North Shore

She stood about three feet from me, flashing her brilliant white teeth, and I finally felt my mouth saying, "Hi." I don't know if sound came out or not. She came to me and sat by my side, not touching me, just letting her presence be felt.

"Same place," she said, putting her foot near my bag. "I got these on Wednesday. One of the slingbacks."

"They look fabulous. I don't usually wear a heel that tall."

"Next time you are in, try something bigger than normal. They are far more comfortable than they have any right to be. It's not the same as other shoes."

"I don't actually go shopping at Ferragamo's very often," I replied. "Salvatore is a nice guy but a little above the regular budget. But since I had $500 to blow...."

She laughed. "I know what you mean. Did you get the lei? It's crazy how much more a decent lei costs here compared to Hawaii. I wanted you to feel a touch of home."

"You did great. I've spent half my day eating chocolate and soaking in whirlpools, though I gotta tell you I got lost this morning in the room. I heard Kenji's voice, but it took a good 10 minutes to locate him behind the gold peacock statue."

"It's tacky, huh?"

"Never seen so much red and gold in my life. But I am so not complaining."

Gui-Feng seemed to beam even more. "Spending money on the two of you has been a blast. I tried to find things that you would want but may not ever get around to. I mean, I may be cute, but $10,000? I'd love to tell people where their money is going before hand, but then there'd be no surprise. Besides, most people who can blow ten grand on a girl for a night don't care. How's Kenji liking the car?"

"Who? Oh, you mean that man who keeps calling me from the garage?"

"Good. I couldn't decide on that car for him. It didn't seem quite right, but I couldn't come up with anything better. Oh, by the way, I shouldn't bring this up already, but it's going to disappear sometime around seven tomorrow night."

"The car can go fast. That does the trick for Ken. You know he likes staring at the engine as much as driving it. It's like the NFL draft. Your presents are great. "

"They're only sort of from me, of course. I'm more like the party planner."

"If we ever need to plan a wedding for our daughter, we'll call you up."

"I'll need a new job by then, it's true. You don't have a daughter, do you?"

"No, no kids. Too busy."

"Ken?"

"Oh, he tries to knock me up every couple days." Had I just said that to someone I had just met? I never spoke about sex to a girlfriend. Well, I didn't really have a girlfriend, so who knew what I would say to her?

"Oh, Ashleigh, before we get Ken, you should know that I may have met him once before."

I froze at this. Exactly how?

"Oh lord, no. I would have backed out long ago if he had hired me before. I'm looking to have a nice time with you, not reveal secrets. The way I may have met him is-" She suddenly let out a sigh. "Trouble coming."

"What?"

"We are about to be hit on," she told me.

"Where?"

"Two guys standing by the marble unicorn. Here they come...." She leaned into my ear and whispered very quietly. "If we hadn't just met, I'd be nuzzling your neck right now so they'd get the hint. Have you ever done that to get rid of a guy?"

I didn't get hit on enough to have a repertoire myself. I liked to blame that on the gold ring on my finger, but I sometimes was afraid that wasn't it. "Uh, no."

"It works about half the time, but when it doesn't work, then you know you're in trouble. Actually, it' just an excuse to nuzzle someone you like."

"Excuse me," came a not unpleasant but slightly tense voice. "But are the two of you waiting for someone, because we've been waiting for you all our lives."

I did my best to suppress a laugh but a small snort came out nonetheless. Maybe it was because their lives looked to be about ten years less than my own. Gui-Feng, however, seemed to take it in stride. She calmly stood to meet our suitors, graciously offering an upturned hand. The blonde guy who had spoken paused for a second, unsure of whether or not to shake it or kiss it. He seemed to do both with a shake and a slight bow. She then reached across to his buddy, a rather attractive black man, and shook his hand as well.

"Gentlemen," she responded. I watched her as she caught both of their eyes and seemed pleasantly surprised that they had come to visit us. Of course, she had spied them long before they took a step our way. I had the feeling that she saw everyone in the hallway with us at this moment. "I am truly flattered at your kind words," she continued, "but the fact is that we are both taken, so we cannot take advantage of your offer." And there she stopped, waiting patiently for their response. Both men looked a little shocked. There were no unkind words, no giggles, no lies or excuses, no looking away and hoping they weren't there. But there was also no wiggle room in the answer. The blonde responded.

"Oh, okay, yeah. Are you sure? Gondola ride? Go to the tables? We'll treat you to everything, of course."

