628Chapter 3; In Which Chinese Food Is Eaten.
"Shoe! Hey, Shoe, wait up!"
I turn around to see who is calling out my name with such enthusiasm. It's Jeremy. Butterflies shoot unexpectedly into my belly. Nowadays butterflies are common cannon fodder, eh? I almost feel winded by my own girliness.
"Heya," I say breathlessly. In the four seconds it takes for him to join me I analyse my sudden excitement. I realise it has mostly to do with what Luka would say if he saw Jeremy and me together.
He grins at me. "'Sup?"
Amused, I shrug, and we make small talk. As we do, I study him. He plays on Luka's basketball team, and though he isn't nearly as tall as Luka he is still taller than me. He moves gracefully enough, if not with a bit of swagger. In a way he seems to be a typical American jock. He has pretty blond hair that he wears not too short, but not too long to be in the way when he is playing sports, and always dresses in pretty expensive brands.
As we walk, he casually puts his hand on the small of my back. I am taken aback for only a moment –after going through high school in Japan, where people do not touch, I find that I am still unaccustomed to 'Western' manners and habits. So, I allow him to keep his hand there, though somewhere in the back of my mind, a little voice is muttering how Luka wouldn't like this, he wouldn't like this at all.
True, I acknowledge to the little voice, and worry, until I suddenly realise that the little voice is probably speaking from the part of me that still wants to believe that Luka could start to like me.
Of course, continuing to think that Luka could start to like me will not be fruitful, I decide, nodding along to whatever Jeremy is telling me about his whatever-practice and something-game, only feeling slightly guilty that I am not listening. Luka gushes to me about sports too sometimes when he can't help it, though he knows I don't listen; in return he lets me gush about clothing and make-up from time to time, and I know he wouldn't know mascara from foundation if his life depended on it. I find that endearing, but I know boys mostly just find it annoying when they realize I have no idea what for instance a penalty is, or that I say "score a goal" about basketball, or "make a homerun" in football.
"So Shoe..." my eyes snap away from the random point in the distance I'd been staring at. I can hear in his tone of voice that he is changing subject.
"Yeah?" I say, innocently, my eyes wide and shining.
He has an approving look on his face. I can tell he likes girls better when they're ditzy and naive, and I have to fight the smirk on my face.
"You're not seeing anyone at the moment, are you? Wanna go for a drink some time?"
I let my eyes widen even more, and my mouth opens a little, as if this is the most surprising but best news I've had in ages.
"Oh my God, like, seriously?" I squeak. I wonder if I overdid it with the inflection and the 'like'. He'll blow it off if he realises I'm trying to make him look stupid, I consider. That'd be no fun.
"Seriously," he replies smugly.
"Great!" I beam at him. Brilliant.
It is not until I get home that evening that I realize Luka will be upset that I said yes to Jeremy. For some strange reason, he really doesn't like him. I try to shrug it off, and move into my kitchen, but I am so distracted by this thought that I look up to find twenty minutes have gone by without me even reaching the fridge to see what I have for dinner.
So I call Cash, instead.
"Cash!" I whine. "What are you doing for dinner?"
"I thought you'd never ask," she responds, a grin in her voice.
"Why?" I say suspiciously. An image of Cash, lurking by her phone, waiting for me to call her flashes through my mind.
"I've run out of food," she admits easily. "So let's go out."
I mull this over for nearly half a second. "Dim sum?"
"Of course," Cash says.
When I first moved to the city to start university I obviously didn't know anyone but Luka. He had moved there three weeks earlier.
His housemate was a guy called Wolfgang Delano, Italian, grown up on the Austrian border, all gorgeous. He has that Italian pretty tan skin and sculpted features, but he's from the north, so he's got sea-green eyes and dirty blond curls. Wolf, too-obviously named for the famous composer, insisted from the start we remove the 'gang' from his name and absolutely forbade any 'gangsta' jokes, though I still think that he does rap very well when drunk. We still try to get his attention by calling him 'Amadeus' but he's obviously practiced ignoring stuff like that.
