by Jen Trinh
I walked faster. I glanced around the dining hall and dance floor, but didn’t see Anna anywhere. There was no sign of her, even after checking the cake and coffee area, as well as the terrace. So I headed back to my table and sat down to think.
Daddy issues? Was her dad a misogynistic asshole, and she didn’t want to date anyone even remotely similar to him? Or perhaps he was racist, and she was trying (or not trying) to please him? Something else? I imagined the best and worst case scenarios, but I knew that it wouldn’t do me any good to guess at what that meant. Only Anna could tell me.
I checked my phone to see if she’d messaged me at all. I’d given her my business card, so she had my number, but I didn’t have hers. There were no messages. I sighed and contemplated going back to the hotel to look for her.
Thankfully, after one last song, the DJ announced that the wedding was over, but that an afterparty would be happening at the hotel. Everyone queued up to get onto the shuttles, and I eagerly craned my neck to look around, but still didn’t see Anna anywhere. She must’ve caught an earlier shuttle back.
I got onto the shuttle and ignored everyone. They all took one look at my face and left me alone.
When we arrived back, I sprinted up the stairs to our floor to avoid all of the elevator traffic. As I’d expected, my jacket was on the doorknob to my room. I walked a few feet down and knocked on Anna’s door, softly calling her name. No answer.
I went into my room and found a slip of paper and a pen to write a note.
Anna,
I had a great time with you tonight. I’m sorry if things got awkward. If you give me a chance, I can explain what happened. You’re smart, funny, and gorgeous, and I’d love to get to know you better.
Hope to see you at climbing tomorrow morning (assuming you’re not hungover). 10am at the Granitarium. It’ll be “rocking” good fun.
Ian
I folded it twice and slipped it under her door.
She never showed up.
◆◆◆
“What’s her deal, Cassie?” I asked. I belayed Cassie as she led a 5.10c route at the Granitarium. I didn’t give her any details about what happened the night before, just mentioned that I’d been “hanging out” with Anna when she’d gotten mad at me for talking to my mom.
“Don’t take it personally. Anna’s...picky.” She lunged for a jug. Cassie wasn’t very tall (maybe only 5’), so she had an extremely dynamic climbing style that was exciting to watch, especially as her belayer.
“You told me before that you thought we’d be great together. Except for the whole Asian guy thing.” I gave her extra slack as she clipped in.
She locked off on her right and felt around with her left hand on a large mantle shelf above her, searching for the best hand position. “I...did...still...think so,” she said, straining. “Take!” she yelled, a moment before falling. She hadn’t gone far from the clip, so she only fell a couple of feet. I caught her, soft and easy.
“So how do I win her over?” I leaned back into the harness to make it easier to look up at her.
Cassie glanced at me from above, shook out her arms, and sighed. “You don’t. Not if she doesn’t want to be won over.”
“You won’t give me her number and let me try?” I asked, voice pitched slightly higher with hope.
She stuck her tongue out at me, then got back onto the route. “Chicks before dicks, Ian.”
Sigh. Well, it was fun while it lasted.
◆◆◆
With my mom ill and my dad taking care of her, it was a tough time for them both. It always cheered them up to hear from me, so I alternated my calls between them.
On Wednesday morning, on my way to the office, I called my dad.
“Hello? Ba. How are you?” We spoke in Mandarin, as usual.
“Ian. I’m fine, I’m fine.” His exaggerated sigh suggested otherwise.
“Ba, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” After retiring last year, he seemed more withdrawn and tired, and he was even less inclined to go to the doctor than my mother.
“Nothing, I’m fine. Just need a break. You know how your Ma can be.” He heaved another sigh, and I sighed along with him. We both loved her deeply, but my mother was a handful sometimes. “Can we still come see you this weekend? You’ll be back from California on Friday, right?”
“Yes, of course you can still come. You know I love seeing you both.”
“You sure we’re not bothering you?” He often asked me this question.
