Chapter 19
Nineteen
Marcelle
After Mr Lee leaves with Ah Lang to get fitted for a suit, Gigi turns up at my door, her arms full of silky dresses.
I stand there holding the door open, staring. ‘What is all that?’
‘Pish, is that anyway to greet a goddess? Especially a goddess fashion advisor who is about to transform you into the best-looking deity in Shanghai? Well, apart from me of course.’
I regret playing this hand. I don’t want to wear them – to pretend to be something I’m not. ‘I’m already dressed.’
Gigi shakes her head, her eyebrows pushing high into her forehead.
‘For lounging around your hotel room perhaps, but not for the hottest ballroom in town. Even I’ve heard about the Paramount.
Every deity worth their qi has been there.
It’s only because I’ve been foolishly moping in Hell that I haven’t visited yet. ’
‘What’s so special about the Paramount? Surely any of the clubs in Hell must rival it?’
Gigi sighs. ‘You know better than most how much yaojing like to show off. What better place than a mortal club? The mortals gawp while we yaojing preen and showboat to our heart’s delight.
The only two rules are no mafan and no letting slip our true nature.
Who could say no to that?’ She holds up one of the dresses.
I back away, waving my hands in front of me. I can say no, easily too. I’m about to tell her so when she says, ‘If you don’t look the part how are you going to approach any hulijing? They’ll see right through you.’
‘What do you mean? I don’t want to approach any hulijing,’ I say.
Gigi merely scoffs. ‘How are you going to find out if they switched the talisman if you don’t go? Don’t look at me like that. Who doesn’t know Brother Zhu is the Ministry of Thunder’s courier, and the hulijing make the talismans. Someone will have an answer.’
Grudgingly, I acknowledge her point. And berate myself for underestimating her. If I had confided in her maybe I wouldn’t be stuck playing forced dress up with Gigi. I eye the dresses warily. They look so ethereal. Fitting for a goddess. I am, as she so succinctly put it, a bedraggled half-deity.
Gigi senses an opening, moves in for the attack. ‘I saw you looking at that waitress’s hair. I know how to do that. I could marcelle your hair for you.’
Damn her. She’s a good kanhoo player for a reason. Observant and prescient. I touch my hair despite myself. ‘Y-you can do that?’
‘Are you going to make me stand in the corridor all afternoon?’
‘Oh, right.’ I step back and she sweeps into my room, her gleaming bosom leading the way.
She lays out slinky silks and delicate frothy fabric across the back of the sofa.
There are eight or nine dresses here. One is a creamy gauzy thing, with blush-coloured plum blossoms that look like they are budding from the fabric itself.
I run my fingers along the petals – they are satin-smooth, and I marvel that they aren’t actually real.
‘These are the dresses I think would suit you best. But you should try them on first, see what you prefer.’
‘Hells, Gigi, did you bring your entire wardrobe?’
She looks affronted. ‘Of course not, I only brought four suitcases! I had to send two suitcases home since Fisherman Lo refused to let me take them all.’
Four? I only brought one. And my suitcase was half-empty.
I think of the two qipao hanging in the hotel wardrobe – the green one, which I wore yesterday, and my favourite yellow one with the embroidered swallows.
I had planned to wear that tonight, but the dresses Gigi brought make my fanciest dress suddenly feel plain.
And that makes me angry. It’s how all those rotted deities make me feel when they swan around at Council.
I lift my chin. ‘I have a dress. I don’t need these.’
She gives me a critical look. Picks up a vivid blue silk number. ‘Try this on.’
‘I have my own clothes, Gigi. I’m not a charity case.’
‘I know you have your own clothes. But come on, we’re in yang Shanghai!
Please Jing. I haven’t been to a ballroom in ages.
And I heard that snake Xiao Qing has been hanging around Ah Lang lately.
She’s always talking about how much fun she has at the Paramount.
I can’t let her overshadow us. We are going to surpass them all. ’
‘I—’
She pulls a metal contraption from inside her water sleeve. It looks like some kind of barbarian prod.
I back away from her. ‘What is that?’
‘This is a curling rod. It’s to marcelle your hair.’
‘That looks like an implement of torture.’
Gigi beams. ‘I’ll do your hair and mine.’ She strokes the fine blue silk of the dress. ‘I brought a whole box full of hair pins to match the dresses. They’ll look wonderful with your waves.’
Rotted Gigi; she knows my weaknesses.
‘Go on,’ she coos, pushing the dress into my unprotesting hands.
‘What, here?’
‘Don’t pretend you’re shy about undressing. I know you better than that.’
Defeated well and truly, I let Gigi help me into the dress.
