Tash Aw - Five Star Billionaire

When she woke up, daylight was flooding the room — the pale golden light in the minutes just after dawn. She found that she had somehow become wrapped up like a steamed dumpling in a blanket, which was gathered around her neck. Walter was asleep on the far side of the bed. His back was turned to her and he was wearing the same clothes as last night. She, too, was fully clothed. She found her shoes on the floor and gathered her handbag before leaving the apartment. She walked for a while before she was able to find a taxi. As the cab sped through the empty streets, she sent Walter a text to say, Unexpected work call — new business proposal, sorry . Even though it was very early in the morning, the day was already warm and she could feel the humidity gathering in the air. She wound down the windows of the taxi and thought, Alcohol really gives me a bad feeling.

Not only was she ashamed at her nonclassy behavior (all her books were clear that excessive consumption of alcohol was a huge barrier to attaining feminine elegance), she was also worried about what she had revealed about herself. She had not only lost face, she had lost control. That was the most worrying aspect of the evening — maybe she had given away too many clues that she was a liar and a fake, an illegal immigrant from a poor background and not the sophisticated girl he thought she was. It was so embarrassing to think that she might have divulged her secrets by accident — she could not be sure of what she had said or how much he had heard. Therefore, she no longer knew how she should behave with him, whether she should be shy or forthright, seductive and sexually wanton, or cool and educated. She spent all her time thinking about it, trying to devise a strategy to cover her lies, but the shame of being revealed for who she really was felt too crushing; it blackened her days completely. Her head felt as if it would explode with all the conflicting thoughts spinning around in her brain.

Of course, her distracted and unstable mood immediately began to affect her work. She tried to hide it, but the other girls noticed her lack of concentration, her fatigue, the way she started nervously every time her mobile phone rang, the way she remained slumped in the office in front of the computer, no longer sitting proudly at the reception or making half-hourly rounds of the spa to check every smallest detail, such as whether the towels had been folded and stacked with the beautiful precision for which their establishment had become famous.

“Phoebe, you must be very tired these days — are you sleeping well?” the girls said. They could not conceal their sly pleasure at her shabby and unprofessional appearance. Once, when she unexpectedly came out to the reception area from the office, she interrupted a whispered conversation between the receptionists: “… and her unwashed hair …” she heard them say, huddled together. When they saw her, they pulled away abruptly and pretended to look through some papers, but they could not suppress their smirks, which remained drawn on their faces even though they had their heads bowed.

Phoebe went straight to the bathroom and locked the door. It was true: Her immaculate styling had evaporated in the heat of the Shanghai summer. Lit by the unforgiving fluorescent bulbs, her complexion looked dry and powdery, her makeup uneven. Her eyes were bloodshot, and when she tried to smile she saw none of her usual radiance, only the beginnings of fine lines along her temples, like the skeletons of frail paper fans. Usually she would go to the salon twice a week to make sure her hair was blown and set exactly as she wanted it, but it was now nearly two weeks since she had been, and the constant heat and humidity that hung in the air had made it flat and damp. Her eyeliner and eye shadow had been applied too thickly. The worst thing was, she didn’t really care.

She tried to reimpose control over the spa. She sat at the reception desk to make sure that all the girls knew she was still the manager, but somehow it did not work. The girls lounged on the silk-covered sofas normally reserved for clients, drinking tea and gossiping. Once, even when there was a client waiting for her treatment, one of the beauticians sat on the other end of the sofa, chatting loudly to her boyfriend on her mobile phone. Two masseuses walked in with their takeaway lunch, the smell of their noodles overpowering the delicate fragrance of the waiting room. Phoebe watched them as they sat down in the guest waiting area, snapping apart their chopsticks and slurping on their iced bubble tea. She could not find the words to reprimand them or move them away. In front of her, on the smooth granite reception counter, the huge bouquet of flowers was beginning to wilt. The water in the vase was turning murky and a bit slimy. It smelled of blocked drains. It should have been changed days ago, but Phoebe could not be bothered.

The girls said, “Poor Phoebe, she got dumped by her boyfriend.” But they were not sad for her; they were happy because she no longer had a rich boyfriend, because she was now just like them. When she was arranging the bathrobes in the laundry room, she heard someone say, “That’s what happens when you go after rich men.”

She began to stretch her lunch breaks, staying out longer and longer until she was spending almost two hours away from the spa. The pavements were sticky with heat, and even in the shade of her special reflective umbrella she could feel the strength of the sun, burning her everywhere she went. As she walked without direction through the streets, she realized that the buildings she had only recently found fascinating and impressive now looked identical in their silvery blandness. Every road, every alley seemed the same to her, empty and unyielding. Around her, everyone was complaining about the heat. There was no air, they said; Shanghai in the summer is really suffocating; it gives us heatstroke. She went into a shaved-ice drinks store she liked — it gave her a nice cooling sensation as she entered the shop, and it was far enough from the spa that none of the girls would want to walk there in this weather. She was sitting there one afternoon when her handphone rang, startling her. When she checked, there was no voice-mail message, just a text from Boss Leong Yinghui, who on a whim, had visited the spa and was shocked to find it in such a sorry condition, obviously due to Phoebe’s neglect and unprofessionalism. Unless there was a good explanation, Phoebe should not expect to be employed there much longer. She was leaving for Beijing but demanded a meeting with Phoebe upon her return. She did not sign the message, but there was no need to — only Boss Leong wrote in language so dry and robotic. Phoebe stared at the message … should not expect to be employed …

But all she could think of was the feeling of dread and sickness that she had experienced when she woke up that morning in Walter’s apartment — the feeling that she had shamed herself and thrown away a golden chance to improve her life status. She could not stop worrying that he now looked down on her.

“You should ring him back,” Yanyan said late that night. She was sitting on the bed eating pumpkin seeds, stopping every few seconds to split one with her front teeth. “That is the only solution. He obviously loves you a lot; he is a really romantic guy.”

“Huh? Romantic? The guy doesn’t even want to kiss me — holding my hand is the highest form of his romantic expression. I want a soul mate, Yanyan, not just some boring … practical guy .”

“In this world, everyone is always looking for something better. Nothing they have is good enough. As soon as they achieve their goals, they want something more. Always more and more and more.”

Hmph, what would you know, Phoebe thought. Yanyan’s last employment was as an office girl in a baby-food company that went bust because its products were full of silicon, and even that was more than a year ago now — she did not have the right qualifications to lecture Phoebe on ambition.