Chapter Twenty-Five
I waited a week before I visited the loquat tree.
It wasn’t so little anymore. It was now at least three meters tall, surrounded by a carpet of grass and wildflowers. This part of Hong Kong, which once I had known so well, was changed. The road had been paved and a bus stop had been added. There were even a few benches in the park.
Much of Hong Kong had flooded during the typhoon, and even a year later parts of the city were still recovering. I hadn’t dared hope my tree might survive—yet here it was, more robust than ever. Bits of red string hung from the branches, each tightly knotted. I counted at least twenty.
“There’s twenty-two,” said a voice from behind me. “One for each time I came here looking for you.”
I turned slowly, facing Tommy. “What are you doing here?”
A new string dangled from his finger. “Little hwamei, you don’t smile as much as you used to.”
“I’ve grown up.”
“So have I.” He closed the space between us. “I missed you.”
I sidestepped him and reached for a loquat. “You never came to the house.”
“I did.” His eyes were dark, his jaw tense. “I was told you didn’t want to see me.”
The loquat snapped off and fell into my hands. I shut my fist, nearly crushing it. “You believed that?”
“No, I assumed your family was too ashamed to have company. That’s why I wrote you letters—”
My ear started to thud. “Letters?”
“Every month. I asked you to meet me here. You never replied.”
Because I never got them. I rocked back on my heels, certain I had Sai Ma to thank for that.
“It doesn’t matter, I’m glad we found each other again.”
He leaned to touch my cheek, but I twisted away. “Shouldn’t you be with Priscilla-Mae?”
“Silly girl. I only take her out to make my parents happy. You make me happy.”
“So you’ll take her out again.”
“No. I’m selfish.” He held me by the shoulders. “You remember your promise all those years ago, to share the first fruit with me?”
I reached into my pocket for the loquat he’d given me. It’d shriveled into a dry and pimply thing, but I still liked holding its weight on my palm. “I remember.”
Tommy plucked the plumpest, most orange fruit on the tree. He peeled the skin, letting me have the first taste. It was the sweetest loquat I’d ever eaten. I offered the rest to him, but instead of taking it, he kissed me.
It was a real kiss. Not a peck on the cheek or a clumsy fumble of mouth to mouth like the ones the bolder boys in Tunglam would try on me when we were children. It was a kiss that unlocked a heat inside me that I’d never known. The loquat fell from my hand with a soft thump, and I closed my eyes.
“Again,” I whispered.
The rest of spring, we met every chance we could.
As soon as my chores were finished, I sneaked out of the house and Tommy picked me up in his car.
We’d drive to the loquat tree and lie on the grass, kissing until we ran out of breath.
My favorite was when it rained, for we didn’t leave the car and simply parked by the roadside, exploring each other.
“Do you like this?” Tommy would ask when he touched his tongue to mine.
I’d hum a yes.
“What about this?” he asked, nibbling on my ear.
I liked that too.
Then Tommy’s kisses began roaming down to my neck and to my throat, and lower. I found I liked that, too. His touch would light a fire in my blood, and I couldn’t breathe. Yet instead of going invisible I cried out, feeling like I’d become light itself, so bright and dazzling and free.
When the weather was nice, he took me to Kowloon since it was far enough that neither of our families would see us.
We held hands and window-shopped and fed each other egg tarts like other amorous young couples, and Tommy would grin whenever someone pointed and said I looked like the girl on the Peaksoy bottle.
In this way spring became summer, one blissful day after the next. But for all my happiness, I knew the end was coming.
It was a cloudy August day, and we were sailing on a sampan to escape the heat.
I’d always wanted to take one, and Tommy paid the fisherman extra so we could operate it ourselves.
We drifted along Aberdeen Harbour, keeping to the shoreline, and picnicked on noodles, dried squid, and sugarcane, snacks we’d picked up from the green hawker huts along the wharves.
I could tell something was on Tommy’s mind.
He’d been quiet all day. Finally, as it started to rain, he broke the news:
“I’m leaving Hong Kong,” he said. “I’ve been accepted into university in London.”
There came a hitch in my throat. “Congratulations.”
Tommy drew me under the sampan’s pitched roof. The space was clean but cramped, the smell of fish concealed by a pot of burning incense. He slipped his hand around my waist. “Come with me.”