The bodice is form fitting, accentuating my curves, and pinching in at the waist. The skirt, however, is a revelation.
The fabric hugs my hips, but as it falls, it flares outwards.
I squat with my knees wide apart, stand and kick my legs forward and back.
The sapphire silk slips over me and gives full freedom of movement.
‘What in Tian are you doing?’ Gigi watches me, mouth open.
‘This is amazing – I can move however I wish. None of that ridiculous constraint from qipao.’
She gives me a smug smile. ‘I never could understand why you wear those dresses. I always feel like I’m suffocating.’
I suck my teeth. ‘Only because they cover your ta-tas.’
She ignores my jibe and plucks another confection from the back of the sofa. ‘Try this one.’
It’s also a silk affair, this one emerald green.
‘Arms up,’ she orders.
‘You are not the boss of me,’ I say, then meekly raise my arms.
Gigi sweeps off the first dress then shimmies the second over my arms and head. It falls in a cool cascade over my skin. The bodice is held up by the finest of straps and exposes my collarbone and shoulders. The dress skims my body and waterfalls to my feet.
Gigi purses her lips. Grabs another dress. ‘Try this one.’
‘They’re all pretty, Gigi. I’ll just wear this one. I like green.’
‘The Paramount is THE place to see and be seen in Shanghai. We are Celestials, Jing. Whether you like it or not, you are Lady Jing of Mount Kunlun, descended from Queen Mother of the West herself. No one can take away your ancestry. We will shine like the stars we are. Now try this one.’ She shoves the dress at me.
I eye the dresses still remaining on the sofa. There are so many. Tian, just looking at them makes me anxious. I picture Soo and her lot spitting at me, tearing at my ribbons, laughing at the mongrel who dared to dress as an equal. I clench my fists. ‘This is fine,’ I repeat.
Gigi studies me. ‘Do you know that feeling you get when a hair pin feels right with a particular dress?’
‘I only have two hair pins, and they go with most of my dresses.’
She taps her foot. ‘How about, when you pull the right card in kanhoo.’
That I understand. ‘I get a little thrill,’ I admit.
Gigi bounces on her toes. ‘Yes! The right dress on the right person gives me that same feeling. A thrill. While you are stunning in this dress, it is not the right one. Trust me on this.’
I grunt, but allow Gigi to pull the dress over my head and put yet another one over my compliant arms. We end up trying on, and discarding, three more rotted dresses. They are all beautiful, and I’d happily wear any one of them. But for some reason, none of them satisfy her.
She holds one up that clearly is meant to show off my cleavage. ‘Not that one.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘It’s too low-cut.’
She makes a face. ‘I don’t understand your hang-up about breasts.’ She cranes her neck, making a show of checking out my chest. I cross my arms over them. ‘They look perfectly fine. Why not show them off?’
‘I don’t want to, okay?’
‘You’re happy to run around in your underthings, show your ass whenever you feel like, and yet you won’t show a little cleavage. Jing, you know that makes no sense.’
‘It’s not that. I don’t have a problem with my ta-tas.’
‘Then what is it? For Tian’s sake—’
‘All those bitches prance around with their ta-tas bursting out of their dresses,’ I grumble.
Gigi jerks back, like I’ve slapped her. ‘Well, if that’s how you feel,’ she says, her face suddenly blotchy. She starts gathering the dresses strewn over the sofa.
I curl in on myself. She’s trying so hard. I think back to the rules from the book I bought the other day about winning friends. Acknowledging my mistakes was one of them. I have no idea if the rules work, but surely they are worth a try. Anything’s better than my own clumsy efforts.
‘Gigi, I don’t mean you.’
She pauses, back to me. I exhale. ‘When I was little, I lived in the Hulijing Court. You know how they like to dress – everything on display in those low-cut translucent robes. The only memories I have of my time there are of Soo and her friends. Their faces all blur together but I remember very clearly their shrieking laughter, their smell, and their gleaming breasts as they held me down in the bathtub and scrubbed me with floor brushes until I bled. They said it was to clean me of my foreign stink.’
My voice trails away. I’ve never spoken about that before and am surprised by the tear trickling down my cheek. I wipe it away.
Gigi doesn’t move for a long time. Finally, she puts down the dresses in her arms, and picks up the gauzy one with the flowers. She turns to me, her eyes bright.
‘I never considered you the floral type,’ she says, tone brisk and no-nonsense. She holds up the dress against me and eyes me critically. ‘Something made me grab this dress. Maybe I have a touch of dragon sight. Wouldn’t Lord Black be surprised? Now arms up, ugly.’