by May Seah
In any case, her preternatural beauty had always precluded her from any career other than that of a child model and then an actress. Unlike Keh, Holliday, who had been doggedly topping the A-list for years now, had never known a working life without vast popularity, ardent fans, fawning directors and sycophantic managers; and never having won an acting award was merely a good excuse for playing the long-suffering victim in magazine interviews.
The first time Keh and Holliday had met, years ago, on the set of the romantic comedy Pizza and Pulchritude, they had been thrown straight into a kissing scene, as was often the practice—the assumption being that the actors should get any awkwardness out of the way at the start, after which they would presumably have developed familiar chemistry. Sometimes, if the scene were scheduled after lunch, they would prank each other by eating chicken rice with lots of garlic chilli.
He had been playing a floury apprentice in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant and she, a beautiful investment banker with a penchant for capers. She had looked so passionately into his eyes that he’d become even more nervous than he already was to be on camera opposite this paragon of femininity and in-demand device screen wallpaper. It was only his actor persona, which he’d had to work extra hard to re-summon, that allowed him to kiss her fiercely, yet tenderly. Several scenes later, he realised that she wasn’t looking lovingly at him, but at her own reflection in his pupils. This became apparent when she adjusted her hair while squinting into his eyeballs from under her perfectly filled-in brows.
That same day, photos of him kissing her appeared all over her social media feeds. The pictures had been taken by her omnipresent personal photographers, whose presence she always justified defensively by saying, “I’m not vain—I’m making memories.” She had added captions consisting only of heart emojis. Holliday had been working for years over social media to create the subtle impression that all her male co-stars were in love with her. Part of her probably believed it, too.
Although Holliday Heng was known to be a lone wolf in the ranks of her colleagues because she always tried to wrangle herself more screen time, Keh didn’t have anything against her, except maybe for the fact that she called him “Jon-Jon” and was always making him pose for selfies with her. The thing he liked best about her was that, when they were cast in action films together, she came with her own stunt double, a slight, wiry man named Boon with whom he had forged an on-set friendship. Boon was twelve years older, had a large and vulgar tattoo on his shoulder that the makeup girls found very tedious to cover up, and, when agitated, liked to punch Keh in the arm and yell, “Bro!”
It could have been because people as good looking as Holliday Heng always got away with murder that the director didn’t grumble at her when she finally glided onto the set.
It could also have been the fact that, even though they all knew she was going to appear in a fat suit to play “Mei Xin”, said emperor’s offspring and an ugly duckling who sheds pounds and undergoes a beautiful transformation after secretly taking up martial arts, the sight of a suddenly enlarged Holliday Heng still hit them like a pile of damp laundry falling from a slippery high-rise bamboo pole.
The wardrobe department’s fat suits were something of a legend; sometimes, if you happened to walk by out back, you could see the headless, flesh-coloured suits being hung out to dry in the sun. If you weren’t prepared for the sight, or if it was that dusky time of day when your eyes could play tricks on you, the suits could send your defences into overdrive.
Those who had to wear them were pitied for the heat they retained, and simultaneously envied for the low-hanging comedy acting awards they invariably drew.
When she accepted the role, Holliday must have jumped at the opportunity to announce, via fat suit, that despite all appearances to the contrary, she wasn’t just about looks.
Making less than flattering adjustments to their appearance was a conventionally accepted way for actors like Holliday to announce that they were gunning for their first acting award, not a popularity award; although, to her credit, she had been willing to go further than Keh had expected—he’d thought the limits of her sacrificial endurance would have been foregoing her false eyelashes.
But—and perhaps she had already predicted this outcome—even with her limbs and torso engulfed in voluminous pink robes and clumsy padding, she still looked every bit as regal as she always did, like a new and improved plus-size Barbie. Nature might as well have been having a laugh at artifice’s expense.
“Don’t I look epic?” she giggled as she strolled onto the teahouse set and took her place next to Keh. The crew started to fasten harnesses onto Holliday’s and Keh’s waists under their robes so they could be hooked up to the wires suspended from the studio’s lofty rafters. “Can you believe they wouldn’t even give me a new suit? This one has been used before, by Joan Chen. Just look at me. My mother used to say I was a fat girl inside. Anyway, you’ll notice that I gave my photographers the next two weeks off because I don’t want to be seen like this.”
“My assistant gave herself the day off,” he replied, fearing that even if a politically correct response did exist, he was not the man to deliver it.
They began to rise slowly into the air, Keh with his beetling stickon eyebrows looking like he’d been born into a clan of Wing Chun enthusiasts; Holliday resembling a giant pink-and-beige helium balloon. With her extra girth, it took her a while to find her balance on the wires.
“Okay, Jon, take her hand and leap between the balconies,” the director instructed as somebody yelled, “Silence on set!”
“Rolling,” the director called. “Action!”
The leap was duly executed. Flight was simulated. Wind flapped awe-inspiringly through their robes. They repeated the feat once more, then twice. It all went quite well until they were being lowered back onto the ground.
