by Jackie Lau
“I don’t need help getting laid. I’m fine!”
“You’re uptight.”
“I’m not uptight!”
“Right. Of course. You’re not uptight at all.” Vince chuckles. “It’s good to try new things, isn’t it? They can make your brain think in different ways. Good for creativity. Good for business.”
I stare at him. “You’re saying an orgy might be good for my business? You’ve got to be kidding me. What if news of me being here gets out?”
“It’s very discreet. Besides, you’re a young, handsome CEO. You can pretty much do whatever you want. Nobody cares.”
“Thanks for calling me handsome.”
“Personally, I don’t see it, but that’s what people say.”
I scrub my hands over my face. What a weird couple of days it’s been.
“Even if I were interested in orgies,” I say, “why would I go to one with my brother?”
“I just came to drop you off. Don’t worry, there will be no family members present.”
“No. My answer is still no.”
Vince smirks. “How about this? You go to the orgy for at least an hour, and I’ll return your phone. I’ll call Brian to confirm you stayed and didn’t just sneak out into the rosebushes. Unless, of course, you were getting a blowjob in the rosebushes.”
“Too many thorns,” I mutter.
Vince laughs.
The thing is, I do desperately want my phone back. A lot of my life is in that phone.
But this is not happening.
I don’t consider myself a prude, but sex is something that happens between me and one woman. In private. Yes, it’s been a while, but an orgy is not what I need.
“Let me tell you about Brian’s sex parties,” my brother says. “There are a couple dozen young, attractive men and women, everyone dressed up to make it classy. Hence the suit. Usually it’s just people Brian knows personally, but I vouched for you.”
“Thank you,” I say with as much sarcasm as I can muster, which is quite a lot.
“I hacked into your doctor’s computer system and got your latest STD test results to prove to Brian that you’re clean.”
I stare at my brother. He’s a complete nut bar.
How did I end up with a brother like Vince? I’m a normal, hardworking guy, aren’t I? How did my parents manage to produce both me and him?
“Look,” I say. “I appreciate the thought. Except I don’t, because this is crazy. I’m not going to an orgy so I can get my phone back.”
I wonder if that sentence has ever been uttered in the history of the world before.
I doubt it.
Of course, I could get a new phone, but that’s a hassle. I doubt my brother will insist on holding onto my phone for that long, though it appears I won’t be getting it back tonight.
“Fine,” Vince says. “Suit yourself. Now, there’s a perfectly good orgy going on in there, and since my brother refuses to go, I’ll take his place. You can have the car.”
And with that, he exits the vehicle.
* * *
I don’t feel like going home. I’ve already spent far too many hours at my penthouse today, so I ask the driver to take me to the independent coffee shop on Dundas, where I occasionally go in the middle of the workday if I need to clear my head.
I’m not sure whether Chris’s Coffee Shop is actually owned by a guy named Chris, or whether it’s just called that so they can have pictures of Chris Evans, Chris Pratt, Chris Hemsworth, and Chris Pine on the walls, plus a picture of Christopher Plummer on the door. I think it’s silly, but they make good espresso and the second floor is always quiet.
I get my drink and proceed upstairs. There are only two other people here, and they’re both wearing earphones and reading textbooks. I look out the window at the busy city and feel separate from it all.
I also feel guilty, like there are a ton of things I’m supposed to be doing instead of this. Except thanks to my family, I’m on a break from work, so this is exactly what I should be doing.
Okay, I concede they have a point. Just a teeny-tiny point. My parents value hard work, so if they think I’m working too much, there’s probably something to that.
It’s troubling that I feel lost without my phone and am struggling to spend a single day without work. Plus, I’ve been getting headaches regularly in the past few months, which is unusual for me, and my neck and shoulders almost always feel tense. I’ve been tired lately, too, and even when I’m exhausted, I often have trouble sleeping. Sometimes my heart beats quickly for no reason, and come to think of it, I’ve had a bunch of stomachaches as well.
Perhaps telling my family that I’m “perfectly healthy” was a bit of an exaggeration.
I’m sure if I looked up my symptoms online, I’d discover that I could have one of many awful diseases that would result in my imminent death. But I went to the doctor last month for a check-up and he said everything was fine, though it wouldn’t hurt to decrease the stress in my life.
I look down at my hand, which is shaking on my espresso cup.
I’ve always worked hard, but that’s been particularly true since I became CEO—a position I wasn’t quite ready for—after my father’s heart attack.
Hmm. Maybe I need more than four days off work. Maybe I should do exactly what my family wants. I have a company to run, but I can’t run it if I burn out—which is starting to seem like a possibility—and there are competent people who can run things in my absence for two weeks. When I return to work, I’ll be refreshed and ready to work hard, fourteen hours a day. I’ll just try to avoid spending too much time with Vince, since he has a tendency to increase my blood pressure.
Yes, as frightening as it is to be away from the office for so long, I’m going to do this.
I take a pen out of my pocket and grab a napkin so I can start a list. Lists are always good. I like lists.
How to be unproductive in the next two weeks.
How to have fun so I don’t go into the office out of desperation.
