March twelfth, Thursday, eight fifty in the morning. Qilan Group, 28th floor, the outer office of the chairman’s suite. I printed out Chairman Shao’s schedule for the day, A4, Songti size 12, and set it in the second slot on the left side of his desk, the same as I had for the past four years.
My name is Zheng Yu, thirty-one, secretary to the chairman, monthly salary eighteen thousand five hundred. Company rules say female secretaries wear a skirt suit with stockings, winter included. My husband Lu Chao, thirty-four, quit his job at a big tech firm last year to start a company making smart vending lockers. The company was called “Chaogui Tech.”
Chaogui Tech’s three million in startup money was borrowed from Qilan Ventures, a Qilan subsidiary. Page seven of the loan agreement, the line for the joint-liability guarantor, was signed with my name. Lu Chao said it was just a formality, that Chairman Shao had already nodded it through, just sign it. I signed it.
March tenth, the loan came due. Lu Chao had forty-one thousand left in the account, and a hundred and twenty lockers sitting in a warehouse in Dongguan that nobody wanted.
Last night he sat on the couch and held his phone screen up to me. A collection notice from Qilan Ventures, red stamp, fifteen-day deadline. “Yuyu, talk to Chairman Shao. Ask him to hold off a bit.” “I’m his secretary, not his daughter.” “Well, you’re the guarantor.” After that he didn’t say anything else.
Nine o’clock sharp, Chairman Shao came into the office. Shao Qiming, fifty-two, chairman of Qilan Group, five foot ten, gray hair combed back, a white shirt every day, never a tie. He talked slowly, one word at a time. In four years working for him I had never heard him raise his voice once.
“Zheng Yu, come in.” The intercom. I carried in his schedule and the draft of the acquisition proposal he wanted, and stood in front of the desk.
“Your husband’s contract. I’ve read it.” He didn’t look up, kept signing. “Three million, two days overdue. Qilan Ventures has escalated it to me. They want to send it to legal.”
“Chairman Shao, could we hold off three months? He’s in talks with a convenience store chain about the lockers, if it goes through—” “It won’t.” He looked up. “I asked the owner of that chain last week. They use Hive Box lockers.”
The A4 sheet in my hand bent a little.
“Legal, lawsuit. You’re the guarantor. Your apartment in Chaoyang is worth two million six hundred thousand, a court auction would bring one million eight. The remaining one million two comes out of your salary. Six years.” He capped his pen. “Am I right?” “Yes.”
“There’s another way.” He set the pen down on the desk. Montblanc, black resin, a white star on the top of the cap. “I take over the three million personally. No interest, no collection. When the acquisition is done, I sign a paper and it’s cleared.”
“What’s the condition?” “You do as you’re told.”
Having said those words, he went back to the acquisition draft. Flipped three pages, drew a circle in pencil. “Clause twelve, the figure’s wrong. Eight point seven should be seven point eight.” “Okay.”
“Zheng Yu.” “Yes.” “Kneel.”
I thought I had misheard. He didn’t repeat it, didn’t look at me, drew another pencil circle on clause thirteen. The only sounds in the office were the central air and his pages turning.
I knelt. Wool carpet, dark gray, imported from New Zealand, replaced last year, a hundred and twenty thousand. When my knees pressed down, a little static jumped between the stockings and the carpet. A tingle.
“Hand me the schedule.” I held up the A4 sheet and passed it up from below the edge of the desk. He reached out and took it, looked at it for ten seconds. “Move the three o’clock meeting to four. Send out a notice.” “Yes, sir.”
“Get up.” I got up. Two marks on my knees. The stockings were fifteen denier, sheer. He glanced at them, one glance only. “Tomorrow, twenty denier. Black.” “Yes, sir.”
I went back to the outer office and sat down, legs pressed tight together. DingTalk popped up. Lu Chao: “Did you ask?” I typed two words, “I asked,” deleted them, and typed, “Tell you tonight.”
