of this nasty shock and horror can’t be good for his heart. “Ba,” I say, “can you maybe wait in your office and I’ll explain everything to you in a bit?”
Baba looks around, confused, at the angry crowd, then back at me. For a moment, he looks as though he might argue with me and insist on staying, but then he nods. Raising his hand, he turns to the Lis and says, “I apologize. It seems my arrival has caused some confusion. I will leave. I trust my daughter will resolve this.” He walks toward the door, and as he leaves, he says, “It was very nice meeting all of you. A real honor.”
He leaves behind him a horrible, gaping silence, a black hole that sucks everything into its center. I want to shrivel up into a tiny ball and disappear, but somehow, I force myself to look at them. To see the one face I need to see.
And when I do see it, it is devastating. Shang is looking at me like he’s seeing me for the first time, and he doesn’t like what he sees. I finally understand the concept of heartbreak. All the relationships I’ve had in the past, the way it felt when they ended, they were nothing compared to seeing this look on Shang’s face. The disappointment and sadness. I feel not my heart but my entire soul ripping itself apart.
“I—” I say. I falter, but somehow, from deep inside me, I find a tiny kernel of strength. I cannot break apart right now, even though I want to. I don’t deserve the luxury of falling apart. Not yet. This is my bed, and now I get to lie in it. “I am sorry. I have something to tell you. The real reason behind the delay. And that is that Hua Zhou is, as you just saw, my father, and not me. I am Hua Mulan. The day before you were supposed to meet with my father, he had a heart attack and was hospitalized. The last conversation he and I had was about Wutai Gold and how much this acquisition meant to him, and I didn’t want to lose it. I felt from your reputation and the correspondence you’ve had with my father that you wouldn’t take me seriously as a daughter, a woman, so I felt that I had no choice but to pretend to have been Zhou all along. I wanted to do right by my father, and in doing so, I did a very bad thing to all of you, and for that I am so sorry.” My voice trembles as I speak, but I manage to get all the way to the end without breaking down. I look at Shang, willing him to understand, to empathize, but he still looks so disappointed that I know without a doubt that we are over.
“Well,” Uncle Hong says, getting out of his seat. “We are leaving now.”
“I told you,” James mutters loudly as he stands.
There are unhappy murmurs all around as everybody stands and files out of the conference room. I wait until Shang nears me. I reach out to touch his arm, but stop short of making actual contact. “Shang—”
He drops his eyes, turning his face ever so slightly from me.
My throat closes up. I let him go. I can’t talk to him without bursting into tears right now, and I can’t have that on top of everything. I simply stand there and watch all of them leave. Mushu hurries toward me, wraps an arm around my shoulders, and squeezes.
“Thanks, Mushu,” I whisper. I sniffle, then gather whatever pieces of myself I can muster up and leave the conference room. I pretend not to notice everyone peering over their cubicles as I make my way to Baba’s office.
I knock before coming in. “Ba.”
He is gazing out of the floor-to-ceiling windows. “They left, then?”
“Yes.”
“You pretended to be me?”
I now feel like a little kid who’s broken my dad’s priceless vase. “Yes.” My voice comes out in a whisper.
“Why?”
“I—From your emails with Shang, it was clear they wouldn’t agree to deal with anyone other than Zhou.”
Baba finally turns around to look at me. “That’s the surface reason. What’s the real reason?”
“I don’t know, Ba. You’d just had a heart attack. I thought we were going to lose you.” My voice breaks then. “I didn’t want to lose you, and I didn’t want to lose the deal, because it felt like losing you.”
“Mulan,” Baba says, and though his voice is sad, there is a world of love in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Ba. I ruined everything.”
Like many Chinese parents, Baba isn’t the type to hug, but he does so now, albeit a little awkwardly. Then he releases me and says, “Let me tell you about the time I left the gate open and lost all Grandma and Grandpa’s sheep.”
I laugh-sob. “You did not do that.”
“Oh, I did. Thirteen sheep, they had, and all of them gone, just like that. It was their livelihood. We nearly starved but for the help of our neighbors and family.”
“Ba,” I say again through my tears.
“We all make mistakes, Mulan.”
A mistake. It seems ridiculous to think of this awful mess as a mistake. More like a failure on a massive scale. I’m grateful that Baba doesn’t hate me the way everyone does right now, but I’m still left with a giant wreckage that I’ve created, and no idea how to fix it.