from blue-chip companies — those problems have been small and infrequent.”
“Until now.”
“Yes.”
“What was the blue-chip company, or is this an exception?”
“Major Supermarkets.”
Ava was caught off guard. “That’s the largest food retailer in North America.”
“Yes.”
“So what went wrong?”
Alice started to reply and then caught herself. “I think it’s better if you read the contents of the envelope. If you need more information or any clarification, you should call my brother directly. His cellphone number and private home number are in the envelope. He doesn’t want you to email him or call him at the office. He also said you could call him anytime, night or day. He hasn’t been sleeping much.”
“All right, I’ll read the documents.”
“This is very difficult for him,” she said slowly. “He prides himself on being cautious and always acting with integrity. He’s having trouble accepting that this is actually happening to him.”
“Stuff happens,” Ava said.
Alice fingered the crucifix around her neck, her eyes taking in the simpler one that Ava wore. “You’re Catholic?” Ava asked.
“Yes.”
“Me too.”
“You live here in Toronto?”
“Yes, I’m the only one. The rest of the family is in Hong Kong.”
“What do you do?”
“We’re in the clothing business, my husband and I. He is Chinese too — mainland — and we have factories there and in Malaysia and Indonesia.”
“Tough business. My father was in it for a while,” Ava said.
“We’ve been lucky. My husband decided years ago that the only way to survive was to move into private-label lines. So that’s all we do now.”
“Are you involved in the day-to-day activities?”
The woman looked across the table, her eyes suddenly curious. Ava wondered if her question had hit a sore spot. “I don’t mean to pry,” she said quickly.
“ Momentai,” Alice said. “I have two sons now, so I spend most of my time raising them and looking after our home. My husband keeps me up to date on most things, and I still have to suck up to the wives of the buyers, but no, I’m not that involved.”
Ava reached for the dim sum list but Alice beat her to it. “I’ll pay,” she said.
“Thanks.”
Ava’s Adidas jacket was draped over the back of her chair. As she turned to get it, she saw Alice’s eyes lock onto her again. “Have I said or done something wrong?” she asked.
“No, not at all. It’s just that you look familiar to me. Where did you go to school?”
“York University here, and then Babson College, near Boston.”
“No, before that. I mean high school.”
“I went to Havergal College.”
“I did too,” Alice said.
“I don’t remember you.”
“Do you have an older sister named Marian?”
“Yes.”
“I was in the same class as her. We were part of the first big wave of Chinese students and we hung around together. You would have been, what, two or three years behind us?”
“Two.”
“I remember seeing you with Marian.”
Ava searched her memory and came up dry, but then Marian had hung out with a gaggle of Chinese girls that reached double figures. “She’s married now and has two daughters and a husband who is a rising star in the Canadian public service.”
“Is he Chinese?”
“No, Canadian.”
“That’s Havergal girls for you: they know how to marry well,” Alice said, and then glanced at Ava’s ring hand. “You aren’t married?”
“No,” Ava said.
“A working girl.”
Alice held up the dim sum list for a server to collect and take to the cashier. When it was gone, she folded her hands neatly in front of her, Havergal-style, and again looked intently at Ava. “How did you get into this kind of work? I mean, it is a bit unusual. My brother told me what it is your company does, and when I was told I was meeting a woman, my imagination certainly didn’t envision you. In fact, I assumed the woman would be more of a go-between than an active participant in the business. You are active, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“I thought so… I wasn’t being condescending. My husband has had to employ companies like yours in the past, so I know something about how they operate and the kind of people who work in them. That’s why I didn’t expect to meet someone quite so young.”
“And on top of that, I’m a woman,” Ava said with a little smile.
“Yes, that too.”
“So how did you get into this?”
The question caught Ava off guard. She was more used to asking questions than being asked, and she hesitated. “It’s boring,” she said.
“Please,” Alice insisted.
Ava poured tea for them both, Alice tapping her finger on the table in thanks. “It really is boring.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.”
Ava shrugged. “When I got out of school, I went to work for one of the big accounting firms in Toronto, and I quickly found out it wasn’t for me. I was a crummy employee, really. I found it difficult being part of a big bureaucracy, doing what you’re told without being able to question the effectiveness or efficiency of it. Looking back, I was probably quite arrogant, a bit of a know-it-all, always ready to argue with my bosses. I lasted six months before packing it in. I think they were as glad to see me go as I was to leave.
“I decided to open my own little firm, so I took an office up here — two buildings over, actually — and began doing basic accounting for friends of my mother and some small businesses and the like. One of them, a clothing importer, believe it or not, ran into a problem with a supplier in Shenzhen. When he couldn’t collect his money, I asked him to let me try, for a percentage of whatever I could recover.”
“What made you think you could do that?”
“I’ve always been persuasive.”
“And you actually went to Shenzhen to do this?”
“Yes, but when I got there, I found that the supplier had been screwing over more than one customer, and there was a line-up waiting to go after him. Except, of course, he was nowhere to be found. He’d taken off with whatever money he had left. In the course of nosing about, I discovered there was another company trying to do what I was doing. I figured it would be counterproductive to compete against them, so I suggested we join forces. That’s when I met Uncle.”
“Yes,” Alice said, her eyes averted. “Andrew mentioned Mr. Chow. He has his reputation, of course, and who knows really what’s true or not… So he’s not a blood relative, then?”
The same question her brother had asked. “No, he’s a Chinese uncle in the best sense of the word,” Ava said.
“I see.”
She wants to ask me about him, Ava thought, and then quickly moved on. “I didn’t deal with him directly at
