Читать книгу Year of the Goose - Carly J. Hallman - Страница 9

2.

THEM FAT KIDS AIN’T HERE

FAT PEOPLE FAT CAMP CONVENED IN JUNE WITH A HUNDRED OVER-WEIGHT campers from every corner of Jiangsu Province, all in dire need of direction and rehabilitation. The camp was held on the Wuxi High School for Exceptional Students campus. Five amphetamine-swallowing counselors and one cook served as Zhao’s staff.

Zhao floated through days one and two of camp like a tycoon in a dream. The campers exercised. The counselors encouraged. The cook steamed vegetables. But Zhao was born under an inauspicious moon. The first days passed easily—too easily—and he felt an acidic burn in his gut, and he knew that his luck would not last.

Day one of Fat People Fat Camp, and Kelly, wearing her new Lululemon yoga pants and slurping down a healthy breakfast smoothie, bounded out to the waiting Audi. She’d packed an overnight bag with a few changes of clothes in case she needed to stay on the campus. She tossed it into the backseat and climbed in. Thirty minutes of stop-and-go traffic later, her driver located the outskirts-of-town address the officials had given her: not a bustling camp, but an open field.

A few spins around the adjacent dusty roads later, Kelly realized she’d been had. She dialed the official, who apologized profusely and insincerely, and who, over an odd ringing sound (which reminded Kelly an awful lot of slot machines she’d unprofitably played in Vegas all alone on her twenty-first birthday), gave her the “new” address, which of course also turned out to be a sham—another empty field. This wild-goose chase continued for two days, leading Kelly and her driver on a thorough and exhaustive tour of Wuxi and its surrounding areas, until, over the squeals of either an aroused woman or an ailing pig, the annoyed official gave Kelly the address of what turned out to be a chicken farm.

The chicken farmer, a crinkly old man with rascally eyes, informed Kelly that two days before a busload of fat kids had indeed turned up at his farm, but that they were then promptly bused to another top secret location. If any of their parents knew where the children were, he painstakingly explained, they’d inevitably send care packages full of contraband or perhaps even attempt to tunnel under the ground using Democratic People’s Republic of Korea–patented techniques to deliver to their children the snacks they so craved, and such parental meddling could completely derail all weight-loss efforts.

The farmer then proudly announced he had been given fifty yuan by a government official for use of his land and address as a “confusion point.” Kelly, reading between the lines, stuffed a red hundred in the farmer’s hand. The farmer promptly pulled from his pants pocket a thin stack of folded and sweaty photocopied papers, including the administrator’s résumé and a document that listed another address (Wuxi High School for Exceptional Students, a nonoperational school that famously lost its funding halfway through construction when its wealthy underwriter was killed in a paragliding accident in Hawaii [some suspected foul play] and his widow [a B-list Korean actress] refused to pay the bribes necessary to continue the school’s construction).

With some useful information finally in hand, Kelly and her driver sped off, leaving the farmer in a cloud of dust, happily clutching his hundred-yuan note. In the backseat with the air conditioner on full-blast, Kelly read and reread Zhao’s résumé. This, she stewed, this was the man they’d deemed worthy to be in charge of this project?! A man with an associate’s degree from some third-tier city’s unaccredited no-name university? A man whose only real professional experience was working as a low-level assistant for years and years without any promotion in a crap fitness equipment company that she was pretty sure was a pyramid scheme? The small head shot that accompanied the résumé showed a man who verged on hideous: eyes too close together, cheeks too fleshy, mouth big and meaty, skin pocked—but maybe it was just a bad Xerox. Either way, she thought as she stole a look in the side view mirror at her own face (symmetrical enough to be a spokesmodel, if not beautiful enough to be a supermodel), this? This was the face of the war on obesity?

Her car slowed and soon stopped. Through the tinted and shut windows Kelly heard the unmistakable shouting and grunting of fat children. She thanked the driver and told him she’d call when she was ready to be picked up. She grabbed her bag and marched into the half-finished school, with its roofless hallways and exposed pipes, and located a small office—the only room with its door open—where the man who must have been Zhao sat playing solitaire on his computer.

“Excuse me,” she said. She dropped her bag on the floor and placed her hands on her hips.

Zhao frantically clicked out of his game and spun around. He was as terrible looking in person as he was in his photo. Worse maybe. “Oh, hello,” he said in a voice that could turn off Helen Keller. He looked Kelly up and down with lascivious eyes. “Not a camper then?”

Refusing to acknowledge this, she furrowed her brow. “My name is Kelly Hui, and I am a representative of the Bashful Goose Snack Company.”

Zhao squinted at her, clearly taken aback by her authoritative tone. He stood up slowly, leaning his body away from her. “Um, okay. Is there something I can help you with?”

