Love at First Flight - (Part 2) Life is a Roller Coaster

A foreign teacher arrives in China and falls in love with a local, but the path of true love is anything but smooth.

Happy Sunday (Photo: JiKang Lee via Flickr)

 

 

Read Love at First Flight (Part 1) - Broken English here.

Love at First Flight

 

(Part 2 of 5)

 

Life is a Roller Coaster

 “My English name is Julia.” said Yao Jiali. “A foreign teacher at my high school chose the name for me.”

“That’s a very nice name.” said Malcolm. Some of his students at the university had chosen unusual ones: Water, Silent, Tiger. They sounded fine in Chinese perhaps but in English…?

Julia and Malcom sat together in a study room in the university library.

“What food do you like?” He asked.

“I very like noodles.” said Julia.

Malcolm shook his head “Ok. Let’s try that again. English grammar is not exactly the same as Chinese. You should say ‘I like noodles very much.’”

            “I like noodles very much,”

“Good. Ok. Do you like pizza?”

            “Yes. I very like pizza…” she shook her head. “I like pizza…very much.”

            He smiled. “Excellent.”

            Later they swapped to Chinese.

She asked him a question. “Ni xiang mai ma?” Do you want to buy it?

He answered “Bu you.”

She frowned and repeated what he had said, “Bu you, bu you.” Then she laughed loudly. “You’re funny!” She kept on laughing.

“What?” he asked, feeling his cheeks flush. 

“If you don’t want it you should say ‘bu yao’ or ‘mei you’, not ‘bu you’!”

“Oh, yes, of course.” He smiled and enjoyed the sound of her laughter.

 

One day he asked her about her work.

“Flying is not so fun. The pay is high but the work is very long. I want to go abroad to live there. That is why I study English and save money. What about you?”

“I studied science but when I graduated from university I couldn’t find a good job so I came here. I didn’t plan it really but so far it’s fun. I’m glad I came.” He looked at her and wondered if she felt anything like he did.

            Her phone rang. She spoke for several minutes in Chinese. He tried to listen but couldn’t follow the conversation. His vocabulary was still too limited.

            She hung up and put the phone down.

“Who was that?”

            “My old boyfriend. He keeps calling. His name is Chen Wei.”

            “Oh.”

            “He broke with me when I told him I go overseas. He wants me to stay. But I say no. He still asks me.”

            “Oh.”

“My mother likes him. He buy her gifts sometimes.”

            “He buys her gifts.”

            “Yes, he buys her gifts.”

            “Why does he do that?”

            “He wants her to tell me to go back. My mother spends too much time trying to find me a boy. She very want me to get married.”

            She looked at him closely, then touched his recently cut hair. “You look better with short hair.” she said.

 

After two months he plucked up courage to ask her out. “I would like to buy you lunch. Somewhere nice. You can choose a good restaurant but I want to pay, ok?”

            She thought about it for a while. “Ok. I think of a good place.”

            When the day came he raced home from his final morning class, had a shower and dressed up in his tidiest clothes. He unlocked his bike in the bike garage beside the apartment building and walked out the door.

Then the rain started.

            “No!” He retreated inside the door and looked at his watch. What’s worse, wet or late? He ran up the stairs to get an umbrella, looked at his watch again and set off, holding it aloft in one hand.

            He arrived at the restaurant and locked his bike against a pole. He checked his watch. Five minutes late. He looked at himself in the glass of the restaurant. And wet. He ran his fingers through his hair trying to get rid of some of the water and make himself look respectable. He caught sight of something in the corner of his eye. He turned his head and through the glass saw Julia inside watching him and laughing.

            He stood still for second and frowned. Then he shook his head and laughed as he walked through the front doors.

Julia spoke in rapid Chinese to the waitress standing next to the front desk. She nodded and showed them to a booth in a rear corner of the restaurant with a u-shaped built-in seat around the table. They both slid in and sat at the rear of the booth close enough to share the same menu.

