The tutor who called himself Frank Liao looks genuinely horror-stricken and sheepish when he sees me. He tries to close the door. But Ruby is faster and jumps in the way. It’s like she’s used to dealing with unpleasant negotiations.
“You are going to tell us everything,” she says coldly, staring down her nose at Frank.
He looks at Ruby, but he doesn’t look at me.
“Iris! How did you find me?” he says, still looking at my cousin.
Ruby glowers at him for me. “We hired a private investigator. We know you’re a liar.”
Frank has turned a pasty gray color. His complexion matches the Beijing smog and the surrounding buildings. It doesn’t camouflage him, though. He hesitates and looks as if he wants to run away.
“Aren’t you going to invite us in?” I say in my unfriendliest voice.
Ruby barks something in Chinese.
Finally, shoulders drooping, he relents and lets us into a small, decrepit studio apartment with two bamboo mats on the floor. The older lady hobbles to one of the mats and collapses on it, and then I realize it’s actually her chair and bed.
There’s nowhere to sit, except for the unswept floor. There’s not even a toilet. Just an orange bucket. The window is boarded up with tape and black garbage bags. There are stacks of books and papers on the floor, which I assume are Frank’s. He introduces the one-legged woman as his mother.
She smiles at me, and I realize that she has no teeth.
“Who are you?” I say to him. “I know you’re not Frank Liao. He doesn’t exist.”
“No lies!” Ruby warns Frank.
“I’m Zhou Zhifang. My English name is Paul.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. Glancing around the tiny, dilapidated apartment, I’m so shocked that anyone, let alone two people, could live here. Something furry and brown touches my hand. I squeal again. Ruby expertly catches the rat by its back paws and puts it in a lidded pot. Frank/Paul’s mom smiles and thanks her.
“Why would you lie?” I demand. “It makes NO sense.”
Smiling sadly, Frank/Paul says that he wants to show us something.
30
Confession
We follow Frank up fourteen flights of old creaky stairs, onto the roof of the falling-down building. As we climb, I huff and puff. Honestly, I can barely make it up the second set of stairs and neither can Ruby. We do not have the stamina to survive. It’s a perfectly genius plan if the former Frank wants to kill us. By the time we reach where we’re going, we will be too exhausted to defend ourselves.
I wish we had brought backup.
Why didn’t we ask our bodyguard to come with us? What were we doing sneaking off without telling anyone?
I’m suddenly full of regrets.
Beijing has made me smarter, deeper, but also sadder overall as a person with higher emotional intelligence and multiple feelings.
For the first time in my life, I’m speechless when we reach our destination. We stare down at a slum of broken, run-down houses. Tightly packed together, they are connected into a neighborhood of concrete slabs. Grimy clotheslines and plastic bags hang out of windows, and children and stray dogs mull around. I have never seen so much poverty in real time, and it feels like a different world from my uncle’s seven-star hotels.
Nervously, I blink.
Frank/Paul glances at me with a worried, scrunched-up expression on his face.
I can’t look at him.
Frank/Paul begins talking in a low, urgent voice. It’s almost as if he’s thought and practiced what he’s wanted to say thousands of times. His voice quakes like movie theater speakers; it’s a familiar sound, but I can’t place it. Then I understand. It’s real volcanic anger. Jurassic Park destruction meets Star Wars desperation. The kind that can burn a person’s insides to a crisp. Like my dad imploding when he saw my grandfather on the iPhone screen for the first time after almost two decades.
“There are two hundred fifty-seven million rural migrant workers in China,” the impostor called Frank says. “I know you hate my lectures, Iris, but this is really important. Most of us don’t have basic rights to education and housing. A few years ago, my mom was injured in a sewing factory accident near here and I have been taking care of her. This is our home. We have nowhere to go.”
He glares at Ruby and I suddenly feel protective over my cousin.
“Iris, your uncle wants to tear our neighborhood down to build a brand-new hotel,” he says, almost pleadingly.
“What does this have to do with lying to me?” I say, feeling confused. I’m hurt and angry and also shocked by his admission of having an ulterior motive.
To my surprise, Ruby shushes me. “Let him talk.”
“My university friends and I have been petitioning Feng Corp for months and we didn’t have any luck. Then we heard that the CEO was hiring a tutor for his niece. I speak the best English. It was Kitty’s idea and we all went along with it. When we were in the hot springs, I almost changed my mind. You were nice and funny and we had such an amazing time that I felt so guilty. So I phoned Kitty and she reminded me that we were so close to making a difference. I took your hotel key and credit card when you had your appointment with Madame Xing. I’m sorry.”
“My key?” I exclaim, at the same time Ruby asks, “Visa card?”
It makes sense now. Frank’s reluctance and confusion in Chengdu. I had attributed it to the awkwardness of a first hookup that blurred professional boundaries. I just assumed Frank felt guilty about taking Uncle Dai’s money while being involved with his niece. But Frank slept with me after getting the key card. Anger floods through my entire nervous system. He lied to me and stole from me.
Frank looks ashamed and sorry. “Kitty and our group wanted to sneak in and scare your uncle into relocating the hotel.”
Scare Uncle Dai? By violence? I think back to the protestors surrounding our car. Acid rises to my throat. I want to throw up. I want to cry and scream. If I were the violent type, I’d honestly push him off the roof.
Instead, I just stare at him. I thought I knew reliable and nice and apology-giving Frank. “You were going to do what?” I ask. “Were you one of the protestors at the restaurant?”
Frank looks confused. “No, what—?”
Ruby pulls out her phone and waves it around. “I’m going to call the police!” she warns.
“I understand if you do,” Frank says, looking down. He fidgets with his hands, resting them on his sides and then clasping them behind his back. “It was really horrific of us. People are protesting all over China and we wrote over a hundred petitions to your uncle’s company to stop the hotel. We wanted to make a difference. Beijing is losing her culture to the fuerdai.
“Things have to change in Beijing and all you nouveau riche are taking over the city with your elite hotels. You don’t seem to care what happens to the poor. We need housing and we need new schools. Do you know that they cram eighty migrant children in one classroom? They don’t even have books and there’s barely enough money to pay a teacher. What we don’t need is another seven-star hotel.
“If you call the police, please don’t tell my mother. She doesn’t even know what I’ve done. I just wanted to help her, but it got out of control. She doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t even deserve me as a son.”