Excerpt: Hotel Detective

* * * CHAPTER ONE * * *

Jennifer was trying to decide between pizza or a jar of martini onions for breakfast, when her phone rang. Jennifer weighed answering cheerfully or using the “some kind of flu” voice, and chose cheer.

“Halllllooo.”

“Jennifer 226052?”

“This is she...”

“Yes, Jennifer, this is Sal from Crew Control, calling to tell you that your trip is being changed to double-sector, double-sector Tunis-Tripoli with 17-hour stopover in Tripoli.”

Jennifer looked at her half-packed suitcase, on its way to a three-day Malta. “Malcolm, you're calling me from your parents' number. I saved it a long time ago; I knew it was you.”

“Hey, dude,” said Malcolm. “Are you about to leave for Malta?”

“In... twenty minutes?”

“Jennifer, always call Evita. You know that. Don't make me remind you every time.”

“Push me out of the nest!” she laughed. The last thing she wanted was for Malcolm to push her out of her nest. “What happened to my Malta?”

“Al Italia 320 landed short of the runway and disabled itself all over 12 Right. The other runway is closed for construction so all flights are delayed indefinitely. I happen to know half of them will be canceled, but it isn't official yet.

As Malcolm talked, Jennifer wandered back in to the kitchen and switched on the oven. No reason to eat pickled onions for breakfast if her flight wasn't going.

“So I'm on standby?” she asked Malcolm.

“Until 1400.” Jennifer looked at the curtained window and could see the sun was just about to come up.

“You sound like you're at home,” Jennifer said. “Your voice is really relaxed, like you're still in bed. Why are you looking at my roster?”

“I haven't gotten out from under the covers yet,” Malcolm said. “No, I just got a news alert about DIA. I installed it on your TZ; don't you use it?”

“I'm going to,” she said, trying to remember his doing such a thing.

“And seeing your roster is easy. I have your PIN, so I don't need your key FOB.”

“Fob...” Jennifer repeated, dragging a fleece blanket from her bedroom into the front room. Her flatmate, Rosa, was on the love seat, watching a DVD and sending text messages. Jen crawled onto the big sofa and wrapped up in the blanket while she waited for her pizza.

“When do you go back to work?” she asked Malcolm, knowing what was coming next.

“You can check it yourself, you know,” he said. “I'm off for three days.”

“Well, come over,” Jen said. “If I don't get called, we'll go to Barasti, at like, three in the afternoon.”

“It might take me a while to get there.” His voice was full of sleep and wrapped in his bedroom.

“Take your time.”

After Jennifer hung up, she finished packing her suitcase in the most minimal way, and settled in front of the TV with pizza and Rosa. Rosa carried on texting, without looking up.

* * * * * * * *

When Malcolm says he'll come over, he does. And until he does, Jennifer worries that he the might change his mind. She opened the front door to let him in, using keys on the chain. They squeezed each other around the shoulders, and then Malcolm took a four inch axle out of his pocket.

“You're the best,” Jen said, taking the doorknob piece.

“It's okay, I'll do it.” Malcolm took back the axle and, using a multi-tool from his pocket, went to work mending Jennifer's doorknob, which had recently broken off in her hand.

“I have this feeling,” said Jen, “that I won't get pulled out. Three hours to go...”

“You really want to go to Barasti?” Malcolm asked, testing the secureness of the doorknob, and appearing satisfied. “We could also go someplace with a couple of Egyptians doing music, and play some backgammon. Sit outside.”

“That sounds rather nice as well.” Jen turned the doorknob herself.

The phone rang. Jennifer and Malcolm pursed their lips and glared mistrustingly at the phone.

It rang again. Again. Jennifer took two long strides toward the fancy phone on the low glass table, and picked up the receiver. She waited a few seconds before saying, in the “some kind of flu” voice, “Hello?”

“Jennifer!”

“Yes...” She nodded at Malcolm, as if to say, yes, it's crew scheduling. Malcolm pouted and went to the kitchen for some pizza.

“Staff number 226052!”

“Yes...”

“This is Chris from crew scheduling.”

“Yes...”

“Jennifer, how are you today?”

“Fine, thank you. And you?”

“Jennifer, I'm going to need you for a Moscow flight. Departure time is ten-fifty; you can take the pick-up at eight-thirty.”

“Oh-kay.”

“Thank-you-have-a-safe-flight.” Chris from crew scheduling ended the call.