This was one question (and she’d played over many in her head in the past few days driving in and around Wuxi) that she didn’t have an answer to. She hesitated awkwardly and then said, “No, I’m here to help you.” She remembered one of the lines she’d rehearsed in her head. “Bashful Goose Snack Company believes that obesity is a most dire problem for China’s youth. At this camp, we aren’t just saving calories, we’re saving lives.”

Zhao screwed up his face. “Huh? Sorry, who are you exactly?”

“I’m Kelly Hui, head of corporate social responsibility at Bashful Goose Snack Company.”

Zhao grimaced—or maybe that was just his unfortunate default facial expression—and shook his head.

She dropped her arms to her side. “The company that’s sponsoring this camp?”

He shook his head again.

Hopeless, incredibly and undeniably hopeless this one was. “Never mind. I looked over your résumé, and your, shall we say, lacking qualifications speak to the need of some corporate management intervention. I’m here to help you.”

Zhao squinted, squirmed, and then his eyes finally lit up in recognition. “The company that makes Watermelon Wigglers?” He shimmied his chest and burst into song, one of many of the company’s commercial jingles. Bashful Goose snacks, eat ’em right up / They’re so delicious, they’ll make you fall in love!

Kelly nodded. Zhao snapped his fingers loudly—Kelly, startled, jumped back. “Yes,” he said. “Ah, yes. Now, sorry, why’d you say they sent someone from Bashful Goose here?”

She inhaled deeply. “Bashful Goose put up the funds to sponsor this camp. We are the sole financial backer.”

“Oh,” Zhao snorted, and took on a sarcastic tone. “I understand.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t mean to suggest that I’m not doing well with what I’ve been given. You’d just think a big company like that would’ve been a bit more generous is all.”

Kelly tried to hide her disgust. This, she thought, this is exactly why I hate this country. Give a little, give a lot, it doesn’t matter; they want it all and then some. “If three million yuan isn’t generous, isn’t enough for you, I don’t know what is, and—”

“Look,” Zhao said, jamming his index finger knuckle-deep into his nostril. “I don’t know what three million you’re talking about. I’m working with a very small budget.” He pointed at the same computer monitor he’d been playing games on only a moment before. He motioned for her to sit down at the desk and take a look for herself. Careful not to touch this booger picker’s mouse or keyboard, she studied the spreadsheet he’d opened, the numbers contained therein.

She pointed to the figure in the “total budget” column. “That’s it?” she asked. A tremor started in her arms, making its way down to her fingertips. Her forehead popped with sweat. “That’s your total budget?”

“And they said if I could do it for less, it’d be better.”

“We gave three million,” she said. “You were supposed to have three million. So where did that money go?”

They met each other’s eyes. “The officials,” they said simultaneously.

YEAH, YEAH, THAT’S FINE, THE MONEY’S ALL YOURS

KELLY THOUGHT BACK TO THAT DAY MANY WEEKS BEFORE WHEN SHE’D proposed her grand plan, when she’d marched into enemy territory and asked her father for the money. He hadn’t, as she’d anticipated, questioned or doubted her. He’d just (eventually) pushed aside his doomed Sudoku puzzle and listened. Listened intently as she described the proposed facilities, the expert counselors with higher degrees from top universities, the vision she had to make China a healthier, fitter place one child at a time. Listened, cocked his head, and listened some more.

But the Papa Hui she knew was abrasive, crude, my-way-or-the-highway, dismissive of her, always irritated with her, burdened by her.

She thought he’d peered back at her that day with a sort of recognition, of pride. She foolishly thought he’d seen something in her eyes, some glimmer of hope that he recognized from his own days of aspiration, of youth.

Because without any fight at all, he’d agreed to hand over the money.

But Papa Hui was no idiot and was, despite the company’s lore that profitably stated otherwise, hardly an idealist. He was the country’s richest man and he knew, better than anyone, how China and the world worked. When he’d looked at his only daughter looking starry-eyed, he wasn’t looking on with pride, but with pity. Please, he saw the future: government officials running riot through Macau’s casinos, forking out for bottles of Johnnie Walker and elaborate fruit platters in ornate nightclubs, recklessly spending on iPhones and iPads and electronic wine bottle openers and exotic animal parts believed to increase sexual potency. And he saw her future too, which was obviously synonymous to him with her present and with her past: as a powerless little troublemaker who would never, ever be as good as a goose.

AND TAKE ME ON THE GRAND TOUR AND SHOW ME ALL THE THINGS I LONG TO SEE

KELLY, SILENTLY RAGING AT HER FATHER AND FLOATING IN A STATE OF disbelief, ordered Zhao to lead her on a tour around campus. She stepped heavily, angrily, in her new Nikes. Everyone knew officials were corrupt, so why did she believe their pitch? How had she fallen for this? And why hadn’t she realized that her old fuck of a father would go to any lengths, including spending three million yuan, to humiliate her?

