Jade (12 page)

“That was uncalled for, Sirikit,” Oliver says to her back as she marches out. She’s standing as tall as she can, and even from the back I feel that she radiates anger. 

Oliver catches my arm, and I jerk away. I don’t want him to touch me; I want him to vanish from the face of the earth. He’s married, and his wife is pregnant!  

“I can explain,” he says, “It’s not as it looks.”

“Oh, she’s not your wife?” 

“Well, no. I mean, yes… legally, she is.”

“I see. And is she expecting your child?”

“The father could be anyone from the mining team.”

“So it could be yours?”

“Yes.” His answer is a whisper, and he’s staring at the floor. It’s not his proudest moment, for sure. At least he has the decency to appear contrite.

My rage is such that I’m not about to feel sorry for him.

“Then it’s precisely as it looks.” 

The sarcasm in my voice is unmistakable, and I need this edge not to crumble to pieces. 

“It’s funny, I have this precise memory of asking you if there were anymore of your family members, beside your daughter, that I should be aware of and I remember your answer was no.”

My mind reels. Two sentences are dancing a mad jig in my head: He’s married. She’s pregnant. He’s married. She’s pregnant. I have to remember to breathe. 

I’m the other woman, and he’s a bastard.

I turn around and go back to Apsara’s table. I will not cry, I will not scream, I will not slap him, I will not tear his eyes out. I will keep my head up high. 

John is drinking the fruity drink, and looking down in the glass, purposely avoiding looking up. Whatever he knows, it’s embarrassing him. Apsara takes a look at me, and she hands me the shot glass that remains on the table.

“You look like you could use it,” she says.

I take the glass, and swallow the content in one gulp. It’s liquid fire. It burns all the way down. My eyes are teary. 

“Wow, that’s strong.” I breathe through my nose, and concentrate on the burn. I will not feel any other pain. If anything, I will feel anger. Anger, I can manage.

Apsara gets up and asks, “Shall we get this party started?”

“Absolutely!” I cringe inwardly. I’m sure I sound a bit over-enthusiastic.

“Where are we going?” asks Oliver, who has approached the table quietly, and is now standing right behind me. He’s so close I can smell him and it hurts, I love his smell so much.

“Don’t you have a pregnant wife to get home to?” I snap.

“No, I’m staying with you. Bangkok can be a dangerous city at night,” he says. “I brought you here. I’m responsible. There’s no way I’m leaving you out of my sight.”

“In that case, I think I will go back to the hotel. Thank you for the offer, Apsara. It was lovely meeting you. We’ll party another time. I plan to stop by for a couple of days before I fly back, and I’ll email you when I have more definitive plans.”

She shakes my hand, leans closer to me, and whispers, “Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything while in Bangkok.” 

I smile, shake hands with John and follow Oliver into a taxi.

During the ride back, I ask him, “Are you happy with your dinner?” He looks at me, startled. “I’m not being facetious. I was asking if you reached an agreement with John.”

“Yes, thank you. I did.” He watches me with a puzzled look on his face, and opens his mouth as if to add something. He thinks better of it, shrugs, and remains silent.

The motions of the car are making me sick. I think my entire body is rebelling against the last drink I had.

We reach our hotel, and get in the elevator. When we get to the bedroom I rush into the bathroom. I’m sick. The drinks and the entire meal come out. So much for the cooling effect of chrysanthemum tea!

I throw cold water on my face, and almost laugh when I look up in the mirror. My make-up is half washed out. I look like a raccoon. I clean myself up, and leave the bathroom. My plan is to go sleep in one of the empty beds of Chanlina’s room but Oliver has shut the door and when I try to open it, it’s locked from her side.

I turn around, and look at him. He’s staring back with a weary expression on his face.  

“We’re not really married,” he says, looking intently at me.

“Seriously?” I snap back, sounding more bitter than I want to. “Come on Oliver, who are you trying to fool? You know being married is a yes or no condition. You are married or you are single, there are no degrees. You can’t be a little bit married or half married. You are married or you are not.”

“It’s more complicated than that. We had an arrangement. We were to stay married for a few years so I could get an extended visa.”

