Page 50 of Well, That Was Unexpected

“Oh. Yeah, I guess it’s the way you said ‘muscle tone’? Kind of intense and creepy. So I figured it’s more than a hobby.”

She laughs. “Intense and creepy, huh? Nice.” We fall into step and she starts talking about art. “Yeah, I’ve been drawing ever since I could hold a crayon. But honestly, it’s a bit of a crapshoot because artists are so notoriously underpaid. We’re always being expected to work for exposure, which just means work for free. So my mom is really against it. She wants me to major in something more reliable like pre-law or pre-med.”

“Ah, the usual Asian-American dream jobs,” I say.

“You guys don’t get that here?” she says, looking quizzically at me.

I shrug. “Not so much lawyers and doctors, because they’re not the highest earners in Indonesia. It’s mostly business. We’re all raised to take over the family companies here.”

She nods slowly. “Oh yeah, you mentioned in your messages.”

Argh. My chest tightens. My so-called messages where Eleanor and Papa had droned on and on about how much I adore finance. “Yeah, about that.” I take a deep breath. Time to give her at least a glimpse of the real me. “I may have been, uh, trying to impress you.” Oh god, this is painful. But somehow, I forge ahead. “To be honest, I’m not that passionate about the family company.”

“Oh?” She side-eyes me before snapping another photo of a nearby monkey.

“Yeah. I never really thought about what I wanted to do in life. Because my cousins and I were always told we’d just go into the family business. Sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound quite so bratty. I know I’m very privileged,” I add quickly. “And I’m grateful for all of it.”

“No, I get it. I mean, to a certain extent. I don’t know what it’s like to be a billionaire,” she says with a wry smile, “but I know what you mean about feeling meh.”

“Yeah. Feeling ‘meh’ describes it perfectly. Until OneLiner, actually.”

She cocks an eyebrow at me. “The app about treating girls like ‘precious things’?”

Oh god. How the hell Eleanor let Papa say that about girls, I will never understand. “I definitely do not want to treat girlsor anyone as precious things. Sorry, I’m really bad at interacting over chat.”

Sharlot nods slowly. “Yeah, I’m starting to get that impression.”

“OneLiner is more about guys than it is about girls. It’s more about tackling toxic masculinity and not letting guys get off the hook with all that boys-will-be-boys bullshit. There’s still a lot of toxicity when it comes to the concept of masculinity here in Indo. Like, you’d hear parents tell their sons not to cry because ‘boys don’t cry’ and stuff like that.” I shove my hands in my pockets, feeling awkward and vulnerable at revealing this to Sharlot. “I just—when I started working on OneLiner, for the first time ever, I felt invested in the family business. Like, wow, I think I might actually be making a difference? I don’t know, it probably sounds dumb.”

“No, actually.” Sharlot stops walking and turns to face me. “It doesn’t sound dumb at all. In fact, it might be the first un-dumb thing you’ve said to me.”

My mouth opens and closes, but no words come out. Thereare way too many emotions churning inside me. Before I can reply, a small shape whips past my head and plucks Sharlot’s phone right out of her hand.

“Not again!” she screams.

We run after the monkey. I take out another banana and wave at it, shouting, “Pisang! Pisang!” I figure it’s a better bet to shout “banana” in Indonesian, since the monkeys here are more likely to understand Indonesian words. At some point as we run, something breaks loose within us and we start laughing as we dart through the forest.

Sharlot is giggling so hard that her cheeks have turned red, and her hair has come loose from her hair band and is wreathed around her face in crazy waves. She looks the way I feel—warm and alive and invincible. Monkeys scream and chatter all around us, flying from tree to tree, and I laugh again. We’re flying along with them.

We burst out of the darkness of the trees and into sudden sunlight and Sharlot gasps at the sight before us. We’ve come to the side of a temple, one that overlooks a cliff. Below us, the sea slides into the rocks, and ahead of us, the horizon is endless, the water a silky sapphire blanket. Monkeys and tourists alike stand at the edge of the stone balcony, chilling, enjoying the sight. Everyone is happy, as though the peacefulness of the temple has infused our spirits.

Our monkey has climbed up the stone balcony with Sharlot’s phone wrapped in its tail. It turns its head and gives us a mischievous look, which makes Sharlot laugh. I hold out the banana to it, approaching as slowly as I can. I swear the monkey actuallyrolls its eyes at me before flicking its tail up. The phone swings through the air in a graceful arc. Time stops, everything moving in slow motion. I reach up for it, stretching my arms as far as they’ll go…

The phone lands in my hands with a neat little plop.

“Holy shit!” Sharlot cries. We stare at each other for a moment. The monkey chitters impatiently and I realize I’m still holding its banana. I throw the banana gently at it and it catches it with easy grace before sashaying away.

Sharlot and I double over laughing. “Oh my god, I can’t believe that actually happened,” I gasp in between laughter. I hand the phone back to Sharlot, ignoring the spark when my fingertips graze her hand, and she slips it into her pocket.

“This place,” Sharlot murmurs, wiping away her tears of mirth. She walks slowly and leans over the stone ledge, gazing into the far-off horizon.

Would it be sensible of me to try holding her hand right now? Maybe not. But that’s the thing, I don’t want to be sensible anymore. For once, I want to be like Papa’s side of the family—led fully by my emotions, all big romantic gestures and follow your dreams.

Sharlot turns to me, and her expression is soft and so open that my heart cracks open along with it. “I can’t believe I didn’t want to come here.” She looks back out onto the water. “I was so smug, I just thought—god. I thought that Indonesia’s a Third World country. I know how that must make me sound.”

I nod. Something about the rawness in her voice makes methink I shouldn’t reply, that I should let her talk because she needs to get this out there.

“I looked down on it, you know? I snorted every time my mom talked about Indo. I’d roll my eyes. And I’d just think of, like, I don’t know, huts?” She laughs mirthlessly. “I’m such an asshole.”

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