Jennifer followed Malcolm into the kitchen. “Moscow,” she said. “And I have a couple of hours to get ready.”

“Time to brush up on your Russian,” Malcolm teased her.

“I know, right,” Jennifer rolled her eyes. “This flight is supposed to be hard enough – there's no way I'm letting on that I'm a Russian speaker.”

“I meant for the layover! Priorities, woman!” Malcolm's ordinarily loud voice boomed when he got a little excited.

“Oh, right. Hey, what do you want to drink? Pepsi?”

“Pizza and Pepsi for breakfast... hm, okay.” Jen poured their drinks and they gathered their pizza, then headed into the front room.

Rosa looked up at them. “Thanks for fixing the doorknob, Malcolm. Hey, Jen, you're going to Moscow?”

“Yeah. Pulled out. Can you imagine? I was bidding for it for a year and never got one.”

Rosa leaned forward and put the mobile she was holding on the coffee table – and picked up another mobile from the coffee table. “You should go to this club,” she said, scrolling through the contacts in her PDA phone. “It's huge... oh, here it is. Do you want to write it down, or should I beam it to you?”

“Beam it,” Malcolm said, passing Jen's phone over to Rosa.

“The layover is 24 hours,” Jen said aloud, mostly to herself. “I don't know whether I'll have time.”

* * * * * * * *

Jen was actually very, very excited. She tried to conceal her true feelings by appearing bored and put out during the pre-flight briefing, but big smiles kept spreading across her face. Russia!

Jennifer's family was from Ukraine, not Russia, but Jen had never even gotten as close as Russia. Her parents had migrated to America and never looked back, so Jen didn't grow up with the food, the clothes, the music, or even with a Ukrainian name. Her parent's still spoke Ukranian to each other, which gave Jen a foundation on which she developed her Russian language skills in college. She imagined shopping in Moscow, and haggling in Russian, and she smiled.

“Jennifer, is that fine with you?”

“Oh!” Jen looked around the briefing room. “Sorry, I was dreaming.”

“Honesty,” said the purser, sitting at the head of the table. “I like it. Jennifer, you have the 'A' position, if that is fine with you.”

“It's fine with me,” Jen said, and a few people laughed. The 'A' position had virtually no responsibilities outside of service. No Duty Free, no galley, no door or security area.

When the briefing had concluded and sixteen crew were gathering their bags and heading for the bus, the purser said to Jen, “There aren't many Americans in the company.”

Robot, Jen thought. “No, not really.”

“How many of you are there?”

“I've no idea, really. I'd be curious to find out.” Sometimes she hated having the same conversations over and over. He was about to ask her if she was “American American.”

“So are you 'American American?'” he asked, right on cue.

“My parents are Ukrainian,” Jen supplied the obligatory biography. She hoped the conversation would end there, and it seemed to, for now.

* * * * * * * *

When the crew had been delivered by tiny bus to the wide body aircraft, Jen went to work setting up pre-departure items such as drinks, slippers, and newspapers. She unwrapped a bundle of Russian newspapers, and felt a small thrill at realizing she could understand the news pretty thoroughly.

“Look at this,” she interrupted her colleague to show her a news article. “This 25-year-old girl was found in Moscow, beaten and left for dead. The thieves took all her money and everything, but she had ID on her. But she has total amnesia. She doesn't remember her name, or even how to speak Russian.” Jen paused and read on. “She plays the violin... she's left handed.”

Jen's colleague, Martina, looked over her shoulder at the picture. “That's right near our hotel,” she said, pointing at a fountain in the background. “Be careful. Don't go out by yourself.”

“I know,” Jen said, but she was thinking, yeah, sure. I'll stay inside – that's likely.

* * * * * * * *

Jen had tried to get somebody from the crew – hell, anybody! - to come out with her in Moscow. Apparently, she was the only crew member who hadn't been to Russia before. The irony... Jennifer had dreamed of Russia since she was a little girl.

So here she was, in the hotel, trying to waste as little time as possible getting ready to go out. Heavy sprays of perfume replaced a shower. She brushed her hair a couple hundred times to get the gel and hairspray out. She scrubbed off her makeup and replaced it with two moisturizers, blended in the palm of her hand.

In her best fake Diesel jeans, two tops layered just so, and a sparkly grey hooded sweatshirt on top, she was ready to brave Moscow. Plain enough to be stealth, but cute – Jen knew she looked cute.

She stepped out of the elevator – arms crossed, hugging herself – and walked toward the concierge. In Russian, she asked,

“May I hire a driver to take me out and bring me back?”

