Call Me Kismet

by PJ Mayhem

  Frankie takes another step towards me. I assume we’re going to hug, but—oh my fucking god! Frankie’s mouth is on mine and he’s kissing me on the lips! Don’t ever let it be said I was easy—we do hug briefly as well.

  I step back for a moment. Then all of a sudden we’re pashing. I haven’t a clue how this happens, it’s as comfortable as slipping on my favourite coat. Lips, teeth, tongues—no Tantra happening here. His hand is on my breast then shifts to running up and down my side and then returns to my breast again and then—oh Buddha—I’m losing track.

  I still have my coffee in my hand. (Hello, like I’d let go of my first coffee of the day for anything or anyone!) I throw my free arm around him and, in my clumsy state, I send snack packs of dried fruit flying from the stand next to us.

  ‘Oh God, sorry,’ I mumble, leaning into his neck, hugging him.

  After pashing again, we release each other—I have no idea who lets go first. How am I ever meant to figure out what’s going on if I don’t catch the details?

  As Frankie crouches down to pick up our debris I flee to the deli section to get a packet of coffee. ‘Sorry, I knew I’d knock something off and I don’t mean you.’ Mother freaking hell, where did that come from? What would possess me to actually say that? I am insane!

  I stand and look at the coffee. Even though I drink the same kind all the time I’m paralysed. Oh fuck, our moment at the counter would have been visible to anyone walking by.

  When I see Frankie approaching, I notice he’s wearing his South Sydney Rabbitohs T-shirt. Something must be wrong with me—I don’t so much as register an internal groan about it. What if the doctor is wrong and I am dying of a brain tumour? Surely a brain tumour is the only possible explanation for my behaviour?

  ‘Oh God, I don’t know what I’m doing,’ I say.

  ‘That’s OK,’ Frankie says in his comforting way.

  I turn to walk back to the counter but we end up in each other’s arms once more. My body is against his, we’re pashing, his hands explore me, running down my waist and inside my jeans at my hip.

  We’re all over each other during Grouplove’s ‘Ways to Go’, and when we part, our conversation runs along the lines of:

  ‘When are you going?’

  ‘Now—my lift is waiting for me.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ he says, making me wonder if he’s all hot and bothered and is expecting to take me out the back and have his way with me.

  Goddess, that would be just my luck. After waiting so many years to study Mandarin in China I manifest that tethering-out-the-back scenario just when I am about to get on the plane.

  Hang on, Grouplove’s ‘Ways to Go’? Someone must have either banned Frankie from Retro FM or one of the younger employees has been at the radio, but the song is perfect.

  ‘I have to go,’ I murmur, hugging him one last time.

  We stand looking into each other’s eyes. Then I tear myself away like we’re two strips of Velcro.

  ‘Take care of yourself.’

  Fucking, Jesus, Hell! Of all the things I’ve wanted to say to him that’s what I say as I walk out, not looking back even though I want to and even though I can feel his eyes on my back and his emotions in my aura. I can’t. If I turn back and look at him now, I won’t ever leave.

  I straighten my shirt, try to regain my composure and walk sedately back up the street—straight past Bing’s car.

  ‘Mei Mei!’ he calls.

  ‘Oh my God, my eyes!’ I laugh, hoping that’ll explain.

  ‘You didn’t get your bag of coffee?’

  ‘Oh no, I, um, I sort of got distracted.’ Once we’re inside my place the shockwaves I’ve been so busy containing take over and my composure evaporates. My mind spins, not achieving anything, and I’m hardly able to string two words together.

  I can’t believe I just pashed Frankie! I can’t believe I just pashed someone who wears a football shirt! I can’t believe I pashed Frankie when he was wearing his football shirt!

  Not that I’m attached to my What I Want and Need In My Next Male Love Relationship list anymore. I’d ceremoniously shredded all twenty-five pages of it at work last week. I didn’t bother thinking long and hard before I’d shredded it, I’d already spent way too much time overthinking things. I’d simply looked at the two hundred and thirty-six items and thought, If the clipboard was in the other hand, would I want someone ticking off my traits like I was a second-hand car? The technique had about as much spiritual essence as a shopping list—or less, in my case! When it was done I’d totally given up on men again, convinced relationships weren’t meant for me.

