A Good Fall Read online

  Dan couldn’t make out what they were talking about. As he was deciding whether to enter, Fooming said to Gina, “Another nut, please, before I go.” He sounded loud and happy.

  Gina tossed a cashew, which he caught in his mouth, munching noisily. They both laughed.

  “Another,” he begged.

  “Good dog.” She chucked a Brazil nut and he snapped up that one too.

  Dan turned away, dragging his feet toward the front entrance. He was sure that before he and Gina married Fooming had courted her, but Dan hadn’t taken that flat-faced man as a serious rival at the time. Gina was a noted beauty in Flushing, and even now some men—Asians, whites, Latinos, blacks—would stop by the jewelry store just to look at her. Once in a while someone would offer to take her out, but according to what she had told Dan, she always declined, saying her husband would get jealous like crazy if he knew. Still, why wouldn’t she quit seeing Fooming Yu? “The damned beauty,” Dan muttered to himself as he stepped out of the building. “She cannot change her fickle nature. Well, serves you right. You shouldn’t have chased her that hard in the first place.”

  Instead of returning to his office, Dan went to Sunshine Bathhouse on Union Street. The sleet was over, but the weather had become windy and colder, ice crusting on the edges of thawing snowbanks. A Boeing roared overhead, descending toward LaGuardia. The sky was darkening to indigo, and more cars appeared on the street, along which neon lights started flickering. The bathhouse, set in the basement of a two-story building, had recently opened, and it offered a sauna, a steam bath, hot-towel rubdowns, massages, pedicures. Dan paid twenty dollars at the desk, took a key, and went into the locker room. He picked up a towel and held it around his neck for a while. It had just come out of the dryer and was still warm.

  Having locked up his clothes and newspaper, slipped the key on his wrist, and wrapped the towel around his waist, he made for the pool. Absentmindedly he got into the warm water. He sat on the submerged step for a moment to get used to the temperature, throwing water on his neck and armpits. He was alone and sank farther—his head rested on the rounded edge of the pool, which could hold seven or eight people and was made entirely of white tiles. He disliked saunas and worried that the dry heat could shrink his facial skin, so he took only a hot bath whenever he was here. It was so relaxing to lounge in the steaming water that he felt lazy, reluctant to scrub himself. His mind was clouded with questions and doubts. How he resented the intimacy between Gina and Fooming. Ever since the birth of their daughter, Jasmine, a year ago, he had harbored misgivings about his wife’s fidelity. Their baby was homely, with thin eyes and a wide mouth, and took after neither Gina nor himself. Gina was tall and lissome, having a straight nose, double-lidded eyes, a delicate mouth, and silken skin. Dan was also handsome. People often complimented him on his good looks, which boasted shiny eyes, a high nose, and a head of bushy hair. There were always envious glances at him and his wife when they were together at a public place. So how could their daughter be so plain? In his mind a voice would murmur, “She’s not mine, she’s not mine.” Sometimes he imagined that Fooming was Jasmine’s blood father; at least their small eyes and round chins resembled each other. That could also explain why Gina wouldn’t stop seeing the man.

  Several times Dan had urged her to steer clear of Fooming, but she always assured him that there was nothing unusual between them and that she kept up her acquaintance with Fooming only because they were both from Jinhua, a medium-size city in Zhejiang Province. “You should have a larger heart,” she told Dan.

  Whenever he ran into Fooming, the man would grin and narrow his eyes at him. His knowing smile unsettled Dan, as if Fooming meant to say, “I know more about your wife than you do, from head to toe. I’ve made you wear horns, but what can you do about me, dumb ass?”

  Before Jasmine was born, Dan had never given much thought to Fooming. Dan used to view him as a no-account loser who, though four or five years his junior and just promoted to foreman in charge of three staffers, perhaps made no more than twelve dollars an hour. By contrast, Dan owned a real estate company and had a team of agents working for him. Almost thirty-seven, he was mature and steady. Experience and maturity, if not as magical as a sense of humor, could work to an older man’s advantage. From the very beginning, Dan believed there’d be no chance for Fooming, and several others, to win Gina’s heart as long as he himself was a competitor. Yet the scene at the bar an hour earlier had unnerved and enraged him. If only he hadn’t rushed to marry Gina after she told him she was pregnant with his child. She may have lied to him.

