The Expat Diaries: Misfortune Cookie (Single in the City Book 2) (3 page)

‘Don’t we?’ My shoes weren’t what you’d call walk-friendly.

‘In a tuk-tuk?’ He looked like I’d just told him I knew how to tune an engine. ‘I didn’t think you’d want to ride in one. Don’t take this wrong, Han, but you’re more of a taxi girl.’

‘I am not!’ I really was, of course.

‘Well, great! Okay then.’ He whistled at the next cart to pass. ‘Grand Palace please. How much?’

‘Two hundred bahhht.’ The teenager flashed a grin to melt the heart.

‘No way, it’s not that far. Fifty.’

‘One-fiftyyy.’

‘Sixty.’

‘Three hundred and ping-pong show, okay?’ He cocked his thumb in the universal sign for now-that-that’s-settled-jump-aboard.

‘No, just to the Grand Palace please.’

‘No ping-pong show?’

‘No ping-pong show. Just the palace. Sixty. Deal?’

His smile faded to a mere 300 watts. ‘Okay.’

‘What’s a ping-pong show?’ I bellowed as we zoomed along, the wind blowing exhaust into our faces. The whole noisy contraption was open except for a metal roof on four posts. Taxi, indeed. I wouldn’t want to travel any other way. I could have used an industrial face mask though.

‘Believe me, you don’t want to know,’ Sam shouted over the din of the mid-morning traffic. ‘It’s a kind of sex show,’ he answered my expectant look.

‘They have sex playing ping pong?’ I realized that table tennis was an Olympic sport, but surely not.

‘Nooo, but the woman uses ping pong balls.’

‘For what? How?’ The penny dropped. ‘Oh.
Really
?’ And they said girls had bad aim. ‘Have you ever seen it?’

He looked embarrassed. ‘Well, yeah, when I was here with Pete. You’re going to love him when you meet him.’

Pete is Sam’s apartment mate. They’re best friends but he’d already moved to Hong Kong by the time Sam and I got together. ‘Is it gross?’ I ask, referring to the show, not Pete.

‘Yes, but oddly fascinating.’

‘Then maybe we should go.’

‘You’re not serious.’

‘Sure, why not? Would they let me in?’

‘Of course, but–’ he shook his head.

‘What?’

‘You never cease to amaze me. I love an adventurous girl!’

Did you hear that? Sam loved an adventurous girl. In my mind I was the most adventuresome girl on the planet. In reality my cowardice was legendary, but Sam needn’t know that. Not when he practically just said he loved me.

By the time we got to the Grand Palace I’d ingested enough fumes to shorten my lifespan by a couple of years. Like a carnival ride that spun at vomit-inducing speeds, tuk-tuks were only fun till the thrill wore off. The ride was worth it though. A fairytale village lay before us. Multi-layered, ornate, steep-roofed green and gold buildings with soaring spires housed the Thai people’s national treasures. The whole enormous complex literally glittered with so much gold that I was nearly at a loss for words. My fingers intertwined with Sam’s. I felt like we were kids standing on the threshold of a wondrous new world. I guess we were, in a way.

We spent the day sharing out our wonder, gawping at the grandeur, and each other, in turns. By dinnertime we’d settled back into our rhythm together. Time and distance were brushed away, leaving us a couple again. It was perfect, our reunion made all the more sweet against such a spectacular backdrop. We even had foot massages, which gave me hope that we were starting as we meant to go on. But that wasn’t meant to be.

Forty-eight hours later we were riding in a truck through the Laotian jungle towards the start of our hike. Naturally I was there under duress. And to make matters worse, we were sharing the ride with Lara Croft. She wasn’t Angelina Jolie
as
Lara Croft – that would imply that she was actually human, with possible flaws. She was the computer-generated model of perfection that was the Tomb Raider. Sam couldn’t have been happier with the whole adventure.

I tried not to be jealous, but I hated her. I’d have been happy to share the excursion with a nice older couple who thought we were adorable kids, or a sexy man who liked to flirt. Lara’s presence was unacceptable. Aside from the fact that I thought she was gorgeous, it was obvious that Sam thought so too. They didn’t stop talking and he’d barely looked at me for at least an hour. Granted, I probably wasn’t at my best, given that we were riding in the back of an open jeep, and it was raining: my hair isn’t great in the rain. It isn’t exactly magnificent in the sun.

I was cold, which raised goose bumps all over my body. Lara appeared immune to the weather, except for her nipples, which pointed straight at my boyfriend.

