The Wild Woman's Guide to Traveling the World Read online

  Controlling. Passionless. Where had I heard this before? I frowned, thinking of the words Elena spat at me over the dinner table the night before. Maybe she wasn’t the only one who thought I was miserable.

  Carson placed a hand on my bare thigh and turned toward me. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s great that you’re so focused and responsible. You don’t see that very often, especially in people our age. I wish I had some of that myself.”

  His fingertips caressed my skin, sending electric shocks through my system. He hesitated, as if weighing whether to say the next words out loud.

  “You just sound so much like my aunt and uncle,” he said. “For a minute I was thinking, did they plant you here to whisper in my ear? Ridiculous, I know.”

  “How do I sound like them?”

  “They’re just always on my case to get a ‘real’ job and forget about my art. ‘Get your head out of the clouds. Don’t be dumb. Buckle down. Life’s not a joke.’ You know, that kind of thing. Nothing’s ever good enough for them.”

  “Well, who cares what they say? What about your parents?”

  “They died,” he said. “When I was three.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t really remember much about them. I know I was born in San Diego, and I kind of remember the house I lived in there, with this huge old tree in the backyard. After they died, my aunt and uncle moved me up to San Francisco. So I grew up with them and my perfect, genius cousins.”

  Carson’s face grew hard; his normally soft, open features were now wrinkled and stiff. He took his hand off my leg, started tapping his pencil nervously against the bench. I regretted putting him on the spot with these pushy, prying questions. What happened to what I thought last night, about attraction being driven by mystery?

  “As soon as I could,” he continued, “I got the hell away from them. I had no money, so I couldn’t get very far, but I bounced around on friends’ couches for a while, until I could earn enough to afford the rent on my own little hovel in Oakland. I took the most random jobs to get by: waiting tables, painting houses, anything really. For a while, I was doing caricatures in Fisherman’s Wharf.”

  He smiled at this last revelation, a good memory popping up unexpectedly among the bad.

  “Must’ve been a high-paying gig,” I said. “I mean, to fund this trip.”

  “No, that was a gift from my parents,” he said. “Last year, I got a letter out of nowhere from this lawyer. Turns out they left me a trust fund, but I wasn’t allowed to have it until I turned twenty-five. So on my birthday, it all sort of fell in my lap.”

  “Whoa.”

  “Yeah, I know. It didn’t make me some mega-millionaire or anything, but it was enough to get me out of San Francisco. I wanted to get as far away as I could. So first thing I did was buy myself a little camper and a national parks pass, set out on a cross-country drive. But then I wanted to keep going, so I sold it off and bought a plane ticket over to London. I haven’t been back since.”

  “So you’re just blowing through all your money?” The words rushed out of me before I could stop them. I thought about all the ways in which I would have handled this financial windfall differently. Real estate purchases, long-term investments, Roth IRAs. So many ways to secure my future.

  “What else would I do, save it?” he said. “That’s what my parents did with it, and look what good it did them. What did they even do with their lives? They worked hard, they hoarded their cash, they had me, and then they died. What kind of shitty existence is that?”

  He was looking into the distance now, searching for answers in the mountain ranges, in the rippling water, in the thousands of windows of the hundreds of buildings with millions of people inside.

  “I get it,” I said. “I do. I always think that about my own mom. How shitty her life was. Just in a different way.”

  Then I told him about my mother, things I’d never told any other guy before. How she had me when she was in high school, and how because of me, she never graduated. How she refused to tell anyone who my dad was. How she abandoned me with my grandparents when I was still in diapers. How we never heard from her again.

  “I’m not sure if she’s dead or alive, but at this point in my life, I don’t care. I just always knew that I never wanted to be like her.”

  “Where are your grandparents now?”

  “My grandfather died when I was in junior high, but my grandmother still lives in New Jersey, in the same house I grew up in. I try to see her on the weekends when I can, if I’m in town. She’s pretty lonely out there by herself.”

