The Wondrous Woo Page 9

  “I miss him, Soph,” I said from beneath my mass of greasy hair.

  She snorted. “You’ll get over that jerk. He’s not good enough for you. Some dickwad from North Bay. Where the hell is that anyway?”

  “No, Ba, I miss Ba,” I whispered. There was a long silence.

  Sophia leaned her head on my shoulder. “Yeah. So do I, Mir. So do I.” We stayed like that for a long time.

  “Hey, I know what’ll cheer you up.” Sophia suddenly sat upright.

  I sat up too. I hoped she wasn’t going to suggest going to the mall. But I could see it burning in her eyes in a way that softened me. It was such a comfort to know someone so well. Then I didn’t mind anymore. Maybe I would even enjoy buying something.

  Later that night over takeout chicken wings, Sophia told me about life in Montreal. We sat cross-legged on the floor while we ate. Sophia had even bought flowers at the grocery store and arranged them in a jam jar between us. The chicken wings spilled out on a foil wrapper along with various sauces in small Styrofoam containers.

  “We always have fresh flowers at home. Mrs. Gorky … I mean, Iris, tells me it’s all in the details. A room is naked until adorned with flowers. She talks like that all the time. I get a kick out of her. Her whole life is about being a faculty wife. She has the best dinner parties, the nicest house, and the best manners. And, oh my God, she’s beautiful. Mir, I hope I look like her when I’m fifty-eight. She’s got this brown hair, but with a streak of white on the left side. Like, wow. What a statement. She always dresses impeccably. She doesn’t try to dress like she’s younger or older. Somehow she gets it right, ya know?” I really had no idea, but I nodded.

  “Anyway, no one knows that she’s bulimic. I know, because I hear her barfing when she doesn’t think I’m home. It’s pretty gross. She acts like she has it all, but she’s actually really lonely. Professor Gorky is nice and all, but all he thinks about is math. That’s all he talks to me about. Meanwhile, Iris couldn’t balance the cheque-book if her life depended on it. But he doesn’t know she’s unhappy, see? Because she doesn’t show it. He thinks they’re great. Better than great. He’s got the wife everybody in his department adores. He doesn’t see anything wrong. One day though, something’s gonna give. You watch.” Sophia waved her chicken wing in the air to emphasize her point. She dipped it in honey and garlic sauce and nibbled.

  “I think I’m going to convert. Become Jewish. Iris thinks I should too. I go to synagogue with her all the time, we observe the Sabbath, so like, what’s the big deal. I may as well just make it official.”

  “What? Okay, back up,” I exclaimed. Sophia had the irritating habit of switching topics suddenly.

  “Why not? Chinese people can be Jews. Did you know there’s a whole colony of Chinese Jews in China?” Sophia had a smidge of sauce on the corner of her mouth. “Benjamin told me that.”

  “Who’s Benjamin?” I asked. She poked a wing into the sour cream. I didn’t say anything, waiting for Sophia to elaborate.

  “Okay. I have a boyfriend. He’s the Gorkys’ son. He’s also married. And he’s thirty-two,” Sophia replied.

  “Sophia Woo, what the hell?” I screamed. Sophia’s gall never ceased to amaze me.

  “That’s the bad news. The good news is he’s goooorgeous. He looks like that lead singer of the Thompson Twins, only better. He’s funny and smart. Like, really smart. Not math geek smart. God knows I meet enough of those nerds. He’s cool. Ben’s wife travels a lot for business. She’s never there. The witch. Can you believe leaving your husband for weeks at a time?” Sophia was breathless from pouring out all that information. I could tell she had practiced telling me about Benjamin. Sophia was very convincing and organized when she wanted to persuade you to her side. She hit on the the bad points first, then the good points.

  “And Ben thinks my eyes are beautiful. Not weird or deformed. He’s so nice, huh?” Sophia was paddling as fast as she could. My mouth remained as wide open as her eyes. Exasperated, she exploded, “God, Miramar! Say something!”

  I didn’t know what to say. I continued to stare into my sister’s skewed eyes, seeing the pleading there. “But you’re just a kid…” I sputtered. “That’s rape.” Sophia sighed angrily.

