from two cigarettes to four to half a pack a day.
On a Sunday afternoon in March of that first year he convinced her to come shopping with him at the new underground supermarket in Causeway Bay. She wandered through the aisles like a sleepwalker, picking up items almost at random—a jar of gherkin pickles, a packet of ramen—frowning, and putting them back. Half-joking, he said, I think we’ve become a reverse cliché, don’t you? I’m the bored housewife, and you’re the workaholic businessman. Maybe my mother was right.
She stopped in front of a pyramid of Holland tomatoes and turned to look at him, her lips pressed into a tiny pink oval. Just before the wedding, his mother had said to him wryly,
marry a
career woman and all you’ll wind up with is a career,
and they’d quickly turned it into a joke: when she kissed him, or touched him, she would say,
how do you like my career now?
But the joke isn’t funny anymore, he thought, and wished he could suck the words out of the air.
Is that what you really think? she asked. Do you think I arranged it all this way? So that you’d be out of work and frustrated and taking it all out on me?
Is this what you call frustrated? he said. Making a joke? Asking an innocent question every now and then?
I’m not a workaholic. She tore off a plastic bag and began filling it with broccoli rabe, inspecting each stalk carefully for flowers. A workaholic
likes
it.
No, he said. A workaholic can’t stop.
She turned away from him, sorting through mounds of imported lettuce: American iceberg, Australian romaine, all neatly labeled and shrink-wrapped.
Can’t you ask them for more time off? Lewis asked. Just one Saturday? I mean, it’s the same company, isn’t it? You’re in a more senior position than you were in Boston, and
now
you don’t have any flexibility?
Do you know what happened to the Asian markets last week? she asked. Did you even read the papers?
That isn’t the issue. That’s never been the issue. You’d be working this hard regardless.
I don’t know how to explain it, she said. Her face darkened, and she stopped in the middle of the aisle, her shoulders drooping, as if the bags of vegetables were filled with stones. It’s different here. She looked as if she would cry at any moment. A young Chinese woman passing them stared at her, then twisted her head to look at him. We have to fight for everything, she said. Clients. Market share. Out here we’re not the Big Five. Accounts don’t just fall in our laps here the way they do at home. And anyway, the whole economy’s in a goddamned meltdown.
Nobody
wants to open up a new account right now.
He should have taken the bags from her hands, and dropped them in the cart; he should have embraced her and said,
forget
about shopping, let’s get a drink.
Instead, he crossed his arms and waited for her to finish, feeling impatient, irritated at her for making a scene.
And you just don’t care, do you? she said. It’s not that you want to see me, is it? You’ve just given up trying, and now you want to go home. Well, it’s not that easy. You made a promise to me, and we never said that there wasn’t a risk. Hong Kong isn’t Boston. If you can’t adapt, well, I feel sorry for you.
There was a bitter taste in his mouth. I’m glad you feel sorry for me, he said. I’m glad you feel
something.
He turned around and walked toward the escalator, and though she called after him,
Lewis, wait, I don’t know how to get home,
he ignored her and kept going.
At first he thought he would head straight back to the apartment, but he turned right on Queen’s Road, blindly, and walked in the opposite direction, into a neighborhood he’d never visited before. It seemed to him that everyone he passed—the old man selling watches from a suitcase, the young fashionable women laden with shopping bags, even the boys throwing a volleyball back and forth—had red, puffy eyes, as if the whole city had been crying. He was
On a Sunday afternoon in March of that first year he convinced her to come shopping with him at the new underground supermarket in Causeway Bay. She wandered through the aisles like a sleepwalker, picking up items almost at random—a jar of gherkin pickles, a packet of ramen—frowning, and putting them back. Half-joking, he said, I think we’ve become a reverse cliché, don’t you? I’m the bored housewife, and you’re the workaholic businessman. Maybe my mother was right.
She stopped in front of a pyramid of Holland tomatoes and turned to look at him, her lips pressed into a tiny pink oval. Just before the wedding, his mother had said to him wryly,
marry a
career woman and all you’ll wind up with is a career,
and they’d quickly turned it into a joke: when she kissed him, or touched him, she would say,
how do you like my career now?
But the joke isn’t funny anymore, he thought, and wished he could suck the words out of the air.
Is that what you really think? she asked. Do you think I arranged it all this way? So that you’d be out of work and frustrated and taking it all out on me?
Is this what you call frustrated? he said. Making a joke? Asking an innocent question every now and then?
I’m not a workaholic. She tore off a plastic bag and began filling it with broccoli rabe, inspecting each stalk carefully for flowers. A workaholic
likes
it.
No, he said. A workaholic can’t stop.
She turned away from him, sorting through mounds of imported lettuce: American iceberg, Australian romaine, all neatly labeled and shrink-wrapped.
Can’t you ask them for more time off? Lewis asked. Just one Saturday? I mean, it’s the same company, isn’t it? You’re in a more senior position than you were in Boston, and
now
you don’t have any flexibility?
Do you know what happened to the Asian markets last week? she asked. Did you even read the papers?
That isn’t the issue. That’s never been the issue. You’d be working this hard regardless.
I don’t know how to explain it, she said. Her face darkened, and she stopped in the middle of the aisle, her shoulders drooping, as if the bags of vegetables were filled with stones. It’s different here. She looked as if she would cry at any moment. A young Chinese woman passing them stared at her, then twisted her head to look at him. We have to fight for everything, she said. Clients. Market share. Out here we’re not the Big Five. Accounts don’t just fall in our laps here the way they do at home. And anyway, the whole economy’s in a goddamned meltdown.
Nobody
wants to open up a new account right now.
He should have taken the bags from her hands, and dropped them in the cart; he should have embraced her and said,
forget
about shopping, let’s get a drink.
Instead, he crossed his arms and waited for her to finish, feeling impatient, irritated at her for making a scene.
And you just don’t care, do you? she said. It’s not that you want to see me, is it? You’ve just given up trying, and now you want to go home. Well, it’s not that easy. You made a promise to me, and we never said that there wasn’t a risk. Hong Kong isn’t Boston. If you can’t adapt, well, I feel sorry for you.
There was a bitter taste in his mouth. I’m glad you feel sorry for me, he said. I’m glad you feel
something.
He turned around and walked toward the escalator, and though she called after him,
Lewis, wait, I don’t know how to get home,
he ignored her and kept going.
At first he thought he would head straight back to the apartment, but he turned right on Queen’s Road, blindly, and walked in the opposite direction, into a neighborhood he’d never visited before. It seemed to him that everyone he passed—the old man selling watches from a suitcase, the young fashionable women laden with shopping bags, even the boys throwing a volleyball back and forth—had red, puffy eyes, as if the whole city had been crying. He was
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