  There’s another list I’d created that would be quite handy to have right now, but for the life of me I have no idea where I’ve put it. Without my Checklist for Shanghai Departure to focus on, I’m turning in actual circles, not a clue what I’m meant to be doing. I’m so obviously dysfunctional and unable to get it together that Bing takes over to get my stuff and me out the door.

  ‘Oh look! My Mei Mei is so excited about going to Shanghai,’ he says more than once.

  ‘Oh yes, very excited to be going to Shanghai, Da Ge!’ I fib.

  He succeeds in his mission and we’re off! I look into PGGG as we drive past and my heart stalls. Frankie is leaning on the counter, looking like he’s having a D&M with Thuga. Just as well I got out safely when I did. That was so a sex-slave moment waiting to happen.

  My phone becomes a hyperactive cricket, chirping constantly with texts flying between Jane and I, and Stephanie and I, interrupting my conversation with Bing. There’s no way I could keep this from Jane, I’d burst if I even tried. And I had to come clean with Stephanie too. When we’d caught up recently, she’d asked me about him. ‘I’m so tired of thinking about Mum’s … not living. Just tell me something entertaining to distract me from chemo talk and illness,’ she’d said. At the time I’d disappointed her by providing another, ‘Oh, nothing really, not much progress there.’

  At the airport, checked in and baggage free, Bing and I head off for breakfast.

  ‘What would you like, Da Ge? My treat.’

  ‘No, no, no, Mei Mei. You not pay for my breakfast.’

  ‘Da Ge, seriously, don’t be so stubborn. It’s tiny. You’ve managed to get me here and after all the coffees you’ve given me and everything you’ve done—’

  ‘No, Mei Mei, stop. Sit down. I will get for both of us.’

  I know better than to try to argue with Bing. I sit down but he doesn’t get up.

  ‘You know, if I met you long time ago I would be married to you,’ he says.

  Oh my motherfornicating Goddess, Jesus, Buddha, Hell! Seriously! What is going on with the Universe today? A good thing Jack wasn’t there, who knows what he might have done?

  ‘You know I’ll always love you, Da Ge.’ I lay heavy emphasis on the term of endearment to remind him he’s my big brother.

  ‘Who is it you are going to miss so much?’ Bing says huffily as my phone goes off again, his Scorpio jealousy boiling over.

  I know I wasn’t being very Ms Middle-of-the-Road about the fact I’d just pashed Frankie, but this was not time for her, this was a time for squealing with girlfriends. Still, I put my phone down to give Bing some quality sole-focus time.

  We both get a little nostalgic as we chat about life and how things work out. At least until he embarks on one of his super rants, knocking the nostalgia right out of me.

  I need a moment away from Bing so I excuse myself to go to the bathroom, where I send Jane an informative text that will fill in the blanks.

  When I get back, Bing is standing up. It’s time.

  He sighs. ‘I wish you not going.’ He tells me he will ‘xian ni de yoa si le’ (miss you to death) as he kisses and hugs me a thousand times (no pashing or even an attempt at a pash, thank Buddha). He confesses again how he wishes he’d met me years ago.

  I finally get to set off on my dream trip. It’s no one’s fault but my own that it’d taken me so long to get her
e, ‘fast mover’ certainly isn’t a term likely to be bandied around in my eulogy.

  I’m not surprised when I get stopped and scanned as I pass through the security check, given the methadone comment of a few weeks ago and the fact that I’m not only sleep deprived but fidgety and hyped up as well. Mr National Security is full of questions about what I’m going to get up to over there. Like a blonde girl travelling alone to China is so dodgy. Though maybe they saw me with Bing and assume I’m up to something with some crime syndicate, as though Bing and I can’t be family or even friends.

  I get patted down for the second time that day. Unfortunately the woman is not nearly as friendly or welcome as Frankie. But after so many years without any action, a girl can only think to herself, It’s true, it never rains but it pours.

  I’m so perky and friendly in the face of their surliness that they seem quite taken aback. ‘Fine, absolutely understand, better to be safe than sorry,’ I say as we go through more scanning and bag screening.

