See You in L.A.

Sixteen summers ago, I met a boy.

Well, he was 21 years old so technically he was a man. I was 17, in the lull between the end of high school and the start of college, working at an Italian restaurant (the same way Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant). I worked in the heart of Hong Kong, the most modern part of the city that resembles Times Square: rife with neon lights, billboards, and LED screens that seem to be perpetually lit. The restaurant I worked at is long gone, but the area itself hasn’t changed much. In every direction, suits rush off to their important jobs. A rapid clicking sound signals when it’s time to cross the street; a feature installed for the visually impaired but acts as a metronome to the beat of the city—sharp, insistent, nostalgic—the crowd surges forward on its cue. Skyscrapers in every shape, size, and era, at least a handful are wrapped in the city’s iconic bamboo scaffolding. Thousands of AC units poke out from windows, occasionally dripping on you as you pass by. Every time a shop door swings open, a stray gust of cool air briefly hits you. Questionable smells linger, intensified by an unreasonable amount of humidity and a relentless sea of people, some propelling you forward, others pushing you back.

If you’ve never been to Hong Kong, you might not know how little of it is actually flat. Nearly eighty percent of the land is steep, mountainous, and undeveloped, which means the city has had to carve out life from a surprisingly small slice of usable ground. More than three-quarters of the terrain tilts at angles steeper than 15 degrees, and in many places it’s even sharper. As a result, instead of stretching outward, Hong Kong rose vertically. Space is scarce and it comes at a price—few places in the world demand as much per square foot. It’s a city shaped by both design and defiance, and there is truly no place quite like it.

I had to take a bus, two trains, and hike about 20 minutes up a steep and haphazardly paved hill to get to work, as the sweat on my back glued my shirt to my skin. I can’t recall how I found this place, perhaps through the Hong Kong equivalent of a Craigslist ad—but I loved it—the way you can love a shitty job only when you’re young, full of energy, and you don’t know any better.                                                       

I’m not sure if the regulations have changed since 2010, but back then there were no overtime laws in Hong Kong, and on most days I worked from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. with a short break in between, six to seven days a week, for $18 HKD an hour ($2.32 USD). Officially, I was hired as the hostess, but I ran drinks and food, bussed tables, and took orders when the servers were slammed or when they were on a smoke break. This was the job that broke me in, the start of over a decade of different jobs in the service industry: burnt finger tips; crying in walk-ins; eating untouched mishaps that were brought back to the kitchen (over a trash can incase a manager walked in); that one semester I was too proud to ask my parents for money and I ate random leftovers on my way to the dish pit; sometimes my uniform was starched and ironed and I served entrees like a porcini-crusted halibut with a miso beurre blanc and bottles of wine that were much older than me; sometimes my uniform was a tank top that showed a lot of cleavage and shorts that showed a lot of leg, and customers argued with me over a $3 up-charge for sweet potato fries. For this first restaurant job, my uniform was a high-waisted black pencil skirt, a black dress shirt that I tucked in and wore with the sleeves folded up to the creases of my arms, and black open-toe heels with a thin ankle strap that had a gold buckle. I did not look 17.

It was a mostly uneventful summer. The days bled into each other, more or less the same. I had no interest in any of the advances that had come my way so far and no intention or desire of meeting anyone. I survived high school and an especially heinous senior year, the only thing that was on my mind was starting over. I enjoyed working and making money, but I believed that I was done with Hong Kong and all the people here. I told myself I’d be gone for good in another month or two; I felt sure that the city had nothing left to give me.

Then I saw him. The restaurant’s sliding doors were always open and there was a small ledge at the entrance, just enough to keep rain from spilling in. He was laughing at something with an older man as they both stepped over. I looked at him and thought: here’s someone who could break my heart. And I was more than willing to let him.

He was tall—they’re always tall, aren’t they? He had intense brown eyes and a cheeky, boyish smile, contrasted by a strong jawline and a distinguished nose. I started to sweat behind my knees as I walked them to their table. After I sat him, his cousin, his dad, and gave them their menus, I quickly began bussing a dirty table nearby with an entirely fake nonchalance, trying to burn off my nervous energy.