The price the concierge quoted was negligible.

“That's reasonable,” Jen said. It was nothing! “If I ask him to take me to Silver Studio, will he know it? Or should I get a map from you to give him?”

“He knows it,” said the concierge in English. A few minutes later, Jen was buckling her seatbelt in the leather back seat of a big Mercedes. For the next forty minutes, she gazed at the scenery as it flicked by. It was just so Russian! She was in Russia! In Moscow! Everything looked just like it did in pictures, but more extensively so. She was living in a postcard. It was like a fantasy.

The driver didn't stop in front of Silver Studio, but rather pulled around into a sort of VIP drop off place. Jen was relieved not to walk in the front door. Before she climbed out of the car, she asked the driver, “Will you be here when I come out?”

“I'll be here,” he said. “What do you think, I would desert you here?”

Jen laughed. “I just don't want to get stranded,” she said. “You know what I do for a living. You know how little money I have! If you strand me here, I'm in trouble.”

“I'll be here,” he said again. Jen felt encouraged by his nonchalantness. She smiled at him and jumped out of the car. An employee of the club helped her out of the car and walked her to the entrance.

Jen started to wonder if she had brought enough money with her. She decided not to worry about it, and to employ her usual strategy when clubbing alone – to pretend like she was meeting someone.

Before she even walked through the doors to the club, she started glancing back and forth as if seeking friends. When she hit the main floor of the front room, she opted not to buy a drink, but instead to look around for some phantom companion, and then breeze through to the next room.

As she did so, she looked at every single face of every single club goer. They seemed older than the usual Dubai clubbers. The blue and black lights kept everybody in a shadow, but she could see they were standing, sitting, and even talking. A bit of dancing, but nothing like the meat market she was used to.

“Who are you looking for?”

Jen turned to see a tall, thin girl with long, streaky hair in a dress that glowed in the black light – either red or pink or orange, it was hard to say.

“Hi,” Jen said with a little wave. “Um, just, I thought I would see some of my colleagues here, but maybe they're coming later.” Jen noticed that the girl's drink was glowing, too – a bright, white purple color. “I like your shoes. They're so... high.” Jen couldn't get over how short the girl's skirt was.

“What do you do?” the girl asked. Her Russian accent was barely noticeable.

“Um, I'll tell you later,” said Jen. “Um, how about you?”

“I teach English,” the girl said, laughing like she was a little embarrassed. “I'm not actually from here. I'm from Ukraine.”

“Oh!” said Jen. “My parents are from Ukraine!” She was glad to have found someone to talk to, and hoped she wasn't already boring her new companion. “I've never been there.”

“What are you doing in Moscow?” the girl asked her.

“What are you drinking?” Jen changed the subject again.

“Gin and tonic,” the girl said. “Why don't you want to tell me what you do?”

Jen relaxed a little, laughing. “I'm a flight attendant,” she said. “So. Sometimes I feel like I'm making myself a target by saying it. And sometimes I feel like I'm giving up my identity in exchange for a label, the label being my job, and people won't see me just for myself. And sometimes I'm too proud of my job, so I don't want to sound like I'm bragging.”

“Well, you're right to be proud. Airline cabin attendant; it's my dream. I think it's the best job in the world. You get to travel all over the world, and meet interesting people.”

“Well, that's another thing,” Jen said. “Sometimes I'm actually embarrassed of my job. Like I'm old enough to have a real job, instead of pouring drinks and listening to people complain about legroom.”

“These days it's hard to get a job doing anything,” the girl said. “Never be ashamed of your work.”

“Thanks,” Jen smiled. She extended her hand. “I'm Jen.”

“Nadia,” the girl grinned, squeezing her hand.

“I feel so silly now,” Jennifer admitted. “Telling you all that.”

“Don't feel silly,” said Nadia. “If it helps, I'll tell you something personal about myself.”

“Okay?” Jennifer shrugged.

“There isn't any gin in my gin and tonic,” Nadia said confidentially into Jen's ear. “Shh!”

Jennifer stepped back and laughed, a little too amused by the earnestness of Nadia's confession. “Are you allergic to alcohol?”

“Uh-uh.” Nadia shook her head.

“Pregnant? Religious?”

“No, and no,” Nadia said. “I just don't like to let my guard down. This place is okay – aren't you going to drink something? - but you can't be too careful.”

“Oh, I know,” Jen said. “I read about that girl who was beaten – the one with amnesia.”

