“Nonsense,” Tom said quickly. “Bob is the official Kendall Household Adviser on Rose Fertilization.”
“You’ve done a wonderful job,” Olivia said. “Now if you could just think of a way to kill the weeds …”
“Not my line, I’m afraid. I only know how to make stuff grow.”
“You can keep your present position for as long as you want,” said Kendall.
“The pay isn’t so hot,” Pendleton said, “but the food is great, the beer is cold, and the company …”
Pull the trigger, Neal. Pull it now.
“The company is sublime,” Neal said.
Yeah, it is, he thought as he finished off his cup of wine. You cultivate loneliness like a flower in your garden, you treat people like weeds that need to be torn away, and here is a world where people love eating together, talking together … love being with each other. A world you’ve imagined but never experienced. Until now. Until this evening. Talk about abusing the hospitality of good people….
“Chicken with peanuts and dried red peppers,” he heard Li Lan saying, and he looked up to see her set down a steaming plate.
“The peppers are not for eating,” she continued, “just for flavor.”
The chicken dish stoked the dormant flames in Neal’s throat and brought tears to his eyes. Every bite was hotter and more delicious than the last and made the wine taste sweeter and cooler.
He watched Li Lan gracefully take the half-peanuts with her chopsticks and feed them to Pendleton, and he felt simultaneously touched and jealous. Let him go, he thought. Let him go and let yourself go. You can start over. Take the rest of your money out of the bank and stay here. Apply to Berkeley. Or Stanford. Or become the Official Kendall Household Adviser on Eighteenth-Century English Literature. You must be getting drunk.
Getting
drunk? You
are
drunk. With wine, with beer, with great food, with soft lights, with … you’re drunk.
“Oh, God,
more?”
he heard Olivia groan in mock despair as Li Lan brought out a plate of broccoli, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, and mushrooms in bean sauce.
“Your show ends tomorrow?” he asked Lan as he munched on a crisp stem of brocolli.
“Yes,” she answered sadly.
“It was very successful,” said Olivia.
“Then where do you go?” Neal asked.
She didn’t answer. You could cut the tension with a chopstick, Neal thought.
“Home,” she said quietly.
“Hong Kong?” Neal asked.
She looked straight at him. “Yes. Home. Hong Kong.”
“Let’s not talk about it,” Olivia said. “It makes me sad.”
What about you, Dr. Bob? thought Neal. Does this mean you’re going home, too?
“I have a toast to propose!” said Tom. “Fill up your cups!”
Olivia poured out the wine.
Tom lifted his cup and scanned the table, looking each of them in the eye, then said, “To beauty—the beauty of Lan’s art, the beauty of the crops that grow through Robert’s knowledge, and the beauty of friendship.”
Neal drained his cup as a stupid question came to him: Had Judas liked the wine at the Last Supper?
Neal had never liked being naked. People didn’t get naked in New York, not outdoors, anyway, and they sure as hell didn’t shuck their clothes in public in England. But it was hot-tub time, and his hosts insisted that he join them. They didn’t use bathing suits in Marin County, and he was undercover—so to speak—so he surrendered his clothing in exchange for a promised towel and robe and then slid into the deepest part of the hot tub. He was grateful for the dim blue lighting on the deck, and more grateful that it was only Pendleton who joined him at first.
“I’m not a hot-tub kind of guy,” Neal said.
“Neither am I.”
“Then what are we doing here?”
“I wanted to talk with you and know I’m not being recorded.”
Great, Neal thought. You sure fooled them.
“So, did the company send you?” Pendleton asked.
Neal thought about saying something clever like “What company?” or “Huh?” but decided that the old game was up and he might as well get it over with.
“Yeah.”
“That’s what I thought. Lan says that you don’t know anything about Chinese painting.”
“I just know what I like.”
If Pendleton thought the joke was funny, he disguised it pretty well.
“What does the company want?” he asked.
“They want you back.”
Jesus, this is stupid, Neal thought. Sitting here up to my chin in steaming water, half in the bag, trying to persuade another naked man to go back to work. I
have
to get a real job.
“I’m not going back,” Pendleton said. His thin chest puffed out in determination.