  “I’m not a friggin’ kid. Hell, I lecture. At a university. Look, just be happy for me, okay? I can’t tell anyone else. You’re the only one. So at least be happy that I’m happy.”

  “How can you be happy? The guy’s like, an adult. A married-with-children adult. Where do you think this is going?”

  “Who cares where it’s going. I’m happy. Now is all we have. At least I have one person in Montreal who doesn’t treat me like some prized dog or freak of nature,” Sophia replied hotly.

  “How can you think like that? You’re going to get hurt,” I continued, hearing the echo of Kathleen as I said this. I bit my bottom lip.

  “Like I said, all we have is now. So who cares? He says he loves me. And, I like him. A lot.” Her sentence hung in the air, adding to the electricity between us.

  Sophia always jumped before knowing what pile she was going to land in. But at least, I was reluctant to admit, she always landed on her feet. It seemed Sophia had always been like this, stubborn, refusing to listen to reason once she had decided on something. Ba had let her get away with a lot, even when I knew he hadn’t approved. Like, he hadn’t liked her wearing all those ripped-up jeans. He had worked hard so we could look respectable, but he let it go when Sophia took her scissors to every pair she had.

  “Are you going to tell Ma?” I asked, already knowing this would make Sophia edgier than she already was.

  “Oh my God, Miramar. She’d send me for an exorcism or something. Besides Ma is busy with her own life.”

  Before I could protest, she continued, “Ma doesn’t want to come to Montreal. Since Chinese New Year, she hardly calls me anymore. She doesn’t give a shit about me, and frankly, I don’t care.” I knew Sophia too well to believe her. Her face was screwed up, but I couldn’t tell whether it was from anger or loss.

  “Anyway,” she paused dramatically, “I think she’s seeing someone.”

  “Whaaaaaaaaa?”

  “I don’t know. I talked to Darwin the other night, and he said Ma went to visit him in London, and that she told him she had a new friend — a man friend.”

  I shook my head to make sure I was hearing clearly. Was this some distraction tactic of Sophia’s to get me to shut up about her affair?

  “It’s just speculation on your part,” I said.

  “Is not.”

  “Is.”

  “Is not.”

  “Shut up, Sophia. I swear you drive me friggin’ crazy!” I finally yelled.

  “Whatever,” she shrugged. “You always want to believe what you want to believe.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked. Just when I thought we had matured into friends, she had to go pushing my buttons.

  “I mean you’re a gullible child who just wants to believe everything is fine. Meanwhile, things aren’t fine. Even with this stupid North Bay Jerry. You sit around pretending you’re okay when you’re not. If it were me, I would have taken the bus to North Freaking Bay to find out what was going on waaaay before he broke up with me. But you just let things happen. You’re always like that. You act like you don’t have a choice or something. You know what, Miramar? You’re not shy; you’re just scared.” She pointed her finger into my chest. “You are a chicken shit. That’s what you are,” Sophia spewed.

  I felt like she had stabbed me.

  “Oh, God, don’t look at me like that. Shit, Miramar. Don’t be such a victim. Grow the fuck up.” Sophia got up and shut herself in the washroom.

  I couldn’t help how I looked. I crawled into my bed and buried my head into the pillow.

  We didn’t bring Benjamin or Ma up again during Sophia’s visit, but the i
ntimacy we had forged in the beginning fell away like a discarded blanket. Sophia could go from purring like a cat against your leg one moment, to throwing poisonous darts in a manner of seconds. The world through Sophia’s crossed eyes was divided into two groups: for her or against her.

  Knowing this, I tried to win back Sophia’s favour with more trips to the Rideau Centre. I even let her pick out clothes for me, stuff I would not wear in a million years, but the cord of tension stayed in the air throughout the rest of her visit.

  Her words had stung. I heard them reverberating in my brain a million times. It should have been me who was giving her the chilly treatment. The fragile thread that had always kept us tied to one other seemed frayed, and the ends tangled. But that last night, I felt so comforted by her light snore as if it were the most soothing music. I had slept next to that snore for most of my life. I didn’t realize how much I had relied on it for a peaceful night of sleep.

