Trade Me (Cyclone 1)

“Weirdly,” I tell her, “some random stranger mistook me for one of the other many Tina Chens in the world.”

“Really?”

“No, not really.” I let ou

t a breath. “In a way, it’s like I got…an internship. An internship that pays really well.”

“That’s awesome! I swear to God, I will break our lease in one hot minute.”

Yep. Definitely not happy with our digs.

“Luckily,” I say, “we don’t even have to do that. This internship comes with a built-in subletter.”

She pauses. “Okay, what kind of internship does that?”

“The most fucked-up internship in the history of all internships.” I let out a breath and I tell her everything.

In a lot of ways, Maria and I are nothing alike. But we’ve been friends ever since our freshman floor arranged a girls’ night out.

I’d made my excuses because I didn’t have the money or the clothes to come along. No fake ID, no cash for the cover charge, nothing for drinks or a cab after. My roommate used the word broke as a synonym for I have to stop shopping or my dad will get mad at me. My version of broke meant I hadn’t been able to buy cough syrup two weeks before. I’d used the lingering sniffle as my excuse to stay behind.

I’d waved everyone off, told them to have fun, and expected to be the only girl around that night. But after the floor had grown quiet, I’d run into Maria in the bathroom.

She was dressed in a gold sequin shift dress that ended halfway up her long, toned thighs. Her eyes were smoky-dark, a triumph of makeup artistry that belonged in an ad in some magazine redolent of perfume samples. A black alligator clutch sat on the counter.

She looked ready to take the world by storm. Instead, she was standing in front of the mirror, yanking off false eyelashes.

She froze when I came in, her eyes meeting mine briefly in the mirror.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She looked away. “Fine.”

“Are you sure? You’re not with everyone else for girls’ night out. Are you sick?”

Her lips thinned. “According to Tammy, I can’t come because I’m not a girl.”

She yanked off the other eyelash. She didn’t meet my eyes again, but I could see her shoulder blades tense. The silence lengthened, and finally, I said the first thing that came to mind. Which, thankfully, was: “Fuck that.”

Maria paused. Our reflections locked eyes. Slowly, she smiled. “I know, right? What’s your deal?”

And maybe it’s because I wanted to like her. But for the first time that night, I told someone the truth. By the end of the evening, we’d bonded over the fact that we were the only ones around, over the fact that we were part of the vast sisterhood of women who can’t be googled because we have names so common that even the most dogged searcher would have to sift through hundreds, if not thousands, of results before finding us. We’d made a hundred little connections.

She’s the only person in the world I can imagine walking with, telling this tale to. She listens. She believes me. She doesn’t say that I’m full of shit when I say that Blake says he met me in September, even though I don’t remember him.

“What do you think is going on with him?” she asks when I’ve finished my explanation.

“I don’t know. Honestly, though, have you heard anything about Adam Reynolds that makes you think he’d be a good father? Maybe this is Blake’s way of chewing his leg off to escape.”

Maria bites her lip. “I don’t know. Have you seen them together?”

The sun is almost gone and I rub my hands together for warmth. And that’s when I finally admit the truth.

“Can we not talk about that? I don’t want to care.”

“About his reasons?”

“About him.” I swallow. “There’s an attraction.” I don’t look at her. “I can’t ignore that. But no matter what he says, we can’t really trade lives. He can work my hours, pay my rent, and live in our garage. But when my parents need money, he won’t be the one who bleeds. He won’t understand, not ever, and he thinks he can just pay money and make it happen. So I can’t let myself care about him.”

“Oh, honey,” Maria says.

“That’s what I have to remember. No matter how it looks, there’s a wall between us. He won’t remember; he doesn’t even know it’s there. Please. I don’t want to speculate about what makes him tick. I don’t want to find out.”

6.

TINA

I refuse to be nervous as I enter the restaurant with Blake on Saturday.

It doesn’t help that he primed me on the way down with some less-than-reassuring conversation.

“How good an actor are you?” he asked as we crossed the bridge.

“Not very?” I frown. “I mostly just shut up or say what I’m thinking. I’m not really good at anything else.”

“All righty then,” he says. “Then I won’t tell you what’s coming. Just go with the flow, okay?”

My dose of nerves is certainly not helped by the fact that Maria made her own contributions last night. “Oh, watch this,” she told me, and I vanished down the rabbit hole of Adam Reynolds YouTube videos. He may be worth sixty-six billion dollars, according to Forbes, but apparently he is not what one would call a kind, courteous man. Quite the opposite.