Like any other 17-year-old girl, I was told I was “pretty” and strangers flirted with me inappropriately—I hated both. To me, “pretty” felt like a consolation for not being beautiful or smart. “Pretty” was something people could reduce you to, and being told that I was “pretty” held as much meaning to me as the wolf call from the across the street. In any case, I didn’t think I was the kind of girl a guy who looked like that  would ever be interested in. Most of the time, I thought of myself as a big fat idiot with a laundry list of features I’d do anything to change: my knock-knees that made it impossible to ever have a thigh gap, my eyes (my ethnicity), my nose was too big, my face was too round, my stomach too soft, my arms too wobbly, my teeth too uneven, the size of my head comically large. Still, that didn’t stop me from wanting to look at him, to be near him. Growing up in Hong Kong, I had not yet heard of the phrase “out of my league,” but everything in me believed that he was. This Tall Beautiful Man, surely, unlike me, was confident of his place in the world amongst all the other Tall Beautiful People, out of reach from me. I had no business wanting him, but I big-fat-wanted him anyway.

Suddenly, the Tall Beautiful Man was talking to me. “Hey. Do you mind telling us what’s good here?”

I took his question in earnest and thoughtfully gave him suggestions, not yet realizing he didn’t actually care about the food.

“Your English is really good, are you from here?”

I explained that I was born in the U.S. and he told me he was visiting from Los Angeles.

“Oh cool! I’m moving there for college soon, to Santa Monica.” I said, my excitement bubbling inside me, thinly and poorly veiled.

“No way, I’m from Manhattan Beach, it’s like 20 minutes away from Santa Monica. You should call me when you get there. I’ll show you around.”

I happily told him I would love that and I made up an excuse so I could briefly leave his table, desperately trying to contain myself. When I came back, he handed me a napkin with his name and number, a piece of it torn off at the bottom with a few bits of ink still showing where it was frayed, as if he had written something and changed his mind about letting me see it.

If that had been the extent of our exchange I would have been satisfied (without knowing what was to occur later that night)—a guy who I thought never in a million years would pay me any attention gave me his number; I was thrilled. I ducked behind the bar, crouched down in the corner and took a few deep breaths. I reasoned with myself that I would probably never see him again, and that there was a possibility that he didn’t even give me his real number. For the rest of their meal, I busied myself and made several appearances nearby but not too close to their table, sneaking glances at him hoping that he was sneaking glances at me. The hostess desk was unmanned for large chunks of my shift, but luckily it was a relatively slow night. I laughed just a little louder at my coworkers’ jokes and lingered a few seconds longer at other tables within his eyesight, pretending that I didn’t even care that the most beautiful man I’d ever seen was sitting a few feet away, eating garlic bread.

The restaurant soon died down, all the other tables besides his had closed out their tabs. As it started to clear out, my manager told me I could leave early if I wanted to. I don’t think she was trying to be my wingman but—hell yes, Linda! I absolutely wanted to leave early! I went to the back of the restaurant, into a grimy room lit by a single hanging light bulb that the employee lockers were in. I thanked all the stars and gods in the universe that I had worn a cute outfit to work that day: a plain black spaghetti-strap top, my only good bra, and jeans that hugged my curves, not my usual get-up which consisted of funny graphic t-shirts and sweatpants. As I took off my work clothes and shoved them in my bag I thought about how I could walk by his table one last time and casually say: “It was great to meet you” or “It was good meeting you,” or maybe I would just say “See you in L.A.”—or was that too forward? Maybe they already left; maybe he had met someone else; maybe he’d ask for his number back—no—stop that, that’s insane. I changed in record time and blotted the sweat off my face. I ripped open a perfume sample that I tore off a magazine months ago and had been shuttling around aimlessly at the bottom of my bag, I rubbed it around my wrists and neck. I let my hair down and slammed my locker shut. As I opened the door back into the dining area, he was standing up as I was walking out. If I had taken any longer they would have been gone. He caught my eye and his face crinkled into a smile.

“You’re done with work?”

“Yeah. Itwasreallynicemeetingyou.” I said, all in one breath.

“It was nice meeting you too…” He said something to his dad in Spanish (I swooned internally); his dad smiled and nodded. “Hey, since you’re done, would you maybe want to come hang out with us? We’re going to watch the World Cup somewhere. Don’t feel like you have to say yes. No pressure at all.”