“Right,” Nadia nodded. “That's a scary story. She's a woman, not a girl. Not some naïve kid. I think she's 34. She's still too disoriented to be released from the hospital. The authorities went to her house to get some of her belongings, to bring her, but there was hardly anything there. Like her house was robbed, too. Maybe she was even kidnapped from her home.”

Jen shivered. She suddenly had a clear vision – a daydream, almost a hallucination – of how the girl must feel. “You know a lot about her,” she remarked.

“She's been in the news almost every day,” Nadia said. “Oh, do you want champagne?” A man with a pencil thin mustache in a glowing white dinner jacket was offering them champagne cocktails from a round tray. “They're actually cheaper here than they are at the bar.”

“Um, sure,” Jennifer smiled politely at the man in the jacket. She lifted one flute from the tray. “Can I open a tab?” she asked the man in Russian. She smiled at Nadia, seeing the impressed look on her new friend's face.

“You should pay him now,” Nadia filled her in. But when Jen took her credit card from her little bag, Nadia wrapped her hand around Jen's hand and the card.

“Actually, I want to buy this one,” Nadia smiled. She gave the man a few rubels, and when he was gone, she said to Jen, “You have cash, right?”

“I do,” Jen said, trying to be nonchalant in spite of her strange feeling about the whole transaction.

“Never give you card to one of these,” she nodded toward the dinner jacket man, who was offering champagne cocktails to an elegantly dressed older couple. “Or to anybody who will take your card out of your sight. They copy your information, you know. Right off the card. They can make a counterfeit card and take so much money from you.”

“Whoa, I hadn't thought of that. Thanks,” Jen said appreciatively.

“Don't mention it,” said Nadia.

“Is that a big problem here? Card fraud?”

“It's Russia,” Nadia said plainly. “Everything fraud is a problem here.”

“Oh,” Jen said meekly. “Well. That sucks!” They both laughed. “Um, did you want a champagne cocktail?” Jen asked Nadia. “I just stood here and let you buy me one. It was not my intention! I'll go guy you one if you like.”

“I think I would like one,” said Nadia, “but I'll walk with you.” Jen wasn't sure whether she felt more safe or less safe since meeting Nadia. But she did know there was a good chance they could be friends. They caught up with the dinner jacket guy, and Jennifer paid for another drink – cash.

* * * CHAPTER TWO * * *

Jen didn't even bother asking Rosa, her flatmate, why the air conditioner was broken and no one had been called in to fix it. The oppressive heat made Jen feel short of breath. If only people knew how hot it really got here, she thought, nobody would ever come here. Not this time of year. She thought about the laborers whose camps were much hotter than Jen's apartment ever would be, but she couldn't distract herself from the sweat that dripped down her back and tickled her ass. She stripped off her uniform, stuffed it into a plastic sack to give it to the laundry, and changed into the skimpiest clothes she could find.

Once she had scrubbed her face and brushed the gel and stuff out of her hair, she made herself an icy cold cocktail and carried it into the living room, where she plugged her mp3 player into docking speakers, and pushed “play” on the intermediate level Pimsleur Russian that Malcolm had bought her. She settled into the love seat with her drink.

“новый с вами?” the voice from the speakers asked.

“новый с мной? Наилучшим образом, росли ve, котор усику,” Jen replied, and then her mobile rang.

“новый с вами?” said Jen.

“I need a haircut.” It was Malcolm. “Are you at home?”

“Sure,” Jen said coolly. “Come on over.”

She heard a key in the door. Malcolm let himself in. Jen laughed grandly. “This is why I like you so much,” she said to Malcolm.

Malcolm was wearing a black polo shirt tucked into pleated black trousers. Jen always thought he looked great in black – most Indians did, in her opinion.

“Aren't you melting in that?” she asked. “It's too hot for black.”

Malcolm, who hadn't said anything yet, just stared at her. Jen giggled, a little self-consciously, wondering why he was gaping at her like that, and finally remembered that she was wearing only a sports bra and soccer shorts.

“Is that... is that a shirt, or a bra, or...?”

“Or...” Jen teased him. “It's a sports bra. What? You've seen me in a bikini. What's the difference?” Malcolm blinked a couple of times. “It's your fault!” said Jen. “You just let yourself right in!”

Malcolm shook his head, snapping out of it. “I do not need to be looking at you in this way,” he said, to her and to himself. “And yes, it is too bloody hot. I'm on my way to a business networking group. Why does a mechanic need to network? I'll tell you why. Because nobody else from our department was willing to go, so we went by staff number. Mine is still the highest. Bloody hell, it's hot.”

