by E. F. Mulder
“Let me go, Noel.”
“Didn’t I just say that?”
“The Talk is starting, and I want to DVR it in case they mention you too.”
“Heaven forbid we don’t save such things for posterity.”
“I’ll talk to you later.”
I had no doubt she would. With such a large family—including Drew and his daughters—I was on the phone with someone almost hourly. Now it was Ethan’s turn, but before I could dial, someone knocked. Truthfully, I could have dialed ten times, had I not been stalling.
“Go away.”
Red barked furiously. He sensed the tension. Five or six reporters had already come to the house. I’d told the first ones about the birthday aspect, but nothing came of it. After that, I just ignored them. There hadn’t been any real troublemakers yet. No one threw eggs at my vinyl siding—or eggnog from Christmas cups, as it were—but I figured it was just a matter of time.
“Noel? It’s… it’s Hung.”
I approached the door. “Hung?”
“Hung Liu… the St. Patrick’s baby with the bad name.”
“What the…?” I opened the door. “Hey.”
Red still barked.
“Red, hush.”
He didn’t listen to me, but then ceased immediately when Hung put a finger to his lips.
“Wow. How’d you do that?”
“Coincidence, probably.” There was that smile I had seen online. It was brilliant, a bit uneasy perhaps, definitely shy, but striking. His brown eyes were friendly, but his words put me off. “I’m here on business.”
“Oh.” I realized then I’d been smiling too, for the first time in days. It faded quickly.
“Can I ask you a few questions?”
“As a reporter, you mean?”
“Yeah. Internet. NowHearThis.com.”
“Never heard of it.” Yeah, I was purposely snotty.
“Most people haven’t. It’s a startup.” Hung had to take a breath. He was nervous. “I haven’t been there long. A couple months.”
“Cool. I… I must have missed your tweet about it. I started following you after we talked in October.”
“I followed you too,” Hung said. “Before that.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
“So…. Come in. Sit. Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Warm cider?”
“Don’t go to any trouble.”
I went to the kitchen and came back with coffee and homemade cranberry-orange muffins.
“Oh my God. These are so good.” Hung polished one off in three bites. Eating seemed preferable to talking.
“How’s your dog?” I asked him.
“Good. How are you, Red?”
Red wagged his tail happily.
“Red… not terribly original for an Irish setter,” I said.
“Hey, when I was a kid we had a cat named Whiskers and another named Pink Nose, so…. The dog I have now, his name’s—”
I was about to take a bite of muffin. “His name’s what?” I wondered why Hung had gone suddenly mute again.
“Uh, Muffin. Like these.” He picked up another one and took a big bite. “I was trying to decide if I should lie. I named a boy dog Muffin. I think he hates me for it.”
I smiled. “Naw. I’m glad you found a news job.”
“Close to home,” he said after he swallowed. “I thought for a while I’d like to be an international reporter for some big agency, but then I decided I hate leaving home for more than a few hours at a time. Why hasn’t anyone invented that ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ Star Trek mode of transportation yet?”
“I know, right? What are they waiting for? Come on, good-for-nothing physicists!”
Hung laughed. “Anyway, it’s cool to meet you in person, not just in a picture on my screen.”
“Pictures of you are hard to come by,” I said.
“Oh. Yeah. Well, this is me.” Hung framed his face with both thumbs and pointer fingers. “I’m Hung.”
I snickered. “Sorry.”
“My name’s Hung. And I’m a better typer than talker.”
“I say that all the time too. I said it to Ethan that day we all first met.”
“Though not really.”
“Huh?” I didn’t get Hung’s meaning.
“Not really met… That’s what I… I meant,” he said.
“Ah. ’Cause meeting on Twitter and chatting online doesn’t really count. You can’t really know someone just from social media. I guess I agree. Though, where were you with that advice a while ago?”
“Hmm. Well… I’m not sure I was saying all that. I… I kind of think you can get to know someone that way, in fact.” Hung looked at me. Up until that moment, he’d mostly been staring at his shoes. “Don’t you?”