“Yeah! That sounds fun!” I didn’t even know what the World Cup was. I didn’t care. I couldn’t get the words out my mouth any faster. It just so happened that my mother was out of town for the week so I didn’t have anyone waiting at home for me. I followed them out the restaurant, my coworkers shot me several are-you-sure-you-know-what-you’re-doing looks, but all I did was smile sheepishly at them and wave goodbye. I had never been out with a customer from the restaurant, and I had never wanted to before I met him. Whether it was naivety or intuition, I felt safe, and luckily—I was.

It started to rain while we were waiting for a taxi. When one appeared a few minutes later, the way they always do in Hong Kong, his dad sat up front next to the driver, then he opened the door for me, I scooted in, he followed after, then his cousin. When he sat next to me, I saw that his shirt was see-through in the spots it had gotten wet. A rush of excitement surged through me when his leg touched my leg, wondering if he meant to be touching my leg, gleefully relishing the weight of his body as it fell onto mine when the taxi driver made several hard left turns. He smelled incredible: a cocktail of the rain, whatever cologne or deodorant he was wearing, and just a little hint of sweat. We went to a bar much nicer than the restaurant I worked at, and the World Cup was playing on a large projector and all of their TVs.

The legal drinking age in Hong Kong is 18, which I was a year shy of. But back then no one bothered to card you if you looked old enough, so I never had to get a fake ID. We took a seat in front of the projector and the server came by and gave us drink menus, not even batting an eye at me. This would be maybe my third or fourth time drinking alcohol. When he asked me what I wanted to drink, I froze, and said the least cool thing I could say: “You pick something for me.” He picked a mojito, which I enjoyed but never would have ordered for myself. I don’t think I even knew what a mojito was at the time, or how to pronounce it. I drank it slowly; I knew enough to know that I didn’t like being drunk, and I knew I wanted to remember this night.

We stayed for most of the game, until it was clear one team was going to win. He leaned in and asked: “Do you want to get out of here?” I nodded. He grinned. We said goodbye to his dad; “we” unfortunately included me, him, and his cousin. I was beginning to think he just wanted to be friends, but when we were finally alone he not so subtly pulled out a tube of lip balm, popped a mint in his mouth, and muttered something about seeing me in California. Then, he leaned into me and gently pressed me against the wall, and we kissed as if we had kissed a thousand times before, as if it was the most natural thing for us to do, as if it was the end of an era and not our first kiss ever. I kissed him hard and he kissed me back harder. I didn’t want to stop. We broke away when his cousin came back. He smiled, grabbed my hand and said: “Let’s go.”

I didn’t want the night to end. I knew he was leaving the next day and knowing that was enough to keep me wide awake even after working close to 70 hours that week. He held my hand as we went from bar to bar. We kissed in different doorways and on several couch corners. I can’t remember what his cousin did; I barely remember his cousin being there. I was enjoying myself too much to have the decency to feel bad for taking over their boys’ night, or to feel embarrassed for our very public and very frequent displays of affection. Plus, he didn’t seem to mind. I was the perfect height to stand in between his legs when he sat on a barstool. We shouted when the music was loud and whispered in each other’s ears when it wasn’t, talking about everything and nothing. We were intrigued by our differences and marveled at anything we had in common, the way strangers so often do when they first meet. He asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up (no idea); what my favorite food was (that summer I had just discovered bacon); what movies I liked (Return of the Jedi, The Last Crusade, and Mrs. Doubtfire); what my parents were like (divorced, and my mom works a lot); if I believed in god (no) ; what living in Hong Kong was like (humid), and why did I want to move to L.A. (I thought it would make me happy)? At that point, I had only ever dated my high school boyfriend who I spent a year or two getting to know before we even held hands. I had no idea how to talk to this Tall Beautiful Man. I didn’t know how to be myself when I had no idea who I was.

We neglected our drinks and let all the ice melt. The lights in the bar came on abruptly; he paid the tab and the three of us went outside. It was just after 4 a.m. when his cousin finally said goodbye and went home. He asked me if I was tired and if I wanted to go home, too. I wasn’t and I didn’t. I felt more awake and alive than ever. I lived too far away to take him home with me but I wasn’t ready for us to part ways. He regrettably told me that he was sharing a hotel room with his dad, so going back with him wasn’t an option either. We decided to walk towards the pier to be near the water for sunrise. We kissed till my lips felt numb and then we kissed some more. We got as frisky as you can get, fully clothed (for the most part), on a public bench.

