She finally managed to get to her feet and eyed the clothing rack as if it was her enemy. Instinct took over, and she did a series of kicks and swipes, spinning around to defend herself. She dropped into the final stance and heard clapping behind her.
Whirling around, she found Olivia standing at the door leading to the hallway. “That was beautiful,” she said.
Lexa patted the clothing on the rack, trying to hide the piece of lace in her hand. She bowed to the clothes as she backed away slowly toward Olivia. “Sorry,” Lexa mumbled. “But Mrs. Lockwood’s dresses attacked me.”
Olivia laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell her.” Olivia winked at Lexa as they went out into the hall. Lexa jabbed at the elevator button, willing it to hurry up and whisk her away.
Fleeing from the Lockwoods’ lavish Fifth Avenue apartment filled with important French period furniture, Lexa felt like a little kid who had escaped from a disapproving parent. She dropped the piece of lace into a garbage can and pulled out her cell phone. She knew her mom was at her teacher training, so she called Greg, since they’d yet to discuss what had happened in Taiwan. And now, with finding out what Pong had done, she really needed a parent’s advice.
“Dad. Can I come over?” She knew he was working from home that day.
Greg must have heard the urgency in her voice, because he didn’t question her. “Of course. Did you eat yet? I’ll make us lunch.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
She put her phone back in her purse and picked up her pace, deciding to walk the thirty or so blocks plus five avenues to Greg’s apartment. She needed to work off this nervous energy, which was threatening to bubble out of her. As she walked, she thought of actually accepting Pong’s money.
The whole purpose of his gesture was to make her go back to Taiwan and reconcile with her father. Her father was dead. If she went back there, she’d have to see Hsu-Ling’s mother.
She stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, causing the man who was walking behind her to slam into her.
“Watch it.” The man gave her an irritated look before stepping around her. But Lexa didn’t hear.
Could she face Pin-Yen again just to save her Taiwanese family? And more importantly, what was Pin-Yen going to do when she found out what Pong had done?
32
Wow, your apartment is so clean.” Lexa looked around her dad’s place and couldn’t believe her eyes. He wasn’t the neatest person. He usually left clothes in piles all over the floor and let the dishes pile up in the sink until her mom yelled. But now, his studio was spotless.
“I finally put everything away.”
Lexa sniffed the air. “It smells good too, like lemon cleaner. What happened?”
“Really? I’m that big of a slob that you’re surprised when my apartment smells good?”
She grinned at him but didn’t answer. Walking into his kitchen, she opened the small refrigerator and poured herself a glass of sparkling water. She was sweaty and thirsty from the long walk.
Greg swatted Lexa on the shoulder when she walked by him toward his dining table. “I made turkey pita pockets with hummus and sprouts.”
“Did you put cucumbers in there?” Lexa lifted one end of a pocket to peek in. She and her dad had invented this sandwich one afternoon when she was sick and stayed home from school. They’d tried to stuff as much as they could into a pita pocket.
“What do you think?”
“Thanks.” She reached out, meaning to give him a quick hug, but she ended up wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing tight for more than a moment.
“Are you finally going to tell me what happened?”
“Let’s talk while we eat.” She walked to the couch to drop her purse and was making her way back to the dining table when something on the coffee table caught her eye. It was a silver necklace in the shape of a lotus flower. It looked familiar, but she couldn’t place where she’d seen it before. Her dad’s eyes followed her gaze.
Lexa cocked her head in her dad’s direction. “Did you have a woman over?”
His face reddened, and he looked away. “Um.”
“Dad, it’s fine,” she said, sitting at the table and picking up her sandwich. “I’m glad you’re going out. Anyone special?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged and sat across from her.
She took a bite and waited, but he didn’t explain. “You’re not going to tell me?”
He shrugged again and scratched his arm. “There’s nothing to tell. I want to know what’s going on with you.”
“Well, you know Hsu-Ling’s mom accused me of being jealous of Hsu-Ling and trying to hurt her. And that Pong said I’d come on to him.” She looked down, unable to meet his eyes.
“I wanted to throttle them when I heard. That woman. How could she make up lies like that? And Pong!” Greg stood up and paced in front of Lexa. “I could kill him.”
“Dad, he’s already dead.”
He stopped pacing, and they looked at each other. For some reason, Lexa got the urge to laugh. This wasn’t funny; keeping this secret from him all these years wasn’t funny, but she couldn’t stop the giggle that escaped as she dropped her sandwich back on the plate.
“You think this is funny?” He stared at her, his eyes practically bulging out of his head. “Your father’s friend accused you of coming on to him. You! At fourteen! And his wife basically drove you away!”
“No, I’m sorry,” she said, trying hard to stop. “It’s just that I cried so much already. Laughing is better.”
His face stony, he waited until her hysterical laughter had died down. Then he sat across from her at the small round table. “I wish I’d been there. I would have set that woman straight. No one accuses my daughter of something she didn’t do and gets away with it.” His eyes gleamed with anger, and the last bubble of laughter faded from Lexa.
