The stand in, p.7
The Stand-In, page 7
“Do you like them?” She points at the wardrobe.
“You must like shopping. Is that one of the things I’ll need to do?”
She looks honestly shocked. “I don’t go to stores. They send people to me.”
We stare at each other. “How do they know what you want?” I ask.
Fangli shrugs. “They bring the collection. I like to pick my own garments. Otherwise a stylist would create my looks.”
“Right.”
She comes over and picks up the same dress I’d been holding when Sam came in. “This is my favorite.”
“Me, too.” We smile at each other.
“Claudie at Chanel designed it for me after I signed on as their brand ambassador. It’s one of a kind.” She sounds utterly guileless, and despite myself, I burst out laughing. I think I like Fangli.
She sits down on a chair and crosses her legs in a manner I know I’m going to have to replicate and will find difficult. “I thought we’d chat tonight, get to know each other. I ordered dinner.”
“Thanks. Umm, how was your day?” I pause. “I don’t know much about what you’re doing in Toronto besides acting in a play.”
“All things you should know.” She settles into the chair and I groan inwardly. She’s so fucking graceful, goddammit.
Fangli talks for about an hour as I make notes and nibble on the smoked salmon salad that arrives. It has distractingly good deep-fried capers. She’s here in a play that’s showing on King Street. Operation Oblivion is a World War Two historical drama, and as she talks, I can’t believe I’ve never heard this story before. Apparently there was a group of Chinese-Canadian volunteers called Force 136 recruited for dangerous special missions in Asia.
“This was not covered in my history class,” I say. I think through the dates. “Chinese weren’t even allowed to vote in Canada then.”
“As part of their training, they had to swim with fifty-pound packs,” says Fangli. “Very few of them knew how to swim because they were banned from most Canadian pools.”
Although Force 136’s recruitment happened on the other side of the country, the story follows Sam’s character as he finds one of the first recruits, who is dying in Toronto, and falls in love with Fangli, who works in a Chinatown restaurant.
“Don’t you usually do movies?” I ask. “And shouldn’t those roles go to Canadian actors?”
“Yes, they should and we’re only here for part of the run because Sam is friends with the director and he thought it would be good publicity. We both started in theater back in China.” She recrosses her legs. “I love being on the stage, so it was a nice break. Being in front of an audience is a different experience.”
“I can see that.”
“Do you act?”
“I did in school.” I shrug. “It was only for fun.”
“You enjoyed it?”
“Loved it.”
Her smile lights up her face. “Then you understand why I’m here. How is your practice coming along?”
I take a deep breath. “Take a look.”
Grabbing a pair of heels out of the closet, I pop them on and take a few steps before I stop, smile, and wave. Fangli’s eyes open wide.
“Do it again.” It’s Sam, from the door. I do it again, a little more self-conscious now that he’s here. A lot more.
“It looks strange.” He frowns. “Not like it needs practice but wrong.”
“I practiced in front of the mirror.”
His eyes narrow. “Practiced how, exactly?”
This is embarrassing. “Ah. You know. Like practice.”
He folds his arms and waits for me to answer.
I try to wait him out and fail. He can stand like that for hours, I bet, stubbornly refusing to give in. Fangli watches with those leaf-like eyebrows delicately raised.
I admit defeat. “I propped the tablet near the mirror and copied what I saw.”
“You’re a human uncanny valley.” He and Fangli share a look. “Unbelievable.”
Uncanny valley? “What? I’m not an android.”
He sighs, grabs the tablet, and leads me to the mirror. “Watch.” He taps for a second, finds a video of Fangli smiling and waving, and then plays it.
“I’ve seen this.” I’m insulted. I did my homework.
“You’re not watching.” His voice is the perfect degree of smoky deep. Sam looks in the mirror and our eyes meet in the glass. Then I shift my gaze to his right hand, which waves the same as Fangli does in the video.
“Very elegant,” I say, trying to regain myself.
“Like the Queen,” Fangli interjects. She does the wave in person.
“Except totally wrong.” He turns. “Fangli’s right-handed and that’s how she waves. You’re looking in the mirror and copying it, but that means you’ve been waving your left hand. Everything is backward because her wave was filmed.”
I stare at my hand, astounded. “Are you putting me on? That’s why it felt so weird?”
“Yes.” He gives Fangli an eloquent look that I read as saying what an idiot I am.
“Shit.” I deflate. All that work and I did it backward. I bury my head in my hands.
“A fixable problem,” declares Fangli. “You and Mei can work on it in the morning.”
She leaves and Sam hesitates. Then he shakes his head. “Right-handed,” he says.
He calls out after Fangli and I wish I knew what they were saying.
Wow, if there was only some way to learn Mandarin, maybe with a handheld device that’s conveniently attached to my hand for about eighteen hours a day and can provide access to a thing like language lessons given at my own speed for $2.99 or less.
I whip out my phone.
In six minutes, a Scottish gent and a lady from Beijing cheerily work me through how to say where I’m from in perfect Mandarin. I freeze as they shift into telling me how to ask where others are from and pause the app. I could have done this years ago when Mom started getting bad. I could have been speaking to her all this time. I put that thought aside. I did the best I could.