“Whatever I used to think about electronic chitchat, it’s all different now. I’ve decided nothing good ever comes of it. Ever.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, Ethan’s the leap-year baby.”
“I remember. And you and he are… seeing each other?” Hung powered up his tablet, ready to get down to business, apparently.
“Oh yeah. We’re very serious. We’ve been all over the world together… Greece, Venice, Paris. He’s quite the adventurer. We swam with the sharks in Hawaii.”
“Hawaii?”
Don’t they have sharks there? I wondered. Good thing I didn’t mention the dinosaur in Africa. “That’s all off the record, by the way. Sorry. He’s a celebrity, you know.”
“He took the videos.”
“I don’t want to drag him into any of this,” I said shortly.
“Well, that’s already been established,” Hung countered.
“Look. I was lying. Ethan and I went out on one date—to the city. The end. So, really, he’s irrelevant.”
“Oh.” Hung was quiet again after that, so I asked him some questions.
“You said you’ve lived around here your whole life?”
“Yeah. We’re only second generation. My grandfather came over for work. Liu Yan, very respected name in digital photography.”
“Liu Yan versus Yan Liu…. The first-name-last thing always confused me. Oh. Was that offensive? Calling your customs a ‘thing’?”
“Not at all.” Hung smiled.
“Tell me more about your family.”
“Yeye came back and forth. My father was born here. He married an American, so I’m kind of half and half.”
“Cool.”
“I’m an only child, who always wished to be a part of a huge family, someone to cheer you on and cheer you up, maybe tease you a little when you take yourself too seriously.”
“It’s nice. I’m one of eight. Did I tell you that already? I talked to Ethan more, so I’m not sure how much detail you and I got into.”
“Yeah.” Hung looked up from his screen. “I knew.”
“They also offer advice nonstop and stick their nose in your love life.”
“That’d be okay… not that I have one. I never had anyone to talk to as a child. Maybe that’s why I’m not very good at it. We’re doing okay,” Hung said. “You and me…. Talking….”
The long silence that followed seemed not to support the statement.
“Have you been to China?” I asked.
“Baba goes back. I’ve never been. My father and I…. My grandfather… the gay thing … the culture…. It’s a whole….” Hung shrugged.
I got goose bumps. I wondered what the thermostat was set on, though I didn’t think it was that. “I know this other guy…. Sadly, it’s not uncommon still, I guess, for young men to struggle. I wasn’t sure if you were gay, from our infrequent Twitter interaction.”
“Was and am. I’m maybe not as in your face about it as Ethan. I mean, good for him, too, for gyrating on a float so I can get married in all fifty states. We do what we can.”
I barked out a laugh, even as Hung recoiled.
“That sounded harsh,” he said. “Harsh and judgmental. Stereotyp
es… I shouldn’t pin them on him out of jealousy.”
“Jealousy?”
“Envy?”
“Envy?”
Hung didn’t offer another synonym. “I assume people make up their mind about me at first glance too. I’m a bad driver and a brainiac. Maybe both are true. You know what the people I’m closest to call me?” Hung asked.
“What’s that?”
“Four-H.”
“‘Four-H?’”
“Yeah. As a nickname. One for Hung, one for hairy—more so than your average Asian.” He pulled up the sleeve of his sweater for proof, then tugged at the V-neck. Yup, he was hairy. As if he hadn’t presented enough evidence yet, he raised the hem to show off his furry tummy. “Oh. That was inappropriate.”
“It was actually quite nice.” Had we been in the safety of the Twitterverse, rather than face to face, I might have asked if his ass was hairy too.
“H three represents honest, because I have no filter, which explains why I flashed you. I also say things right out, like how I almost resent Ethan Whatever-his-name-is, because he’s all confident and popular.”
“And the last H?” I asked.
“Homo. The nickname started in college, where I was finally free to not worry at breakfast, ‘Am I acting straight enough?’ I kind of feel more at ease as Four-H than I do as Hung sometimes, you know? I have to act like Hung with the males in my family. With everyone I want to matter to, I’m Four-H.”
