College reunion. Two deadly words that together mean the decimation of your self-confidence. Yet here I am, at the ballroom at Grand Hyatt, envying everybody else.
There are more people than I expected. It’s weird that so many of us ended up in New York. The finance guys and consultants I can understand, but why are so many of my drama program classmates here?
I feel shy approaching them. I’m a very competitive person by nature. If I hear that other people are doing well, I’ll want to outshine them. That’s probably why I came here in the first place. To get my mojo back.
“Maxie, you’re frowning.” Coop straightens my lips.
He accompanied me to the reunion for emotional support—or so he says. I’m convinced the real reason was that Ji-ae’s parents were coming over, and he preferred this form of torture over that.
“OMG. That’s from this season’s Dolce and Gabbana collection.” Clapping my eyes on the pretty brunette arm candy hanging off some dork’s arm, I blow out a regretful moan.
“Don’t be so shallow,” Coop chides.
“I’m not being shallow.”
“Then don’t be envious.”
I can’t help being envious. It’s hardwired into my competitive nature.
I look around at the dozens of people around me. “Do you think Henry will come?”
“Who knows? We’ll see.”
I am about to text Lucien to find out (you wouldn’t believe how much the kid knows), when a woman appears out of nowhere and throws me into a hug.
“Oh, my God! Is that Max?” she squeals.
“Lia?” I squeeze out, my throat half-strangled by the hug.
I’d recognize that voice even eight years later. Lia was my best friend in college. We were roommates for two years, and swore we’d be friends until we had white hair and were in wheelchairs and all that shit. Her mixed Chinese and Italian heritage made her insecure about getting good roles in the industry, since she looked very Asian. Despite trying, I don’t think she could make it in Hollywood. I kept in touch with her for a while after graduation but we slowly drifted apart. The last I heard from her, she had switched to working in marketing.
“You look gorgeous,” I say when she lets me go, and it’s the truth.
The floral sundress she has on is great on her figure and even better against her tanned skin. She must work out a lot; I can see the muscles on her arms and legs.
Her eyes drift stealthily to Coop and she elbows me. “You’re married? How come I wasn’t invited to your wedding?”
I cough. “Coop’s my brother.”
“Oops. Sorry.” She takes a step back. “Now that I look carefully, you two do look similar.”
“Except I’m prettier.”
Lia laughs. “Yes, you are. So tell me, what’s the golden girl of Harvard been up to?”
Here comes the nerve-wracking question, I think to myself, wiping my clammy hands on my black dress. This was one question I expected to be asked, but that doesn’t mean I am prepared to answer.
At this point, I wish I could say something glamorous or amazing, but instead I say, “Nothing much. I’m a household expert these days,” deliberately choosing words that obfuscate the real nature of my job.
Lia bites her nails, wanting to know more about what this job entails, and I give her a vague account of the nature of my job.
“Well, it’s all about houses and what the client wants. I try to meet their expectations.”
“You went into real estate? That’s a big leap,” she says at the end of it.
I make no attempt to correct her misconception. Real estate sounds much better than house cleaning and babysitting.
“Yeah…that’s right,” I say. “I never expected to make the switch, either.”
Coop fires me an arched eyebrow. He has no right to be giving me those judgy eyes when he’s the one who bailed out on his in-laws.
To turn the conversation away from me, I start asking Lia questions about her life. It turns out she quit marketing because it was too stressful. And then, in her own words, she ‘went on a spiritual journey’ where she discovered that the real aim of her life was to ‘bring enlightenment to the world’. So now she’s a yoga and meditation teacher in the city. She admits that she isn’t making a ton of money, but if I had to judge from her glowing skin, she’s really happy.
We both go on to mingle with the crowd and find out what everybody else has been up to. I must say, there are more familiar faces than I thought. Everyone I ask is in marketing, IT, or something equally lucrative and respectable. There are a few who are on their first college professor job, a handful of homemakers, and the girl who used to be the treasurer of the drama society was on Forbes’s 30 Under 30 list this year.
Most of my classmates have obviously made more of their life than me. There’s a lingering sense of regret as I listen to them.
In life, you learn some lessons the hard way. Part of becoming an adult. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against growing up. But I wanted to grow up to be successful, not empty. Because the more I see everyone, the more I realize what I could have been if things had gone differently. If I had not given up. If I had had the courage to face my demons instead of running to Coop for safety. If I had the strength to go back and struggle against the tides of industry, luck, and destiny.
The saddest moment in life is when you lose your dream. You never forget that moment. It forever becomes a reminder of what could have been.
Lost in reminiscing, I wander through the crowd, nodding when Lia nods, smiling when she smiles. It’s like walking through smoke.
“So that’s the famous Henry.” Coop pokes at my cheek when I pass him.
Only then do my eyes connect to Henry, who’s three strides away from me. He’s wearing what he wore this morning—a gray shirt and a blue blazer. His hair is pretty neat, considering he’s been through a whole workday. Maybe it’s the light making his eyes sparkle or the wine that’s reddened his face, but he looks different.
And I’m not the only one who notices that.