I cross these out almost as soon as I write them. The titles sound stupid.
Then it hits me that having fun is something I never think about. If I’m honest, it’s not something I’ve thought a great deal about since the tender age of five. I’m the responsible one. I think about how to do things better and more efficiently. I think about how to make money. How to stay in shape. How to eat healthy when I’m traveling for business. How to do more.
But not how to simply relax and enjoy myself.
This isn’t something you’re supposed to have trouble doing. In my defense, Vince probably has enough fun for the both of us, but I can’t let him blow me out of the water in this department.
I need a game plan.
Or does having a game plan to learn to relax sound completely ridiculous? Is it silly that I’m feeling some sibling rivalry here?
I am so out of my depth.
I ball up the napkin and throw it across the table.
There are footsteps on the stairs, and I suppress a groan. It’ll probably be a group of people who will have a loud, annoying conversation about which Chris is the cutest or something equally inane.
But it isn’t.
No, it’s a single Asian woman, who takes a spot at the counter against the window.
I know this woman.
Well, not really. I call her Latte Lady. I come to Chris’s Coffee Shop about twice a week, and occasionally I see her here.
Actually, to my embarrassment, I time my visits so I have the greatest chance of seeing her. Usually she comes at lunch time, around twelve thirty.
Now, though, we’re both here at nine thirty on a Friday night.
I never order lattes. They’re terribly inefficient. A straight espresso, with a little sugar if you absolutely need it, is best. However, Latte Lady really loves her lattes. Not only does she always get a latte, but she smiles at her damn latte, as though she’s happy to see it. She doesn’t take pictures of the foam art to p
ut on Instagram, as some people of my generation might do, but instead, she just enjoys it, her hands wrapped around the wide cup, no phone in sight.
I find this fascinating, I admit. I like seeing her.
It doesn’t hurt that she’s also quite attractive. She’s a little younger than I am, maybe thirty, and her black hair is cut in something that I believe is called a bob. She often has a serious expression—she’s not one of those perpetually cheerful types, whom I find obnoxious—but then she has that smile that just lights up her face, and that smile happens for something as simple as a latte.
A gingerbread latte. At least, that’s what I heard her order the one time I was behind her in line, and I’ve held onto that scrap of information.
She puts her purse on the counter before setting down her drink. Then she stares at the foamed milk for a moment, as though it can tell her the mysteries of the universe, before bringing the cup to her lips and taking a sip. Her mouth curves into a smile as she sets the cup back on the saucer. She really does have the most beautiful smile.
I don’t know Latte Lady, but I’m positive she would have no trouble filling the next sixteen days without going to the office.
To be fair, most people wouldn’t have my problem, but something sets her apart from all those other people. She’s the one who could probably spend a couple hours lying in a meadow, staring up at the clouds, and enjoy it.
Perhaps she’s the answer to my problem. She knows how to get pleasure out of the simplest of things, whereas I do not. She has what I want, so maybe I could get her to teach me.
Who said I wasn’t a creative problem-solver?
Well, my brother didn’t say that, not precisely, but he suggested that attending an orgy would be good for creativity and implied that was something I needed.
Screw him.
I’m quite fond of this idea, and since I’m a man of action, I immediately stand up and walk over to her, my half-finished espresso in my hand.
“I’ve seen you here a bunch of times,” I say as an opening.
She looks at me and tilts her head to the side. She’s wearing dark jeans and a simple black shirt with a wide neckline that nearly exposes her shoulders.
I feel overdressed.
And nervous. I’m going to ask a woman to teach me how to have fun, and that’s not the sort of thing I’m accustomed to doing.
“Do you particularly like men named Chris?” I ask.
“Is this a lame pick-up line where you tell me that you, too, are named Chris?”
I bark out a laugh. “I assure you, that is not the case.”
She looks at her latte. “I don’t go to the movies very often these days, and although I know there are a bunch of young white male actors named Chris, I can’t remember any of their last names.”
“I’m Julian. Julian Fong,” I tell her. “And I don’t watch many movies, either.” Usually, I’m far too busy to have time for movies.
“You’re the guy who runs Fong Investments, aren’t you?”
“That would be me.”
“A CEO is trying to pick me up.” She laughs. “That’s never happened before.”
“I’m not trying to pick you up. Well, not exactly.”
Maybe I sort of am. As I said, she’s very pretty. I imagine having her all to myself in my enormous bed...
I’m getting off track.
“I’ve noticed you,” I say. “You always have a latte. But is it always a gingerbread latte? That, I’m not sure. I heard you order once.”
“Always gingerbread. It’s the best. Tonight, it’s also decaf.”
“Decaf.” I make a face. “That defeats the purpose.”
“Ah, but the primary purpose of my gingerbread lattes is not as a source of caffeine.”
“What is the purpose?”
“They make me happy.”
She states it so simply.
Yes. She is the right woman for this. She’s exactly what I need.
She lifts up her cup and holds it up to my nose. “Doesn’t it smell amazing?”
“It does.” Admittedly, it’s probably much more delicious than my espresso.