“So, you’re saying it was not a marriage, but a fraud.”

“Yeah, that’s one way to put it, I guess.”

“Okay. For the sake of the argument, I’ll play along, and admit that you two are not really married.” I make symbolic quotation marks with my fingers as I say “really”.

He looks relieved, and starts walking toward me. I pull my hand up, palm facing him and step away from him until my back hits the wall. I don’t want him to touch me, now. I know what his hands do to me. They freeze my thought process and I’m not done with the questions. 

The fact of the matter is that I don’t want to know the truth, because I’m probably not going to like it. “Now tell me, Jade Master, if it was just a fraud, how can she be expecting your kid?”

His hand reaches his forehead, and slides to the back of his head as he answers me.

“She came to the mining site for a week, and one night, after a bad accident, we all got seriously drunk. That night, I think we all fucked her. I don’t remember doing it, but she says we all did.”

I see shame in his eyes, but I’m not sure it’s actually there. Maybe I see it because that’s what I want to believe he is feeling. 

“If I did, I was unprotected, and that’s why I would not make love with you before I got tested,” he adds.

The fact that he’s taking about making love with me, and fucking her is not lost on me. I’m pretty sure his choice of words is spontaneous and not calculated to draw me back to him, but it does.  

“She thinks Liam’s the father. He’s the one she ended up with after the first crazy night. She came to me because he hasn’t been answering her calls nor her emails. She lashed out at you, because I told her I was not getting involved, while she wanted me to do something about it.”

“I see.” I’m looking at the floor and blinking to keep tears away.

He comes closer to me, and even though I know it’s wrong, I don’t pull away. I want him so much that I can’t resist. His hands wrap around my back and he leans over until our forehead touch. I’m trapped between him and the wall. 

I close my eyes, and savor his touch. I’m lost to reason, because I love everything about this man. I love his eyes, his voice, his hands, his mouth, and even his smell. I breathe it in and shiver against him.

But then the image of his wife pops back in my head. I can’t chase it away. She’s way too swollen and the aggravation of tonight’s encounter must have aggravated her blood pressure. I have this horrible feeling that she’s in danger, and no one but me is seeing it. I’m pretty sure that she has not been getting medical supervision during her pregnancy. 

“Whether it’s your kid or not, you need to take her to a hospital,” I say.

“Okay, I promise, I will.”

“You don’t understand. I mean tonight. Now.”

“You’re serious?”

I press my palm against his chest, and push him back far enough to look in his eyes. I need to convey the urgency of the situation.

“Yes. I’m thinking preeclampsia. She could die, the baby could die. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have told her when I saw her…”  

“But you were distracted?” He’s smiling, and looking very happy with himself, suddenly.

I burst his bubble. No way can I let him think that jealousy got in the way. “Not distracted, tipsy, borderline drunk, actually.”

“I see.” He’s still smiling. He doesn’t believe me.

“Do you know where she lives?” I ask.

“Yes, I pay her rent and support her. It’s our deal for the duration of the arrangement.”

“So go get her, take her to an emergency room and be with her. No one should have to go through this alone.” 

I push him further away but he holds on to me.

“Will you wait for me?”

I avoid giving him a direct answer. Instead I say, “I’ll be with Chanlina. I’ll stay with her and if you need me to, I’ll make sure she gets safely back to school in Vientiane tomorrow.”

He kisses my forehead, and says, “Thank you.” 

❦

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I WATCH HIM WALK OUT OF the bedroom, and I have this gut feeling that I’ll never see him again. I need to force myself not to reach out and hold him back. I cross my arms, and dig my nails in my own flesh. 

Why did all the oxygen vanish from the room as soon as the door closed behind him? I can’t breathe. With my back to the wall, I slide down to the floor, wrap my arms around my legs, and rest my head on my knees. 

My mind is reeling, and I hate myself for being so miserable. 

I had to make him go, because it’s the right thing to do. Even if his marriage started out just as a way to get a visa, his wife is pregnant, and the child could be his. He needs to be with them. 

