The Expat Diaries: Twelve Days to Christmas (Single in the City Book 3)

by Michele Gorman

  ‘Ouch. Did you all take turns playing the girl?’

  ‘Oh yes. Not something I’m proud of, but it does come in handy sometimes.’

  ‘You mean playing the girl?’

  He laughed and spun me.

  We switched partners back and forth while I worked up a glow. Not a sweat, a glow. Swanning around the floor wasn’t as easy as many of the couples made it look. When I called time-out on Stuart he was more than happy for the break. He poured two glasses of champagne when we sat. ‘Stacy looks like she’s got the hang of it,’ he said.

  ‘Of course. Have you ever known her to be bad at anything?’

  He laughed. ‘She is remarkable.’

  I glanced at him. ‘I often wondered whether you’d get together.’

  ‘Who, Stacy and me? Aw no, we’re mates. Good mates, but just mates.’

  ‘It’s just that you get along so well, and most men fall for her. How did you remain impervious to her charms?’

  He smiled. ‘She is charming, there’s no doubt. But we were in the friend zone within about a day of meeting. She’s beautiful, but she’s not my type. You know I like Asian women.’

  Perfect! ‘Like Winnie?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know yet, as I haven’t met her. But yes, theoretically, like Winnie.’

  ‘When are you going to meet?’ I’d given him her details nearly a week ago. Tick tock.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to call her. Do you want me to do it now?’ He dug his phone from his breast pocket. ‘This number?’ He pointed to my email. ‘Shall I call her?’ His finger was poised over the screen.

  He was daring me to indulge his impulse. I nodded, seeing Brent approaching the table. ‘Definitely call her. Brent will keep me occupied. Stacy must have gone to powder her nose.’

  The floor was crowded with mostly Chinese couples, mostly older than us. Nobody else looked like they were stepping on their partner’s toes. Just me then. Lucky Brent.

  ‘I’ve got to admit it, my brother was right,’ he said. ‘This is fun. I don’t know why we don’t do it more often. It’s like seeing live bands. Every time I go, I regret waiting so long. But you can’t go back and do things differently. It’s like that with a lot of things, I guess. We don’t realize what we missed until too late.’

  He wasn’t talking about ballroom dancing any more.

  ‘Have you decided what you’re going to do, you know, when Sam asks you?’

  I knew it. ‘Things have been confusing lately. I mean inside my head, not because of… anything else. I’ve realized some things.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Embarrassing ones. Ones that don’t exactly put me in the best light. You know how we all want to present our best face to people? I think I took that a bit far with Sam… Yet I’m completely myself with Stacy, Winnie, you, Stuart, everyone else. Well, you know, you’ve seen me in all my glory. Lazy, clumsy, embarrassing… gluttonous… clueless… sometimes weird.’ He waited patiently for me to finish the list, I noted. ‘I haven’t tempered anything with you. What you see is what you get.’

  ‘And we love you anyway. Han, nobody is perfect. And nobody expects you to be perfect. Are you afraid Sam won’t love you if you’re yourself?’

  ‘I think that’s it. It must be.’

  ‘But if he loves you, he loves you. Not a perfect image of you, but the real you. If he doesn’t, then he’s not worth going out with.’

  ‘But that’s the thing! He’s never given me any reason to think he wouldn’t accept the real me. He tells me all the time that he loves me for me. It’s not anything he’s doing. This is all in my head. I’ve built a persona in front of him that now I can’t figure out how to drop. He’s told me I’ll never scare him away, but he’s got no idea about the extent of things. That’s the problem.’ Operation Proposal had turned into Operation Can-I-Rewind-The-Last-Year-Please? Now it had even less chance of success.

