“Hey!” I bark, loud enough to get her attention over the war-like clatter of cheap metallic bowls and raging voices all around us.
She turns back, tired eyes blinking through a haze of cigarette smoke. “What?”
“I said no coriander.” I give the bowl a poke to highlight my point. It slides a few inches across the table.
Her sour face creases, as if to ask: Where the hell do you think you are? It’s the same question I’ve been asking myself for the past month. And the answer: I’m right back where I started. No wonder I’m going crazy.
“You can take it out yourself,” the waitress suggests after a few seconds, shrugging as she retraces her steps to fetch another (probably wrong) order from the kitchen.
“We can swap if you want,” mumbles Dan, the girl opposite me. “They didn’t put as much in mine.” I stare into my friend’s bowl. Her soup is swimming with green specks, more so than mine. I tell her it’s okay, although I’m seething inside. Nothing here works the way it should.
“I hate this place,” I hiss under my breath.
“Come on, Fei,” she pleads, pasting a smile on for my benefit. “It’s not so bad, is it?”
Sun Dan, my oldest friend, is a reflection of the former me. She’s content to take whatever this place has to throw at her – thick clouds of smoke; a kid pissing right beside her sandaled foot; the guy at the next table sneezing into the back of her head as he turns round to spare his lunch - all without standing up and shouting: “This is not fucking good enough!”
Right now, though, I need Dan to understand; I need her to see that this restaurant, these people, this city – none of them are good enough.
“Have you heard of reverse culture shock?” I ask.
She sucks the meat from around a tiny bone and spits the remains onto a growing mound beside her bowl. “No.”
“Well, you know what culture shock is, right?”
“No.”
I’m about to dive into an explanation of the two terms when the bare-bellied oaf behind her turns round and lets rip with yet another almighty sneeze. I close my eyes and hold the smoky air in my lungs for as long as I can before coughing, which turns out to be just over three seconds. Unfazed by the germy onslaught, Dan slurps down a long noodle and looks at me with sudden excitement. “Are you doing anything after lunch?”
“I was planning to go home and take a nap,” I say.
I don’t usually take afternoon naps, since I’m not eighty, but the apocalyptic summer sunshine that’s been turning the grass brown and the locals browner for the past couple of weeks isn’t conducive to much else.
“Oh,” she murmurs.
I know she wants me to ask. “What did you have in mind?”
“I’ve got a job interview in half an hour. I thought maybe, well, maybe you could come with me.”
“What kind of job?”
Dan flashes me a cheeky grin. “Dancing.”
Obviously she’s not talking about joining the Bolshoi. In downtown Lu’an there’s only one place girls dance for money – and that’s the seedy club in Renmin Park frequented by middle-aged businessmen and government officials. I know because it’s a stone’s throw from my home. That, and my uncle just so happens to be one of those officials.
“Dancing?” I splutter. I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I’m not a prude – as evidenced by a couple of drunken exploits during my year abroad – but stripping isn’t a path I thought any of my close friends in Lu’an would ever consider.
“It’s good money,” she beams. “They’re looking for girls with decent figures and a background in dance.”
Dan certainly scores top marks in the first category. Ever since she filled out during the first year of senior middle school, young men have been falling over themselves to admire her curves and engage her in conversation. In that order.
She breathes in and out a few times, lost in thought, the grin gone but her eyes full of mischief. Each time she exhales, I notice those substantial breasts stretching the tight cotton of her black and white striped dress. I’m sure I can see her nipples pressing through. She’s not wearing a bra.
“So are you coming?” she presses.
I’m stunned into silence for a moment. Do I really want to accompany my best friend – the girl I grew up with - to a strip club and watch as she gyrates topless onstage in front of the boss and whoever else happens to be milling around? I can’t do much, except clap when her routine comes to an end. Then again, my presence would keep her safe from any unwanted attention. I’ve heard about the whole casting couch set-up – and, given her family situation, I’m sure she’s desperate enough to do whatever it takes to secure such a high-paying job.
“I’m in,” I blurt out suddenly.
“Great. Let’s get going.”
Dan jumps up from the stool with a fresh smile curling her lips. I follow with slightly less gusto, and a minute later we’re in a taxi shooting across the city. The driver is on his mobile – he took the call as he pulled over to pick us up. I tune his scratchy voice out and look over at my friend.
I’m not sure what to say without sounding patronizing, so I soon turn my gaze to the river and park running beside us instead. A dozen or so elderly women are hunched over at the bank, rubbing clothes with soap in the scummy waters. I’d hate to wear anything that’s been washed (and I use that word loosely) in the treacly Pi River and then bashed dry on the gum-encrusted concrete slabs that line it.
The car swerves into Qiupai Road, which skirts the vast circular expanse of Qiupai Park, and zooms past my apartment building. I look out at the six-storey structure, at the chipped and stained white tiles covering its front. It appears to be on the verge of collapse, although it’ll probably outlive me – unless some businessman with the right connections snaps it up for redevelopment and replaces it with a skyscraper that will, alas, look equally shoddy six to eight months after completion.
Though the mouth of the narrow road that leads to Renmin Park is approaching, the driver doesn’t seem to be slowing down. He’s still babbling away on his phone.
“Renmin Park,” I remind him, trying not to sound too pushy.
The driver keeps the phone pressed to his ear with one hand – and keeps bellowing into it - while using the other to turn the steering wheel hard. As we cut through a lane of traffic, we’re immediately treated to a chorus of beeps and toots from offended vehicles. It’s a miracle we’re in one piece when the car finally screeches to a halt.
I pay the five kuai fare and hop out, holding the door for Dan as she slides her bottom over the grimy carpet that’s been laid over the back seat and emerges into the baking early afternoon sun.
“You’ve still got time to change your mind,” I say, one hand shielding my eyes from the nuclear glare.