Anyways, Wolf and Luka really got along well, but Wolf had already found a bigger room elsewhere in the city, so after a month he moved away (though lateron we found out he was taking alot of classes together with us so we still hang out). Enter Kevin, Luka's present roomy.
Kevin and Luka have almost nothing in common. The only thing they agree on is... wait, let me think... right. That they don't like each other.
See, Luka is really polite. He usually never lets someone know to their face that he doesn't like them. Kevin is really blunt, and the first thing he did was make fun of Luka's coat, which is a black double-breasted high-collared classic. Kevin said that only girls would wear a coat like that. He said that Twiggy had made coats like that popular in the 60's.
Luka was almost crying when he came to my place after that (I'm joking, but don't ever tell him I said that). I had to comfort him by looking up pictures of Twiggy on Google for half an hour, showing him there weren't even any pictures of Twiggy in a coat, and nothing that remotely resembled his coat, which was of course very manly and tough-looking and Kevin was obviously only jealous.
So Luka and Kevin's relationship has been stunted from day one. Aside from that, Luka likes clubbing, art, sports, music, weird movies and weird foreign food, whereas Kevin is anti-sports, anti-clubbing, anti-anything-that-isn't-pizza, anti-culture, anti-politics, anti-getting-up-in-the-morning, anti-Luka-in-general, anti-etc. I am amazed that he hadn't flunked out of Uni yet, seeing as he never does any work. He mainly sits at home and watches Japanese cartoons (I can't criticize him on that; I watch plenty myself, but I call it a cultural handicap. Luka forgives me watching them, except he does call me 'Kevin' or 'Kevin's next girlfriend' when he comes in and finds me watching them).
When Kevin found out I was half-Japanese and had lived there he started using random Japanese words on me. If I remember correctly, he ended up calling me cute porn angel cat. By complaining to Luka I earned the nickname Cute Porn Angel for the next few weeks. It still arises from time to time, to the amusement of my other friends.
My other friends being Cash and Stan. I met them in class and we hit it off right away. Then Cash turned out to be the little sister of an old friend of Wolf's, so the world got smaller and even more fun, hey?
Cash got her nickname from being called a gold digger by Wolf once, last year, but her real name is Cassidy. Stan's real name is Constance. Us calling her 'Stan' sort of started as a joke, but we're lazy and have no imagination, so it stuck. Sweet girl, she forgave us.
It's actually funny how different Stan and Cash and I all are in personality and behavior. I'm a hedonistic narcissistic self-obsessed exotically cynical half-blood who is in love with her best friend, right?
Cash is a gorgeous, I repeat, gorgeous, red-headed busty flirt, who somehow snaps to a new relationship as soon as the old one dies. And they die about once a month. I think she actually likes Nathan, a tall boy in our class, but doesn't have the guts to tell him because he's so serious and studious, and she's the total opposite. She has described herself as a flaky slut, before, but I know she isn't. It's why I love her.
Stan, to give the last contrast in our threesome, is quiet, gentle, ditzy, spacey and the sweetest thing in the world apart from the Cake ©, but I suspect that is only because she isn't edible. She has long blonde hair and a slender build and big brown eyes and always looks a little surprised and lost because she has such light eyebrows and eyelashes. But Stan can be wickedly funny, for all her pink clothing and dreamy attitude, and she can dance like no one on this earth. When she dances she's so sexy she almost turns me on, and I'm not even into girls.
The five of us (Stan, Cash, Wolf, Luka and yours truly) tend to go out a lot: clubbing, to dinner, to movies. But we're also good at having mini-parties in our rooms. We don't go to Luka's ever, because Kevin sees us and starts complaining (and calling me cute porn angel cat). Wolf's place is okay but on the outskirts of town. Usually it's Stan and Cash's place, because they have a really nice big living room with lots of cushions and two black leather sofa's, but my bachelor pad is right smack dab in the center of the city, so it's usually where we convene before and/or after clubbing.