There was supposed to be an Olympic-sized swimming pool, state-of-the-art fitness facilities, and world-class chefs. Instead, there was a sewage-like stench hanging in the dense air.

Kelly crinkled her nose. “Is there something wrong with the pipes?”

Zhao shook his head. “No, I think you’re smelling lunch.”

They lingered for a moment longer in the dining hall, a dimly lit room with low ceilings that may or may not have been pocked with black mold. “Onward,” Zhao said, and led her to the kitchen, which Kelly noted was definitely the source of the stench and where the cook, not stopping to look up at them, diligently chopped vegetables. Kelly watched, mesmerized by the rhythmic chop, chop, chop of the cleaver.

Zhao’s voice cut into the beat. “Gym next?” She followed him across the courtyard to a small building, which housed the indoor fitness facilities—a sorry scene. On one side of the room stood a dusty treadmill, a torn vinyl bench, and a single barbell. On the other, an instructor bounced before a cracked floor-to-ceiling mirror, crying chipper instructions and encouragements. Tinny pop music blasted from a cell phone speaker, and a dozen or so fat kids, all with identification numbers worn around their necks, lazily swung light dumbbells about and stepped out of sync. The instructor waved at Zhao, dropping her own small dumbbell on her toe. She winced slightly, but then picked it up, forced a grin, and carried on.

This is war, Kelly decided, watching that pained smile relax into a more natural one. If she could rehabilitate these lazy-ass children, make them thin despite the stolen money, the corruption, the derelict surroundings and inadequate equipment, Papa Hui would be made a fool. He’d be sorry he ever doubted her, sorry he tried to humiliate her, sorry for everything. Not that his opinion would matter then anyway. Not when she proved herself a national hero, and one who didn’t need fancy flourishes to make a difference. All she needed, and all she had, was little more than savvy, prowess, and a big heart.

As the kids continued to exercise and as Zhao muttered rude half-formed thoughts about cellulite under his breath, Kelly whipped out her iPhone and texted her driver not to worry about picking her up, that she’d definitely be staying the night. She slid it into her pocket and then ran her fingers through her silky extensions.

“Hey.” Zhao nudged her arm. She instinctively recoiled. “There’s a pool down there,” he said, pointing to a stairwell in the corner. “But we can’t use it because the construction workers who were building the school were using it as a toilet. Still sort of stinks.”

Vomit crept up her gullet. She swallowed the acidic liquid down, took a few deep and burning breaths, and followed Zhao through the nutrition classroom (where a group of children sat uncomfortably at rickety desks chorally reciting lines from a Chinese translation of a Weight Watchers pamphlet), the activity room (where students crafted what Kelly first mistook for bracelets, but what upon further inspection turned out to be colorful ball gags), and the camper dormitories (where a few students lounged on cot-like bunk beds, snoring, biting their fingernails, and flipping through high-fashion magazines, among other approved leisure-time activities).

Finally, they stepped back outside, where a pack of children sat in a poorly formed circle on the basketball court, singing, Oh, how bad to be thick, oh, how good to be thin! / Oh, eat a lot of food is for pigs, eat a little bit is for kids! Their harmonious voices drifted high above the trees, and Kelly couldn’t help but picture the people in the surrounding apartment blocks, the old aunties washing dishes and the teenagers studying for university entrance exams, pausing and craning their necks for a better listen.

Pride overtook heartburn and welled up inside her. What she was going to do could really make the busy nation stop and pay notice. Could make her father drop dead of a shock-induced heart attack. Could make everyone say, “Hey, this girl could really be someone! She’s changing lives here! She can move mountains!” Oh, there would be articles in the airline magazines, interviews on all the top websites, TV specials profiling formerly fat children whose lives the one and only Ms. Kelly Hui helped rebuild from flabby rubble, best of the best…

A deep voice spitting, “Hey, fatty!” ripped Kelly from her daydreams. At once, the children stopped singing. Zhao glared down at a chipmunk-cheeked, blank-faced girl. He lightly kicked her in the back, and she spun around to look up at him with wounded eyes. Zhao knelt down beside her, his hideous face centimeters away from hers. She crinkled her nose and shrunk from Zhao’s rotting breath. “Why weren’t you singing with the rest of them?” he spat.

The girl didn’t speak. She blinked. Tears welled up in her eyes.

“Sing!” he shouted in her face. A solitary tear rolled down her crab apple cheek, but she didn’t open her mouth, just stared back at him. He calmly stood up, clapped his hands against his thighs. “Now get back to it!” he called to the lot of them, and then blew the whistle he wore around his neck.