“No way, I look forward to it. We can go check out this new Italian restaurant that just opened around the corner from my apartment. I’ve heard it’s really good.”
He was silent for a moment. “Ian. Are we making it hard for you to date?”
I snorted. “No Ba, I’m making it hard for myself. Why do you ask?”
Another brief silence. “Your Ma wants to see you get married,” he murmured.
“She will. You both will. You’re both going to live till you’re 100.” I hoped I sounded convinced. “She only has a few more treatments left, right?”
“She’s so tired sometimes,” he said, his tone melancholy. “I’m tired, too.”
I clenched my fists on the steering wheel. “Ba, you guys are only in your 60s. You have plenty of time to watch me get married and play with your grandkids. Just make sure you exercise and eat well. Don’t eat too many of those desserts that you love. And don’t make me worry about you.”
He sighed. “We try.”
I attempted to lighten his mood. “Do your friends have any daughters in mind for me?”
My dad chuckled quietly. “You know your Ma would try to find you a wife, if you asked her to. Don’t joke about it if you don’t mean it.”
I smiled, reflecting on my poor dating record. Reflecting on Anna. “Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”
Chapter 7
-Anna-
One month later
I stepped off the subway and was greeted by the familiar, sharp tang of urine. I usually loved New York, but there were days when the reality of it was just too much. Like today, when it was overcast, cold, and windy outside. And the station was crowded and loud and stank worse than usual.
Oh, and I had gotten fired.
I had my suspicions about why. I may have been overly vocal in my opinion of our latest client, who’d been accused by multiple women of sexual assault. I may have used the words fucking asshat and douche canoe while I was talking to the secretary about him, right as he walked into the office. I’d definitely fucked up, big time. And now it was time for me to find a new job, at least until my music writing career picked up.
Given my ghost town of an email inbox, that didn’t seem to be happening anytime soon. I regularly submitted pieces to the biggest music news sites, but I’d only heard back a few times, all rejections. I hadn’t gotten paid for a piece since my first, seven months ago. So I still needed a real job, one that left me with enough mental energy at the end of the day to work on my dream job.
Recently, it felt more like a pipe dream job. Nothing really inspired me anymore, and my playlists and blog posts were increasingly lackluster. New York was generally a good place for music, but I’d lived there for eight years and it was honestly getting a bit old. Or maybe I was uninspiring and getting a bit old. Either way, the venues blurred together, the shows all sounded the same, and with the boring side jobs that I had to work in order to make ends meet, I just never seemed to have enough time or resources to push out new, unique content at the rate that I needed to.
My trip to San Francisco the month before had been a nice change of scenery, and it seemed to have helped a bit. I’d finished the playlist that I’d been working on (one of my better ones), visited some cool record stores, discovered a local band that played psychedelic covers of pop songs, and gotten some ideas for additional playlists. I stretched the experience out into a five-part blog post. It’d been a really productive trip.
The only bad part of the trip had bee
n him.
The night of the wedding, I’d taken the next shuttle back to the hotel. It had mortified me to no end that I’d been practically begging him to fuck me, and that he’d chosen to leave me there, dripping wet and aching, to talk to his mother. What did that say about him? What did that say about me?
Good thing that he hadn’t finished the job, and that I hadn’t come. Orgasm usually meant attachment for me, and with Ian, I did not want that. He was everything that I’d rejected from my previous life, and there was definitely no future for us. So despite his skilled tongue and his sweet note, I’d completely ghosted him.
But Cassie and Jessa seemed to know that something had happened between us. When we met for drinks on the Sunday night after the wedding, they told me that they specifically had not invited him, even though they had all been climbing together earlier in the day. I was annoyed and vaguely jealous that they’d all gone without me. Not that I hadn’t been invited.
“So...what exactly happened between you two?” Cassie asked. It was just me and the girls, Cassie, Jessa, and Lisa.