We've had horror film nights (the boys screamed louder than the girls), romance film nights (the boys felt the need to groan and make puking noises whenever the couple on screen kissed), disney film nights (the boys turned and stared in horror when the girls said they wanted to be a princess and marry prince Charming and wear big dresses and live happily ever after, too) and artsy/weird film nights (the boys had the time of their lives; the girls complained about lack of horror/romance/happy endings). We've had an Indiana Jones marathon, and we have plans for a Star Wars marathon, a Matrix marathon, a Harry Potter marathon and a Lord of the Rings marathon.
I mean, it's not like we have schoolwork or anything.
At the Chinese restaurant, we settle down and order a pot of tea. The waiter, a young Chinese man, eyes me for a moment before handing both Cash and me an English menu.
The first time I was here, I had come together with Luka. The waitress thought I was Chinese, or at least partly, and gave me the Chinese menu. Though I could read most of it because Japanese and Chinese characters are so similar, I had no idea how to pronounce any of it and didn't think they'd understand the Japanese version. So I had called the waitress back and humbly asked for an English menu, Luka all but choking in his chortles. I think she told all the other waitresses and hung up a photo of me in the back, because no matter who helps us they've never attempted to give me a Chinese menu again.
"So-how-are-you," Cash asks tonelessly, her bright eyes roaming the restaurant. They are a strange, cat-like shade of yellowish green, with golden specks. I have never seen anyone with eyes like Cash's.
"Fine-and-you," I reply just as tonelessly. Cash and I don't need to be careful or sensitive around each other. We can be sweet when we want to, but we can also insult each other endlessly without really hurting. Starting off a conversation with fake how-are-you's is part of the deal.
"Have I told you about my latest beau?" she asks.
"The one with the black hair, black eyes, and the tattoo of a mermaid under his belly button?"
"He is so gorgeous," Cash says with a sigh, as if she can't believe her own luck.
"You even like the tattoo?" I ask, sipping my tea.
"Are you kidding? I love it, it's the sexiest thing I've ever seen."
"Why don't you get one too? A tattoo? It might look good on you," I suggest. I don't seriously think she'd want one, but I want to hear how she'll respond.
She eyes me, considering. "I'd probably regret getting it within a month," she says, waving it away. "And besides, if I got one now Jean would probably freak out." She pronounces his name French, without the N at the end. Zjauh.
"Jean?" I hear how my own accent places it closer to Chinese: Shong. Must be the restaurant.
"The new beau," she offers.
"Oh right. Why would he freak out?"
"Come on, Shoe." She laughs. "He and I aren't serious at all. If I went and got a tattoo he'd think that I was trying to tell him something, and he'd worry that I'm taking this relationship more seriously than he is, and he'd break it off with me like that."
I make a face. "Would it be so bad if you and he were seriously seeing each other?"
She cocks her head to one side, regarding me.
I shrug, remembering my Luka-hates-Jeremy issue. "Don't you ever get tired of only having casual relationships? Have you ever even been in love?"
A small, wry smile curls the ends of her mouth up. "I've never found someone worth falling in love with. It's not like I don't give them a chance, because I do," she insists, seeing my skeptical face. "I do. But I get fed up after a while. If it takes too long I let go again."
"You've never had someone you really liked?" I ask.
Her gaze is a little far off, as she struggles for words. "Here. You have to see it like this, Shoe. In the supermarket or at the butcher, there are lots of different kinds of meat, right? You've got beef and chicken and pork and turkey, and there's fish. Sometimes you can even find lamb or rabbit or duck or venison. I've had ostrich once, come to think of it."
"Ostrich? Where are you going with this?" I ask, lost.
"Hush. So you buy meat, right? Take it home and put it in the fridge. And it looks really yummy, you can't wait to start cooking so you can sink your teeth into it. And depending on your mood, you'll get hamburger meat, or steak. Right?"