The muscles in my back went stiff. For months we’d been seeing each other secretly, stealing kisses and pretending to be a couple, but not once had Tommy mentioned a future together.
“What about Priscilla-Mae?”
“What about her?” Tommy said, taking off his jacket. “I told you already, my grandfather introduced us because her parents were early investors in Peaksoy. He was hoping we’d make a match. I told him I’m not interested.”
“I bet he took that well.”
“It doesn’t matter how he took it.”
“It does matter. You’re inheriting Peaksoy. An important man needs a wife who’s—”
“Don’t say it.” Tommy took my chin, holding it. “This is the face of Peaksoy, or have you forgotten? I don’t want anyone other than you.”
My lips closed. “What did you tell him?”
“That I’ve always loved you,” he said softly. “That day I cycled down the hill, I thought you were the loveliest girl I’d seen. I was imagining what you’d look like when you smiled, and that made me—”
“Crash your bike?”
“I was clumsier back then.”
“You were reckless,” I said.
“Reckless?” He tickled my ear with his teeth, then started nibbling on my lobe. “I’ll show you reckless.”
“Tommy . . .”
I forgot what I was going to say. My body, ever treacherous, sprang at his touch, and I couldn’t speak even if I wanted to. His lips traced down the side of my neck, landing on the tender box where my voice hummed.
“Rain’s coming down hard,” he said, drawing me deeper under the roof. He pulled its gauzy curtains closed. “We should stay awhile.”
“Mm.”
His hands were on my collar, undoing the buttons. I didn’t stop him. He was a drug, and I couldn’t get enough. Gently he laid me down on the deck, folding his jacket into a pillow under my head.
His mouth touched mine, teasing the intimate line between a caress and a kiss. “Let’s get married,” he whispered.
“What?”
“I’m leaving next week for London. We’ll get married before I go and leave together. What do you say?”
I could feel the caress of his breath on my lips when he spoke. “What about your family?”
“I’ll ask their permission.”
“They won’t give it.”
“Then we’ll elope.” He touched his nose to mine. “I’m not giving you up.”
My ear was ringing, but I ignored the pain. I helped him unbutton the rest of my shirt, freeing his hands so they could roam down. His lips were brushing across my throat, biting softly into my neck. As his hands found my hips, knowing exactly where to touch, I grew heady. It became hard to think.
“We can’t. You’d lose Peaksoy, and that’s everything to you.”
“You’re everything to me. Say yes.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.”
“Good.” His hands slid under my waist and rubbed against my back, making heat.
My skin prickled with desire. I had sworn never to fall in love, yet I couldn’t help it. This was the boy who’d made Hong Kong feel like home, who’d found me time and time again when I was lost. I needed him.
I wanted him.
“What’s this?” he asked, rubbing the birthmark on my chest. He’d seen it before, run his kisses across it many times before, yet he’d never asked before today.
“It’s just a mark. I’ve had it since I was young.”
“It looks like a little bean. A soybean.”
That made me laugh. I let go some of my nervousness. “Maybe it is.”
“You see, Yut Ying? How could I not love you.”
Rain drummed against the roof, the sound like raw rice spilling into a pot.
The sea churned underneath us, lapping the sides of our boat.
But all I would remember was the sound of my hammering heart pressed against Tommy’s broad chest. The sweet taste of his tongue against mine, the vibrations of his breath against my skin. The drunken heat that we made together.
He slid off my skirt while I fumbled at his belt, and I felt the bare skin of his legs pressed against mine, the taut muscles cording in his arms as he held me. I was tinder, he was the match. I’d never wanted fire more in my entire life.
He mistook the flush on my cheeks for bashfulness, laughed, and threw his shirt over his back. He swept his hands over my body, kissing every crook, every curve, every hollow.
I held my breath as he entered me, pressing my fingers hard into his back as the pain reared sharp inside me. A wash of glittering cold swept across my skin. I exhaled fast.
“Ying,” he whispered. “Are you all—”
“Stop talking,” I said, covering his mouth with mine. I kissed him, taking him down with me. And though the clouds blotted out the stars that evening, never had I seen so many in the sky.