  ‘Hannah, you talk like you’re some kind of monster. I know you, remember? I know what you’re really like. And believe me, you’re wonderful. I’m not just saying that because I’m your friend. It’s honestly what I feel. If we, your friends, see that, then Sam will too. You’ve got to figure out why you’ve hidden yourself from Sam. And you’ll need to show him the real you if you’re going to get married. Whoo. I don’t envy you. Come here.’ He hugged me tight. ‘You’ve got a lot of thinking to do, and a big decision to make. But no matter what you decide, I’ll be here when you get back. All right, me lover? I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for you no matter what happens. I’ll always be your friend. I’ll be whatever you need. Okay?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I knew there was nothing I could say or do that would make my friends stop loving me. I was totally myself with them. And with Brent. Why couldn’t I be like that with Sam? I knew the answer. Because showing Sam the real me meant telling him about Brent.

  ♫ On the Tenth day of Christmas my fortune gave to me…

  bosses a-staying

  merry ladies dancing

  trouble deciding

  jolly friends a gambling

  sneaky people meddling

  clever new plans

  champagne for two

  the good friend

  two second thoughts

  and a ticket home to see my family ♪

  Wang Chung were back, and they weren’t there for a reunion concert tour. ‘Chung only emailed yesterday,’ Josh explained as I made remedial efforts to tidy the office. In less than a week the natural disorder of things had returned. ‘Don’t worry about that, Hannah. They’ve made their decision.’ He blew out his cheeks.

  ‘You okay?’ What was I saying? Of course he wasn’t okay. His future depended on a Chinese Laurel and Hardy. Only they weren’t funny. ‘I’m sorry. You must be nervous. Do you want me to leave you alone?’

  ‘No, no, please stay. You’re a better distraction than the South China Morning Post. Talk to me about something, anything.’

  He knew what I was like, so it was his own fault when I launched into my Christmas plans, complete with rundown of my entire extended family. Be careful what you wish for. When his eyes glazed over I considered my work done. ‘Did that distract you?’

  ‘I will always marvel at your ability to talk, Hannah. Yes, that distracted me, thanks.’ He smiled. ‘They’ll be here soon to put us out of our misery.’

  ‘You really want this to go through, don’t you?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘I didn’t realize how much I wanted it until last week, when I thought it might not. Hannah, I’ve lived my entire life doing what my family wanted. For as long as I can remember, everything has been for them. I never resented it. I don’t resent it now. But I feel like it’s time for my life to start… I almost didn’t come back after uni, you know.’

  ‘I bet that didn’t go down well with your father.’

  ‘Ah, congratulations. Clearly your stint in London taught you the art of understatement. I may as well have told them I’d sold off the family silver to fund my crack habit. I knew perfectly well what their reaction would be. Thinking about telling them made me ill for months. I had to do it, though. My entire world changed when I went to uni. Luckily for me, Cambridge didn’t have undergraduate business programs like your American schools do, so I had some freedom to read what I wanted.’ He glanced up from his desk, where he’d been staring since starting his reminiscence. ‘You say study, we say read.’ I nodded. ‘Anyway, education was a formality. The degree isn’t important when you’re only going to work for your family. So I read architecture. I was always interested in history, and did well at it in school. So it was either going to be history or architecture, and the decision came down to a girl.’ He smirked. ‘I went to an all-boys school but there were socials with the girls’ school, and I met her there. She was passionate.’ His look told me he wasn’t just talking about her academic interests. ‘She wasn’t going up to Cambridge but her excitement about the subject swayed me to look into it. As it
happens I got the best of both worlds. Cambridge focuses a lot on architecture’s historical and cultural elements and I was hooked from the very first lecture.’

  ‘What happened to the girl?’

  ‘Oh, she was nothing but a memory by the time I graduated. But it’s been a lifelong love affair with the history of buildings. I told my father that I wanted to stay on to get my MPhil. I wasn’t top of my class but I’d done well enough to go on. I knew what his reaction would be, but his response was still a shock. He arranged my return to Hong Kong immediately. We never discussed it again. And I’ve worked here ever since.’

  What a bully his father was! ‘Why didn’t you stay there and put yourself through school? Couldn’t you have worked? You could have waited tables or worked in a shop or something. With university being free you just needed money to live on. You could have gotten a loan. Or used credit cards. I don’t get it, Josh. Why did you give up that easily? You were what, twenty-one? You could have stayed.’

