Page 22 of Behind Frenemy Lines

Loretta: “It doesn’t have to make her uncomfortable. Just make it clear you’d be going as friends, nothing more.”

Stared at the TV. Hadn’t really been watching, but the anime girl onscreen appeared to be turning into a car. Maybe it would have made sense if I’d been paying attention.

CG: “We’re not friends.”

Loretta: “Colleagues, whatever you want to call it. It’s not a big ask. Who among us hasn’t attended a wedding where you don’t know the people getting married, because somebody’s dragged you along?”

CG: “I’m not asking her, and that’s final.” Picked up remote. “Are you still watching this?”

Loretta snatched the remote from me. “Yes.”

I didn’t try to take it back. Best to pick your battles, living with Loretta. Could count myself lucky I’d won this one, for now.

CHAPTER NINE

Kriya

We were goingto Hong Kong for business, not fun. Arthur was giving a talk and I was speaking on a panel at the conference. Around that, we’d booked in client meetings and training sessions. Every spare moment was crammed with networking coffees, drinks, lunches, and dinners. For the next four days, I was basically going to be a dancing bear with legal training and horrendous jet lag.

Yet I still felt a thrill of excitement as the island came into view through the plane window: clusters of tall buildings, winding roads amid verdant hills. It was all kdramas and BTS nowadays, but when I was growing up, it was Hong Kong my Chinese friends had looked to. That was wherecoolcame from, in those days. (It was very clear to us that “cool” was not locally produced in Malaysia.)

I remembered the little girl I’d been, playing on the scuffed parquet floor of our old house, while some Hong Kong cops and gangsters movie blared from the TV. Appa preferred English and Tamil movies, but he’d watch Hong Kong films if they were on, like at Chinese New Year. It would have blown tiny Kriya’s mind to know she’d be coming here someday.

What with the bustle and excitement of arriving, it tookme a while to clock that Arthur was being weird. His luggage came out first on the carousel at baggage reclaim. Then I spotted my purple hard-shell suitcase. “That’s mine.”

“I’ll get it,” said Arthur, and took it off the conveyor belt for me.

Arthur had never bothered helping with my luggage before, on the several business trips we’d taken together. But I was too tired from the flight, and too distracted by the novelty of being in Hong Kong, to take notice.

There was something intensely familiar about the place, though it was my first time visiting. The deep green hills, the bright sunshine, the blast of air-conditioning as we walked through the airport, the red-threaded charm dangling from the rearview mirror in the taxi. Cantonese was being spoken all around us. Hearing it was triggering and soothing at the same time, like being back home.

Arthur didn’t get a chance to be weirdly chivalrous at the other end of the journey. As the taxi pulled up outside the hotel, a uniformed attendant leaped to open the door for us. He passed us on to a second fellow, who led us through the hotel lobby to reception. I glanced over my shoulder to see our luggage being wheeled in on a trolley, pushed by yet another attendant.

I’d never stayed at such a fancy hotel before. The floors were tiled in shining red marble. Light streamed in through vast floor-to-ceiling windows. There were giant Chinese paintings and lush potted plants everywhere, contrasting with the gleaming reflective surfaces of floors and walls and mirrors.

I should have pushed Amma and Appa harder to fly over to join me here, after the conference. I could have got a room for the three of us for a couple of nights. But then again, they would have tormented themselves the whole time, calculating the cost of every second spent breathing this rarefied air, and converting it into ringgit. Maybe it was for the best.

I couldn’t wait to get to my room, have a shower, and crawlinto the soft, roomy batik kaftan rolled up at the bottom of my suitcase. An evening vegging out in bed with room service sounded like bliss.

After we’d checked in, I was turning towards the lifts like a sunflower towards the sun, when Arthur said:

“Do you want to get a drink?”

“Right now?” I said. The vision of my hotel room slid away, a mirage in the desert. “Oh, do you want to talk through the training slides?”

I’d sent Arthur the slides for the training sessions we were going to be doing a week ago, but he hadn’t looked at them. I’d been prepared for this, so I’d brought along printouts for him to review on the flight. Presumably he’d had the chance to glance at them at some point during the thirteen hours we were in the air. Luckily we hadn’t been sat together, so I had been able to relax and watch a couple of movies.

“We should probably talk about timing, and who’s covering which slides,” I said.

Arthur blinked. Then he said, “Yes. Let’s talk about the slides.”

We found a table in the lounge, a flight of stairs down from the lobby. The high ceiling arched above us, held up by vast mirrored pillars. The guests at the tables were reflected in the glass: people in suits; affluent families on holiday. Through the windows I glimpsed the leafy tops of trees, snaking roads, high-rise buildings, and in the distance, behind the Hong Kong skyline, the vague shapes of hills.

Arthur had a beer. I ordered chrysanthemum tea.

The vibes were off. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Arthur was being normal enough: He’d got our drinks and was now flipping through the slides, scribbling notes as he went.

But hadn’t he been taken aback when I’d assumed he wanted to talk about work? Did that mean he’d had something else in mind, some other motive for suggesting drinks?

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