CHAPTER 08 - ALEX
“We’re moving out. End of the week.” He said it over breakfast one morning.
“OK, where to next?”
He paused. “Nowhere, for you. We’re tapped out on resources for the time being. You’re staying here.”
“In Shanghai? There’s nothing for me here.”
He shrugged. “You don’t have to stay here, of course, but we’re not paying your way anymore. You’re much better at this than I thought you’d be, Eames, but times are tough and we just can’t keep anymore staff on. Find a job. We’ll be in touch if we need your help anymore.”
And that’s how my first stint as a relief volunteer ended.
I spent a couple days wandering around the streets of Shanghai, getting by with the few phrases I’d learned over the short time I’d spent here. I felt out of place, and unlike in other places, in Shanghai the daily hustle didn’t stop for more than a few cursory moments when I arrived in a new building or turned onto a street.
They’d seen people like me before and I didn’t come bearing gifts. I wasn’t anything special here.
I was running out of money when I finally found my way to the docks and managed to get a job hauling crates back and forth, just like I had a years earlier in the Caribbean. It felt good to use my hands and back again, but this time it was for commerce, not aid.
At the end of each day when I collapsed into my meager bed to grab whatever sleep I could before waking up early the next morning, I felt a curious sense of peace. I was so tired I didn’t have time to think, didn’t have time to search for myself.
It was wonderful.
After a few weeks my Chinese improved from the chatter back and forth with the other workers, and after a few more the business crystalized for me and I understood the context of moving crates back and forth all day, what each side of the giant warehouses meant, and I started to see the inefficiencies in how the system worked.
Six months after that I was running my own warehouse, getting off the ground, but still spending as much time as I could working with my hands and my back.
And then one day I was walking through the electronics district of Shanghai after a short lunch and I stopped in front of a store selling notebook computers. I’d sold the one I’d started my trip with because I didn’t see the need for it when I could help so many people with the money I made getting rid of it.
And that’s when everything changed.
Well, THAT went well.
She walked away from the dining room without looking at me, wearing that dress from the 70s, just a little too tight on her, accentuating all those curves I’d gotten a glimpse of for the first time a couple hours ago. It was tough for me to think about anything else but how sexy she was.
I hadn’t been able to get my mind off her since we’d arrived here, and that thing in the bathroom had just been an added bonus. The horny dude inside me had hoped she’d have stuck around a bit and helped me deal with how turned on she made me, but no cigar.
We weren’t that close yet. If anything we were getting further and further apart.
But back in that bathroom, the way she’d looked me up and down…yeah. I knew she wanted me, even if she didn’t want to admit it. I knew I wanted her, even though I would never have admitted it to anyone under pain of death.
Something about the two of us — the sparks were there, but each time we were around each other, the sparks turned into just the wrong kind of fire. I couldn’t figure out why that was, and it haunted me.
I shook my head and went back to my food, chastising myself for getting worked up over some girl I’d just met a few hours ago. I looked around the cozy inn, feeling a warmth I’d never thought I’d feel again when we were trekking up here in the snow.
The large window put the fury of the storm on display, and as I watched through it, I saw a tree on the other side of the street, a small fir, crack and fall over — luckily, away from the street.
I finished up my food and looked around the empty dining room, trying to imagine what it must have been like full of happy patrons eating Clara’s delicious food.
They’d be back, once this storm passed and the snowplows came through and the world rediscovered this place, whatever it was called. I’d make sure of it - I’d tell everyone I know, not only about the food, which was some of the best I’d ever eaten, but also about the lovely people who owned the place.
The storm.
It would pass soon enough, even if looking out the window tried its hardest to convince me that it was here to stay forever. And then, when it did, what next? What would I do?
I mean, after I made it back to Meridian and saw my father. He would take some convincing, but I already knew that I would put up a good fight on my side — as much as he wanted it to be otherwise, his business was not my life, and there was simply no way I would be able to make it such.