On cue, the children resumed their song, but it sounded different now, its joyful spirit sapped. Anger welled up inside Kelly again, temporarily replacing her pride and ambition, and she fiercely shook her head—not only was this blockhead inexperienced and unrefined, but he was also a bully, and in her mind, there was little worse. Her nostrils flared and she took an aggressive step toward that ugly Zhao, who had begun slogging back toward the office. She advanced quickly up from behind him, jabbed him hard in the kidney with her pointer finger, and lowered her voice so that the children wouldn’t hear. “That’s a human being you were talking to back there.”

Zhao spun around, all bulging eyes and outrage, all puffed-up chest. “Yes? And?”

Carbohydrates are for energy! Protein is for muscle! / If you eat too many of any, you better start to hustle! To burn! TO BURN! TO BU-BU-BU-BU-BURN!

“It’s pretty inappropriate to speak to anyone, and especially a child, like that.” Her voice came out louder, meaner than she intended. Despite her intention to keep this confrontation subtle, under wraps, the children took notice and cut short their song. Oh, well, she thought, let them hear. This was for their own good. Who knew what damage he’d done already? Who knew what horrible words he’d spat at these delicate souls? Who knew how much weight loss had already been hindered thanks to this bully of a man-child?

A dozen sets of eyes darted between the pockmarked administrator and the moon-faced heiress.

“What, are you sent from the public manners bureau?” Zhao spat. He made no effort to keep his voice down. “And anyway, those ‘human beings’ are here to lose weight. I’m only trying to encourage ‘thin behavior.’ That is my job.”

“You wouldn’t have a job if it weren’t for me.” Kelly narrowed her eyes. “And whether you like it or not, I’m in charge here now, I’m your boss, and—”

But she never finished her sentence. A bell’s shrill ring sliced through the thick afternoon air, and the voices of all the campers formed into a collective bellow: “Luuuuuuuuunch!”

“Take cover!” Zhao shouted, and yanked Kelly across the courtyard and into the nutrition classroom’s doorframe. The ground trembled and then full-on quaked as a hundred pairs of thick legs raced down the stairs, bolted across the courtyard, and streaked toward the cafeteria. Kelly squeezed her eyes shut and jammed her fingers into her ears. An iPad-sized chunk of plaster shook loose from the corner of the ceiling. Zhao shielded Kelly’s head with his arms. The plaster shattered against the floor, narrowly missing them both.

A moment later, the rumbling stopped. The air fell still. Kelly opened her eyes and removed her fingers from her ears. Peace and silence had been restored.

“Shall we?” Zhao asked.

Realizing she’d been holding her breath, she exhaled deeply. Her stomach rumbled; all she’d had for breakfast was a small bowl of muesli. But despite her empty stomach, her soul swelled with satisfaction—she’d stood up to Zhao, put him in his place, established herself as the alpha wolf. With numbskulls like him, a few harsh words were usually all it took.

“We shall,” she said. She walked with rapid, determined, triumphant steps toward the cafeteria.

LEADERSHIP IN SEVENTEEN EASY STEPS: LEARN TO MANAGE OTHERS BY MANAGING YOURSELF

LEADERSHIP IS THE CORNERSTONE OF EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT… SO IT went, and so went a line in one of the many self-help e-books Kelly downloaded during her era of freedom and stability. She arrived at age fourteen in Los Angeles, no friends, no social life, nothing but incredibly fast Internet. She sat inside, air-conditioning blowing and blinds shut, as the sun rose, sweltered, and set outside. She ate granola bars, drank massive quantities of Mountain Dew, logged on to chat rooms, logged out of chat rooms, obsessively read fan fiction, obsessively wrote rude comments about aforementioned fan fiction, turned the computer off and watched endless episodes of Blind Date on TV, turned the computer back on and sparked short-lived affairs with shooter RPGs, Napster, strangers’ LiveJournals, fetish porn, and The Sims. Finally, she landed on the wide world of web-based self-and professional-improvement. Finally, she was home.

Upon completing the exercises and self-inventories in a number of e-books, Kelly concluded that it was not simply “bad luck” or “fate,” but her own failure to establish herself as a dominant player in her myriad relationships (father-daughter, mother-daughter, goose-human, et cetera) that had placed her in her current predicament. Shut in her new bedroom, hunched over her Toshiba desktop computer, she also learned that it was never, ever too late to change. Armed for the first time with any semblance of self-awareness and with techniques to help quell her anxiety, Kelly decided to undertake an experimental project to henceforth establish herself as the alpha wolf in all of her American relationships.

August melted into September, and after weeks of careful plotting and strategizing, she set forth with her leadership crusade, first taking on the Los Angeles Academy for Wealthy Young Ladies. Although her tactics for exuding dominance (including: hacking teachers’ blogs and other online accounts to post and send sexually provocative information, photographing classmates through the cracks in the bathroom stalls for blackmail purposes, and periodically setting pet-store-purchased gerbils loose in the locker room) didn’t win her any friends, the other girls (who, during the course of their high school careers, were so incredibly vicious as to drop a bucket of red paint on one leather-jacket-wearing classmate’s head in a politically correct reenactment of Carrie, to somehow change one classmate’s submitted Yale essay to read only “I has special needs thanks you to read this,” and to purposefully run a Mercedes SUV over another classmate’s foot in an In-N-Out Burger parking lot) left her be save for a few unfortunate albeit unoriginal Asian-stereotype-derived nicknames. Kelly, no stranger to bodily harm and sabotage thanks to the goose, was relieved not to suffer through such physically violent incidences here. A few stupid words she could deal with.

