Simon frowned. “Show us up? What do you mean?”
Owen’s lip curled as he gnawed on his corn dog. “They’re doing lip-synching and dancing like we do for the kids at the hospital. Except I heard a rumor they might actually sing, so it’s a karaoke version.”
Eyes wide, Simon took a better look at the gazebo. The chairs and stands from the quartet were gone, as were the instruments. The quartet members, still in their tuxedos, stood at the front of the stage, heads down, each of them wearing a wireless microphone.
As the audience began to murmur, Ram lifted his head. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We hope you enjoyed our concert this morning, and as we take you into the afternoon, we’re going to give you something different. Also, I have a message from one of our group to a member of the audience.” Ram looked at Owen and blew a kiss. “Jack says follow this if you can.”
The music began, and Hong-Wei sang in Korean. Simon’s breath caught. He was so good! And he knew this song. It was SHINee’s “Lucifer,” a K-pop classic.
Having his boyfriend look him in the eye, belting out “Lucifer,” and copying the K-pop group’s dance moves—while sliding out of a tuxedo jacket—was something out of dark fantasies Simon didn’t even whisper to his own subconscious.
Tim sang the verses too—to Simon’s knowledge he’d been born in California and so had his parents, but he was Korean by heritage. Whether or not he actually knew any Korean, Simon couldn’t say. He certainly sang it well, and Ram and Andrea didn’t do too badly either. Their dance moves were incredible, right out of the music video. Simon couldn’t help tapping his foot and shifting his body along to the beat, singing under his breath.
“Traitor,” Jared murmured.
“They’re fantastic,” Simon replied.
When the song finished, everyone cheered, and Simon was one of the loudest, adding a wolf whistle for good measure. It turned out they weren’t done performing, however. They held the final pose through the applause, but before it died away, new music started. Simon recognized it immediately as “Despacito,” and he assumed Amanda would lead this one, since she was fluent in Spanish. Except to his surprise, Hong-Wei took the opening—and sang it in Mandarin. Amanda joined him eventually in Spanish, and they traded back and forth as the others sang backup and everyone danced. It was incredible.
The crowd went wild. The entire staff of China Garden had come out of their booth to dance, and the staff from Mexican restaurant. They ended up dancing with one another.
Owen groaned. “We will never live this down, ever.”
At this point Simon was convinced there was no way there wasn’t a third song, and he was right. With barely a pause this time, “Despacito” bled into something that sounded as if it were right out of a Bollywood movie, which knowing Ram, it probably was. It had lots of drums and filled the street with pulse and life, and for a moment as Ram sang and moved his hips, getting the entire town to shout hey, hey, hey with him, Simon remembered why they’d dated.
The cheering was intense as the song ended, because it felt like a finale. Everyone, including Simon, assumed it was. But after a bit of bowing, the quartet members shifted places once more. Ram waved for silence.
“We have one last song, and this one’s the most important of all.”
To Simon’s surprise, Ram came into the audience.
Hong-Wei, Andrea, and Tim remained on the stage, Hong-Wei in the center. A slow song played, and Andrea and Tim started to sway. Hong-Wei sang in Mandarin again, so heartfelt and passionate, it made Simon shiver. Especially since Hong-Wei sang right at him.
Out of nowhere someone grabbed his hand—it was Ram. “Come on.” Ram tugged Simon toward the gazebo. “We need you for this one.”
Simon had no time to protest. Ram hurried him forward, through the crowd and up the stairs. Simon wanted to ask what was going on, but as the words formed on his lips, suddenly he was in front of Hong-Wei, who was still singing in Mandarin, looking right at him and nowhere else. Simon was hypnotized, unable to do anything but gaze back.
Out of the sea of words in the song he didn’t understand came three in English. “Just follow me.” Then the words Simon understood were gone again, Hong-Wei singing in Mandarin once more, but every so often in the chorus they would return, like an anchor. Just follow me. Just follow me.
