The Stand-In(101)
You don’t believe in yourself.
I open my laptop and read the emails carefully. They all say the same thing, that Sam Yao swears by this method and it’s now a trend in China. They want to talk to me about my philosophy and what I want to achieve. They want me to walk through why Eppy is different.
Sam plugged Eppy. Why?
Because it works and it’s good. I might not believe in myself yet, but I believe in Eppy.
I’m not ready but I can do this.
The first thing I do is try to find what Sam’s said. It takes some digging but I eventually find a tweet translated from Weibo, the Chinese microblog.
No way I could keep organized without Eppy. Swear by it to keep productive.
It links to my website. That’s it, but I guess when you’re Sam Yao with millions of followers, that’s enough. The retweets on Twitter alone are over forty thousand, and I have to do some breathing practices to keep calm. This is what I wanted, after all. I believe in this.
I jazz-hand my fingers to get them to stop shaking and email the South China Morning Post to set up an interview. Then the BBC and CNN Asia. When the Guardian and Bloomberg requests roll in, I accept those, too.
The interview requests arrive all afternoon, and after I do the first two, I notice the questions are similar. I get more comfortable each time I talk about how Eppy is designed to help you organize your whole life, since we’re all busy and multifaceted. I give examples of some of my tasks and why I add items immediately because I have the memory of a goldfish. When they ask how Sam Yao heard about a planner that’s only in beta, I laugh and say they’ll have to ask him but I’m glad it works for him and do my best to not let my voice shake.
The hardest are the TV interviews but the producers are kind and walk me through what to expect, since I suppose me freezing in fear doesn’t do them any good either. In between, I check my downloads.
The number keeps ticking up.
It’s almost midnight by the time I’m done, and I’m so wired I pace my apartment in circles. Anjali sends me an emoji-laden text with a link to the CNN interview. I knew you could do it, she says.
I did but it’s all thanks to Sam, who I can’t get in touch with. Can I email his agency? Agent? There has to be a way to contact him if Fangli doesn’t call.
I go to bed exhausted and my dreams are filled with Sam using my planner. Second sexiest night I’ve ever had.
Thirty-Nine
It takes me a couple of days to come down from my interview high. The downloads on Eppy keep going up, and even better, people like it. They really like it. I take careful note of the suggestions that come through on the Twitter feed I hastily set up and already have a rough version 2.0 ready. I send the link to Anjali to test.
Anjali: That fast?
Me: Maybe I didn’t sleep.
She answers with a GIF of a disappointed Dolly Parton.
I’m on the couch debating the merits of having a nap when the doorbell rings. Was I expecting a delivery? I can’t remember, but I like packages so I yawn and stumble over to the door to check.
Fangli stands there.
I freeze. I might have sent that text but I’m not ready to talk to her face-to-face. I thought she’d call me. Or text or email back, but that it would be a distance communication that would give me enough time to script out my response or at least think.
“Open the door, Gracie.” She closes one eye to peer through the peephole. “I can hear you.”
It takes me two tries to open the door because my palm is so sweaty.
Then we stare at each other. Fangli looks like, well, she looks like me. Her hair is pulled back in a neat, low ponytail that comes over her shoulder, and a ball cap shades her face, bare except for some gloss on her lips. She looks a bit tired and a lot nervous.
“You got my message,” I say.
She waves to herself as if to say, obviously.
“Sorry.” I move away. “Come in.”
Like Mei did, she takes off her shoes and pads barefoot into my place. Then she smiles. “It’s nice here,” she says. “Homey.”
“Would you like a drink?”
She snorts, a delicate sound as if from a small animal. “I would like to know what information you have about my mother. And why you left me like that. I would like a lot of things, Gracie, so I think we can skip the drink for now.”
“Fair.” I take a deep breath. “Give me a second.”
I go into my room and grab the duplicate photo album. When I get back to the living room, Fangli’s sitting stiffly on the couch, knees pressed together and hands folded in her lap. She looks small and a bit scared, and I feel like an asshole. I must have worried her with that message when I was doing my best to be sensitive.
Nice one, Gracie.
I open the album to the photo of Fangli and Wei Rong. She glances down, then brings the album closer as if to see better. “This looks like my father. With you?”
“No. With you.”
She flips the page as if to check to see if there’s more information about the photo on the other side. “Why do you have a photo of the two of us?”
As gently as I can, I tell her what I learned from Mom. Her escape from China, the secret baby who died, the deserted elder daughter who became a global superstar.
Who looks almost identical to her younger Canadian half sister.