I wasn’t looking forward to those calls. All because an It girl caught fire in one of our supplier’s dresses. She wasn’t even hurt – the dress just disintegrated when she dropped her cigarette on it. If she didn’t want those paparazzi snaps all over the internet, then she should have been wearing underpants.
‘I think we’re in good shape.’ He ran a hand through his sticky-uppy curls, perfecting the nutty professor look that Stacy thought was so gorgeous. I never saw the attraction, which was a good thing, given that he was my boss, and my best friend’s boyfriend.
I stared at him. ‘You can’t be serious. Josh, it looks like a bomb site out there.’
‘Well, they’re not coming to do a health inspection. They want to buy the company. We work here. This is what working for a fashion exporter looks like.’ He smirked. ‘I can see you’re not going to accept my answer. Fine. Do what you want. Smarten it up. There’s money in petty cash and if you need more, let me know. You can take my credit card.’
‘Can Winnie help me?’
‘Of course. We both know she would even if I said no.’ He shook his head. ‘Sometimes I get the feeling I’m not the one running this company.’
‘Well, the most important thing is to have the illusion of control. Thanks, Josh, I’ll just straighten the place up a bit. Cosmetics only, nothing structural, I promise.’
Revitalized by the idea of doing my very own 60-Minute Makeover, I went straight to Winnie’s desk. ‘You get to help me transform the office!’
She didn’t look as pleased as I felt. ‘You mean clean, don’t you?’
‘Well, cleaning is part of the transformation, yes. Come on, it’ll be fun.’
‘And by fun you mean hard, hot, sweaty work. You have an odd idea of fun.’ She sighed. ‘I’m not getting my dress dirty.’
‘You don’t have to. We’ve got the boiler suits from last season. You can wear one of those. If you don’t want to clean, then I’ll get some of the other women to help. You can call round and find a cheap storage place, and someone who’ll take a bunch of stuff over. You don’t even have to wear the suit.’ Winnie wasn’t the kind of woman to lower her sartorial standards. As my first (and only) Chinese friend in Hong Kong, she’d given me a local’s perspective. A perspective that involved cutting-edge fashion and impeccable grooming.
I planned to be similarly groomed at lunchtime. Operation Proposal was going into action. Nothing said make-me-your-wife like a bikini wax. My first. I was excited and not a little terrified.
‘You owe me a drink,’ Winnie said, already googling for storage options. ‘After work?’
‘Sorry, I can’t, I’m meeting Sam. Tomorrow?’
‘Sure. I won’t stand in the way of a budding romance. Or a second crop, in your case.’ She smiled. ‘Come on. I’ll help you get the ladies organized. You know they won’t listen to you.’
Winnie was right. My budding romance with Sam was replanted after the little break we took. Though to be perfectly accurate, it wasn’t so much a break as a break-up, caused by a break.
It was his fault, but I wasn’t dwelling on that. The important thing was that he realized it was his fault. He also realized that I was the love of his life. Though this happened more than a year after I realized it, it was better late than never. Since it hit him, he’d been a new man, one who told me, and showed me, exactly how much I meant to him. Despite the angst of the previous months, it was totally worth it. Stacy was right. Sam had come good. And it wasn’t like her to give him any benefit of the doubt.
I hurried from the office with only the briefest stop for makeup repairs, and met Sam at the Metro station. Giddiness overcame me when I spotted him, as it did whenever we met. He was the best-looking, sexiest, weak-at-the-knees-making man on the planet. ‘Hello sweets!’ I kissed him, then kissed him again for good measure when he swept me up in a bear clench. As I hugged him my fingers found the soft curls at the base of his neck, as they always did. There in his arms the uncertainty (panic) I felt yesterday seemed so stupid. I loved this man.
We walked together to Tsim Sha Tsui, the harbor front that looked out over Hong Kong Island. It was set to be a gorgeous sunset. The sight took my breath away. Stacy might get to work in Central, just a ten-minute escalator ride from our apartment, but I got to see the sunset every night after work from the tip of Kowloon.