Then I’m alone in my luxury room waving in the mirror at myself and practicing my new language skills by telling my reflection I’m a Canadian in poorly accented Mandarin.
Good times.
Nine
I’m strolling into a Rodeo Drive boutique wearing a huge black hat and shoulder pads big enough to block traffic when the bright summer sun pierces through my closed eyelids. Burrowing in the soft, fluffy bed, I try to go back to sleep but can’t because Mei is standing by the foot of my bed barking my name.
“It’s time to get up.”
I throw the covers off and squint out the window. The sun’s up but it feels suspiciously early. “What time is it?”
“Seven.”
I groan. “One more hour.” I was up late, alternating between deciding which clothes matched best with the multiple Louis Vuitton bags and learning how to ask people their names in Chinese.
“Ms. Wei is an early riser. She’s already at a meeting.” Mei might not mean to sound smugly virtuous on Fangli’s behalf, but that’s what I hear.
I haul myself up and shuffle off to brush my teeth. When I get back, I examine the outfit Mei has laid on the bed. “Are we going out?”
“No.”
Yet she’s chosen pants with ironed creases. “Can’t I wear yoga pants since it’s only us?”
“No.”
She leaves and I realize my clothes from home are gone. That’s a later problem, though, so I pull on the outfit. The white linen pants wrinkle on contact with my skin, and I immediately stain the black silk top with deodorant and have to change. In the mirror I practice my Fangli wave again, this time with the correct hand. The shoes are adorable sling-backs that I put on to check the full effect.
Huh. I turn around. I hadn’t realized the difference expensive tailoring made because I now have outstanding posture. Do I look like Fangli? The spacious closet makes finding what I need so much easier than trying to sort through a bunch of shirts crammed tight enough to wrinkle, and I quickly locate a high-necked black shirt. I pull it on like a headband, the collar framing my face and the rest of the material flowing down my back, and toss my head. It’s not the perfect facsimile of long hair but I get the idea, albeit with a nunnish feel.
“I came to see if you were dressed.” Mei, who apparently has no concept of privacy, is at the door, staring at my turtleneck wig. I snatch it off and run a hand through my hair.
“Uh, yeah. Thanks.”
She backs out of the room, and I toss the shirt on the bed and follow.
Fueled by coffee and fear of failure, I’m the ideal Fangli student that day. Apparently she does her own makeup except for big events, so Mei shows me the Fangli Standard Face, which necessitates a raft of expensive products to achieve the correct smooth skin and pretty smoky eye. Mei picks up the lipstick, a vibrant red that glides on like a dream, then goes over the edges with a lip pencil before blotting and painting me again.
I stare in the mirror at my lips. It’s been a long time since I’ve had that much color, and I’d forgotten how bright it is. It makes my mouth the glossy focus of my face. No wonder Todd liked it. I shiver.
“Is this Fangli’s usual color?” I ask.
“Chanel Rouge Allure in Pirate,” says Mei. “It’s all she wears in public.”
I stay silent as Mei scrutinizes my face from the side. The makeup is part of a disguise. It’s Fangli’s face being created in the mirror, and when people see it, they won’t see me. I relax slightly.
“Sun damage.” Mei clucks and makes a note on her phone, disrupting my chain of thought. I focus on what we’re doing. “I’ll get better concealer.” She takes a closer look. “And a waxing kit.” Then she reaches over and drags out a mannequin head. “Here.”
On the head is a wig. I haven’t worn one since Halloween, and that was a blue flapper bob. I poke it. “Is this real hair?”
She slaps it on my head like a hat and it is the Lamborghini of hair accessories. It’s definitely all real, and probably the kind to receive regular conditioning. The hair swings as if it’s my own, far better than my turtleneck stand-in, and when I shake my head, it doesn’t budge. It’s been so long since I had long hair that I forgot how fun it was; I whip my head around like I’m about to star in Showgirls until I get a little dizzy. I need to take a photo of this for Mom because she’ll love it.
This time when I go to the mirror, Mei stands beside me with a critical eye before pulling out her phone to show a photo of Fangli in a similar outfit. I arrange my pose like hers—one foot out and slightly twisted in a move my mom also taught me as a teenager—and turn my face slightly up and to the left with that little smile, then scrupulously check the pose and lower my shoulders a fraction. Mei takes a photo and when we look at it, I think maybe this will work.
“Terrible.” Mei taps on her phone.
“What?” Deflated, I move my legs back to my usual slightly hunched stance and pull off the wig. It’s hot.
There’s a knock on the door and Mei opens it to reveal Sam. They whisper together, looking at me, and I try to decide if my better course of action is to pretend I don’t know they are very obviously talking about me or to break into their conversation.
Take the bull by the horns.
“Hey. I’m right here.”
Sam doesn’t look at me. “We know.” He gives Mei an instruction that causes her to disappear out the side door to Fangli’s suite, leaving the two of us alone. Sam walks by to stand near the window, and when he turns to regard me, I swear the light shifts to pool around him. I’ve always wondered about charisma, if it really exists, and with Sam I can feel an excess of energy that simply makes him more attractive. Fangli has it, too, a vitality that draws attention no matter what she’s doing.
