Planet Lolita (6 page)

“She’s having her first period,” Mom said.

“OMG!” I said.

“Poor possum,” the secretary said in Australian, which was kind of English. “You’ll survive. We all do.”

I flushed the toilet again, only to have the surface restained grape Slurpee, X-large.

“She’s gone,” Mom eventually said.

“What should I do?”

“Try stopping the flow with toilet paper. We have to get you home.”

“Nasty.”

“Do your best.”

“Disgusting and nasty.”

“I’ll tell Alex that we’ll finish the appointment another day.”

“He has a thing for you,” I said. “The hots.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“He wants to lick your tears.”

Seeing her face made me finally cry. All glamour and queenliness—enough to drop Hong Kong’s best, most expensive neurologist to his knees—had been scrubbed away. “You’re beautiful, Mom,” I said, a surprise.

She opened her arms.

“My hands,” I added. “I’d better wash.”

At the sink she insisted on helping wash off the blood, like I didn’t know how. I let her.

We hugged.

“Everything all at once,” she said.

“Poor possum,” I said in Australian. She laughed, gunk exploding out her nose. That inflamed her cheeks, and she confirmed the humiliation in the mirror. I was framed in the glass as well—I’d been examining myself, to see if I’d changed one more time—and
met her gaze there, telling her not to be embarrassed. I had Dad’s smile, not hers, but for once I wished it were different.

In the cab she held my hand and grinned herself silly. Her phone emitted the text-message sound twice in her lap, but she didn’t glance down. To the masked driver’s scowl, as though we were planning to smear SARS over his back seat, she said, “It’s hysteria, you know. Calling it a tsunami, when it’s just another wave.”

“That’s what Dad says,” I said, “watching the world and the waves go by.”

I had made those words up to buy a second to think. Something I’d seen in the doctor’s bathroom upset me. During our hug Mom’s unlatched handbag—Fendi, not a knock-off—had opened wide for examination. Neatly folded at the bottom was an N-95 particle mask, the best available. But with the amazing feeling between us now, more girl-girl than mother-daughter, I decided to put the mask out of my mind.

“You’re fantastic,” Mom said.

“So are you,” I replied, hoping she’d meant it. “I bet you’re the top lawyer in the Landmark Building.”

“Men get the job done, Sarah. It’s quite a sight.”

“Okay.”

“My only real function, I sometimes think, is to protect you and your sister from the effects of them getting the goddamn job done.”

“Thanks.”

Her smile, which had slipped off her features, came back, although not as real. “I’m not making much sense, am I?”

Not wanting to agree, or disagree, I shook a few hairs loose—just in case.

“I can’t find any balance,” Mom said. “Especially now, with the situation here deteriorating so rapidly. And then there are how things are between me and your father.”

If this were Rachel, I’d hum loudly until she stopped. “I love you both,” I said.

“But him a little more? Sorry,” she added, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You’ve got Rachel. She’s the loudest, funniest half-Asian chick at the University of Toronto.”

“But you’re different. Not built of the same stuff.”

“Not smart?”

“Sharp. Or cynical. I love my big girl with all my heart and soul. But she’s too old for her age. Which you’re not, and I don’t ever wish you to be. Even after today.”

What about today?
I almost said. Then I figured it out, mostly because of the wet between my legs and the hurt spreading to my back. “The way you’ve been smiling, Mom, it makes you look a lot younger.”

“You think?”

“It’s like you don’t need foundation or mascara to still be beautiful.”

“Now
that
, my darling, is what you can say, sweetly and perfectly, and your sister can’t.”

“Don’t cry again.”

“Silly me. I can’t seem to—”

Her phone rang. Dr. Wilson’s office was in Western, twenty minutes by taxi from Central, the business district where men got the goddamn job done. The closer we came to the narrow, sunless canyons of office towers along the harbour shore—once inside Central, there never seemed a way back out of it—the more Mom examined herself in her pocket mirror, applying blush to her cheeks and liner to her lids. Because she was getting ready to be a woman among those men, I told her to take the call.

“You’re sure?”

I nodded.

“Unknown caller,” she said. Touching the
Call
button, she sang her own name. But then she listened for a few seconds, and all music went away.