It hadn’t seemed like a terrible idea when Sam suggested a little walk in the mountains. But as we left the truck and headed for the hilly, steamy, wet jungle that was no doubt full of bugs, I reconsidered.

‘Hannah? What brings you to this part of the world?’ Asked Lara in what I had to admit was a very sexy Eastern European accent. She was skipping along the path as if strolling downhill instead of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

‘I’m moving to Hong Kong,’ I wheezed. ‘Next week.’ Exercise and I weren’t close companions. I went through a blessedly brief phase after college in which I joined a gym and had a personal trainer. A blinding crush on the trainer had been my sole motivation. It took three months of daily workouts to get him to kiss me. To my horror, he was a face licker. Since then, exertion beyond walking to the bus stop was, to me, wasted effort.

‘Oh, Hong Kong is wonderful. Will you live with Sam?’

‘Uh, well…’

‘We’re not living together,’ Sam volunteered cheerfully.

‘Oh,’ she said.

It’s funny how a single word could convey a sentiment.

It didn’t matter that we were only at the beginning of our relationship, or that we were in complete agreement about not rushing things, or that I wanted to be independent. I didn’t want a gorgeous woman misunderstanding Sam’s status. If I were a dog marking my territory, at that point I’d probably have peed on him. 

We walked in silence through the jungle. It was still uphill. It was still raining. Sam was no doubt mulling over Miss Perfect’s CV. She worked for an NGO that built schools in war-torn countries. She was taking a little break from her post in Cambodia where she also volunteered for a landmine charity. She made Mother Theresa look like a selfish bitch. I couldn’t bear to think what she made me look like. What had I ever done for charity except donate clothes after I was positive they’d never come back in style?

Our guide, wearing flip-flops, ambled along like a goat up the muddy hill. I’d had visions of me and Sam meandering hand in hand down a verdant jungle path, perhaps with monkeys swinging through vines overhead. Instead we were trudging single file to what felt like Everest base camp, and the monkeys were smart enough to stay out of the rain. As we rounded a corner I spied a river. It wasn’t along the path – it was across the path. Undaunted, our guide flip-flopped through it, still smiling. ‘Come this way,’ he chirped.

I hadn’t scoured London’s streets in search of the perfect trainers to have them ruined in a Laotian river. Suddenly Sam’s preoccupation with Tevas made sense. They were the amphibious assault vehicle of the shoe world – ugly and indestructible. My pretty shoes, on the other hand, were not, which was why they were going to travel raj-style on my head across the raging torrent. Unfortunately balancing on one shoe while unlacing the other wasn’t easy. I wobbled, heaved sideways and stepped resolutely into the yellow squishy muck. ‘Damn it.’

‘Why don’t you just wade across in them?’ Sam called from the other side.

‘Because they’re suede!’ Were. They were suede.

I swear I caught Lara roll her eyes. ‘Want a hand?’ She volunteered.

‘No thanks.’ Angrily I wrenched off my other shoe.

‘Nice toenails,’ she said.

‘Thanks!’ Gazing fondly at my Chanel Fire red toes through the rippling water, I couldn’t resist accepting the compliment.

‘I never seem to have the time to paint mine,’ she addressed her own perfectly formed, perfectly varnish-free feet. Of course not, you were too busy teaching children and saving people from landmines. How much did I hate thee? Let me count the reasons.

Reason number one. In a fire Sam would rescue her first. How did I know this? Because within minutes we came upon another river, which looked suspiciously like the one we’d just crossed. Lara began hopping across the stones in her Tevas when she slipped. My boyfriend, who’d been holding me while I pried off my shoe again, dashed to Lara’s side and helped her across the river. By the time he came back I could have drowned. Well, if I’d been in the water at that point, I could have drowned. When push came to shove we knew who’d get the fireman’s carry.

Reason number two. Take reason number one and double it. I felt like I was watching my future crumble in the jungles of Laos. It made me sick to my stomach. I feared this might happen, and yet I let myself get carried away. Why didn’t I learn from my mistakes? Even rats, after being electrocuted, eventually learned to avoid the shock. Wasn’t I more intelligent than a rodent? Not judging by my dating history. As I stood in the rain, muddy and miserable, I flashed back to Jake, the truly dark smudge on my self-respect. What is it about the extra X chromosome that makes us resurrect disasters of boyfriends past when we’re already down? As if the present humiliation wasn’t filling enough without heaping on extra helpings from history. I’d stalked Jake into submission after meeting him briefly at a university party. He went home with another girl that night but I was smitten. Miraculously – or so he believed – we ran into each other at most parties/bars/coffee shops for the rest of that year. But despite my best efforts, to him I was nothing but the pack of biscuits at the back of the cabinet. Not a favorite but I’d do in a pinch. Eventually Jake ate the biscuits. Over time we settled into a pattern of sorts. I dragged Stacy around campus till we accidentally on purpose ran into him. If he didn’t go home with someone else we’d spend the night together (I warned you this wasn’t a flattering story). What was obvious to everyone but me was that I wasn’t his Miss Right, just his Miss Right For Now. Eventually Stacy gave me a dose of reality. That’s when I finally realized that no matter how fun, funny, sexy and smart I was around him, he was never going to see me as anything more than a runner-up.

