Chances for Serendipity

by Natalie Chung

  That was nice of him, but wasn’t Mike only his fitness trainer? “You two seem pretty close.” More like friends than employer and employee.

  Aiden shrugged. “I guess we are. He’s been with me through thick and thin. Anyway, what’s part two of your great challenge?”

  “Oh, right.” During my lunch break today, I’d texted him, asking to take him to our next destination when I was done with work. He’d told me to meet him here. I stuffed my hand into the front pocket of my handbag, palming a piece of paper. “Part two is a surprise until we get there.”

  His eyes zoned in on my half-hidden hand. He moved closer to me, angling his head over my handbag. “What are you hiding?”

  I staggered backward, warding him away with my free hand. “Hey, this is a sweat-free zone,” I said, totally ignoring the fact that my own perspiration already broke that rule. “And no peeking, or I win the next part of the challenge by default.”

  “You’re joking,” he said, but didn’t take another step toward me. “How’s that fair?”

  “Who says I’m playing fair? I’m playing to win. Besides, all’s fair in love and challenges.”

  “I think the right phrase is love and war.”

  “War, challenge. Same thing.”

  He shot me an amused look. “Are you declaring war on me, then?”

  “Ha ha. No, thanks. I’m not sure I want to go up against you and your sweat in a war.”

  He frowned. “Geez, man. I’m pretty sure I don’t smell that bad.” He pulled the collar of his shirt to his nose and sniffed. “Yeah. I do not smell bad.”

  I pinched my nose for show and pretended to gag. “Are you kidding? Your sweat could be bottled up and used as a stink bomb.”

  His eyes slid to the smile I couldn’t quite hide. “Oh, now you’re getting it.” He made a grab for me, and I yelped, leaping aside.

  But he was faster, banding his arms around me in a strong grip that lifted me off the ground.

  “Truce! I…call…truce!” I rasped out. The hot weather, coupled with his body heat, didn’t bode well for me at all. I may as well have had a pile of goo in place of my brain, because that’s what I felt like I’d melted mine into.

  Thankfully, he loosened his grip, allowing me to wriggle out of his arms. “All right, truce accepted on one condition,” he said as my feet hit the ground again. “No more comments about my sweat, and at least give me a hint about what we’re doing so I’m not going in blind.”

  I smoothed out my hair, and nodded slowly. On one hand, I wished he hadn’t let go of me so quickly, but on the other, I was having a difficult time ignoring the crazy emotions swarming inside of me as it was.

  “So it’s a deal?” he asked.

  “Okay. Deal.” I smiled at the brilliant plan I’d already formulated, excitement simmering inside me. “We’re going to go Christmas present shopping.”

  He thought money couldn’t buy happiness, but I would prove him wrong.

  “’Scuse me, coming through.” A woman barged past me, ramming me in the process.

  I massaged my shoulder, glaring at the woman as she continued to bulldoze her way through the crowd.

  Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. I scanned over the rest of the customers congregating around the entrance of the store. Why had this been my bright idea again? I should’ve taken into account all the late Christmas shoppers, which was apparently enough of the local population to fill out every square metre within my line of sight. Three days before Christmas. Ten days left, including this one, for me to win our challenge.

  Refusing to resort to the barging woman’s brutal tactics, I sidestepped and squeezed my way through the clusters of people instead. “Maybe we should try another store,” I muttered.

  Aiden’s voice came from behind me. “They’d probably be just as packed.”

  “True.” We pushed past the throng of customers queuing for the checkouts and eventually arrived at my intended destination further back in the store.

  The shelves were crammed with toys, and a steady stream of families occupied each aisle. Children squealed loudly as they raced past us, each holding a different toy in hand.

  Aiden cocked his head. He’d worn a sleeveless hoodie with the hood up. Precautions, he’d said. So tennis fans wouldn’t recognise him. “The kids’ section? Who are we buying Christmas presents for exactly?”

  I smiled secretively. “Here’s the shopping list.” I withdrew the piece of paper I’d hidden from him before, shoving it into his hands.