“Who is this? … Fine … Of course I remember the beach …” Her voice tensed. “Yes, that is her name. Both her names, as a matter of fact … I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand? Sorry? I’m really having trouble understanding what you’re saying.”

“Hang up,” I said.

“Speak Cantonese? I can’t, but my husband can, a little. Kwok is
his
name. First name, Ka-Shing … In Wan Chai, correct, though I can’t fathom how you would possess that information as well. Pearl Jeans on Jaffe Road … Yes, that’s the address … Yes,” she said, “most people know him as Jacob.”

“Hang up!”

“Speak with him, please. And don’t call this number again.”

She pressed
End Call.
We sat in silence, arms crossed, no longer touching.

“You gave them Dad’s Chinese name?” I said, remembering her scolding me on Tai Long Wan for giving mine.

“His English was primitive. And they’re his effing people—let him explain.” She almost spat the words.

“He didn’t do anything, Mom.”

“Oh darling …”

“And
we
didn’t do anything that morning on the beach. You made sure of it.” She wasn’t the only one who might be angry.

“I did what I thought was best,” she said slowly. “For our family.”

“What about Dad?” I said, suddenly a bit scared. “You’re going to get him in trouble instead.”

“Instead of who?”

I thought of Mary. Her sweet face and my bowler hat, both now on Facebook.

“Not that girl you met?”

I shook my head.

“I hope not. Honestly, you don’t have a clue.”

The phone rang. Another
Unknown Caller.

“Don’t pick up,” I said.

“It’ll be a blocked number if I redial.”

“Turn off the phone.”

Mom hesitated. Each vibration and ring—she needed both to hear calls over the engine noise of Hong Kong—was like extra turbulence after the seat-belt sign has been switched off. She gripped the armrest.

Finally, it stopped. “They’re gone,” I said. And the amazing feeling between us, the lovely moment, was gone too.

The driver had veered from the tower canyons and was climbing Old Peak Road. We pulled into the circular driveway outside our building. “Directly into the elevator,” Mom said. “I’m going to instruct Gloria not to let you out, even to walk Manga.”

“Why?”

“Because of the call. Both calls.”

Standing up intensified the cramps. The pain, dull and deep, was new. “Can’t you come in with me?”

“I’m very late for a meeting.”

“Just for a minute …?” Mr. Wu, the daytime concierge, was holding the door open. He had the best English on staff.

“I’ll be home early tonight.”

“You mean nine o’clock rather than ten?”

“Sooner,” Mom said, deliberately checking her phone. “Look, Gloria can help you. She can show you how—”

“Maybe I don’t want to ask Gloria.”

“Why not? You share everything else with her.”

I chewed my lip.

“Open the cupboard under the sink in our bathroom. I keep a box of pads there.” She told the driver to drop her at the Landmark Building, Pedder Street entrance. “Got to run,” she said. “I’ll text you.”

“Run,” I said.

20—
-
11-17 3:50 pm
Mom:
Extra Strength Advil. I forgot to mention. The only thing that really works
Me:
Where?
Mom:
Gloria knows. Start with just 1
Me:
OK

20—-11-17 4:18 pm
Mom:
Did you?
Me:
Yup
Mom:
Any better yet?
Me:
Nup
Mom:
Give it time. Or take a second Advil. And the pad?
Me:
Gloria showed me
Me:
??
Mom:
I’ll be home as soon as I can

20—-11-17 6:54 pm
Mom:
Google Maps is a predator’s dream
Me:
Huh?
Mom:
A colleague explained that they’ll just Google our address. I’m looking at our building right now—the front entrance, where you got out of the taxi. The garden around back, where you walk the dog
Me:
I Google Mapped Rachel’s residence at university. I thought I saw her through a third-floor bedroom window. But then I read the date—it was taken 2 years ago
Mom:
This stuff … It’s like putting a lock on the door when all the windows are wide open … Is it bad, honey? Are you in pain?
Me:
Want to die
Mom:
I’d blend you a smoothie
Me:
Gloria made spicy chicken rice for dinner. And mango ice cream—2 bowls
Mom:
What about your father?
Me:
He said he’d be late
Mom:
I’m in a meeting that refuses to end
Me:
Good for you
Mom:
Did you tell him?
Me:
He can’t ever know!
Mom:
About the call in the taxi … About my giving them his name … because I am so angry with him all the time
Me:
Was he named for a rich guy?
Mom:
Li Ka-Shing, the richest man in Hong Kong. Your grandparents thought it would bring him—or them—luck
Me:
I didn’t tell him about the call
Me:
??
Mom:
Thank you
Me:
He said he’d see me in the AM
Mom:
I’ll be home well before midnight. 10 or so

20—-11-17 10:03 pm
Mom:
This dinner meeting … lawyers from Singapore … someone put me out of my misery
Mom:
Sarah? You—or U, right?—there?
Mom:
The women in our family are truly cursed … I can explain better … Sarah?

