‘You’ve been?’ He inclines his head. ‘Well, the free food on offer was better than stinky tofu and those century eggs. Or even sea cucumber.’ I shiver at the recollection.
‘So you ate snacks. And then you gambled?’
‘Cheap bus, free food, free bottles of water. All very important when you’re living on a shoestring.’
‘And you and your Danish friend were bought drinks by the casino’s patrons, no doubt.’
‘One or two,’ I agree, though most men’s focus lay elsewhere. ‘Then after a few hours of wandering around, we decided to place a couple of lowkey bets, hitting the roulette table. Like you said, when in Rome.’
‘Let me know when you’re ready for those French kisses.’
‘Ha. Right. Is that like, overtime?’ I squint, he laughs, before I carry on with my story. ‘Anyway, we had a couple of hundred dollars between us—p’
‘Hong Kong or US?’
I pull a face as though to say is that even a serious question? ‘Which part of poor did you not get?’ Or maybe it’s more the case that he doesn’t understand what poor is.
‘So, you had thirty dollars,’ he murmurs indulgently.
‘Thirty we were willing to waste,’ I reply, feeling the definition is important. I had money at that point; more money than I’d ever had in my life thanks to the windfall from mom’s mysterious relation, but I also had a plan. Travel. Get worldly. Move back and take the hotel management world by storm. While even the best-laid plans go belly up, I still had a blast.
‘Did you try the blackjack tables or the slots next?’
‘We stuck to roulette,’ I answer loftily. ‘Flipping a coin every six or seven hits, placing a red or a black with no expectations and no seriousness. Within thirty minutes, our thirty bucks became two thousand dollars. Honk-Kong dollars, but it was a lot of money to a traveller on a budget.’
‘It must’ve taken you a long time to save for a trip around the world.’
‘Actually, a distant relation died and left me a little money. It was a godsend, really. Plus I worked as I travelled. Fruit picking, waitressing, that kind of stuff.’ Remy nods as though understanding, but how could he? I carry on. ‘To us, the money was a fancy dinner and night in a hotel instead of a backpacker’s place. Maybe not Monaco fancy,’ I say, reaching for my glass. ‘Stop laughing! I’m not talking about the kinds of places you stay in. Hell, the places you own.’ It suddenly hits all over again how different we are. How we’ll always be so.
‘What is it?’ His expression falters, his laughter dying away. There’s no sense in making us both feel sad.
‘I was just thinking that, back then, a fancy dinner was a place that had linens and plates.’
‘I don’t know, there’s a certain charm in eating food from a stick,’ he replies, referring to the Hong Kong street markets. I guess we do have some experiences that are similar. ‘And drinking beer at rickety tables with plastic tablecloths.’
‘Slumming it, were you?’
‘Gaining a little life experience, the same as you. So, you had your night in a hotel,’ he asserts, getting us back on track.
‘Not at that point.’ I take a sip of my champagne, placing my glass down. ‘We had to go back to the hostel in the city to grab our things. We ate dinner in Macau and headed for the bus back to the mainland. But while we were waiting, we got to thinking.’ I tap my index finger against my chin for effect. ‘If we made two thousand with two hundred dollars, what could we make with two thousand?’
‘You were bitten by the bug.’
‘Well, we were definitely bitten.’
‘And what was the outcome?’
‘We shared a can of cola on the way home. Gambling is for suckers,’ I say over the sounds of his guffaws.
Remy’s mirth settles, his eyes dark and glossy in the ambient light. ‘Some things are worth taking a risk on, you know.’
‘I suppose this is when you tell me I need to take a risk on you?’ My cynical response was in the place of a hundred things I could’ve said. Things I’d rather have said. But I’d just be creating problems for another day. Yet his answer still blows me away.
‘No. Take a risk on love.’
34
Remy
‘Don’t.’ Her expression falters from teasing and testy to disquiet. I hate that she’s unhappy, that I made her unhappy, but I can’t envisage a time when I’d give up. Give up on us. ‘Don’t