I smiled again—or maybe still. “I like it. It’s cute.”
“So…. Maybe you’ll want to call me that.”
“Sure. And I take back what I said before. I kind of do feel like I know you already. You’ve been here ten minutes, so some of it must be our half-dozen brief tweets.”
“Yeah. It does have that third or fourth date vibe about it,” Hung said.
“Date?” I immediately wondered if that meant sex was on the table. Then I called myself a dumbass. I was doing it again. I’d learned absolutely nothing despite the scenario with Bart—not to mention Ethan. I found it funny how much easier it seemed I was getting over him. Sure, we’d been intimate, Ethan and I. But in the end, I felt as if I’d exposed a lot more of myself to Bart, and not just because I’d taken my shirt off for him. I’d shared so much—my hope to someday open a theme restaurant based on music. We’d do a different genre every night and make grits and pulled pork on Country night and maybe gruel like Oliver ate or pease pudding and saveloys for Broadway. It’s not all fully fleshed out yet, I suppose. I’d also told him how much I wanted kids. I’ve even picked out some names already, I’d written. Quentin and Quincy for the boys, Jennifer and Jessica for my girls. I might have to think up some more. My family is pretty big.
I like those names.
Sure he did.
Now, here I was ready to sweep the muffin plate off the coffee table and throw Hung down onto it. A word came to mind—desperate. I stood. “You’re here on business, you said. So what is it you’d like to ask?” I didn’t give him time to decide. “Actually, I’m afraid I have to get going pretty soon. I have an early shift at the restaurant.”
“Oh. Okay.” Hung stood too. So did Red, who leaned against Hung’s hip. “Maybe we can do this another time.” Hung rubbed my setter’s ears. “Tonight?”
“I won’t be home until after midnight.”
“That’s okay.”
“Closer to one.”
“I don’t mind.”
“What’s your game, Hung? You that desperate to write your hatchet job? I’m already the most hated man in America, according to Wendy Williams… or maybe it was Nancy Grace. How much worse can things get?”
Once again, Hung didn’t get a chance to answer. We both turned toward the sound of shattering glass as my front living room window exploded. “No, Red!”
The dog bounded over toward the shards and the projectile anyway.
“Up on the couch, buddy.”
Red actually listened. I was impressed. Hung seemed to be too. “You be careful too, Noel!”
I picked up the baseball and read the message. “Now I’m getting pissed. This is ridiculous.”
“Call the police.” Hung ran to the door and flung it open. He kept on going, halfway down the driveway.
“You see anyone?” I asked when he returned.
“No.”
“You, um… were willing to fight for me?”
“Anytime. You’re not that guy that’s on the news. That’s what my piece is about. They come after you, I’ll take them down.”
THE POLICEMAN arrived within fifteen minutes. “Noel Beebe…. Hoda and Kathie Lee had some words for you this morning.” It was the police captain, who shook his head as he looked down at the baseball in the middle of my living room and patted Red on the rump. “What the heck kind of trouble did you get yourself into now?”
“Noel didn’t do a thing,” Hung protested. “He’s the victim. Some holiday vigilante is tossing things through his window in the name of tinsel and ‘Jingle Bells’! How dare you turn it on—?”
“Four-H…. My hero.” I gently poked my elbow into his ribcage. “H number five. Captain Tinker’s kidding. Right?” The cop was my best friend’s father.
“Right. Noel, here, was only in trouble one time in his life. You want to tell him what you did, Noel?”
“Not really.”
“When he was five….” Captain Tinker went right ahead. “He decided Duke Wallace’s cows would be happier back in the wild. Yeah.” He reacted to the expression on Hung’s face, one of bewilderment, brows raised, jaw dropped. “You heard me. They’d been on a field trip up the line a little bit—the kids in Noel and my Drew’s class, not the cows—to the Wallace Farm. Noel went back on his own the same night and opened the gate, so the herd could go live with the lions and tigers. We have a lot of those around Westchester, as you know, if you’re from here.”