"Uh-huhhh..." I say, my eyebrow raised. Our waiter arrives at our table, arms full of bamboo steamers. He starts putting them on the table. Cash ignores him and keeps talking.
"Okay. So now imagine you've got this favorite kind of meat. You like it so much that you find yourself buying it every time. But can you imagine eating only that one kind of meat for the rest of your life?"
I stare at her. "Are you comparing men to fresh meat?!" I exclaim, sqeaking out the word 'meat'. Our waiter jerks involuntarily at my voice and glances from me to a smirking Cash. She winks at him and he nearly drops the remaining basket. He scoots away again, blushing.
"Cash," I sigh, exasperated, and she laughs.
She opens the lid off one steamer and takes out a shrimp dumpling with her chopsticks. I copy her and we are both quiet a moment as we enjoy the miracle that is dim sum.
"So you're comparing men to fresh meat," I say, getting used to the analogy a little, and too distracted with my food to really care anyways. "Carry on then."
"Right. So, basically, eating the same meat for the rest of your life would get boring, yes? I know I'd be bored within a week."
I know where she is going with this. "Cash, if doing something like marrying a guy and spending the rest of your life with him were as boring as eating the same meat until you die, I don't think anyone would bother getting married."
"Yeah? And why do you think there's such a thing as adultery?" She counters. "Keeping the taste buds satisfied."
My mouth twists. I disagree with her way of thinking but am far too happy chomping sieuw mai to argue very adamantly.
"So what, you go from meat to meat every day? Translate that back to the real world and it means you're kind of a slut." I say lightly.
She strikes a pose. "I prefer the term 'femme fatale'," she says. "But no, not a fresh chunk every day. That much meat can't be good for a girl."
"We'd gain weight."
"Exactly. That's why we have expiration dates. When you buy the meat, you know how long it'll last in your fridge. All you gotta do is make sure you eat it before it goes bad."
"Your explanation is making me feel dirty," I mumble.
"Want me to stop?"
"Of course not."
"Right. So you don't buy meat expecting it to last till next Thursday when the date says this Sunday."
"So you're saying from the beginning you can recognize if a boy is gonna be long-term serious material or just a fling? I've never been able to do that."
"There are no rules, so long as it tastes good. And it is your own fault you can't do that."
"You're making sense... but you're making no sense whatsoever," I argue (though I seem to be arguing with only myself. My own fault? Am I the only girl to launch into a relationship without considering whether he's a keeper or a boy toy?), "What if the meat doesn't want to be eaten by you?"
"It's meat! You think it has feelings!?"
My mouth falls open. "But you said..."
"You're taking this too literally. Us eating the meat is basically our feelings for the meat. Eating it is falling in love. If you eat the meat and it's rotten, it means your relationship's gone bad."
"How many hours have you spent trying to come up with.." I make a face but don't finish the thought.
"Okay, Cash. Say you've got this great piece of meat. You sort of want to eat it, but you know as soon as you do it might not taste as good. Or worse, it might not live up to your expectations, and taste horrible. And you won't be able to go back to not having eaten it, so you'll always regret it... but sometimes you cut off a tiny bit to nibble on –mix it through the rest of your dinner."
"This is about Luka," she says sharply.
I don't meet her eyes. "But there's no date on it, and sometimes you feel like it could last forever, just you and this piece of meat."
She looks at me, waiting for more.
"And now..." I try to formulate this. "Now a piece of meat called Jeremy has asked me out, um, I guess that would translate to me having bought another piece of meat, but his expiration date is, I think, in about a week so I should hurry up and cook him already. But I'm sort of afraid to eat him since my real piece of meat might go bad on me. He doesn't want me eating Jeremy."
Cash looks upset. "You just made this metaphor about ten times dirtier. I worry about you, Shoesmith."
"You started it!" I say indignantly. "Anyways, help me out here."
"Jeremy asked you out and your favorite piece of meat is jealous?" she summarises.
"I wish he'd say he's jealous. But all he's saying is that he doesn't trust Jeremy, so he wants me to stay away from him. He says he wouldn't mind me dating anyone else, but just not Jeremy."