Keh’s feet touched the floor safely and the crew swiftly removed his harness. But Holliday got stuck in mid-air. “What’s happening?” she called out crossly, her stumpy legs waggling a good six metres off the ground.
“It’s either a wire snag or a pulley malfunction,” the stunt coordinator called out. “Aiyah, I told them not to cut costs by using this equipment. Now look what’s happened. Don’t worry, Holliday, we’ll sort it out.”
Holliday sighed in exasperation. She was a consummate professional. But still, it did not behoove a girl of her station in life to be in an altitudinal position that physically reflected her social standing. Nor did she like the fact that at any time, any one of the crew members, meandering below her, could sneak a photo of her and caption it: “I see London, I see France, I see Holliday’s underpants.”
Actually, she was not even sure that the fat suit came preloaded with underpants at all. Mildly scandalised by the thought, she bobbed gently up and down between the wires like a fishball suspended unsteadily from a pair of chopsticks.
As she was mulling over the impropriety of fat suits going commando, a sudden, loud ripping sound rent the air and the breath was knocked out of her lungs as she felt herself being jerked out of her reverie and forcefully downwards. She screamed out in panic. The strain of the harness, attached to her fat suit, was causing the material to tear. She took a deep breath.
“Get me down!” she yelled.
Gasps of horror and a buzz of agitation rose from the crew as people started to realise what was happening. “Alamak,” uttered a stunned cameraman to himself, drawing each syllable out slowly and reverently. Keh, standing below, gaped up at her in horrified fascination.
Before long there was another terrible rip, and she dangled half out of the disintegrating fat suit at the perilous mercy of gravity.
And then she was falling, so Keh lunged forward.
It was one of those situations where his brain, still in “actor” mode, was observing the magnificent cinematic quality of the miseen-scène as his legs, realising that his colleague was not, in fact, falling in slow motion, instinctively propelled him towards the
point of her projected landing.
There are times when chance favours a man, and times when it does not. When it does, it seems as if things could never have turned out any other way. When it does not, you sense that the undertaking is a mistake the moment you begin it, but you also need the proof that will allow you to say, “I told you so” to yourself.
It was by nothing more than sheer luck that Keh managed to intercept Holliday as she descended at alarming speed. Her body, cushioned in its cotton fleshiness, slammed into his chest, his legs buckled, and they both slid across the grainy faux wood floor, coming to rest just short of a standing blonde light, where they lay stunned by the impact.
Several seconds later, his head started to clear and he could hear the crew shouting, “He saved her life!” “Did you see that?” “I got it on video!” “So did I!” “Quick, send it to The Lion City Lance! They’ll pay good money to publish it.”
Holliday was shrieking, “Jon-Jon!” and flinging her sheathed arms clumsily around his neck as she burst into tears. Then she sat up and said very briskly, “Somebody AirDrop me the video. I have to post it right away.”
A few people rushed forward with their phones. But then, as they all jabbed at their screens, they realised that no one could call their video up.
“Weird—mine’s not there.”
“Mine’s gone, too.”
There was a confused buzz.
“I think there’s been a glitch in the Cloud,” somebody said.
4
With his scenes done for the day—and an aching body from saving Holliday’s neck—Keh stripped off the robes of his costume, under which he was wearing a T-shirt, and kicked off the pinching shoes. Normally, his assistant would be waiting with his own sneakers, but today, of course, she wasn’t. Collaring the first assistant producer he saw racing down the hallway, he asked her, “Has anyone seen my shoes?”
“No,” she wheezed, an improbably large brassiere falling from the pile of clothing in her arms. Everyone was always in a hurry on set.
He loped barefoot towards his dressing room and, opening the door, was immediately startled to find a girl inside.
He first saw her profile reflected in the mirror—dark, glossy hair the colour of mystery; slender arms; a black sheath dress.
As he paused in the doorway, she turned around from examining the things on his dressing table and looked up at him, softly backlit by the bulbs edging the mirror.
“Janice left the paper last week. So they’ve sent me,” she said. “I’m April Mehta. Hello.” She extended a hand to shake.
He was not accustomed to finding girls in his private chambers. Once, while he’d been working on set, a fan had managed to sneak into his dressing room, but she had been swiftly apprehended by security while in the act of sniffing all the drapery. As a rule, he thought, the atmosphere of his little lair, containing his carelessly strewn about things, was not particularly conducive to girls. But he suddenly remembered that Minnie had in fact informed him that he was scheduled for an interview with The Lion City Lance that day.
He was a little thrown off by the fact that this girl wasn’t Janice. He’d known Janice for many years and she was a decent sort whom he’d managed to win onto his side. It was always important to win journalists over. Apart from that, their questions were always standard and easily anticipated. How do you get into character? How do you balance your work and personal life? Are you dating anyone at the moment? Some journalists—always the older ones—liked to preface their questions with personal stories, using the interview as an excuse to ramble on about themselves. This required more energy to deal with because you had to pretend that you cared. It was far less taxing to deal with the young, green ones, who always brought along a list of questions and rattled them off mechanically, like they were ticking off a laundry list. Sometimes they didn’t even look up from their notes. April Mehta looked young.