  I’d been avoiding eye contact as I spoke, afraid of what I might see in Carson’s face. When I turned to glance up at him, his expression had softened, and I saw myself reflected in the blue of his eyes. It was as if we were looking at each other for the first time.

  “It’s funny,” I said. “Up until this point, I didn’t think we really had anything in common.”

  “I told you, we’re all a part of something much bigger than us. The universe has its reasons for bringing people together.”

  We kissed gently before he returned to his drawing. I listened to the scratch of pencil on paper, the wind whispering through the trees. There wasn’t much more for either of us to say. All I kept thinking, as we looked out on the city, was how I never could have factored this moment into my five-year plan.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  What do you think this one is?”

  “I’m not really sure. A meatball?”

  “Maybe. This one’s definitely an organ of some kind.”

  Bamboo baskets of dim sum were spread before us on a crowded table. With his chopsticks, Carson plucked a soft, white hunk of flesh from a serving tray and popped it into his mouth without hesitation.

  “It’s good,” he said. “Try it.”

  He snatched up another one and held it out toward me, cupping his hand underneath to catch drips. I parted my lips and he placed it on my tongue. The sting of salt and vinegar made my taste buds tingle. As I chewed, his eyes were on me, waiting for my verdict. I swallowed and said, “Delicious.”

  We kissed with salty lips, the world moving slowly inside our cocoon, while the bustle surrounding us at Lin Heung Tea House zoomed along at triple speed. Steel carts filled with food rattled and crashed as servers navigated the narrow aisles between large communal tables, where patrons sat elbow to elbow with strangers. People raised their voices to make themselves heard over the clink of teacups and clatter of spoons, but Carson and I huddled together, so close that we could hear each other whisper.

  After our conversation on the Peak, the rest of the afternoon rolled on swiftly. We walked hand in hand around the mountaintop, stealing kisses as we watched the sun cross the sky. On the bus ride back to sea level, a wave of hunger struck us, so we wandered the streets of Central until we found a dim sum place nestled beneath some scaffolding on Wellington Street.

  We ordered our dishes at random, taking whatever was offered on the carts that passed us by, the contents of our dinner left up to chance. We didn’t even bother to peek under the lids until our payment card had already been stamped. The result was an eclectic mix of sweet pastries, doughy steamed buns, crispy fried dumplings, and the occasional unidentifiable animal part. We ate them all, giddy with the thrill of a new flavor when we took our first bites.

  “Let me get a picture of you,” Carson said, taking what looked like a little cardboard box from the pocket of his cargo shorts.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “It’s a disposable camera,” he said. “Haven’t you ever seen one before?”

  “No.” I laughed. “What year are we living in? Why don’t you just use your phone?”

  “I don’t have a phone,” he said. “I prefer to live my life unplugged. Technology’s destroying our creativity as a species. Besides, these little disposables take great pictures.”

  For a moment, I considered showing him
all the selfies I had stored on my smartphone. Personally, I found the art of selecting an Instagram filter to be a highly creative endeavor. But before I could reach for my purse, Carson was already squinting through the viewfinder, aiming the lens at me. “Come on, strike a pose.”

  I struggled to balance a slippery chicken foot between my chopsticks and smile at the same time. As the flash went off, the foot fell with a splatter in my small ceramic bowl. I felt a tap on my right shoulder and turned to see the older man seated next to me smiling broadly at us.

  “Would you like me to get one of the both of you?” he asked in a British accent.

  “Thanks, that’d be great.” Carson handed him his camera and swiveled me around in my chair, throwing one arm around my neck as he pressed his cheek to mine. I felt my face flush as the man snapped a photo, his female companion looking on with a grin.

  “Are you honeymooners?” she asked.

  I snorted, about to break out in laughter, when Carson said, “Actually, we just got engaged.”

  “Congratulations!” She clapped her hands. “How lovely. My husband and I just celebrated our thirty-second anniversary last month.”

  “Goes by fast,” the man added. “Cherish the time now, when you’re young.”