20—-11-17 11:34 pm
Mom:
I’m in a cab. I swear it. If you’re still awake, ask Gloria for another Advil, and help with the pad. And maybe put a towel between your sheets? No balance, but no excuses either. Sorry sorry

“Sick,” I said.

“Hong Kong chic,” Rachel said from behind gauze.

When she first came onscreen wearing a SARS mask, the craziest anime scene played out in my brain. My big sister had been kidnapped by Triad guys in Toronto, on orders from their bosses in Hong Kong. She was tied to a chair in the middle of a warehouse with a leaky roof and a floor covered in burning oil barrels. One gangster, his fingernail a stiletto for cutting flesh, bent over Rachel, ready to make her bleed. But then I swooped down from a skylight with my right arm extended and my hand fisted, knocking him cold.
Run, Rach!
I said, ripping off her mask. At that moment ten, no, twenty, Galactic grunts also dropped from the ceiling. That was weird—I stopped watching
Pokémon
before Team Galactic became the sworn enemy, and hated video games—but I kept my concentration.
Trouble
, I said, shielding her.
Though nothing I can’t handle …

“Take it off, please,” I said now.

“But I could catch SARS just by FaceTiming you. Or sorry—Human H10N8, or whatever they’re calling the new flu.”

“I’ll hang up if you don’t.”

“Touchy,” she said, unclipping the mask. “I’d forgotten how horrible they are. Like breathing through a sock.”

“We’re about the only ones not wearing them. Dad and me, at least,” I said, picturing the bottom of Mom’s handbag. “They probably wouldn’t let me into East Island, even if it was still open.”

“So it’s official?”

I leaned back in the chair to ease the cramping. “They aren’t saying when they’ll reopen the schools. Last time they waited until the number of infections had gone down three weeks in a row. It could be Christmas, or longer.”

“Has anyone died?”

“Aren’t you checking Facebook?”

“Every fifteen minutes.”

“Then you know. But 299 died during the last outbreak, and 1,755 were infected.”

“What a freak you are. And stop squirming!” she said.

“Something happened today.”

“Me too.”

“Sorry?”

Now Rachel bounced in her chair. “You can’t tell the parentals. On pain of death—my own.”

For a second I worried she was going to pull up her T-shirt, like a girl gone wild, and show off a baby bulge. She’d had a boyfriend since orientation week, and had given it up to him pretty much before he asked. Greg S. was a cultural studies major who liked tofu burgers, playing mandolin in a rap-metal band called Head Tax, and the “China Girl” who “rocks it, lights off or on.” He was fashionably scruffy, and baby-man pretty, and exactly the kind of
gweilo
that Rachel had been drooling over since she was my age and first gave it away. Greg made me a friend on his Facebook, but I wasn’t friendly enough to tell him that his page revealed way too much information, dude, or how my sister had once said that while Western boys were fun to date, she wouldn’t
be marrying one. “Asia rules the new century, SeeSaw. We some lucky fiddy-fiddy bitches.”

Instead of hiking the shirt, she rolled up a sleeve. “Isn’t it cool?”

“What?”

“I’ll lean into the camera.”

At first I saw only a blotch on her bicep, as if she’d been punched by a gangster. But then an outline resolved itself within the murk. The tattoo was of a woman, inked head to toe in a flowing robe. On her head was a tiara fronting a high bun of hair. On her face were pencil brows and single-lidded eyes, downcast. Even how she crooked her fingers held significance, though I could never remember the meanings.

“Shut up,” I said.

“Guanyin, the super-hot goddess. Like me!” Rachel said, collapsing back in her chair in, I could tell, shock.