Women are tracking him, cooing with interest, commenting on the brand of his shoes and clothes and the wealth of his parents. The interest in him seems to only multiply when he talks to a few other guys, and confirms that he is indeed the son of Marta and Mark Stone. I have no idea what his parents do, but their names seem to draw considerable recognition. I make a mental note to ask Lucien about this, while marveling at the fact that in eight years, Henry has completely eclipsed me in popularity.
Who’d have thought?
Lia moves towards him, dragging me along, and her bright yellow dress catches his eye.
He turns and waves at me, light spreading over his face. “Max!”
I try my best to hide from him (not that it’s even possible when we’re this close). I don’t want Henry to be here now. He’s the only one who knows my real situation. If he blurts something out…I’ll be screwed.
“You guys know each other?” Lia asks, shaking his hand.
“Max is my housekeeper,” Henry says before I have a chance to open my mouth.
Really, the guy has zero social skill. Can’t he read the cues?
“W-what?”
Lia’s eyes widen in shock and she looks to me, betrayed.
I try to shrink away, but the truth’s out in the open. She probably thinks I’m crazy and desperate, to lie at a college reunion. Who does that? Maxima Anderson, that’s who.
I can already see this becoming a conversation on the secret alumni WhatsApp group, one that everybody except me is a member of.
Lia: Did you know the golden girl of Harvard is a maid now? I couldn’t stop laughing when I found out.
Dude I rejected in senior year: Serves her right, that bitch.
Literature major: Pride comes before a fall. Truer words were never spoken.
Lia: And you know she lied to me about it? Said she was in real estate.
I’m under no illusions; I know how overbearing I used to be in college. Some people must still be carrying a grudge against me. As soon as Lia reveals what’s become of me, I will be decimated on WhatsApp. My image will be ruined. The only thing I had—a faint sense of pride because of my status in college—will be gone.
No! No! No!
That cannot happen.
“Is that true?” Lia asks, snapping me out of my doom-and-gloom vision of my future.
The world, oddly enough, is still pretty normal around me.
With my ingenious mind, I quickly think of a way to explain away Henry’s accusation. But what Henry said is the truth. It cannot be explained away.
So I nod my head solemnly. “Yeah, it’s a part-time thing. To support myself while I get established in real estate.”
“Oh…okay.”
Henry shoots me a confused look when I say real estate, but thankfully doesn’t enquire about my ambitions. I can only lie so many times before I trip up.
Lia is interested in Henry’s work so she engages him in a conversation while trying to convince him to try her corporate group meditation classes.
Seeing an opening to get away, I grab Coop’s arm and try to exit, but stumble across one of my classmates who is now a homemaker. She sucks us into a sad story about how her first child was born autistic and so she decided to stay at home to look after him. At the end, she mentions that she’s writing a memoir about her experiences, and would love to get my feedback on it. Now I have no idea why she thinks my feedback would be valuable, but since I have a lot of free time these days, I agree to help her cause.
“Bye.” Hoping to get away, I tiptoe backwards, but she insists on making me stay.
“We came this far. We should at least have dinner,” Coop agrees, and thus I find myself sitting around one of the tables with Coop, Henry, the woman with the special needs child, and another classmate who is now a music producer.
Conversation flows smoothly, spurred on by the Chardonnay. I nod my head and listen to everything, while not really registering anything. Earlier, it was exciting to hear about the wonderful things that my classmates had gone on to do in life, but now they’re talking about their personal lives, and I have no interest in who they’re dating or how precious their three-year-old is.
Propping up my elbow on the table and resting my chin on my palm, I yawn, hoping for food.
There’s a rustle on my side as Henry leans forward slightly.
“What was that about real estate?” he whispers.
I sigh. “A lie to make me appear better than I am, what else?”
“Sorry for putting you in an awkward situation, then. I didn’t know you wanted to hide that you worked as a housekeeper.”
“It’s not the kind of thing I can confess at a college reunion. My classmates would find it strange.”
I had the most promising future when we graduated. But the future is a mirage. It can change any time.
Henry kneads his chin thoughtfully. “I forgot that you were planning to win an Oscar by this age.”
I’m still planning to win one in the next decade, I think to myself, but don’t say it. Because I don’t know how I’m going to do that.
“Haha, that’s funny,” I say.
“How? Isn’t that what you wanted?”
And for the longest time in forever, I don’t have an answer.
*
“Maxie, do you like Henry?” Coop asks me on the way back home.
The subway rocks and screeches, turning a bend. The car is mostly empty, except for a few tourists who are excitedly whispering in a foreign language.
“You didn’t?” I ask, surprised.
Henry has the kind of personality nobody can find fault with. He’s not arrogant, mean, or vicious. And Coop talked to him quite a lot when we were sitting together during dinner, so I thought they were getting along.
“He’s nice. But I got the feeling that there’s more between you and him than simple liking. You have romantic feelings towards him, don’t you?”
Oh, really? Now Coop’s gonna play detective?
“Stop watching romance movies with Ji-ae. They’re corrupting your mind,” I scold. “And you’re totally wrong about Henry and me. There’s nothing romantic going on between us.”