Gui-feng didn't say anything for only a second before the handsome friend grabbed the blonde's arm. "Dude, she said 'no'."

The blonde turned to me for just a second, wanting to appeal his case, but his friend was dragging him off. I was about to speak but Gui-Feng held her finger to her lips so that we could listen to the departing men.

"At least we don't have to fight about who gets who," the blonde was saying. "Did you see the stomach on the Asian chick?"

"Get a grip, dude," the handsome friend replied. "Besides I was staring at the redhead's hips. Talk about hourglass. Makes me want to start with the Days of Our Lives theme."

"Days of Our Lives? You are so gay."

The friend punched the blonde in the arm. "I watched it with my grandma as a kid. You need to grow up, dude."

Their voices faded.

"That was nice," Gui-Feng said when we could only see them but not hear them. "Though your cheeks are getting close to your hair color, Ashleigh."

"At least they are gone," was all I could say as my pulse pounded in my ears. Apparently, Gui-Feng's beauty rubbed off on women she was near in her suitors' eyes. That would explain it.

"It's a bit too bad," Gui-Feng offered. "Even though they still act like they're 22."

I watched the quiet friend's body disappearing. He was probably covered in muscles. "Yeah, a little," I admitted.

"Let's get Ken down here before we spend all night doing that." It had been two to three months since I had been hit on, so I hadn't minded all that much. Even with my complete lack of interest in them, it was still kind of flattering. At least it was when I had Gui-Feng who knew how to handle it. When I was single, I had always made up stuff when someone approached me. Stuff that we all knew was a bald-faced lie. On the other hand, if I had taken Gui-Feng's approach, I would have probably insulted them somehow. How had she done it? Before I could stop myself, I took her hand in mine, feeling my cheeks flushing again, as our fingers interlaced. I was as scared of her as I was excited. But somehow I already knew that for a single night she was my guide. It was time to do something stupid. So tonight I was going to do my best to throw myself at a woman I had just met and find out if she would catch me.

---

Ken was bouncing down a small set of steps toward us when he saw me, gave a little smile, and then saw Gui-Feng. He missed the last step and tumbled on to the ground. Gui-Feng leaned into me as Ken brushed himself off and started walking towards us. "It's really him, Ashleigh. He's still just as good-looking as he was."

"I know," I whispered back.

She looked at me for a second, considering. "A lot of people forget."

Ken bounded to us in a light blue Oxford, a dark tie, and the cologne that only goes on once a year for my company Christmas party. I turned to do the introduction but instead found Gui-Feng looking at Ken. "Still as good looking," she had said. Still.

"Uh, this is him," I got out.

I felt Gui-Feng squeezing my hand as she spoke. Was she trying to draw comfort from me? "The famous Kenji Misagi," she said.

"Uh, what?" he responded. This pleased me to no end because I couldn't wait to tease him later about those being his first words to her.

"You are going to think I am making this up, but I have met you before. I didn't think it would really be you. I mean Misagi is a pretty common last name. In Hawaii."

"Met me? I would remember that."

"Ten years ago. L.A. Auto Show. After party."

Ken's eyes narrowed. "I was there."

"Yes, you were." She turned to me. "After a big auto show, some club or two will throw a big party with a lot of the models as go-go dancers and stuff. It's an excuse for men to look at women and cars – and pay for it."

"I didn't have my car with me, of course," Ken continued. "I was writing my column already at that point, so I went to cover the show and some new aftermarket parts." He turned back to Gui-Feng. "Did we talk?"

"Not a word," she said. "I was just 19, and you were..."

"28, I guess."

Gui-Feng was about to keep going when she reflected for a moment and said, "Ashleigh, you aren't 38 now, are you?"

"33."

"That's more believable. Anyway, I was on the arm of Kira Pham."

"Kira Pham," Kenji said considering the name. "She asked me out that night! The queen of the world, Kira Pham, asked me out that night. I was blown away."

"She spent half the night working up her courage, then grabbed me for help. Do you know what it means to be able to make Kira Pham have to work herself up? She was fearless."

"And could have anyone she wanted. She was a knock-out. Everyone wanted Kira."

"Except you apparently."

"Oh, um, yeah. I guess so. Sorry about that. I was already dating someone. Yumi," he explained to me. I could barely remember a story of a Yumi.

"How long did you date Yumi?" I asked.

