I watch the ball curl in the lane.
Crash.
T
HIRTEEN
She moves closer to Mia, gazes into her bottomless brown eyes.
She takes Mia in her arms, kisses her.
She holds Mia’s hand, leads her to the bed, and they tumble down, down, down. A single mass of tangled up legs and arms and hands and lips.
Mia’s infectious giggle, starting quiet, then getting louder, and louder, and louder.
Reverberating.
I wake up, alone.
And I know it was a dream, but for real, I feel like I’ve been played. Played like a chump by my girlfriend… and her best friend?
How could she do that to me?
I don’t know why, but for some reason it stings worse than if it was a dude.
Just as I’m about to walk out the hotel’s revolving doors, I hear someone call my name.
I look and it’s Akemi, standing behind the front desk.
There is no way I am falling for that again.
But instead of carrying on through to the street, I find myself turning around.
She says, I’m sorry I was rude to you the other day.
On my god, I say in mock horror, are you sure you can take your eyes off the computer? You might, you know, die or something.
She looks tired. She says, I was wondering if I could buy you dinner – to say sorry.
Ten minutes ago, I was raging at Mia for (fake) sleeping with her best mate, and for (truly) fucking up my life.
Here I am now, worrying if I should have shaved my patchy non-beard.
Okay, I say. I will accept your apology in the form of dinner.
She smiles (I don’t think I’ve seen her smile before) and says, Great, meet me down here at six?
Six it is, I say.
One night back in January, me and Mia are walking through Soho, which then bleeds into Chinatown.
Short, old, wrinkly Chinese men and women in shabby clothes shuffle down the street around us. There’s loads of them, like ants, coming in and out of the Chinese supermarkets, post offices and travel agents.
Scattered among these old folks are the younger Chinese – also loads of them. Pushing their glasses up with one finger, flicking the floppy hair from their eyes.
Laughing their awkward laughs, breathing visible air.
Why are they all so nerdy?
Mia says, What are those red banners with the calligraphy everywhere? Is it a New Year’s thing?
Dunno, I shrug. Your guess is as good as mine.
Me and Akemi are walking through a night market.
Picture Chinatown in London, and then multiply it by a hundred.
There’s more lights, more shops, more people, more noise, more smells, more people, more kitchens, more food, more people.
And not just old and young people like I’m used to seeing in Chinatown, but all the people in between too.
For true, this situation is not ideal.
Chinatown makes me uncomfortable just walking through it. Now I’m surrounded by the real thing, no coffee shops, no fast food joints, no corporate American chains, no nothing.
And I don’t understand a word of what’s going on.
Akemi asks me what I want to eat. Let’s see. Between the stinky tofu that smells like actual shit, the slimy oyster omelettes, the giant fish heads stacked high and the pink octopus that’s waving at me, no playing, I don’t really feel like eating.
