Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
I GOT LOST IN THE MALL ONCE.
Every parent’s worst nightmare. Except in my case, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me and my mom.
As a kid, I was what people would now call a bit “extra.” My dad used to call me OA, the Filipino slang for “over-acting.”
Basically, I was a dramatic kid.
I didn’t like typical boy things. Didn’t play with trucks or action figures. At recess, I was the one boy dancing around on the school’s asphalt playground with all the girls. At lunch, they sought me out to gossip and giggle. I couldn’t help it. I was their gay bestie.
Was I teased? Absolutely. Lots of the other boys would laugh at me and my flamboyant ways. But I tried to never let it get to me. I stood my ground, chin held high, and ignored their taunts. I was only ever able to do that because I had someone important on my side: someone who gave me the courage to be myself. I had a mother who loved me unconditionally, with no judgments about my theatrical tendencies. In fact, she supported them.
She sang along with me to all my favorite Disney movie songs. When I tried to learn the choreography to boy band music videos, she’d help direct me. And most of all, she encouraged my love of flashy fashion. No utilitarian outfits for me, thank you, Dora the Explorer! I craved T-shirts with weird designs, socks with colorful prints, sweater vests, oversize bow ties, even scarves. My actual sense of style was atrocious—nothing I wore ever went together or made sense. But I didn’t care, and neither did my mom. She’d let me wear whatever I wanted, much to my dad’s chagrin.
Toward the end of every summer break, we would go on a shopping trip to the mall to buy school clothes. I looked forward to it the way other kids looked forward to Christmas. And during the summer before sixth grade, I ended up getting lost.
Well, I didn’t so much get lost as I lost track of my mom while looking at the boys’ shirts. I went into the women’s section of the store to look for her and stopped dead in my tracks, stunned at what I saw.
I’d never been in that part of the store before. My eyes grew larger than they’d ever been, barely able to take in all the various colors of the new dresses on display. Fabrics glistened, and embellishments glowed in the overhead lights. Why were the women’s clothes so much more exciting than the men’s?
I ran my hands over one of the dresses. A satin off-the-shoulder wrap. A thrill of recognition ran up and down my spine, as if it were whispering to me, Hello, my friend. I’ve been waiting so long to meet you. Please take me home.
When my mother finally found me, I was frozen in place, as still as the mannequins I was staring at, imagining my own little grade-school body in the clothes I saw before me.
I turned to her with a smile so huge it eclipsed my face. She simply said to me, “You really are my child.”
From then on, my mother and I grew even closer, united in our love of colorful women’s clothing.
But now, the closest I’m getting to that kind of colorfulness is the box of doughnuts Kat’s currently picking through in one of the small conference rooms at work.
“We should go back to the Pink Unicorn sometime,” Kat says to me.
I sip coffee from my mug. “Hard pass.”
Kat continues to pick through the doughnuts. “One of these days, you’re going to have to tell me why getting up onstage freaks you out so much.”
“I told you, it’s nothing. Just stage fright.”
“All I’m saying is, if you ever want to talk about it—”
“You know these are only for the people who sign up for the doughnut club, right?” I ask.
Kat sighs. “I did sign up. I just kind of always forget to bring in doughnuts when it’s my turn.”
I give her side-eye.
“What? Leave me alone. I’ve had a stressful morning. I need some sugar support.”
The sound of a door slamming down the hallway makes us both whip our heads up. She hones in on the last strawberry glazed with sprinkles, snatches it, and motions for us both to hightail it out of there before we get caught. I double-check for any potential witnesses in the hallway and signal an all-clear to Kat before we meander back to our desks.
Kat and I work at Symria, a biotech in Berkeley specializing in sustainably made products. The office is quiet today. On some mornings, it almost seems back to normal, the way it was before the pandemic, with scientists bustling in and out of the labs and the other employees working at their desks. But on Mondays, most non–R&D folks work from home. Kat and I would be, too, except the executive team is on-site today. So Kat’s boss, the CEO, and mine, the general counsel, expect us to be here.
“Why the rough morning?” I ask her. “Another blowout with Susan?”
“No. Maybe. It was more of a misunderstanding.”
“About what?”
“My job performance.” She purses her lips upward and stress-exhales quickly, making a lock of her bangs jump. “I say I’m doing fine, and she says I’m not.”
We arrive at Kat’s desk. She plops down in her seat and chomps on her doughnut with glee but only manages to take a few bites before Susan comes out of her office to ramble off a long list of tasks. As Kat scrambles to write them down, I tactfully excuse myself and go to my desk.
Kat’s boss, Susan Axt, is one of the most successful women executives in the Bay Area. She’s a great CEO but a demanding boss. As the general counsel’s executive assistant, I’m busy, too, though nowhere near as stressed as Kat. I work for Danielle, a social-worker-turned-lawyer who is the quintessential Northern Cal biotech attorney: smart as hell and more into craft beers and surfing than stressing out at work. Everyone loves her, especially me.
Two hours later, Kat comes strolling by my desk. “Let’s get ramen for lunch.”
“But we get free lunch on Mondays.” Symria, like every other biotech in the Bay Area, shares certain characteristics. The office is styled in a blend of college dorm room and West Elm enviro-rustic chic, the workspaces are open, the kitchens are stocked with snacks, and lunches are free Mondays through Thursdays.
Kat sticks her tongue out. “I’m tired of soup and salad.”
“But you just said you wanted ramen.”
“Japanese soup is better. It has more carbs and pork.”
“Okay, fine,” I say. “But I can’t be late coming back. One of the scientists is coming by my desk at one p.m. to sign a document.”
Kat raises an eyebrow. “Which scientist? You’re not usually this eager to get a signature. Is it that new strain engineering dude? Kenneth?”
“Maybe.”