He took Jen's cocktail from her hands. “That's -” Jen started to say, but Malcolm realized pretty quickly.

“The hell?” he sputtered. “Is that Tang with vodka in it?” Jen laughed and laughed, pointing at him.

“Why would you drink vodka with Tang? You're cabin crew. You can afford mixers. Heard of those? Tang is not a mixer!” Jen followed him into her kitchen, where he helped himself to a glass and some cold water from the upright water cooler. He slurped it down in one go, then spun around and pointed his finger in Jen's face.

“Cut my hair,” he said.

“Okay!” And Jen pranced down the hall to get her scissors and cape, left over from her salon days.

“Sorry about the heat,” she said when she came back in. “Hey, can you fix the AC?”

“I can,” said Malcolm, “but I won't.”

“Fair enough,” said Jen, but then wondered, “Why?”

“Because it's not broken, it's clogged. And it's gross.” Malcolm dragged a dining chair into the middle of the front room while Jen rolled up the carpet and stashed it behind a sofa. “Call maintenance.”

“Do you want something cold to drink before I start?” she asked him.

“No, let's just get this over with.” They both got into position and Jen went to work trimming Malcolm's already short hair. “Did you hear they're making a new Spiderman movie?” Malcolm asked, making small talk.

“Another one? I didn't hear that. Oh, did I tell you that Nadia is arachnophobic, too?”

“I don't remember,” Malcolm rolled his eyes. “Let me refer to the one-hundred-and-eight text messages and tweets I got from you about Nadia while you were in Moscow.”

“You should see her,” Jen said. “She looks just like me. We could be sisters. She's kind of better dressed than I am – don't say it, nobody ever taught me how to dress myself, okay? - but if you stripped us, we'd look like twins.”

“I think I love her.”

“And get this – she says she always wanted to open a travel agency. Just like me! She has a business plan and everything. She wants to do it in the U.S., but she's been denied entry in to the states twice. So it would probably be pretty hard for her to do it there.”

“Why on earth was she denied twice?” wondered Malcolm.

“Oh, dumb stuff. The second time, it was because she answered 'yes' to the question, 'Have you ever been denied entry?' The first time, she didn't have a machine readable passport. Or, she had one, but she was with her aunt, who didn't have one.”

“You mean the new passports with RFID in them? Or the other ones, the ones with the alpha numeric characters?”

“Don't know,” Jen shrugged.

“RFID in passports is evil,” said Malcolm. “Somebody made an RFID reader that you can use to scan RFID chips from ten meters away. And not only is your information in jeopardy, but do you know what an RFID chip actually is? It's basically a computer with an operating system. Do you think there aren't people who could hack it? Hell, I'm sure I could reverse engineer one myself. That reminds me, we should go to Wild Wadi.”

“We definitely should!” Jen switched from scissors to clippers and finished up Malcolm's hair. “What made you think of that?”

“You know those bracelets they give you that hold your balance, to buy food and rent lockers and stuff with?” Jen nodded. “Those use RFID chips,” Malcolm continued. “I want to practice on it. And, of course, find out what kind of information it stores. Does it store credit card numbers? And by extension, information like your nationality? Does that information get erased, or stored on the chip? So we should go. Ride the Flow Rider about fifty times, maybe the Jumeirah Scarah too -- ”

“Which doesn't scare me,” Jen said.

“ -- sure it doesn't, and when we leave, we put the bracelets in our bag and claim we already turned them in. Deal?”

“Don't implicate me in your criminal activities,” Jen laughed. “You're off... Tuesday and Wednesday this week? Let's go Tuesday.” She whisked a big soft brush around his hairline. “Okay, you're done.”

“Do you want to come to this meeting with me?”

“I've been drinking vodka?” Jen reminded him.

“It's air conditioned.”

Jen was almost swayed. “Nah,” she said. “I haven't slept in, like, three days. I think I'd rather study Russian. And drink Russian vodka.”

Malcolm gathered his things. “I'll be back in a couple of hours.”

A couple of minutes after he left, Jen's phone rang. It was Malcolm.

“One more thing,” he said when she answered. “I was thinking about this the other day. You should keep your key cards from hotels, especially when you aren't on layovers. They can store your credit card information on the magnetic strip. So if you're on a holiday, especially, you shouldn't give the key back when you check out.”