  When Sophia left, I stood on the platform and waved until I could no longer see the Montreal-bound train. Although I was relieved to be allowed back into my downward spiral, I felt the ground grow soft beneath my feet as I watched the train disappear.

  Chapter 16 ~

  When her village was captured, the barbarians thought Lan was too ugly to take as a wife so they made her collect rocks to make them a new fort. One day, she found a green ribbon in the rubble. Lan knew it had belonged to the pretty merchant’s daughter who used to tie back her long raven hair. Lan used to envy her for this ribbon, something she could never hope to afford. The merchant’s daughter now lay dead in a ditch in the woods. Lan tied the ribbon into her own matted hair. The barbarians laughed at her, thinking this was a vain attempt to be pretty, but they did not know that Lan was wearing it in tribute.

  THAT FALL, I WENT BACK to classes a different person, cleaner somehow, like someone who had been scrubbed raw. I let myself get lost in books, a far safer refuge than people. Feminist Ideas. Philosophy of Eastern Religion. Sociolinguistics. Abnormal Psychology. Mass Communications. I had to drop out of Journalism since my first-year grades were so bad, so I opted for Sociology, an easy option with many multiple-choice exams. Besides, Sociology intrigued me. People, clustered together, needing each other, hating each other, defining themselves in and out of groups — at last, I learned that there were many ways of making sense of this mess we called humankind.

  One afternoon in November, feeling cabin fever in my tiny apartment and craving instant noodles, I burst out into the crisp air to Chinatown. Ottawa’s version was only one main street cutting through three little blocks. The leaves were falling again, but this time I was indifferent to Ottawa’s beauty. The smell of the late autumn decay, which last year had soothed and excited me, now just felt gloomy and sad.

  I walked by a video store and saw Jackie Chan in a poster of Drunken Master taped to the window. I had always loved that movie. My tired heart suddenly ached for Ba.

  I went in and rented the classic, returning for armloads more as the days passed. In my apartment, I replicated the moves. They were all wrong about me; I was Miramar Woo, woman warrior of the west. Between spoonfuls of ice cream, I was whooping crane, praying mantis, lethal sword. “Heeeeeyaaaa,” I would cry, then perform my best roundhouse kick.

  As for my enemies, if they were not evil warlords, then it was Jerry. I kicked him in the nuts with a quick front kick, and slammed his head with a narrow, penetrating strike. I imagined standing over his limp body while he apologized and vowed ever-lasting loyalty to me. Alone in my fantasy world, my heart raced. I felt alive! Certainly more alive than I felt in my real life. I was beginning to worry that I was turning into one of those Dungeon and Dragons geeks in high school who would bring their little figures to school and play in the cafeteria. Even I had thought they were freaks. But now, I was realizing I could be the biggest freak of all. At least the D&D boys had each other. I was entirely alone.

  I continued working at the Counselling Centre until one day, when the Director asked me to come to his office. I sat across from him and glanced around at my surroundings while he finished a phone call: I saw silk flowers, a small aquarium with two fish, a porcelain teacup painted with delicate pink roses and a gold rim, a marble pen holder. Neutral, contemplative objects. A large window overlooked the river. I was sure he had curated this place to be as nonthreatening as possible.

  He hung up and after some idle gweilo chit-chat, he asked, “So, Miramar, we seem to be missing some files. The ‘Dormant’ cases? Do you know anything about that?”

  I looked right into his pink, fleshy face. “No, doctor, I don’t.”

  “It’s the most curious thing. A number of them have gone missing. Poof. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers loudly.

  I forced my face to relax. “Sorry.”

  “Oh, well,” he sighed. “If you could please keep a lookout for them, I would appreciate it.”

  “You bet,” I said cheerily, and stood up. Then, I turned around and made my feet move slowly, casually, surprised by how easy it was to lie. I was proud of myself.

  “Oh, and Miramar.”

  “Yes.” I swivelled back to face him.