Kenneth is one of my many office crushes. He’s captain of the company softball team, plays guitar, and has a PhD in biology from Stanford. All of which fills me with lust.
“Wouldn’t want to be keeping Sexy Scientist waiting,” Kat says. “So let’s go.”
“Now? It’s not even eleven-thirty.”
Susan yells out from her office, “Where are you off to, Kat? You know the whole point of the company shelling out half a million dollars a year for catered food is so you don’t have to spend hours taking a break for lunch, don’t you?”
“And you know that breaks are mandated in California, right? So get off my back!”
My eyes bulge. “Want to get fired much?”
“It’s fine,” Kat says as she pulls me toward the exit stairwell.
We walk in silence until we get to the Japanese restaurant down the block. After sitting at a table, skimming the menu, and then ordering what we always get, I ask her, “Are you sure you should be talking to Susan like that?”
Kat looks at me over her cup of tea. “Like what?”
“Like you’re on the Jerry Springer Show and you just found out she cheated on you?”
“First of all, update the refs—Jerry Springer was like fifty years ago. Second, I’d be the one cheating on her . And third, don’t worry about it. We talk to each other like that all the time.”
“Please don’t tell me you’re quitting anytime soon.”
“Why would I quit? I love my job!”
“You just argue so much with her.”
She laughs. “I’m not quitting. Trust me.”
Kat’s relationship with Susan has always baffled me. How can they be screaming at each other one minute and then hugging it out the next?
We gossip about other office mates, and a few minutes later, our waiter brings our food. Shoyu ramen with extra meat for Kat, and chirashi for me. I pick up my utensils and begin to decimate my meal, secretly glad that Kat’s made me go out for lunch.
Kat slurps up her noodles. “I thought all Asians loved karaoke. Especially Filipinos.”
I know what she’s doing. She’s trying to get me to explain my little episode at the Pink Unicorn on Saturday. I keep my head bowed and pretend to be too involved in my food to respond.
“It wasn’t the place itself, right?” she asks. “I know it’s a dive, but we’ve been to plenty of run-down places and it’s never bothered you before.”
I keep eating.
“Was it that KJ guy? Did he do something to make you upset?”
Yes. He called me up to sing when I expressly told him that I didn’t want to, and it made me want to run and hide and forget the whole night.
“No,” I reply. I chew sullenly while trying not to notice that Kat is peering at me, probably trying to figure out if I’m lying.
Right when it looks like she’s about to say something else, she shrugs and goes back to slurping up her soup.
I use my fork as a mini-trident and skewer the last chunk of raw fish in my bowl. “Why did you ask about the KJ?”
“When I was watching you up there with him, it seemed like there was some interesting energy between you two. At first I thought it was a little spark, but maybe I misread the situation.”
A spark? Of nerves, maybe, from trying not to get too worked up about being that close to a stage and microphone. But a spark? I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“The only reason I was there is because I wanted to listen to you. But I didn’t want to sing myself, so I left. And I don’t really have any need to go back. For karaoke or any other night.”
“Okay.” Kat looks at me in that funny way she sometimes does, with a mix of support and melancholy. Like she knows I’m upset for some reason and is trying to communicate that she’s there for me with her smile and sad eyes.
I ignore her and finish the last bite of my food.
The check arrives. I pull out my wallet to pay for my half of the lunch. “Wait, where is my…?”
“Rex, did you leave your credit card somewhere again? Honestly, I swear you’d lose your head if it weren’t screwed onto your pretty little shoulders.”
Kat’s right. Not about my shoulders—I have big, broad manly ones, thank you very much. But I do lose things all the time.
I search my wallet and my pants pockets. “Where the heck is it?”
“When’s the last time you used it?”
Staring out into space, I comb through the events of the last few days. “Damn. I never closed out my tab at the Pink Unicorn. I left before I could pay.”
“Looks like you’re going back there after all.” Kat’s phone vibrates and brightens on the table. She glances down and reads the message. “And it looks like I have to get back to work, too. Her Majesty’s wondering where I am.” Kat groans. “I’m replenishing the energy you sucked out of me with some hot Asian yumminess!” she says to her phone.
“Are you talking about the ramen or me?”
She makes a kissy face at me. “Take your pick.”
“Uh, Kat, could you…?” I nod at the bill.
“I got it.” She places her credit card onto the tray. “But you’re definitely paying next time.”
BACK AT WORK , after a frustratingly non-flirty signing appointment with Kenneth, I check the Pink Unicorn’s website. Closed on Mondays, so I can’t go tonight. It’s open every other weekday at two p.m., however.
The next evening, I stop by on the way home from our office, keeping my fingers crossed that my card is indeed there and not in some other random place that I can’t remember.
The place is empty except for an older white guy seated at the bar watching the news on the wall-mounted TV and drinking what looks like either a large glass of ketchup or a really thick Bloody Mary. He looks familiar. It’s possible he was there last Saturday, though I didn’t notice him then. He’s probably in his late fifties, has wavy salt-and-pepper hair, and though he has somewhat of a dad bod, he’s in pretty decent shape for an older guy.
I see the top of the head of a bartender stooped behind the bar, sorting through the shelves underneath.
I clear my throat. “Excuse me? I think I left my credit card here on Saturday?”
The bartender, still hunched down, says, “Hold on, buddy. Loretta worked last Saturday. I’ll see if she left it in lost and found or—” BUMP goes the wooden counter as the man hits his head. “Ow!”
“Whoa. Are you okay?”
He rubs the back of his head and stands. “Yeah. I’m fine. I’ve got kind of a hard head.”
I stare, blink, and wonder how the man hitting his head made my vision blurry, because I am definitely the one seeing things.
“Rex?” the bartender says.
Or maybe I’m not seeing things.
What the heck is my ex-boyfriend from Indiana doing in California?