Tash Aw - Five Star Billionaire

“I’ve been working here for nearly a decade,” Yinghui said coolly — perhaps too much so. “I’m well aware of the risks.”

“Sure. It’s just, from a bank’s point of view, I would be a bit cautious about your business partners.”

“You mean Walter Chao.”

The banker smiled and arranged her papers into a neat pile. “All I’m saying is, be careful.”

Yinghui reciprocated with an equally professional smile. They got up to leave, wishing each other the best of luck for business and life in Shanghai. As Yinghui got into the high-speed lift that carried her silently back down to street level, the banker’s final words of advice continued to grate in her head. Be careful . It was exactly what her parents would have said.

That night, she met up with Walter in a restaurant they both knew well, a faux-Indonesian place in the middle of Jing’an, where the food would be mediocre but the setting — favored by couples on blind dates — pleasant, fitting for a quiet celebration. It might remind them of home, Walter said.

“Is that a good thing?” Yinghui joked.

Just as they arrived, Yinghui’s mobile phone rang; over the noise of the traffic she could not hear it ringing but felt it vibrate in her handbag. She let it ring through. She was about to celebrate a huge milestone in her career and — who knows — a turning point in her personal life; she did not feel like doing business tonight. But the phone rang again, the insistent rumble sending shivers up her forearm. Someone wanted to get hold of her, and years of responding to the phone at any time of the day or night made it difficult for her to ignore calls. She had spent so long clutching at straws, grabbing each tiny opportunity, that even now she could not resist the ringing of the phone. She found it in her handbag and waved Walter ahead. The voice on the other end of the phone was crackly, as if the person were moving through a rainstorm, though she knew that was impossible: It was a local mobile phone number, and the weather was balmy and still. It was a man’s voice that seemed at once familiar and foreign — someone she should have known but didn’t. Every other word was swallowed up by static, making the voice sound robotic and dull, machinelike. She realized who it was just as his voice broke free of the fuzzy interference to say his name: Justin Lim.

She stood unmoving for a few moments, listening to the monotone of his voice. It frightened her to think that it could still make her feel like this: alone, belittled, and confused, even when he was only delivering pleasantries, making small talk about the state of Shanghai life. She let him speak, interjecting blandly now and then, but the more he spoke, the more it became clear to her that he had turned into what he had always been destined to become: a boring middle-aged man. Some people change, others don’t, she thought; suddenly she pitied him, for she had moved on, and he hadn’t. He sounded tired and even a little nervous; nothing he said was of any interest to her. His voice belonged to a part of her life that was safely stored away, a curious relic of the past, preserved in a glass box like a minor curiosity in her museum of memories, a place rarely, if ever, visited these days. Even as she spoke to him, she could feel herself striding forward in time, looking to the future as she always did. She had become a completely different person, but he was still the same.

She made her excuses politely and promised to return his call. When she hung up, they both knew, of course, that she would not.

She hurried into the restaurant. A kebaya -clad Indonesian waitress had seated Walter at a table that had clearly been set apart from the others, on the edge of the little artificial lake, which was prettily decorated with lamps that cast a soft glow on the water lilies and rushes. The waitress was chatting to him with a certain degree of familiarity, sharing a joke while handing him the menu. She greeted Yinghui with perfunctory courtesy and unfolded the starched linen napkin on her lap for her.

“You seem to be a regular here too,” Yinghui said.

“Not at all — I just happened to have the same waitress when I came last week. She gave me this table then too.”

Yinghui suddenly imagined someone else in her place, another woman — a different, younger one, sitting opposite Walter. The image flashed into her mind without warning: the laughing, overfamiliar waitress indulging in a bit of banter with Walter as he waited for a new woman to take her place. It was ridiculous, she thought, and yet she could not get rid of that sneaking suspicion.

“Sometimes I get the feeling you’re auditioning me,” she said.

“If I am, you’ve passed the test with flying colors,” he said, unflustered and genial as usual. “Important phone call? I hope you’re starting to turn away all your suitors, now that I’ve arrived on the scene.” He smiled as he poured her some San Pellegrino. “Professionally speaking, of course.”

“Of course.”

They ordered their food quickly and waited in silence for it to arrive. Yinghui felt curiously flat, the way she did when getting out of a very hot bath — listless and a little sad; she had no appetite whatsoever. She pretended to share Walter’s nostalgic joy in recalling various meals he had eaten when he was a child in Malaysia. She was not interested in such recollections, which dragged her toward the past.

“So when were you last here?” she asked.

“Oh, I can’t remember, last week sometime? With a client from Shandong. It was pretty dull.”

“I see.”

They ate in polite silence punctuated by a question or two from Walter. Yinghui felt increasingly frustrated by her inability to shrug off her sudden feeling that, a week ago, maybe less, another woman had been sitting in her place. How had he been with that other woman? Calm, solid, as he was now? Or flirtatious and seductive, as she had no doubt he could be. It was ludicrous that she should feel this way — Walter had never indicated that he was in any way attracted to her other than as a business partner, and yet she felt curiously betrayed. It was her own fault: She had allowed her imagination to run riot. Why? It was unlike her to do so. She had to pull herself together, quickly, and start enjoying this evening, for it was a celebration of a momentous deal.

“You seem a bit tired,” Walter said. “A bit down.”

Yinghui nodded. “Yeah. Don’t know why — sorry. Guess it’s the comedown after the adrenaline rush of this morning. Even though you know it’s going to be horrible, seeing your banker always turns out to be more dispiriting than you think. They’re so anal. I hate the way they think they can control your life.”

“Agreed.” Walter laughed. “You sure it was nothing to do with the phone call you took? It seemed to change your mood.”

“Of course not, don’t be silly. I’m just tired, I told you. Listen — do you think we could skip dessert and go for a walk? It might do me good.”

He raised his hand and signaled for the bill. “Sure. Shall we walk along the Bund? I know it’s a cliché, but at this time of the night there won’t be many people around and we might catch the last of the lights on the skyscrapers.”

“That sounds nice.” It was a lovely idea, a thoughtful suggestion that he clearly knew would make her feel better — often, on late spring evenings, a warm breeze would blow over the Huangpu, making the flags that stood tall on the noble buildings on the Bund flutter tensely; young couples would stroll hand-in-hand, eating ice cream and taking pictures of each other with their smart new camera phones. It was a perfect setting, and she should have been happy that her companion was so considerate. But that was the problem: It sounded casual, but the suggestion seemed too perfect, too calculated in its effect. A fun thing to do: nothing too heavy, a bit cheesy, but with definite romantic overtones — everything was perfectly judged. It felt rehearsed, as if he had done it many times, as if he had done it only last week.