“Thanks?”

“Don't mention it,” Malcolm said, and ended the call.

* * * CHAPTER THREE * * *

It probably sounded silly, but Jen would almost have rather stayed in Dubai than gone to Beijing. Malcolm would be working, but seeing a friend when he finished work was better than being on the other side of the world, where she didn't have any friends. Was she getting tired of flying? Or just getting tired of the loneliness? Nadia was the same age she was, but Nadia was divorced already. Jen couldn't even remember how long it had been since her last boyfriend.

And was Nate even a boyfriend? She had met his parents, but he hadn't met hers. They hadn't slept over at each other's apartments more than twenty times. Jen tried to remember some event – something rare, something that sparkled – that said they had been an item, that she had a life once. He had picked her up a couple of times during his lunch break, so they could eat lousy food court fare together. They'd been planning a little road trip to go rock climbing in Hatta once, but it was around that time things fell apart, and it never happened. Gosh, Jen thought. That was ages ago.

Jen was standing around in the galley, picking olives and cheese off a tray of unwanted canapes. It was absolutely eons until the top of descent into Beijing. The olives were a bit too firm, but very garlicky, which was good. The cheese wanted to be feta or something. It was a little dry, but it was something to do.

“Where do you live in Dubai?” asked Marilyn, one of the other first class crew. “What building?”

What building, Jen thought.

“I'm living in Garhoud,” said Jen, robotically. “What about you?”

“Twenty-first,” Marilyn sighed. “Twenty Worst. What do you do in Dubai?”

Jen liked Marilyn well enough, but couldn't think of anything else to talk about, so she was stuck with this repetitive conversation. “Drink,” Jen joked. “Drink, and then after that, I usually sleep.”

“Do you go out in Dubai?”

“No,” Jen said dryly. “I drink at home. Alone, in the dark. And I cry.”

She mustn't have been very funny, because Marilyn hardly reacted. “So do I,” she said. “I just drink at home. Sometimes my boyfriend comes over, and we both drink. We finish two bottles of whiskey. Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Nope.”

“You're free,” Marilyn nodded.

“Yup.” Jen unlatched the stowages where the food carts where held, and started rummaging through each of the carts for something palatable. She found a tiny salad in the crew meals, and dressed it up with garnishes from the caviar – she didn't like caviar, but she liked the onions and sour cream that came with it – and some mint yogurt raita that was supposed to go with the prawn masala.

“There aren't many Americans in the company,” said Marilyn.

“No, there really aren't,” said Jen around a mouthful of salad.

“There are a lot of American pilots,” Marilyn continued, as if from a script. “But not many American cabin crew.”

“No, not really. Mm, this salad has pomegranate seeds in it. There's another one in there, if you want it.”

“No, thanks. How many Americans do we have, now?”

“I'm not sure,” said Jen. “I'd be curious to know. Um. Do you mind if I go into the cockpit for a few minutes?”

“Better you than me,” said Marilyn.

“Okay, then. Call me if you need me.” Jen cradled her salad, grabbed a small bottle of water, and pushed the code on the cockpit door.

* * * * * * * *

The two pilots reminded Jen of some kind of photo op or advertisement, the way they both turned to her and grinned. She guessed they were glad to get some company. She settled into the center jump seat with her salad, getting comfortable.

“So!” the captain greeted her, picking up his crew list and looking for her name. “Where are you from, uh...”

“I'm from New Jersey,” Jen said, giving him a chance to use that information to figure out her name.

“Yes,” the captain said. “You are from New Jersey, Jennifer. What's a girl from New Jersey doing over here?”

“Here?” Jen pointed to the jump seat where she sat. “Oh, I just came to be social.”

The captain – Jen thought his name was Dave or Steve or something like that – chuckled. The funny thing about pilots was that she could joke around with them. They were invariably older than she was, although the first officers were sometimes not more than one or two years older, but she could connect with them more easily than she could connect with other crew.

“What are you doing in Beijing?” asked the captain, whose name (Jen could see, from the crew list lying on the console) was actually Allen.

“I am actually going to a toy store,” said Jen. “In the deceptively named Silk Market.”

“You aren't going to the Great Wall?” Allen asked.

“Nah,” Jen yawned. “Been there, done that. Anyway, I didn't bring a camera. What are you doing in Beijing?”

Allen laughed again. “I'm going to the Silk Market, as well.”

“What are you going to buy?” Jen said this in a sing-songy voice, as the muscles in her mouth were altogether too used to asking that question.

