China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh Read Free Book Online

pulling the forms, polishing the face of the building. Painstaking hand work with a crew that wants to get it done and go home. I have shouted myself nearly hoarse. The crew is mutinous. But the job will be done by Friday if we don’t get disastrous weather.
    I don’t really want company. If Peter called I would tell him to go pound sand. “San-xiang,” I say. I smell rice cooking.
    “Are you always so late?” she says. She is chopping scallions.
    “No,” I say, “usually I am home around five.” I find a beer and collapse in a chair.
    “Did you see my father?”
    “He wasn’t on site today. He might be tomorrow.”
    “Will you tell him where I am?”
    “If he asks,” I say.
    She frowns at the wok, tosses chicken in sesame oil. It is a smell that reminds me of growing up. “Don’t tell him, okay? Tell him you don’t know where I am. I don’t want him to know.”
    I don’t like this. I shrug.
    She stirs the chicken, tosses in green scallions and Chinese chilis and adds a glob of sesame paste. Then she spills it onto plates. “Are you hungry?”
    “Yeah,” I say. “This is very nice of you.”
    “It’s nice of you to let me stay,” she says.
    I hadn’t planned on her staying this long. “How long will you be here?” I ask.
    “Whenever you want me to go,” she says, “you tell me. I’ll understand.”
    I don’t exactly know what to say. Tonight. I want you to leave
tonight. Go stay with one of your friends from the political study group. I don’t say anything, just shovel food into my mouth while I think about this.
    I decide that tomorrow I’ll tell her to leave. “This is very good.”
    “Thank you.”
    I should tell her to be out by the weekend. I should tell her right now. But it seems terrible to sit eating her food telling her not to stay. Tomorrow I’ll eat before I get home. She doesn’t think about the position she’s put me in because she doesn’t have any friends, she’s not accustomed to being around people. I am furious. But as always, I hesitate to reject her. I look into that monkey face and think, she’s been rejected and hurt enough, and I put it off. I am a coward.
    We sit and watch the vid for awhile. “Do you want to see kite races?” she asks.
    “I don’t really care,” I say. Actually I don’t watch the kites on vid much, but since I took her she thinks it’s the most important thing in my life. We watch a serial. We make small talk. I fall asleep in my chair and wake up with a jerk. Where can she go? She can’t get housing, not unless her parents will file a separation. Surely she has friends. Surely it is not my problem.
    I go to bed and sleep badly. I dream of middle school.
    In the morning San-xiang doesn’t get up when I do, so I leave early without coffee. I am on the site by six-forty-five and sit in the gray morning waiting for coffee and for the day to begin. The crew greets the sight of their tech engineer perched on the back of a concrete bench with dismay—“Jesus, Zhang, you goin’ to be bustin’ balls all day today?” And the tone of the day is set.
    We are under deadline and I am mean, I do not want to be here Friday night under the lights, working. I want to be here Saturday even less. If we work on Saturday, the men will expect big bonus and I will get chewed out.
    Foreman Qian shows up at a little before nine and disappears into the trailer. If he stays in the trailer, maybe I will get some
work out of the crew. But he doesn’t. He comes back out, coffee cup in hand, and surveys the crew work.
    “Zhang!” he snaps.
    “Foreman Qian,” I say, trotting over, dutiful dog.
    “You think Friday already you finish?”
    I drop into Chinese. “If the weather is good, yes. If the weather is bad, or we have problems, no.”
    Foreman Qian nods. Sips his morning tea.
    “Engineer Zhang,” he says, “Have you talked to my daughter?”
    “Lately?” I ask. “Not since Thursday.”
    He looks unhappy and tired. “She gives you a call,