“You mean I look like a village girl.”
“I didn’t say that, but even if it were so, is that so bad? I’d buy mud if you were selling it.”
“What flattery,” I said dryly, but there was a flip in my stomach that I buried deep. “How much is he paying?”
Tommy named a sum, and I whistled. It was more than I made in a month at the factory. “All I have to do is hold a bottle of soymilk and pose for a few pictures?”
“It would help if you smiled, too.”
I started to make a face at him before I suddenly turned somber. “I can’t do it. If my family found out...”
“They won’t. I’ll introduce you as someone else. You’ll wear makeup—a headscarf, too, if you want.”
The idea of being in disguise sent me aflutter with excitement. It was out of a fairy tale—I could become anyone: a university student, a tycoon’s daughter, even a nightclub singer. “Let’s give me an English name.”
“What about . . . Margaret?”
I wrinkled my nose. I could hardly say it, it was so guttural.
“Cynthia?”
I fluttered my hand.Next.
“Helen?” he suggested then. “We learned about a queen called Helen of Troy in school. She was the most beautiful woman in the world, and kings fought a war over her.”
“What happened to her?” I asked, anxious to know that the story wasn’t an unhappy one.
“The war was long and complicated, I don’t recall the details,” admitted Tommy, “but her king won the war and she stayed a queen. It’s a pretty name, I say. It suits you.” He paused. “Helen of Soy not Troy.”
He smiled as he said so, and I couldn’t help smiling back.
“Helen,” I tried it out. “All right.” I inhaled. “Helen it is.”
In the photography studio the windows were as large as movie screens, and the sun spun a pale, pastel light. My bright-yellow dress made me stand out like a bee, and I felt keenly how much I preferred to be invisible.
“There’s my grandfather,” Tommy was saying as we entered. “You can call him Director Fung. Gong Gong!”
Director Fung faced us. My first impression was that he didn’t look like a farmer. He had the backbone of a cypress tree, straight and unbendable—and his face carried the severity of a monk at prayer. He wore a gray suit with white pinstripes, fashion I’d seen plenty of foreigners wear, but rarely a Chinese man. There was no cigarette angled in the corner of his mouth, and he didn’t smell like shoe polish or incense. He smelled like money. Crisp, fresh bills of it.
“This is the girl I told you about,” Tommy said, making the introductions. “Helen. Helen of Soy.”
The name brought chuckles from around the room, but Director Fung didn’t smile.
All morning I’d felt a tickle of pleasure whenever I remembered that Tommy had spoken about me to his family. Now that tickle was replaced by a churning nervousness. Never had I met anyone with an aura as intense as Tommy’s grandfather’s. The way he flicked his dark eyes in my direction,I got the sense that he noticed everything—from my uncut fingernails to the loose button on my collar—and was making judgments.
I bowed as low as I could. “It’s an honor to meet you, Director Fung.”
He didn’t return the salutation. “How do you know my grandson?”
Tommy had prepared me for an interrogation. “A few years ago, I was walking down Sandy Mound Road and he almost hit me with his bicycle. He stopped to make sure I wasn’t hurt. After that, we became friends.”
Not a muscle gave away the old man’s reaction. “Where are you from?”
“Happy Valley. Sir.”
“That is not what I meant. Where were you raised?”
My Hong Kong accent hadn’t fooled him. “Tunglam Village, sir. It’s in Guangdong Province.”
