This Time It’s Real

After years of celebrating the Lunar Festival in places that focus mostly on Christmas and New Year’s, it’s nice to finally get an actual public holiday for it.

The two-week break is a blessing in more ways than one. Whatever changed between Caz and me that evening in his apartment—and something did change; I felt it down to my toes on my way home—is put on hold while Caz leaves for Hengdian for the whole length of the holiday. I manage to polish up my first batch of college applications just in time for the approaching deadlines. And Ma manages to organize a long-overdue family reunion at a seafood restaurant; turns out that getting over sixty family members together in the same place at the same time is, in Ma’s words, a logistical nightmare.

As soon as we enter through the restaurant’s lantern-lit double doors, we’re greeted by an open display of fish tanks: crayfish scuttling across the glass and barramundi swimming through the murky waters. I stare at them for a few moments, at their gaping mouths and blank black stares, then tear my eyes away. Knowing how these types of places work, one of them will end up on my plate pretty soon. Better not to get too attached.

A cheery, baby-faced waitress leads us toward a massive private room at the far end of the restaurant, where we hear our relatives long before we see them. My stomach flutters with nerves. I can only pray my mediocre Chinese skills pull through.

And then it begins.

It feels like some elaborate, extended-family version of a meet-and-greet. Ma, Ba, Emily, and I line up on one side of the room, our backs to the floral folding screens, bright smiles arranged on our faces, while our relatives come up one by one to pinch our cheeks and offer gifts: bags of fresh red dates and apricots from their own gardens, and expensive calligraphy sets to help us “get back in touch with our culture.” Fat red packets are shoved into our hands (despite Ma’s polite protests that we’re too old for Chinese New Year money) and many unnecessary, supposedly well-intentioned comments about my weight are made.

There are the sharp-eyed, hard-to-impress uncles asking about my grades and the gossiping aunts who I can distinguish only by the size of their perms. Then there are the relatives I don’t know how to address: If it’s something-yi or something-yilaolao or if they’re actually our much-older cousins, so Emily and I end up sneaking glances at our phones to search for the right names.

It’s all very loud and overwhelming and chaotic and … I’ve missed this. The energy in the air and the warm press of laughter from all sides. The strange sensation of looking out into a crowded room and recognizing variations of my mother’s smile, my sister’s eyes.

Our laolao—Ma’s mom—is the last person to come greet us, and people part for her the way you would for the queen. There is something regal about her, even in her late sixties: The hard creases of her face, the steely look in her eyes. The history there. She’s wearing the same faded purple blouse she wore in one of the few photos of us together, and her silver-streaked hair has been pinned up in an elegant bun.

“Laolao hao,” I say dutifully when she stops before me.

Without a word, she pulls me into a fierce, bone-crushing hug, enveloping me with the sweet scent of herbs and jasmine tea and some kind of laundry powder. I awkwardly pat the back of her shirt, unsure how else to reciprocate.

“I’m so glad you came home,” she whispers, her breath warm on my skin, her calloused grip tight around my shoulders, as if she’s scared I’ll vanish the second she lets go.

When she does let go a few moments later, I’m alarmed to see that her eyes are rimmed red. Yet even more alarming is the faint burning sensation behind my own eyes. I blink hard and pull my lips into a broad smile.

“Of course we came home,” I tell her in my clumsy, childish Mandarin. “You’re here.”

She smiles back at me with so much love that it feels like a tangible weight before moving on to Emily.

But I remain rooted to the spot, thinking. About family. About home.

Around five years ago, at a school I can barely remember the name of anymore, our English teacher had asked us to write an essay on the topic of home. Everyone else knew immediately what to write: their childhood house in Ohio, their family farm in Texas, the city they’d lived in their entire lives. Simple. Only I had balked at the idea.

Then, like a complete idiot, I’d actually raised my concerns with the teacher in front of all my classmates.

