The Best Contemporary Women's Fiction: Six Novels

by Jenna Blum

  "I'm still sorry."

  He almost smiled. It was the sound of her voice. "Where are you?"

  "In a restaurant. I just ordered."

  "What restaurant?"

  She read him the name off the menu.

  "I know the place." He felt a click of decision inside him. "Wait for me. I'll come over."

  "Really? You will?"

  "Yes. Can you wait?"

  "I'll be here," she said.

  Maggie sat at her table in the bright-lit restaurant, wondering what kind of state he would be in when he got here. She so felt for him. He should have won. She had been there that night.

  As she waited she decided she would think of things to say that would comfort him. She could begin now being his friend. The interview chapter was closed. The story had ended. She might not have technically finished the last paragraph, but she had written it in her mind. From the moment they hung up the phone, as she sat at this table waiting for him, she had composed the last sentence over and over.

  When he came in she saw him first, and watched him loop his body through the tables, anxious, scanning for her. She lifted a hand and his eyes came to her, relaxing a notch. Then he stepped close to the table and saw her food still undisturbed. "Why didn't you eat?"

  "I was waiting," she said.

  He eased into a chair. She saw him favoring his body. He was holding himself oddly. "Never waste food."

  "It's not wasted. I thought you might like some."

  He spoke slowly. "I don't think I can eat right now."

  "You must feel so angry," she said.

  He made a weak shrug. "It's my fate," he said.

  "I found out some fate too," she said, "since I saw you. I got the lab results."

  He looked up.

  "Shuying is not Matt's child."

  Implications tumbled across his face. "That's good for you," he said.

  "Yes. Strange, but good."

  "Strange how?"

  "It's the end of Matt. Truly the end."

  "That happened a while ago," he said.

  "I know." She looked at him. His dark eyes were closed, and he was pressing his fingers to the side of his head. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm fighting a headache. Please," he said, "eat."

  She took small bites from the plates and nibbled at them, but he, with every passing moment, looked worse. His eyes took on the unmistakable crinkle of nausea. Then of course she could not eat either. The appeal of the food drained away. She put down her chopsticks. "Sam," she said. He winced at her voice. "What is it?"

  "A migraine, I think. I haven't had one in so long, since I was a kid. I didn't think I'd ever have one again." It seemed to hurt him to speak.

  "Look what happened tonight," she pointed out.

  He made the smallest movement of assent with his head.

  "What helps?" she said, her voice soft.

  "Lie down," he said, with effort. "In a dark room, quiet—if I can fall asleep, even for a little while, it'll be over."

  "Let's go," she said, and signaled the waiter for a check. She paid and then stood up and walked behind him and slid her hands underneath his armpits. He shivered when she touched him. "Stand up," she said gently. "I'll help you get home."

  This promise seemed to go through to the part of him which could still respond, and he rose with her, walking steadily out even as he kept one hand over his eyes. "It's not dangerous, is it?" she asked, and he managed to shake his head. Relieved, she raised her hand for a taxi.

  One pulled over and she got him into the back seat, then gave the driver her approximate pronunciation of the intersection next to Sam's house. She said it wrong, no doubt, but it always got her there. Now when Sam heard it he made a twitch of a smile through his pain. He uttered a few words of the guttural Beijing burr and the driver nodded. Then he sat, still as a stone, eyes closed, every sound they heard as they drove through the streets seeming to magnify his pain. Maggie could almost see his head throbbing. First losing; now this. She would help him get home, to quiet and darkness. That was all she could do.

  At his gate he fumbled in his pocket and brought forth the key. She unlocked the gate and then relatched it behind them. She slipped the key back in his pocket. She felt the knob of his hipbone. With her other hand she held his elbow, guiding him. He could barely walk. I know. Just a little farther.

  To get to his room she counted off the three steps up to the verandah. Inside the half-glass door she steered him across the floor and to his bed. He lay down slowly, gingerly, not wanting her to touch him, cringing even when she unlaced his shoes. She turned off all the lights, which made him exhale in relief.

  She wanted a wet towel. The closest bathroom that she knew of was across the court in the restaurant's main dining room. Just inside the door, she found a switch that made the white, lotus-shaped lampshades in the room spring to light. She walked across the dark, liquid-looking tiles to the small restroom, soaked a towel in cold water, wrung it, and walked back.

  When she reentered his room he was lying still. She stepped quietly. All his attention was turned inward. She came quietly to the bed and, not wanting to startle him, touched him softly with her fingers first, above the brow. His head made a tick in response. She laid the cloth on him, first one end, so he could feel the cold wetness, then all the way across. He looked grateful. He reached up and pressed it to his temples. Then one of his hands came out and found one of hers, and quickly, naturally, their fingers laced together. He gave her a squeeze of thanks. Then he withdrew and folded his hands on top of his chest, motionless, the way he had been holding them.

  She eased back. Quiet. Silence. She wanted him to fall asleep. Three steps from the bed was a frayed leather armchair. She lowered herself into it without a sound, an inch at a time, and sat quietly.