Not when I had my own life to life, my own business to run. I wouldn’t be able to do as he asked - I wouldn’t be able to take over the family business, not if it meant staying in Meridian and becoming a fixture of society. And not if it meant marrying someone just to solidify the business’ future.
That just wasn’t going to work for me.
The last 10 years had proved to me in stark relief that I was not the settling down type. I was meant for the road, meant to travel the world, wandering around until I found somewhere that I could help, somewhere that I could make a difference. It had started in disaster relief, then branched out into business, with adventures before, after, and in between, but try as I might, I couldn’t wrap my head around staying in one place for too long — it just didn’t seem natural.
Not when there was so much out there to see, so much to experience. Sure, Meridian was one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, but even when the world’s cultures and riches came to your city to put themselves on display, there wasn’t a perfect translation — something was lost.
I couldn’t live with that loss.
So I needed to go to the source.
I knew it wasn’t the life for everyone - I’d met people along the way, throughout the years, who started out as wild-eyed and ready to see the world as I was, but after a few stops, after seeing some of the bad things that went on regularly all over the world, the fire in their eyes dimmed a bit, and they packed their shit up and headed back home, satisfied that they had seen all they needed to, that a regular life was what was in store for them.
I’d seen lots of people reach that conclusion over the years, but I never had. The light hadn’t dimmed in me - I was always ready for what was around the next turn.
That wasn’t to say I didn’t enjoy my stops in each place - I just knew how to frame things in my mind so I could move lightly between them without getting bogged down.
It helped that I’d managed to separate myself from the day to day dealings of my business — now all I had to do was check in every week or so and the machine I’d built hummed along as it should. It wasn’t quite the back-breaking manual labor I enjoyed so much, but at the same time, it did give me the time, energy, and means to keep my adventuring lifestyle going.
Of course, while I’d managed to find fleeting happiness in various places around the world, something was missing from all of it, and it was something that I couldn’t quite place my finger on — it had eluded me all these years.
Just thinking about all of it, I started to understand why my father hadn’t been able to see things my way. He’d grown up in a different time, with less personal freedom, and he’d had to work right away just to keep himself and his family eating and under shelter.
Things were different now — it was possible for someone to start with nothing, and with a healthy dose of luck, find themselves in the right place to build something special. I could see how that would make some people uncomfortable — it had certainly felt weird the first time I realized that I’d built something that didn’t need me anymore.
What was next for me? I mean, after this storm petered itself out and I was able to get back to Meridian, have that conversation with my father, and free myself once and for all from the chains of my family?
I used to have a list of places to go, places I hadn’t been before. I’d looked at it so many times while holed up in that cabin that I’d memorized it: Dubai, New Zealand, Madagascar, Chile, and so on. I knew that I’d get to each of those places in turn, just as soon as the current place had clicked for me and I knew that I’d found whatever I was looking for there.
Thinking about the list now, though, something felt different. The pull to get away from here and go to one of those places didn’t tug at me as strongly as it had the day before.
I sat back in my chair in the dining room, pushing my empty plate toward the center of the table even though there was no one else around. Far off in the bowels of the inn I could hear Marty and Clara yelling good-naturedly at each other.
The ceiling creaked every so often, localized to one spot, and I knew Naomi was up there.
Awake.
Hating me.
I shook my head, trying in vain to clear her from my thoughts.
I tried to focus on the list again — just a couple more days and I’d be free, and then I could randomly pick a place and see what I found there.
Nothing worked.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her. And I couldn’t stop thinking about how she riled me up and frustrated me, how I had to constantly keep from teasing her and collapsing around her.
And maybe, just maybe, the list of places I wanted to go next didn’t hold any appeal to me anymore because I wasn’t willing to admit to myself that where I wanted to be was right here.
I wasn’t used to even the idea of letting someone in. And now for the first time in years I’d found someone that intrigued me enough to think about it, to consider it.
That scared the shit out of me.
And now that the thought had occurred to me…what was I going to do about it?
I knew one thing — what I was doing wasn’t working. Even if I didn’t know what exactly I wanted from her.
I had to change things up.
I just didn’t know how.