Page 115 of Vicious
“It’s not silly,” May interrupts me. Whatever she sees in my gaze makes her pause, though, and she eyes me warily.
“My contacts in Beijing found your mother, Ah-May. She’d moved outside the city, but… well, I have a letter from her, for you. If you want to read it.” I hold the letter out to her.
She freezes, looking down at the envelope. “I didn’t think you’d actually find her,” she mumbles.
I scoff at her. “Of course I’d find her. My contacts know what they’re doing.”
But I know she’s just stalling.
With shaking hands, she unseals the envelope. “Do you think she wrote it in Chinese?” she asks doubtfully. “If she did…”
I pull up the stool and sit down next to her. “If it’s in Chinese, I’ll help.”
“It’s not even just that,” May says softly. “If she didn’t write it in English, it’d be… I don’t know, kind of a blow, I guess? Like she expects much more of me than I really have.” She gives a soft, nervous-sounding laugh. “I guess I should stop assuming and stalling, huh?”
Pulling the letter out of the envelope, she slowly opens it, her eyes going down to the contents of the letter. I look over it, seeing the mixture of carefully written English script and hanzi. She looks down at it with a frown, but there’s none of the dismay I might’ve expected. It’s clear her mother had at least tried to compromise, but the English words are a little awkwardly written.
I take a quick look at the Chinese and compare it to the English. “I think they’re the same,” I point out. “She’s trying to make sure her meaning gets across properly—if the English doesn’t make sense, we can compare it to the Chinese.”
Relief makes May’s expression soften further, and she bites her bottom lip. She starts to read it aloud, stumbling over the words as she puzzles the broken English out and I point out the corresponding Chinese.
Finally, she gets frustrated and hands me the letter. “Read it to me?” she implores, and the vulnerability in her expression has me leaning in to kiss her lightly.
“Of course.”
“Dear Mei,” I start, and I stop on the name. “She used the character for plum.”
“But she wrote it M-a-y in English,” May says, then shakes her head, gesturing impatiently at the piece of paper. “It doesn’t matter, just keep reading.”
“I am very nervous writing this letter. I haven’t seen you in so many years, but my thoughts often go back to you. I used to cry, thinking about my child I’d left behind.”
Her penmanship is messy, both in English and Chinese. I can almost feel how anxious she was writing this letter.
“I am so sorry I made you feel like I didn’t want you. Please don’t believe that. I want to meet you. They showed me photos of you and the beautiful costumes you make.”
May closes her eyes as I read the letter to her, translating from Chinese instead of working through the wobbly English that’s even more difficult to understand in places. It’s clear she hasn’t kept up with it in the time she’s been away.
She tells May how much she missed her, how much it had pained her to leave. She tries not to blame Simon for any of it, but there are traces of bitterness for her lost child, too. It’s a delicate dance of assuring May she never wanted to leave and not saying outright that Simon had kept them apart.
When I finish reading the letter to her, I hand it back to her.
Instead of looking at it, May folds it back up and puts it into the envelope. “I… I need time to think about it,” she mumbles, not looking at me.
I put an arm around her shoulder and pull her closer to me. “That’s fine. Take all the time you need.” I take the envelope from her and set it on the sewing table. “Do you want me to put on the costume?”
May buries her face against my chest, trembling as I keep my arm around her. She’s quiet for a long moment, but then she finally nods. Pulling back, she forces a smile onto her lips. “Yes. I need to get it looking perfect. I already have the women’s one done. Maybe I’ll model it for you. It’s no cat costume,” she says wryly in a throwback to the fateful party a few months earlier, “but it’s still solid, I think.” She shakes off her discomfort, straightening up and looking me over. “Time to strip.”
I smile, and after one quick kiss, I get up and pull my shirt off. “Okay. Tell me this costume is a villain, at least. And then I will carry the beautiful heroine off to my dark basement dungeon and tie her up and torture her until she gives me what I want.”
“You’re so predictable,” she says, leaving her sewing machine to grab a costume hanging from the nearby clothes rack. “I think I got it right. But you won’t be stealing any maidens in this outfit. Just rescuing them.”
I have to work to shimmy into the costume, grumbling a bit about the excessive buckles. When I’m finally changed, I glance at myself in the full-length mirror and stroke my short beard. “I don’t know. I could be one of the alternate universe versions. The evil clone.”
She adjusts the light red satin lined cloak around my shoulders and peers at me, looking satisfied.
It’s essentially a complicated suit, but I know I look damn good in those, and this is no exception.
“Oh!” May says, going to a box nearby and producing a top hat. “Here you go. This is the final touch.” Her smirk is downright mischievous. Before I can protest, she puts it on me then steps back, nodding in approval. “You look hot. I think I want to commemorate this. Hold still while I find the camera.”