【She · HR】
Plenty of people at the company call me the “iron face” — never to my face, but the whisper gets around cheerfully enough. Thirty-two, seventh year in personnel, signed off on more termination notices than anyone, smiled fewer times than anyone. It is not an act, it is efficiency — the fastest way for a woman not to get pushed around at work is to make everyone believe she is not worth the trouble. Do it long enough and even I nearly believed that face. This time they sent me south to hammer out some dreary supplier renewal, and I wore that same navy suit as always, hair pinned up without a strand loose. It was drizzling the day I landed; I touched up my lipstick in the airport restroom and, in the mirror, put that all-business face back on.
The welcome dinner was at a private-kitchen restaurant. Three on our side, a whole crowd on theirs, the usual round of pleasantries. I took the seat toward the back, cradling my tea, speaking as little as possible, nodding wherever a nod would do instead of a word. I know this kind of occasion far too well — halfway through the drinking the men start out-shouting one another, and after a few rounds someone will casually shift his seat closer to mine. I had long since drilled myself in a response nothing could get through: a little colder, a little duller, until the other party finds it pointless and backs off on his own.
He arrived just as the meal was about to start. The door pushed open and the din dropped by half. A shade over one meter ninety, shoulders and back straining the shirt tight — a foreigner, the executive from the supplier’s joint-venture side, the one who ran this line. Everyone rose to shake his hand and he answered each in turn, his grip pitched just right, his Chinese accented but fluent. When it came to me he put out his hand; as always I only brushed it and moved to pull back, but he held half a second longer, his gaze settling on my face as though he had read the word “cold” straight off it, and then he smiled, very faintly. It was not flippant — more like he had made a note of something.
【M · Executive】
I have been in this trade too many years. The women at a dinner table come in two kinds: the ones who cannot wait for you to look at them, smiling all the while; and the ones who wrap themselves up tight and will not give you one word more than necessary. The latter are usually the more interesting — the tighter she wraps herself, the more she is holding down underneath. She was the latter. She barely spoke first the whole meal, the fingers around her teacup steady, nails clean and trimmed, unpainted. But I noticed that whenever someone’s talk crossed a line, her jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. That was not indifference. That was restraint.
I was in no hurry. With this kind of woman, the closer you crowd her the harder she shuts. I did only two things. The first: not once, the whole night, did I aim a word at that face of hers. What I talked to her about was terms, exchange rates, supply cycles — I treated her as an opponent, not a woman to be worked on. She was startled for a beat, then answered fast, her thinking clear, and for the first time there was a different kind of light in her eyes. The second: before we broke up, I swapped the tea that had gone cold in her cup for warm water. I said nothing, only swapped it, then went on talking to the man beside me. She did not thank me, but she glanced at that cup of water, and then glanced at me.
【She · HR】
The way he negotiated made me uneasy, because he took me seriously. All these years, the men at the table either treated me as a vase to probe at, or, put off by my coldness, simply acted as if I did not exist and dealt only with the two male colleagues on my side. He was different. He went around them and asked me straight about that floating band on the penalty clause in the contract — a nasty, pointed question, so that I had to bring all my wits to bear on him. For the first time a dinner did not feel like an ordeal; in fact — I will admit it — there was something of being lit up. That feeling of being taken seriously is more dangerous than any bald flattery.
As we broke up someone suggested KTV, saying it was rare to get together like this. I meant to beg off, but old Zhou, our lead negotiator, shot me a look meaning: give them face. So I had no choice but to get in the car. The lights in the private room were a dim red, the table set with fruit platters and beer, the men fighting over the microphone and howling like ghosts. I curled into the far end of the corner sofa, cradling a fruit cocktail I had barely touched, working out how to find an excuse and leave first. At some point he had sat down not far from me, an empty seat between us; he did not lean in, only turned his head and said, at a volume only the two of us could hear: it is too loud in here, you do not like it. Not a question.
【M · Executive】
The moment the lights in the room went low, people loosened. She thought that hiding in the corner would keep me from seeing she wanted out, but her toes were pointed at the door the whole time, and she turned her phone over twice in her hand without opening it — she was waiting for a reason to leave, and did not want to seem rude. I handed her a way down: said there was a quiet bar over this way, a few drinks and we all disperse, better than going deaf in here. I said it offhandedly, as if the thought had just occurred to me, and I tossed it to the whole room at once, not to her alone. Old Zhou and the rest were already half-drunk, and the second they heard there was a second act, they whooped and all wanted to go. Now she could not refuse — it was not me keeping her, it was “everyone” going. That small intent of hers to slip away, I had walled off with a crowd. Of course she saw it, but she did not call it out. She rose with the rest, smoothed her skirt, and did not look at me.
【She · HR】
The bar was quieter than the KTV, but the drink was stronger. I had only meant to go through the motions, but those few male colleagues took turns toasting, shoving glasses back and forth, and I could not bring myself to refuse — that is another of my old faults; the one who holds herself in dreads killing the mood in front of everyone most of all, and would sooner suffer herself. Glass after glass, at first whisky and soda, then someone ordered a round with no mixer at all. He sat across the table at an angle, drinking steadier than anyone, saying little, now and then looking at me across the table, and in that look there was none of the sizing-up the other men had — only a quiet, quiet watching, until my ears burned and I could not have said what was wrong with it.
Somewhere down some glass or other, I found myself talking more. Ordinarily I would never so much as smile in front of colleagues, yet that night I laughed twice, and even capped off one of the men’s dirty jokes, sending old Zhou and the rest pounding the table. The alcohol was steeping soft, bit by bit, the cold face I had worn for seven years; I could feel it slackening, and could not be bothered to prop it back up. For one moment I even thought: who cares — in this city where no one knows me, iron face or not, what does it matter. The instant that thought surfaced I knew I was done for — what I had guarded against all these years was never other people. It was myself.
【M · Executive】
Drunk, she was a different person from sober. The cold face melted, the corners of her eyes flushed, and when she spoke she would unconsciously wet her lips. She did not know that I never once let her drain that glass — every time it hit the bottom, I signaled the server to top it up weaker. What I wanted was her loosened, not her passed out. What truly made her drunk was not the drink; it was that she had finally caught hold of a night where she did not have to hold herself in, and that release goes to the head far worse than alcohol. Past a certain point of drinking, whatever is held down longest surfaces first. She had held it down a long time — that much I could see.
Past eleven, old Zhou and the rest gave out first, clamoring to go back to the hotel and sleep. They were not at the same hotel as us. Old Zhou, muddled, wanted to see her off, swaying on his feet. I said it was on my way, told them to go ahead. It was half true — my car really could pass by her place, but those two words, “on my way,” were a way down I gave her, and gave her too — not that she was leaving with me, only that it was “on my way.” She leaned against the booth, cheeks flushed through, and looked up at me for a long time, long enough that I thought she would refuse. Then she only slung her bag onto her shoulder, swayed as she stood, and I steadied her — she did not shake me off. That one not-shaking-off was clearer than anything.