  “Before the kids come along,” she said, patting him on the shoulder and flashing him a knowing glance.

  “We’re soaking it all in while we can,” Carson said, his arm still around my neck. I felt frozen to my seat, unable to speak for fear of saying the wrong thing and blowing the cover off his little ruse. “Though you certainly both look like marriage has treated you well.”

  “Smartest thing I ever did was marry this one,” the man said, and kissed his wife on the back of her hand as they got up from their seats.

  “When’s the big day?” she asked.

  “We haven’t decided yet,” Carson said. I sensed him looking at me but I couldn’t turn my head; eye contact would send me into a fit of giggles.

  “Well, best of luck to you,” she said. “You’re a beautiful couple, so in love. We’ve been watching you the whole time—the way you look at each other, it’s easy to see you’re a perfect match.”

  “When it’s right, it’s right.” Carson kissed my cheek and I struggled to maintain my straight face.

  “Good night, now,” they said, before walking off toward the cash register. A waiting couple slipped into their empty seats, and I whipped around to glare at Carson.

  “What was that about?” I said, letting my nervous laughter finally escape.

  “We’re a beautiful couple. You don’t agree?” He flashed a smile and revealed that dimple, the one I discovered the night before when he smiled at me for the very first time. Have we really known each other for only one day? I felt my blood bubbling all through my body, rushing through my heart and flooding my head, my hands, my belly, my legs. He grabbed the bill from the table and said, “Let’s go.”

  We strolled east along Queensway, toward Wan Chai, with our arms wrapped around each other’s waists.

  “So when do you think would be a good time?” he asked.

  “For what?”

  “Our wedding,” he said. “I’ve always pictured getting married in the summer, on the beach, our toes in the sand.”

  “Tempting,” I said, playing along. “But I’m a city girl. What about the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in the fall? Or a summer sail around Manhattan on a yacht?”

  “Sounds like it could work, but I’d have to see it first. I’ve never been to New York.”

  “You’ve been all over the world, but never to New York? What about on your cross-country drive?”

  “I headed farther south, flew out of DC. Maybe I should let you give me a tour someday. I can book my return flight to JFK, come stay with you.”

  “Lucky for you, I’m very intimately acquainted with New York City. But my apartment’s awfully small.” I envisioned Carson’s naked body enveloped in my sheets. “I don’t have a guest room or anything. We’d have to share a bed.”

  “I don’t mind if you don’t.” His hand massaged my side and I felt the warmth from his touch spread down from my torso and into my hips.

  Neon lights from nightclubs cast pink and green reflections on the pavement, where hostesses beckoned us to come in for a drink. We turned them all down with a polite wave of the hand. There was no discussion about where we were going; the destination was understood. At my hotel, we entered the lobby without a word and headed toward the elevator bank. I pressed the button for the twelfth floor, and the doors closed us in.

  Immediately, Carson pressed my back against the wall, wrapped one hand around my neck, and kissed me deeply. I clutched at his shirt as he slid his other hand underneath my dress, running his fingers slowly up the front of my thigh. Briefly, I considered the camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling, the security guard who was most likely getting a free show. Then the elevator jerked to a halt and the doors rumbled open. We spilled into the hallway, where I sprinted to my room and let us inside.

  We were on each other before the door clicked shut, inching blindly toward the bed, hands searching and tongues entwined. Seconds later, his shorts and my dress were tangled in a mound on the floor. As he fingered my bra clasp, I opened my eyes, fixing my gaze on his chest, remembering what I’d been aching to see. I carefully unfastened each button on his shirt, peeled it back and down over his shoulders, ran my palm over the tattoo on his left pec. A leafless tree, shaded in gray, its ropy braided roots winding down the length of his torso. Carved in its stout trunk were the words Carpe Diem. I kissed the tip of each branch before returning to his waiting mouth.

  He ran his hands over my skin, his fingers blazing a trail around my body, then reached up to loosen my bun from its clip. I stopped him, but he tried again.