"Oh, uhhh, a couple months or something, I guess."

"You turned down Kira Pham because you were in a relationship that only lasted two months?"

"Maybe it was longer, I don't know. I had told Yumi we were an item. I wasn't going to shack up with the next pretty girl I saw. She was cute, too. Wait a second." Ken stared at Gui-Feng. "You had pink hair! Or pink streaks I mean."

"That was me."

"How funny. How... damn...."

Gui-Feng and I just waited. Ken looked at us and finally gave in.

"Okay, don't get mad, please. I don't remember too much more, but I was with Eddie Chen, if you remember him." Eddie was Ken's best friend for years, but Gui-Feng had to shake her head. Eddie was nice, but he had never looked like Ken. "You hooked him. Or at least, umm, your, uhhh, bottom did. For a long time, he compared every girl's butt he saw to yours. You were wearing something that night. I don't know what it's called."

"Tube skirt."

"Yeah, he loved that skirt. He talked about your butt for days. I'm sorry."

Gui-Feng just nodded at Ken's story. "That's about all there was worth remembering about me back then. The day I realized I had become nothing more than an ass in a tight skirt was one of the best days of my life. Once I knew it, I could fix it."

"I didn't mean to offend you, Gui-Feng," Ken said. "That's just what happened."

"Ken, don't be mad at yourself. I wore tight skirts so people would look at my ass. That was the point. Remember you were the one turning down models because you had someone you kinda liked somewhere else in the world. You aren't the problem."

"Guys go for a cute body," I said. "That's how you get men."

"Knowing that was my big screw up." Gui-Feng responded. "For a while. My body was the first thing to grow and when I discovered the power it had, it took over my life. I devoted everything to the way I looked and couldn't give a damn about anything else."

"There's nothing wrong with that," I told her. "Use what you got. We all have certain skills or whatever, and we have to make them the best they can be. You're a babe. Be a babe."

"But, Ashleigh, none of are any one thing. We aren't just jocks and brains and babes."

"When I was a teen," I replied, "I discovered people would give me awards and praise me for just doing homework and writing papers. I mean, how easy was that? It's the same thing as you, just opposite. I may have been worse actually. I always had to make fun of anyone who was pretty. Say that it meant nothing, but that was just as stupid. Who am I to say that brains are more important than appearance?"

"I agree completely, or a little, anyway," she laughed. "I think being smart is better than being pretty."

"It lasts longer at least," Ken added. "Beauty fades, while smarts can grow for years."

"It all fades, though, doesn't it?" Gui-Feng responded. "Maybe beauty fades earlier, maybe it doesn't, but our minds fail too eventually. It just depends on how far out you look."

"It all goes," I added. "Dust to dust."

"So were we ever beautiful at all?"

"I don't know what that means, Gui-Feng," I replied.

She laughed. "Thank god, you called me on it. I do that a lot. Say things that sound important but are meaningless."

"I don't know if the question is meaningless. I just don't know what it means myself."

"Yes," said Ken. "The answer to your question is 'yes'. Why does something have to be forever to be real? I mean, umm, this morning, Ashleigh gave me an extra piece of bacon from her plate. She was still eating breakfast, but she knows I love the stuff. That made me happy. Just for a moment. I don't walk around with my head in the clouds on a permanent basis because of a piece of bacon, but that doesn't mean she wasn't kind for just a moment. It was real. It was only a moment."

Gui-Feng responded directly to Kenji's challenge. "Dinner?"

We ended up sitting in some enormous restaurant near a 40-foot tall Buddha. Other than the statue of Enlightenment, the place had an entire extra club in it. I can't say what Buddha thought of the club. Our conversation continued right through dinner, though periodically I would lose track. She would mention impermanence, and I would stare at her lips moving. Her beauty was almost a match for her intelligence. She was also remarkably skilled at her job, leading us through these conversations that had nothing to do with sex in order to make us comfortable. At times I would forget we had hired her and just get lost in talk. She was laughing at Kenji's jokes. He loved it when people laughed at his jokes. It didn't mean that she was faking it, but she was aware. She understood us as people and knew how to tap it. It was an ability that I completely lacked. I always came out the same. I was who I was. I guess since I could see what she was doing, I should have been offended or worried that Gui-Feng was being false, but instead I admired it.

She was good at her job.