  At the Customs area we’re herded like cattle. My text-a-thon with Jane continues. I know I’m a bombshell but this is ridiculous! she suggests as a response to the bomb scanners.

  ‘Turn that off now! See the sign?’ a truck driver–esque woman in a Customs uniform barks at me, pointing to a sign that has a picture of mobile under a big red circle with a line through it.

  ‘Just give me a second, this is an emergency!’ I surprise myself by yelling at her. And it was. I mean. holding this level of excitement in could have caused me to have a stroke or something.

  Once we’re seated on the plane, I look around. I’m the only blonde on the flight. Surrounded by a sea of Mandarin, I am happier than I imagine Frankie was when South Sydney won their first grand final in forty-three years back in 2014. Even though Sammy isn’t old enough to remember it, he’s inherited his father’s love of statistics—our entire family knows that fact.

  42

  Shanghai! Bright lights, big city.

  Delayed flights and customs queues don’t do anything for anyone’s mood and after the last twenty-four hours my coping mechanisms are significantly compromised. It’s chaos at the taxi stand outside Pudong International Airport. The situation isn’t helped by the aversion that the Chinese have to orderly queues and patiently waiting their turn. Understandable traits, having to live your life constantly trying to secure limited resources in a city with as much demand as Shanghai. Still, I’m in no fit state to deal with it or exercise love, light, compassion and understanding. I need a bed and I need to be asleep in it now.

  When I finally get a cab, I lug my bags into the boot and flop into the back seat like a puppet whose strings have been cut. I draw on all my reserves and summon the energy to lean forward, passing the driver the address the uni have sent me. I lay back against the seat, close my eyes and wait to be whisked through the city to my accommodation. After a minute or two of no whisking—in fact we’re still stationary—I open them again. The cab driver is looking quizzically at his sat nav, then clears it and enters the address again with the same result. He’s been doing this the entire time?

  I have a strong feeling I should get out of this cab and wait for another one. I’d like to claim the reason I don’t is altruistic. However, I’m too tired to imagine myself swanning around in a kaftan at a meditation retreat telling people: ‘I couldn’t possibly get out, I knew from his regional accent that fate had put me in his cab for a reason and his entire village would starve if he didn’t get the fare.’ Which is along the lines of what I’d like people to believe. In truth, it’s just exhaustion. The thought of doing battle for another cab is more than I can face.

  ‘Don’t think I don’t know you’re ripping me off. I’m just too tired to care!’ I scream once we finally arrive. I always scream better in Chinese than in English. I needed him to know that I knew what he was up to, even if I was going to cough up the cash. Love, light and his karmic welfare had really deserted me now.

  I get out, thinking, Fuck, I hope this is the right place, as he speeds off, my hand barely off the boot. It’s the middle of nowhere, or it feels like it. If this isn’t the place I’m just going to have to lie on my bags for what’s left of the night and deal with it in daylight.

  I look around, then, craning my head back, at the very top of the building in front of me I see a sign. I mean a physical one, floodlit, with writing on it, that tells me this is it. I breathe a sigh of relief, brush off my bad mood and head up the stairs.

  Checking in is delightful and for all my tiredness, I’m blessed with a new lease of life. The concierge and I chat all the way to the room that will be my home for the next six weeks.

  The hot water doesn’t work and the toilet runs all night but I sleep, at least until the car horns start up. They accompany the sound of traffic—the sound of Shanghai waking up. After a cold shower and a challenging and frustrating exchange with reception about the hot water (what happened to the nice nightshift staff?), I head onto the streets, prepared to be infused with the feeling of being ‘home’.

  I’m surprised at how big and clumsy I feel, nothing like I felt like when I ran here to hide for the week of my thirtieth birthday. I’m so out of place on the footpath in this part of town. I walk for blocks, looking for something I might be able to stomach in the morning—nothing. Coffee is non-existent too. I go back to the student accommodation to forage at the shop downstairs. I search between instant noodles and packets of preservatives parading as food until I find something I can eat. I lie on my bed, eat my sweet Chinese bread, drink weak jasmine tea and think about everything, but mostly about Frankie.

