What the hell did she mean?
“Nice bags, nice bags there.”
With those magic words, my fears were forgotten. The little old lady pulled back a curtain, glanced around quickly, and dragged me inside. I had officially found the buried treasure. I was standing in a tiny room I could barely move my arms in, but it was covered from floor to the ceiling with some of my best—and usually very unaffordable—friends: Prada, Gucci, Louis, Salvatore, Fendi, Chanel, Chloé, and Dior. I didn’t know where to look, where to turn, what to touch. It was all so dazzling and beautiful. Now, I’m not usually an advocate of fake anything, but after scrutinizing them all, there was simply no visible difference, and they were all so pretty and colorful and more importantly cheap .
Ten minutes later, and after much deliberation, I walked out with two handbags of happiness and a new understanding of how it all worked here. From then onward, every stall I went to, I asked for the back room (and they all had them).
Hours later and a Christian Dior watch, a pair of Gucci glasses, another three bags, a Fendi purse, a Louis Vuitton bracelet, a few shirts, skirts, bikinis, and sarongs, and two pairs of Manolos later, I was finally done. I was buzzing. High from adrenaline, endorphins, and handbags, Damian, Michael, and that wedding “thing” were distant memories. The only thing on my mind right now was my growling stomach. I needed to replenish my depleted reserves, and fast.
But I’m naturally suspicious of things like salmonella, food poisoning, and necrotizing fasciitis. (That’s the flesh-eating bacteria. I once watched a show on the reality channel where a guy’s leg was literally eaten by his own body, and since then I’ve been paranoid every time I get a scratch.) I chose my restaurant very carefully.
I decided on criteria: no plastic chairs, no plastic tablecloths, no sweaty-looking waiters in shorts, and definitely no pet meat, and it had to have air-conditioning. Sadly, nothing was meeting the criteria. So I jumped into another tuk-tuk and in my best Thai (Google Translate was officially my new best friend), I asked to go to the best restaurant around.
And what he took me to was beyond my wildest expectations. The restaurant was located on a small cliff overlooking a deserted beach. The building looked more like a traditional home than a restaurant, and it was surrounded by lush greenery. Walking into it, you got the feeling of being lost in paradise. I was led to a table on the balcony overlooking the pale white rocks that fell into the calm turquoise sea below. It was perfect.
co•in•ci•dence (noun) a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection
Stormy-Rain is always telling me that there are no such things as coincidences, only fate pushing you toward a predetermined destination. Orchestrating your life in such a way that everything works out just the way it should.
Out of all the restaurants. Out of all the hours in the day. Out of all the people in the world. With all of those variables and many more that needed to combine in perfect synchronicity and unison to create this very moment, despite all of that…
Damian walked past me.
Chapter Ten
You know those 3-D optical illusions? Those pictures made up of seemingly random patterns or dots that, when stared at for long enough, with just the right intensity and at the right angle, a 3-D image emerges out of the chaos? It’s usually a galloping horse, a biting shark, or a bird flying toward you, or some other dramatic animal in motion. But once you’ve seen it, you can always see it, and the random patterns never look the same again.
That’s what happened with Damian.
He looked completely different today. Or was I seeing him differently?
He was still dressed in his signature black, but he looked much more casual and relaxed. The sleeves of his shirt were shorter this time, and I noted that the tattoos on one of his
“Nice bags, nice bags there.”
With those magic words, my fears were forgotten. The little old lady pulled back a curtain, glanced around quickly, and dragged me inside. I had officially found the buried treasure. I was standing in a tiny room I could barely move my arms in, but it was covered from floor to the ceiling with some of my best—and usually very unaffordable—friends: Prada, Gucci, Louis, Salvatore, Fendi, Chanel, Chloé, and Dior. I didn’t know where to look, where to turn, what to touch. It was all so dazzling and beautiful. Now, I’m not usually an advocate of fake anything, but after scrutinizing them all, there was simply no visible difference, and they were all so pretty and colorful and more importantly cheap .
Ten minutes later, and after much deliberation, I walked out with two handbags of happiness and a new understanding of how it all worked here. From then onward, every stall I went to, I asked for the back room (and they all had them).
Hours later and a Christian Dior watch, a pair of Gucci glasses, another three bags, a Fendi purse, a Louis Vuitton bracelet, a few shirts, skirts, bikinis, and sarongs, and two pairs of Manolos later, I was finally done. I was buzzing. High from adrenaline, endorphins, and handbags, Damian, Michael, and that wedding “thing” were distant memories. The only thing on my mind right now was my growling stomach. I needed to replenish my depleted reserves, and fast.
But I’m naturally suspicious of things like salmonella, food poisoning, and necrotizing fasciitis. (That’s the flesh-eating bacteria. I once watched a show on the reality channel where a guy’s leg was literally eaten by his own body, and since then I’ve been paranoid every time I get a scratch.) I chose my restaurant very carefully.
I decided on criteria: no plastic chairs, no plastic tablecloths, no sweaty-looking waiters in shorts, and definitely no pet meat, and it had to have air-conditioning. Sadly, nothing was meeting the criteria. So I jumped into another tuk-tuk and in my best Thai (Google Translate was officially my new best friend), I asked to go to the best restaurant around.
And what he took me to was beyond my wildest expectations. The restaurant was located on a small cliff overlooking a deserted beach. The building looked more like a traditional home than a restaurant, and it was surrounded by lush greenery. Walking into it, you got the feeling of being lost in paradise. I was led to a table on the balcony overlooking the pale white rocks that fell into the calm turquoise sea below. It was perfect.
co•in•ci•dence (noun) a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection
Stormy-Rain is always telling me that there are no such things as coincidences, only fate pushing you toward a predetermined destination. Orchestrating your life in such a way that everything works out just the way it should.
Out of all the restaurants. Out of all the hours in the day. Out of all the people in the world. With all of those variables and many more that needed to combine in perfect synchronicity and unison to create this very moment, despite all of that…
Damian walked past me.
Chapter Ten
You know those 3-D optical illusions? Those pictures made up of seemingly random patterns or dots that, when stared at for long enough, with just the right intensity and at the right angle, a 3-D image emerges out of the chaos? It’s usually a galloping horse, a biting shark, or a bird flying toward you, or some other dramatic animal in motion. But once you’ve seen it, you can always see it, and the random patterns never look the same again.
That’s what happened with Damian.
He looked completely different today. Or was I seeing him differently?
He was still dressed in his signature black, but he looked much more casual and relaxed. The sleeves of his shirt were shorter this time, and I noted that the tattoos on one of his
Similar Books
