from her skin, and she could feel the color draining from her face and her mascara bleeding into and stinging her eyes, and she reached into her bag to dig for another tissue, and she considered just running away, hauling ass for good, but she feared if she stood she would faint and—
The official, looking concerned, pulled a bottle of Evian from a pack under his desk and handed it to her. She unscrewed the dusty cap and took a big gulp.
“Now, don’t worry,” he said. “The last thing we want to do is to shut anyone down over this. After all, I myself know that the occasional Bashful Goose Chocolate-Cream-Filled Snack Cake or, say, the rare Bashful Goose Fried Corn Dough Ball in the context of an otherwise healthy diet is a perfectly reasonable indulgence.
“In fact,” he went on emphatically, “Bashful Goose treats are my personal favorite brand of snack food. When my wife and I got married many moons ago we decided to forgo the wedding candy and instead serve our guests Bashful Goose snack cakes. Now you may ask: Why tempt fate in that way? Why throw caution to the wind in the face of such dire potential consequences? But to that I say: you must do what you love, and to hell with tradition and superstition and the rest of it. And, I’ll tell you, my wife and I are still together to this very day.”
Kelly tried not to snort. Ha, and exactly how many mistresses do you have? How “together” are you, really? She couldn’t quite bring herself to speak these thoughts aloud though; in all her days, she had never seen a government employee appear this excited about anything.
The official stared past her with dreamy eyes, thinking fondly of either his wife or processed balls of carbohydrates. The tiniest bit of drool gleamed in the corner of his mouth and then Kelly knew for certain which one it was.
“Cool story,” she said dismissively. Her sweat production slowed. She glanced down into her bag at her iPhone, at the time. She had a hair appointment in the afternoon, and if the official kept on like this, she wouldn’t make it and she’d be left to go about her life with ratty-looking extensions until Stefan, who was quite booked up these days, could find another slot for her. “Now, what is it that my company can do for you?”
The official ran his fingers through his own gorgeous head of hair. His Rolex reflected a flickering beam of fluorescent light. “Well, it’s safe to say that all of us here in Jiangsu Province have lost a fair bit of face in this obesity crisis, wouldn’t you agree?”
Kelly nodded. Sure, yeah, cut to the chase.
“And so we in the government have decided the best way to save face is to save our children from being swallowed up by their own hungry mouths! And that is where you come in.” With flourish, the official yanked opened his desk drawer and removed an old, clunky Dell laptop, which he opened to reveal a slow-loading PowerPoint presentation. “We would like to invite you, the Bashful Goose Snack Company, to donate funds to start our province’s very first government-certified weight-loss reeducation center!”
Thoroughly convinced of the rightness of it all, and with a couple of hours left until her hair appointment, Kelly ordered her driver to deliver her to Bashful Goose headquarters, where she would ask Papa Hui himself for the funds. The city went past in a blur, all skyscrapers and steamed bun shops and trees and Volkswagen taxis. She sprawled out in the backseat of her Audi, stuck her earbuds in, and hit Play on a guided meditation track she’d downloaded. Prompted by a soothing female voice, she tried to focus on all things good and pure: this project and what it could mean. The state-of-the-art fitness facilities, the virtual reality weight-loss visualizer, the flown-in European chef. Rehabilitating the province’s fattest kids as an act of charity, as an act of kindness, as an act of selflessness. Proving herself capable to the old coot, proving to him that she should be the one to someday run the company.
And keep focusing on those positive things, keep focusing, the voice said, stay with it, stay with it.
But at that, Kelly’s thoughts shot to the reason she was listening to this stupid hippie’s amateur track in the first place; to the reason she played host to all these anxieties, and she always burst into nervous sweats, and she insisted on living across town from her family in a shitty neighborhood her mother didn’t feel comfortable in, and she normally avoided going to her father’s office at all costs—why her life, her miserable excuse for a life, had long ago taken a turn for the pathetic: the goose, that bashful goose.
THE LEGEND OF THE BASHFUL GOOSE
FROM THE BASHFUL GOOSE SNACK COMPANY OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
ONE AFTERNOON, MANY YEARS AGO, WHEN OUR GREAT NATION HAD officially opened up but most of us still toiled in her fields, Papa Hui, our company’s dear founder, found himself strolling around the willow-lined Three Horse Lake in his hometown of Old Watermelon Village.
Yes, Papa Hui stepped forward, crunching autumn leaves beneath his feet. But philosophically, he found himself at a standstill, at a crossroads in his life. He had just paid off the 20,000 yuan loan he’d taken out to open Papa Hui’s Snack Shop, Old Watermelon Village’s first grocery-like store. In this way, he was a free man. But, as the saying goes, when life removes one set of chains, it usually, and happily, snaps a new set into place: the local doctor had just confirmed that his beautiful young wife, Mama Hui, who had missed her visiting aunty for the second consecutive month, was indeed pregnant with the couple’s first child.
With a child on the way, Papa Hui pondered as he strolled: Can I really just go on selling dusty bags of State-owned-factory-produced snacks? Don’t I owe the next generation something more, something better? Is there a kingdom I can build, he mused, worthy enough for this child to someday inherit?
Tangled in his thoughts, Papa Hui hadn’t heard the footsteps that had been following him for some time—until now. Startled, he whirled around, but whoever, or whatever, it was ducked behind a willow branch. Never mind, Papa Hui thought, it’s just some devilish child playing pranks, maybe one of those Wang children, whose parents had miraculously avoided fines or forced sterilization despite their blatant violations of family-planning laws.
Papa Hui, tickled by the thought of one of those little buggers hiding, cried out, “Bashful child, come out, come out!”
But no child emerged; no child answered these shouts.
He slapped at a mosquito that landed on his arm. A breeze rustled the willows, and a dark cloud moved across the sky.
Papa Hui’s thoughts took a sinister turn. He contemplated other potential pursuers: Another aspiring snack-shop entrepreneur who hoped to kill off the competition. A weirdo from a neighboring village who had decided to take a step up from torturing field mice and try his hand at murdering thirtysomething men. The Gang of Four. The Hong Kong mafia. An escaped convict. A Soviet spy. And if it is someone dangerous, he thought, what then? Who am I to fight off such an enemy? I am no one, just a simple man; I am no one.
Resigned to this fate, he turned back around—his helpless body trembling, his shoulders slumped in defeat—and continued on his walk… toward what?
And again, he heard the footsteps. He paused. A sliver of golden sun peeked through the clouds and shone down on him. Enveloped in this light and warmth, a sense of bravery flooded his body. I am not no one, it struck him, I am a father-to-be, I am the boss of Old Watermelon Village’s most successful snack shop, I am a husband, I am a man, I am a Chinese, I am someone! He shook out his trembles. He pushed back his shoulders. Bursting with pride in his own humanity, which he felt then for the first time, he charged toward the nearest willow branch and, with both arms, swept the leafy limb aside. Nothing. He swept aside another droopy branch, and another, and another, until at last he found his pursuer.
Papa Hui, looking down at the little devil who’d caused him so much fear, couldn’t help now but laugh. “Bashful goose, come out, come out!” he said, and the goose did come out, and it followed him home.
“Good night, bashful goose!” Papa Hui called out the window that night to the bird. Mama Hui just rubbed her belly and rolled her eyes.
From the other side of the window, nestled in the dirt, the goose