With her status securely locked in at school, Kelly soon spread her wings, pursuing in the “real world” other minor conquests, which most notably included intimidating Prada and Coach store employees into giving her unheard-of discounts, intimidating bouncers into allowing her access into twenty-one and older nightclubs, and intimidating a chiseled Tommy Hilfiger model into giving her his cell phone number and that of his coke dealer.

But the home front was where Kelly waged the real war.

Papa Hui had hired a nanny to accompany Kelly to America and to serve as her live-in guardian. This “nanny,” a twenty-four-year-old peasant named Aunty Minnie, had no actual training in education or child care. She was the daughter of one of Papa Hui’s drivers, and the old man told her to take the job or lose her father’s. But it wasn’t all blackmail. There was also a hefty salary, an extended stay in the United States, and the prospect of landing a Hollywood husband who would finance the breast implants she so desperately wanted/needed—this sugar daddy dream existing despite a bespectacled boyfriend who worked as a computer repairman back in Shanghai.

Kelly, unwilling to follow orders from such a sorry character, systematically executed a number of carefully planned tactics, including but not limited to: forwarding flirtatious e-mails (both real and fabricated) to and from other men to Aunty Minnie’s boyfriend in China, planting duck hearts procured in Chinatown in Aunty Minnie’s “delicates” drawer, paying a foster kid she met at the public library to rob Aunty Minnie at knifepoint in the front yard, emptying a bottle of vinegar into Aunty Minnie’s blueberry juice jug, and threatening to report Aunty Minnie to the authorities for not having her “papers in order,” the punishment for which, Kelly informed her, was indefinite detainment at Guantánamo Bay, where phone calls were not permitted and where immigration offenders were forced to help the authorities torture terrorists (Kelly remained proud of herself for spinning this particularly convincing tale).

Within a matter of well-played weeks, Kelly earned free run of the house—if she craved dumplings exactly like Grandma used to make, Aunty Minnie would dress up just like Grandma—gray wig, dentures, and all—and make them. If Kelly needed someone to complete her homework for her so that she could play Dance Dance Revolution at the mall arcade for hours, Aunty Minnie would circle multiple-choice answers until the sun came up. If Kelly needed an advance on her allowance, or someone to arrange the purchase of Adderall, or most frequently of all someone to just leave her the hell alone and get out of her damn way, Aunty Minnie was her girl. And if Kelly, on her eighteenth birthday, needed someone to leave America, return to China, marry a wiry computer repairman-boy with thick glasses, and never speak of her trying time in America or of the spoiled socio-path who robbed her of her chances of riches and foreign citizenship and of the desire to ever bear children of her own, well…

WHERE’D THEY GET THIS COOK? A PRISON?

KELLY AND ZHAO REACHED THE FRONT OF THE LINE, WHERE THE COOK plopped a ladleful of steamed vegetables and a second ladleful of some unidentifiable gelatinous material onto their plates.

“Yum,” said Kelly. Facetiously, of course. Zhao grunted.

There wasn’t enough space around the few shoddy tables to seat all the campers, so many stood, shoveling food into their faces. Others squatted. Still others plopped themselves down on the tile. Kelly and Zhao maneuvered their way through this multilevel maze of flesh and fat and took a seat at the counselors’ table in the corner. Kelly introduced herself to those seated as “Kelly Hui, Bashful Goose Snack Company. I’m here to help you with whatever you need. We’re a team here. We must work together,” before launching into the same short speech she’d given Zhao about saving not only calories, but lives.

The counselors nodded, smiled—no teeth, all pursed lips—fidgeted, picked at their food.

Kelly pushed her own food-like substances around her plate with her chopsticks. The blob left a slime trail. A successful leader speaks from the heart, makes him- or herself relatable to others. “Where’d they get this cook?” she said to the table, trying to lighten the mood. “A prison?”

Everyone around the table, with the exception of Zhao, emitted robotic laughter.

Kelly, failing to notice their insincerity, grinned. “And if so, then I’m going to hope for the death penalty!”

Zhao picked up a piece of his gelatinous blob with his chopsticks, held it up, studied it intently. “Delicious food is what got these kids here in the first place.”