All morning I refilled Chairman Shao’s tea twice, corrected six figures in the acquisition draft, and sent out the meeting change notice. Every time I went in, he didn’t make me kneel.
At twelve thirty he went down to the club downstairs for lunch. Before he left he stood beside my desk and looked at my legs. “Your stocking’s snagged. Left calf.” I looked down. It really was. “Change them.” He left.
I took the spare pair from my drawer and went to the restroom to change. On the pair I took off, the run was right in the middle of the calf. I couldn’t remember when it had happened. Maybe when I was kneeling.
My phone buzzed while I was changing. A text from ICBC: Your account ending in 6620 debited 11,000.00 yuan on 03/12 at 12:41, automatic mortgage payment. Balance 6,412.35 yuan. I stared at that balance for a while, smoothed the stockings up, and went back to my seat.
At two in the afternoon, Mr. Fang called up from Qilan Ventures asking how the chairman wanted the Chaogui matter handled. I said Chairman Shao was in a meeting. He said, “Secretary Zheng, you’re the guarantor too. You know where you stand,” and hung up.
At four the meeting ended. He called me in to collect the documents. “Zheng Yu, have you made up your mind?” “I have.” “Then starting tomorrow, seven fifty in the morning, you come to the inner room first. Knock twice.”
The inner room was the rest room behind the chairman’s office, a bed, a wardrobe, a shower, for him to sleep off jet lag after business trips. I had cleaned it more than two hundred times.
“What do I go into the inner room for?” “To report.” He said it slowly. “You’re collateral. Collateral gets inspected once a day.”
“How long is an inspection?” “Ten minutes. The rest depends on how you behave.” “Inspected how?” He didn’t answer.
I stood without moving. He picked up the Montblanc, nib pointing down, reached across the desk, and set the top of the cap under my chin and tipped it up. My face lifted. Cold. Resin.
“Are you afraid?” “Yes.” “Of what?” “Of Lu Chao finding out.” “He will find out.” He took the pen back. “But he won’t say anything.”
He was right. I got home at seven. Lu Chao was in the kitchen cooking noodles, two bowls, one fried egg. I told him what Chairman Shao had said, word for word, except the kneeling, except the inner room.
“Take it over personally? No interest?” He put the fried egg in my bowl. “That’s great. Yuyu, Chairman Shao really does value you.” “He said I have to do as I’m told.” “You always do as you’re told. You’ve been there four years.” He slurped a mouthful of noodles. “I’m going to Dongguan tomorrow, see if I can move a batch of the lockers.”
I ate half a bowl. He washed up, then went into the study to make calls, haggling with the warehouse owner in Dongguan over storage fees. In the bedroom I laid out tomorrow’s clothes: navy skirt suit, white blouse, black twenty-denier stockings, a new pair, still in the package.
At ten thirty Lu Chao came to bed and hugged me from behind, his hand resting on my waist. “Yuyu, once we get through this, I’ll take you to Sanya.” “Mm.” His hand didn’t go any lower. Two minutes later he was snoring.
After he started snoring I got up and went to the entryway and opened the shoe cabinet. The tallest pair was nine-centimeter Jimmy Choos, black, pointed toe, bought the year we got married, worn twice: once for the wedding, once for his company’s opening. I took them out, wiped them down, and set them by the door.
I lay with my eyes open until eleven forty. I slid my hand into my pajama pants. Wet. I couldn’t say when I had started getting wet. Maybe while he was cooking the noodles. Maybe when he said, “You always do as you’re told.”
I used two fingers, thinking about that pen tipping up my chin, the cold of it. Under three minutes, my legs went stiff, my teeth clamped on the corner of the pillow. Lu Chao rolled over. Didn’t wake up.
I got up and went to the bathroom, changed my panties, and stuffed the pair I took off at the very bottom of the laundry basket. On the way back I saw my phone light up. WeChat from Chairman Shao, eleven fifty-two.
“Wear higher heels tomorrow.”