الحافلة الأخيرة، جلست نائبة الرئيس في حضني — Chapter 11 Rumors

Chapter 11 Rumors

At noon on Friday the break room had changed into another kind of noise. When Zhou Ye went to pour water, he heard two people who were not from marketing saying that Ms. Shen's temper had been very good lately, and also saying that someone had seen her leave work on Wednesday evening with a young man, though maybe they had seen wrong. The people talking did not use a name. A name would come in the next round. In the afternoon Chen Xia pulled Zhou Ye over to the print area and lowered her voice.

"I'll ask you one thing. You don't have to answer. Someone says Ms. Shen has been close with a person in our department. My first reaction was that it was bullshit. My second reaction was to look at you. Because the number of times your ears have gone red this week isn't normal."

Zhou Ye's first reaction was to deny it too fast. He held that down. Denying too fast was as bad as admitting. "Who said it?"

"Brand. Vague. They said two people stood very close in an elevator. No picture, no name. I'm asking you because if it's real, don't be the last person to know, and don't be the first person pushed out." Chen Xia looked at him. "If this has nothing to do with you, pretend I didn't ask. If it does, I want to tell you that more people will tell this story than ever really saw it."

Zhou Ye said, "Thank you. I know."

That was not an admission, and it was not a good concealment. Chen Xia looked at him for two seconds, sighed, and said then he should get his ears under control, and she laughed first after she said it. After she laughed she did not pass it on. Zhou Ye went back to his desk. His palms were all sweat. He sent Shen Man: There's a rumor. No name. No picture. Chen Xia asked me. I didn't admit it.

Shen Man replied quickly: My assistant heard it too. The version is Wednesday night. The break room wasn't mentioned. We have to meet tonight. Not to have sex. To talk. After seven. The usual place. Leave separately.

Those words, the usual place, tightened Zhou Ye's chest. They already had a usual place. The week was not even over.

At seven-twenty he knocked on the door on the seventeenth floor. Shen Man had not changed into house clothes. The jacket of the suit dress was off. Under it she still wore the shirt from the formal suit, the sleeves rolled to her forearms. There was no alcohol on the coffee table. There were two cups of water that had already gone cool. She had him sit. The cushion was back between them. This time the cushion was not shyness. It was a reminder.

"The version my assistant heard," she said, "is that I got into the same car as a tall man. No face. That isn't frightening. What's frightening is that it will line up, in someone's head, with the picture Lin Qiming saw. Once they line up, we aren't a rumor. We're a chain of evidence."

"Then do we stop first?" Zhou Ye asked. After he asked, he was uncomfortable himself. But the question had to be asked. "Stop meeting. Keep the picture or delete it. Wait until the rumor passes."

Shen Man looked at the cushion. "I asked myself many times today. If we stop, am I protecting you, or am I protecting the seat called Ms. Shen? Both answers are there. I'm not clean enough to choose only one." She looked up. "But I also don't want to use stopping as a punishment for this week. We didn't steal anything from the company. We didn't make an exchange on your promotion. We only hid badly. Hiding badly isn't a crime. It's a risk."

"The risk has already reached Director Lin's mouth and Chen Xia's."

"So we have to decide," she said. "Not decide a whole life tonight. Decide how next week goes. If we keep hiding, it will get worse, because we clearly will not hide. If we make it known, I have to go to personnel and say it. After I say it, I have to step out of every decision that has to do with you. You may be moved to a group that isn't evaluated on my line. Some people will say you got there through me. Some people will say I threw myself at a twenty-seven-year-old. That second sentence will be very ugly. I've heard something like it, when I got divorced."

Zhou Ye's hand tightened. "I don't accept them saying those things about you. But I can't stop them. What I can do is stand beside you and not let you go say it alone. We can also say nothing, and only stop meeting. I won't go outside and talk loosely because we stopped. You can have me delete the picture whenever you want."

Shen Man's eyes reddened a little. Nothing fell. "You always say deleting the picture too readily."

"Because the picture shouldn't be a rope."

She threw the cushion aside. This time it was not for a kiss. She leaned over, set her forehead against his shoulder, and gripped his shirt. She gripped it very tightly. Zhou Ye held her. His hand stayed on her back and did not go anywhere else. Shen Man's voice was muffled in the hollow of his shoulder.

"This week I missed you until I made mistakes at work. That isn't romantic. That's a warning. I want to go on with you. I'm also afraid that the way we go on is hiding you in this apartment until one day the door gets forced open."

"Then we open the door ourselves, a little," Zhou Ye said. "Not open it so the whole company can see the bed. Open it for the people who ought to know. Personnel. President Pei. Director Lin. Tell them we're together. Tell them you're recusing yourself. Don't give the other details. Don't give the picture. Whoever wants the details is crossing a line."

Shen Man lifted her head. Her makeup had smeared a little. It was not a mess. It was only real. "You've thought it through. This will change your path at Bo'an."

"Your path changes more," he said. "So I'm not deciding for you. I'm telling you which side I choose. I choose to say it. If you choose to hide for one more week, I'll hide with you for one more week, but the kind of thing that happened in the break room can't happen again. If you choose to stop, I'll stop. What I choose now is to say it. Because I don't want those two seconds of Lin Qiming's to become something in someone else's hands."

Shen Man looked at him for a long time. Then she kissed him. The kiss was deep, but she did not push him down. Her hand stopped on his chest, as if holding a heart that was going too fast. When the kiss ended she said, "We still don't do it tonight. I want this decision to happen while our clothes are all in order. Tomorrow is the weekend. You come. We'll write what has to be said into a few human sentences. Don't write it as a self-criticism. On Monday we go to personnel."

"All right."

"You can leave now. Or you can stay on the sofa. Not the bed."

Zhou Ye stayed on the sofa. Shen Man went and showered. When she came out she was in the long-sleeved shirt, and she brought him a blanket and a pillow. She herself sat at the other end of the sofa and looked for a while at the river outside the window. The two of them did not discuss the company again. She talked about how the elevator in this building made an old sound at night. He talked about the damp in the place in Hexi. Ordinary words filled the space the cushion had left. At eleven Shen Man's head dipped and dipped, and at last it came to rest on his shoulder. Zhou Ye did not move. He let her lean until his arm went numb. Even numb, he did not change position. When she woke she called him a fool, very lightly, and then pulled the blanket up and covered both their legs. They slept on the sofa until the middle of the night. Neither of them put a hand inside the other's clothes. This restraint was not the same as the restraint on the last bus. It was the quiet before a decision. Zhou Ye woke once and saw that her fingers were still holding his cuff. He looked at that hand until the rain began again.