And it certainly doesn’t help that Blake takes my hand as he opens the restaurant door. He does it so casually that I can pretend that it doesn’t mean anything, that he’s just a friend who has locked palms with me. I can pretend that I’m not aware of his warmth, that when his fingers intertwine with mine, I don’t feel a rush of heat.

But I do.

The place he’s taken me seems surprisingly low-key for a man as powerful as Adam Reynolds. It’s a hole-in-the-wall Indian place, with little plastic jars of tamarind sauce and mint chutney sitting on white faux-tablecloths. I was expecting something more upscale, but I guess even billionaires like good food. It smells amazing in here.

Blake guides me to the back table, where a man sits facing away from us. I recognize his father’s profile, that messy salt-and-pepper hair, from last night’s festival of YouTube fear. Adam Reynolds is holding one hand to his ear and murmuring into a Bluetooth head set.

“Then move the manufacturing to Shenzhen,” he growls. “If Liansu can’t guarantee the secrecy we need at the production speed we require, it’s off. No more leaks.” There’s a pause. “I want solutions, not excuses. Whine to your shrink. I don’t want to hear it.”

He slides his hand angrily across his phone and then looks up. His eyes land on Blake and then—astonishingly—he smiles, a brilliant grin that seems completely unforced. It shifts his face from angry bastard to something far more charming.

“Hi, Dad,” Blake says easily.

Adam Reynolds takes out his earpiece and stands up, offering his hand to his son. Blake drops my hand; his dad gives him a fist bump that converts into a complicated handshake, a high five, and then a hug.

“Hey, asshole,” Adam Reynolds says. “It’s good to see you.”

My eyebrows rise on asshole.

“Hey, jerkwad,” Blake says smoothly. “This is Tina. Tina, this is my dad.”

“Hello.” Now that Blake’s let go of me, I don’t know what to do with my hands. I settle for bringing one up in a little wave. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Adam Reynolds, one of the most powerful men in the world, sizes me up in one glance. For some reason, he makes me think of a jungle panther. He gives me a single, dismissive look—as if he’s determined in one second that I’m not only prey, but I’m not even important enough to consider eating. I feel suddenly aware that my jeans are fraying from age, that the soft sweater I’m wearing is just a little too short at the wrists.

“Huh,” he says. And then he looks back at his son, discarding me.

“I need to use the facilities,” Blake says. “You guys get acquainted.”

“Blake…” My voice almost squeaks as he leaves. He doesn’t hear me. Or at least, he doesn’t turn around.

It’s a good thing that Blake and I are only pretend-dating, because if this were remotely real, he would be so completely dead for abandoning me.

/> I slide onto the bench opposite Adam Reynolds and manage a polite smile. He glances longingly at his phone, no doubt imagining all the work he could do if he weren’t stuck with his son’s girlfriend. I can almost feel the disdain wafting off him. Then he sighs, pushes his phone away, and looks over at me.

The internet does not agree about many things, but one thing all sources acknowledge is this: Adam Reynolds is a first-class, grade-A asshole. There’s a covert video that someone uploaded three years ago. The quality is grainy, but the words are clear. There are five minutes of Adam Reynolds berating his CFO in a restaurant far fancier than this one. Adam used every insult in the book, and some that have never been printed in any book. After a little public uproar, Cyclone issued a formal semi-apology: They were very sorry that the scene had caused distress to others, but the video had been taken “out of context.” Like there’s ever a context in which it’s okay to call someone a pig-fucking cocksucker.

His dismissal shouldn’t hurt. I’m only pretend-dating his son. I don’t even want to like Blake, and I will never meet this man again. Still, to be judged unworthy in so short a space of time really pisses me off. I at least deserve a shot.

Blake vanishes into the bathroom.

As I’m marshaling the nerve to try and start a polite conversation, Mr. Reynolds looks off into the distance, hoists his water glass, and lets out a sigh. “Fifty thousand dollars.”

My first thought is that Blake must have told him about our deal after all. I sit in place, waiting for him to give some explanation, to make some sort of demand. But he takes a long swallow of water and doesn’t say anything more.

I fold my hands in my lap.

“Well?” he asks after a few interminable seconds. “I can’t wait forever.”

He’s not even going to pretend to be polite, and I suspect that everything he says from here on out will only get worse. Fine. If he wants to play that way, I can come along for the ride.

“No,” I say with my most charming smile. “You probably can’t. Five minutes of your time is worth a fortune. But my time is worth basically nothing. So if we want to keep staring at each other, I’ll win. Eventually.”