  “Let your hair down,” he said between kisses.

  “It’s a mess.” I thought of my untamed mane, how crazy I would look with it kinky and loose.

  “Let it down,” he insisted. “I want to see it.”

  I hesitated, my insecurity threatening to stifle the mood. Carson reached up again and nimbly removed the clip from my hair before I could stop him. Curls tumbled over my bare shoulders like ribbons, and he sank his thick fingers deep into them, tugging softly until I released an unwitting moan.

  “You look so good like this,” he said. “Wild hair. No clothes. You’re so hot.”

  Our breaths came in short, pleading gasps and I felt myself melt into him as we dropped backward onto the bed, two bodies in one motion. We made intense, satisfying love, releasing all of our pent-up sexual tension. When it was over, he collapsed beside me, catching his breath. Damp strands of hair fell across his forehead; I brushed them away, felt his blue eyes bore into mine. He reached behind my head and pulled me down to his face, kissed my nose, my cheek, my lips. I thought of how different this was than my usual encounters, how I didn’t have an urge to run away.

  Nuzzling my head in the crook of his armpit, my ear to his chest, I listened to him inhale and exhale, traced my fingertips along the boughs of his tree.

  “Did you draw this?” I said. “The tattoo, I mean.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s my design.”

  I caressed the intricate lines of his artwork, expecting the ink to feel rough or raised. But it was smooth and flat, ingrained deep under his skin. I wanted to know its meaning. Carpe Diem was obvious—Carson’s life seemed to be all about seizing the day. But the tree, and the carving, and the wandering roots. Why this particular sketch? What did it symbolize? I waited for him to explain, but he didn’t offer answers, and I’d already asked him too many questions that day. If he wanted to tell me, he would. Perhaps some things were better left to secrecy anyway. Though suddenly, I wanted to know everything about him, all the details that I possibly could.

  We lay there in silence, his arm wrapped around me, his fingers twirling through my hair, splaying my curls out on the pillow. I had done this countless times bef
ore. The whole dance was familiar: the flirtation, the chase, the relief of the catch. The quickness with which it all unfolded. So why did this feel so new, and why was I so anxious?

  Crazy thoughts raced through my head, feelings of desperate yearning. I envisioned myself crawling behind the carved-up tree on his chest, burying myself in his warmth and his scent. I started imagining his previous lovers, what they looked like and how they touched him. How many women had there been so far on his trip around the world? And how many more would there be after me?

  The idea sent me spiraling into a panic. This was a fling, nothing more, scheduled to expire when I boarded that flight back to New York. So why was I going down this road of pointless thinking? Where was this coming from anyway? It wasn’t like me to become so suddenly infatuated with a guy. My grandmother definitely would not have approved.

  Carson stirred, turned over, kissed me down my neck and over my breasts, his hands moving from my hair to my stomach. The panic in my chest was consumed by desire as he swept his tongue over my navel. And then I decided, for once in my life, I was not going to overthink a situation. I wouldn’t force life to adhere to a predefined schedule or tell myself how I was supposed to feel. Instead, I would allow life to happen. Let my hair down, let the dice roll.

  I opened my body, relinquished all reason, and writhed around with him in that hotel bed all night.

  CHAPTER SIX

  At some point, I must have dozed off, because I cracked one eye open to find pale morning light pouring in through the sheer white curtains. Carson was awake beside me, still naked, lounging against the headboard and fully engrossed in a sketch. I took a moment to admire his physical beauty: the lean definition in his chest and biceps, the angular cut of his jaw, the way he narrowed his deep-set eyes in concentration as he worked. It was hard to believe someone so gorgeous had just spent the night in my bed. He may be my hottest conquest yet. And even though it was the morning after, the time when I usually shuttled a guy out the door with his shirt in his hand, right now I didn’t want Carson to leave. I wanted him to stay all day, to make love to me again and again, to tell me what was going on inside his big, artistic brain.