This Crazy Rich Boy - Chapter 111
Claire goes straight to Michelle’s office, after Mrs. Gomez at the reception mentioned how Michelle had arrived wearing huge sunglasses that failed to hide the tears streaming down her cheeks. She wants to be on Michelle’s good side, if only to spy for Gabriel. But lately, she feels some empathy for her—more and more, the image of Michelle in her mind as this callous, evil bitch seems to get eroded somehow.
Michelle’s still wearing the sunglasses, a classic Fendi that almost covers half her face. And yet, Mrs. Gomez was right: her cheeks are still wet with tears, and she doesn’t even bother wiping them.
“I’m sorry,” Claire says without any preamble, as she slips into Michelle’s office. “What can I do? It’s Gabriel. There’s nothing I could do but watch.”
Michelle’s head turns to her, although Claire still isn’t sure if she’s looking at her. Michelle sniffles. “You could have called me up when Gabriel told you he isn’t at the hospital,” she mutters, her voice hoarse. “And you could have defended me there.”
Claire sighs. She sits on the cushy chair by Michelle’s table, as though this were a formal visit and she’s reporting office-related stuff. She reaches out over the table for Michelle’s hand. “I’m really sorry. I’m just a lowly employee.” It’s awkward for a few moments, but Michelle squeezes back; then as though this connection with another human being, another woman, is finally some permission to stop holding back, Michelle cries.
Claire wants to stand and go over Michelle and hug her, but she feels awkward; she had come here as a secret enemy. And besides, what can she say?
“I don’t know what to do, anymore,” Michelle mutters after a while. “Gabriel would never forgive me. There go the past ten years of our lives.”
Jesus, Claire thinks. If Michelle cares about Gabriel, why did she cheat on him? And it dawns on her: perhaps Michelle is telling her this because she doesn’t realize that Claire knows about everything? “I’m sorry,” Claire says, trying to weigh her next words. “But didn’t you…Didn’t you cheat on him?”
“What?” Michelle snaps; there’s some anger in her voice. “Who told you THAT?”
“Uhh,” she hesitates, thinking which of the names she knows will attract Michelle’s fury the least. In the end, she decides just to say it as it is. “Gabriel told me that. On my first day.”
Michelle gazes at her; or at least, Michelle’s head is turned toward her, but she couldn’t see her eyes. Michelle doesn’t move for what seem like very long, awkward moments. More and more, Claire regrets ever coming into this office; she could have avoided this situation. She could have given Michelle space to grieve, and not get in the path of her emotional rollercoaster.
“Who on earth gave Gabriel the right to include that information in his interviews with employees?” Michelle says after a while, no longer crying. As if suddenly her tears have dried out. She pouts and shakes her head. “Oh, Gab, always the tattle-tale.” She takes her bag, pulls out a longish cigarette from a pocket, and lights it. She begins leisurely blowing smoke in Claire’s general direction, compelling Claire to secretly ask the Shakespearean question: Is this bitch insane?
“Uhh, Michelle, there’s no smoking in this office,” Claire says. “You could trigger the alarm system.”
Michelle makes a big devil-may-care shrug. She even takes an exceptionally long drag of her cigarette, then she blows the smoke upwards. “Who will know that I’m even smoking in here?”
Claire points with her finger upward. “That thing right above your head.”
Michelle looks up; there’s an actual smoke detector on the ceiling above her, with its tiny blinking red light. “Don’t mind that. I’ll never set it off, promise,” she says, seemingly okay now.
Claire gazes at her with mild wonder. Was Michelle just acting all along, trying to reel her in? What about those tears, this whole charade? Or had Michelle just forgotten that she had cheated on Gab, so much that those tears were genuine, borne of a misplaced sense of oppression? Claire couldn’t tell. The answer could even be really simple: Michelle’s probably crazy.
She stands up. “Well, I’ve got to go. There’s something Gabriel wants me to finish, so…”
“Bella, if Gabriel asks you to do anything weird, you tell me, okay?”
Claire stops. “Define weird?”
“I don’t know. Anything that sets off your internal alarm system.” Michelle shrugs. “Or just anything you feel is juicy enough to share with me.” Finally, Michelle takes off her sunglasses, revealing her puffy eyes, and winks at Claire. “We’re allies here, Bella, don’t forget that.”
“Sure,” Claire says. She leaves, thinking what a kooky person Michelle is. Is she even in her right mind? Why would she think they’d be allies just because they’re both women?
She’s deep in her thought that she’s already almost at her desk when she notices the door to Gabriel’s office is open. Her heart jumps: is he here? She quickly peers into the office, only to find not Gabriel but his brother, sitting in the big boss chair and looking around the office. “Oh, it’s you,” she says.
“Don’t be too disappointed,” Miguel says, standing up. “I can make you happy, too.”