“Golf clubs, mainly,” said Allen, “and maybe some tools.”

“Tools,” Jen repeated.

* * * * * * * *

As Jen and Allan devoured Subway sandwiches in front of the so-called Silk Market, Jen reflected on the recent news items regarding China's food supply. She thought about the “not suitable for drinking” sign by the sink in her hotel room, and wondered how safe the raw vegetables in her sandwich were.

They made an action plan. “First we buy your toys, then we buy my golf clubs,” said the captain, “and then we get the hell out of here.” Jen concurred.

“Do you enjoy shopping here?” Jen asked as they took the escalator to the third floor.

“I hate it,” Allan shrugged.

“Me, too. Last time I was here, I bought four Rubik's cubes. Actually, they weren't really made by the Rubik's company, so I guess they were just cubes.” As she spoke, Jen rubbernecked at the wares and the shoppers. “I didn't even ask how much – I just started bargaining at 25 yuan. Three dollars. They came back with 800 yuan. A hundred dollars. 'This is very good quality,' 'this is handmade.' Three dollars is a lot of money for that thing, but it's fair for me. In the end, that's what I ended up paying for it, but after so much grief. Now I want to buy more, exactly like them, and I'm going to have to go through the whole exercise again.”

They found Jen's toy store, the “Mental Faculties Store,” and Allan oohed and ahhed over the aforementioned non-Rubik's cubes. “I was wondering why you didn't buy Rubik's cubes in Dubai,” Allan admitted, admiring the various styles and colors of cubes. Glitter cubes, transparent cubes, cubes with pictures of fruit or dinosaurs or Disney characters or Doraemon, the Japanese cartoon cat robot.

Jen showed him a cube that had goofy faces on each of its six sides. “I bought this one last time, for my friend Malcolm.”

“That's actually quite cool,” said Allan. “I think I might have to buy a couple of these for my daughters.”

“These are good ones for them to start with,” Jen explained. “They're very comfortable to twist. They'll wear out eventually, but that's inevitable. It'll take them a while to wear them out. Some of these -” she indicated the large Doraemon cube “- look good but are just awful to twist. Sticky, with sharp corners, and they break easily. Get them one of those, and they'll hate cubes for life.”

“Most grateful,” grinned Allan.

A college age kid in a red Silk Market shirt approached them. Jen greeted him and then said, “Five of these, one hundred twenty five yuen. For him, two for fifty.”

“No, I can't, this one two-hundred.” He held a calculator in his hands, to display the numbers and remove any doubt caused by language barriers. He looked as if saying the words caused him physical pain.

“Last time, they cost twenty-five each,” Jen told him, as politely as she could.

“Why! These are very good quality!” he argued.

“They're okay,” Jen gave him, “good, but not very good. So-so. I told you, bought these before. The pieces become loose after a short while. And the stickers fall off.”

“I have to ask my manager,” the kid said sadly.

“Twenty-five each,” Jen told him as he walked away.

A few minutes later, the kid returned and smiled, “Manager says okay. Twenty five okay.” Jen and Captain Allan paid cash.

“You know a lot about Rubik's cubes,” Allan remarked as the walked away.

“If your daughters enjoy playing with those, come back and talk to me,” Jen said (knowing she'd never see Allan again, but in the moment, one always imagines that paths may cross again). “I'll teach them about speed cubing, and different kinds of lubricants they can use. Oh! I almost forgot!” She doubled back toward the aisle of toy stores, and Allan followed.

“Are these the only yo-yos you have?” Jen asked a few of the stores, but could find nothing suitable for Malcolm's taste in exquisite yo-yos. She did manage to find a pack of 100 yo-yo strings, on which she managed to settle a price quickly.

“They're not for me,” she said, in response to Allan's eyebrow cocked look.

“For Malcolm?” Allan said, and then, “How did I guess?”

“We're such children,” said Jen. “That's probably why we get along so well.”

“There's more to it than that,” said Allan, in a knowing voice.

“Pff. No, there's not.”

“It's obvious,” Allan said, and Jen started to get a tiny bit irritated, they way she always did when she heard somebody pretending to know all about something when he actually did not.

“Wrong, know-it-all. Okay, where are your golf clubs?”

Jen couldn't think of anything less fun than examining golf clubs – except for maybe haggling over the price – so while Allan inspected every single iron and driver and bag, she pored over the staggering selection of LED pens and projectors, buying twenty or so of the tiny gadgets. The store clerks, attired in red polo shirts, flirted with Allan, and their banter made Jen feel queasy.