            Malcolm asked Julia to explain some of the things in the menu and they agreed on some dishes. Julia poured tea from the pot the waitress left on the table. Malcom tested his chopstick skills on a small dish of peanuts.

            “Would you like some wine?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Red or white?”

She said “I like red.”

He ordered something foreign and crossed his fingers. The wine arrived first and Malcolm raised a toast.

“To my excellent Chinese teacher and for helping me settle in to Taiyuan.”

He clinked his glass against hers. She lowered hers when they touched.

            The dishes began to arrive. First was mushrooms and vegetables with a bowl of rice each. Then came hong xiao rou, a rich pork dish which melted in Malcom’s mouth.

“Hao chi!” he said. Very tasty.

Julia smiled.

            They both started on a second glass of wine. Julia told Malcolm about her favourite dishes and how some of them were cooked. Next was a spicy beef dish. Malcom struggled with the chili and Julia laughed. “You are not from Taiyuan. We love this kind of food!”

Finally a soup tureen arrived, which looked big enough fit for a family of six. Julia ladled the soup into their two bowls. They began a third glass of wine each. Julia’s face became flushed. Malcolm complimented her on her choices of food and her clothes. She had dressed up too, although somehow she was always better turned out than him, even during their casual classes in the library.

            She shook her head to his comments. “I’m glad you like the food.”

            “I like talking to you too.” he said, feeling himself blush.

            “Me too. You are nice.”

He smiled. “I hope we can spend more time together.”

            She looked at him with a smile on her face. “I thought you were a shy boy.”

            He blushed redder.

            She raised her glass. “Thank you for being very good teacher.”

They clinked glasses again. She lowered hers again. He tried to lower his so they were even, she pulled back.

“You are the guest,” she said, “my glass should be lower.”

“No, we are friends. We should be equal.”

            They clinked glasses again. She giggled. “You are funny.”

            Julia sat back and he mirrored her. Her arm touched his and he felt his skin tingle. She leaned over slightly and rested against his shoulder.

            He looked at her closely and breathed in her perfume, the same exotic fragrance she wore when he met her on the plane.

            When she saw him staring, she looked up at him and raised an eyebrow.

            “You look lovely, and you smell lovely too.” he said nodding his head to emphasise his point. 

She reached forward and put her glass on the table. He hesitated a second, then did the same. Then she turned and kissed him. His eyes flew wide open, then closed as her soft lips moved against his mouth.

            They remained joined and he slowly slid his arm around her back. Her hand rose to his neck pulling him closer.

            Her lips parted and their tongues joined, he heard himself breathing noisily through his nose. She made a soft murmuring sound.

            Her phone beeped. He ignored it, but he felt her stiffen. Slowly she withdrew, keeping her hand on his neck. She dropped her eyes. He smiled and raised her chin gently with his hand so he could look into her eyes.

            He saw her face redden and she turned away. “I should check. Maybe it is my mother.”

            She glanced at the screen then put it back in her bag.

“Who was it?”

“It is not important. Have some more soup.”

 

When they left the restaurant he went to the counter to pay. She stepped in front of him and waved some notes in front of the cashier.

He frowned. “No please. I invited you. I will pay.”

“You are a guest here in my country.” She spoke in Chinese to the cashier.

“Please. Let me.” his face flushed again. The cashier watched them, her face impassive.

She put her hand on his arm and placed her money on the high counter in front of the cashier. “Maybe next time you pay.”

            He opened his mouth to protest again then hesitated. Next time? He relaxed.

 “Promise?”

She nodded, smiling, and the cashier passed over the change.

 

A week later he asked if she wanted to go to the park one afternoon to have some fun. She agreed.

            They met at the main gate of the large park in the city centre and walked through the gardens to the fun park. Paddle boats full of families, young couples and groups of friends moved around in the lake. Some had a duck on the front, others a rabbit. They hired one and took turns steering around the two small islands, under the arched stone bridges and back to the dock.