“I am,” Hung said with a smile.
“So we hauled him in and booked him—him and his accomplice, my son Drew, who chickened out a couple feet from the gate. Threw them in with other hardened criminals. Actually, one of my fellow patrolmen pretended to be a bank robber to scare them straight.”
“It’s been twenty-five years.” I hid my face behind both palms. “Your son’s a preacher! Are we ever going to live that down?”
“As for the baseball…,” Captain Tinker said. I still called him that, even though we went to Drew’s church together and I’d been told a hundred times to call him Frank. “I assume this is due to your newfound celebrity.”
“Apparently.”
Captain Tinker picked it up.
“Aren’t you going to check it for fingerprints?” Hung asked.
“Ours are on it. Hung and I both touched it, then I put it back where it landed, in case you wanted to see.”
“Don’t have to. I recognize the handwriting,” Drew’s dad said. “It’s my granddaughter’s.”
“Emily?” I asked quite stunned.
“Don’t cancel Christmas Christmas hater,” Hung read over Captain Tinker’s shoulder. “Why Christmas twice?” he asked.
“She ran out of room for the comma, I figure. She writes big.” I told him.
“And you’ve attended enough of her Little League games to know she has quite the arm, even if she’s not much for accuracy,” Captain Tinker added. “Maybe she wasn’t aiming for the window?”
“She’s my buddy,” I said.
“You’re like a daddy to her.”
“I thought I was.”
Drew’s father shrugged. “Kids get mad at their daddies when they knock Santa.”
I finally exhaled and offered a gentle chuckle. “Well… you’ll take care of it? Let her know I’m not planning on canceling Christmas. I don’t really have that sort of authority. She must be expecting something really good.”
“You’ll have to ask your partner in cow-freeing. And I am sorry, Noel. Drew will be too… and Emily, for sure. Someone could have been hurt.”
“No one was,” I said. “And she probably got scared.”
“She’ll pay for the window.”
“That’s not necessary. It’s less scary, now that I know.”
Emily and Drew were there before I had to head off to work. I introduced Hung. Naturally, Preacher Man chuckled.
“Is he?” he whispered.
“No clue. He’s a reporter… not a date.”
“Too bad. You two look good together.”
Emily cried as I hugged her. She’d been aiming for the bushes beneath the window, just a note, not a threat. I gave her a plateful of cookies shaped like snowmen, Santa hats, bells, and candy canes. I’d baked them off from dough I took from the freezer the moment I knew she’d be coming by.
“She’s supposed to be apologizing to you,” Drew reminded me. “She did something wrong.” He accentuated the reprimand with his eyes, boring right into hers. “You can have the cookies after dinner. Now, you and your sister go play a minute.”
“It’s ridiculous,” I said, once Drew and I were alone. “The whole thing. I should have never gone out with Ethan.”
“Ethan?” Drew peeked around the corner at the girls, who’d joined Hung playing fetch with Red and his favorite fleecy rabbit. “The guy who took the video, right? Is he hung?”
“You’re not being very preacher-y, Preacher Man.” I said that a lot to Drew, whenever we acted like adolescents.
“I’m off the clock. Now answer my question. Is Ethan hung?”
“No.” As I watched the four in the living room having so much fun, I was sorry I had to interrupt it by leaving for work. “Ethan’s not Hung at all—but not in the way you mean.”
MY MOTHER talked to me through Bluetooth the entire way to the restaurant. “You’ve been mentioned on Fox and Friends, The View, The Talk, The Real, GMA, TODAY, Access Hollywood Live—”
Wow. She got all the titles right. “Wait. Access Hollywood? What do I have to do with Hollywood?”
“That was just this afternoon too. That girl I don’t like from that show you said you never saw, she mentioned you at a movie premiere, so what’s-her-name, who used to be with Al in the morning, said something to the other one with the pretty smile about you looking like a big teddy bear but acting like a bigger Grinch.”