The Stand-In(21)

“I practiced in front of the mirror.”

His eyes narrow. “Practiced how, exactly?”

This is embarrassing. “Ah. You know. Like practice.”

He folds his arms and waits for me to answer.

I try to wait him out and fail. He can stand like that for hours, I bet, stubbornly refusing to give in. Fangli watches with those leaf-like eyebrows delicately raised.

I admit defeat. “I propped the tablet near the mirror and copied what I saw.”

“You’re a human uncanny valley.” He and Fangli share a look. “Unbelievable.”

Uncanny valley? “What? I’m not an android.”

He sighs, grabs the tablet, and leads me to the mirror. “Watch.” He taps for a second, finds a video of Fangli smiling and waving, and then plays it.

“I’ve seen this.” I’m insulted. I did my homework.

“You’re not watching.” His voice is the perfect degree of smoky deep. Sam looks in the mirror and our eyes meet in the glass. Then I shift my gaze to his right hand, which waves the same as Fangli does in the video.

“Very elegant,” I say, trying to regain myself.

“Like the Queen,” Fangli interjects. She does the wave in person.

“Except totally wrong.” He turns. “Fangli’s right-handed and that’s how she waves. You’re looking in the mirror and copying it, but that means you’ve been waving your left hand. Everything is backward because her wave was filmed.”

I stare at my hand, astounded. “Are you putting me on? That’s why it felt so weird?”

“Yes.” He gives Fangli an eloquent look that I read as saying what an idiot I am.

“Shit.” I deflate. All that work and I did it backward. I bury my head in my hands.

“A fixable problem,” declares Fangli. “You and Mei can work on it in the morning.”

She leaves and Sam hesitates. Then he shakes his head. “Right-handed,” he says.

He calls out after Fangli and I wish I knew what they were saying.

Wow, if there was only some way to learn Mandarin, maybe with a handheld device that’s conveniently attached to my hand for about eighteen hours a day and can provide access to a thing like language lessons given at my own speed for $2.99 or less.

I whip out my phone.

In six minutes, a Scottish gent and a lady from Beijing cheerily work me through how to say where I’m from in perfect Mandarin. I freeze as they shift into telling me how to ask where others are from and pause the app. I could have done this years ago when Mom started getting bad. I could have been speaking to her all this time. I put that thought aside. I did the best I could.

Then I’m alone in my luxury room waving in the mirror at myself and practicing my new language skills by telling my reflection I’m a Canadian in poorly accented Mandarin.

Good times.





Nine


I’m strolling into a Rodeo Drive boutique wearing a huge black hat and shoulder pads big enough to block traffic when the bright summer sun pierces through my closed eyelids. Burrowing in the soft, fluffy bed, I try to go back to sleep but can’t because Mei is standing by the foot of my bed barking my name.

“It’s time to get up.”

I throw the covers off and squint out the window. The sun’s up but it feels suspiciously early. “What time is it?”

“Seven.”

I groan. “One more hour.” I was up late, alternating between deciding which clothes matched best with the multiple Louis Vuitton bags and learning how to ask people their names in Chinese.

“Ms. Wei is an early riser. She’s already at a meeting.” Mei might not mean to sound smugly virtuous on Fangli’s behalf, but that’s what I hear.

I haul myself up and shuffle off to brush my teeth. When I get back, I examine the outfit Mei has laid on the bed. “Are we going out?”

“No.”

Yet she’s chosen pants with ironed creases. “Can’t I wear yoga pants since it’s only us?”

“No.”

She leaves and I realize my clothes from home are gone. That’s a later problem, though, so I pull on the outfit. The white linen pants wrinkle on contact with my skin, and I immediately stain the black silk top with deodorant and have to change. In the mirror I practice my Fangli wave again, this time with the correct hand. The shoes are adorable sling-backs that I put on to check the full effect.

Huh. I turn around. I hadn’t realized the difference expensive tailoring made because I now have outstanding posture. Do I look like Fangli? The spacious closet makes finding what I need so much easier than trying to sort through a bunch of shirts crammed tight enough to wrinkle, and I quickly locate a high-necked black shirt. I pull it on like a headband, the collar framing my face and the rest of the material flowing down my back, and toss my head. It’s not the perfect facsimile of long hair but I get the idea, albeit with a nunnish feel.

“I came to see if you were dressed.” Mei, who apparently has no concept of privacy, is at the door, staring at my turtleneck wig. I snatch it off and run a hand through my hair.

“Uh, yeah. Thanks.”

She backs out of the room, and I toss the shirt on the bed and follow.

Fueled by coffee and fear of failure, I’m the ideal Fangli student that day. Apparently she does her own makeup except for big events, so Mei shows me the Fangli Standard Face, which necessitates a raft of expensive products to achieve the correct smooth skin and pretty smoky eye. Mei picks up the lipstick, a vibrant red that glides on like a dream, then goes over the edges with a lip pencil before blotting and painting me again.