Loveboat, Taipei

by Abigail Hing Wen

  Ten feet beyond the gate, yellow cabs have lined up at a curb. Headlights gleam off chrome bumpers and engines purr in the humidity.

  Stunned, I jerk to a stop. “No freaking way.”

  Sophie whoops. “Taipei knows us better than we know ourselves!”

  “Xiǎo péngyǒu, tíng, tíng. Huí lái!” Distant voices from the left cut through the night. The glow of a flashlight spins closer as two guards in black and Li-Han emerge from the shadows a quarter mile down the street.

  “Shit.” Sophie tugs me toward one of the middle cabs. “Don’t let ’em recognize you!”

  Then a flood of students boils out from the gate behind us like a well-dressed herd of buffalo.

  “Let’s go.” Boy Wonder yanks open the front door and gestures at me. “Go—come on!”

  “Don’t be all chivalrous. You go!” I shove him in by his shoulder, waving Laura and Xavier into the back. “Go, go, hurry!” Kids soar in after Xavier. A girl crams into Boy Wonder’s lap in front. Cabs screech away until only Sophie and I are left on the curb, Li-Han and the guards fast approaching. I can see the blue stripes of Li-Han’s pajamas as I push Sophie into the back of the last cab.

  “Wong Ai-Mei, lái la!” thunders a voice.

  My Chinese name freezes me to the pavement.

  From across the street, the Dragon herself is running at us. On the curb behind her, a light glows inside a black sedan. Her lime-green nightgown billows like scaly wings around her body.

  “Ai-Mei, nǐ yào qù nǎlǐ?”

  “Ever, get in!” Sophie kicks her door wide open.

  I spring forward but the Dragon’s hand clamps onto my bicep. Her grip is like steel, pinching my flesh.

  From the shadows of the cab’s back seat, Sophie’s eyes meet mine, uncertainty bubbling. No sense in all of us getting caught.

  “Just go!” I shout, but the cab doesn’t budge.

  The Dragon’s grip tightens. “Ai-Mei—”

  Suddenly, an explosion like fireworks goes off by her car, shooting white sparks in every direction.

  I take the moment of distraction to tear free and dive after Sophie, scrambling over skirts and pants as I pull myself through. Cologne fills my nostrils and the door slams against my foot and someone yelps.

  “Go!” I shout.

  “Kuài diǎn!” Sophie shouts. Hurry!

  Our cab lurches forward and I slam sideways into a wall of chests. I struggle upright, my knees tangling in a boy’s pants. I brush hair from my sight as Xavier seizes my waist, steadying me on his lap.

  “What happened?” I gasp, pretending not to notice the heat of his hands.

  Sophie’s laughing. “Rick happened.”

  Up front, Boy Wonder holds up a small disk between thumb and forefinger. “Fire snaps.”

  A startlingly Pearl-like move. “Did you destroy her car?”

  “Her car’s fine. Can’t say the same for you.”

  I wipe a trail of sweat from my forehead. “I’m so busted,” I moan. I brace for a patronizing I told you so.

  Boy Wonder’s teeth flash with a grin, and instead, he says, “Then we better make tonight worth it.”

  11

  Club KISS is as terrible as its name. Smoke fills the lounge of middle-aged men who line the walls, eyeing girls on the dance floor. Overhead, a strobe globe shoots rays of light in every direction, while a spotlight illuminates a makeshift stage of black boxes dripping with microphone and amp wires. Girls in skimpy tops crowd it, screaming, waving at a third-rate band who turned out to be from Minnesota, not Manhattan. A base vibrates my entire skeleton.

  “They’re awful!” I yell. But I’m not a music snob. If it has a pulse, I’ll dance to it, and Sophie and I head-bang on with Laura, Debra, and some girls who live down the hallway from us. My socks—donated by small-footed Spencer—slide along the floor.

  Something happens when I dance. If someone met me on the streets of Chagrin Falls, they’d assume I was on the quiet side, studious, hardworking. The side I let most people see.

  But when I dance, I become music in motion. A goddess. Myself.

  Sophie kicks off her own shoes. She grabs my hand, spins me under her arm while I sashay my hips and whoop. I imagine Mom’s jaw dropping, Dad removing his spectacles, if they knew all the culture I’m picking up already. I’ve slayed my first Wong Rule—curfew—and wearing lip gloss, too.

