Hei, we should all save up some money and go! someone said. Phoebe, you love Gary, dont you? Maybe we can share the cost of your ticket, because you are always cooking for us and sharing your food with us. I hear hes going to sing some Cantonese songs too, since its here in Guangzhou, so you can teach us to sing along!
She was happy that they offered, but she knew that these were empty promises and that no one would actually buy her a ticket.
She stopped to buy a shiny black top decorated with beads, but the other girls scolded her. Forty kuai! Too expensive. Aiya, new girls are always the same, always spending money on useless things instead of sending it home. Besides, you should be buying nicer clothes, something that suits your slim figure better, not some old-mother style! Phoebe bought it anyway; she didnt care. It had pretty embroidery, a red rose adorned with silver beads that fanned out from each petal.
But as swiftly as the bright cool days of autumn give way to the damp chill of winter, life also changes. Phoebe knew this by now. Nothing ever stood still in China; nothing was permanent. A person who is loved cannot expect that love to remain for long. There is no reason for them to keep this love; they do not have a right to be loved.
She shared her third basket of fruit and other delicacies with her dorm friends. This time there were bags of dried scallops and a tin of abalone, which none of them had ever tasted before, and they gathered to cook a meal together. It was too luxurious for lowly people like them, one girl remarked this meal was all thanks to Phoebe.
Really, said another girl, lifting her rice bowl to her mouth, Boss Lin says this kind of thing is not so special in Hong Kong; everyone eats it over there.
How would you know? When do you ever talk to Boss Lin?
Hmm, its true. I rarely get a chance to speak to him. The only person he speaks to is Phoebe.
I wish he didnt, Phoebe joked. He is so boring. Hei, its only because of my stupid job that I have to have contact with him.
It seems he takes a special interest in you. He even calls you into his private office.
Yes, but only to scold me for tasks I have not done! Come, eat some more!
The next month, Mr. Lin summoned Phoebe to see him as soon as he arrived. He shut the door; the blinds were already down as usual. There was no fruit basket this time, only a small box. He opened it and held out a brand-new mobile phone, the type with no buttons on the screen, just a smooth glass surface. It was something a tycoons daughter would have, or a businesswoman. Phoebe didnt even know how to turn it on.
But I already have a phone.
Its okay, take it. Tell your friends you won it in a competition.
She held it in her hands, turning it over and over again. She held it up to her face. It was like a mirror she could see herself in it.
You like it? Mr. Lin was standing next to her, though she had not heard him approach her. He put his hand on her buttock, the palm flat, burning through her jeans. Hours later, she would still feel the imprint of his hot hand on her, leaving its mark where it had stayed for less than half a minute, maybe not even that long.
In the dorm, someone said, Whats happened to your cousin in Hong Kong? No food hamper this month? I think the cousin must have suddenly died and turned into a ghost!
The next day, two Shaanxi girls from the next block were taken away by the police. When Phoebe asked why, one of her dorm mates said it was because they didnt have the right papers. They were illegal, and one of them was underage.
But I thought you said this kind of thing doesnt really matter, that the employer doesnt ask too many questions, where youre from and all that, Phoebe said.
Sure, thats right, her dorm mate replied, smiling. But rules are rules. You can dodge the regulations for so long, but if someone makes a formal report, theres nothing anyone can do. Half the girls here are lying about something, and most of the time its okay. Even if you dont have a proper hukou or your papers are fake, who cares. Only when you step out of line do others make trouble for you. Those girls were unpopular; they were arrogant and made enemies. They thought they were better than everyone else, so what could they expect? It was just a matter of time.
One morning Phoebe came back after a night shift and saw that the poster by her bed had been defaced. The pop singers moon-bright complexion had been dotted with acne, and now he wore round black glasses and there were thick cat whiskers sprouting from his cheeks.
Time was running out for Phoebe. From the first moment she set foot in China, she had felt the days vanishing from her life, vanishing into failure. Like the clock she stared at every day at work, her life was counting down the minutes before she became a non-person whom no one would ever remember. As she sat during lunch break on the low brick wall next to the volleyball court, she knew that she had to act now or she would forever be stepped on everywhere she went. The gray concrete dormitory blocks rose up on all four sides of the yard and blocked out the light. There was Cantonese pop music playing from somewhere, and through an open window she could see a TV playing reruns of the Olympics, Chinese athletes winning medals. She watched the high jump for a while. A lanky blond girl failed twice, flopping down heavily on the bar. One more go and she was out. It didnt really matter, since she wasnt going to win a medal. Then suddenly she did something that made Phoebe shiver with excitement. For her third and final jump, she asked for the bar to be raised higher than anyone had jumped so far, higher than she had probably ever attained in her whole life. She had failed at lower heights, but now she was gunning for something way beyond her capabilities. She was going to jump all the way to the stars, and even if she failed she could only come down as far as the lowly position she already occupied. She stood at the end of the runway, flexing her fingers and shaking her wrists, and then she started running, in big bouncy strides. Phoebe got up and turned away. She didnt want to see what happened; it was not important to her. The only thing that mattered was that the blond girl had gambled.