  He laughed. ‘I know, and if it were you, you’d have stayed. But most people aren’t like you. You moved to London, and to Hong Kong. I’m not like that. Or at least I wasn’t then… Now I feel like I have the chance to live my life. I’m ready to do that. I’m desperate, actually.’

  Another example of understatement. ‘Desperate, actually’ didn’t even begin to describe the pent-up frustration Josh must have felt, bending to his family’s wishes for twenty years. Now I understood why he so badly needed the sale to go through. His future was in the hands of Wang Chung today.

  They arrived as they had before, quietly, without fuss. We sat in the same places and the same pleasantries were exchanged. How could they go through the exact same conversation they had a week ago? How much could have changed? Yes, the flight was fine. Yes, the weather was still pleasant. No, there was no trouble finding the building. It seemed to go on for hours, Chang and I punctuating each exchange like good little lackeys. Just as my Tourette’s threatened to take hold, Wang spoke. ‘Thank you very much for giving us access to all of the accounts. We have examined everything carefully.’

  ‘I hope you found everything to your satisfaction,’ Josh said. I nodded. Chung nodded back.

  ‘The accounts looked perfect. Our finance team found nothing unusual.’

  Yes! I knew it was all a mistake. Of course the accounts were in order. I smiled at Josh. He remained impassive.

  ‘Our business is very transparent,’ he said. ‘Our accountant is scrupulous. As are our employees.’

  Wang said nothing. Chung didn’t meet my gaze. Weren’t we playing the punctuation game anymore?

  Josh waited.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Wang said. ‘We don’t feel that we can go forward with our offer. I’ve spoken at length to our board and they are uncomfortable that doubts were raised. This is a very difficult situation for you, I’m afraid. As your British cosmologist Martin Rees said, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”’ Wang looked immensely pleased with his quote. ‘They will not approve a deal, although the accounts appear to be in order. I am sorry.’

  ‘I see. Thank you for coming here to tell me. I appreciate your interest in the company and despite the outcome, I hope that we can continue to do business together.’

  ‘Yes, our companies have always worked well. I hope that continues. I am sorry, Josh, to bring you this bad news.’ They stood. ‘We will talk very soon.’

  I exploded as soon as they left. ‘How can you be so calm, Josh? They practically called us liars!’

  ‘Come on, it’s lunchtime anyway. Let’s go.’ He grabbed his jacket and strode from the office, leaving our colleagues staring after us.

  ‘I just don’t understand it,’ I said when we got outside, aware that I’d made a scene. ‘That’s it? Just because someone said we were cooking our books, even when they could see we weren’t, they pull out of the deal? What kind of business sense is that?’

  ‘Chinese business sense, I’m afraid. Why should they risk paying so much money when they could be stung down the line by something they didn’t uncover today? Wang is right. The absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. Just because they didn’t find anything wrong doesn’t mean there isn’t anything wrong. They’re not going to take that chance.’

  ‘Well then, you can talk to other companies. This is a good business. There must be lots of potential buyers out there.’ I was desperate to wipe the utterly despondent look from my boss’s face. ‘We’ll just find other buyers.’

  He sighed. ‘It doesn’t work like that here, I’m afraid. Other buyers won’t come forward now that there’s suspicion. Nobody will risk losing face, being the one to get stuck with a problem company. It’s over. We can’t sell now.’

  I couldn’t believe he was so calm when his dreams had just been crushed like that. I’d have ranted and raved at such an injustice. He wasn’t just British in accent. That man’s upper lip was positively starched. ‘I’m sorry, Josh. You’re taking it awfully well, I have to say.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t got my way thus far. I’ll need to think through my options now.’

  ‘You do still have your conservation work here. You’re on the board and there’s lots more you can do. Hong Kong isn’t going to save its own buildings. It needs you. And as I get more experienced I can help out more at the office.’