            In the distance he spotted the roller coaster. “Do you want to ride on that?”

            She looked at and started to shake her head.

            “Come on. It will be fun.”

            When climbed into the pod and strapped themselves in Malcolm felt her tense up. “We’ll be fine. He took he hand in his and she squeezed it tightly.

            The roller coaster began to ascend and she gripped his hand even tighter. The ride began and she screamed the whole way round. Malcolm did to, but it was a shout of triumph. She held his hand tight right until it was time to get out. “I will not do that again.”

He held her hand again as they walked back through the park toward the boats, ferris wheel and arcades games. They stopped and bought ice creams.

“Ok. No more roller coasters. How about that one?” He pointed to the ferris wheel. “Nice and slow.”

She nodded. “Ok.”

The view was great and he snapped some photos of her with the city in the background. Then he sat beside her and held her hand again. She smiled. He leaned over and bent his head towards her. She lifted her chin and closed her eyes and their lips met again, not parting until the operator opened the door for them to get out.  

            They climbed out together, her hand still in his, when a voice rang out.

“Jie?” Older sister?

Julia’s head spun toward the voice. She dropped his hand and took a half step to the side.

A teenage girl, chubby with long black hair and a round face, was staring at them. She wore a t-shirt with the cartoonish picture of an owl on it. The large round eyes were located at an unfortunate place on her chest, bulging out. Malcolm averted his gaze and looked at Julia, trying to follow her Chinese.

 “Mei mei.” Little sister. “Long time no see.”

            The girl grinned. “I saw you holding hands. I’m going to tell my mother and she will tell your father.”

“You will not. Stop minding other people’s business.”

The girl kept grinning.

            Julia spoke quickly. “He is a friend, helping me with my English. He was just helping me down from the Ferris wheel. There is no need to say anything.”

            Malcolm watched the girl’s face. She wasn’t buying the story.

“We’ll see. Bye.” she said, turned and walked off.

“Who is she?” asked Malcolm.

“My cousin.” said Julia biting her lip.

            They continued around the park. As they walked Julia kept an exaggerated distance between them, occasionally glancing around her to see if her cousin was watching.

            “Are you ok?” Malcolm asked

            She didn’t answer immediately. “My grandfather fight against America in Korea. He do not like foreigners. My father was in the army too.”

 

That evening at home he got a text: ‘I can’t see you for a while.’

He blinked and read the message several times.

He replied: ‘For how long?’

His pulse raced and the phone trembled in his hand.

It beeped.

Her answer was brief. ‘I don’t know.’

 

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Read Love at First Flight (Part 1) - Broken English here. 

 

 

Read Love at First Flight (Part 3) – Sad Songs here.

 

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[Rated R] 

Entries in the post-industrial / peak oil short story competition:

NEWSFLASH - My story 'Promised Land' has been selected for the forthcoming anthology "After Oil 2: The Years of Crisis".  You can read the other entries here.

A previous set of stories was published in 2012 in a book entitled After Oil: SF Visions of a Post-Petroleum World, available from Amazon (Amazon) or in Australia from Fishpond (Fishpond).


Stories set in China:

Winds of Change –  In 2022 a migrant worker struggles to realise his dreams and fulfil his family obligations.

Outside In – It's 2050, the country and economy have changed. A recycler studies for an exam to improve his prospects, and an indentured servant plans her escape.

Seeds of Time – (Sequel to Outside In). In 2055 rural China prospers again after a period of dramatic changes, then things are complicated by a strange visitor and a hidden object.

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Robots on Mars – 2025. A space-mad city boy adjusts to life in the country and tries to solve a mystery.    (Note: no actual robots or Martians involved)

Promised Land – (Sequel to Robots on Mars). It’s 2050 and development threatens the rural district. Is it what they really need and if not, how can they stop it?

 

Heart of Glass - (Sequel to Promised Land). The year is 2099, high school graduates prepare to step into adulthood and the community prepares to celebrate the turn of a new century.

 

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