  “How are you doing? Are you okay?” he asked, still in his seat. He took his glasses off. “I just want to check in from time to time. You know, it’s what we do.” He smiled, and it seemed sincere. The kind of smile that made me want to sit back down and actually tell him things. I opened my mouth a little and considered just letting it all fly out, but in that long pause, he had returned to the papers on his desk. So I left.

  A few days later, I quit the job, using a heavy course load as an excuse. I felt it was my obligation to keep the files safe. The files helped me remember to stay on the right side of the abyss in front of me. I felt responsible for all the people in those files, and I believed if I kept them close, I could keep them from being forgotten. I thought briefly about making an altar to the files, someplace where I could stick an orange and a Sprite, but decided that gesture was too final. The people in these files were not all dead; they were just on pause. But they needed to be acknowledged. If their suffering was real to me, then they would not be alone in it.

  Chapter 17 ~

  Feast days were important rituals to bind family together. Favoured animals were sacrificed and charred to perfection, the menus were planned weeks in advance, the balance restored as sweetness chased out all the bitterness of the past. In food, lies this hope.

  THE WINTER OF ’89, I went back to Toronto for Chinese New Year. If I had any feelings about it, I didn’t let myself feel them. Ma had moved into a new condo downtown. She only told me after the fact. She said some real estate agent friend from church suggested she try it out before selling the house and moving somewhere new, so he had loaned it to her. At the time, I had wondered briefly about this — where do real estate agents get apartments they can just loan out? But what I knew about real estate was nothing, so I had simply let it go. She had left our house. That was the larger issue.

  When I asked her why, she had just said, “Aw, nui, the house is too big just for me. Anyway, the condo is very nice. Easy. No need to shovel snow. Everything clean.”

  Anyone else would be glad for Ma. Good for her, they would say. She deserved a rest. She had worked hard keeping up the house. But while our house was firmly rooted in the earth, surrounded by trees and anchored by lawn and sidewalk, I was instantly disoriented walking into this airy place with its cold marble lobby and security guard behind a granite counter. And the condo was so high up it seemed disconnected from the earth as if it were on a shelf in the clouds. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were all one big space thrust against the large window that looked out onto Lake Ontario. And because it came fully furnished with a pristine leather sectional, a teak coffee table, and a glass dining-room table with matching chairs, no trace of our past was in evidence. If Ma had been difficult to know before she inhabited
this white cube, now in such a sterile context, she was a stranger.

  Then again, maybe it was just me who was the stranger. I had been so preoccupied with myself that I had not considered Ma for a long time. Maybe she was finally feeling happy and needed to shed some of her old life — our old life — to heal and move forward. Maybe the house was too full of Ba.

  While I had let my own appearance fall into shambles, Ma looked like a teenager. Her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail. Her unlined face was bright and clear. I showed up that morning for New Year, like I did to every day of my life, in my Roots sweatpants and matching sweatshirt. Ma answered the door in an A-line denim skirt that grazed her knee and a cowl-necked top with an image of a silver Eiffel tower on the front. And lipstick, which I had never seen her wear before. From my memory of Kathleen’s cosmetic teachings, I thought it looked like Revlon’s “Plum Pudding.”

  At least she greeted me sounding like her old self. “Miramar, what’s wrong? Are you sick? Do you need some dong gui soup? Are you getting your period?” Ma asked before moving back into the kitchen.

  I supposed I was still dragging my heart around the floor like a soggy mop, my sadness growing in proportion to my waistline. Ma’s look of concern sank me further into a mudhole.

  “Yah, Ma. I’m fine. Just put on a little weight, that’s all.” I looked at the cream carpet. There were a million things about this condo and Ma that startled me. In our previous life, Ma would never have approved of anything as impractical as a light carpet. “Aiya. Too easy to see the dirt!” she would have said. I felt angry with this woman whom I barely recognized. Was life so much better for her now that Ba was dead? Maybe Sophia was right that Ma had a man. I had been fretting all this time about Ma’s mental stability, but meanwhile this new woman was emerging and she seemed, well, she seemed better.