I nestled into Sam’s chest as he stood behind me, his tanned arms folded over mine. ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he murmured, turning me to him. ‘You really are the most beautiful woman, inside and out.’ He grinned at the objection on the tip of my tongue. ‘I know you hate your hair, but I love it. Sure, it’s a bit mad, but it’s so alive.’ He curled a strand around his finger, staring at it. ‘You shouldn’t want to tame it, to be like everyone else. It’s part of what makes you you. You’re unique. And I love you, Hannah Jane Cumming.’
‘I love you too, Samuel Ulysses Parker.’ I sighed. ‘I still get butterflies every time you say that, you know.’
‘Good butterflies or bad butterflies?’
‘Good ones, of course!’
‘I’m glad to hear that. Then I’ll say it more often.’
‘You say it every day now.’
‘That’s because I feel it every day.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve been so happy these past few months. It makes me… it makes me grateful that we were able to put everything behind us and start again.’
‘Mmm, but we didn’t start again, did we? I mean, we picked up where we left off. That’s why it feels so comfortable now, because we’ve had a year of relationship. It’s not brand new. I think I like that better. We know a lot about each other now.’
‘I’m sure there’s more to learn.’ He kissed me again.
He didn’t know the half of it. God, why did I let Winnie talk me into that wax appointment? It did not go as planned. ‘I’m sure you’ve still got a few secrets yourself,’ I said.
I regretted the words immediately. I couldn’t tell if they made him uncomfortable, but I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. Some spots in the relationship were still sore.
‘Only secrets to share with you. Not secrets to keep from you.’
He meant that to make me feel better. But it didn’t. Because technically, technically, he hadn’t kept the secret from me in the first place. He simply neglected to mention that while we were on a break, free to see other people, he was exercising that freedom. It punched a hole through my heart, and our relationship, when I found out. It still made me sick to think about it. So why did I keep thinking about it? ‘I’m getting hungry,’ I said, hoping to distract myself from myself. ‘Let’s go to the market.’
The night market’s assault on the senses was as good a distraction as any. It was a Hong Kong institution, lining Temple Street and closed to traffic. A chaotic jumble of vendors crowded the road for blocks, squeezing shoppers into a narrow corridor. Every stall was piled with colorful wares – silky cheongsams, wall hangings, samurai swords, cloisonné and enameled animals, bowls and jewelry, genie shoes and Chairman Mao paraphernalia. Somehow, what looked like cheap tat in daylight became must-haves under the glare of electric lights strung inside and across the stalls. Pungent cooking smells from dozens of makeshift kitchens wafted over us.
We chose a food stall packed with locals, as we always did after Laos. The horror of being trapped in a hotel room with your boyfriend during a bout of trichinosis wasn’t a fate I’d wish on my worst enemy, even if there was a silver lining in that toilet bowl. A man who’ll hold your hair back when you’re praying to the porcelain god is one who’ll always look after you.
‘What’s that?’ I pointed to the pyramids of dark green parcels being energetically sold by a vendor who couldn’t be more than ten years old.
‘Not sure. Two?’ Sam smiled, catching the boy’s attention.
‘Do we eat them?’ I took an exploratory sniff. ‘Cripes. It smells like the inside of an intestine.’
‘Have you sniffed many intestines?’
‘I was being kind. It smells of poo. You’re not eat–’
Too late. He unwrapped it and took a bite. ‘It’s tasty. Try.’
‘What is it?’
‘Just try it!’
Under the banana-leaf packaging (the source of the poo smell, I discovered) was a rice ball. I nibbled. It tasted like rice.
‘Take a proper bite. You’ve got to get to the inside.’
‘Mmm. Not bad.’
‘Told you. You wouldn’t have tried it if I hadn’t, would you?’
Was that judgment? It sounded like judgment. ‘Yes I would have.’
Of course I wouldn’t have. Daring eating for me meant adding olives to my chopped salads. I just wanted Sam to think I was an adventuresome girl, especially after his dalliance with that woman. Nothing dented one’s self-confidence like knowing your boyfriend went out with the female version of Indiana Jones. Well, I’d show him who was adventurous.
‘I’d like a bowl, please,’ I said to the man ladling soup from a big cauldron next to the rice ball pyramids. ‘Mmm, tasty.’ The broth was mild, flavored with ginger. Mushrooms and little dumplings floated among the white-ish meat. Fish? Chicken?