“What’s the problem?”
Perspiration had slid Pendleton’s glasses down his nose, and he pushed them back up again. Then he said, “You’ve seen her.”
Yeah, Doc. I’ve seen her all right. I wish I hadn’t.
“Look, Doc, they allow love in North Carolina.”
“To a Chinese woman?”
Come on, Doc, Neal thought. Lighten up. Join us in the 1970s. What’s the big deal?
“Sure, why not?”
Pendleton snorted sarcastically and shook his head. “I’m going with her,” he said.
“Yeah, well, there’s a problem with that.”
“Yeah? What problem?” Pendleton asked.
Neal saw that he was getting pissed off.
“You have a contract that has a year and change left. They’ll sue you.”
“Let them try to get to my money in Hong Kong.”
The hot water was starting to get to Neal. The wine didn’t exactly help, either. He felt enervated, tired.
“Doc, you don’t want to do that. Look, if it’s really love, it’ll last a year and a half. She can visit you, you can visit her…. I’ll bet AgriTech would even spring for the airfare. Finish out your time and then you’ll be free and clear.”
It’s been about a year since I left Diane, Neal thought, and I don’t think it’s going to last. And who am I to talk about being free and clear? I haven’t been either free or clear in my whole life. If I were, I wouldn’t be sitting here.
“You’re never free from those people,” Pendleton said bitterly. “Once they have you, they think they own you forever.”
I know the feeling, Doc.
“It’s a free country, Dr. Pendleton. If you don’t want to sign the
next
contract, don’t sign it. But the harsh fact is that you have to honor the one you have.” Or love the one you’re with, or something like that, and why did I have to drink all those toasts?
“Honor?” Pendleton said with a chortle. “I don’t know.”
They sank into a sullen silence. It didn’t last long, because Li Lan came out wearing a black robe and carrying a tray with a teapot and three cups. She set the tray down by the edge of the tub and then straightened up and undid the belt of the robe.
Just then Neal couldn’t quite figure out whether Li Lan dropping her robe would be the best thing in the world or the worst thing in the world, and when she opened the robe around her shoulders and then let it slide to the deck, it turned out to be both. His heart stopped, his throat tightened, and he tried not to stare as she slipped into the hot water beside Pendleton. She rested one hand on his shoulder.
“Now we are all undressed,” she said to Neal.
“He
is
from the company,” said Pendleton.
Lan nodded.
“They sent him to bring me back,” Pendleton continued.
“To talk to you,” Neal said. “I can’t bring you back against your will. I can’t throw cuffs on you and haul you onto a plane.”
“You’re damned right you can’t,” Pendleton said. He looked like an angry bird.
“Robert …” said Lan quietly, stroking his shoulder, calming him down.
“Just go back and talk to them,” Neal offered. “You owe them that, don’t you? At least go back and tell them you’re quitting, see if you can work things out.”
He kept talking, laying out the whole thing: It was no big deal, everything was forgiven, Pendleton wasn’t the first guy to fall in love and lose his head for a while, no sense in destroying a distinguished career. Why, Neal himself would even help Pendleton negotiate some sort of visiting arrangement. Swept away with his own eloquence, he pushed on: North Carolina is beautiful; a change of scene would help Lan grow as an artist; there is, in fact, a large Oriental community in the Research Triangle. He was so convincing he convinced himself: their life would be great,
his
life would be great, they would visit each other for magic evenings.
Lan turned around and started to pour three cups of tea. The movement of her shoulder blades sent another pang shooting through Neal. When she turned back and leaned over to hand Neal a cup he could see the tops of her breasts, but it was still her eyes that drew him. She seemed to be looking into his mind, maybe into his soul. She handed Pendleton a cup and then leaned back to sip her own tea.
“Maybe Neal Carey’s thought is correct,” she said.
“I’m not leaving you,” Pendleton said quickly. He sounded like a twelve-year-old.
“Will Robert have much trouble if he does not return?”
“His research is very important.”
“Yes, it is.” She smiled at Pendleton warmly, and Neal would have donated his
live
body to science to see that smile sent his way.
“You’re
more
important,” said Pendleton thickly, and Neal had the sudden impression that Pendleton was going to start crying.