My own mother had said once that that was the highest compliment I knew. Or was it the only compliment I knew? Maybe my mom was right about me though. More than beauty or intelligence, I realized that Gui-Feng's best quality was that she was competent. It turned me on. Wow, she knew how to reach me already, it seemed. Could I reach her?

As I watched Gui-Feng's lips, I saw the corners turn up into a small smile and then a bare foot was gliding up my lower leg. I immediately kicked off a shoe under the table and guided it back up Gui-Feng.

"Do either of you want another drink?" Kenji asked.

Gui-Feng shook her head. "I don't want to miss a moment tonight." Neither did I. I respected Gui-Feng. I was aroused by her. I really liked how it felt when she touched me. I could imagine feeling like this for a long time.

I withdrew my foot out of her reach.

---

After dinner, Gui-Feng declared we were going on the Water Tour, which started in our own hotel with a gondola ride. That's where Gui-Feng asked how Ken and I met.

"The Bus," we declared simultaneously.

"Ashleigh was on vacation in Hawaii."

"And I had spent the whole previous day lost, driving around in my rental car, so I decided to hop the bus to the North Shore. It was winter, so that's big wave season up there."

"I had removed the engine from my own car, so I was taking the bus, too."

"But you were going to the Pipeline and I was headed to Waimea Bay."

"Both surfing spots," Ken explained.

"I sat next to him."

"Yes, and spoke to me," he continued.

"You spoke to me. We've never agreed on that part."

"It's over an hour on the bus."

"Kenji and I talked the whole way. You never made it to the Pipeline."

"We didn't make it to Waimea Bay until sundown."

"Ken said my stop was close, maybe 15 minutes," I informed Gui-Feng.

"And for the first time we stopped talking. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want her to get off. I knew I could get her number or something, but that wasn't enough. She was about to leave me."

"We were coming to the main little town up there, Haleiwa, and I suddenly had an idea."

"She pulled the chain."

"Ten minutes early, not my stop."

"'Lunch?' That's what she said."

"It was nine thirty in the morning."

"I took the hint and we got off together. Didn't part for the rest of the week. My friends thought I was crazy."

"His friends thought he was crazy."

"Why?" asked Gui-Feng.

"I had a girlfriend at the time. She was someone I had known for a while and everyone was sure she was it for me. And here I was dropping it all for a cute girl I had just met from the mainland."

"You were giving up the chosen one for a tourist fling."

"Right. But it wasn't just me. Ashleigh was living with someone."

"For over two years, Gui-Feng."

"You gave that up, too?"

"I knew. I don't know what Ken thought, but I knew immediately about him. This is horrible but on the third day with Ken I was thinking about how to break up with Tomas. I mean, if this was what it really felt like, I knew Tomas and I weren't going to last, no matter what happened with Kenji."

"I didn't think I'd ever see her again myself. I was sure I was just her island fling or something. I don't mean that bad. I'm just saying that I didn't ever expect her to drop everything for me."

"We were married nine months later."

"Damn, it was cold in Boston in November. My family barely made it through the ceremony."

"My married cousin kept offering to help your sister stay warm, the shmuck."

"It's like it all happened yesterday to the two of you," Gui-Feng commented.

"It was huge," Ken replied. "I wasn't just meeting a girl, or meeting a wife, I was starting over. Ashleigh, too."

"I moved out to Hawaii with no job, one suitcase. I thought the only reason people ever moved was for a job. You can't move across an ocean for a guy."

"Your parents said so."

"They love you, Kenji."

"But not so much then."

"They thought I was giving up a lot. I earned a nice bit back then, at least for 25 years old. And you-"

"I didn't have to give up anything. Nothing I cared about. Gui-Feng, when Ashleigh came into my life, I was already gone. I was 32 and sure I had wasted pretty much every moment up to then. All a complete waste. The only reason I had gotten into cars as a teen was to meet girls. And there I was sixteen years later, still fixing up cars, and finishing an associate's degree. My best friend had gotten paralyzed in one that I built."

"Kenji, you know it was Eddie's fault. It was his foot on the accelerator, not yours."

"Eddie's always followed me. That makes it my responsibility. If I had told him to go to college instead, that's where he would have been."

"He was 30, not-"

"You know it wasn't just that, Ashleigh. Gui-Feng, without Ashleigh, I don't know where I would have ended up. I'm not like you. You realized, at a mere 19, that you needed to change, and you did it all by yourself. I was 32 and just sitting, waiting for something, anything, to happen. And, then, one day on the bus, finally, something did."