Sam was smirking. ‘You like that, eh?’
‘Mmm mmm.’ At least it wasn’t cat this time. I accidentally ate the furry feline in my lunchtime soup when I first arrived in Hong Kong. I’d never be able to look my parents’ pet in the eye again.
‘Do you know what it is?’ I shook my head. ‘Come here.’ He led me around the side of the stall, where I spotted large woven baskets. And a chopping block. And a man taking aim with a butcher’s knife at my soup’s main ingredient as it wrapped itself around his arm. I felt ill.
‘Are you going to finish that?’ He asked, gesturing to my spoon as it hovered over the bowl.
‘Er, no, that rice ball really filled me up. Would you like it?’
‘Ah, no thanks. You know I don’t like snakes. In any form. Here, why don’t I get rid of it for you.’
Chastened, I handed him the bowl as he tried not to look too smug.
‘You don’t have to impress me, you know,’ he said as we wandered through the hawkers’ maze. ‘I like you just the way you are. There’s nothing you can do, or not do, that’d make me go off you. You can’t scare me away, you know.’ He turned me to him, kissing me gently, igniting my insides.
I thought of the afternoon’s wax fiasco. ‘Don’t speak too soon about not being scared.’ I sighed. ‘Come on. Let’s go back to your flat. I’m going to put your theory to the test.’
Sam’s flat was in Hong Kong’s red light district, which was appropriate because, at that moment, my nether regions made me look like a sex worker.
‘Where’s the hair?’ Sam looked perplexed.
Normally I’d be uncomfortable having a man stare at my crotch. But it was Sam. He was in familiar territory. ‘It’s stuck to bits of wax in a bin in Kowloon. It looks funny, right?’
‘Well, you’re a little… bald. Did you mean to do this?’
‘I didn’t accidentally fall into molten wax, if that’s what you mean. The lady must have misunderstood me. I just thought it would be nice to tidy up a bit.’ Stacy and I had dared each other to have bikini waxes for years. I always chickened out. Until today. Judging by Sam’s face, phase one of my plan to become irresistible in the next ten days missed its target. All that was left of my once-plentiful pubic hair was a one-inch strip of stubble. Hitler’s moustache was more luxuriant. And probably more alluring.
‘So she just pulled it all off?’ He scrutinized me more closely, his blue eyes narrowing. ‘Didn’t you notice that she was doing it? It must have hurt.’
‘Of course it hurt! You don’t sit up and watch the process, you know.’ Like I was some kind of depilatory expert now. ‘You lie down. And she did it so fast that I couldn’t tell how much she was taking off. It was, once again, a stupid idea. But it’s not so weird that you won’t… you know, until it grows back, right?’
He smiled. ‘It’s weird, but it won’t stop us from… you know. Han, I told you. Nothing will scare me away. I’ll be happy when it grows back, though. You don’t need to do this. I mean, if you want to do it for you, to make yourself happy, that’s one thing. But don’t do it for me. I like you just the way you are.’
Sure, he may say that, but he didn’t know everything about me. If he did, he might not be so sure. Would I tell him? About Brent?
♫ On the Third day of Christmas my fortune gave to me…
the good friend
two second thoughts
and a ticket home to see my family ♪
‘I feel terrible saying this, but I hope the deal falls through,’ Winnie said when we’d settled at the bar, clutching our grapefruit martinis. Yet again she’d surprised me with her after-work drinks choice. It was the kind of bar that only locals could find. Its pink neon sign was a tiny taste of the seventies kitsch inside. The battered walls and old plastic posters implied a much older bar than it really was. Hong Kong was like that. New was made to look old, and old was torn down. ‘I want what’s best for Josh, obviously,’ she said. ‘But I’m not sure this is what’s best.’
Stacy certainly hadn’t thought it was for the best when Josh first mentioned selling the business and starting over in the UK. We thought it was a joke. It was the kind of off-hand remark we all make, an exaggeration when faced with an annoyance at home. I’m going to chuck it all in and move to Timbuktu. Nobody really does it. So we didn’t think anything more about it. Until Josh called the meeting. ‘It sounds like he’s been thinking about it for a while,’ I said to Winnie. ‘He’d already gauged interest from some buyers when he talked to us… I think he’s really going to do it.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to work for another company. None of us do.’
