“Make yourself comfortable,” Ximena said, leading her outside to a table set with four chairs. “Mali and Nat will be along in a bit. Would you like to smoke a joint?”
There was a bowl of guacamole and chips and shot glasses with a bottle of the yadong that Mali had mentioned. Sarah was about to tell Ximena that she didn’t smoke weed, but at the last minute changed her mind and accepted the joint. They had a first glass of yadong. It was a strange choice for four women. People talked of it as a raw man’s drink.
“You’re in Unit Eighty-Six, aren’t you?” Ximena said. “Are you renting from the Lims?” The Lims were the overall owners of the Kingdom and over the years the other buyers had purchased from them.
“I met the mother when I moved in,” Sarah said. “She owns my unit. How about yours?”
“I rent from an American. She lives in Los Angeles. How do you like it here so far?”
“It’s quiet.”
“Yeah, in its way.”
“I’m not familiar with it yet, to be honest—it feels a little unreal.”
“It’s a bit of a haunted castle, isn’t it?”
Sarah smiled. Yes, it was.
She said, “Your place is beautiful. How long have you been here?”
“Two years. My restaurant is nearby. Maybe you know it? It’s called Eiffel—it’s a French place on Soi Thirty-One. It’s supposed to be one of the best in the city, which means it’s actually one of the worst. I live here because I can walk there every shift. I hate the place, but it’s a job.”
“Eiffel?”
“You know it?”
Sarah shook her head.
“So you’re one of those people who doesn’t go out much?” Ximena teased.
She didn’t quite mean it, and yet it had already occurred to her that there was something etiolated and sun-starved about this odd American. She looked like she had been indoors not for days but for years, perhaps even decades.
Sarah felt the tension coming.
“It’s not that. I’m just unfamiliar—”
“There’s nothing to be familiar with. It’s a city like all cities.”
“Is it?”
“Not really.”
Ximena sucked on the joint and her head tilted back. With a courtly and slightly elaborate gesture she handed the joint to Sarah. The American was trying so hard to maintain her façade—a façade of what?—that Ximena felt obligated to at least crack it. Amused, she watched Sarah grapple with the joint and then begin to enjoy it. At least she was more familiar with joints than she had let on. She wanted them to relax together into a state that might be conducive to gossip. Ximena told her that Mali had described their meeting in the pool.
“She said you were very attractive and very shy. She was right about both. What did you make of Mali? A firecracker, no?”
Sarah remembered the thermos of gin at the pool.
“You could say that.”
“I’ve known her for a few months. But I can’t say I know her all that well yet. We’ve played poker a few times. I think she’s been having these poker evenings for a while. But I gather that her boyfriend doesn’t approve. From what I understand, he’s a bit older than her. Sometimes he calls up when we’re playing and shouts at her.”
Sarah was sure Mali had said she was single; she didn’t seem like the kind of girl who liked to be tied down.
“She likes unwinding with us,” Ximena went on, “so now we do it regularly. I don’t know why she doesn’t do it at her place. Nat says it must be because it’s a mess. It’s just the floor below yours…”
Sarah handed back the joint and lifted the glass of yadong.
“I probably shouldn’t be drinking this stuff,” she said quietly. “Does it have snakes in it?”
“We wish.”
They touched glasses, shot the burning rice liquor back.
“Jesus Christ.” Sarah snorted.
“Yeah, it’s brutal. It was Mali’s idea to begin with—her father makes the stuff up-country. Or his slaves do.”
“Slaves?”
“They might as well be slaves. She’s from a wealthy family. I wish I was. Then I could quit and go study sashimi in Tokyo.”
Ximena slammed the glass back down on the table and let out a whoop. She took a long drag on the joint.
“How about you? Mali said you’re a writer. That’s a fine thing to be. But how do you make any money?”
It was a brusque question that momentarily rattled Sarah, but she brushed it off without being impolite. Instead she answered it according to her prepared narrative.
“I don’t. My parents died a while back and I inherited everything. I’m an only child.” Sarah saw Ximena’s eyebrows furrow, and indeed the other woman had sensed a tall tale, an effortlessly smooth exaggeration. “I guess you think that makes me sort of spoiled?”
Instead of repelling Ximena, the false note in Sarah’s voice intrigued her. Sometimes a person’s unconscious falsity was more interesting than their conscious virtues. The chef could tell that she wasn’t born rich; that was something you could smell on a person, something almost hormonal on the skin. Ximena spent all her time around the moneyed classes and she knew the difference.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she said after a pause. “None of it is your fault. And we’re all spoiled in one way or another. Isn’t everyone guilty of privilege now? It’s all I ever hear. We’re all supposed to be wearing our hair shirts round the clock.”
“I guess.” Sarah sighed. “My parents didn’t feel guilty about anything. They just pretended to.” Sarah threw back her shoulders and sucked in a long drag, the sudden relaxation a little dramatic.
“What did your father do?” Ximena said.
“He was in pharma. He owned his own company. We lived in Vancouver for a long time and then London. Have you ever been to Vancouver? It’s a desirable city; we should have stayed there but we didn’t. My father was impulsive.”
“Were you close?”
“Not especially…” Sarah trailed off before gathering herself. “I suppose you’re wondering what happened to them. They died in a traffic accident.”
“Oh,” said Ximena, surprised by Sarah’s bluntness.