And here I was in second place once again. It was sickening. So much so in fact… I actually felt like vomiting. My mouth started to sweat. Then the hot flush came.

I threw up on my clean shoe.

‘Hannah!’ Sam rushed over. ‘What’s wrong?’ He rubbed my back, concern furrowing divots between his eyebrows.

I had no idea what was wrong. I didn’t usually throw up in the face of emotional trauma. I overate. I started to shiver. ‘I don’t feel good.’

‘Does it feel like the flu?’ Lara asked. ‘Or food poisoning?’

‘
I
feel fine,’ Sam said. ‘And we’ve eaten all the same things. Han, how does your belly feel?’

I didn’t have to answer him. My stomach was gurgling like a drain that’d just been unblocked. ‘Uh…’

‘We have to go back,’ Sam told our guide, playing translator to my belly-rumbles. ‘Phaivanh, my girlfriend doesn’t feel well. We need to go back to town please. Quickly.’

‘This way is fastest,’ he said, pointing up the hill. ‘There’s a shortcut over the hill. Will you be okay?’ He gently stroked my arm, peering into my face, and I was touched by his concern. I was touched by everyone’s concern, even Lara’s. So touched that I threw up again.

Our journey took on a sense of urgency. I wasn’t sure which end of my body planned to protest next. I couldn’t stop shivering. The driving rain didn’t help. We trudged up the hill on a path that got increasingly narrow. Soon it was no more than eight inches wide. Eight inches of treacherous slipperiness. My pretty, impractical shoes weren’t helping.

‘Here, Han, this’ll keep you steady.’ Sam handed me a big stick. ‘Use it like a ski pole.’

I couldn’t ski either. I bet Lara had giant slalom medals. ‘Thanks.’ At least we were cresting the hill. In fact, the path down was pretty steep. And still narrow. And carved into the side of the hill high above the valley floor.

‘Watch out there,’ Phaivanh called over his fit, retreating shoulder. ‘There’s a little slide.’

‘Here, Hannah, wait.’ Sam shimmied past me as I hugged the cliff face. Even in a life-threatening situation, the feel of his body as he slid past was hot. ‘Let me go down first. Then I’ll be able to help you.’

He meant catch me. Lara descended acrobatically, and stood with Phaivanh, waiting for the afternoon’s entertainment to begin.

What little traction my shoes once had was lost along with my dignity at the first muddy puddle. Tentatively I placed a foot on the sledge-run that was the only route to a toilet. Cartoon-like, my feet began to spin.

‘Oof!’ I landed on my back in a bath of potter’s clay. To add insult to injury I slid at least ten feet in this position.

‘Hannah! Are you okay?’ Sam struggled to get back up the hill to my prone body.

‘Do I look okay?!’ My underpants had just collected a quart of mud.

‘Are you hurt?’

‘Just my pride. Uh-oh. Bleurgh.’

He wore the same expression that children did when faced with a plate of Brussels sprouts. ‘We have to get you to the doctor. I’m afraid this is serious.’ He smoothed my matted hair away from my vomit-flecked face. ‘I don’t want anything to happen to you. I don’t know what I’d do.’ He stared at me with a funny expression. Suddenly he broke eye contact. ‘I don’t know what I’d do.’

‘I’ll be okay, Sam. I’m sure I will. Don’t worry.’

‘Well, I am worried. What if– Hannah, you’re important to me. You’re very important to me.’

He was telling me that he loved me. There, in the rain, when I’d just been sick on myself. Lara wasn’t a threat at all. ‘I understand. I feel the same way. And I can’t wait to start our life together in Hong Kong.’

Suddenly he looked away.

‘What? What is it?’

He helped me to my feet. ‘Here, let me hold you. No, go on my other side.’ He put himself between me and the abyss at the edge of the path. ‘It’s just that… I have to be away from Hong Kong for a few weeks.’