“What if we don’t really know where home is? Or what if—what if we don’t have one?” I’d asked.

A few people laughed, as if I was being funny or difficult on purpose.

The teacher just stared at me for a beat. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “Everyone has a home.”

I’d tried to explain what I meant, but by then, the teacher had lost his patience. He said I was lazy, that I was trying to get out of a straightforward assignment by making up nonexistent problems. He didn’t understand; none of the other people in my class seemed to either. They hadn’t spent half their childhood attending family gatherings and eating Peking duck rolls and flying kites in Beihai Park, only to be whisked away to a country where they couldn’t speak the language, couldn’t even spell their own name. They hadn’t learned to ride a bike on the wide, sunbaked roads of New Zealand, only to have to sell that bike two months later when they moved to Singapore. They hadn’t spent their tenth birthday on a plane, and their eleventh birthday crying in the bathroom in England, because they didn’t know anybody there and some kid in their new class had made fun of their accent.

Home for them was one piece, one place, not something scattered all around the globe, fragmented into something barely recognizable.

This was what I ended up writing about for my essay, but the teacher had given it back to me, unmarked. Said I didn’t understand the point of the assignment. Asked me to do it again.

So the second time around, I made a story up. I chose one of the cities I’d lived in at random and wrote a bunch of bullshit about how I belonged there. In return, I got an A-plus, and the comment: That wasn’t so hard, was it?

But as I gaze out at the room now, I wonder if maybe the answer to that assignment was as simple as this. Right here. Thinking of all those rooms I walked through at eight, ten, fourteen years old and all the people I met in them … if maybe I left a piece of myself in them and took a piece of them with me too; isn’t that what homes are made of? A collection of the things that shape you?

My heart feels a little lighter as I take my seat between Second Aunt (the one with the biggest perm) and Third Aunt, waiting for the dishes to come. So far there are only prawn crackers and salted peanuts spread out over the red tablecloth.

“… I’m telling you, they would be so cute together,” Second Aunt is saying as she picks up one peanut after another using only her chopsticks. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they were also dating in real life. It’s common with actors, you know. Like Tang Yan and Luo Jin. Or Zhao Youting and Gao Yuanyuan. All that time together on set—something’s bound to happen.”

“Yes, yes, and they’re both very good-looking,” Third Aunt agrees. “Their children would be beautiful—I can just imagine it.”

I chew quietly on a prawn cracker and let them gossip in the background. But then Second Aunt says:

“That Caz Song really is good-looking, isn’t he? His costume designer in The Legend of Feiyan must’ve loved him too; I’ve never seen someone pull off an ancient costume so well.”

And I almost choke on my cracker. Oh my god. They’re talking about Caz. Not just Caz, but him and his former costar, Angela Fei. The actress who was literally voted one of the Most Stunning Women Alive last year. Even though I know they aren’t together, a sharp taste fills my mouth. I stop eating.

Across the table, Emily opens her mouth—probably to announce to the entire table who Caz is really dating. I shoot her a quick warning look. Luckily, our sister telepathy is as strong as ever, because she pauses, and snaps her mouth shut again.

Neither of my aunts notices.

“No, hang on. I’m pretty sure I heard somewhere that Caz is already in a relationship. With a suren, no less,” Second Aunt says, her gold and jade bracelets jangling together as she shakes her head. Suren: non-celebrity. She says it the way a noblewoman would say the word peasant.

Third Aunt’s brows rise. “A suren? Seriously? When he could have had Angela Fei?”

“Maybe she’s even prettier than Angela,” Second Aunt says, in a tone like she highly doubts it. “Or maybe she has a good personality.”

Third Aunt snorts. “Who are you kidding? Young people these days don’t date based on personality. Especially not when you’re as popular as Caz Song.” Then she swivels her head toward me. “What do you think, Ai-Ai?”

“H-huh?” I manage. It’s a miracle I can find the strength to speak at all.

