Money Trees

21 ✮ and in the End

Angela Li was a star in her youth. She was a dancer. A ballerina with a lot of potential, under the tutelage of an ex-prima. She was a latecomer onto the ballet scene but, despite all doubts, she wowed everyone. By twenty-two she had New York City in a chokehold. It also helped that she had a tendency to date very famous men: from football players to music producers to Wall Street CEOs.

She made ballet mainstream. Everyone loved her. She was a star. She was going to be huge.

Mai had heard the story many times throughout her childhood. The story of how she lost it all. Her mother would tell her it to justify every bad thing she ever did. Each time she told it the story became more and more dramatic. There was no denying that what happened to her was tragic. But she never moved on. She refused.

It was the opening night of some ballet. Big names were in the audience. It was a make-or-break performance and everyone was confident she would crush it. During her final pas de deux, her male counterpart was meant to catch her, just as he did during every one of their practices. They had done it a million times. She had perfected her grand jeté.

She launched and soared through the air. The audience held their breath. She was meant to land into the waiting arms of her partner. No one knew what went wrong. She claimed her partner sabotaged her. Others said he had a muscle spasm or that she launched at a wrong angle or that some dead spirits knocked her off her course. Whatever happened made her crash to the ground and break her right leg. And with that the curtain fell on her blossoming career.

She had a few surgeries. Got some strong painkillers that she never really stopped taking. Became cynical and hateful and cruel. Everyone she was close with ended up leaving her. Her own parents were ashamed of her.

Then she met Steven Cheng at some bar. And, no matter how much it hurt Mai as a child, Angela never stopped reminding her that she was an accident. The result of a drunken one night stand. She never wanted her. She got pregnant and Steven married her because he felt it was the right thing to do.

Mai was unwanted. And, according to her mother, her mere existence was the trigger of all her vices.

Mai's hand shook as she raised it to knock on the door. The address her mother had given her had led her to an old, red-brick apartment block. Metal bars and shrubs that screamed bourgeois lined the window.

  Mai looked around curiously before keying in her mother's apartment number in the faded buzzer system. A minute passed and she was yet to be buzzed in. Eventually, a teen dressed in a sweatsuit and generic Jordans entered the building, allowing Mai to slip in behind him.

  She rapped on her mother's door before tucking her shaking hands into her pocket. Again, no answer. Mai was growing more and more nervous. What if something had happened? What if she was too late? What if-

The door cracked open. The woman behind it was unrecognisable.

  Mai's gaze fell cautiously and reluctantly on her mother's frail figure. Angel Li's eyes darted to her as she did the same thing, carefully examining her daughter with an unimpressed frown.

  Her eyes were sunken into her skeletal face. Her face was leathery and etched with ridges that she was too young to have. Bitterness soured her face. Mai was reminded of the callousness that had tore her away from her mother all those years ago. And, even then, there still lingered a sense of unrepentant pride.

  "You're here."

  "I am."

  She grunted in response and went back in, leaving the door open presumably for Mai.

  Mai was hit with an overwhelming stench of cigarettes as soon as she walked in. Small circular burns littered the upholstery and the carpet and the walls were stained a dirty yellow. And as Angela Li sat down on a worn-out leather recliner, she lit another one. Her lips pursed as she took a long drag, all while keeping her sharp eyes on Mai.