“Or anything.”
“I’d go see my mom. She has Alzheimer’s and lives in a nursing home.” I get that out quickly, not wanting any pity.
Fangli doesn’t give me the look I dread. She only nods. “She’s lucky to have a devoted daughter since your father passed away.”
It must have been noted in the dossier she’d received from the private eye, but she does me the credit of mentioning it straight out instead of pretending she didn’t know about Dad. “He died almost ten years ago.” Cancer’s a bitch. I try not to think about it.
“Ah. I never knew my mother. She died when I was a baby. My father remarried to a nice woman but we have little in common.”
“Is he alive?”
“Lives in Beijing. I see him when I go home but he refuses to leave China.”
“Why?” There’s so much of the world to see.
“He says the world is in China.” She rolls her eyes. “I have no idea what it means either.”
“He didn’t have a problem with you acting?”
Fangli stretches and pulls her mass of hair back into a loose ponytail that she immediately drops down. “I’ve only ever wanted two things in my life. A pet cat—which he refused when I was a child and now I’m not home enough to take care of even if I had one—and to act.”
“How did you know that’s what you wanted to do?” I’m intrigued.
“I always knew.” She flicks the tab of her can idly with a perfectly manicured finger painted with clear nail polish. “My school was chosen to put on a play in honor of a visit from the General Secretary. One of the directors from the Central Academy of Drama saw me and told my father that I would bring glory to China. It was the only reason my father let me apply. He wanted me to be a scientist.”
“Really.” I could be wrong, but I don’t think many North American actors are encouraged to go into the industry out of patriotism.
“That’s where I met Sam,” she adds. “We were in the same year at school.”
“Did you ever…” I wriggle my eyebrows with meaning as I test the ground. I’m nosy, okay? She doesn’t have to answer.
“Never.”
“You’re not a couple?” I feel lighter, which is weird because it’s not as if not dating Fangli means Sam’s open to me.
She shudders. “Sam is like my brother, but people find it impossible to believe a man and woman can simply be friends. I could never see him like that. Ever.” She makes a kind of hilarious choking face.
“Really?” I lean forward. “Not even when you met?” Because I imagine even in the blundering teenage years Sam would have stood out.
“At the Academy, there was no time for dating, and in any case, I had a crush on his best friend.”
“A love triangle?”
“We were young and neither Sam nor I are interested in each other, so more of a one-way love line than a triangle.” Fangli laughs. “Poor Chen. He started a technology company and I haven’t seen him in ages. He lives in Vancouver.” She raises her eyebrows. “The detective said you were single.”
“For two years,” I say. “Riley was—I mean, is, he’s not dead—a nice guy.”
“But?”
“I don’t know.” Talking with Fangli is so comfortable, like talking to the sister I always wanted. Or what I imagine sisterhood to be like. “It was never a raging passion but one day I cooked dinner and we ate and when I was doing the dishes, I knew if I had to do that every night for the rest of my life, I would shrivel to a husk.”
“You cooked and did the dishes?” Fangli frowns. “What did he do?”
I blink. “I don’t know. I always did them.”
“I see. Well, how did he take it?” Fangli leans forward, eyes wide.
“That’s the zinger. I agonized for a week before I decided the best way to tell him. I didn’t want to hurt him, so I wanted to avoid a restaurant in case the place would have bad memories for him. We lived together, but it seemed cold to sit him down in the living room. In the end, I asked him to go for a walk.”
“Why that?”
“I thought it would help distract from the message.”
She nods as if filing this away. “The zinger, as you called it?”
“Right. I do all this planning and then I tell him, Hey, it’s not you, it’s me but I think this is over.”
“Did he cry?” She leans further in.