  A tubby man came into the pool room with a hand towel over his shoulder. He boomed, “Would you like to have your feet scraped and massaged, sir?”

  Startled, Dan sat up. “What time is it?”

  “A quarter to five.”

  “I need to go. Sorry, no pedicure today.”

  “That’s all right.” The man puttered to the next room to ask others.

  Dan climbed out of the pool and went to take a rinsing shower. On his way back to the locker room, passing by the massage area, he heard a male voice moaning in one of the small rooms whose doors were all shut. “Oh yes, oh yes!” the man kept saying.

  Then came a sugary female voice. “Feel good, right? Hmmm … nice …”

  Dan wondered if the woman was giving more than a massage in there. Probably she’d also given the guy a hand job for a bigger tip. Dan glanced at the sign standing before the entrance, which said, “For massage, please make an appointment beforehand!”

  He threw on his clothes and parka and left the bathhouse. He had to pick up his daughter at five.

  That evening, after their baby fell asleep, Dan and Gina sat down in the living room and talked. He put his tea mug on the glass coffee table and said, “I saw you playing a doggy game with Fooming Yu in the Sheraton bar this afternoon. ‘Another nut, please, before I go.’ I heard him say that and saw you feed nuts to him.”

  Gina blushed, pursing her lips. “It wasn’t even a game. There’s nothing between him and me. You shouldn’t make too much of it.”

  “How many times have I told you to avoid that man?”

  “I can’t just snub him. We’ve known each other for many years.”

  “Listen, I understand you had a number of boyfriends before we married. I don’t mind that as long as you remain a faithful wife.”

  “Are you implying I’m cheating on you?”

  “Why do you still carry on with Fooming Yu? Tell me, does he have something to do with Jasmine?”

  “He doesn’t know her. What are you getting at?”

  “That doesn’t mean he couldn’t father her.”

  “For heaven’s sake, she’s yours! If you don’t believe me, you can give her a DNA test.”

  “That I won’t do. It wouldn’t be fair to the baby. I can accept her as my child, all right, but you mustn’t humiliate me further.”

  “When did I ever humiliate you?”

  “You keep seeing Fooming Yu.”

  “To be honest, I’m not interested in him, but he often drops into my store. I can’t just shoo him away.”

  “Why not?”

  “I told you over and over again, he’s my townsman. This is getting nowhere.” She stood up. “I have to go to bed. I’m so tired. Jasmine will wake up soon, and I’d better catch a bit of sleep when I can. Good night.” She moved toward the bedroom in which their baby was sleeping.

  “Night,” he said blandly.

  He sighed and refilled his mug with tea from a clay pot. Seated on his rattan chair, he resumed skimming some articles on a Web site where people had been arguing about whether it was appropriate for a seventy-five-year-old celebrity, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, to marry a woman of twenty-eight. Dan’s mind couldn’t focus on the writings. Deep down he felt unable to trust his wife, who still seemed interested in other men. She must be one of those women who couldn’t enjoy life without having a few men dangling around. If only he’d kept her home. H
e regretted having helped her set up the jewelry store, which had cost him more than forty thousand dollars.

  Most of the articles on the Web site condemned the scientist as an irresponsible old man who set a bad example for the younger generations, but some praised him for being romantic and having a youthful spirit. The two sides, somehow knowing most of the authors’ real names despite the pseudonyms they used, argued furiously and dished out muck that should have remained undisturbed in the cellars of their opponents’ past. Dan was not interested in their wrangling. He couldn’t stop thinking about his wife. He reasoned with himself, You asked for trouble. You were too foolish, running after her like a rutting animal. Sure, you won the beauty like a trophy, but it came with a price, with endless headaches and other men’s envy. Now you’ve lost peace of mind, just like the Nobel laureate whose fame has robbed him of his privacy.