A few hours later, the morning light began to sweep over the Hong Kong skyline. We started walking back to his hotel. The taste of him still in my mouth. It was sobering, not because either of us had gotten drunk, but because I knew our moment was coming to an end. I think he expected me to say goodbye in the lobby, but I wanted to squeeze a few more minutes out of him—my fear of abandonment rearing its ugly head. We made room for others in the elevator but we didn’t stop looking at each other. One by one they left and we were alone again. He made sure he had my last name spelled right so he could find me online. When we reached his floor, he got out and looked back at me as I leaned against the railing. Just as the doors were closing I ran out and pulled him towards me and then through the door marked ‘fire exit.’

We didn’t go all the way. In the moment, as much as I wanted him, I didn’t want to be the girl that did it with him in a stairwell. I mean I did, but a myriad of worries stopped me: What if I looked fat? What if he thought less of me? What if someone came in? And even though I happened to be wearing my only good bra, I didn’t wear the matching lace panties it came with because they weren’t comfortable, and I had no reason to not be comfortable when I got dressed that morning. Much to my horror, I was wearing a pair of Batman underwear and I didn’t feel sexy in them—and not looking sexy in front of the most Beautiful man I’d ever met felt like the worst thing that could ever happen to me when I was 17.

***

I did call him when I got to L.A.—turns out it was his real number.

Even though I wanted to see him again, I never did. Sometimes it was his fault and sometimes it was mine. When he graduated and moved home from college, he was about a 20–30-minute drive from me, but he said he broke his arm and was in a cast. I felt that if he wanted to, he would have found a way to see me and so I didn’t push it further, too afraid of coming off as overly eager if I offered to make the trip to him.

For whatever reason we kept in touch. Sometimes months went by, sometimes years, and still, every time I saw his name pop up on my phone, my heart would beat so fast it threw up a little bit. We talked about feeling lost, our families, and all the traveling we were both doing. We reminisced over the one night we had and romanticized what it’d be like to see each other again. Once, after I had already left L.A. and was living in Hawai’i, I almost flew out to see him, but he kept postponing the Skype date we had to discuss logistics so I backed out.

Truthfully, I wanted to be a different version of myself when I saw him again. I wanted to be someone thinner, cooler, successful, or at least someone who was sure of who she was, so each time it didn’t work out for us to see each other I thought of it as more time to work on myself. My biggest fear was that if and when he saw me again, I wouldn’t be able to satisfy the memory of me that he may have had, and the idea of being a disappointment was crippling. As I got older, I started to wonder more about how he may have disappointed me, realizing how much time I had spent yearning over a complete stranger. Still, I never forfeited the idea that we’d see each other again. Unfortunately for me, by the time I became someone I even remotely liked, or when I finally accepted that I would perhaps always be a work-in-progress, it was too late. He told me he met a girl that was working at a café he went to a few times, asked her out, and he married her.

“Life is pretty funny,” he said.

Life is  pretty funny. Life is hilarious and full of coincidences and life also disappoints you and breaks your heart. It’s been 16 years and I still have the napkin he wrote his number on. But what if a coincidence is just a coincidence? What if it didn’t mean anything that we had met, or that I moved to a city 20-minutes away from his hometown? What if he wanted Indian food instead of Italian that night? What if he had his own hotel room and I didn’t wear the “wrong” underwear or I didn’t care about what underwear I was wearing and we just fucked in that dusty stairwell? Would I have wanted to see him again? Would he have wanted to see me? What if the sex was bad? (It wouldn’t have been bad.) And if we did see each other again—would we still have had flirtatious chats and shared our existential thoughts with each other on and off for over a decade? Would we have fallen in love? Would I still be thinking of him and would that one night be so deeply etched into my memory, 16 years later?

What if we only wanted each other because we didn’t have each other? What if I didn’t try to pretend to be someone I wasn’t; what if I had just been my awkward, clumsy, deeply flawed self? What if it was never about the timing but all about my fears? What if I had been brave enough to want what I wanted? What if our night wasn’t as special as I remembered it to be? What if the void between reality and the deepest parts of my imagination is so immeasurable, that I can no longer distinguish which is which? What if it was never really about him, what if I had broken my own heart by not allowing myself to be vulnerable? Where is the line between self-protection and self-sabotage? What if not fulfilling a fantasy is its own kind of mercy? What if I knew that reality would inevitably let us both down? What if it was wise to choose the ache of possibility over the certainty of disenchantment? What if—