The new inbox was calm. Just a message from Nini. She opened it with a click, to see Nini had ended her five-day-old romance. She told Hongmei that an IT tycoon had come into her shop and bought tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of suits. He’d asked her to come help him in the changing room, and they’d started making out right there. Nini had been ready to straddle two boats at once, but then she got her termination notice. It turned out the clothing tycoon had seen the whole thing through the shop’s closed-circuit TV. Nini said, These days there’s not one place where you’ll be left alone! The super was now using a newspaper as camouflage. Hongmei wrote back to Nini. Then she sipped at the water in her glass.

Nini replied at once, saying she just got her first email from the secret talker. He had praised her youth and beauty, saying she was the sort of Asian woman every white man dreamed of. Nini didn’t forward the whole message, keeping him for herself as she did the other tycoons.

6

Hongmei looked at the man hiding behind the newspaper. It kept rustling. Don’t think of getting rid of me. Weren’t you longing for an intimate conversation? Then her inbox lit up, and her scalp prickled. The secret talker! How was that possible? Hardly anyone knew her new email address.

He said right away that she oughtn’t buy flowers from the cut-price stall—those petals were just glued on and would never bloom.

She asked if there was a need for him to follow her like that.

He said he was hooked on her, and that wasn’t entirely his fault.

She said if that were really the case, he ought to come out from behind his computer or shrub or newspaper. Otherwise she’d consider her privacy invaded and call the police.

The newspaper shook again, urging her to go. A yawn, a cough. Now that he was no longer under suspicion, he’d gone back to being a dull building super.

The secret talker said, Why do you have to treat me like this? A police report in exchange for my devotion?

She could see the tragic smile in his words. She answered: You make me feel like I have nowhere to hide. No, like there’s nowhere I can be.

He apologized.

She said: If you won’t go away, I’ll get the police to lay an ambush. They’ll be interested. Men kidnapping women and girls is a hot topic.

No response.

Five minutes later, a reply.

How can you be so sure I’m a man?

Hongmei stared at the words.