It was still early, not even lunchtime. Jia Jia checked her bank account, though she already knew how much was in there – forty thousand left from Chen Hang, plus ten thousand from Ms Wan as a deposit for the wall painting. She had to go shopping before meeting up with Leo: she could not arrive at his parents’ door empty-handed. She might as well slap him across the face.
She put on a long, orange wool dress, tied her hair in a high ponytail, and rubbed some perfume on her wrists. She looked younger this way. Pleased with her appearance, she took the subway to SKP Mall and began browsing the shops. International brands lined the floors, and their windows were mopped so clean that there seemed almost no point in having them at all. Since the last time she had come here, a week or so before Chen Hang died, a few shops had moved from one floor, one corner, to another, like a pack of cards that had been shuffled.
Before Jia Jia and Chen Hang got married, he had taken her back to Fujian once to meet his parents. She had come to this mall then and selected some clothes for his mother and a watch for his father. Chen Hang had paid for it all. The watch shop was still there, but an ostentatious style with diamonds around the face had taken over the window display. Jia Jia stopped briefly to look at it and then walked past the black marble shopfront towards a section of the mall where she knew she would find cashmere. She flipped through the racks and picked out two matching red sweaters. The saleswoman told her the price: a little over seven thousand yuan for both.
‘There is a holiday discount of forty per cent,’ the saleswoman told her.
‘How much will it be after the discount?’ asked Jia Jia.
‘The price I gave you was already inclusive of the discount, ma’am.’ The saleswoman smiled and blinked at Jia Jia with lashes that were far too perfectly black and lush to be her own.
‘That’s right,’ Jia Jia said, forcing a smile back at her. ‘I’ll take another look around.’
Jia Jia quickly left the mall, feeling like a rat that had been caught stealing. She had intentionally chosen to shop in the section where the brands were cheaper, but those sweaters alone would have cost her almost two months of apartment charges. They were marvellous sweaters, though, soft and fine; she would very much have liked to buy one for herself. But she was still living in the apartment that was far too costly, with a job that could hardly be considered a job. She entered the subway without looking back, feeling the cashmere saleswoman’s fake eyelashes flickering at her from behind.
Jia Jia got off at Dongdaqiao station and marched purposefully into Blue Island Mall. Shoppers dressed in all kinds of bright colours crowded the floors, digging through piles of clothes and trying out skincare products. This mall was far too hot despite it being near freezing outside. Almost all the salespeople were middle-aged women. A few of them stood next to a cashier, chatting about their children while buttoning shirts and folding them back into semi-neat piles of squares. Jia Jia roamed the various floors, searching for knitwear shops. She had decided, for no particular reason, that she was going to buy Leo’s parents matching sweaters. Finally, she came across a brand that seemed promising.
The wool felt surprisingly soft in her hands. All she needed to do now was find two styles that could be gifted as a pair. She examined the racks, making sure not to leave a single piece unseen. She came across a dolphin-grey crewneck sweater, with flowers embroidered on each of the shoulders. She called the saleswoman over.
A plump woman with a pixie haircut approached her. She had a large black mole on her face right next to her nose that startled Jia Jia when she turned her head.
‘You want this sweater?’ Mole-lady asked.
‘I wanted to see if there are any men’s sweaters in the same colour,’ Jia Jia said quietly, afraid to irritate this woman.
Mole-lady bent over, grunting, and took out a pile of folded sweaters from some low drawers. As she straightened up and dumped the pile onto a table, her body emanated a strong smell of tobacco combined with sweat.
‘Check here,’ Mole-lady said.
Jia Jia compared the sweaters to the one in her hand. Towards the bottom, she found one that was in the same shade of grey, with a black horizontal stripe across the chest. This could certainly do, she thought.
‘How much are the two?’ Jia Jia asked.
‘This one is …’ Mole-lady lifted her head and checked the price for the women’s one, squinting her eyes at the tag. ‘One thousand eight hundred and ten yuan. And the other one is a bit less, if I remember correctly. Let me see … it’s one thousand six hundred and ten.’
‘Are there any discounts? It’s a present. I imagine you’d have some sales going on at this time of the year. Could you give me a member’s discount or something?’
‘Are you a member?’ Mole-lady looked up at Jia Jia, displeased.
‘No, I’m not. But I could apply—’
Another group of customers walked in and Mole-lady immediately left Jia Jia to greet them.
‘What were you saying?’ she asked when she returned.
‘I said that I could apply for a membership.’
‘We don’t do member discounts.’ Mole-lady began folding the sweaters.
‘Then why did you ask me if I was a member? But never mind, can I buy both for three thousand?’
‘Young lady, this is a mall and we are a brand, we don’t bargain here. If you can’t afford it, go to another shop.’ Mole-lady took the grey sweaters and began stuffing them back into the drawers.
Jia Jia took a few deep breaths, summoning all the patience in her.
‘… dressed nicely like a rich girl,’ mumbled the woman to herself. ‘The bag is probably fake. If you don’t have money, don’t come out shopping.’
Jia Jia wanted to file a complaint with the manager, but found she could not piece together the words in her mouth. She was not good at this, too accustomed to being with Chen Hang, who would have demanded to speak to a supervisor right at the beginning when he first sensed the woman’s attitude. And Jia Jia, of course, would have assumed the role of the silent wife.
She turned and fled the mall, more wretched than before. A rat that had not only been caught, but beaten up, stamped on, driven into a dark corner. She felt herself shrinking, her back curving, her muscles weakening. She hailed a taxi.
‘SKP Mall,’ she said to the driver. She had to save herself, to charge out of the corner and make the grandest appearance on a bigger, open stage.
When they arrived, Jia Jia paid the driver and told him to keep the change. She stormed past the European designers, the jewellery stores, the watch brands, and approached the young woman with the fake eyelashes.
‘I would like the two red sweaters that I picked out before,’ Jia Jia said, as calmly and firmly as she could.
The saleswoman blinked, and then smiled courteously. ‘Certainly,’ she responded. ‘Anything else you’d like?’
‘That’s it,’ Jia Jia said. ‘Wait a minute, give me this scarf too.’ She took a red scarf from the rack and waved it at her.
After the woman had gone behind a door to gather the items, Jia Jia felt able to breathe again, having picked up a piece of her dignity. The woman wrapped the items carefully and rang up the total. Jia Jia paid, shopped around inside the mall a bit longer, bought nothing more, and went out.