“Well,” I began, taking a sip of my cocktail, “we kinda hooked up. Kinda. I was tipsy and thirsty, and he was...convenient.”
Lisa giggled. “And hot,” she added, unhelpfully.
I frowned at her, then continued, “But luckily, his mom called and he started talking to her instead of having sex with me.” I sat back and smirked, eagerly anticipating their outrage.
They stared. “He...picked up the phone instead of putting his dick in you?” Jessa asked, incredulous.
“His mom?” added Lisa, mouth gaping.
“I know, right? Who does that?” I took another sip of my cocktail, triumphantly vindicated.
Cassie studied my face, a small wrinkle on her brow. “You know, we’ve worked together for the past couple of years, and he doesn’t really take time off.” She paused. “But he did recently, because his mom has cancer.”
I nearly spat out my drink. Instead, I gulped it down, the alcohol burning my throat. “Oh.” Giant snakes of guilt writhed in my stomach.
Jessa and Lisa exchanged glances. “It’s still kinda weird that he did that,” Jessa offered, trying to make me feel better. “He could’ve just called her back later. He missed his chance with you.”
Lisa put her arm around me. “Besides, you have a rule right? No Asian guys.”
I plastered on a smile, though the frenzied squirming in my stomach continued. “Yep. No Asian guys!” I raised my glass. They clinked their glasses with mine and we all took a drink. We didn’t talk about Ian or guys anymore after that.
◆◆◆
I briskly walked the familiar route back to my apartment in Queens, only half-heartedly glancing at the rock climbers in the gym that I always passed. But a flash of bare, golden skin caught my eye, and I briefly stopped to look.
Fuck. There, on one of the walls nearest to the front, was Ian.
And he was ripped.
I’d felt the hard planes of his muscles crushed against me at Cassie’s wedding, but I had no idea that he possessed the abs and pecs of an underwear model, all sculpted curves and lines of definition. His shirtless back flexed with pure muscle, bare skin glistening with sweat. The grace and power with which he climbed, the calm precision of his movements on the wall...it was captivating.
He leapt (actually leapt!) from one big green hold to another, catching it easily and pulling himself up and over in one fluid motion. He balanced on the hold on one foot, carefully sliding his hands up along his side and over his head to touch a tiny green speck at the top of the wall. Then he jumped, easily ten feet, down to the mat below. A pretty, olive-skinned brunette wearing only tights and a sports bra gave him a high five. I scowled at her fit, athletic body, the honeyed glow of her skin. The stunning smile she flashed at him.
I hid in the shadows by the entrance, staring like a creeper. He sat down next to the brunette and they watched as another guy tried to repeat the same moves. The guy leapt, just as Ian had, but his hands slipped off the hold and he ended up belly-flopping onto the mat. He ruefully got up and said something to Ian, who began pointing at the wall and miming climbing movements.
Ian had made it look so easy. I mean, no wonder, with a body like that. If only I’d waited for him in the bathroom, maybe I would’ve—
I shivered. The chill was creeping in, and it was time to move on. I had more important things to think about than who had missed out on whom.
◆◆◆
I wept into my mug. “Cassie...I don’t know what to do.” I’d just told her about getting laid off. I knew that I’d be okay for a couple of months, given that I had some savings, but I was nervous anyway. I needed a new job that paid relatively well, and landing one could definitely take longer than two months.
The thought of going back to being fully trapped...it filled me with dread. Why was it so hard to get on my own two feet, like I so badly wanted?
Cassie typed and clicked on her computer, big blue eyes narrowed in concentration as she stared at the screen. Her bright blonde hair was loose, wavy and wild, perfectly framing her soft, feminine face. She’d insisted that we should keep in touch after my visit to San Francisco, and I’d decided to try, really try, this time. We’d started doing weekly Sunday night Google Hangout calls ever since her wedding, and I was grateful to have such a good friend back in my life.
She stopped clicking. “You probably aren’t going to like this...but there’s an opening for an office admin role at Stumpstash, in the New York office. I just checked our jobs page.” The chat window chimed. She’d sent me a link.