Kelly dropped her chopsticks and returned her hands to her lap, balled into fists. Yes, her jokes were incongruous, but they were nonetheless chuckle-worthy, hardly deserving of such a stark response. Hey, hey, the nimrod was back for round two; not going down without a fight. Well, she’d give it to him. “Yeah, well, starvation isn’t the way to go about it,” she snapped. “Their metabolisms will shut down. It’s better that we teach them healthy eating habits and to eat sensible portions of nutritious foods.” She looked to the others for backup. They all chewed their lips, played with their food, peered down at their trays.

Zhao placed his chopsticks beside his tray. “I didn’t realize you were a medical doctor.” He picked at a whitehead on his jawline.

“No, but I have the Internet and something called common sense. Have you heard of either?”

A half-dozen set of eyes darted between the thick-maned heiress and the balding administrator.

Zhao dabbed his ooze-gushing zit with the side of his hand. He picked up his chopsticks, used them to maneuver the gelatinous blob into his mouth. “Extreme obesity calls for extreme solutions.”

“Oh, so you have heard of the Internet. Fantastic. And you’ve read the back of a Miss Mian’s Laxative Tea box. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe that’s their official slogan. Extreme obesity calls for—” Zhao’s cheeks flushed red. Flustered. She was getting to him.

“Yeah, well, I made some of my own slogans too: fat kids grow into fat adults, so let’s cut down the weeds before they spoil the garden.” As he spoke, she caught glimpses of that nasty blob resting on his white-fuzz-coated tongue like a tumor, like some rare disease. “And then—”

Another bell rang, thankfully cutting short his foray into Mad Men territory. Prepared now for the worst, Kelly instinctively covered her head and ducked under the table. But this time there was no earthquake. The ground was still. The others remained unfazed. She waited a moment—safety first!—before she crawled out and retook her seat. Campers lazily stood and lumbered toward the doors, some lingering only to steal a few last licks from their trays. The counselors returned their own trays to the kitchen and left without a word.

Peace and quiet. Absence. Her stomach growled. Kelly poked her own gelatinous blob with her chopsticks. She’d dealt with Zhao, his insubordinate attitude, satisfactorily. Now she needed another form of gratification. She lowered her voice and leaned toward him. “Hey, so you must have some real food in your office, right?”

Zhao nodded. His cheeks had taken on a greenish hue. Kelly realized that he still hadn’t brought himself to swallow the blob and couldn’t spit it out now in front of the cook, who was intently pushing in chairs the campers had left askew. Zhao stood, wobbly on his feet. “Let’s go,” he murmured, his words slightly garbled. “It’s growing in my mouth.”

Kelly followed Zhao to his office, where he shut the door and spat the blob into the wastepaper basket. He sputtered, hunched over the basket, strings of blob-infused drool falling from his mouth before finally wiping his face on his sleeve and composing himself. He marched over to his desk and unlocked one of its drawers, revealing an impressive stash of cookies, chocolate bars, and potato chips.

“Is this stuff you’ve confiscated from campers?”

“Contraband, yeah. Some of it,” Zhao said. He tore open a bag of Lays. “Some I bought myself.”

Get to know your people. The best managers become actively involved with what their people are trying to accomplish.

Kelly narrowed her eyes. “Can I ask you something?”

Zhao set the open bag of Lays down on his desktop. He sat. He shrugged.

“Why are you here? Was your old man owed a favor by someone in the government or something?” A mocking tone seeped into her voice—she didn’t want to be this, she was losing control, she was better than this. “Was your dad one of those guys who refused to let the government tear down his shit-hole of a house to build a shopping mall, claiming unjust compensation and to ‘stand for something’ until the government upped the price a bit and offered his son a job in return? Or was he—”

Zhao stopped her, saying softly, “My father is dead.”

Kelly tossed her hair over her shoulder. She tried her best to appear unfazed. “Yeah, okay, whatever. So I’m just so rude now, aren’t I? You probably think, Oh, why is she criticizing me when she’s not qualified either. Well, I am qualified. I have a business degree from America and I am the head of—”

“Corporate social responsibility at Bashful Goose Snack Company,” Zhao finished her sentence.

She crossed her arms, puffed out her cheeks, and stared down at him. He leaned back in his chair. Sighed. Leaned forward again. Tapped his fingers on the desk’s edge. “Look, I know what you’re thinking. I’m hardly qualified for a position at McDonald’s, much less here. I’m a loser. I’m hideous.”

She uncrossed her arms. She wasn’t expecting him to come over to her side so easily.

“But if you must know, I got this job through an agency. I don’t know why they hired me, okay? There looked to be several other attractive, more authoritative applicants waiting when I went in for the interview. Why they chose me and not them, I’ll never know. But I’m glad they did. I’m glad to have a paycheck is all I mean. And, hell, a little prestige. But truthfully, I hate working. It’s exhausting. I’d rather be watching TV or fucking around on the Internet. But no one gets paid for doing that, do they? That doesn’t earn anyone any respect.”