“You’ve been listening, haven’t you?” she says, waving a hand in the air. “Can you think of any good reason why a super-attractive, wealthy actor near the peak of his career would choose some random girl over his gorgeous costar?”

“Um, no,” I say, swallowing hard, a stone lodged in my gut. “No. I really can’t.”

•    •    •

I’m lying in bed that night, still wallowing in self-pity from my aunts’ conversation earlier, when Caz calls me for the first time.

“Hello?” I say, pressing the phone between my cheek and pillow. “This is Eliza. Uh, did you call the wrong number or something?”

I hear him laugh then, the low sound washing over the speaker like a tide off the shore, and despite myself, I flush. There’s something strangely intimate about calling someone in the dark. It’s like listening to your favorite song in the middle of a crowded subway; the world narrows down to just you and this voice in your ear, while everyone else around you goes about their lives, completely oblivious. It feels sacred. Like a secret.

“I know it’s you, Eliza,” he says simply. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh,” I say.

“Yeah.” He pauses, and there’s a faint rustling sound, the brief creak of springs, like he’s sitting down somewhere. “Are you busy now, or—”

“No,” I tell him, because it appears I’ve forgotten how to have a normal conversation consisting of more than one syllable. Then again, I’ve never had a boy call me at night before, not unless it was for a group project. “Uh, you?”

“I’m back in the hotel,” he replies. “We just finished shooting a pretty big scene today.” There’s a distinct pause. “A kiss scene, actually.”

“Oh,” I say again. I don’t know why he’s telling me this, or how the hell I’m meant to respond, or how to block the image out from my brain. Caz. Caz kissing someone else, someone beautiful, with long legs and shiny hair and perfect skin. Someone like Angela Fei. “Um, that’s nice. Congrats.”

“I … wanted to tell you.” Maybe it’s because of the static from the speaker or the reception on his end, but he sounds almost nervous. “I mean, I feel like I should.”

“What?”

“The kiss scene,” he says slowly, with meaning, and I kind of wish he’d stop saying that word, because it’s inviting all sorts of confusing, forbidden thoughts about him into my head. “It was— I mean, we had to do five different takes, and it was long, and my hands were on her waist, but there wasn’t tongue or anything. And our clothes were on. Fully.”

“I am … so confused right now.”

He makes a small, frustrated noise. “Do you seriously not understand what I’m saying?”

“No,” I tell him, frustrated too, heat spreading fast over my body, my face. “All I can hear is you describing yourself kissing someone in very rich detail. Which is just lovely—again, really happy for you, but—”

“You’re not—you’re not jealous?”

Of course I am, I want to say. I want to hang up the phone and go find him in person and shake him. I’m so jealous it’s embarrassing. It makes me sick, even though I don’t really have a right to be jealous in the first place. There’s nothing in our agreement that forbids him from kissing other people. Especially considering how it’s part of his job.

But maybe, after that night at his place, I’ve accidentally let something slip again … Maybe he’s regretting it, opening up to me even a little, or he’s worried I’ve taken it the wrong way, that I think I have some claim on him now. Maybe that’s why he’s asking.

“Of course I’m not jealous,” I tell him, and even manage a little laugh as my nails curl into my sheets. “Why would I be?”

“Okay. Okay, good.” A pause. “If you’re sure.”

“I am sure. Very.”

“Okay,” he repeats slowly.

I pull the phone away from my ear for a second, stare at it, then bring it back. What even is this conversation? Why am I doing this to myself? Why do I feel like I have whiplash every time I talk to him? “Okay,” I say too, after a pause. “Well, this was—fun. If you were just calling to confirm that … Bye? I guess?”

“Sure” comes his eventual reply. I wish I could see him, his expression. Wish I could figure out what he’s thinking. “Bye, then.”

I hang up first, chucking my phone across the bed and burying my head beneath my pillow with a groan. “What the hell,” I mutter out loud, still half-convinced Caz had called me by mistake. And even if he hadn’t, there’s no way he would want to call me again after this.