The other quartet members kept dancing around them, but Hong-Wei did nothing else but hold Simon’s hands and sing to him. Simon felt hot all over. Being sung to like this was so intense, and to have it happen in front of everyone he’d ever known… he could barely breathe.
Just follow me. Just follow me. He wanted to tell Hong-Wei yes, he would follow him anywhere. Everywhere. Forever.
The song ended, and though the crowd began to clap, Ram and the others quickly silenced them with a wave as Hong-Wei got on one knee and withdrew a small box from the pocket of his coat.
Tears springing to his eyes, Simon covered his mouth with his hands.
Hong-Wei captured one of them and drew it to his lips. “Please promise you’ll follow me everywhere, Simon Lane. Because I’m already determined to stay with you wherever you go for the rest of your life, if you’ll allow me to do so.”
Simon scarcely managed a yes before he crouched to cup Hong-Wei’s face and sealed his vow with a kiss.
As he rose to his feet, wearing a ring, his hand firmly laced in Hong-Wei’s, he smiled out at the cheering crowd. He thought he saw a glimpse of Erin Andreas, who looked even more miserable than the day Simon had encountered him in the conference room.
Then Erin was gone, leaving only the joy of Copper Point in Simon’s vision as the people of the town wished him and his fiancé well, wherever their life would take them.
THE MONDAY after the festival was one of the most bittersweet days for Hong-Wei at St. Ann’s. Everyone made a point to come up to him and wish him and Simon congratulations, but they also began to tell him goodbye. They stopped trying to convince him to change his mind or tell him about the letters they were going to write. They simply shook his hand, gave him a hug and a sad smile, and wished him well. His surgery schedule, however, was completely filled, as far out as he allowed the receptionist to schedule him. When they went to dinner that night at China Garden, several people with appointments came up to give him their best, but they also worriedly confirmed he wasn’t leaving yet.
Owen tapped his fork on the table as he leaned in to speak sotto voce to Simon and Hong-Wei. “I hope the board is pissing itself. We’re leaving, creating a huge series of holes they have no hope of filling, and now Rebecca is ten times more favored for the open seat than the old fogey John Jean had step up. Of course, they’re still too proud to so much as ask us to reconsider.”
Jared flattened his lips before taking a sip of beer. “I asked Nick, thinking naively I could get him to listen to reason. He told me I wouldn’t understand and walked away from me.”
Simon forced a smile, the same false brightness he always had on this topic, which made Hong-Wei sad inside. “Don’t worry. Let’s focus on our evening and be happy about the time we have left in Copper Point.”
Hong-Wei did his best to follow Simon’s advice. Mostly he was grateful for Simon. They spent every evening together, alternating between houses still, though leaning a great deal on Hong-Wei’s place. They cooked together, did laundry together, made love together, but a lot of the time simply shared space. Already coming home to Simon had become an integral part of Hong-Wei’s existence. On the nights Simon had to work and he didn’t, Hong-Wei watched the door, waiting for the moment when he came back, and when Simon arrived, it was as if light came with him.
For the rest of our lives. He’ll come home to me like this for the rest of our lives.
The only task that remained for Hong-Wei that he didn’t know how to prepare for was telling his family about the move.
He had so much to tell them—about Simon, about what he’d done in Copper Point, and what he’d lost once again. Part o
f him wished he’d said something sooner, before it had come to this. In so many ways, he was in the same place he’d been when he’d left Houston. Except this time, his heart was changed.
For days he thought of how he wanted to begin the conversation, and he even drafted a kind of speech on his laptop, though in the end he sat in front of the camera waiting for Skype to load with no notes before him, only the steady beating of his heart to guide him.
When the monitor began ringing, he clicked on the button to answer with a shaking hand.
The screen was black for a moment, and then there was his father, staring back at him.
His father looked the same. Handsome in his salt-and-pepper hair, his eyes bright and strong, though they were surrounded by wrinkles and a few age spots. He greeted Hong-Wei with the small, contained gesture he always had, no matter how long and arduous the man’s day had been, whether Hong-Wei had disappointed him or not. As Hong-Wei had grown older, he’d learned to understand the weight his father carried behind that smile, and it had become his goal in life to lessen that burden, not add to it.