But of course people got paid to do that—how about that government official, living it up right this minute in Macau’s ornate casinos; how about her father doing Sudoku puzzles at his gold-rimmed desk; how about the past two years of her own life?

“So,” he continued, “I wasn’t going to question their decision. Why would I? I accepted happily, gratefully. Not because I’m passionate about weight loss or because I thought I’d be the best person for this job or even because I think I know what I’m doing, but because I needed the money, and I also needed to get my mother off my back. That’s it. That’s all.”

Kelly, noticing another swivel chair against the wall, wheeled it over to Zhao’s desk, dusted it off, sneezed, and sat down. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on a stack of papers. “Look, I didn’t mean to go off on you like that. I can be, well, I can be pretty ambitious sometimes, and I’m not really used to talking to people much anymore, and sometimes I say things I don’t mean. Okay?”

“Oh. Is that supposed to be an apology?”

Kelly shrugged. A moment of silence. They both looked everywhere but at each other.

Finally she spoke. “I can understand what you mean about your mother. I think.”

Zhao, probably relieved more by the silence ending than by Kelly finding him relatable on one very basic level (they both had parents!), said overeagerly, “Your mother is a nag too?”

Kelly shook her head. “No, my mom—she’s fine. Well, actually she’s terrible, but harmless. It’s more my father. He’s the head of Bashful Goose Snack Company. Papa Hui, you know. China’s richest man. The nation’s most beloved tycoon. Whatever.”

Zhao nodded gingerly, muttered some indiscernible interjection, perhaps aware for the first time of what an important and wealthy person she was—perhaps in awe.

Kelly went on, again losing control of her mouth. “And he’s not so much a nag as he is neglectful. He sent me away to the U.S. when I was only fourteen. At the time, I stupidly convinced myself that he’d made that decision so that I’d get the best possible education and then come back to China where he’d start training me to run the company. And of course I was more than happy to go to California, pay my dues in school, and also get away from—” The goose’s beady, demonic eyes—eyes that glowed red in the dark. A tingle down her vertebrae. “Never mind. But yeah, after I came back, I realized he probably just sent me overseas to get me out of his hair. I wasn’t cute anymore. I was all, like, chubby and zitty and fourteen. I wasn’t useful. Anyway, so obviously I grew out of that—the physical awkwardness, I mean. Not the uselessness. Here I am with this stupid job title, running ‘corporate social responsibility.’ Do you want to have a guess at how many ‘responsibilities’ there have been in the past two years?”

Zhao made an I-don’t-know face, which turned his ham lips out at an angle Kelly found truly revolting. She looked away.

“None,” she spat. “Not a one. Corporations here don’t give a shit about anything but money. Did you know that in America, almost all companies give money to charity? A lot of them even run their own charities.”

Zhao furrowed his brow. “Isn’t that just so they can evade taxes?”

Kelly, genuinely surprised that he possessed even this fleeting awareness of the outside world, sighed, resigned. “Yeah, well. At least it gives their CSR departments something to do.” She cradled her head in her hands, her gaze traveling the chipped laminate desktop. “Sometimes I wish the old man would just die already.” She jerked and abruptly looked up, straightened her spine. Her voice changed, deepened. “But you know I don’t actually mean that. Please, as if. He hasn’t formally left the company to anyone yet anyway—really pisses his lawyers off. I think he thinks he’s immortal or something. Hell, maybe he is. He’s healthy as a twenty-five-year-old, his doctors say. His cholesterol is lower than mine. And anyway, that’s terrible, isn’t it? Wishing my own father dead? To be honest, I’ll probably die first, at least metaphorically, of embarrassment. He’s been doing all these interviews lately with business magazines. And when I come up in the interviews, all he says is that he hopes I’ll find a husband soon. Like my education, my charity work, my management philosophies don’t mean a thing to him. All he wants is for me to find some man and to get married and to pop out a baby. I mean, what century is this? Should I ask my waxing girl at the salon if anyone there can bind feet?”

Zhao—half listening, staring out the window at a pecking bird, at fatties strolling past, at fatties also eyeing that pecking bird—nodded sympathetically.

She slapped the tops of her thighs. “Sorry to unload. All I’m really trying to say here is that I really care about these kids”—she gestured toward the window—“and I want this camp to be successful. I need it to be.”

Zhao nodded again.

Kelly’s voice strengthened. “So it’s imperative that we run a well-oiled ship.” Sharefest was officially over. But it had been necessary, that bonding. “Even if we may have our disagreements on how things should be done, we must work together. We share a common why.”

An effective leader doesn’t lead from a podium, but from the ground below his or her people.

“Okay,” Zhao said. “Sure.”

Kelly held her hand up for a high five. Zhao stared blankly at her, at her hand. A few century-like seconds later, his eyes lit up with recognition and he slapped his palm against hers. A gust of wind through the window rustled the Lays bag. Zhao’s gaze first met the bag and then Kelly’s face. Her gaze had also settled on the bag.