If I’m honest with myself, I don’t particularly like the taste of a straight espresso; I just appreciate its efficiency. I consume a lot of caffeine to keep me going, and espressos are the most efficient way to do so.
Our fingers collide as she puts the cup down, and the contact of her skin against mine catches me off guard. I swallow.
“So, Julian Fong,” she says, “what do you want with me?”
“I’m being forced to take two weeks off work,” I begin.
“You are being forced,” she repeats, “to take a vacation?”
“Yes. My family thinks I’m a workaholic in desperate need of some time away from the office. Initially, I figured I’d just take a few days off and hope that would get them off my back, but now I’m thinking I really do need a full two weeks. I’ve been stressed lately. Not sleeping well.”
I’m not being efficient. I’m not getting right to the point. This isn’t like me.
“But I have a problem,” I say. “I don’t know how to take a break. How to have fun. I ended up at the office again today because I didn’t know what to do with myself.”
She frowns. “I’m not sure I can help you. I’m not exactly a fun person, either. I have no plans this weekend, aside from going on a long walk to a gelateria in Leslieville. They make a delicious lemon cherry sour cream gelato. Welcome to my not-so-exciting life.”
“You’re perfect.”
“No one’s ever said that to me before.”
“What’s your name?”
“Courtney.”
“Courtney, it would never occur to me to go for a long walk and have gelato.” I pause. “You’re planning to do this alone?”
She sighs. “Yes, I’m so cool that I was planning on doing this by myself.”
Ah. She doesn’t want to be alone. We’ll be helping each other.
“This is what I want,” I say. “For you to spend the next two weeks teaching me to enjoy the little things in life, a skill which I believe you have mastered and I know nothing about.”
“You want me to be your manic pixie dream girl.” She bursts into laughter. “You want me. To be your manic pixie dream girl.”
“I have no idea what that is.”
“Of course you don’t. Because you don’t watch movies and it has no relevance to your business career.” She has a sip of her latte then sets down her cup. “It’s a quirky, free-spirited girl whose only purpose is to teach an uptight man, such as yourself—”
“I’m not uptight,” I say. For the second time this evening.
“—how to enjoy life.”
She seems to find this a hardship, but I have lots of experience in convincing people to do things they don’t want to do. Throwing money at a problem usually works wonders, and I don’t think this will cost me all that much.
“How about this,” I say. “I’ll give you five thousand dollars for your troubles.”
Chapter 5
Courtney
Julian Fong appears to be off his rocker. He’s offering me five thousand dollars to help him enjoy his vacation from work?
Me, Courtney Kwan. The depressed girl.
I might not be depressed right now, but still.
I shake my head. I’m stereotyping myself. Some people think that those with depression are depressed because they don’t appreciate life’s little joys.
Not true. Definitely not true for me.
I’m great at appreciating things other people might gloss over, but every five years, it becomes impossible for me to do so. The colors and tastes of life just slip past me.
When I’m not depressed, though, I’m pretty good at it. Julian’s not wrong. Actually, it’s kind of remarkable he figured that out.
I’ve seen him at Chris’s Coffee Shop before, getting a thimbleful of espresso. It’s hard not to notice him, since he’s always wearing these f
ancy suits that are tailored just perfectly. I don’t know shit about designer suits, but I can still tell they’re expensive.
In addition to his suits, there’s something about him that commands attention. I’m not sure what it is, maybe...
Okay, I do know.
He’s really fucking handsome.
So, yeah. Hot, well-dressed man in his thirties. I’ve noticed him before. I figured he worked in finance on Bay Street, but I hadn’t realized he was Julian Fong.
His father is well-known in the Chinese community, the great-grandson of a Chinese railway worker, one of the few who managed to bring his family over from Toisan. Due to the prohibitively high head tax and later the exclusion act, this was nearly impossible. Early Chinatown was over ninety percent men, many with families back in China. But Julian’s great-great-grandfather was some kind of business genius, and despite the vast amount of racism he must have faced, he managed to get rich enough to pay that stupid head tax and bring over his wife and children.
Then in the seventies, Julian’s father, Charles Fong, started Fong Investments. The new immigrants from Hong Kong, who were generally wealthier than the earlier Toisanese immigrants and had money to invest, were more apt to trust him with their money than a white man who they worried would screw them over. But his clients were not restricted to Chinese-Canadians.
Charles Fong built a successful company, and he also founded the Toronto Chinese-Canadian Center, which provides social services to the Chinese community, including assistance to new immigrants and a seniors’ home. He had a heart attack a few years ago, which prompted the Fong family to fund a new cardiology wing at East Markham Hospital. I remember hearing he’d handed control of Fong Investments over to his son Julian after the heart attack, but I didn’t know much else about Julian.
Until now.
Actually, I still don’t know much about him, except that he’s a handsome workaholic who has made me a very bizarre proposal.
When he came to talk to me ten minutes ago, I experienced a sliver of nervousness. A strange man was approaching me in a coffee shop at night, and it was a bit weird. But my instincts told me it was okay.
I don’t think my instincts were blinded by his good looks. They usually aren’t.