  I tug at my shirt, pulling it tight against the corset back it’s hiding. The AC is cranked high, but will I dare take it off as the night rolls on? Because sometime tonight, another Wong Rule is going down. In style.

  Debra holds out her phone for a selfie. As Laura crowds in, I sashay out of the way—no social media for Mom and Dad to stumble across. Opposite me, Sophie dances a sultry circle, scanning, scanning, scanning the crowds. The strobe globe throws stars across her pouting lip and enormous faux-lashes that only she could pull off.

  “Who’re you looking for?” I shout.

  “Just looking!”

  Then Boy Wonder pushes through the dancers and grabs Sophie’s shoulder. The upper half of his canary-yellow shirt is dotted with sweat. His damp hair gleams like onyx. “They’ve brought in a guy from Snake Alley. You’ve got to try this—it’s the best in Taipei.”

  Sophie pulls free, tossing her hair in a silky parachute. “Snake Alley—no way!”

  “What’s Snake Alley?” I ask.

  “A disgusting tourist trap,” Sophie says. “It’s in one of the night markets, farther down south.”

  I follow Boy Wonder’s gaze to a table at back, where a man in a leather apron pulls a dragon-green snake from a wooden cage.

  A literal, slithering snake.

  Well, well. Boy Wonder has some exotic interests.

  “What’s that for?” I ask as a wave of dancers jostles us sideways.

  Boy Wonder smirks. “See for yourself.” Grabbing my hand, he tugs me into the crowd of dancing bodies.

  His hand over mine is rough, calloused. Big. A boy’s hand. But it means nothing; if he weren’t hanging on, the crowds would tear us apart. Sure enough, when we reach a thick chopping block on a table, he releases me.

  Then I wish he hadn’t.

  Inches away, three snakes writhe in a mass of scaly coils: red-and-black, yellow diamond-patterned, the mottled, dragon-green. Dark red blood stains the block, overlaid by new, damp blooms. Just behind them, the thin-faced snake-minder wipes stubby-nailed hands on his apron.

  “As your unofficial chaperone, I have to advise against this.” Boy Wonder gives me an infuriatingly superior grin.

  “Ha. Whatever.” But my stomach clenches. So we’re going to eat snake. I’ve eaten barbecued eel, but never stared my food in the eye. Never seen it slither through the sludge of its comrades’ blood. The metallic scent makes me light-headed, as always—I almost fainted when I shadowed at the Cleveland Clinic, when I had to observe a doctor stitch up a gashed knee.

  “Let me guess. We’re grilling our own snake-kebabs.”

  “If only.” Boy Wonder cocks a finger-gun at the snake minder.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, but he’s already maneuvering toward the bar and bartender.

  “I’ll get tickets.”

  “I can cover myself—” I protest, but he’s out of earshot.

  Fine.

  Whatever challenge Boy Wonder’s got planned, I can handle it.

  A brown snake rears, hissing onto its coils. I force myself to face it, trying to brave my coming fate without throwing up. Or passing out.

  “Want to hold one?”

  I jump as Xavier slides up beside me. I haven’t seen him since the cab ride, when I leaped off his lap and out the door. The silver threads gleam in his shirt. As he extends his bare forearm toward the snakes, his scent breaks over me—that musky scent, plus something I can’t identify. He moves like a cat, cornering me, but not entirely in a bad way.

  Then the dragon snake coils like a rope onto his arm.

  My heart stops.

&nbs
p; The corner of Xavier’s lip rises in a teasing half smile. He rotates his arm, letting the snake’s skin refract the light like jewels. Its forked tongue flickers over the pale inside of his forearm.

  As the snake slides up his arm and nestles inside his collar, Xavier takes my hand. His is warm, like a mug of tea. A thrill of fear digs at my gut as the snake spirals down to his wrist. The heavy ridges of its underbelly glide over our joined hands and my skin crawls as I imagine the prick of its tiny fangs.

  “He definitely likes you.” Xavier shifts his grip to my fingers, folding them over his index finger.

  I laugh shakily. “How can you tell?”

  “How?” His smile deepens. Before I can react, he lifts my hand in a gesture I recognize from my Victorian novels.

  And presses his lips to my knuckles.

  My breath hitches.

  Then Sophie’s voice rings out behind me. “I’m not tasting anything that comes from those!”

  I jerk free. Boy Wonder and Sophie are navigating the crowd toward us, Marc and Spencer in tow. A length of blue carnival tickets dangles from Boy Wonder’s hand.