I hope to God that’s something that can be learned, because I sure as hell don’t have it.
Beyond that, I can’t decide what bothers me about Sam. I’ve seen him often enough in media that he’s familiar, but when he stands here in person, it’s a whole new ball game.
“You look different from your movies,” I say finally. He’s sharper, icier than he is in the photos. More unreal looking and far more striking.
“I know,” he says dismissively. “Mei says you’re hopeless.”
I object to this. “‘Hopeless’ is a little strong.”
“You are no judge. Walk for me.”
“Why?” I stand my ground.
When he turns, the sun lights one part of his face and shadows the rest like a perfume ad. I groan. “Do you do that on purpose? Pose in the light?” I mimic his stance.
“Of course I do.” He pulls his chin up slightly and that’s it. I burst out laughing. He’s so perfectly arrogant that I begin to see him more as a comedic character than a man. He brings his brows together. “Something funny?”
“Not at all.”
“Really. Because you’re laughing.”
“Well, you,” I admit. “You’re funny. Who does that?”
The knit brows are joined by pursed lips. “Is there a problem in putting your best self forward?”
“I guess not.” I clear my throat to change the subject. “Are you honestly here to watch me walk?”
Sam comes over from the window and stands in front of me. I’d say he was trying to intimidate me because of how he looks down his nose, but it reminds me of one of his roles—he was a lowly delivery guy who also fought crime—and I can feel my lips twitch. He glares at me as if he knows what I’m thinking. “Fangli refuses to let go of this,” he says. He looks over my shoulder and chooses his words. “I said I would help.”
“If you’re looking for ideas, you can help by not being an asshole,” I suggest.
“I can help by making sure you don’t tarnish Fangli’s reputation with your ignorance.” He leans forward. “I don’t like it but I’ll do what I can to mitigate the risk to her, even if it means working with you.”
“A real professional.”
“I work with many people I don’t respect. Or like.”
“Me, too.” We eye each other and I pull back. I’d held out enough of an olive branch. Now it was business time. “Then let’s do this.”
“Walk around again.” He sprawls in a chair and takes up more space than he has a right to.
“Give me a second.” I replay one of the clips on my tablet. On the screen, Fangli, dressed in a white satin pantsuit, strolls by like she’s walking the runway. I can’t do it like that. I throw back my shoulders and decide to simply go. Sam’s eyes follow me as I walk across the room, which, hilariously, is long enough that I can really get some steps in.
When I come back to the center, he looks thoughtful, as if I’m a puzzle to be solved rather than an insect to squish. This is a decided improvement. “That was less ghastly than last night,” he compliments me. “You have a similar walk to Fangli.”
“No, we don’t.” This I’m sure about.
Sam sighs and takes out his phone, which he taps and shoves under my nose. It shows a dark-haired woman walking away through a lobby, her body language confident and natural.
“This is what you want me to walk like, I know. I’m trying.”
“Unbelievable,” he says. “That’s you. Like I said. When you’re being yourself.”
I watch it again and realize it’s me walking out of the hotel the other day. I didn’t know I looked like that. “Why do you have this?”
“I took it when you left to prove to Fangli what a hopeless idea this was.” He looks back at the screen. “You moved better than I thought you would,” he says grudgingly.
“That is a deeply creepy thing to do.” I’m a little awed at his dedication.
“I know.” He says it without shame.
I flop down on the chair next to him and he winces. I guess Fangli isn’t a flopper either. “The problem is when I know I’m being watched, I forget how to move. My hands are too big and flappy.”
Sam motions for me to get up. “It’s because you consider your body a flaccid thing you inhabit instead of a tool to be trained. When Fangli walks down the street, it’s the same as if she’s walking a red carpet or on set. Be conscious of your body, like a dancer. Every muscle has a job. Every gesture has a purpose.”
I don’t like Sam talking about bodies, but I power through. “How?”
“I can’t describe it better than that. Each movement is a decision. You don’t simply walk. You decide every step, every tilt of your head. You think of how you want to look and you make that happen. Your awareness has to be external—what are people seeing? What do you want them to see?”
I look thoughtfully in the mirror. I overthink things on good days, so this advice could well blast me right out of orbit. Think about things more than I do?
“Go again.”
I do.
“That was worse than before.” He rubs the back of his hand against his forehead. “How can a woman not walk?”
“I’m not used to an audience.”
“There’s always an audience,” he says dismissively. “You’ve had the privilege of being able to ignore it.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You can walk down the street and be seen but not noticed.”
Great, now I have Sam Yao stressing my invisibility as a person—exactly what every woman wants to hear.
He keeps talking. “From the moment she leaves her room, every action Fangli takes can be recorded and shared globally. Her public self is a role she plays the same as in a film. Outside these walls, Wei Fangli is a character. She has to think about how she looks all the time because a single unguarded moment can bring international public humiliation and ridicule.”
The unspoken threat is there—as Fangli, that large-scale mortification can be all mine if I bungle this. I grit my teeth and try again. Again.
