Homesick for Another World

This story is narrated by a white woman working as a surrogate vice-president for an Asian-American family-owned company called Value Enterprise Association. She is known only by the name of her surrogate character, Stephanie Reilly. Stephanie is hired by a man named Lao Ting, who thinks that the American businessmen he works with are more likely to cooperate with a “beautiful” woman than an old man. Stephanie spends her days riding in a chauffeured car to business meetings, where she repeats the information Lao Ting and his wife Gigi give her. She enjoys spending time with the family in their offices and appreciates her large salary.

Although Stephanie’s job relies on other people’s attraction to her, she struggles to accept her body. She is especially self-conscious about her labia, which are swollen because of a pituitary problem. Stephanie attributes this problem to demons, who speak to her constantly and who she believes are poisoning her. When Stephanie goes clubbing, she wears a long trench coat and sunglasses; she also tapes pennies over her nipples and a photo of Charlie Chaplin over her genitals. If she does take men home, she does not sleep with them. Instead, she has them sit on her couch while she strips. The men do not respond positively to her swollen genitals.

Stephanie sometimes works with another surrogate named Robbie, who acts as the company’s lawyer. Robbie jogs 12 miles every morning, and has many eccentric habits, like eating volcanic ash. Robbie claims to have been a mule who was beaten by his owner in a previous life, and he describes his suffering to Stephanie in explicit detail. Stephanie eventually tells Robbie about her pituitary problem and swollen genitals, and he gives her the number of a magician who he says can turn her negative energy into positive energy.

One day, Lao Ting goes swimming and disappears. Deeply moved by his death, Stephanie spends an evening mourning with his family, at the end of which Gigi serves a tea that causes her to fall into a deep and dreamless sleep. After Lao Ting’s death, the family tries to maintain the business, but it cannot function properly without him, and Gigi is forced to close, leaving Stephanie and Robbie jobless. A few years later, desperate and thinking of suicide, Stephanie calls the number Robbie gave her. She explains to the magician that she can still hear the demons speaking to her, and that she has stopped taking medicine. It is revealed that, in the present, Stephanie lives with the magician, who doesn’t mind her swelling. He is an old man, and she believes that her pain and sadness rejuvenate him and cause him to thrive.