“It’s not an either/or situation,” Neal said.
“‘Either/or’?” Lan asked.
“One thing or the other.”
She took another sip of tea, set the cup down, and took Pendleton’s face gently in her hands. She leaned toward him until her face was an inch from his.
“Wo ai ni,”
she said softly. I love you.
It was such an intimate moment that Neal wanted to turn away. His Chinese was pretty much confined to Column A or Column B, but he knew that she had told Pendleton that she loved him.
“Wo ai ni,”
Pendleton answered.
Li Lan reached out under the water and took Neal’s hand, gently folding his fingers into hers.
His heart started to race.
She let his hand go.
“We will go with you tomorrow,” she said. “Both of us.”
Pendleton’s head whipped around like he’d been jerked on a choke chain and he started to protest, but Li Lan’s hand on his stopped him.
“Your work is important,” she said.
She closed her eyes and settled into the water—the image of perfect repose.
Pendleton couldn’t let it go as easily. “Tomorrow—”
She cut him off without opening her eyes, “—is a dream. Tom and Olivia wish to speak with you now.”
It was one of those don’t-I-hear-your-mother-calling-you bits, and Neal watched as Pendleton dutifully got out of the water, wrapped a towel around his waist, and stomped into the house. So much for the submissive Oriental woman, Neal thought. Then he realized he was alone with Li Lan, and he stopped thinking altogether. They sat there for at least five excruciating minutes before she spoke.
“You will not let them hurt him?” she asked.
Hurt him?! What the fuck?
“Nobody wants to hurt him, Lan. They just want him to come back to work.” I mean, we’re talking about a research lab here, right? not the Gambino family.
“Please do not let them hurt him,” she implored.
“Okay.” Look at me like that, Li Lan, and I won’t even let them hurt his feelings.
“Promise.”
“I promise.” Should be an easy enough request to fill. They want him back so bad they’ll probably give him a raise and a bonus. Monogrammed test tubes. Fur-lined eyepiece on the microscope.
Li Lan stood up. She stood in front of Neal as if inviting him to look her over, as if she were in a lineup at a cathouse. He tried to look away, tried as hard as the booze, the steam of the tub, and his own feelings for her would let him. He felt himself swallowing hard and staring, first at her body and then at her eyes.
“I will go to speak with him,” she said.
Neal looked around for a towel but didn’t see one. “Yeah, it’s about time to get going.”
She shook her head. “No. Wait for me, please. I will come back.”
“Uhhh, would you bring a towel, please?”
“You are shy.”
“Yeah.”
She put her robe on. The silk stuck to her wet skin.
“There is no reason to be shy. I will come back to thank you.”
“Aww, shucks, ma’am. You don’t need to thank me … jes’ doin’ my job.”
He was pretty surprised when she leaned over and kissed him, quickly and softly, on the lips. “I will be back in a moment… to thank you.”
It was a whisper of a promise.
“No,” he said, more reluctantly than he felt real good about.
She looked at him quizzically.
“You don’t understand,” Neal said. “That’s not the way it works. You don’t need to buy … insurance.”
Of course, if you want to leave him and run away with me and live happily ever after, that’s another story.
“It’s not insurance. You have been very nice.”
Right. She’s not buying it. She’s still scared for him, and she’s ready to give it up to get a little added protection. Where does a painter learn about that?
“Really, Lan. No thanks.”
But please don’t ask again, Lan, because I think I’m out of no-thank-yous.
She looked confused for the smallest part of a second, then smiled and shrugged. The robe came off her shoulders with the shrug and she gave him another long look, a think-about-what-you’re-passing-up pose, and it shook him. Backlit by the light coming through the picture window, she looked unreal, unearthly—divorced from the mundane world of reality, and jobs to do, and boring ethics. She became part of a magical evening, of a different kind of life—a world in which he wanted to lose himself, float with her in the mirror mists. He told himself to get up, get out, but she froze him in place, held him in the whirlpool, trapped him in the vortex.
He leaned over to splash some water on his face and barely heard the whine of the bullet that just missed his head and smacked into the wall of the house.
He sank into the water.