Janice Lee - The Expatriates

So it’s come to this moment, when she’s sitting here in her chair, damp from the shower, looking at a man in her bed, a married man she first laid eyes on a mere twenty-four hours ago. And there’s this feeling she has, this good, tingly feeling, that this is her first step out of this netherworld, that this might be forward motion. She doesn’t know how or why, but it’s the first good feeling she’s had in months, so she’s going to hold on to it.

The man on the bed stirs.

Let it not be like a bad movie, she prays, where the man groans and rubs his head and asks where he is and is ashamed and wants to leave and it’s so awkward.

Instead, he lies very still after his initial entry into consciousness, like a cornered animal, thinking what to do next while being watched by his predator. Then, wonderfully, magically, he sits up without embarrassment, naked, shaking off any vulnerability he might have had when he first woke, and looks straight at the young girl, sitting on the one other piece of furniture that can be squeezed into the room, arms wrapped around her legs, staring at him.

“Good morning,” he says genially. “What’s for breakfast?”

THE FAME. That had been unexpected. Fame, infamy, whatever you called it. The police had said that publicity was good, and so she had allowed herself to be photographed, she had agreed to news conferences, she had stood up and pleaded for her child to be returned to her, with a Korean translator by her side. She and Clarke had been on all the local and news channels, the local ones making much of the fact that she was a quarter Korean, although she had never felt more foreign, and that Clarke was a Yale graduate, because Koreans loved brand names. For a few days, every newspaper, every news broadcast, had mentioned their story, which was what they wanted, with the photo of G plastered everywhere. There had been articles bemoaning the breakdown of Korean society and the rise of crime and all that was wrong with the modern world.

The abduction had also made the news in Hong Kong, because of their Hong Kong residency. But later, when it had all quieted down, the unwelcome development was that she was now known in Hong Kong, recognized, when she went to the supermarket to buy bananas, or to town for a doctor’s appointment. People, mostly women, stared at her for a beat too long, or nudged each other surreptitiously when they saw her. She supposes it is a little bit like being a celebrity, when so many people know you and you don’t know them at all.

At dinner parties, mostly, people were prepped in advance, she assumes. This happened to Margaret, they were told, so best not to talk about certain subjects, like children, or traveling to Korea. But it was amazing what people said nonetheless. A woman she knew only slightly tried to be provocative and knowledgeable and said it was great that the case got so much attention, and that it was probably because she and Clarke were so photogenic. Margaret stared at her and wondered why she always had to be the bigger person. She wanted to scream at the stupid cow and tell her to shut her fucking mouth forever, but she just nodded, and then she got up and walked away. Later the woman said to other people that it was understandable, of course, but Margaret Reade had become so uncommunicative that it was hard to get through. The number of people walking through life with sub-par emotional intelligence was incredible.

She knows what it’s like to be them, though, to have tragedy slip by your door so closely you can feel its chill. She was them before. A child drowned at a birthday party, a raging bacterial infection that could not be checked — tales told in whispers in case saying them too loudly would summon misfortune to your doorstep. These things happened, and people knew, and people went on living, because what choice did they have?

She has woken up early today, as she usually does, to a still house. The dinner party last night was fine, no one too obtrusive or obnoxious, but at one point she caught Clarke’s eye and they smiled at each other, chagrin-filled smiles, as if to say, here we are. She was seated next to Hilary’s husband, David, who was drunk at the beginning of the party and got progressively worse. He was drinking whiskey when everyone else was sipping wine. Hilary ignored him; everyone ignored him. Then he disappeared at the end of the night, saying he had an appointment. Poor Hilary. Margaret hadn’t known that Hilary’s marriage had gotten to that stage. Last she knew, they were thinking about having kids, and having some difficulty, but she hadn’t really heard anything more.

It’s good to go out sometimes, good to go out and interact with new, different people. Someone once told her that if you keep pretending it’s normal, it’ll become normal at some point and you won’t even notice when it happens. She’s still waiting.

But now they’ve come home and gone to bed, and now there goes the blare of her alarm clock. It’s been over a year since G disappeared, and Clarke had brought up the idea gingerly: what to do for winter break, do you think we should go away, the kids could really do with a holiday.

Tickets to the tropical Thai island of Phuket have been bought, a beachside hotel has been booked, a connecting door for the two rooms an absolute must. Because that’s what normal families do, she supplies in her mind. They go on vacation. Because it has been so long, because there is nothing left to do that she can think of, because she is worried about how much time Daisy spends in her room, because staying in a quiet town over Christmas seems terrifying, because her therapist says she needs to metabolize the grief and try to live life.

She goes downstairs and checks on the children. They are still sleeping, and their suitcases are lying open, mostly packed but still needing the last-minute things: the toothbrushes, the toiletry kits. She hovers over them, watching their breath coming in and out in small bursts, their small faces at peace. Philip still shares a room with G’s bed, empty for a year now.

She has packed her and Clarke’s bag already. Packing for hot places is easy: swimsuits, flip-flops, shorts, all taking up barely any space. Back in her bedroom, she adds sunscreen, a camera, to the bag. Clarke is starting to stir. She goes in to take a shower. The house starts to move: She hears Essie start the coffee machine, Philip going to the bathroom.

Margaret’s frighteningly efficient travel agent, Rosalie Chan, arranged this vacation. She is the type who, if she asked a question on e-mail and did not get a response within three hours, would keep e-mailing, asking if you had gotten her e-mail. She constantly scours her computer system for cheaper fares for her clients and books one type of ticket as a placeholder before exchanging it for a cheaper one, ad infinitum until the ticketing deadline. She is efficiency and diligence personified. Margaret, used to more desultory service types, marvels at her energy. She met her only once, years ago, in her rickety office building in Central on Wyndham Street, and it was awkward and strange, and they mutually implicitly agreed to continue only on e-mail. They have a sort of magic rapport online and none in real life.

Rosalie had, of course, asked some unanswerable questions when Margaret told her to look into a Christmas break in the Philippines or Thailand. What room configuration? What activities? She had just found a business-class seat to Phuket that was just a hundred dollars more than coach; did she want it for herself and Clarke and they could put the kids in coach? Of course, when she sent the itinerary through, G was on it, because how could she have known? And Margaret, of course, didn’t take his name off — how much could she be expected to bear? — and when they get to the airport, there is his name, and the Cathay Pacific check-in attendant is asking where is G, and Clarke is staring at her but not saying anything because, of course, he understands.