  “Oh, Ever, did he bite you?” Sophie rushes forward.

  “N-no, of course not!” I stammer, then realize Sophie means the snake, not Xavier.

  Boy Wonder’s eyes drop to my hand, as if a lip-shaped glow is still burning there.

  Then Xavier turns back to the block, allowing the snake to slither off, as though nothing of importance has been interrupted. Sophie sets her chin on his shoulder, and Xavier idly squeezes her waist—gah, he really is a Player.

  “You ready?” Boy Wonder hands the tickets to the snake-minder.

  “Whatever you’re getting all dramatic about can’t be that bad.” I toss my head, Sophie-style. “Snake tastes like chicken, doesn’t it?”

  Boy Wonder grins as the snake man drops a hatchet onto the bloodstained butcher’s block with an ominous thud.

  “Wait,” I say. “He’s not—right here—?”

  With practiced fingers, the man arranges six glass vials on a tray. From an unlabeled bottle, he spills a clear shot of liquor into each one. Here’s my chance to break Wong Rule #4, but, um, why is he grabbing the brown snake?

  He grips it a few inches below its triangular head, then plants his snake-filled fist on the block.

  His hatchet bangs down.

  The snake’s fanged head flies at Spencer, who yells and slams it with a kung fu chop. Too stunned to scream, I sway on my feet as Sophie shrieks, “GROSS!”

  “That’s an ulcer waiting to happen.” Spencer wipes blood from his arm. “Sorry, Rick. I’m not drinking that!”

  “Drinking?” Alarmed, I eye the limp snake. Its severed end spurts dark red blood. I’d assumed the snake was headed to a kitchen. A frying pan. “Wait. Isn’t he cooking—?”

  Into one vial after another, the man squeezes the snake’s cut end. Dark red blood pulses out, pinking the liquor.

  Boy Wonder grins crookedly. “Snake-blood sake.”

  “Wait.” The table edge bites my palms. Mr. Perfect, it seems, has a dark sense of adventure, perhaps as hell-bent on breaking loose as I am. But I’m back in the Cleveland Clinic, the gashed knee blooming like a crimson flower. “Wait . . .” I croak.

  The rusty scent of blood reaches the cavities behind my eyes. The crimson flow slows and the man shakes the snake over the sixth vial, catching the last red droplets. Then he shoves the limp snake into his apron pocket and plunks the tray before us.

  Boy Wonder, Marc, and Xavier each take one. Spencer refuses.

  Three are left.

  “Sophie? Ever?” Boy Wonder’s glance is challenging.

  Snake.

  Blood.

  Sake.

  “No way.” Sophie’s ordered a glass of wine. She waves it. “Girls don’t drink snake blood.”

  “Anyone want a second?” Boy Wonder offers.

  “One’s plenty.” Marc rotates his bloody glass in his fingers, staring into it. “Jesus. It’s warm.” Under his milk-chocolate bangs, parted down the center, his face pales. Beads of sweat form on his upper lip.

  Only Xavier’s face remains unimpressed.

  A scenario crashes into my mind: me passed out on the floor, blood spilling from a cup that hasn’t even touched my lips. There must be less exotic ways to break the No Drinking rule, like a nice mango cocktail.

  I reach uncertainly for a glass. It is warm. Warmed by the heating lamp that beat down on the poor snake while it was writhing alive.

  My hand shakes as I peer into the cloudy pink liquid.

  Boy Wonder’s brows rise.

  All three guys, holding their tiny glasses, are watching.

  Fighting nausea, I lift mine. “I’m in.”

  “To the freaking best summer of our lives!” Sophie clinks her wine glass all around. “Gānbēi!” Bottoms up!

  I throw back my head. The warm, salty blood and sake set my throat on fire. It tastes bitter. Like metal. Medicine. Heat sears my chest, opening up a pipe there I’ve never felt before. I squeeze my eyes shut and fight it down.

  Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up.

  My head feels stuffed with rice, then it explodes in a million directions. Kaleidoscopic tingles dance through my body—and it’s not just the sake. I’ve faced down my fear of blood. I’m still standing. I’ve broken another Wong Rule—at this rate, I’ll be done with them before the sun sets in Ohio.

  Sophie cradles her glass and shakes her head, scandalized but smiling. Marc vomits into a spittoon. Xavier closes his eyes.

