Year of the Tiger

I duck down an aisle, bumping into a couple of giggling teen girls with Go Gaiyuko backpacks. I turn a corner, slipping and sliding past a cluster of Dance Dance Revolution games, and I don’t even know why I’m running; I just don’t want to get caught.

Up ahead there’s a little hall where the bathrooms are. At the end of that, what looks like an exit. I run as fast as I can, praying under my breath that this isn’t one of those places where the emergency exits are locked so we would all die horribly if there were a fire, and hit the release bar on the door.

I’m blinded by daylight. I blink a few times. I’m in a little courtyard that serves mostly as a trash dump and a place to park bicycles and mopeds off the street. A few sad trees in crumbling concrete planters. An old-style six-story apartment building across the way. Laundry hangs from the cramped balconies; random wires crisscross limply from roof to roof. It’s oddly silent, except for a couple of chittering sparrows.

Then I hear a burst of dialog and music from one of the apartments; a guy bellowing about revenge against the Emperor, some cheesy historical soap on TV. ‘I’ll drink to his death!’ echoes in the courtyard.

That unfreezes me. I plunge into the apartment building, down the narrow corridor that leads past the stairwell, and out the other side.

I’m on a little street with no real sidewalks, a few small cars shoved up against the buildings amidst a tangle of bikes. An old man sits on a tiny folding stool by the nonexistent curb, mending a pair of pants, a few odds and ends for sale spread out on a blanket next to him: a fake Cultural Revolution clock, a couple DVDs, a blender. ‘You want?’ he says to me, holding up the clock, winding it up to show me how the Red Guard waves her Little Red Book to count off the seconds. ‘You want buy?’

‘Buyao,’ I say. I don’t want. I run down the street.

I don’t run that well because of my leg, but for once I’m hardly feeling it. I keep running. I pass more high-rises, Tsinghua University’s new science center, billboards, animated LED ads: giant stomachs, pills, and cars. Here’s the Xijiao Hotel. Okay. I know this place. I’m breathing hard and sweating. Now my leg really hurts, and my shoulders feel bruised from my bouncing backpack, which I should’ve cinched up, but I’ve gotten out of the habit. I slow down, wipe my forehead. I don’t see any foreigners in suits.

I’m by this little street leading into the Beijing Language & Culture University campus from the Xijiao Binguan that has small shops, restaurants, and stalls that live off business from students – places where you can buy cheap electronics, pirated DVDs, school supplies, tours to Tibet. And phone cards.

I stop and buy a hundred-yuan card for my phone, dial the number, scratch off the silver, and punch in the voucher code. I’ve got a string of messages waiting for me.

I’m still feeling exposed out here on the street. I decide to go onto the BLCU campus. I’m almost young enough to be a student. Besides, I dress like one: I’m wearing high-top sneakers, a long-sleeved snowboarding T-shirt decorated with flowers and snowflakes, and jeans, and I’m carrying a backpack. I blend in here, unlike foreigners in suits. I could be just another foreign student trying to better myself by learning Chinese. That’s what I was doing, not so long ago.

I head over to the Sauce, a coffeehouse that’s been on campus forever. It’s not bad. I stand in line behind a skinny white boy chatting up a cute Chinese girl, order myself a regular cup of coffee, and take a seat by the window. I stare down at the street, at the egg-shaped orange phone booths, at the newly green trees, and I check my messages.

British John, asking me if I can cover Rose’s shift for Karaoke Night. A bunch of text-message spam in Chinese, which I can’t read. Delete, delete, delete.

Then a message from Lao Zhang. ‘Yili, ni hao. I’m leaving Beijing for a few days …’ A pause. ‘I wanted to let you know.’ Another pause. ‘Anyway, see you later. Man zou.’

Go slowly. Be careful.

I start to delete the message, but my finger hovers over the key for a moment, and then I hit save instead.

Next message.

‘Hey, babe. It’s me.’

My heart starts to thud, and the bottom falls out of my gut.

‘Listen, I need to see you,’ he continues. ‘Right away. It’s important. Call me as soon as you get this. Okay?’

I stare at the phone. Fucking Trey. Why does he do this to me?

CHAPTER THREE

I call him, of course. I know I shouldn’t, but I do it anyway. I’m pretty sure I know what he wants, and I’m not going to give it to him. But I still call.

I hear that rich caramel voice in my ear. ‘Hey, babe.’

‘Hey,’ I say, trying to keep my voice flat. ‘What’s up?’

‘Listen, I need to talk to you. Can we meet someplace?’

I shrug. Like I don’t care. Like he can see me. ‘Talk to me now.’

‘Don’t be like that. Look, we need to get together.’ He sounds so sincere. ‘It’s important.’

‘I’m not signing anything, Trey –’

‘I know. It’s not about that.’

I let out a breath and stare out the window, look at the knots of students walking below me, talking, laughing. A couple arm in arm, the boy with spiked green hair, the girl carrying a stuffed toy backpack. They’re so cute. The little shits.

‘Okay,’ I finally say.

I’m making a mistake, I’m pretty sure.

We arrange to meet in a couple hours at a pub in Henderson Center on Jianguomen Dajie, in the heart of Beijing. I take the train, transfer to the Ring subway line, and get off at Jianguomen by the Ancient Observatory, this lopped-off pyramid of gray brick from the Ming Dynasty, now dwarfed by all the big buildings on Chang ’An Boulevard. ‘Vegas, with Chinese characteristics,’ British John calls it – glassy high-rises with green Chinese-style roofs perched on top, like somebody put tiny party hats on the heads of awkward giants.

Fucking Trey, I think, as I walk to Henderson Center. He’s probably lying to me. I’ll meet him, and he’ll try to talk me into signing.

He keeps threatening to file without me. Go ahead, I tell him. You do that, and it’s all coming out. Every bit of it.

You wouldn’t do that, he says. It’ll hurt you as much as it’ll hurt me.

At this point in the conversation, I generally laugh. Yeah, like I have as much to lose as you do.

But I know he’s right. I’ll never tell.

I would sign, though. I’d sign if he’d get me what I keep asking him for. But he won’t, and I don’t really get why.

Let it go, Lao Zhang keeps telling me. You don’t need him. You can figure something else out. You already crossed the river; why carry the boat up the mountain? Let it go.

But I can’t.

You could do it, I always say to Trey. Talk to your friends, the ones who can pull some strings. He just looks at me with those green eyes of his that shine like some kind of gem and says: I’ve tried, babe. I’ll keep trying, I promise. But we gotta get on with our lives, don’t we?

On this one point, I guess I’d have to agree with him. We really do.

It’s not like I want to be married to him any more.

Barton’s is the kind of expat place that’s pretty typical for Beijing, which is to say it looks like any chain place you’d find in the U.S.: a wooden bar with a selection of imported beer and liquor, red leatherette booths, high-def TVs playing sports. Today they’ve got a baseball game on, with promises of basketball to follow.

Trey sits in a booth by the window, taking in the view from the thirtieth floor, drinking a beer and eating fries.

I don’t like the way I feel when I see him. After everything that’s happened, I still feel it, and I can’t decide who I hate more for it: him or me.

Trey smiles when he notices me and half-rises to be polite. ‘Hey, Ellie,’ he says. ‘You look good.’

Bullshit, I want to say. I’m pretty sure I don’t look good. I’m sticky with sweat from my run through Matrix and coated with the general grime of Beijing. I slip into the booth across the table from him. ‘Hey, Trey.’