Cash rolls her eyes. "He should either let you be entirely, or not let you be at all. Meat is so stupid."
"I'm going to become a vegetarian," I sigh, and she laughs, flashing her white teeth.
"Just go with Jeremy," she says. "I don't know if I like him either, but I don't really know him so it'd be unfair of me to tell you to leave it. He's certainly a pretty thing," she says pensively.
"Not greasy, even though I'm pretty sure he's pork," I say, delicately nibbling on a piece of steamed squid in chili sauce.
Cash snorts into her wonton soup and coughs for a minute straight.
"Sorry. You okay?"
She waves a hand at me, a tear trickling from her eye. "Brilliant," she wheezes.
I sip my tea and contemplate. "Yeah. I guess I'll just go with him this Friday. He was talking about going to the Trojan Horse, there's supposed to be a great Drum'n'Bass party."
I see something flicker in Cash's eyes. "I'm going to that too with some people!" She says, beaming. "You don't care, right? I won't bother you guys at all, of course."
"Sure! It'd be good to see you there," I say, feeling a little relieved. If my night with Jeremy doesn't turn out good I can always go to Cash, then. I feel a little guilty towards Jeremy for thinking like this, but I remember what my mom told me once: "Don't let a guy make you think you owe him anything... ever." And I feel better again.
If not slightly like a prude who listens to exactly what her mommy tells her.
Cash nods to herself. "I think you need to make your favorite meat jealous. It's got to happen sometime."
I try not to think about this and shrug. A young waitress comes up to our table to bring the second round of dim sum.
"Where's the guy who helped us before?" Cash asks.
"He asked me to change tables," the girl says a little stiffly, setting down new steamers and clearing away the empty ones.
"Too bad, he was cute," Cash says casually. I see the waitress' mouth purse, but she says nothing.
"Cash," I say warningly.
"I'm serious," Cash ignores me and nudges the waitress. "You should tell him you like him."
"Cash!" I exclaim. "Leave her alone!"
But surprisingly, the waitress laughs. "She's right, actually. I guess I should." And she walks away.
"What is this? Cash Comments on your Love Life, Wednesdays from six pm?" I narrow my eyes at Cash, who grinnes roguishly at me in return.
"I like that," she says, pointing her chopsticks at me. "Comments by Cash. I like that."
I start eating again, but keep my eyes trained on her. She eats also, and returns my stare mildly.
"She's in my Psychology class," she clarifies after a while, laughing again, and I let out a groan.
My phone, lying on one end of the table, starts vibrating so wildly it almost falls off before I grab it. "It's Luka," I observe, and she waggles her eyebrows at me as I answer.
"Hullo pork chops," I answer suavely, and this time Cash chokes on her tea.
In my last year of high school I was supposed to decide what wonderful university I would go to. Every kid in my class was working their ass off to get into the best university they could –and the entrance exams could cost you years off your life paid in stress, depending on how-high level it was.
I was the only one struggling with the decision whether to even study in Japan.
If Luka hadn't shown up at my doorstep that summer maybe I would have stayed. I'm a smart girl. I could have gotten into a really great university.
But as it was, I missed speaking English, I wanted away from my parents, and I had missed him, missed having a best friend. When he presented me with the folder of Utopia University, an international, multi-lingual university with all sorts of wonderful classes, enormously well-situated in a big city with lots of cheap student housing, and told me he wanted to go to this university and wanted me to come too, I swayed and said yes.
I haven't regretted that decision yet, not even after falling in love with him.
A/N: the bit I wrote in the previous chapter about the cameo, and the bit going 'help-me-find-booboos-and-give-me-criticism please!? still stand. Please! Talk to me!
Thank you's:
Delano – Thanks for all the nice things you said! I'm glad I'm not the only one not so interested in high school stories anymore (though if you look at my fave stories list you'll see how some habits are hard to break). I used your name in this chapter, see if you can find it!
Mystery – thanks for reading!