I wept even harder. “Cassie, I can’t—I can’t work with him.”
“Shhhh, why not? Hey, he’s just a guy you hooked up with, it’s not a big deal.”
“It would be s-so embarrassing.” I wiped my tears away and clicked on the link to the job description.
When the page finished loading, my jaw dropped and I immediately stopped crying.
“$40 per hour? Is that a typo?” I skimmed the rest of the job description.
“Nope. Welcome to tech, Nana.” On screen, Cassie sat back and smiled. “Let’s be coworkers!”
“Health benefits? Three weeks vacation? What the fuck? This is what tech is like? Why did I waste so much time working for a law firm?” I thought about Ian and his bespoke suit and fancy jeans. Or the absurdly large diamond flashing on Cassie’s finger.
“Yup. You should definitely apply! I know the idea of working with Ian bothers you, Nana, but I think it’d be a great role for you. And it’ll only be awkward for a minute. Ian’s a really nice guy—he’s not going to hold it against you. He’ll probably even help you. He actually helped me get my job, too.”
I was still shocked, but the practical part of my brain started to win over the butt-hurt emotional part. I slowly nodded. “Ok. I’ll think about it. Thanks, Cass.”
“Of course! But hey, I have to go. Michael and I are going to catch a movie. Let me know if you want a referral! And if you get a chance, you should ask Ian about what the New York office is like, it might not be run the same way as the San Francisco one.”
“Alright, I’ll try. Bye, Cass. Thanks for everything.” She blew me a kiss through the screen and signed off.
I sighed and closed my laptop, then sipped my tea and considered my options.
A position like this wouldn’t be open for long. If I wanted the job, I had to act right away.
I could look around for other jobs, but I doubted that I’d find one as good, or have a friend who could refer me and help me through the process.
And $40 per hour was a lot. Plus benefits. My last job had paid less than half as much.
I could eat twice as much pizza, or go to twice as many music shows. I could afford to get a gym membership, or maybe travel more.
But...Ian.
The thought of him filled me with a myriad of feelings. Annoyance. Lust. Guilt. Regret. In retrospect, he’d really done nothing wrong. If I
’d just waited for him...if we’d just finished what we’d started...maybe it would’ve been fine. More than fine, the way things had been going. A jolt of need shot through me at the memory of his warm hands and irresistible tongue on my skin, and despite the warm tea in my hands, I shivered.
We likely could have hooked up and ended things on ok terms. Instead, I’d gotten mad at him for talking to his sick mom, and then I’d completely cut him off.
It sucked to be in the wrong, especially now that I needed his help. And though I wasn’t superstitious, I couldn’t deny the fact that seeing him earlier this evening seemed like a sign.
Maybe this was my chance to get a better job and to apologize.
So what if he’d almost known me in the biblical sense?
So what if I’d ghosted him, somewhat unfairly?
I could deal with it all for $40 an hour and three weeks of vacation.
I opened my desk drawer and rummaged about until I found Ian’s business card. For some inexplicable reason, despite what had happened, I’d decided to keep it. Past-Anna was somehow always looking out for present-Anna.
His smiling face, printed on the card, seemed to mock me.
I imagined his lips curled further up into a sneer. I’d scoffed at him for being a tech bro, and yet here I was, asking to join the party.
Then I imagined his lips doing other things too. Filthy things. I shook my head, willing the thoughts to go away.
I lifted my mug and swallowed the last of my tea...and my pride.
Chapter 8
-Ian-
After my conversation with my dad, I’d planned on trying harder to find a girlfriend. Instead, I tried harder in the gym.
Firstly, work picked up and I had a brand new team to manage. I didn’t need the additional work of going out to bars or meetups, or carefully reading profiles and crafting messages to people through dating apps. I preferred the more organic approach anyway, as it was easier to tell if we had chemistry right off the bat.