The Stand-In(57)

What I need is distraction, like when you’re trying to get through the last ten seconds of a plank pose. The movie is good but not good enough, so my mind sorts through all my current issues: looking for a job, worrying about Mom, getting caught as a fake Fangli. Then it lands on the one that looms largest because he’s physically right beside me.

Sam.

There’s always an intimacy in a dark movie theater, and having him so near and in that suit is enough to send my imagination into overdrive. Sam taking my hand and pulling me close. Sam, his arm wrapped around me as he laughs in my ear at an excellent joke I’ve made. Sam watching me get ready before he pulls me back on the bed, his black hair and tanned skin a striking contrast to the white sheet. Sam giving me that same look as the first time in Fangli’s suite, but this time meaning it. Sam seeing me and not Fangli’s double.

The images on the screen pass by without me noticing what’s occurring because I’m thinking about Sam. Just for this little while, I promise myself. Only for the amount of time it takes for this movie to run will I let myself dive into the fantasy of what it would be like to be wanted by Sam, to be one of the few to know the man beneath that public exterior. To have him only want me.

I stifle a heavy sigh. It’s sweet that he and Fangli are such good friends but I’m even jealous of that. Not of Fangli specifically, but of the strength of their relationship. There’s a level of trust between them that can only have been forged through supporting each other in the hard times, when the work is difficult and you’re going to collapse because every muscle aches from fatigue. They know they can turn to each other.

The movie ends too soon and I reluctantly bid my dreams goodbye. I’m back to being fake Fangli with her Spanx cutting off her circulation.

“Beautiful tones,” approves the man beside me. “That palette was perfect.”

“Gorgeous,” I agree. Sam stands, and when I do, my Spanx slip down further. Sam senses my sudden grab because he glances back and then down. His eyes widen slightly.

Ah, so it is as bad as I thought. I can’t decide if this means vindication or humiliation.

I hobble out of the row after him and he puts his arm around my waist with his palm flat and spread against my hip. His touch is firm because he’s trying to keep up the damn elastic. We walk as if we’re in a three-legged race to the washroom, Sam with his dazzling social smile and me beside him. He leaves me at the door.

There’s a line. I can’t believe it. The men are probably swanning up to the urinals without a care in the world. Between my underwear, hunger, and this stupid aching yearning for Sam that I did to myself, I’m so done with tonight.

Sam is talking to a strange woman when I come out with my precarious undergarments now under control. Our gazes catch as I head toward him. He doesn’t stop his conversation but the eye contact lingers about two seconds longer than it should and I try to avoid stumbling over my own feet.

Don’t read into this. All that happened is that he looked at me as I approached. He’s looked at me before. He will look at me again and see me as part of a job.

I don’t want to be his job. I want to think he was looking at me, Gracie, the person who loves a generously poured glass of wine and thinks way too much about organizational planners, and not an alternate Fangli. This isn’t safe.

Then someone grabs me by the arm, hard, squealing into my ear.

“I can’t believe it’s really you!” A wide-eyed blond woman leans close, too close, and her grip on my arm doesn’t soften. “Can I get a selfie?”

This is what Fangli meant by people acting as if she’s nothing more than a robot. Sam’s at my side in a moment, but she doesn’t take her eyes off me.

If I humor her, it will end faster. “Of course,” I say politely.

“Your face is so cute! I loved you in Sin Eater.”

I stare at her, racking my brain for Fangli’s movies. I know that’s not on the list but it’s familiar. Comprehension hits Sam and me at the same moment.

Ellen Gao is the only Chinese actor in Sin Eater. She thinks I’m another person.

Deciding discretion is the better part of valor, I pose and smile as expected. She disappears almost as quickly as she appeared and Sam reaches for my arm. His smile fades and he glances around and makes a hand signal. In seconds, there’s a man in a black suit and earpiece beside him. Sam has a hushed conversation and the man nods once, looks at my arm, and leaves.

“She thought I was Ellen Gao,” I say, almost laughing. It’s not a funny laugh. I’m a little breathless and my adrenaline is up.

“That shouldn’t have happened. She snuck in and security will get her out.” Sam gestures to my arm, and I raise it to see the livid marks from her fingers. He strokes the skin gently, his expression hard. “Does that hurt? Do you want to leave?”

“No.” I steady my voice. “You said fifteen minutes at the party?”

“Only if you’re up to it.”

“I’m up to it.” I said I’d take this job seriously and I’m going to. This time, I lead Sam.

***

“I didn’t get a chance to eat,” I tell Fangli when I arrive back. She came over to my suite after I had peeled off my layers, and now my body flaps around like a crab that’s rid itself of a too-small shell.

She shoves over a container of celery that she’s been nibbling on and a tub of hummus that she hasn’t touched. “Here.”