Drawing a slow breath, he said a prayer he would be able to live up to that vow now.
“Hi, Dad,” he said in Mandarin.
His father kept smiling. “Hello, Hong-Wei. It’s good to hear from you at last. Your mother and grandmother have worried how you have been. I have as well.”
Hong-Wei inclined his head, as low as he could go without disappearing from the frame. “I’m very sorry for making you worry. I should have been in contact sooner.” He lifted his head but not his gaze. “I was too ashamed to face you, too caught up in my failure. I know I let you down. I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I’m not the son you deserve. I’m working hard to be better.”
“Little Bun.” His father’s voice turned aching. “When did I ever tell you I wasn’t proud of you?”
Hearing his father use his family nickname made Hong-Wei’s eyes close, and he fought to keep threatening tears at bay. “How can you be proud of a failure?”
“I’m proud of a son whose sister tells me is doing good work in his new job, helping people in a remote place.”
“Yes, well, I have to leave that place now.” He felt sick, but he pressed on. “Because the administration isn’t interested in helping people. They only want to blackmail me into being one of their puppets.” When his father only frowned at him, Hong-Wei steadied himself and dove into the last confession. “There’s someone I love, Dad. Someone I want to marry. Someone I want you and the family to meet, because I want them to join our family.” He lifted his gaze to his father’s, not looking away. “I want him to join our family.”
Hong-Wei waited, his heartbeat quick against his chest.
His father’s confusion faded to surprise, and then, at last, to warmth. “Is he a good person?”
The tears began to fall now, beyond Hong-Wei’s control. “He’s wonderful. He’s a nurse. He’s conscientious, kind, gentle, and bright. He helped me find my way to be the kind of doctor I always wanted to be, and introduced me to so many friends. He showed me a place I could fall in love with.”
“That sounds wonderful. I don’t understand, though, why you have to leave.”
Hong-Wei explained, giving his father a brief summary of the policy, of the board and their history of control, of what he’d been trying to do with the new specialists and clinics and what he feared would happen now that the board considered him their pawn. “I can’t work like that. I can’t live like that. Especially since they won’t let Simon and me live openly together. We’d have to be forever in secret.”
Sighing, his father nodded. “I understand. I hope, then, this next hospital will be the right fit for you at last. I hope wherever you find yourself, you will be happy, Hong-Wei. And we all hope you will come home to see us soon.”
Heart full, no longer heavy, Hong-Wei smiled at his father. “I will. I’ll bring Simon too.”
This time his father’s smile wasn’t small at all. “We would like that very much.”
THE DAY before Hong-Wei and Simon were to leave for their interview, a new memo arrived.
Hong-Wei first realized something was wrong when he walked in the doors. Usually staff walked up and down the halls, doing their work, pausing to nod or wave as he walked by, but today they were huddled in groups, whispering to one another with wide eyes. Everyone in the building was behaving this way, and when they saw Hong-Wei, they glanced at him with a strange expression.
Instead of going to his office, Hong-Wei went to the OR to find Simon to see if he knew what was going on. Except Simon wasn’t there. He was at the nurses’ station, surrounded by people. They parted when they saw Hong-Wei. Red-cheeked, Simon came forward, holding a piece of paper at his side.
Hong-Wei pulled Simon aside, speaking quietly because he was aware everyone was staring at him. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“Not exactly. I take it you haven’t been to your mailbox yet?” He passed the paper to Hong-Wei. “This will be waiting for you inside.”
Hong-Wei held the paper up and skimmed it. Eyes wide, he slowed and read it more carefully.
Memorandum
From: Erin Andreas
To: All Hospital Staff
RE: Policy Changes
Effective immediately, the dating policy forbidding relationships between hospital employees has been suspended indefinitely. Further changes regarding other policies should be anticipated to help retain employees and stimulate positive growth for St. Ann’s in the future.