She took her expensive new phone to a Sichuan girl who traded things in the dorm and sold it for a nice sum of cash. She washed her hair and tied it neatly before going to Boss Lins office. She was wearing her tightest jeans, which she usually reserved for her day off. They were so tight that she could not sit down comfortably without them cutting into the tops of her thighs.
Little miss, its highly irregular for us to hand out salaries before payday, he said, but he was already looking for the number of the accounts department.
Come on, its almost the end of the month only a week to go. Phoebe twirled her hair and inclined her head the way she had noticed other girls doing when they talked to the handsome security guards. Anyway, she laughed, our relationship is a bit irregular, dont you think?
Foshan, Songxia, Dongguan, Wenzhou she was going to bypass them all. Her bar was going to be raised all the way to the sky. There was only one city she could go to now, the biggest and brightest of them all.
THE GIRL AT THE next table was still reading her magazine, her boyfriend still sending messages on his iPhone. Sometimes he would read a message aloud and laugh, but the girl would not respond; she just continued to page through her magazine. He looked up at Phoebe, for only a split second, and at first Phoebe thought he was scowling in that familiar look-down-on-you expression. But then she realized that he was squinting because of the light. He hadnt even noticed her.
The girls mobile phone rang and she began to rummage in her handbag for it, emptying out its contents on the table. There were so many shiny pretty things lipstick cases, key rings, and also a leather diary, a pen, stray receipts, and scrunched-up pieces of tissue paper. She answered the phone and, as she did so, stood up and gathered her things, hastily replacing them in her bag. Her boyfriend was trying to help her, but she was frowning with impatience. A five-mao coin fell to the floor and rolled to Phoebes feet. Phoebe bent over and picked it up.
Dont worry, the boy said over his shoulder as he followed his girlfriend out. Its only five mao.
Dont worry, the boy said over his shoulder as he followed his girlfriend out. Its only five mao.
They had just left when Phoebe noticed something on the table. Half hidden under a paper napkin was the girls ID card. Phoebe looked up and saw that they were still on the pavement, waiting for a gap in the traffic in order to cross the road. She could have rushed out and called to them, done them a huge favor. But she waited, feeling her heart pound and the blood rush to her temples. She reached across and took the card. The photo was bland; you couldnt make out the cheekbones that in real life were so sharp you could have cut your hand on them. In the photo, the girls face was flat and pale. She could have been any other young woman in the room.
Outside, the boy was leading the girl by the hand as they crossed the road. She was still on the phone, her floppy bag trailing behind her like a small dog. The skies were clear that day, a touch of autumn coolness in the air.
With a paper napkin, Phoebe wiped the bread crumbs off the card and tucked it safely into her purse.
2. CHOOSE THE RIGHT MOMENT TO LAUNCH YOURSELF
EVERY BUILDING HAS ITS OWN SPARKLE, ITS OWN IDENTITY. AT night, their electric personalities flicker into life and they cast off their perfunctory daytime selves, reaching out to one another to form a new world of ever-changing color. It is tempting to see them as a single mass of light, a collection of illuminated billboards and fancy fluorescent bulbs that twinkle in the same way. But this is not true; they are not the same. Each one insists itself upon you in a different way, leaving its imprint on your imagination. Each message, if you care to listen, is different.
From his window he could see the Pudong skyline, the skyscrapers of Lujiazui ranged like razor-sharp Alpine peaks against the night sky. In the daytime, even the most famous buildings seemed irrelevant, obscured by the perpetual haze of pollution; but at night, when the yellow-gray fog thinned, Justin would sit at his window watching them display boastfully, each one trying to outdo the next: taller, louder, brighter. A crystal outcrop suspended high in the sky, shrouded by mist on rainy days; a giant goldfish wriggling across the face of a building; interlocking geometric shapes shattering into a million fragments before regrouping. He knew every one by heart.
Buildings were in his DNA, he sometimes thought. They had given him everything he ever owned his houses, his cars, his friends and even now, they shaped the way he thought and felt. The years were rushing past, whatever he had left of his youth surrendering to middle age, yet bricks and mortarreal estateremained a constant presence. When he revisited his earliest memories, trying to summon scenes of family life his mothers protective embrace, perhaps, or praise from his father the results were always blank. They were present in his memories, of course, his parents and grandmother, hovering spectrally. But, just like in real life, they were never animated. All he could see and smell were the buildings around them, the structures they inhabited: cold stone floors, mossy walls, flaking plaster, silence. It was a world from which there had been no escape. A path had been laid down for him, straight and unbending. He had long since given up hope of departing from this track, indeed could not even remember any other option until he came to Shanghai.