Unnamed Press
P.O. Box 411272
Los Angeles, CA 90041
Published in North America by The Unnamed Press.
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright 2015 © Carly J. Hallman
ISBN: 978-1-939419-60-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015955220
This book is distributed by Publishers Group West
Designed & Typeset by Scott Arany
Cover Design by Jaya Nicely
Interior illustration by Zejian Shen
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are wholly fictional or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Permissions inquiries may be directed to [email protected].
For my family
FAT PEOPLE FAT CAMP
AT THE ROOT OF IT ALL: THE MEMOIRS OF A CHINESE HAIR TYCOON
THE TURTLE
THE EX-MILLIONAIRES’ CLUB
When our ducks grow fat, our stomachs growl happily! But then our children grow fat, and our nation’s heart grows heavy!
—CHINESE FOLK BALLAD
If you’re a fatty and you’re ready to make a change, come on down to our fat camp today!
—CHINESE RADIO COMMERCIAL JINGLE
1.
WE NEED MONEY AND WE NEED IT NOW
KELLY HUI, THE TWENTY-FOUR-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER OF BASHFUL Goose Snack Company’s founder and China’s richest man, Papa Hui, strode through the Jiangsu government building’s entrance, gave her name to the teenage security guard, and plopped herself down on a rickety chair. The meeting she was waiting for, certain to be a snore-fest, was tragically the most exciting work-related thing she’d done since her father had made her the head of corporate social responsibility—a department in which she was the sole employee—two years before. To be fair, this was also the only work-related thing she’d done.
She rummaged through her Hermès bag, found her iPod, stuck her earbuds in her ears, and put on a Radiohead song. She tapped her foot in rhythm on the floor. She listened to another song, and then another, and then another. Swatted at a fly that buzzed around her head. Glanced down at the time—ten past—and sighed loudly. The guard, a scrawny kid who couldn’t have been more than seventeen and who, Kelly thought, probably spent most of his day secretly masturbating under his little podium, looked up. That’s right, she thought, flipping her hair over her shoulder, store this one away for later.
Then she thought: Did I really just invite a teenage peasant to deposit my image in his spank bank? Did I really wake up at seven a.m. to ride all the way out to this craptastic Communist-era building with no air-conditioning to meet with a government official who is probably just going to ask me for some sort of favor but who can’t be bothered to show up on time to do so? Did I really study my ass off at USC to head up a nonexistent department in a polluted city that doesn’t even have a California Pizza Kitchen? Did I really think Papa Hui was going to set me up in a decent job, train me to run the company, and then, ha, leave the company to me? Do I still think that? Do I still hold on to this false hope? Why? Why am I here? What am I doing? Is my iPod going to run out of battery?
She began to sweat slowly, drop by drop, and then profusely. Breathed in, out. Removed a tissue from a small pack in her purse and dabbed her forehead. Turned off her iPod. Just as she yanked the buds from her ears, the guard barked her name.
She rode up in the wobbly metal box of an elevator to the eleventh floor, where a serious-looking middle-aged official with an unnaturally lustrous head of hair met her. He led her down the dim hallway. A sour stench, not unlike that of rancid meat, hung in the air. She held her breath and wondered why these assholes couldn’t bear to spend a little money sprucing up their workplace; heaven knows they spent enough on their cars and women and watches and weird medicinal foods.
“How is your father?” the official asked. He stepped briskly in his crocodile-skin shoes.
“Healthy as an ox,” Kelly answered, and wasn’t that the truth. At almost sixty years old, his cholesterol was lower than hers, his skin showed not a wrinkle, and he’d jetted off to Cuba the previous year to have his heart preemptively replaced with that of a twenty-two-year-old. “Yeah, he’s sure going strong,” she added in a tone that did little to hide her disgust.
The official paid this tone no heed. “Good to hear,” he said. They entered his dusty closet of an office. He sat down behind a cheap laminate desk and gestured for Kelly to sit across from him. The chair creaked under her weight. I know I’ve packed on a few since L.A., she thought, but come on.
The official cleared his throat into his hand, obviously a rehearsed gesture that provided him an opportunity to flash his Rolex. “Now look, I respect your father a great deal, and I don’t wish to waste any of your time, so let’s get down to it, shall we?”
Kelly nodded. Here it comes.
“As I’m sure you’ve heard, our great province recently made national headlines for having the chunkiest children in all of China.”
Yeah, she’d heard and vaguely remembered; it’d been the talk of Jiangsu social media for a few hours, until some other headline came along and then that became the talk, and then another headline, and on and on.
The official continued. “Obesity has many causes. For instance”—he counted them off on his fingers—“pregnancy, laziness, capitalist greed, drinking too much cold water, being born under an inauspicious moon. But doctors agree that the most prominent cause of obesity is consumption of fatty junk foods.”
Beads of sweat burst from Kelly’s forehead, and a tremble seized her hands—this was why he’d called her here. Of course. He was going to blame the Bashful Goose Snack Company for childhood obesity and try to force it to pay what would surely amount to a hefty fine, and Papa Hui would be furious at her for agreeing without his consent to attend this meeting. His majesty would, of course, refuse to pay the fine (he viewed all fines as bribes, and not paying bribes was one of his “core principles”), and then the government would shut the whole empire down, and then what would she do? Return to America and attend graduate school on high-interest student loans? Stay in China and be forced to move in with her newly impoverished family in a one-room hovel in the countryside where she’d