Tash Aw - Five Star Billionaire

Among the guests were a few people she knew well, including one or two she considered friends, some business associates, and many others who were mere acquaintances. A man caught her eye, but she couldn’t figure out which category he belonged to. He had a familiar gait — stiff at the joints, the way an artist’s marionette might be expected to walk, like an arthritic soldier. He was about her age, possibly slightly older, tall, well groomed, impeccably dressed, deliberate in his movements: the way he shook hands, firmly, or held chairs back for women, or leaned forward to kiss them on both cheeks in a courteous but professional manner. Every gesture seemed elegant yet practiced. He carried an air of privilege, but he was certainly not Shanghainese. He was well packaged, Yinghui thought, the right age too. The right age: She hated how she had come to assess men this way, the way they assessed her — it was a way of seeing people that had seeped into her thinking unconsciously, as if by osmosis. Right age. Good match. A real woman. Style issues. This is what happened when you lived in Shanghai. She couldn’t escape it now.

She circled him from a distance, trying to work out whether she really knew him. He was wearing a light-gray suit made of a fabric with a faint herringbone pattern, a pale-blue shirt, and a dark tie. His jawline was just turning from sleek to heavy, but his thick, neatly combed hair gave him the air of a college student — handsome, yes, but bland. She eased her way through the crowd of people, dodging precariously held champagne flutes, keeping him on the edge of her field of vision all the time. He was on his own now, reading a brochure, wandering away from the crowd, slowly circling the room. She moved closer, making sure he could not see her. Then, when the time was right, she turned and caught his eye. She felt a tightness in her throat, a quickening knot that threatened to turn swiftly into panic.

“Sorry — Chee Keong? Justin?”

“Yes. Leong Yinghui!” He made a movement toward her, his head leaning forward, but then he corrected himself and extended his hand. “Hi. My God, it’s been years. I’d never have thought I’d meet you at a business event.”

“Justin Lim Chee Keong. What a surprise.” She shook his hand as firmly as she could, giving it brisk up-and-down movements. She wondered if her voice sounded artificially confident, overbright. “How long has it been — ten years? More, perhaps.”

“I’d say closer to fifteen years. Though at my age I try not to keep count. You haven’t changed at all — I mean, not one bit.”

“You too,” Yinghui lied. Up close, she could see the lines drawing down on either side of his mouth, the dark circles that shadowed his slightly bloodshot eyes. His skin appeared to be dry and brittle. When he smiled, she saw vestiges of the person she had known — a young, physical man with a full, open face. The same features were now touched with a certain hollowness, a glimpse of what he might look like as an old man. “So what brings you to Shanghai — don’t tell me, family business?”

“What else is there in my life?” His laugh was rehearsed, mechanical, and it made him seem tired, not happy. He looked at her with a hollow expression; she tried to look for traces of shock or surprise in his reddened eyes but could discern nothing. “It’s a real surprise seeing you here. I was just looking at the list of nominees for the prize, and when I saw your name I thought, No way, that can’t be the same person I knew. A businesswoman ? I never thought that was possible. Amazing.”

Yinghui thought that he was going to follow up with questions about her life — how she had arrived in Shanghai, the nature of her businesses these days — but he merely continued to stare at her in a blank, awkward manner, exactly the way she remembered from all those years ago. “Stranger things happen in life,” she said, filling in the silence at last. “It’s not exactly the Virgin Birth, you know. Anyway, how is, um, how is your brother?” she asked. “I read about C.S.’s wedding about five, six years ago — it looked very luxurious. I knew the bride at school; she was in the year above me. And your parents, still glamorous as ever?”

“I believe all is well with them.”

“I read about your family’s business in the papers — not that I was looking out for it or anything, I just read an article by chance. Things must be tough.”

He shrugged. “It’s a global crisis, isn’t it? It’s tough for everyone — though you seem to be doing pretty well.”

A young woman appeared at his side and slid her hand around his waist, inviting him to do the same; but she was looking away from him, toward something behind Yinghui’s back. There was a sudden burst of camera flashes around them, two or three photographers taking pictures of the couple. Yinghui stepped back and watched them strike poses as they faced the cameras — he stiffly, his new companion sinuously and expertly. Yinghui recognized her from magazines she’d read in the hairdressers — a local actress on the verge of stardom. She certainly did not have style issues . From a distance they made a handsome couple, Yinghui thought, and she could already envisage the photos in the magazines: a perfect union of modern Chinese beauty and old overseas Chinese money. The lines of his drawn, tired face would not be visible, and the reader would see just his good cheekbones, his perfect bearing and casual elegance — the sort of thing that could only have been produced by generations of good breeding.

He turned to look at Yinghui, mouthing the word, “Sorry,” and she mouthed back, “No problem.” She hung about for a while, wondering what to do. Should she slip away in a dignified manner without a proper goodbye or continue waiting for him, the feeling of being superfluous mounting with every second? She had almost decided on the former when she was suddenly seized by a need to talk to him — to tell him things. She felt a rush of unaired grievances welling up in her chest, pushing up into her throat; the need to vocalize them took her by surprise, shocked her. She wanted to sit him down, face-to-face, and speak at him. She didn’t need him to reply; she merely required him to be physically present while she said her piece. He could listen passively, unabsorbing, and she wouldn’t care, but she needed to catch hold of him.

This was ridiculous, she thought, just ridiculous. It was nearly fifteen years ago — what did it matter? She was an entirely different person now. The quick flash of irrational hatred that she felt for him began to subside. He was a few years older than she was, a man slipping surely into middle age; he had his own problems. She hadn’t felt even the slightest bit of malicious pleasure when she read the financial press about his family’s business going bust. She had felt entirely disinterested, her emotional detachment tinged with pity — much as she was feeling now. Look at him, taking up with a trashy actress fifteen years younger than himself. It was sad. He was sad. Yinghui had barely known him in the first place.

Never let the past affect how you perform. Every day is a new day . That was something else she’d said in that defining interview, so she ought to practice what she preached. She gathered herself to leave and, as she did so, dipped into her clutch bag for her business card — she was a consummate professional, and this was a professional setting. She pushed through the crowd of people and handed it to him with both hands.

“So sorry, but I have to rush off now. Good to see you again, a real surprise. Here’s my card if ever you need to get in touch.”

He accepted it with both hands, and she realized that the formality between them was entirely appropriate: They were strangers to each other now. “Wonderful,” he said, slipping the card into his pocket. “Great. I will call you.”