  The room was dark, the only illumination the two silver squares of streetlight from the hutong behind, bent in half at the seam of wall and ceiling. Occasionally she heard sounds from outside, people passing, a few cars, but mostly the room was silent.

  She could leave, she thought. He was settled. He would surely fall asleep now, and when he woke up he would be better.

  She would leave, but not yet. Right now she wanted to watch him. Time went away. She saw his breathing turn deep and regular. When a noise intruded from outside he no longer winced. She thought he might be asleep. Good. Sleep. She liked the forever feeling of the room, the old wooden furniture, the sight of him so undefended. It had been a year since she was alone with a man in a room while he slept, and a decade since it had happened with anyone but Matt. No, that was not true. She and Sam had slept for a few hours in the little upstairs room at his Uncle Xie's house. That had been different. Now she was on watch. She was the guardian, the one caring. She kept her eyes on him until slowly she felt them starting to close. She was drifting into sleep. It was comfortable in the chair. That was the last thing she remembered thinking.

  When she awoke she moved with a jolt. He was awake. He was sitting up on the edge of the bed. He looked dazed, and shiny with relief-sweat, but once again like himself.

  She stirred. "Are you okay?"

  "I am. It's over. I fell asleep."

  "Good."

  "Thank you."

  "I didn't do anything."

  "You brought me here."

  She shrugged. "You feel all right?"

  "Fine." He appeared to be at an odd midpoint between exhausted and exhilarated. He massaged a ring around his scalp.

  "Here. Let me." She went to stand behind him, but the angle was wrong, even though he turned his body to help her. Then her fingers caught in his tied-back hair.

  "Sit down," he said, and touched the bed behind him. She climbed up, settled a few inches from the back of him, and touched the coated elastic band that bound his hair. He brought up a practiced finger to hook through it and pull it off. His hair fell straight and heavy. She had never seen it loose. He looked different. She slipped her fingers underneath it to massage up, fro
m the base of his scalp, following the arc his fingers had marked earlier.

  She saw him relaxing. The jumpy little trigger points around his head seemed to disperse. His spine straightened. It took her a while to work her way to the top of his head, to the midpoint above his forehead, where she finished.

  He caught her hand as it fell away, carried it around to his face, and pressed it to his cheek. Then he moved until his lips were in the center of her palm. She knew he was going to kiss her there and he did, but instead of the single lip-press she expected, he did it slowly, for a long time, and with all the care and attention he might have lavished were he kissing her on the mouth. There was no mistaking what he was saying. A torrent of pain and hope poured through her brain, threatening to short-circuit everything, but her hand moved against his face by itself, responding.

  What to do now? Cross this line unthinking? Neither was young. They were fossils. He was older than she, which was saying something. She knew little about his past, but for the first time in her life it didn't seem to matter. Of course he had pain and remorse in his suitcase. So did she. Hers was different, though; it was total. Being widowed wiped a person clean. There was nothing unfinished; everything was finished. She was empty. She carried nothing. She never expected to love again. Don't think of love, she reproved herself. Don't even allow the word to form. This could be only a moment. No pretending. She held herself still, moving only her hand against his mouth.

  In the end her body decided for her. He brought his mouth to the cleft between her fingers with so much love that she found herself inching up, just a little, until she was against him from behind. She slid her left hand around his waist, he caught it with his, and again their fingers interlaced. In this way they held each other and exchanged promises and trepidations, all without speaking, all without hurry, for each wanted to be sure. This was the long moment that was like a question. She let the question play, loving the strong, wiry feeling of his body from behind. Her hand played with his stomach and he tilted himself up to her. She put her lips on the back of his neck. That was it. She had answered. His hands loosened, his body turned, and in a long second she saw the prismatic potential of their lives unfolding. Don't think about that. Then he was facing her, undoing her clothing, cupping a gentle hand behind her head to bring her mouth to his, and she felt the future and the past fall away from her.

  When they awakened it was deep night, and cold. They were naked. Her legs were wrapped around him. She saw the blankets on the floor and remembered the moment they were pushed off the bed. His eyes followed, and they both started to laugh.

  "Look at us," she said, touching his chest. "Like a couple of teenagers." Then she said what she was scared to say. "Sam, that was so good."

  "I know." He caught her under the rib cage and stretched, first back, then forward, taking her with him. She felt a gentle pull up and down her spine.

  He let her go. There was a shine to his face. "You want to get up and sit in the courtyard? The moon's up. The city's sleeping. I like this time," he added, but with a different tone, as if now he would start to tell her about himself; as if there were many things she would need to know.

  "I like it too," said Maggie.

  He rose and drew some folded things from a pile, pajamas—his, but they fit her. Not like the capacious things she used to borrow from Matt. Matt. She swallowed at the new strangeness of the thought of her husband. The dial had moved. She had made love to someone. Sam had put on pajamas and was tying the string at his waist, free in front of her, his hair still loose. She reached out and gathered it and let it drop. The touch made him raise his face, happy. She felt it too. This was the night Matt would start to become a memory.

  Sam set out two rattan recliners in the court and lit a sheltered candle between them. They lay side by side and watched the leaves above their heads. The waning moon made a lazy letter C atop the rim of the wall.

