Janice Lee - The Expatriates

HILARY HAS BEEN on pins and needles all night, waiting to see if David is coming. Olivia is well on her way to getting bombed, a combination of not knowing anyone at the party and not caring to know anyone at the party. Hilary knows most of the people here — they are on the American Club-TASOHK-Central circuit, and she is a card-carrying member of this group, even without children. She can be at this party and not feel a shred of social anxiety. The same cannot be said of Olivia, who both cares and doesn’t care. If Hilary pressed her to be honest, the truth would be that Olivia feels superior to all the expats here. Hong Kong is her real home. She owns her apartment, her daughter goes to a local school and speaks Cantonese and English perfectly. To her, the expatriates are just visiting, naïve galoots who come and screech about the jade market and getting dresses copied in Shenzhen. Not for them the rarefied rooms of the Hong Kong Club or the Stewards Box at the Jockey Club on race day. They are temporary and best ignored or tolerated until they receive their orders to return home. She would usually live her life perhaps dining next to them at Otto e Mezzo or browsing alongside them at the bookstore, never having any real interaction. Olivia has granted Hilary an exemption due to their friendship in college, when Hilary acted as a tour guide to California and the rest of America.

Then she sees David walk through the entrance, looking around. She hasn’t seen him in a long time. Not like him to be so late, but she guesses he’s a new person now. He is alone, as far as she can tell. He looks good — a little thin, but good.

She taps Olivia on the shoulder. “David just walked in.”

“Let’s go say hi!” Olivia says.

“That’s a terrible idea.”

“Oh, come on,” Olivia says, and drags her to David.

“Oh, hi, Hilary,” he says uncomfortably. “And Olivia.”

They stand awkwardly.

“How are you?” Hilary asks. “You’ve been traveling a lot?”

“Yes,” he says. “A fair amount.”

There’s an awkward pause while Olivia sways, tipsy, beside them.

“I wanted to tell you something,” Hilary says. “I was going to see if you wanted to get a meal, but I might as well tell you now.”

“Okay,” he says agreeably. Again she wonders where his calm is coming from.

“So I think I’m going to go ahead and adopt Julian,” she says.

“Oh.” A look passes over his face that she can’t interpret. Not panic, not distress, something more complicated.

“I’m going to need your help, though,” she presses on, although in the back of her mind something’s telling her it’s not a good idea. “They’re so strict and picky here. I want to keep you on the forms as my husband, and we’ll adopt him together, but it’ll be purely a formality. You don’t need to have any responsibility, and I can do a separate contract like that if you want.”

“Jesus,” he says. “That’s a lot to drop on me right now.”

Anger rises in her so quickly it feels as if her head is on fire. “Oh, you think?” she says hotly. “You think it’s a lot? You… asshole. You think it was a lot for you to leave without any… any”—she cannot find the word—“any… notification,” she says, using an absurd, businesslike word, “the day my mother came for her annual visit?”

“Calm down, Hilary,” he says. “I’m not saying anything bad. I’m just saying it’s a lot. And that’s part of the whole problem, you know. When you bring this up, the fact that I left is more about that it was the day your mother was coming than the fact that I left. You have some messed-up priorities.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You always, you always made me feel like I joined your family and not that you joined me, do you know what I mean?” He shakes his head. “This is not the place to be doing this.”

They stare at each other, the hostility finally bubbling to the surface.

“I didn’t come here for this,” he says finally. “I’m going to go get a drink, and we can talk about this later, not at a party, not tonight.” He walks off, shaking his head.

She looks at his receding back, trembling with anger. When had this man been her husband, someone she thought she might spend the rest of her life with? He seems like a stranger.

Olivia has been sobered up by the exchange. “Sorry, that didn’t go well, did it?” she says, and puts her arm around Hilary, who is trembling a little.

“That’s not how I imagined it,” Hilary says. “I didn’t expect him to be so… uncaring, or mean, even.”

“Imagine where he is,” Olivia says. “He’s had to cut you off in his mind to be able to leave. Of course, he’s not going to want to do the adoption.”

“I just thought…”

“I know,” Olivia says. “I’m sorry.”

ONCE SHE CROUCHES DOWN, she starts to plot her escape. She’ll tell her mother she doesn’t feel well, and she’ll go down and get a cab home. But then everything stops for the kids’ song and Clarke’s speech. She listens to it all, feeling sicker with every word. When it’s over, the crowd starts to buzz again, and she knows they’re going to start the dinner service soon. It’s buffet style, with open seating.

She gets up, then spots David.

Great. It’s getting even better. She starts to walk and keeps her head down. He doesn’t notice her, but then she bumps into someone.

“Oops,” says a man in a tan suit. Mercy cannot breathe.

“Hey, you okay?” He looks at her, concerned.

She nods and keeps walking. Only ten feet to the kitchen now. She sneaks a look right and sees Margaret, looking right at her. She keeps walking, swings the kitchen door open, lets it close behind her.

Blessed cacophony of heat and activity inside. She needs to find her mother.

SHE COULD HAVE SWORN she saw Mercy, walking to the kitchen, but it was out of the corner of her eye. Must have been someone who looked like her. What on earth would Mercy be doing at Clarke’s party? She shakes her head as if she’s seen a ghost and continues talking to Frannie Peck, who’s had a few and is encouraging Margaret to do the same. They flag down a passing waiter for another glass of wine, which seems like a good idea at the time.

A CIGARETTE. That’s what she needs. She doesn’t really smoke, but she could use a break. Olivia has a pack, and they take the industrial elevator down and walk through the parking garage to the street.

They light up in the street like teenage girls playing hooky. The smoke sweeps into her lungs, clarifying the moment.

“Why is smoking so bad if it feels so good?” Hilary asks. She feels light-headed, removed.

Outside, Aberdeen blinks and twinkles. It’s an industrial warehouse zone, with a truly apocalyptic waterway running through it that is filled with a mysterious murky liquid. Around them, buildings encased in scaffolding emit ghostly light.

“It feels like a Batman movie out here,” she says.

The elevator doors open again, and a young woman comes out. She looks pale and a bit unhealthy. She looks at them warily and then passes by.

“Do you want to leave?” Olivia asks. “It’s kind of boring.”

“I don’t think we can,” Hilary says. “It would be rude, wouldn’t it?”

“No one cares,” says Olivia.

“Cynic.”

The young woman stands, waiting for a taxi. Hilary can tell, in that strange way that one can always tell, that she is listening to their conversation, which is odd, because she is dressed in a waiter’s uniform and is probably local.

“So sad, isn’t it?” Hilary says. “I don’t know how you go on after something like that.”