She reached across the table and grabbed his hand. “Thanks, Dad.”
“I can’t believe your father didn’t stick up for you. I know he didn’t know you like I do, but still. He’s your father. He let that woman drive you away.” He shook his head and clamped his lips together.
Lexa let go of his hand and picked up her sandwich again. She took a bite and used the time it took her to chew to gather her thoughts. When she’d swallowed, she said, “There’s more. Do you want to hear it?”
“Of course.”
So while her dad ate his sandwich, she told him about Pong’s letter. And watched as he almost choked when she told him the fate of her Taiwanese family’s home now rested on her.
“He what?” Her dad picked up his water and took a big sip. “He made it your responsibility? If that man wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him.”
Lexa sat back and looked at her dad, her throat clogging up. This man believed in her, in a way her birth father hadn’t. She knew without a doubt if it had been him, Greg would have backed her up no matter what.
“I love you, Dad,” she said quietly.
He looked up, and his face softened when he looked at her. “I love you too. That’s never going to change. I will always believe you.”
“I know. You brought me up. He didn’t. My father barely knew me.” She bit her lip. “And now he never will.”
Greg didn’t answer, instead giving a grunt before focusing back on his lunch. They finished eating in silence. Then Greg got up and walked to his desk. He opened the top drawer and pulled something out and came back to the table. He placed two small objects in front of her, and Lexa looked at him in surprise.
“You still have these?” she asked. “I thought we threw them away.” She picked up one of the small round jade bracelets and ran her fingers over the smooth surface.
It was the jade bracelet her father had bought her the first time she met him, when she was eight. The other was the one he’d gotten her that last summer when she was
fourteen, to replace the first one, which had gotten too small.
“I picked them out of the garbage after you went to bed that day.”
Lexa held up the bigger of the two bracelets. “You helped me get this one off my wrist the day I came home from Taiwan.” Lexa gave a wry smile as she remembered how frantic she was to remove the piece of jade from her wrist. It had been weighing her down, as much as her father’s betrayal had weighed down her heart.
“You couldn’t get it off. I had to use soap and water to slide it off.” Greg sat back down in his seat. “And you wouldn’t tell me what happened. Even when I asked if your father had done something to you, hit you or worse.”
“He didn’t.”
“Not physically. But he broke your heart.”
Lexa played with the bracelets in her hands, listening to the delicate clink when they hit against each other. “Why did you keep these for me?”
“Because I knew you’d want them again one day. Maybe not right away, but I thought one day you’d reconcile and you’d regret throwing them away.” Greg looked down at his hands and clasped them together on the table. “And there was a part of me, deep, deep down, that was secretly glad you hadn’t come back with stars in your eyes like you did every time you saw your father.”
“You were jealous?”
Greg gave a small nod. “I knew it was petty, and I knew it was wrong. So I saved these jade pieces for you in case you’d ever want them back. Your father did love you in his own way, no matter what happened.”
He cleared his throat, and she looked up. She stood and went around the table to stand behind him and wrapped her arms around him.
“It wasn’t petty, and it wasn’t wrong. You’re human. Thanks for saving them. You’re right, I’m glad to have them now.” And she hugged her dad tight, even as she clasped the symbol of her birth father’s love in her hands.
33
What time is it?” Lexa let out a loud yawn and covered her mouth, too late. Her body tingled, and her toes brushed against Jake’s leg, sending a thrill down her spine.
“It’s almost eleven,” Jake said.
“I have to go.” She sat up in the hotel bed, where Jake had just made love to her. She stretched her arms over her head, luxuriating in the smooth white sheets, and let out a long sigh. “I have to let Zeus out.”
Jake pulled a gray T-shirt over his head. Lexa watched with regret as his torso disappeared. He was still in town for work, and he’d called after she got home from her dad’s that afternoon. When she said she had plans for dinner with Hsu-Ling, he’d offered to take them both out. They’d gone to Anassa Taverna at Sixtieth and Third Avenue, and Lexa had been relieved that Hsu-Ling and Jake had gotten along so well. Both she and Hsu-Ling had needed a night out to not think about Pong’s letter or the state of their family.
“Thanks for taking Hsu-Ling out too,” Lexa said.
He smiled over his shoulder. “It was nice to meet her. Although I thought she was going to deck me when I said she was hip and cool.”
Lexa laughed. Hsu-Ling had thought Jake was talking about her hips and had gotten offended.
“If you have to leave, I’m coming with you. You’re not walking home by yourself.”
“It’s fine.” Lexa found her clothes and got dressed. “I walk around by myself at night all the time.”
He gave her a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She laughed. “It means I’m a New Yorker. This is my neighborhood. And I know how to take care of myself.” She got into horse stance, her legs bent in a squat with her elbows close to her side and her hands fisted and turned up.
