MEI YEE
Every day the walls shrink smaller, smaller, smaller. Even staring out into the alley doesn’t hold them back. The nautilus shell sits, a marker of the boy and his promise. A reminder that it’s out there and I’m in here.
The painted stars above me are stale, old. I soak them in anyway. I’ve picked out all the blemishes, every point where the painter’s hand trembled. I shut my eyes, try to imagine how she stood with the brush tucked between her fingers like a chopstick. I decided long ago that the creator of this mural was a girl. The master and his men would never create something so desperate and beautiful.
As I stare, I wonder about the girl. What was her name? Where did she come from? What was she thinking about when she sketched the stars onto the tiles? Was she still brave, still hopeful enough to place a wish on each one?
There are dozens of them, flecked over my bed. But there are still more wishes in my soul than there are stars.
I wish I could hold Jin Ling’s hand in mine.
I wish Sing never tried to run.
I wish the boy didn’t make my chest burn, make my thoughts soar like a phoenix.
I wish every girl in this brothel could be one of the lucky ones.
I wish, like the boy, I was somewhere else. Someone else.
And on and on and on.
The time the window-boy gave me is half vanished when the ambassador comes for a visit. Two days lost to staring, wondering, and worrying at my bedroom door. When it finally opens, my heart paces inside my chest like a tiger trapped in a bamboo cage. It drips with the ache of so many wishes — heavy and bloated. The ache the boy started. The ache so deep not even the ambassador’s flowers can distract me. Their petals are a yellow and orange so bright that I can’t look at them for long. Colors so exaggerated they seem fake.
His coat is heavier today, and his skin feels like marble against mine, an unyielding cold. He notices, too, but in a different way. “You’re warm.”
The ambassador draws into the heat my body offers. His hands tug on my dress, my hair, but all I can feel is the window at my back. The thin veil of the curtain and the nautilus behind it. Taunting and tempting with promises of something more.
And then it comes to me. I know how to make Mama-san unlock my door, if I’m willing to take the risk.
The ambassador is my key. His money is more powerful than Mama-san’s anger or the master’s apathy.
“You’re very cold,” I say once he’s finished and rolled over onto the silky, rippled sheets. Once his arm drapes across me like a sash.
“I’m sorry.” His honey-drip murmur fills my ear. Slows with encroaching sleep.
I shift and turn so that his hand slides off me and we’re face-to-face.
I don’t know if the scarlet slant of my lanterns’ light is just right or if it’s just the haunting youth of the window-boy’s face. But today I notice how the ambassador wears his years in so many places: the fine fan of lines spreading from the corners of his lids, age spots the color of fire-singed bread, veins on the backs of his thighs that writhe and bulge like eels. I’ve always known he was old, but something about it today makes me uneasy.
Pace, pace, goes my heart. Back and forth. Back and forth. A restless beast.
I can’t stay here anymore.
“Mama-san has been locking our doors.”
“What?” His jowls tighten, snarl like a moon-crested black bear. Everything about him is sharp now, shot through with anger and business. This is the side of him that makes my fingertips tremble. “Why would she do that?”
“She told me not to tell. I’ll get in trouble.” I swallow. My mouth is edged with salt and bile. “Please don’t tell her I told you.”
He does not answer my plea. “She’s kept you locked in this room? For how long?”
“I don’t know. All I want is to talk to the other girls. I get so lonely in here and there’s nothing to do!” Except stare at stars and a shell, talk to a mysterious boy.
The ambassador sits up. He looks around the room, his eyes mirroring every inch, every corner of my cage. I think this is the first time he’s really looked at it. Noticed the chip in my flower vase, the small snag in the edge of the wall tapestry. Every muscle in my body cinches when his gaze slides past the window.
“Mei Yee — I’ve been thinking. About the day I gave you the chocolates.”
The day I first saw the boy. Don’t—I catch myself—don’t think about him. Not now.
The ambassador looks at me down the slant of his nose, from a great height. “What if I took you away from here?”
For some reason his accent sounds extra foreign at this question. I can’t quite believe what I’m hearing. “Away?”
“You’ve been exclusive to me for over a year now. I don’t think it would be unreasonable for me to make a deal with Longwai.”
“W-where?” I stammer.
“An apartment. In Seng Ngoi. Close to where I work. There’s a pool. And a garden on the rooftop. There’s a gourmet food service. Guards at the door. Everything you could possibly want.”
From where I’m lying, the ambassador could be a god. He looms, stretched out like a temple idol. Golden skin, stomach round against the sheets, pushing into mine.
A pool. A garden. Gourmet food. The words feel like blessings misting my head, promises of heaven. A Utopia far from this place of syringes and slaps. The thing Sing bled for — a way out — is being offered to me on a silver platter. I should snatch it, seize it before it disappears.
A week ago I would have said yes. But a week ago there wasn’t a nautilus balanced on my window ledge. There wasn’t a boy staring in, making me feel naked when I was fully clothed, promising his own way out.
Is escape enough? Is it even the thing I want most?
I don’t know.
Yes. It’s such a small, fleeting word. So easy to say. Even a nod would do.
I open my mouth. Crimson-bright drapes flare in the corner of my vision. No words come out.
“Mei Yee?” A fledgling frown hatches on the ambassador’s lips. He reaches out, strokes my arm. The touch, this barest graze of fingers, startles me out of my whirlwind head. His hand trails down, comes to rest on the curve of my hip.
I should say it. I should, but I can’t.
“I… I have to think about it,” I tell him.
The frown deepens, storm clouds roll up behind his face. Gray. “I thought you would say yes.”
I thought I would, too. But it seems that out and away are two different words.
There’s a darkness behind his eyes, his face. A flash of something that makes me shiver. His hand is heavy on my hip; fingers pressing, pressing, pressing.
“There’s someone else, isn’t there?” His accusation is a lightning bolt — sudden and splitting. “Is Longwai forcing you to take other clients?”
Those fingertips, the ones on my hip, suddenly become crush and bruise. A whimper leaves me — half surprise, half pain. He’s never touched me like this before, never hurt me.
The ambassador jerks his hand away at the sound. He stares first at his palm, then at me. “Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just that you’ve seemed different lately. And I thought…”
“There’s no one else.” This feels like a lie when I say it. Because of the boy. Because of Sing and Wen Kei and Nuo and Yin Yu. So many faces I’ll never see again if I agree. If I take the safe route. “I just need time to think. It would be hard to leave my friends…”
The storm cloud has vanished, yet his eyes are all haze and confusion. He pulls away, and cold air ribbons over my skin, calling out gooseflesh. The ambassador dresses slowly, carefully. He buttons up his dress shirt and twists in the cufflinks. His fingers are so steady as he works these small items into place. There’s not a trace of emotion on his face as he shoulders his dinner jacket and retrieves his topcoat.