But as always, Caz Song manages to surprise me. Because he does call me again the next night, at roughly the same time, and the night after that, and after that. I don’t know if it’s as a fake boyfriend, to continue our chemistry training sessions while he’s away, or as a friend, which I guess is what we are now. I’m too scared to ask. Too scared to ruin another good thing.

At first, the conversations are more awkward than not—at least on my part—and limited to your typical, polite topics: What did you do today? How was shooting? Did you see this person’s latest post?

Yet the calls get longer and longer, passing the one-hour mark and continuing until the streets outside are perfectly quiet and I can only hear my own breathing in the night. Soon, they become a habit.

Sometimes we talk until my phone runs out of battery. Sometimes I fall asleep with his voice in my ear.

Without meaning to, I start telling him stories about my life overseas. Stories I’ve never told anyone else before, that I’ve kept locked up inside me for so long they feel more like a scene from an old film I once watched than something that actually happened to me. I tell him about the last dinner we had with family before we left Beijing, how my laolao had cried and I didn’t understand why. I tell him about the classmates I hated, the teachers I loved, if only because they were understanding when I wore the wrong uniform or got lost around campus.

And in exchange, he tells me the things he leaves out of interviews. Like how he secretly searches his own name online every day and very occasionally reads fanfiction about himself. How he hates heights, and is afraid of the dark. How he knows exactly what he dislikes, but doesn’t always know what he wants.

“Is that why you’re planning to go along with the colleges your mother picked out for you?” I can’t help asking.

A pause. “What do you mean?”

“Come on, Caz,” I say quietly, staring up at the ceiling and wondering how the ceiling looks from his hotel room. It’s probably fancier, taller, chandeliers glittering everywhere. “I was there when I wrote those college essays with you, remember? You couldn’t tell me a single thing you were looking forward to—I had to make it up for you. But when you talk about acting—you’re like a different person. You love it. And you’re good at it.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” he protests. “My mother—”

“Seemed fairly reasonable. Maybe it’ll take some convincing, but if you really tried to talk to her …”

“But that’s the problem.” He swallows, and I imagine him tugging his hair, pacing the room in circles the way he did that day outside the parent-teacher interviews. “If this were just about discipline or making me miserable, I wouldn’t feel bad doing whatever I wanted, you know? Except she’s not like that. She’s just trying to look out for me, help secure a good, stable future—and sometimes … a lot of the time, I think she has a point.

“Because I have so many friends who wanted to be actors, but never landed a major role, or who worked their asses off and landed the role but completely failed to break out and—I mean, I love acting, but it’s hard and unpredictable. And besides, how can I even be sure this is what I want to do for the rest of my life? I’ve only lived, like, a quarter of my life so far. What if I turn down an offer from a great college now only to realize in two years that I’m not interested in acting anymore? What then?”

He stops talking abruptly, his breathing louder than normal, as if he’s been running the whole time he was delivering his monologue.

Caz Song isn’t only good at hiding physical pain. He’s good at hiding the emotional stuff too. Just from looking at him, seeing the way he acts at school, I’d never guess he thought so much about the things he’s just said.

“Just consider it,” I tell him when his breathing has slowed. “Okay?”

“Okay,” he says reluctantly, after a beat. “Okay, I’ll think about it.”

“Oh, and Caz?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for keeping your promise.” I clear my throat, hating how awkward I sound. “From that night at your place. I know it’s hard for you to talk about all this, but I’m—I’m glad you did.”

“It’s no big deal,” he says, though I can tell it is. Then he pauses. In a voice so soft I barely hear it, he adds, “The same for you.”

My heart stutters. “What?”

“That thing about … being there for me. I want to be that for you too.”