  “Colouring book? Barbie doll?” He recited the whole list written on the sheet until he came to the last item and squinted. “Dog?” He glanced up from the paper and fixed those inquisitive hazel eyes on me. “Did you grab a kid’s ultimate wish list from Santa or something?”

  That wasn’t far from the truth, but I kept my lips sealed, wanting it to stay a surprise for now. He’d know soon enough. “Let’s just go down the list and mark everything off as we get it.”

  Instead of arguing about the ambiguity of what we were doing, he surprisingly went along with my request.

  “I have to know,” he said while we searched through a section of children’s books. “Does ‘dog’ mean a real dog or a toy dog?”

  “Probably a real dog.” My eyes roved over the vast selection of colouring books I’d found. “But we’re obviously not getting a real one. We can just grab a robotic dog or plush.”

  “That’s cruel, Sere.” He clutched his heart dramatically, giving me a beseeching look. “Think of the poor child waiting for his or her dog.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s reality. We’re not getting a real dog.” I ran my finger along a children’s book coincidentally featuring a puppy with its tongue lolling out. “Look, this is perfect. Why don’t we get this instead?”

  Aiden barely gave the book a glance. “Haven’t you ever wanted a dog before? Or any pet?”

  I turned to give him my full attention. “Yeah, sure, but as a kid you always want things.” Things that had seemed so important to a young child’s brain, but now, looking back, felt stupid. “Just because a child wants things, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for them to get what they want.”

  “I guess that’s true.” He picked a colouring book off the shelf and started flicking through the black-and-white pages. “When I was a kid, I wanted to be the world’s number one tennis player.” Reaching the end of the book, he slapped it shut. “It was all I ever dreamed about.”

  “Is—” The rest of my words broke off at the sound of a commotion in our aisle. Two screaming children charged past us, one whacking the other with a foam sword.

  “Hah. Kids.” Aiden laughed, placing the colouring book back onto the shelf. “What about you, Sere?”

  My eyes focused on him again. “What about me?”

  He flashed me an easygoing smile that made my stomach feel like pancakes flipping in a frying pan. “What was your childhood dream?”

  “Um…” It wouldn’t hurt to tell him, would it? He’d told me his, after all. “It’s silly, really. When I was little, I wanted to be a successful baker with my own shop, catering to parties and events. I wanted to make up all my own original recipes and thought all I had to do was bake the goods and people would flock to buy them. Every time one of my cousins had a birthday party, I would bake all the snacks. Cookies, tarts, cake—you name it, I baked it.” I chuckled at how naive I’d been. As if starting a business would’ve been that easy. When Aiden didn’t laugh along with me, I stole a glance at him.

  His face was sombre and thoughtful, eyes unwavering. “I don’t think that was a silly dream to have. Isn’t that basically what you did for Isaac’s birthday? Didn’t you enjoy that?”

  “Yeah, of course.” It had taken me hours of work to bake it all, but it’d been worth it. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it was the most fun I’d had in ages.

  “Why not do it for a living then? I think you’d be great at it.”

  A flicker of uncertainty passed throu
gh me. “I don’t know. There are too many risks in starting my own business.” Too many what-ifs. What if people didn’t like what I made? What if I couldn’t earn enough money to keep the business running? What if, after everything I did, I failed spectacularly? It was better to play it safe. “Besides, I’m already starting full-time next year at the law firm I work at.”

  Aiden raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you really want to do? Do you actually like working there?”

  What was with all his questions? “Does it really matter? Life’s not all about doing what you like.”

  His eyes darkened. “It should be. We only have one life, so why spend it doing something you don’t like? I’d rather do what I like to make it worthwhile.”

  Why was he getting all philosophical with me? I was meant to be the one resolving his problems about his career, not the other way around. “Keeping a business running is difficult work,” I said, mainly so he would stop pestering me about it. “My parents had to work really hard for our bakery to stay in business. There’s a chance that I’d just be wasting my time and money if I try.”