Claire says nothing to that.
“Are you actually going to work the whole day?” he says.
“Yeah, why?”
“I don’t know. I thought you weren’t serious about going back to the office.”
Claire purses her lips. “I have a real job now, Miguel.”
“And that is?”
“Well, I take care of…things.”
“Good luck with that,” he says. “I thought this was all pretend.”
“Will you lower your voice?” she glowers, closing the door behind her. “A lot of the things I do here, Miguel, for your information, is stamping out the little fires.”
Suddenly, as if on cue, the floor’s smoke alarm system is set off. They hear panicking people outside.
“Are we on fire?” he asks.
She motions him to relax. “That must be Michelle. I told her to stop smoking. She just set off the detector, Jesus.”
“She’s smoking here?” he says. “Is she crazy? She’s liable for damages, and to think she’s the CEO of the other company that my brother now hates.”
“I know, right?” she says. “But let her be. She’s a riddle I don’t want to solve right now. I have some stuff to type on my computer, some memos that Gabriel has electronically signed. He said these memos must be sent out now, especially that he’s unable to come here.”
“Well, okay,” he says. “Sorry for bothering you.” Then maybe as a last-ditch effort, he stops as they stand by the door going out. “Would you like to have lunch with me? There’s a newly opened Indian place downtown that I hear is rather sensational. Just a few blocks from here.”
Claire smiles. Really, when would Miguel realize she can’t easily accept these invitations from him? She’s getting weary from having to decline him, and she knows how it must feel. And yet, she must say no. There’s another man in another part of town who might get hurt if she isn’t careful. “I’ll take a rain check, Miguel. I just need to really get onto work.”
“But surely, you must take a break at noon and eat and refuel, right?”
“I’ll probably have a sandwich at my desk, work through lunch.”
“Okay,” he says, trying to hide the depths of his disappointment. “Okay, maybe some other day, then?”
“Absolutely,” she says, not really feeling absolute.
Claire watches Miguel walk away, hunched over in that particular gait, as though he has the burden of the world on his shoulders. She sighs. She’s not insensitive; she feels him. She knows what he feels. She had been there not too long ago. But there’s really nothing she can do, short of having herself cloned and giving that clone to him as a gift. But even her clone might end up not loving him, but finds herself more attracted to the older brother. That would be double-jeopardy for Miguel.
She’s serious. She begins working on the memos Gabriel had told her to do, sent through Mrs. Gomez rather belatedly. Claire’s good with language; she even corrects the grammar and edits the text for brevity and clarity. She has also learned very quickly the particulars of operating her computer. It’s a new Mac Pro, one that their IT guy, eager to get on her good side, described in extreme detail to be “equipped with 28 cores and powerful enough to quickly render a one-hour 4k video.”
He lost her at “28 cores”; the “most powerful” computer Claire had used back in college was a dual-core Windows-based machine that already seemed blazingly fast then. “Do I really need this fancy computer?” she had asked him. “I’m only using the word processor, or maybe make a few presentations?”
The IT guy shrugged; he’s a handsome Indian man who spoke impeccable English and could easily pass off as one of those famous Bollywood actors. “Mr. Tan said to give you the most awesome computer in the universe.” He grinned. “He emphasized ‘universe’, because, he said, it’s for the ‘Miss Universe of his life’.” The man giggled like a love-struck teenaged kid.
Twenty-eight cores or not, Claire makes short work of the memos—five in total, addressed to different departments, which in essence are telling them to straighten the hell up because he’s coming in a few days. It’s a proper fire-and-brimstone scenario, a classic Gabriel Tan world shaker.
By early afternoon, she’s done with all the day’s work. She remembers Miguel. She had nothing but a ham-and-cheese sandwich from the vending machine, so she’s tempted to wonder about that newly opened Indian restaurant. Maybe she’d ask Gabriel to dine there one of these days. Maybe tonight? Tomorrow?
She tries to kill time by tidying up Gabriel’s office. She has nowhere to go to, anyway. She doesn’t want to see Michelle, and she’s not sure if visiting Mary or chatting up Mrs. Gomez would be healthy for her soul. So she just holes up in Gab’s office, wiping clean everything with a scented wet wipe, doing it carefully, as though her very soul is contained in that wipe. But really, everything here is part of Gabriel’s daily existence, which makes them important to her, too. She’s so engrossed with what she’s doing that she doesn’t notice the passing of hours. So much that when the phone on Gabriel’s desk trills, she’s so surprised she almost throws the vase she’s holding.
“Hello?” she breathes into the phone.
“Goodness, you’re still there.” It’s Gabriel, breathing hard. “I need you here, Claire. Quickly, please. I need you…” Then the line goes dead.
Claire stares at the phone, wondering what just happened. And what’s going on with Gab?