  Dan yawned and rubbed his eyes. He shut off the computer, went to brush his teeth in the bathroom, and then turned into the other bedroom. He and his wife slept separately because he often worked deep into the night and because she wanted to sleep with their baby.

  The next day Dan made an appointment with Sherlock Holmes, Inc., on Fortieth Road. On the phone the agent sounded eager, saying they handled all kinds of investigations, like private property, spousal infidelity, personal histories, family backgrounds. Dan agreed to go to the office after showing a town house to an old Taiwanese couple who planned to move to Flushing from Switzerland because they could find genuine Chinese food here.

  The detective agency’s office was above a hair salon and photo studio. A slight, bespectacled man received him, saying, “Well, my friend, what can I do for you?”

  Dan explained the purpose of his visit. Though dubious about the scantily bearded man and his one-horse firm, he didn’t know another place in Queens offering this sort of service. “How many hands do you have here, Mr. Kwan?”

  “We have people all over the world. We do investigations in America, Asia, Europe, Australia, and parts of Africa, basically on every continent except for the Arctic and the Antarctic.”

  “Really?” Dan pulled an index card out of his hip pocket and handed it to the agent. “I want to know these two people’s personal histories. They were both from Jinhua City.”

  Mr. Kwan looked at the card while his small hand twisted a felt-tip pen. “This shouldn’t be difficult. We have connections all over China, and I can get them to look into this. Let’s see, we have their names, ages, and education, but do you know their families’ current addresses in Jinhua?”

  “No. Gina said all her folks were dead. I doubt it, though.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll look it up. Anything else you want to know besides their personal histories?”

  “I suspect the two might be having an affair. Can you keep an eye on them? Also, get some concrete evidence if they cross the line.”

  “We can do that.”

  Mr. Kwan put the index card on his huge table, the kind advertised as “a CEO’s desk,” which had recently come into fashion. This one reminded Dan of a glossy coffin. The agent itemized the cost of the investigation. On top of a three-hundred-dollar retainer and a fee of fifty dollars an hour, the client was obliged to pay for transportation, hotel, drinks, meals, and any other expenditure incurred by the detective when working on the case. This was standard, he assured Dan. Dan signed the agreement and wrote him a check.

  As Mr. Kwan got up to see him to the door, Dan was amazed to find him so short, barely five foot one. Isn’t his small physique too eye-catching? he wondered. At most Mr. Kwan could be a featherweight sleuth. He should have been an accountant or a software specialist—a sedentary job would suit him better.

  For days Jasmine had a fever. She would cry at night, which disturbed Dan and kept him awake even in his separate room. Gina had taken her to the doctor, who prescribed some drugs, but she wouldn’t give them to the baby. Instead, she fed her warm water frequently, saying this was Jasmine’s grandmother’s remedy. Since birth, the child had run a temperature every month or two, but every time Gina had managed to make her well without using any medicine.

  Jasmine had begun to walk. According to folklore, a baby’s tongue follows its legs, meaning when it can walk it will start to talk. But Jasmine, already able to toddle from one end of the room to the other, could speak only one word: “Baba” (Daddy), which thrilled Dan whenever he heard her say it. He would coax her into saying it again and again. He loved her, especially when she was happy and lively, wanting to sit on his belly or ride on his back. Even so, at times he couldn’t help but wonder about her paternity. In addition to her frequent fevers, Jasmine seldom slept at night and always cried or played until the small hours. Dan had once accompanied his wife to Dr. Cohen, the pediatrician, a middle-aged woman with a gaunt face. The doctor advised that they leave their daughter alone whenever she hollered and just let her bawl. Once exhausted, she would learn it was no use crying for attention and would mend her ways. This would also train her to be independent. But Gina wouldn’t follow Dr. Cohen’s instructions, and the moment Jasmine started crying, she’d croon, “Mummy’s coming, just a second.” She’d pick her up and cradle her, walking up and down the room. Sometimes she’d pace the floor for three or four hours. Her maternal patience amazed Dan, who would replace her on some nights so that she could sleep a little before daybreak. Whenever he urged her to leave the bawling baby alone, she would say, “It’s too early to build her sense of independence.” She was afraid their child might feel neglected and unloved.

