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

Table of Contents

Chapter 1.

Chapter 2.

Chapter 3.

Chapter 4.

Chapter 5.

Chapter 6.

Chapter 7.

Chapter 8.

Chapter 9.

Chapter 10.

Chapter 11.

Chapter 12.

Chapter 13.

Chapter 14.

Chapter 15.

Chapter 16.

Chapter 17.

The Expat Diaries:

Misfortune Cookie

Michele Gorman

Copyright

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright 2012 Michele Gorman

Cover Illustration © StockImageGroup

Chapter Images © Patrick Ma

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Also by Michele Gorman

The Curvy Girls Club

Perfect Girl

Bella Summer Takes a Chance

The Reluctant Elf

Christmas Carol

The Expat Diaries: Single in the City

The Expat Diaries: The Twelve Days to Christmas

Weightless (a Romantic Comedy Short Story)

Chapter 1.

‘Yarrow nudens?’ The squat old woman at my elbow screeches again.

‘What?’

‘Yarrow nudens?!’

‘I’m sorry, I still don’t understand.’ My pleading look to the Chinese girl sharing my table elicits a hearty smirk as she pretends to ignore me. I wonder if the word for bitch is hard to pronounce in Cantonese.

‘Yarrow nudens, yarrow nudens!’ She’s bobbing with the effort of her exclamations.

‘No, no thanks.’ What on earth are yarrow nudens?

‘No yarrow nudens?’ She murmurs in a tiny voice. Clearly I’ve hurt her with my refusal.

‘No,’ I say again. ‘Just the soup, please.’ The last time I let a waitress bully me into an order I was served what looked like brains on a plate. Discretion is the better part of dining in Asia.

She strides to the kitchen to make sure the cook adds a little extra, off-menu flavor to my order. I can hear her in there, shouting in what sounds like tortured cat.

My belly grumbles its greeting upon her return… but there aren’t any noodles in my noodle soup. Not a one. Only three sad won tons and a mass of yellowish-pink meat floating in broth. The broth is delicious, if meagre. The meat is as repulsive as it is plentiful – greasy and gamey and unquestionably domesticated. I’ve just slurped little Tiddles from my spoon.

Undeterred, the squat old shrew redoubles her efforts, this time to make a grab for my bowl. There’s at least an inch of broth left. I’m still hungry. I’ve made my peace with the pet issue, and I’m not giving it up. She’s surprisingly strong for a septuagenarian, but desperation to finish my sad supper gives me the upper hand. She tugs. I tug harder. If forks were the cultural norm here I promise I’d use one now in soup-defense. ‘No!’ I scowl. ‘I want to finish this.’

She gives up the fight in a fit of muttering. It’s hard to be dignified with the entire restaurant now staring at me. By ‘entire restaurant’ I mean the five other tables, arranged close enough for the diners to inspect each other’s pores. Mustering an upper lip that would have made the Queen Mother proud during the Blitz, I sip my last two mouthfuls and go to the counter to pay. Waiting for the change, my eye falls again on the sparse English menu…

Not yarrow nudens. And the waitress wasn’t trying to steal my dinner. She was just trying to give me some
yellow noodles
in my soup.

Welcome to Hong Kong, Hannah.

It’s a little different from London. By which I mean that it’s alien in every possible way.

Take a city like London or New York, with its mix of architecture old and new. Then raze 99 per cent of the buildings built before the advent of MTV. Pull the rest of them together as you might tug dishes atop a tablecloth, until they stand shoulder to shoulder. Then set them at the foot of the Matterhorn, into which you carve steps instead of roads snaking to the top. This is to save residents from being run down too often by the cab drivers, whose brakes are as weak as their navigational skills. Finally, build high-rise blocks of apartments for seven million people into the mountainside. I’ve moved to a bustling twenty-first-century ant colony bathed in neon lights.

And now that my suitcases temporarily have a place to call home, this ant is as settled as she can be. It was a gamble to rent an apartment off the internet. I risked topping the StairMaster debacle of 2008 as my most expensive online purchasing mistake. It’s one thing to order a wonky jumper off eBay. An unwanted apartment can’t be stuffed into the back of the closet. What a relief, then, to see that this ‘corporate efficiency apartment’ lived up to its photos. And it certainly is efficient. I can watch TV, cook dinner and brush my teeth without leaving my bed. It’s like living in a boat on the fourteenth floor. My dinghy in the sky doesn’t come cheap though. It’s right in the middle of the Mid-levels, which seems to be the Hong Kong equivalent of posh South Ken. Plus, the bank-breaking clue is in the title. Corporations can afford these short-term lets. Girls with modest savings accounts cannot. So unless men here like their hookers with an American accent, I’ll have to move out soon. That’s where Stacy comes in. My best friend should be here in a few weeks. It’s incredible, really. Not only did she finagle a transfer with her bank to join me, but she’s even got a housing allowance, so I get to be her unofficial apartment mate. To say we’ve travelled along different career paths is an understatement. Her employer bends over backwards for her, where I’ve generally left my positions at the request of HR. Clearly she’s indispensable at the bank, though I still don’t know what she does. It seems to involve a lot of meetings, an unintelligible language, and schmoozy client dinners. I can’t wait for her to get here. And given the way things are turning out, I’m even more grateful that she’s coming.