Eventually she heard the sad and familiar song of bargaining. “Why you so foolish?” one clerk was asking him. “What wrong with you? If I give you this price, my manager angry. Are you crazy?”

Jen heard they pair finally agree on a price – the captain's original offer, Jen was sure – and watched him hand over his credit card. Jen remembered Nadia's warning, as the young Silk Market employee scurried away and out of sight with his credit card.

“I don't even know what I'm going to do with the second set of clubs!” giggled Allan. “One set is for my wife, but I don't know what I'll do with the other!”

Jen craned her neck to see which way the girl was walking with the captain's credit card. Before long, she realized she wouldn't be able to track the girl from where she was standing. She quickly memorized a detail to help identify her later – a square of red cloth pinned to the girl's sleeve.

“I'm... going to be right back,” she said to Allan, without taking her eyes off the girl's back, which became just the back of her head, and then the top of her head only. Jen strode after her, past booths selling jeans, ski parkas, Hawaiian shirts, and folding fans. The girl turned sharply to the right, as did Jen after her, and then used to employee name tag to push her way through a plain white door.

Jen ran after her but failed to catch the door before it closed. Locked. She could see two red shirted employees walking toward her from either side, undoubtedly to try to make a hard sell. Jen jumped into a circular rack of pajamas and crouched down, until she was sure she was invisible.

It wasn't a moment before another store girl quickly made her way toward the door in front of Jen. The girl pressed her name tag to the panel next to the door, and entered without looking behind her. This time, Jen was quick enough to follow her in before the door locked.

The room was halogen bright; Jen counted eight computer cash registers. Jen quickly realized that each and every one of the red shirt clad girls had a square piece of fabric pinned to her sleeve. But it didn't take her long to recognize the girl from the golf club booth. She was holding Allen's card in one hand, and the end of a credit card slip that was being printed. Without looking up, she passed the credit card to another girl and said something in Mandarin. Jen thought she heard the word “emirate.”

“You no permitted inside here!” A tall Chinese girl with a frizzy bob haircut was pointing at Jen and scolding her loudly enough to alert everyone in the room. The room went suddenly, disorientingly dark – someone had cut the lights. In the next few moments, the computer screens were switched off. Jen took an LED flashlight from her shopping bag and pointed the beam around the room.

“Turn the lights on,” she said loudly, trying to sound courageous. She was afraid her voice betrayed her anxiety. She heard whispers – unintelligible, female – from around the room.

Someone opened the door from the inside. Light entered, and Jen once again had a feeling of being in a place, rather than no place. She saw the golf club girl's silhouette in the doorway. She looked from the girl, to the rest of the dim room, and back to the girl again. Now that she was here, she wasn't sure what to do. I'm in China, she said to herself. I'm in China. Don't get into trouble. It's China.

“Come,” said the golf club vendor. Jen dropped the flashlight back into her bag and followed mutely. The door slammed loudly behind her as she walked behind the girl, through the busy mall they called the Silk Market. The girl walked fast, and Jen hurried to keep up. Suddenly the girl stopped and spun around, and Jen nearly bumped into her.

“I work every day,” the girl said to Jen. “I come to work in the morning, I go home at midnight. When I get home, I cry. I should be in school. My family is not from this country. We came here because we had to, and we have a better life because of it.”

“What were you -” Jen began.

“I work hard,” the girl went on. “Seven days. What are you looking for? Why did you go in there? It's not your business. My boss is angry at me every day. Yelling. People like you always want discount. You make business very bad. We don't like you. Don't come back to here.”

“I won't,” Jen scoffed. “Shit.”

They were back at the store where Allan waited, sitting on a huge stack of carpets. The girl shoved the credit card, the slip, and a pen at him, and he signed, which made Jen's mind boggle.

As they left the Silk Market, Jen said, “Don't you think it's strange that they take your card away from you? I mean, on board, we have hand held computers. I'm sure those things are made in Guangxiou. Why don't the shops just use those?” Allan shrugged. “I mean, don't you feel weird about it? Do you think you should check with your bank about your card activity when you get back to Dubai?”

“I use my credit card here all the time. Nothing ever happened. If it did, I'd have my bank stop it.”

Jen said nothing. She felt stupid and ashamed, and guilty. But she kept her mouth shut. She wasn't sure exactly what she'd seen, and anyway, she never did like telling pilots what (and what not) to do.