The Stand-In(23)

“Walk around again.” He sprawls in a chair and takes up more space than he has a right to.

“Give me a second.” I replay one of the clips on my tablet. On the screen, Fangli, dressed in a white satin pantsuit, strolls by like she’s walking the runway. I can’t do it like that. I throw back my shoulders and decide to simply go. Sam’s eyes follow me as I walk across the room, which, hilariously, is long enough that I can really get some steps in.

When I come back to the center, he looks thoughtful, as if I’m a puzzle to be solved rather than an insect to squish. This is a decided improvement. “That was less ghastly than last night,” he compliments me. “You have a similar walk to Fangli.”

“No, we don’t.” This I’m sure about.

Sam sighs and takes out his phone, which he taps and shoves under my nose. It shows a dark-haired woman walking away through a lobby, her body language confident and natural.

“This is what you want me to walk like, I know. I’m trying.”

“Unbelievable,” he says. “That’s you. Like I said. When you’re being yourself.”

I watch it again and realize it’s me walking out of the hotel the other day. I didn’t know I looked like that. “Why do you have this?”

“I took it when you left to prove to Fangli what a hopeless idea this was.” He looks back at the screen. “You moved better than I thought you would,” he says grudgingly.

“That is a deeply creepy thing to do.” I’m a little awed at his dedication.

“I know.” He says it without shame.

I flop down on the chair next to him and he winces. I guess Fangli isn’t a flopper either. “The problem is when I know I’m being watched, I forget how to move. My hands are too big and flappy.”

Sam motions for me to get up. “It’s because you consider your body a flaccid thing you inhabit instead of a tool to be trained. When Fangli walks down the street, it’s the same as if she’s walking a red carpet or on set. Be conscious of your body, like a dancer. Every muscle has a job. Every gesture has a purpose.”

I don’t like Sam talking about bodies, but I power through. “How?”

“I can’t describe it better than that. Each movement is a decision. You don’t simply walk. You decide every step, every tilt of your head. You think of how you want to look and you make that happen. Your awareness has to be external—what are people seeing? What do you want them to see?”

I look thoughtfully in the mirror. I overthink things on good days, so this advice could well blast me right out of orbit. Think about things more than I do?

“Go again.”

I do.

“That was worse than before.” He rubs the back of his hand against his forehead. “How can a woman not walk?”

“I’m not used to an audience.”

“There’s always an audience,” he says dismissively. “You’ve had the privilege of being able to ignore it.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You can walk down the street and be seen but not noticed.”

Great, now I have Sam Yao stressing my invisibility as a person—exactly what every woman wants to hear.

He keeps talking. “From the moment she leaves her room, every action Fangli takes can be recorded and shared globally. Her public self is a role she plays the same as in a film. Outside these walls, Wei Fangli is a character. She has to think about how she looks all the time because a single unguarded moment can bring international public humiliation and ridicule.”

The unspoken threat is there—as Fangli, that large-scale mortification can be all mine if I bungle this. I grit my teeth and try again. Again.

By the sixth time, I grasp the edges of what he’s telling me. It’s a sense of being conscious of my environment and how I inhabit it. I recall a behind-the-scenes segment of an actor about to walk the red carpet. She’s told exactly where the marks are and shown photos of the scene. Standing near the wall, I survey the room as Sam scrolls through his phone, a slight frown on his face and his attention off me. This time I don’t see it as a way to get from point A to B. I think of where I want to be within it. The room is my setting, not simply empty space with a few bits of furniture acting as obstacles.

“That’s not so bad.” Sam looks up from his phone to watch me, and I stumble slightly as I meet his eyes. He shakes his head and goes back to his phone.

Sam is a character. Fangli is a character. I need to be one as well. I’m not Gracie doing laps of the hotel room. I need to be Fangli.

Inhabiting a new persona is liberating, and Sam tilts his head when I walk by again. “Better.”

By the time Sam indicates I have passed Module 1: The Art of Walking, I have blisters from the adorable sling-backs. “Good enough,” he congratulates me. He checks the time. “Keep practicing. I need to get to the theater.”

I collapse on the bed to see a text.

You alive? It’s Anjali.

Not fish bait yet, I text back.

Prove it’s you.

I send her a photo of me lounging on my closet chair wearing a pair of embroidered heels too high for me to walk in. I don’t know the brand—the name is in Japanese—but I assume they’re pricey.

I accept that with respect. Hotty Hotterman treating you ok?