Any questions you have regarding this or any policy should be addressed to me. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
After reading it through for the third time, Hong-Wei looked up at Simon. “Is this real?”
“It seems to be, but no one quite knows. There’s a rumor Erin is in the cafeteria, as if he’s waiting for someone to come up and talk to him. So far, though, no one’s been brave enough to.”
Grabbing Simon’s hand and clutching the paper in his other, Hong-Wei headed down the hall. “Let’s be the first to break the trend.”
Sure enough, Erin was indeed sitting in the middle of the cafeteria, all alone at one of the round tables. He had a pile of folders around him as he worked at his laptop, and he was sipping a cup of coffee from a paper cup.
Simon worried his bottom lip. “He still looks pale, but he’s better than the day we talked.”
Hong-Wei turned to Simon, surprised. “You spoke to Erin? You never told me.”
Simon smiled coyly. “Yes, well, it’s a long story. Though from the sound of things, it might have a happy ending.”
They walked up to Erin together, somewhat tentatively, but when Erin saw them, he closed his laptop. “Ah. I expected the two of you.”
Hong-Wei waved the memo in the air between them. “Is this serious? The policy is dead?”
“Of course it’s serious. The policy needs to be reconsidered. It’s far too vague and broad as it stands.”
Hong-Wei raised an eyebrow. “And the board okayed this change?”
“The hospital has decided to pause the policy. That’s all you need to know.”
Except Hong-Wei could see the perspiration on Erin’s brow. Hong-Wei had all he needed to know, all right. Erin had acted alone on this. He’d gone completely cowboy the day before Hong-Wei and Simon were taking the first concrete step toward leaving, and forced the hospital’s hand. Now he was sitting in the cafeteria, waiting.
But not, Hong-Wei realized, waiting for the two of them, or anyone else on the hospital staff.
Hong-Wei put his hand on Simon’s shoulder. “Go to reception and cancel all our surgeries for today. Give our patients my apologies. Then come back here.”
Simon looked at him like he’d lost his head. “What?”
“As quickly as possible, please. On your way, if you can, grab my laptop so we can get some work done. Otherwise, don’t let anyone detain you. Simply get out the order to cancel and get here as fast as yo
u can.”
Still confused, Simon left. Erin didn’t glance up, but Hong-Wei thought he might be sweating a little less.
Hong-Wei stayed in the cafeteria, but he stepped to the side and called Owen, whom he knew would be on his way to work or nearly so.
“Get to St. Ann’s immediately,” he told him, “and drag everyone you possibly can into the cafeteria. Staff preferred, but I’ll take anyone with a spine I can get right now.”
“What in the hell?”
“Erin just rescinded the policy. Entirely on his own. Now he’s waiting in the cafeteria for his father to come and eat him alive.”
“Shit. I’ll be there in seven.”
He was there in five, his voice heard bellowing in the halls demanding everyone go to the cafeteria. At first the people who gathered were confused, but as Jared—who’d cancelled his clinic patients—arrived and whispered instruction, they simply took their seats and waited patiently.
Soon the room was full to bursting, and people kept coming. Community members came as well as staff—Maddy was there, and Rebecca with half her firm, and several other business leaders from Main Street. Ram came with Tim and Andrea and a number of professors and students from the university. Even the CEO of the sandstone mine showed up, standing off to the side with Kathryn and several of the other doctors. There were so many people now that when the fire marshal came—as an interested party—he made them file into the common areas outside the cafeteria.
In the middle of this shuffling of bodies, John Jean Andreas and the board arrived.
John Jean strode into the building as if it wasn’t teeming with people who had shown up to silently support his son’s rebellion. Erin remained where he was, fixated on his laptop as the board approached. When his father stood in front of him, he closed the computer and looked up. Waiting.
John Jean smiled the smile he’d given Hong-Wei right before he’d upended his world. “I’d like to speak with you privately, please.”
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