“Hi. I’m Adjonis. The ‘d’ is silent,” he said, with a tiny, practiced wink, as he stepped forward and shook her hand firmly. “Everybody calls me Jon.”
“I know. I Googled you.” She produced a voice recorder from her bag and settled uninvited onto his little couch.
“How long have you been reporting for the Lance?” he asked, by way of light conversation, as he sat down beside her.
“I’ve been there for over a year now. But I’m not a reporter— at least, I wasn’t, until Janice left in the middle of a hiring freeze and they assigned me to this story. You’re my first interview ever, actually.”
“I’m honoured. Go ahead and ask any question you want.” He leaned back into the cushions.
“Adjonis Keh.” She smiled, a friendly, open smile. “You are a fraud and a charlatan.”
His mouth went dry and her image flickered for a second before his eyes.
He had never robbed a bank before—at least, not in real life— but in that instant, he rather fancied he knew what it might feel like to have made a clean getaway only to realise that you had left your wallet on the counter in an inconvenient, forgetful moment. Or to deliver a presidential address and then discover during the closing line that your fly had not been duly secured.
What was happening? Was he hallucinating? Had the collision involving Holliday and his solar plexus given him a concussion? Was this girl really saying what he thought she was saying or was this like one of those badly dubbed telenovelas in which Don Ignacio’s lips moved but James Earl Jones’ voice came out? This was supposed to be just another interview with just another newspaper, just like all the other interviews he’d fielded countless times before. But what was going on here?
“That’s not a question,” he muttered.
It seemed to him an eternity before she spoke again.
“You are a professional confidence trickster.”
He concentrated on making sure his features maintained a stony neutrality even as an anaconda of consternation constricted around his chest. How had this reporter found out about his secret? Unless she had managed to find some way to snoop around inside his head, or he had started talking in his sleep and she was spending every night clinging to the drain pipe outside his bedroom window, there was surely no way anyone could possibly have divined his method. Unless she was practised at the art of mind-reading. There were some monks in Tibet who could read minds, right? But did she actually know the details or was she making an attempt at entrapment? Was she going to write a scandal-mongering headline and put it on the front page of her newspaper? “Adjonis Keh not a real actor; entire career built on a lie”?
Then he realised that she was speaking again. “How does it feel to make a living by constantly hoodwinking people into thinking you are somebody you’re not?” she asked, her dark eyes large and earnest.
The mist of panic lifted slightly. He was not sure he could withstand two shocks to his system in one day. He was a young man in the prime of his youth, but even the most fortified constitution could be driven to overturning the tabletop if provoked beyond reason. Fumbling to recover his composure, he searched for something— anything—to say.
“Umm,” he ventured. “Well, that’s an actor’s challenge, isn’t it: to disappear as far as possible until only your character remains.”
“You’ve done an uncommonly good job of making yourself disappear in the majority of the roles you play. What’s your secret?”
He racked his brain for an answer. “Empathy, I guess,” he said. “You have to put yourself in your character’s shoes so that the audience can, too.”
Immediately, she responded, “Is that why you’re barefoot now? Because you’re not in character?”
Surprised, he followed her gaze down to his feet and remembered that he wasn’t wearing any shoes. He started to chuckle, and she laughed as well. He noticed that she was rather pretty and thought about telling her what had just happened on the set with Holliday, but knew that without videographic proof, it would just sound like he was a braggart with a hero complex.
&nbs
p; “What must you think of me—it’s only our first meeting and you’ve already seen more of me than you should,” he said.
“I was hoping you’d bare your sole to me, actually.”
“At least tell me I’ve got nice feet first.”
“They’re much nicer than mine are. I’ve got mannish ankles.”
“Nonsense. A minimum of two and a half angels could dance on that ankle. And don’t put that in your article,” he said. “About me not being shod.”
“Why not?”
“My manager would kill me.”
“Well, what should I write, then?”
“Write that I had, like, beautiful leather brogues. Stunning without being gauche; the pinnacle of good taste. Louis the Fourteenth, in fact, to the trained eye. Massive ones.”
“Which only very clever people can see?”
“The extra clever ones get to see my socks, too.” Emboldened with heady relief, he teased her recklessly: “Besides, how do you know I’m not in character now?”
“But that would be exhausting, wouldn’t it?” she said, surveying his eyes intently. “Do you sometimes feel it’s ironic—that the more convincing you are in deceiving people, the more eager they are to worship at your Louis the Fourteenth feet?”
“I don’t know—isn’t it the same with lawyers and politicians?”
“People know you’re living a double life. They know you as Adjonis Keh the celebrity. Yet they willingly buy into the lies you tell them on screen when you’re performing as a character. Doesn’t that fascinate you every single day?”
In truth, the concept had never once occurred to him.
“I guess you could say I deal in illusions,” he said, beginning to enjoy the train of thought she was piloting him on. “The more they demand, the more I supply.”
“Great quote,” she mumbled, scribbling in her notebook. “It’s not my intention to offend you,” she apologised. “It’s just that you’re the first actor I’ve ever really talked to. I really, really want to know what it’s like to make a living by making people believe things they know to be untrue.”