  The best part of the day is still in front of me and there’s no point lying here complaining about bad food or thinking about Frankie, even if my toes still haven’t uncurled from pashing him. I need to get out and find my place in the city again.

  Heading through the uni grounds on my way to a destination I know guarantees coffee, a young Chinese couple cycle past so close I have to sidestep the girl’s pedals. Then another couple laugh as I pass them. I hear the girl say, ‘She couldn’t be an international student, she’s too old for that.’

  ‘Bugger off,’ I could tell her in Mandarin, or at least say, ‘I understood that and by the way, it’s totally obvious your designer handbag is fake.’ Instead I ignore them, keep my head straight up and pretend I haven’t understood.

  Ten Australian dollars for an only semi-decent coffee when I get into the city. At that rate, I’ll have to sell a kidney before my language intensive is over to feed my addiction. A forty-five-minute trip to get to my caffeine fix each day isn’t going to work either, especially when classes start at 8am!

  Caffeinated, I hop on the Metro out to where I stayed last time. I go in search of the traditional old hotel just off a big leafy street in the French Concession. I love the vibe there—it’s like it captures the best of both worlds. I walk past a construction site three times before I’m certain that I’m standing in front of all that is left of the hotel.

  Tiredness creeping up on me, I head back to the city, or I make the move to. It takes five Metro trains coming and going before I can force myself onto one through the crowd. Squeezed in sardine-tight, I can’t help but think that all the people looking at me are thinking I shouldn’t be here. Westerners don’t have the economy of space that Chinese do; even when we’re not physically bigger, we seem to take up more room. Maybe it’s urban evolution and we’ve adapted to fill the space available.

  From the city I walk along Nanjing Road until it becomes Nanjing Road West. I walk quite a long way until I reach 1168, the building I would have worked in if I’d got the job at the Australian Consulate. I stare at the black mirrored tower of un-me-ness whose height disappears into the haze of the sky.

  Amethyst was right; in this case hindsight definitely held the answer.

  As the day stretches into early afternoon the greyness that sits above the city hangs so low it’s almost as though I could reach up, poke it and m
ake it burst. Heat and humidity fester. I’m coated in dampness, a putrid combination of the moisture in the air and my own sweat. The grime of the city, the black fumes from the cars and my clothes cling to me. By the time I’m walking back from the Metro stop to the uni, I’m dripping. It’s not even summer. My nose curls. What is that disgusting smell? It’s way worse than a decomposing rat. It smells like sewage. At first I’m worried it might be me, with all this sweat and grime, and give myself a quick sniff. It’s not. But it doesn’t go, it’s still there when I get back to the accommodation. I only stop smelling it once I’m well into the foyer.

  I try to rest, watching saccharine-sweet Chinese MTV, but then I’m bored. I go out again in search of the supermarket I’d seen people walking back from. The stench of sewage is still in the air.

  I just need time to get used to things, find my way around, get a routine happening and find my bearings, I tell myself as I walk through the grey buildings of the uni grounds, when all that I can think is that I want to go home. All this noise, so many people, dealing with the energy of the crowds, feeling out of place and out of sync, having to concentrate so much with every step—it’s too exhausting.

  In the supermarket, when I eventually find it, I am jostled and shoved and looked up and down as I browse the aisles. Even a woman out shopping in her flannelette pyjamas—in this heat—gives me a caustic once-over. There are definitely not any PGGG-worthy deli items either. And dharma it—instant coffee only.

  Well, you’re no Frankie, in fact Ms Terse-at-the-Till would get a customer service award before you, I think when the woman on the till barks at me to ‘Hurry up’, because I’m taking too long to pass her my money.

  It’ll be better once I start class, I tell myself on the way back to my room. That’s what I wanted, that’s what I’m here for.

  Day two of class, the teacher asks me, ‘Why are you here?’

  I can’t help but wonder the same thing. I’m in a class lower than my comprehension and speaking level because my written characters are so weak. They’re my least favourite aspect of the language and I’ve never really been the type to spend the endless hours of practice required to master them. I’m far more about connecting with people through the language. But here, my weakness makes me feel remedial.