  Tonight Jasmine simply wouldn’t quit crying. Neither would she let her mother sit down or stop singing nursery rhymes. In a sleepy voice Gina was humming a song Dan vaguely remembered—“Come on, Little Bunny, / Open the door to your mummy …” He pulled the comforter over his face, but still heard the baby bawling. Try as he might, he couldn’t go to sleep.

  He got up, went to the other bedroom, and said to his wife, “Can’t you give her a sleeping pill or something? Just to make her stop.”

  “No. That might damage her brain.”

  “The little bitch. She wants to torture us. I have a meeting tomorrow morning, actually in a couple hours.”

  “I’m sorry, I have to work too.”

  “Damn her! She does nothing but sleep at the day care, Mrs. Espada told me. She’s like a model baby there.”

  “She has just reversed her sense of day and night.”

  “Put her down! Let her cry as much as she wants.”

  “Honey, don’t be so nasty. She’ll quiet down soon.”

  Her gentle voice checked his temper. He closed the door and returned to his room. He used to dream of having an angelic child whose beauty would spread over everything in their home. It wouldn’t matter whether the baby was a boy or girl as long as it took after Gina or himself. Now slitty-eyed Jasmine had marred his picture of the ideal family.

  He kept yawning at the meeting the next morning. One of his colleagues teased him, “You must’ve exerted yourself too hard last night.”

  “Be careful, Dan,” another chimed in. “You shouldn’t act like a newlywed.”

  People at the conference table cracked up while Dan shook his head. “My daughter’s ill and cried most of the night,” he muttered.

  Everybody turned silent at the mention of the baby. They had all seen Jasmine and some had raised the question of whom she looked like. Their silence sent a wave of resentment over Dan, but he restrained himself because they were discussing how to acquire an old warehouse in Forest Hills and convert it into condominiums. He was eager to move out of Flushing. It’s public school system wasn’t too bad, but the whole area was isolated culturally—it didn’t even have an English bookstore. Galleries appeared and then disappeared, and there was only one small theater, managed by his friend Elbert Chang. Most immigrants here didn’t bother to use English in everyday life. Anywhere you turned, you saw restaurants, beauty parlors, retail stores, travel agencies, law offices—nothing but busin
esses. New arrivals had made little effort to protect the environment, or perhaps they were too desperate for survival to worry about that. Dan feared that his neighborhood would deteriorate into a slum, so he was determined to see the plan for converting the warehouse succeed. He was sure that some of his colleagues also hoped to buy the condos the company wanted to build in Forest Hills.

  • • •

  Jasmine got well within a week, but Gina was still unhappy about Dan’s suspicion. She wouldn’t reproach him but avoided speaking to him. Her reticence angered him more. He thought to himself, You think you’re a good woman? I know what you’ve been doing on the sly. Wait and see—I’m going to find out about you.

  One evening Gina came home with a flushed face. At the sight of Dan with their daughter sitting on his lap, she stopped at the door for a moment, then stepped in. She hung up her navy blue coat in the closet and sat down on the sofa opposite him. “You’re ridiculous,” she said.

  “What’s that about?” he asked.

  “You hired a midget to follow Fooming and me.”

  Abashed, Dan didn’t know how to respond, but instantly he recovered his presence of mind. “If there’s no monkey business between you two, why should you mind?”

  “Let me tell you, your detective botched his mission. Fooming roughed him up and gave him a bloody nose.”

  “Damn it, it’s against the law to beat a professional agent!”

  “Give me a break. The man was eavesdropping on us. He violated our privacy first.”

  “Your privacy? What is it that’s so private between Fooming Yu and you?”

  “You’re insane. You hired that man to make a scene in public.”

  “You just said it was Fooming Yu who made a display of himself. Where did this happen?”