The enormity of my move generally hits me when I’m dropping off to sleep. Doubt pounds its bony little fists into my chest – a right hook for having no job yet while watching my anemic savings evaporate into the Hong Kong air. Oof! An uppercut for moving to a city that’s on the wrong side of the South China Sea from my boyfriend. Youch! Sometimes it’s enough to tempt me to search for a cheap one-way fare. Yet even in the midst of this self-doubt, I already know I love this city. I’m excited by my surroundings. I want to sample it in all its guises. There’s a feeling of lightness, like I have the freedom to do anything I want here. Which, of course, I do. It’s the same feeling I had when I first went away to college, of living
my
life. It’s one of the perks of being a grown-up, along with eating cupcakes for dinner and not making my bed.

The only slight issue is that Sam isn’t here. It’s not like he had any idea, when he first brought up moving here, that he’d have to be away for work. It’s laughable, really. Or it would be, if it didn’t make me cry.

Chapter 2.

Our Asian life together was meant to be perfect. What better way to start off than with a fabulous holiday? Bangkok was to be my introduction to life in the East. Sam flew from Hong Kong and, after a twelve-hour flight in which my seatmate’s thigh showed no appreciation for boundaries, I arrived from London.

In the airport, I was swept along on a tide of small people. It was hot, despite the air conditioning, and I was bleary-eyed and nervous with anticipation. The whole place was disorientating, at once familiar and alien. Unintelligible announcements bombarded me, and the signs were written in squiggle. I needed an ‘Asia 101’ sort of city. This looked like a PhD course.

I strained to catch the first glimpse of Sam, but he was lost in the sea of backpackers. People squealed and kissed and hugged all around me as they found their loved ones. Where was mine? It had been a very long two months since we kissed good bye at Heathrow. How ironic that time flew when a term paper or a baby were due, but crawled backwards when waiting for a reunion. Not even the giddy anticipation of living in a new country (read: terrifying second-guessing of decision) sped the days along. Sometimes I had to remind myself that I wasn’t dreaming – I really was moving my worldly belongings halfway around the world to start a new life.

‘Hannah.’

He saw me first. My heart lodged in my windpipe. In that moment I realized that ‘weak in the knees’ wasn’t just an expression. On over-boiled-spaghetti legs, I went to my boyfriend. We kissed for long minutes while the other passengers streamed past with their families. He felt, smelled, and tasted so good I didn’t want to stop. Despite our separation he was completely familiar to me. Who’d have thought that I, Hannah Jane Cumming, could be so happy?

‘Good flight?’ He clasped my hand like he was afraid I’d disappear. There was little chance of that.

‘Wonderful. I was nicely tranquilized.’ That was an understatement. I could have taken out my own appendix.

‘Han, I’m so glad you’re here. God I’ve missed you! You look beautiful.’

I knew for a fact that I did not look beautiful. I’m not saying I’m bad looking – that would be disingenuous. At five foot eight, I’m tallish. I’ve got boobs and hips but I’m not fat to look at (the squishy middle bits don’t bother me). Most people assume I play sport (I resolutely do not). My features are regular; I don’t hate my nose or crave collagen injections, but neither are my lips bee-stung, pillow-soft or any other Scarlett Johansson-esque adjective. Eyes (two) are hazel and look in the same direction. The one thing I’d change is my hair. Not the color (blonde) but the way it comes out of my head. Other people have waves. I have reverse cowlicks and sticky-outy bits that fuzz up like candy floss. It’s out of control. Picture Helena Bonham Carter. Then rub her head against a balloon for twelve hours.

I knew Sam wasn’t looking at me with his eyes, but with his heart. I wasn’t seeing him in a wholly impartial light either. To me he was as adorable as an unshaven boy next door could be. His eyes are startling and green, his jaw square, and stubbly in keeping with rather long, unkempt curls. The only pinkie-sized bone I could possibly pick was his questionable fashion sense. ‘Nice shirt,’ I pointed at Che Guevara on his chest. Socialist-lite.

‘Thanks. Power to the people.’ He kicked his untrendy flip-flops (no Havaianas for him while George was designing for ASDA). As a man working for the government, his statement lacked a certain amount of revolutionary credibility. ‘Here,’ he said through the cheekiest grin this side of Matt Damon. ‘Let me get your bag. No wait, let me kiss you again. Come here.’