  Thinking back on my childhood, there were years when Dad wanted to watch the Australian Open, but we struggled to have the money to go. Even when we could, Dad would take the long drive there instead of the short flight because we couldn’t afford the plane tickets. I didn’t know if I’d have the same struggles with money, but it wasn’t like I had that leap of faith to find out.

  “You don’t really know until you try,” Aiden said.

  “It doesn’t matter. We’re here for you today. It’s my challenge to prove you wrong, remember?”

  He folded his arms. “And why is that?”

  The words were out of my mouth before I could think. “Because I don’t want you to quit tennis.”

  His nose crinkled. “What…” He shook his head, our silence filled by the store speakers playing Jingle Bells. The merry song didn’t go well with the anticipation swirling inside me.

  Was he going to tell me that it was no good? That nothing I did was going to change his mind? That couldn’t be true. I’d seen the way he’d had fun playing at Isaac’s party, and he’d admitted that he didn’t hate tennis itself, just the troubles and doubts that came with it. Would he really have practiced tennis today if he hated it that much?

  If I could convince him to overlook all the bad things, then maybe he would happily go back to playing tennis. Was I in way over my head to assume I had the power to do that? Maybe.

  But when my gaze met his again, he said, “It won’t be easy for you to change my mind.”

  I laughed in relief. Like that would stop me. “It’s called a challenge for a reason, Aiden.” And I was going to win it.

  Chapter 22

  “Last stop for the day,” I announced. I indicated left into a small parking lot and reversed my car into the first free space I found.

  After hefting out the multiple bags of Christmas presents, I led us along the footpath bordering the parking lot to a small place between a second-hand clothes store and a fruit shop.

  “‘Gifts of Gold,’” Aiden said, reading the plaque beside the door. “‘Give More Than You Get.’ Is this a charity?”

  “Yep. These”—I lifted up the bags I held—“are things that children from families-in-need requested for Christmas.”

  Understanding reflected in his eyes as he glanced at the bags in his hands and then me. “So that’s how you’re proving me wrong.” I could see the internal cogs turning in his head. Money couldn’t buy happiness, but using it to help others could give someone else theirs, and therefore your own. That was my logic anyway. “You’re really something else, Sere.”

  “Nah. It was Max’s idea to use the money we raised from selling the cake pops.”

  “That’s what he meant the other day when he said you guys had nearly reached your goal?”

  “Yep. But Gifts of Gold does all the hard work. I don’t really get to help as much as I’d like.” Definitely not as much as they’d helped us. We’d struggled financially the year Dad had been in and out of the hospital. We hadn’t been able to run the bakery full-time and had almost been unable to pay for some of the bills. That was when Gifts of Gold had stepped in and offered to cover the cost for paid TV so Dad could watch Aus Open from his hospital bed. Then they’d brought him better meals than the hospital ones.

  I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. “Let’s go.” The summer heat had died down, but it was still too humid for my liking. My blouse stuck to me like a second skin and my feet felt clammy in my heels. Ugh.

  I pulled down on the door handle and pushed through. Immediately, a relieving gust of cool air blew in my face. Ahh, glorious. I walked in, taking in the festive decorations. Red and green tinsel hung on the walls, and a miniature Christmas tree took up a corner of the small room. A woman sitting behind the counter looked up upon our arrival. “Good evening. How can I help you today?”

  “Hi.” I plopped one of my tote bags onto the counter and took out a piece of paper from my handbag, handing it to her. “I’m here to deliver some Christmas presents.”

  “Oh yes. Thank you.” She squinted at the top of the paper. “Serendipity. That’s a pretty name.”

  “Thanks.” Though I hadn’t been so fond of it before, I was beginning to feel like my name wasn’t too bad—especially with the way Aiden said it.

  The woman proceeded to sort through the bags and mark off each item on my list. “Did you want to wrap the gifts? We’ve got all the supplies set up in a room at the back there.” She motioned at the hallway on our right.