They both retracted their hands, placing them at rest on the desktop.

“We shouldn’t,” she said. “We should just phone in an order somewhere. Some rice and vegetables. Something nutritious. We’ve got to set a good example.”

“The local government has warned all the restaurants in town not to deliver here under any circumstances. Violators face hefty fines or jail time.”

“Well, I suppose that’s a sensible policy, isn’t it?” Kelly snorted. “Ha, couldn’t be bothered to actually fork the money over, but sure as hell could find the time to fine people and create new rules. Death and taxes, eh?”

Zhao nodded. “So back to the cafeteria then? I’m sure the cook’s got plenty of leftover blob.”

They both looked down again at the chips. And then at the still-open drawer containing cookies and crackers and a delightful assortment of high-calorie, high-deliciousness snacks.

MEANWHILE IN LOVELY FIVE-STAR MACAU…

THE OFFICIAL ADJUSTED HIS ROLEX, RAN HIS FINGERS THROUGH HIS thick head of hair, inhaled deeply, and considered the range of decisions that spread out before him. In this life, there were so many decisions, and each came stuffed with so many consequences.

He stood under low-wattage bulbs. He stood in his Armani suit. He stood and he thought.

He thought not of Zhao, whom he trusted fully to rehabilitate the minimum of two fat kids, and not of that pushy heiress, who had at last stopped calling to pester him for the address, probably turning her attention instead to the latest trend in pubic hair grooming or some other equally serious issue. He thought not of his wife at home, puttering around in overpriced dresses and nagging everyone within a hundred-meter range, nor of his mistress watching TV and drinking supermarket wine and running the air-conditioning 24/7 in the apartment he paid for. He thought not of those fat children, mere statistics, who would soon be cured of their ailment anyway. He thought not of the other officials and the warden who sat around a table nearby, awaiting his return.

No, he thought of food, just food: of the platters of sashimi before him, of these elegantly displayed, beautifully cut pieces of raw fish; of the drool that pooled around his gums. A woman bumped into him as she reached for a plate, bringing him to his senses. He was fixating too much on this spread before him. He was being shortsighted. There were places to go, places to be. Naan, hairy crab, curry, sushi, sea cucumbers, chocolate, dim sum—platters and plates and pots and spreads as far as the eye could see.

He snatched up the tongs and loaded his plate with fresh tuna, salmon, eel. He loaded and loaded and then hesitated, considering adding more to the precariously stacked mountain on his plate, but then he thought, Fuck it, this is a buffet; there are stacks and stacks of clean plates. I am a free man, I am a hungry man, and I can come back as many times as I want.

…AND THE DAMAGE DONE

AFTER ALL WAS SAID AND DONE, IT WAS UNCLEAR WHOSE HAND HAD reached into the bag first. And it was also unclear into which of the two mouths any individual snack item had disappeared, but based upon the pile of discarded wrappers in the wastepaper basket, in a matter of minutes, Zhao and Kelly had collectively consumed seven Dove chocolate bars (three white, two milk, and two dark), five bags of flavored Lays (two cucumber, two shrimp, one barbecue), two sleeves of Chips Ahoy! cookies, one packet of Bashful Goose Seaweed Bites, sixteen White Rabbit candies, seven Bashful Goose Red-Bean-Filled Snack Cakes, thirteen Watermelon Wigglers, one Bashful Goose Sesame-Paste-Filled Snack Cake, twelve spring onion crackers, six egg yolk moon cakes, one loaf of French-style baguette bread, and three boxes of caramel popcorn. Their bodies screamed out with discomfort, their stomachs distended, and they both leaned back in their swivel chairs and dropped off into coma-like sleeps.

MEANWHILE, ACROSS CAMPUS…

WHILE KELLY AND ZHAO REMAINED COMATOSE AND LOST IN DREAMS, Camper Fourteen, a boy with cystic acne and grease-heavy hair, undressed and waddled into the boys’ communal shower. The day sweltered, and he was dripping with sweat following participation in the optional post-lunch digestion walk. He turned on the water. He squeezed a bar of soap between his sausage fingers and the soap became goo. He rubbed this goo across his chest and into his armpits, where hair had only just begun to sprout. He grunted; the water was too hot. As he shifted his weight and reached out to adjust the faucet, he lost his footing and slipped on the wet floor. His arms flailed, grabbing out for something, but there was nothing. His head cracked against the tile floor.

He lay there for many minutes, and in one of those many minutes, his ghost left his body.

Less than an hour later, Fourteen’s bunkmate, Camper Nine, his eyes still crusty with sleep from his post-digestion-walk optional recovery nap, stumbled into the shower and planted his bare sole directly into a squishy pile of Fourteen’s brains.