21. Chapter Twenty-One #2
The server finally arrived with their orders and placed their bowls in front of them.
Steam rose from both bowls, and the delicious scent of freshly cooked ramen rose into the air.
Each bowl had a renge spoon hooked over its rim.
Harmon grabbed a pair of chopsticks. He offered her one, which she took.
“But you are in the wrong,” Sal argued.
“That’s subjective,” he said, breaking his chopsticks apart and taking a spoonful of the ramen broth.
“How so?” she asked.
“It might get cold,” he said, slightly waving his chopsticks dismissively.
Sal eyed her dish. The swirls of soy on the creamy base beckoned her to take a spoonful.
The only thing worse than eating with a jerk like Harmon was eating cold ramen with a jerk like Harmon.
So she grabbed her chopsticks and took a quick slurp.
She felt an immediate pang of relief when the salty and smoky broth activated her taste buds.
She slurped more, ignoring the world around her.
At that moment, it was just her and this rich, salty, savory bowl of creamy shoyu ramen in a small ramen shop in the middle of a busy city.
She looked up to breathe and locked eyes with Harmon’s reflection.
He was observing her with a soft expression on his face.
Immediately, he turned away and buried his face in his ramen bowl.
“Why’d you invite me here? Is it just to poke at my wounds?
I know I stepped in a pile of dog shit by meeting you.
” As much as she disliked having to butt heads with others, she curiously looked forward to his reaction.
Harmon was always so calm and collected.
Like nothing could phase him. She wanted to rile him up just once.
Harmon wiped his mouth. “If that’s so, then why did you follow me here?” he asked, looking irreproachable.
She scowled at his haughty expression. “Because a psycho held my groceries hostage and led me here. I’m stuck here in the pouring rain because I have no damn umbrella, and I don’t have a phone to call anyone.”
He let out a tut-tut. “Don’t worry. The psycho that led you here is paying for this bill, and will do you the courtesy of getting you a ride to wherever you need to be.”
He was trying to do a charm offensive yet again after continuously offending her. It wouldn’t work. “That’s unnecessary,” she said, slurping more of her ramen before it lost its heat.
“I told you. I can’t have you sick and delaying the entire wager.”
“So then, if you think you aren’t in the wrong, then who is? I can’t be the wrong one here, I’m not the one forcefully taking the property of others.”
“People have their reasons for doing what they do. Mine isn’t wrong or evil,” he said with a tone of frustrating certainty.
“But indulge me again. Why did you quit your illustrious career as an oral surgeon in New York? If you won’t tell me why you left the Philippines, tell me why you left New York. ”
Sal paused, trying to see the parallels of his reasoning, and granted his request and indulged him with her story. “I pivoted into art because I went into my dental career for all the wrong reasons,” she muttered.
“What reasons?”
Perhaps for someone like Harmon, who had worked so hard to be where he was, her reasons may seem foolish or weak. But that was a story for another day.
“I just couldn’t pretend I was happy anymore,” she mumbled.
Harmon paused for a moment, finished his ramen, and then casually said, “I admire you for starting over, no matter your reasons.”
Sal felt her cheeks grow warm, then set her chopsticks down and burped into a napkin. She was done with her dish and done with this date—or whatever this was. “Thanks for the meal. I’ll hail a taxi somewhere.” She prepared to stand.
Harmon lightly grabbed her wrist.
Sal looked back, and in shock, sat back down.
Harmon blushed and cleared his throat. “I’ll ask my driver to take you wherever you need to go.
And please, don’t do me any favors anymore,” he said, asking for the bill.
By favors, he meant the prescription she wrote that helped him get the meds to cure his assistant’s stomach flu.
It wasn’t a favor; that was a power-play.
But he didn’t take it that way, apparently.
“I won’t. Not if it means spending another meal with you like this,” Sal said, but as soon as she said it, she felt a pang of regret. He was being nice to her; she shouldn’t be so mean.
He paused and studied her. “Actually…I like having conversations with you.”
Sal’s head snapped so quickly toward him she thought her neck would break. She realized he was serious. A sarcastic laugh came out unexpectedly. “Why?” she asked.
Harmon finished his beer and then gave her a neutral look.
“I enjoy conversing with brave people. The tenacious, persevering types, the ones who see the odds and still go for things. They understand what it’s like to reap the rewards of living life outside the rule book.