  “Uhhh.” I turned to Aiden. “Do you want to?” It wasn’t really part of the challenge, and I didn’t know how much time he had to waste.

  He smiled. “Sure. May as well since we’re here.”

  And that was how we ended up, for the next hour, wrangling wrapping paper with scissors and sticky tape. Or more accurately speaking, Aiden was the one wrangling; I was trying to salvage his attempts at wrapping a colouring book.

  “I thought you had good hand-eye coordination.” I carefully retaped the edge of the wrapping paper so that it was no longer sticking out at an odd angle.

  “Yeah, at tennis. Not wrapping presents. I’ve never had to wrap a present in my life.”

  “Never?” I plucked off another piece of the sticky tape. “How about for birthdays?”

  “Not for birthdays or Christmas. I don’t really celebrate them.”

  “That’s a shame.” It wasn’t like my family was big on those events either, but I did get Mum and Max a birthday present each year. We didn’t really celebrate Christmas nowadays though—which was why I’d insisted on Mum staying in Hong Kong until after New Years—but as children, we got gifts and Dad cooked lots of food. How could someone go through their entire life without celebrating birthdays or Christmas? I couldn’t imagine it. “You’ve been missing out.”

  “Yeah, that’s why I said I wanted a normal life.”

  I immediately wanted to stuff my words back into my mouth. Oh no. This wouldn’t do. I couldn’t have him reverting back to his old reasonings for hating tennis when I was so close to convincing him otherwise. “Here, cut these in one-metre lengths,” I suggested, sliding a tape of festive red ribbon on the table to him. “You should do it this year then. Give people presents, I mean. You could give something to your mum or dad.”

  “Mum’s out of the state.” He unwound the ribbon and snipped it with a pair of scissors. “I came here to visit her, actually, but all the hassling from my dad and attention from the media was too much for her.”

  “Hassling?” Much of Aiden’s personal life stayed private, so I didn’t know anything about his mum.

  “Yeah, when I stopped answering his messages, he started pestering my mum instead. I’m so sick of his behaviour.” His fingers tightened on the length of ribbon he’d cut. “He’s why there’s no way you can win this challenge.”

  “Because you think I can’t help you mend y
our relationship with your dad?”

  “Because I know you can’t,” he corrected. “It’ll be impossible to convince him to change his ways enough for me to let him into my life again.”

  A deafening silence followed his statement. It was true that I’d known his third reason would be the hardest to change his mind on, but what exactly had happened between them to cause such a rift in the first place? From what little I remembered about his dad, that one time I’d seen him, he’d seemed like a strict, no-nonsense father. But he’d also worried when I’d hit his son on the head with the tennis ball. So he wasn’t a complete tiger parent. There had to be some sort of hope for their relationship to mend, right? “At least you have a chance to talk it out with him.”

  His head lowered in shame. “I’m sorry. I’ve been dissing my dad, and I just realised you…”

  “It’s fine,” I said quickly. “Everyone has a different situation.” I knew Ming used to have a rocky relationship with her mum too when she’d chosen to pursue a different career than the one she’d expected her to take. Despite that, she’d told me now it wasn’t as bad. Her mum had eventually come around. Maybe all Aiden had to do with his dad was have a heart to heart too.

  “Have you ever tried talking to your dad about how you feel? Maybe talk about your problems with him?”

  Aiden’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the point? He’s so stubborn in his ways that he won’t accept anything else but his own version of what’s right.”

  “Why don’t you just try anyway? I can’t say you’ve won the challenge until you’ve tried,” I said. “Unless you’re happy giving me a free win.”

  “You play a hard challenge to beat, Serendipity.” He exhaled loudly. “Fine. What do I have to do to count as ‘trying’?”

  I hummed thoughtfully. “First of all, you have to tell me why you’re mad at him.”

  He bit his bottom lip. Then, letting go of the ribbon in his hand, he fished his phone out from his pocket. He unlocked the screen and tapped it a few times. “This is why.”