  But Boy Wonder’s watching me, emptied glass in hand. As our gazes lock, he cocks his ear toward his arm. My own hand is there, gripping him like a lifeline.

  “Oh, sorry!” I’ve left four nail marks in his tanned flesh.

  But there’s a new glow of respect in his eyes that warms me as much as the sake.

  “You’ve outmanned Marc.”

  Marc scowls. His hawk-nose wrinkles and he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Like it?” Boy Wonder asks.

  “It was terrible.” I smile. The heat of the sake pulses through me like a river, warming my fingers and toes.

  So, I’ve impressed Boy Wonder.

  With a new surge of confidence, I grab his free hand, then Xavier’s, and drag them both into the strobe-lit fog. “Come on. Let’s dance!”

  Hours later, I’m still dancing.

  I’m rocking it up with Debra and Laura, who dance like fiends. I grab Debra’s arm and lean into her. “How do you do it?” I yell over the music. “You meet presidents. You dance!”

  Debra gives me a wry smile. “What?” she yells back.

  “You two rock.” In my hand, I hold my third—fourth?—mango cocktail. I can’t understand the shortsighted, small-mindedness of banning such deliciousness. I can’t even taste the alcohol. Bless the bartender, who’s taken a liking to Sophie and me and serves us drinks on the house all night.

  Speaking of whom, where has that girl gone?

  “Have you seen Sophie?” I yell. Debra shakes her blue head of hair, smiling as if I’ve spoken pig Latin. I repeat myself a few times, dancers jostling me against her. My socks want to stick to the floor.

  From out of nowhere, Xavier seizes my elbow. His wavy black hair is damp with sweat and slicked back. I haven’t seen him since Sophie dragged him off to the bar hours ago.

  “Dance with me.” His hold shifts to my rib cage. The strobe lights illuminate his sharp cheekbones. His eyes glitter as they hold mine, daring me to decline.

  I dance with him. A cocktail sloshes onto my arm and his, but I don’t care. He draws me close, and the rhythm of his movements find mine. I’m glowing, grinning—at him, the dancers behind him, the bartenders everywhere.

  I’m dancing with a boy. Another Wong Rule bites the dust.

  His warm fingers glide under my shirt and along my bare waist, settling against the small of my back. For the space of a heartbeat, a part of me freeze
s, like I’ve been misted with liquid nitrogen.

  But all around us, couples have melded together, bodies grinding to the beat.

  I’m not running and hiding just because a boy’s invited me to do more than flirt.

  So as the tempo of the music ratchets up, I throw myself into its beat. I pump my hips, nod low over my shoulder, crook one hand behind my head, the other still holding my glass. His eyes sweep my body. His neck gleams with sweat. My hair’s damp. I writhe with him, matching thrust for thrust. His hip wedges against mine as he pulls me deeper, deeper—

  And then I feel him.

  Oh my God. Oh my God. Is that what I think it is?

  Then Sophie’s towering over me in her golden dress, necklace refracting the strobe lights. She drapes her arm around my shoulders, drawing me from Xavier.

  “Maybe you should cool it with the drinks, baby girl!” she shouts over the music.

  “There you are!” My laughter rings out. Everything’s hilarious. “It’s past one! Can you believe we’re still out?”

  She takes my glass and sets it on a speaker. Smiles at Xavier. “I’ll be back,” she says. “Just need to help Ever out.”

  “I don’t need help,” I protest, but Sophie’s arm tightens around me. Her own back is damp with sweat.

  Dancers slam against us as we weave toward the sidelines and I grin and knock back. It’s like running through a maze of those big hanging bumpers at the kids’ play space in Cleveland. One thump sets my head spinning.

  “Rick, help.” Sophie’s talking to him. He’s pocketing his cell phone, his thumb digging at the inside of his fingers in that odd, fidgety gesture of his. His jet-black hair is spiked as if he’d been clinging to it earlier. Beams of light cut across his unsmiling eyes, clenched jaw.

  “Who’d you call from here?” I ask. At least, I think I do. It’s hard to hear myself.

  And why the thunder brows, when he was laughing over the snake beheading a while back?

  Boy Wonder’s arm wraps low around my waist. His body dwarfs mine as he walks me to the door. Wind gusts in the cloying scents of cigarettes and sweet incense. My stomach undulates like I’ve descended a roller coaster.

  Then I break from Boy Wonder to hurl its contents onto the asphalt.