It’s the truth. Despite my budding attraction for Henry, I’m aware that we will never be anything more than employer and employee.
“But you seemed really close to him,” Coop protests.
“He’s the only person I knew at the reunion. It’s only natural that we’d talk.”
Coop squints, like he knows I’m lying, but he doesn’t press it.
The train jerks again, and this time he doesn’t say anything.
*
Two and a half weeks later, I survey Henry’s living room. Over this period, I have improved markedly at this cleaning thing. The number of accidents has fallen, too. Now I can make the bathroom tiles sparkle, make clothes smell like heaven, cook like Padma Lakshmi, and carry a cello and violin case with one arm.
On this particularly sunny summer afternoon, I’m resting on the sofa, having finished my work for the day, watching over Lucien as he attempts his math homework. I made tofu scramble for lunch, washed and dried the white and non-white clothes separately, polished all the metal objects in the house, and even shopped for next week’s groceries. I’m getting the hang of this job.
Wiggling my toes, I stare at the puzzle-piece-like edges of skyscrapers against the sky, envisioning myself as a famous actress who owns this house. Then my imagination hops onto my Oscars speech again, only this time I don’t act out the speech, settling for rehearsing it mentally.
Halfway through the speech, Lucien pricks my toe with his pencil. “Hey, Max, have you ever been to Coney Island?”
Rubbing my hurt toe, I give him a dirty look. I’m not sure what prompted this question, but the timing couldn’t have been worse. I was at the part in my speech where I was talking about my initial career struggles, just about to get to the good part of how I overcame hardship and become a beacon of the American Dream, a true rags-to-riches story.
“Yeah, I have,” I say, pulling a cushion onto my lap and crossing my legs under it to prevent any further damage.
I went to Coney Island with Coop, during my first college summer break. At that time, I was working two part-time jobs to save up money for college and needed a break. It seemed like a good way to spend the day and blow off steam.
Lucien sidles closer to me, coming off the loveseat to join me on the sofa. “Was it fun?”
“Loads of fun. You’ve never been there?”
He shakes his head.
What a stupid question to ask. Of course he’s not been there. With parents as rich as his, he likely vacations at places like Hong Kong Disneyland and the south of France. Coney Island must be a joke to him.
“You’re missing out,” I feel obliged to say, because I don’t want him to think that exotic holiday locales are everything.
“Today in class, everybody was talking about having gone to Switzerland and China and Hawaii and Spain over the winter break, but there was this one girl who said she’d been to Coney Island. It sounded like a fun place, with a beach and rides and ice-cream. I’m curious; I want to go too.” He hugs me abruptly. “Max, take me there now.”
Now I understand why he was cozying up to me. Oh, the calculating devil.
“Are you trying to get me fired, kiddo?”
“Wouldn’t you want to go to an amusement park if you were me? All I do is study, play cello and eat fat-free food. When I go on vacations with Mom and Dad, it’s like they’re trying to convince me that we’re a happy family when we’re not. I want to go somewhere with you and have real fun.”
He makes a good point. I consult the clock on the wall.
“But it’s five already. It’ll take at least an hour to get there, and more to get back. And we have to spend at least two hours on the rides, or there’s no point in going that far.”
“Then we’ll stay there tonight.” Lucien’s displaying uncharacteristic behavior; he’s jumping on the couch. This is the first time I’ve seen him so excited about something.
“Not so fast. We have to get your mom’s permission first,” I say, convinced that Emilia will shoot this idea down.
There’s no way a paranoid mother like her will ever let her son have any fun.
“Then call her,” Lucien challenges. “But for your information, she has four surgeries today, so she won’t pick up your call. But when you’re getting lectured by her later, you can tell her that you tried calling.”
He cackles like a witch.
This kid has Jekyll and Hyde syndrome, I’ll tell you that; sometimes he’s sweet enough to give me diabetes and at other times he’s evil enough to give the Joker a complex.
“Okay,” I coo.
It’s too late to back out now, so I select out Emilia’s number from my contacts list and press, fingers shaking. As predicted, the call goes to her answering machine and I leave her a message explaining that Lucien and I are taking a short trip to Coney Island and we’ll be back in time for her to pick him up. I decide to leave out the ‘maybe we’ll be late’ part.
Throwing his books haphazardly into his bag, Lucien flings them on the sofa, arrowing to the door. “Let’s go!”
“Wait! We need to pack sunglasses, swimsuits, dinner, sun lotion, and other stuff.”
“There’s no time. Hurry up. We’ll buy all that when we’re there.”
“And where will we get the money for that from?”
He looks at me as if it’s an answer even I should’ve been able to get. Then he produces that magic piece of black plastic from his pocket. “Mom’s credit card.”
Does he carry that thing around all the time? Isn’t that dangerous? What if someone attacks him? I’d be worried if I were his mom.
I suppose it’s okay to use it this time, though, since we’ll be buying him a swimsuit. Grabbing the keys, I dart to the door, a cocktail of dread and anticipation drenching me.
My last thought as I lock the door is: Please God, don’t get me fired.
