Chapter 3 #5
The buffet spread was enormous, and somewhat baffling given I still hadn’t seen any evidence that JC and I were not the only guests.
There were rows upon rows of silver buffet chafers bearing red bean buns, sesame buns, egg tarts, shrimp shumai, sautéed prawns in clamshells.
No one stopped me, so I put one of everything on my plate.
I had always wanted to do this: eat just one bite of everything, just because I could.
“Wow,” said JC. “You’re really hungry.”
“It’s free,” I said.
But somehow everything tasted the same. The red bean buns were just as generically sweet as the egg tarts.
Even the prawns in clamshells tasted no different from the stir-fried egg noodles.
I understood how hotel buffets worked now.
It was all the same ingredients, presented in different shapes: Everything savory was just sesame oil and soy sauce, and everything sweet was flour, eggs, and sugar.
After breakfast we headed back to the station.
It was Saturday, and we had no classes to get to, but neither of us suggested staying in Beitou through the day, even though the Geothermal Valley would now be open.
We didn’t speak much on the train. I kept glancing sideways at JC, trying to read his mood.
I was afraid he was angry with me, though I couldn’t imagine what he could be angry about.
Perhaps my failure to make him come? But at least I had put in some effort.
I had worked his penis for at least twenty minutes; did that not count for something?
Anyhow, I had more right to be angry. He had been a most ungenerous lover.
He hadn’t even gestured toward my clitoris.
But I was just glad to be on my way home.
Was JC tired, or was he sulking? I wanted to break the silence, but I couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t seem anxious or desperate.
I told myself not to overthink things. We had had a fun cultural experience and now we were relaxing on our journey back home.
Nothing between us had changed. If anything, our friendship had clarified, and now we could go back to how we were without the lingering threat of sex. It could be that simple.
JC got off one stop before me; he had, he claimed, some errands to run in Ximen.
“Okay,” I said. “See you Monday.”
“Yeah,” he said, and slipped off the train.
ANNA WASN’T AT THE APARTMENT. I REREAD THE LAST TEXT SHE had sent me: okay—have fun?
The question mark was clearly passive-aggressive. I hadn’t texted her anything since, and now I felt guilty.
Hi, just got back.
She did not respond. A few hours later I tried again: I’m around if you want to get some lunch? Or dinner later?
Still she did not respond, and I began to worry something had happened to her. I checked her Instagram and saw that she had been online a few minutes ago. So she was alive; she just didn’t want to talk to me.
I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had bracketed this whole weekend for Beitou, and now I had no plans. I didn’t know what any of my classmates were up to, and I was too embarrassed to reach out and ask.
I decided I might as well get ahead on my coursework, so I packed up my textbooks and embarked on a circuit through all the cafés in the neighborhood, leaving every time I finished a drink.
First Youmoutoohana. Then Sounds Good Café.
I walked a full mile to a new cat-themed coffee bar in the next neighborhood over, but there were no cats that day as they were all getting their monthly grooming, and without the cats the coffee was not worth the expense.
Time passed very slowly. I was jarred by the shift from the frantic activity of the week, when every hour was taken up with coursework or meals or commuting, to such a silent, creeping afternoon.
I did not want to bother Anna again, and I certainly couldn’t text JC.
I tried to focus on my flash cards, but my brain refused to register any of the characters before me.
I found myself automatically hitting the green button over and over, regardless of whether I knew the word or not.
When I left the cat coffee bar it was five in the afternoon, and I felt a wave of vertigo when I stepped out onto the street.
My vision went fuzzy. My heart was beating very quickly.
I realized the problem—I had drunk gallons of caffeine all day without eating anything since breakfast. Sweating, I hurried home and lay facedown on the couch.
I remained there for several hours. I kept touching the screen of my phone, hoping for any communication from JC or Anna, but there was nothing.
It occurred to me that I should eat something, or drink some water, but the effort required to do these things seemed insurmountable.
I made some desultory attempts to return to my textbooks, but it was hopeless.
I couldn’t focus through this fog. I felt I was waiting for something bad to happen, and until it did, I could not continue with my life.
I’d given up on the day and gone to bed early by the time Anna came home.