I close my eyes against the words. Of course they’re nice to hear. Of course. But this is Caz Song we’re talking about; he’s uttered a thousand romantic lines just like this on-screen, all with seeming sincerity. I can’t trust him to actually mean them, can’t delude myself into thinking he might reciprocate my feelings, when nobody’s ever fallen for me before. When he’s Caz the Rising Star, and I’m … me.

Still, after we hang up, it takes me forever to fall asleep.

•    •    •

I’m so used to seeing Caz’s name flashing over my screen that when my phone buzzes on Saturday evening, I pick up without looking.

“Did you finally get to kill the general today?” I ask, referring to the scene he’d last told me he was preparing for. An unexpected benefit of fake-dating a C-drama actor: You get a bunch of spoilers for yet-to-be-released dramas.

There’s a long silence.

Then Zoe’s voice drifts through the line, confused and oddly distant. Or maybe the connection’s just not great today. “Uh … what?”

“Oh.” I jerk upright on my bed, pushing away the interview notes I’d been looking through earlier for that Beijing media company. For some reason, my muscles tense, as if bracing for something. “Oh, sorry. I thought—I thought you were someone else. Hi.”

“Who did you think I was?” she asks. When I don’t reply right away, she answers for herself: “Caz.”

I make a small, vague sound of assent.

“So you guys are still doing the thing, huh?” Again, there’s that weird edge to her voice.

“What thing?”

“The whole dating facade.”

“Well, yeah,” I say, my whole body going rigid now, defensiveness hardening my tone. And then a long, awkward beat passes where we both wait for the other person to say more. I can’t remember when it started being like this, when we weren’t shouting over each other to talk about everything even when nothing had happened. But we’ve been busy.

But we’ve been busy before, back when I was still in America, and it wasn’t this bad.

It’s happening, I think, and as soon as I have the thought, it becomes a permanent stain, seeping through everything and coloring every memory a rotten gray. The changed playlist name. The shortened calls. The unanswered texts. The forgotten bracelet. Just like all my best friends from the past. June from London. Eva from Singapore. Lisa from New Zealand. In the end, it’s all just the same.

We’re drifting apart.

No, we’ve drifted apart. Whatever is happening now is the aftermath.

My heart seizes in silent despair, but Zoe speaks up again, oblivious to it all. “What are you planning to do about it?”

“Do about it?” I repeat, unable to shake the feeling that I’ve lost thread of this conversation.

“Well, I mean, you can’t just keep lying to the world, can you?” she pushes on. “Like, at first, I thought it’d only be this super-temporary thing. A joke. But it’s been entire months, and it’s just … It just seems like the kind of thing destined to blow up in your face.”

My jaw clenches, the tension now stretching like a wire all the way down to my toes. One of the reasons I’ve always admired Zoe is her ability to cut through all the bullshit, get to the very core of things. She’s brave like that, braver than I’ll ever be.

But that’s also precisely why this is the very last topic I want to talk about.

“It’ll work out,” I say, with all the false calm I can muster while wringing the corner of my pillow between clammy fingers. “Eventually. But I’ve already promised Sarah—everyone at Craneswift—that I’ll do this big interview after the break, and it’s meant to be great for my career, and—”

“And I’m all for opening yourself up to opportunities,” Zoe says. “Except when your career’s founded on a literal lie. I mean, how do you expect to retain your readers or earn the respect of any publication out there if they find out—”

“So they can’t find out,” I cut in, gut roiling. “They won’t.”

“Yeah, well—” She starts to say something else, but a loud notification chimes on her end, and she pauses. “Sorry, the grades for my chem exam just came out …”

“Go check it,” I tell her.

“You sure?” She lets out a small laugh, but she doesn’t mean it. I would know. I used to know everything about her—which laughs she was faking and when she wanted to leave a conversation, a party, a room.

She wants to leave now.

And I don’t know how to make people stay; I never have. So I only say, “Yeah, of course. Um, bye.”

“Okay. Bye.”

But there’s a terrible ring of finality in her voice.