“Lexa.” She turned at the serious note in his voice. “I had a great time with you tonight,” he said. “But what’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“You seemed so, I don’t know, angry when I first saw you. I couldn’t tell if it was directed at me or not.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not angry at you,” she said. “Not at all.” She relaxed her stance and walked over to him. “Something happened earlier today.”
He pulled her in, giving her a gentle kiss on the lips. “Want to tell me about it?”
“I don’t think you really want to hear this,” she said. “I wasn’t going to say anything. I didn’t want to ruin our night.”
“Nothing can ruin this night.”
So she told him what Hsu-Ling had told her about her father and Pong’s death, and about the letter Pong had left her.
“I have to go back for his final prayer ceremony.” She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned forward, her hair hiding her face.
“What’s the final prayer ceremony?”
“It takes place a hundred days after someone’s death. It’s kind of the first big ceremony following the death. Hsu-Ling said a nun comes to the house and chants blessings and prayers, and the family gathers to remember the dead.”
“So if you don’t go back to Taiwan by then and claim his inheritance, your family will lose their home?”
She nodded. She could see by the way Jake’s eyes narrowed and his mouth parted slightly that he was appalled. “That’s blackmail.”
She blew out a breath. “I know.” It helped that he was just as taken aback by Pong’s letter as she was. “But the funny part is, he had no idea our father was going to die before him. I’m not sure what happens to the building now that my father isn’t alive to inherit it.”
Hsu-Ling had thought it would come to both of them, but she had to check with the lawyer. She hadn’t known about the debt and that Pong had actually owned the building and not her family. It was a big mess.
Jake sat down next to her and put an arm around her. She leaned into him, drawing warmth from his body. With all the old memories and buried emotions surfacing in the past couple of weeks, and now with this bombshell Pong had dropped, she suddenly longed to tell Jake everything. She wanted him to know her, know what she was feeling. But she didn’t normally let down her guard like this around men, and she pinched herself on the arm instead, so hard it hurt. Careful, Lexa. You’ve only known the man for a few weeks.
“What are you going to do?” Jake asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “My first instinct is to say screw it and not accept it. But there are other people involved, my Taiwanese family. I guess I’ll wait to see what the lawyer says first. Then we’ll see.”
“That’s an awful position to be put in.”
“I know. And he acknowledged that in the letter. But he said it was the only way he knew of to make sure I’d go back to Taiwan and make up with my father.” She let out a hard laugh.
Jake reached out and took her hand in his. “Why haven’t you gone back to Taiwan in all this time?”
Lexa sighed. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you another time.” She ducked her head, embarrassed that she’d just assumed there would be another time with Jake. “I’ve missed Taiwan. I loved it so much when I was young. But I have to think of my clients. I can’t just take off and leave them hanging. They need me.”
He rubbed her back, slow circles one way, before he switched and did circles the other way. “Your clients will survive without you.”
“Yeah.” She knew he was right. She was using her job as an excuse.
She closed her eyes when his mouth settled on hers again. She sighed against him, loving the way his lips felt and the way his tongue touched hers, claiming her mouth in a way that made her want to stay melded to him forever.
“I think I’m falling in love with you, my Kung Fu girl,” Jake whispered against her lips.
Lexa froze. Her eyes opened, and she stared into Jake’s kind eyes, her thoughts in a jumble. And instead of telling him she was falling for him too, a strangled laugh came out of her.
He continued to gaze at her, and, uncomfortable, Lexa pulled away and stood. And as s
he always had in the past when faced with emotions she didn’t know how to deal with, she fell back on her Kung Fu training. She sailed through a Kung Fu form for him, her body remembering the familiar movements she’d done a million times before.
Jake clapped when she was done. “Tell me about your Kung Fu training.”
Lexa looked at him and knew he was giving her a way out of answering his proclamation of love. Grateful for the reprieve, she said, “I started going when I was fourteen. Something . . . happened that summer, and Kung Fu was my way to forget about it. I could focus on the physical training, pushing my body hard, kicking faster, higher, working on my stretching and not having to think.”
She stared off into space, Shifu’s commands echoing in her mind. Chest up, Lexa. Go harder, more chi, faster!
The first time he’d said “chi,” she’d looked up, startled. She thought he’d been calling her by her Taiwanese nickname. But she soon realized he meant the word energy. He’d singled her out, and when he learned Chi was her nickname, he had taken to calling her that when he was pleased with her, and Lexa when he wasn’t happy with her. She’d thrived under Shifu’s teaching, gaining back her confidence and healing her heart.
Jake touched her on the arm, bringing her back to the hotel room. She turned to look at him. “Shifu believed in me. He was always telling me to believe in myself, trust myself. Train harder and be honest with myself.” She smiled, her eyes gazing off into space, remembering his words. “I was so proud when he asked me to move to the adult classes when I was sixteen. I got to wear the blue uniforms that the adults wore. And I was finally able to get past what happened . . .” She trailed off.
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