‘But it won’t be another company. We’ll all still be together. We’ll just have a different owner. If they’re buying the company, it’s because they think it’s a good one. They’d be silly to change something that works. It might not be that bad.’ Her look prompted my reconsideration. ‘All right. It might be terrible. But we’ve got to support Josh if we really are his friends and want what’s best for him. Shouldn’t we encourage his decision to have his own life, to do something he’s passionate about? He’s sacrificed a lot to work for his dad’s company. Think about doing something for twenty years out of family obligation. We should support him trying something new. You know how passionate he is about conservation. And he must wonder what it’s like to live in the UK. After all, his roots are there.’
‘You’re less selfish than I am. I just want to keep my job, the way it is now.’
I wasn’t unselfish. I was lying. My job was on the line as much as Winnie’s. Unlike her, though, I didn’t have fifteen years in the export industry to convince another Hong Kong company to hire me. As it was, I was only employed by Josh by the skin of my teeth. I shivered, remembering the day Immigration came calling. Again, thank you, Mrs. Reese. Josh meant to get my work visa sorted out months earlier. Their appearance at our offices hurried things along, and with the help of a few of his friends in high places we produced a visa for them. The ink was still wet. After that close call I vowed never to work again without the government’s say-so. So I was definitely worried about my future. ‘Maybe they won’t buy and he’ll forget all about it.’
‘I doubt it.’ She shook her head, a few strands of her shiny black bob catching in her lipstick. ‘It’s a good company, well-run and profitable. And I have to admit, you were right about cleaning it up. It makes a difference.’
We’d spent the day clearing most of the junk from the office floor. We even slapped a new coat of paint on a few of the more offensive walls and called in a handyman to replace the torn and faded linoleum lining the stairs in the entry. I knew it’d make a difference but it was nice to hear Winnie say so. She wasn’t known for admitting when she was wrong. Was s
he softening? If so, it might be the perfect time to… ‘If you’ll admit I’m right about that, will you also admit I’m right about other things?’ … ambush her about her love life.
She knew exactly what I was talking about. ‘Oh, Hannah, must we talk about this again?’
‘I’m afraid so. Winnie, you’re my friend. I just want you to be happy. And you’re not. You’ve said it yourself. Mother Teresa had a more promising social life. Why won’t you at least try meeting someone?’ She was practically a slave to her family, and that was a shame for any woman. But a woman as great as Winnie? That was a someone-left-my-ice-cream-in-the-sun shame.
‘I’m not against meeting someone. I just never do.’
‘But you could. Why, I know someone who’d love to meet you.’
She shook her head. ‘How long have you been planning this?’
‘What? I just thought of it now.’ At least a month.
‘Uh-huh. And who is this mystery man?’
‘His name’s Stuart. He’s wonderful, a really nice guy, and smart and fun and funny. You’ve heard me talk about him. He and Stacy are colleagues. He’s a clever banker too. We’re good friends with him and his brother, Brent. They’re twins.’
‘You’re not going to stop asking me, are you? Fine. What do these twins look like?’
So she wasn’t quite as enthusiastic as I was. I pressed on anyway. ‘They look English. That’s not a problem, is it? Going out with a white guy?’
‘Not if it’s the right white guy. So, looks?’
I thought carefully. ‘They’re tall, nearly six feet, and fit. Stuart goes to the gym and is really sporty. They’ve got broad shoulders and really nice arms. Nice chests too.’ I blushed, thinking of Brent’s surprisingly sculpted chest. ‘Their hair is light.’ This was true. No reason to risk ginger-tinge-itis before they’d met. ‘They’ve got lovely blue eyes, and regular noses.’ She wasn’t crazy about Western noses. Too big, she thought. ‘And good lips.’ My blush deepened. ‘But as importantly, they’re nice and fun and smart and funny. Well, I said that. But it’s worth repeating… would you consider meeting him?’
The Expat Diaries: Twelve Days to Christmas (Single in the City Book 3) Page 2