and hanging off the chair was a belt with studs and a buckle the size of Dad’s wallet. Lamplight cast the liquor the colour of seaweed snacks at 7-Eleven, and light from the camera glinted off the studs. Though the frame was once more empty, I had no doubt about what was going to happen this time. I waited, my own image in the bottom corner, a girl playing with the cross around her neck, zipzipzip.
A woman was thrust into the chair, a hand releasing her arm only once she stopped squirming. She wore a SARS mask and Hello Kitty pajama tops that, being two sizes too small, outlined her fuller breasts but equally bony shoulders.
“Mary?”
Her expression, hard to read with just her eyes showing, revealed more puzzlement than fear. She didn’t know what she was being asked to do, or why. Her hair was frizzy with static, as though she’d been forced to pull the pajamas down over her head, despite them not fitting.
“I almost didn’t recognize you,” I said. Talking wasn’t easy with my heart beating hard and fast and my throat suddenly dry.
She crinkled her eyes. They were beautiful—that much I remembered accurately—but everything else was different from five weeks ago. My gaze drifted to the bottle, and the belt, still partially visible. Five weeks of having sex with men had vanished teenage gawkiness and sparkle, leaving an adult of twenty or older, heavy with the same grown-up worry and aloneness that I often detected in my parents. As well, she seemed irritated about nothing, or everything—another adult quality.
“I have those PJs,” I said in English. “They must not make them any bigger.”
Someone off-camera barked at her. She looked past the lens.
“Sorry that awful photo of you got porned. I don’t even know how it happened,” I added.
“
Gai le
,” a female voice said. An arm handcuffed in cheap bangles pushed a sheet of paper into the frame. Mary held it before her face with both hands. At first I was distracted by the pig’s tail of smoke curling towards the screen. Her nails, too, the same neon purple as the Sticky Fingers sign, threw me off. Printed on quality paper was a digital photograph of another Asian girl, also taken on the beach. Five weeks hadn’t changed her one bit. Beneath my photo was an address,
2201, 26 Old Peak Road.
I switched to Cantonese. “That’s where I live. I hate it here.”
Rings from the cancer stick between her second and thirdfingers widened out and then dispersed. She lowered the photo. No matter how hard I tried drawing her in with my gaze, Mary wouldn’t focus. Her eyes registered a different space and place, like she was confiding her feelings to a mirror. Which feelings? Confusion, perhaps. Boredom, for sure. Plus that irritation, although not, I hoped, with me.
“I could try being you for a while,” I said, first in Cantonese and then, fearing it made no sense, English.
Nothing.
I tasted blood, and raised a finger to confirm the cut I had opened in my lower lip. Misinterpreting it, Mary lifted her own finger to her lips.
Shhh
, she said.
Shhh
, I replied, though I really wanted to show her the bleeding. Before I could, someone ended the call. Three times I called back, but no one accepted my request.
I was scared now—of answering FaceTime, of leaning over railings, of Hello Kitty, more or less. For real.
“It’s my sister,” I heard her say. “She keeps calling. Something must be wrong.”
It was true. I had banged on another door and barged into another room. Aware that it was early morning in Toronto, I kept on requesting FaceTime. But on finally being shown a screen I was startled to find it opened as well onto an empty chair. A sick notion nearly toppled me—Rachel had been kidnapped too, and was being held hostage in the same place as Mary. One more disappearance from my life and I’d lose it.
But then she sat in the chair, reaching out to adjust the laptop.
“It’s you!” I said.
“You were expecting …?”
“Why
A woman was thrust into the chair, a hand releasing her arm only once she stopped squirming. She wore a SARS mask and Hello Kitty pajama tops that, being two sizes too small, outlined her fuller breasts but equally bony shoulders.
“Mary?”
Her expression, hard to read with just her eyes showing, revealed more puzzlement than fear. She didn’t know what she was being asked to do, or why. Her hair was frizzy with static, as though she’d been forced to pull the pajamas down over her head, despite them not fitting.
“I almost didn’t recognize you,” I said. Talking wasn’t easy with my heart beating hard and fast and my throat suddenly dry.
She crinkled her eyes. They were beautiful—that much I remembered accurately—but everything else was different from five weeks ago. My gaze drifted to the bottle, and the belt, still partially visible. Five weeks of having sex with men had vanished teenage gawkiness and sparkle, leaving an adult of twenty or older, heavy with the same grown-up worry and aloneness that I often detected in my parents. As well, she seemed irritated about nothing, or everything—another adult quality.
“I have those PJs,” I said in English. “They must not make them any bigger.”
Someone off-camera barked at her. She looked past the lens.
“Sorry that awful photo of you got porned. I don’t even know how it happened,” I added.
“
Gai le
,” a female voice said. An arm handcuffed in cheap bangles pushed a sheet of paper into the frame. Mary held it before her face with both hands. At first I was distracted by the pig’s tail of smoke curling towards the screen. Her nails, too, the same neon purple as the Sticky Fingers sign, threw me off. Printed on quality paper was a digital photograph of another Asian girl, also taken on the beach. Five weeks hadn’t changed her one bit. Beneath my photo was an address,
2201, 26 Old Peak Road.
I switched to Cantonese. “That’s where I live. I hate it here.”
Rings from the cancer stick between her second and thirdfingers widened out and then dispersed. She lowered the photo. No matter how hard I tried drawing her in with my gaze, Mary wouldn’t focus. Her eyes registered a different space and place, like she was confiding her feelings to a mirror. Which feelings? Confusion, perhaps. Boredom, for sure. Plus that irritation, although not, I hoped, with me.
“I could try being you for a while,” I said, first in Cantonese and then, fearing it made no sense, English.
Nothing.
I tasted blood, and raised a finger to confirm the cut I had opened in my lower lip. Misinterpreting it, Mary lifted her own finger to her lips.
Shhh
, she said.
Shhh
, I replied, though I really wanted to show her the bleeding. Before I could, someone ended the call. Three times I called back, but no one accepted my request.
I was scared now—of answering FaceTime, of leaning over railings, of Hello Kitty, more or less. For real.
“It’s my sister,” I heard her say. “She keeps calling. Something must be wrong.”
It was true. I had banged on another door and barged into another room. Aware that it was early morning in Toronto, I kept on requesting FaceTime. But on finally being shown a screen I was startled to find it opened as well onto an empty chair. A sick notion nearly toppled me—Rachel had been kidnapped too, and was being held hostage in the same place as Mary. One more disappearance from my life and I’d lose it.
But then she sat in the chair, reaching out to adjust the laptop.
“It’s you!” I said.
“You were expecting …?”
“Why
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