  "It's so quiet," she said. "I thought your father would be staying here."

  "He is, in that room." Sam pointed to the north-facing room across from his own. "But he went with Jiang and Tan on an overnight pilgrimage to a temple."

  "Are they religious?"

  "Only about food. This place has the best vegetarian cuisine in north China. They pray with the monks, sleep at the temple, and eat like kings. They come back tomorrow."

  "So they were already gone when you got the news."

  "Yes."

  She looked at him across the candle. They had been so close to each other a few hours ago, inside each other. She had seen so much about him. She felt a surge. She was aware of how much she wanted him to be happy. "Don't worry, Sam. This thing means nothing. Your career's going to take off. Nothing can stop it."

  "You sound like my uncles."

  That's because I love you as they do, was the thought that blurted up from her subconscious—but which she could not say out loud. "They know. So do I." Then she kept talking, so the words could more easily pass by. "And in time the world will know, too. My article will help. You will be really happy with its portrait of what you do. And I wrote it before this happened"—she touched his leg—"so don't worry." She paused. "I didn't expect this, Sam."

  "Neither did I."

  A smile crept over her. "Any more than I expected the food to be so great. Maybe that's what makes the article about you glow the way it does. Do you know what they say? That writers do their very best stories on a foreign place the first time they see it—and then again the last time, when they are saying goodbye, just before leaving. That last one they call the swan song. So maybe my piece on you is just my first piece on this place and this food, and everything seems so marvelous— is so marvelous—that it comes out on the page."

  "I love that you got it about the food," he said, "that you understood it, that maybe—I hope I'm not projecting—you might even be on your way to loving it."

  "I could get there," she said, seriously. "Given time, and exposure."

  "That would best be done here," he pointed out.

  She didn't say anything. She thought she understood what he was really saying, and she couldn't promise to stay here any more than he could say he'd come back home. She stood up, redirected the moment by stretching a bit, then excused herself and started to walk away on the path toward the main dining room.

  "Bathroom?" he said. "Restaurant's closed. Use mine." He pointed to a door in the corner between the room where he lived and the second dining room. She had not seen it before.

  She would ask nothing, she decided, as she walked across the court. Expect nothing. A world separated them. There was no way anything between them could take hold and keep going. She knew that already now, at the beginning, and once she adjusted to the idea it gave her a certain peace. Just as being widowed had given her peace, though of a different and far more bitter kind. Being widowed had made her feel that nothing else she could ever lose, ever again, could really hurt her. But that was wrong, because this would hurt her, losing Sam. Already she knew it would hurt.

  The bathroom was small and homey, with a stall shower. She felt comfortable in here. She brought his towel to her face and closed her eyes and sank into it. It was full of him, his smell. She loved it; she could stand here breathing it forever.

  It was amazing how a feeling could be so powerful and still impossible. As if she could stay. She put the towel back on the rack. The city was so quiet. Was it four in the morning? Five? She walked back out under the rustling leaves. She was aware of the freedom of her body, the ease of no underwear. She had a strange, dreamlike sense that she had always lived here and had merely forgotten it, that every day of her life she had seen Sam reclining in just this way, his chest bare, his drawstring pajamas. She felt a cramp inside her.

  He moved to one side of his chaise. "Come here with me. There's room." And she lay down next to him, nestled under his arm. As soon as he was holding her again and they were breathing together, she felt herself relax. Her thoughts and questions ebbed. "I do wi
sh I could stay here," she said truthfully.

  "I was going to propose that," he answered. She laughed. She did not stop to wonder if he spoke lightly or seriously. Somehow she knew at that moment, in the circle of his arm, that the few words they had just spoken were the simple and sufficient truth.

  15

  In this humble book I have tried to give the facts about the cuisine of the Chinese imperial palace. It was a place of tragic beauty. Of everything I learned there, one thing stands out. Food was always to be shared. When my master sent out his untouched dishes from the huge imperial repasts to the families of the princes and the chief bureaucrats, he would send them only as complete meals for eight people in stacked lacquerware. Never any other way. Always for eight. The high point of every meal was never the food itself, he taught us, but always the act of sharing it.

  —LIANG WEI, The Last Chinese Chef

  They awakened to a sound, too early. They were naked under the blankets, their arms and legs twined like one being. With Matt, when she woke up, she had always been off by herself in the bed. This was different. She moved closer to Sam's smell, his black hair, his body the same size as hers. Then the sound crashed through again, and right behind it she heard another sound, one she recognized—the creak of the red gate pushing open. "Sam." She nudged him, whispered in his ear.

  He stirred. Then they heard Jiang's quavery voice calling. "Zizi!" Nephew!

  "They're here," said Sam. He jumped out of the bed, his darkivory skin flashing in the daylight before her eyes, his hands quick on his pants. "Here." He threw her clothes. "Sorry. Damn. No privacy in this family."

  "But what do I do?"

  "Nothing. Just be normal."

  "It's not," she said. "It's not normal."

  "I know that. But it's the best kind of not normal."

  "Zizi!" Jiang called again from the courtyard.

  "Wo lai!" Sam called back, Coming!

  "Should we say anything?" she asked.