And because they’re like that, they don’t judge others who do the same. ”
Sal felt her heart leap at his statement. He thought of her as brave?
Harmon raised a brow. “Everything all right?” he asked, looking at her, puzzled.
Sal straightened her back and cleared her throat. “Whatever this was, it was not a conversation. A good conversation is a meeting of minds. It’s two people exchanging ideas, and they come out of it feeling nourished, not drained.”
“Do you feel drained now? Because I don’t.”
Come to think of it, she didn’t feel drained. If anything, she felt energized. Sal frowned and searched his expression for anything taunting or sarcastic. He looked as if he truly meant it.
“But I disagree.” He leaned against the bar but didn’t break eye contact.
“A conversation—a deep one—involves two people willing to share their vulnerabilities and flaws without judgment. There is room for discourse and space to accept differences. It’s impossible to always have a meeting of the minds.
The ones that accept that end up being not just good conversationalists, but good company.
The kind that challenges you to see things through a different lens. ”
“Did you just compliment me?”
Harmon’s broad shoulders squared while he reached for his wallet as the server approached them with their bill.
From the corner of Sal’s eye, he seemed like he was holding back a smile.
“Maybe,” he muttered coolly and turned to her, and for the first time since she had met him, he smiled a joyous smile that showed his two perfect dimples.
Sal couldn’t help but feel something. Her heart, if it ever felt cold toward him, began to thaw.
***
“Mr. Moon said I have to make sure you got back safely, ma’am,” the driver said while keeping his eyes on the road.
His English was heavily accented, and he was very polite; he said his po’s and opo’s even if he was older than Sal, and kept a genuinely kind smile on his face the entire time he would speak with her.
“Then let’s stop over at the mall first. I need to buy something before I head back home, if that’s okay?” If she was being lent his driver, she might as well take advantage of the free service.
“Opo, I can wait for you, ma’am.”
The driver dropped her off at the mall nearest her flat, and she bought a mid-grade Android phone she had looked at online and went on her way.
The phone was light and felt like a chocolate bar in her hands.
She held it closely in her bag as she got out of the car and picked up her groceries from the back.
Harmon’s driver assisted her to the front door of the unit.
When Sal knocked, she heard tepid footsteps approaching, a loud clank of locks opening, and soon, Willow emerged, her red hair a wild mess. “You took longer than I thought,” her friend said.
“Thanks!” Sal said to Harmon’s driver as they relieved him of the groceries.
“It’s five p.m.; I thought for sure you’d be back for lunch. Were you able to get your new phone?” Willow asked as she carried the grocery bags.
Sal took off her cardigan and dropped her tote bag on the carpeted floor. “Yeah, I still have to set it up though,” she sighed as she placed the groceries in the kitchenette and started unpacking them.
Just then, they heard a knock.
Willow frowned and walked over to the door, looking through the peephole. “It’s the driver.” She looked over her shoulder, and when Sal offered her an indifferent nod, she opened it.
“Sorry, Mr. Moon said I give this…” he said rather hurriedly. “I have to go, ma’am.” He seemed to have pushed something into Willow’s arms and left quickly.
“What was it?”
Willow shut the door and locked it. “It’s for you,” she said, holding a shopping bag, and placed it on the coffee table near the sofa bed.
“It’s from Harmon?” Sal asked, leaving the groceries and walking over to the package.
“Apparently?” Willow shrugged and moved over to the kitchenette to continue unpacking what Sal had left.
Sal inspected the shopping bag; it was from a well-known department store in the Philippines that offered mid-range to luxury goods.
Upon opening it, she saw a box with a brand she was familiar with but had never owned.
She opened the box and softly gasped. It was a beautiful black leather shoulder bag, not unlike her own.
When did he get this? And why? He shouldn’t have.
She placed her hands tentatively on her lap, hesitant to touch it. But then she saw a note sandwiched on the side of the wrapping paper. Without thinking, she took it, wondering if Harmon had written anything on it. In small, neat handwriting, it said:
We’re even now.
- Your rival
Sal closed the small note and felt a warmth rise from her cheeks to her ears when she remembered his statement: “To say we are rivals is to say we are equals.” Did he think of her as his equal now?
“Hey…” Willow peered over the bag, hands on her hips, and looked at Sal. “That is one pricey tote bag, Sal.”