Somewhere Only We Know(13)

It wasn’t so bad being caught by a cute guy. I felt like it should have been in slow motion. I leaned into his hands, relishing the feeling for a second. “Your name is Jack?” My face was incredibly close to his.

His dark eyes grew wide. Then he blinked. “Yeah.”

“That is like, a fake name,” I said with a giggle. “Like some jaunty reporter in a Katharine Hepburn movie.”

Jack steadied me back into a standing position. “Huh. Are you American?”

“Why, yes I am!” I was totally tickled by him noticing. Sometimes my English felt rusty and this interaction with Jack was probably the most I’d spoken it in months. I used a mix of Korean and English with my managers. And then Korean with almost everyone else. “Are you American?”

Jack started walking up the steep hill again. I almost didn’t hear him when he answered. “Yeah, I’m from California.”

No way. I stopped in my tracks and gasped so loudly that a few people walking by stared at me. “I am also from California!” More people stopped and looked, some snickering. Even in my fuzzy brain state, it occurred to me that people staring wasn’t good. Years of celebrity were imprinted into me so deeply. I scampered over to Jack, lowering my hat and keeping my face close to his shoulder.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

My name? It almost slipped out, but I stopped myself. The image of a Pomeranian’s nose on my phone screen flashed through my mind.

“Fern,” I blurted out.

“Fern?” Jack’s expression was dubious.

“Yeah, Fern. That’s my name, Jack.” I looked up at him. “Hey. Jack. You’re tall, too.”

Amusement crossed his face as he glanced down at me. “I guess so. We’re both a couple of tall Californians.”

“Must be that California milk. Happy cows are from California,” I intoned in the voice of a commercial announcer.

“What’s your story?” he asked with a choked laugh. “Why are you in Hong Kong?”

I didn’t answer. We were stepping onto an escalator lined with colorful lights and I was overcome with a surge of recognition.

“Wait! I know this place!” I held on to the handrail and craned my neck to see in front of us. The escalators were going up, covered by a curved glass roof, going right through the middle of the hilly neighborhood, and it stretched out for what seemed like forever. The twinkle lights were different on each level. Purple. Green. Red.

I grabbed Jack’s sleeve. “Oh! Chungking Express!”

His brow furrowed in confusion. “What?”

“Are you kidding me?” I cried. “You don’t know Chungking Express? My favorite Wong Kar-wai movie!”

“Ohhh,” Jack said in recognition. “Yeah, I’ve never seen any of his movies.”

I pretended to stagger over. “You’re visiting Hong Kong and have never watched his movies?”

“I’m not visiting. I live here.”

“Even worse, dude,” I said, slapping my forehead. “You need to educate yourself. He is Hong Kong.”

We stepped off on the purple floor and got on the escalators with the green lights. Jack touched my back lightly until I was safely holding the rail. “Are you mansplaining Hong Kong film to me right now, Fern?”

The lights, the views of the city, the familiarity of this place were filling me with warm fuzzy feelings and I returned the jab. “Well, no, I’m physically incapable of doing that as I am not a man.”

His tentative smile turned into a grin. The brightest smile I had ever seen. I almost turned away from it, nervous suddenly.

“You’re right,” he said. Something flickered in his eyes then. An alertness that wasn’t there before.

“Also, his movies are magical,” I added. He didn’t answer, still looking at me with that curious new expression.

We were quiet for the rest of the ride, and when we got off, I locked that memory away, promising myself to never forget it. To savor it.

Jack led me through some more alleys and streets, and I felt like my fake namesake, a little doggie being taken for a walk in a new place. I wanted to sniff every corner, investigate every business, but Jack kept us moving.

Then I heard the music. Strains of trumpets and piano and bass. Jazz. I stopped in my tracks. “Ooh, I wanna go there.”

Jack turned around, his hands in his pockets. “Hey. Hey, Fern!”

But I was already walking toward it, my body drawn to the music.





CHAPTER EIGHT


JACK


How did I become a babysitter for a drunk girl in hotel slippers? Named Fern?

She had walked into a bar popular with Western expats. It was dimly lit, filled with oversized industrial equipment as decor. Every table had a bowl full of bronze palm-sized animal figurines. You were allowed to touch them but not take one. Bad luck, karma, whatever. There were also real, dead butterflies hanging from the ceilings by strings. It was the most whimsical place Fern could have stepped into tonight.

I followed in after her, the top of my head grazing the curtained entrance. My eyes adjusted to the dark as the music from the live jazz band filled the bar, rich and inescapable.

Fern was standing in the middle of the room, enthralled by everything around her—hands clasped to her chest, her body bopping slightly to the music.