Page 2 of Worth Fighting For

“Pretty sure that’s true for most people,” I say.

“Not true! I am as fun at work as I am outside it.”

I smile and shake my head. I’m loath to admit that a part of me is maybe just a little bit jealous of Mushu. For as long as I can remember, Mushu has always been herself. I can’t even begin to imagine what that’s like, to be true to yourself and not put on different masks depending on the environment.

“Okay, I’m bored,” Mushu says now. “Let’s go grab lunch. There’s a new place two blocks down—”

“Mushu, it’s ten in the morning.”

“And how long have you been in the office?”

“Since six o’clock.”

“So you’ve been here four hours. Our hours are supposed to be from nine to six, so technically, you’re due your lunch hour.”

I narrow my eyes. “Didn’t I see you sauntering in here twenty minutes ago?”

“I was doing the morning coffee run for the office. That counts as work,” Mushu says with a wink. “Come on, I can totally tell you’re hangry.”

“What? How?”

“You’ve been twirling that pen incessantly and you’re tapping your foot so much you might as well join my tap-dancing class.”

I put down the pen that I have, indeed, been twirling furiously. “You got me. I’m not hungry at all, though. It’s this Wutai Gold acquisition. It’s stressing the hell out of me.”

The expression on Mushu’s face softens. “Oof, yeah, that’s a toughie.”

Wutai Gold is a family-run whiskey company that my father, Zhou, is keen on buying out. The thing is, I’ve studied the numbers and I’m not convinced that this would be a good investment.

“Have you seen their latest ad?” Mushu says, already taking out her phone.

“Do I want to see it, is the question,” I grumble. With a sigh of resignation, I look at Mushu’s phone.

The ad shows a freeway jammed with bumper-to-bumper traffic. As all the drivers curse impotently inside their cars, a grimed-up, ridiculously muscled Caucasian man riding a horse slips easily between the cars. A gravelly male voice intones: “Wutai Gold. The drink for real men.”

“Oh god,” I groan.

“It’s not that bad,” Mushu says. “The guy’s really hot.”

I give her a look. “It’s just so…ugh. And why is there even a horse on the freeway? This ad makes no sense and just goes to prove how out of touch they are.”

“Yeah, I lied. It’s really bad. Do you know why he’s so eager to buy them out?” Mushu says.

“As far as I know, he got along really well with the owners. But it’s really not like him to get swayed by things like that. I have a meeting with him in an hour to discuss it, and I need to prep. Could you order me lunch?” I give her an apologetic smile.

“Consider it done. What would you do without me?”

“Probably get stuck in a never-ending meeting with Josh.”

“True,” Mushu laughs as she walks out of the office.

I spend the next hour brushing up on all of my preliminary research on Wutai Gold, at the end of which I’m even more convinced that this acquisition is the worst idea that my father has come up with in years. Not only has the company been overvalued at seventy million dollars, but there are other factors working against it as well, like its lack of a social media presence and thus lack of a customer base with younger generations. I can’t believe Ba still wants to go ahead with buying them out.

“You’ve got this, Mulan,” I whisper to myself as I walk down the hallway to Baba’s office. But I know that I’m far from having gotten anything. Before going in, I take a moment to adjust my mindset. I can’t just talk to Baba as Work Mulan, though that is of course one of the personas I have to put on. But no, with Baba, it’s even more complicated than just being a finance bro.

At sixty years of age, my father is the picture of health. His posture is straight and confident and he carries himself with the vitality of a much younger man. The only signs he displays of his age are his salt-and-pepper hair and the deep laugh lines creasing the corners of his eyes. Eyes that crinkle up in the exact same way as mine when he smiles, which he does now.

“Ah, Nu er.” Nu er isdaughterin Mandarin, and Ba always says it with so much love that my heart squeezes every time he says it, though part of me can’t help wondering if he often calls me that as a reminder that I’m not a son. God, I hate these intrusive thoughts that I get sometimes. Maybe more than sometimes.

---