I rolled over and sat up. “Hey.”
“Oh, hey.” She didn’t turn the light on. “Sorry I woke you up.”
“It’s okay, I wasn’t really asleep.”
“Did you have a nice time in Beitou?”
“Yeah, it was all right. I’m sorry you couldn’t make it.”
“Yeah, well.” Anna set her bag down and started taking things out of it, one by one. Water bottle, then textbooks, then umbrella. “I wouldn’t have made it until late in the day, and then it wouldn’t have been worth it.”
“No, you should have come. I wish you were there. It was—I don’t know. The vibe was kind of off with JC.”
“Was it,” said Anna.
I thought about how much to tell her. Maybe later.
She looked tired. I needed to frame things so that she wouldn’t think that I had wanted to sleep with JC behind her back, or that she had been deliberately excluded because we didn’t want a third wheel.
The problem was that all these things were true, at least partially, and I had to figure out what I thought about it all before I broached the subject with her.
“I get the sense it was kind of off season. So a lot of the good stuff was closed.”
“I see,” said Anna. “Then I guess I didn’t miss anything.”
“No, you really didn’t.”
We were both speaking in a bizarre, gentle tone, like we were tending to babies. We had to maintain the veneer of the dark, the friendly quiet. I couldn’t stand it.
“Do you want to go ride the Maokong Gondola tomorrow?” I asked. “It looks like it’s only raining in the morning, so we could go after lunch. And then maybe we can check out the zoo, if it’s not too hot?”
Anna was silent for a moment. “I’m really behind on my homework, to be honest.”
“Oh, okay.”
“But maybe we can do that on a different weekend.”
“Yeah, whatever you like.”
I pulled the covers up over my shoulders. Anna sat awhile in the dark, clicking through her phone. Then she stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.
ANNA LEFT EARLY THE NEXT MORNING.
“Impromptu trip,” she told me as she zipped up her bag.
I didn’t fully understand what was going on.
I was half asleep, and somehow she was already showered and fully dressed.
I gathered she was going on a hike with Skipper and Belinda.
I didn’t ask whether I could go, or why she hadn’t told me sooner.
It was clearly punishment for leaving her behind for Beitou.
I couldn’t sleep after that. I lay in bed, scrolling mindlessly through my phone. Anna and I had spent the spring semester reading through Taiwan travel blogs, making a shared bucket list for our weekends.
Underground jazz club
Hualien day trip
Kaohsiung/Tainan?
Maokong Gondola—zoo after—PANDAS!!!
We’d been so excited about those pandas. We hadn’t shut up about them all semester. It was as if the pandas were some religious icon, and once we glimpsed the pandas, then our pilgrimage would be complete.
I’m sorry about yesterday, I texted Anna. Beitou really was a bummer. I hope you’re having a nice time.
She didn’t respond.
I spent a while staring at the ceiling, going over the events of that morning, trying to determine how guilty I should feel.
Slowly my regret morphed into irritation.
So what if we had left Anna behind? JC had not wanted her there, or he would have called her.
That wasn’t my fault. Couldn’t she see that? Couldn’t she read between the lines?
Still, it was a shitty thing to do, and I had done it. I had done it just so that the thing Anna wanted would not happen. It was like I had snatched an ice cream cone from her hands, only to throw it on the floor.
But friendships could survive a thing like this.
I only had to give her time. There would be a reckoning, of course.
Anna would call me some mean things, and I would apologize many times, and then we could go back to the way we were.
She couldn’t stay angry at me for long. We were roommates, after all. We still had five weeks to go.
Meanwhile, I had to get through this Sunday.
I told myself that this was a gift: the first full day I’d had all to myself since I got here.
Hadn’t I been nervous, when we arrived, that this apartment might feel too cramped?
But I’d grown used to the sound of Anna breathing, flipping pages just around the corner.
I thought about reaching out to other people in our program, but that seemed so desperate. They would know I had been abandoned.
I fiddled with my phone, scrolling through old conversations.
None of my friends from home were awake yet, and besides, those threads had died down over the break.
I hadn’t heard from Flora or my parents in weeks.
I considered calling home, but studying abroad had been such a reprieve from my family; I didn’t want to get dragged back in.