I’m not really hung up on moral values and traditions, but there are basic rules; one of them is that you don’t sleep around with a married man whose wife is expecting a child. That’s a rule carved in stone that I will not break, despite the fact that the kid may not be his.

Knowing it’s the right thing to do does not help with the pain, though. I’m not even sure about the way I feel. Is this a big crush, or a crazy infatuation? I pray that this is purely a chemical reaction triggered by oxytocin, the bonding hormone associated with love making. If it is, then I’ll be okay tomorrow. Fat chance, though.

I wish there was some type of scaled ruler that I could use to measure the depth of my feelings for this man. I’ve never had my heart crushed before. How bad can this type of pain get? 

I fall asleep curled up against the wall, and then wake up with pins and needles in my legs. The alarm clock on the bedside table glows in the dark: it’s past 5am. He’s not coming back; he’s staying with her. That’s good. That’s what I told him to do. So why do I feel like something’s been torn out of me?

I pull myself up from the floor, and make sure that the separation door between the two bedrooms is not locked on my side. That way, Chanlina can come in when she wakes up. Then, I drag myself into bed. 

I’m so weary that I fall back in a dreamless sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. It feels like it’s only three seconds later when Chanlina wakes me up.

“Are you alright, Jade?” She asks, sitting next to me on the big bed as she strokes my shoulder. My eyes open, and I look at the alarm clock. It’s 9:32am. 

“Sure, baby. Have you been up long?”

“Yes, and I’m starving.”

“Okay, give me two minutes, and we’ll go down for breakfast,” I say, getting out of bed. My dress looks like a crumpled rag.

“What happened?”

I give her a quizzical look, and she shakes her head in exasperation. “Oliver’s not here, and you slept with your clothes on. Something happened.”

“Oh, right, sorry. I’m not awake, yet. There was an emergency. Oliver had to go, and I was too tired to undress. Let me hop into the shower really quickly, and I’ll go for breakfast with you.”

“Fine, but hurry; I’m hungry.” Her teenager pout is cute.

I step into the shower, and turn the cold water on full blast. Now I’m fully awake, and I’m wondering what more I can tell her. It all depends on how much she already knows. 

 I find the answer when I go back into the room, wiping my hair with a towel. Chanlina is reading something on her smartphone. 

She looks up from the phone, and says, “So, you met Sirikit last night?”

“Yes. That’s when I found out that your father is married.”

“But it’s not a real marriage,” she says softly. Her tone changes when she says, “And, anyway, he married her before he knew you, so you can’t really hold it against him. Can you?”

I smile at her; she’s adorable when she’s defensive of Oliver, like that. I like that she’s loyal to him.

“He doesn’t love her,” she insists. “While I think—no, I know—he’s in love with you.”

Her statement goes through me like an arrow through a paper screen. It cuts straight through. I don’t want to hear it; I’ll go mad thinking of what a waste this has become. When I think about it, it tears me to shreds. 

I deflect the conversation, and ask, “What did he write?”

“He’s at the hospital with Sirikit. You’re taking me back to school tonight.”

“Yes, I told him that I would if he got stuck there.” 

“Do you know what’s wrong with her? Is she sick?”

“I think she may have a serious medical condition that’s putting her life and her baby’s life in danger.”

“Baby?”

“Yes. She’s in an advanced stage of pregnancy.”

“Does Liam know?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because he has to be the dad.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” I tell her. “It seems that he’s not the only candidate.”

She looks at me. “Are you saying I could have a baby brother or sister? That the baby could be Oliver’s?” 

“Yes, that’s the idea,” I say, trying my best to sound neutral, while my heart has climbed up into my throat. I’m not superstitious, but suddenly saying it out loud is almost making it true.

“How cool!” She says, bouncing on the bed for a few seconds. She’s all smiles until she looks at my face, and sees what this means for me. Her jaw drops, and the smile vanishes from her face.

“Oh, Jade, I’m so sorry.” 

“So am I, Chanlina. So am I.”

❦

It’s been four weeks since I came back from Bangkok with Chanlina. I dropped her off at the bus stop for the ride that would take her back to Vientiane, where she goes to school.