  He smiled his thanks. Oh, how I hated whoever did this to him. They ruined a man’s future. I wonder if they’d thought of that when spreading their lies, or whether they saw our company as a faceless entity, fair game for their vindictive whispers. What could they possibly gain in scuppering the sale? Sure, we were a well-regarded company but we weren’t very big. We were hardly a monopolistic threat. It must have been someone with a grudge against Josh. ‘Who do you think did this?’ Maybe speculating on the culprit would focus his feelings into anger instead of the abject sadness I saw on his face. Prisoners facing execution looked more hopeful. ‘Does anyone have a grudge against you?’

  ‘No, nobody that I know of. And if I don’t know about it, my guess is that it’s not strong enough to go to these lengths.’

  ‘What would a rival gain by stopping the sale? Would there be any economic benefit to them?’

  ‘Only if they wanted to position themselves as a takeover target, and didn’t want Wang spending his M&A fund on us instead.’

  ‘Well, if it isn’t a rival, or someone with a vendetta, then who?’

  I think the idea hit us at the same time. ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘You don’t think?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. Stay and eat if you want to. I’m going back to the office.’

  But my appetite was gone.

  ♫ On the Eleventh day of Christmas my fortune gave to me…

  the eleventh hour deadline

  bosses a-staying

  merry ladies dancing

  trouble deciding

  jolly friends a gambling

  sneaky people meddling

  clever new plans

  champagne for two

  the good friend

  two second thoughts

  and a ticket home to see my family ♪

  It was her. That dried up old Margaret Thatcher lookalike was the little bird that sang into Wang Chung’s ear. Despite everything I knew about her, I couldn’t believe it. At first Mrs. Reese tried denying she was the saboteur, but her resolve didn’t last long in the face of Josh’s reaction. It wasn’t fury (that would have been my first choice). It was disappointment. Disappointment that someone who professed to love him like a son would purposely threaten his future happiness.

  Mrs. Reese didn’t see it that way. In her delusional world, she did it because she loved him. She couldn’t let him make the mistake of turning his back on the family business. She was protecting it, she said, just like Josh’s father would have wanted. Her insanity knew no bounds.

  When Josh told her to leave, it finally sunk in that her efforts weren’t appreciated. Her surprise was, well, s
urprising. Most people who willfully destroyed another’s dreams would understand the anger directed their way. But Mrs. Reese wasn’t most people.

  Poor Josh. He’d find a way to live his life the way he wanted to, but that betrayal would stick with him. By the time we met Stacy after work he’d calmed down a bit. It would have taken me a few weeks to stop spitting feathers. Even though it meant Josh and Stacy could stay together in Hong Kong, and I’d keep my job, I knew I’d hold a grudge against Mrs. Reese for a long time for hurting Josh. Sometimes the ends do not justify the means.

  I was considering that well-worn maxim when Sam and I arrived at Happy Valley Racecourse. I was anything but happy. I knew what I had to do. We walked towards the race track hand in hand, like it was any other night of the week.

  ‘We can go down to the ring,’ he said. ‘And get a good look at the horses before we place our bets.’

  ‘You think you can tell a fast horse by looking at it? I’ve already decided on the first race. Phony Baloney.’

  He looked at the racing sheet. ‘Why that one? It says here he hasn’t won a race… ever.’

  ‘You remember the Oscar Mayer song, don’t you? I started humming. ‘Obviously he’s going to win.’

  ‘So you’re choosing based on names.’

  ‘It’s a bona fide scientific method. But we can go look at the horses. They’re pretty.’

  I wouldn’t let Sam talk to my parents under false pretenses. He’d have a quiet word with them, asking to talk to them alone. They’d look at each other, then Mom would say how much she looked forward to that. She’d keep Dad awake all night dissecting the imagined conversation. Dad would humor her, because he always did, and arrive at their meeting bleary-eyed. Sam would be nervous. He’d tell them how much he loved me and how he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. He’d keep it short and sweet, and ask their permission to marry me. Mom, uncharacteristically, would let Dad speak. She was traditional like that. He’d clear his throat and say that although they’d only just met him, they knew from talking to me how much we loved each other. He’d stride over, awkwardly hug Sam and say yes, he had their permission to marry me.