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Chapter 8

The phone in Jack and Dvora’s new room went through the hospital switch.  Saying anything important on it would be like posting it to his blog.  They wouldn’t let him use his mobile, one of the last hospitals to keep that silly rule.  He knew the equipment in the hospital was shielded well enough.  Sometimes rules were just rules.  While he stayed in their house, he lived by their rules.  He called his mobile’s voice mail from the landline.  There were so many messages.  One was from Lee!  She had been crying.  Maybe she could teach him how.

Lee had left a different number than her mobile.  The number rang three times before a slight pause and then two more different rings as she picked up.  He could hear faint traffic noise in the background.

“Baby, I’m so very sorry about Meghan.  How is she?”

He told Lee as much as he knew, trying not to shade the facts in any way.

“Is there anything I can do?”

He said, “I wish, I mean, I guess…” he didn’t know how to ask, even if he could ask.  Would it scare her and push her away or…?

Lee said, “I know we are not together yet.  Yet! Listen to me. I know I am assuming a lot.  I know I should be there, be with you, help you, hold you. I mean…I think, do you want me to…?”

“I was thinking when, not if, too.  Please come. Come quickly.”

It took long minutes to say good-bye.  Knowing she was on her way was the food and sleep he hadn’t had.

Jack had known Hong Lee for seven years.  She was the main reason he’d found so many other reasons to do business with the old boys in Hong Kong.

Years ago, when Lee was still working on her MBA, she had interned at DealMaker.  The other partners handled interns then.  He talked to Lee by email and they played phone tag.  The picture of her was hot, but pictures lie.  The boys said the pictures didn’t do her justice, but she was barely twenty-three then, and Jack was only thirty-three.

Jack and Lee both did impressions.  One of Jack’s best was Forest Gump.  Lee’s best was Joan Bond or Sheena Connery, according to her.  Jack laughed out loud the first time he heard a woman, native language Cantonese, do James Bond.  One day he walked into the meeting room in the old offices on Powell.

She turned and introduced herself saying, “Ah, Agent Gump, at last we meet.  My name is Bond, Joan Bond.”

Later he thought he blushed a little.  He knew she did.  He kept her at arm’s length, despite her best efforts.  Now he was just forty and she had crossed the magical age of thirty.  He gifted himself the memories of the way she looked, smelled, and felt at the party in Hong Kong.  Had it only been a hundred hours ago?

It was past two when the party wound down, most of the guests heading for their homes in the hills or city nearby.  Many who had traveled from the People’s Republic stayed in guest suites.  Lee and Jack walked onto the deck.  It was cool in the highlands, but the bottled gas heaters kept it comfortable, the dense shrubbery shielding the wind.  They stood side by side. She chose his left side, knowing somehow he felt more comfortable with her there.

Lee moved closer to Jack.  Her dress brushed against his slacks.  They looked down at the view of the harbor and city below.  Some trick of wind cleared the smog from the air.  Hues were bright enough for one of those old-fashioned, colorized postcards. Even at this hour many lights were still on in the office towers.  The harbor was busy with traffic.

Guards withdrew to a discreet distance, sent by a signal from Lee Jack wasn’t supposed to see.  She walked away, reaching back a gentle hand to pull him along.  She stood backlit by the gentle light of a lantern, this one orange.  Lee wore what looked like a traditional Chinese dress, bone white, covering her from ankle to half way up her neck.  Traditionally, the Chinese wore more than a thong under their traditional dresses.  She stood hip-shot, every exciting curve hidden and at the same time accentuated by the light, the dress and the moment.

Jack’s heart pounded like a bad bearing in a pump.  He heard rushing like water through rusty pipes.  He had to remember to breathe and when he did her scent filled him.  The light glistened from Lee’s hair, shimmering.

Jack reached out his left hand and brushed hair away from Lee’s face.  She pushed her cheek into his hand making a purring sound deep in her throat.  He draped his arm around her and pulled her to his side as they enjoyed the night.

Later she turned, pressed a firm breast into his arm, looked up with liquid invitation, and asked, “Well?”

He had said “no” for too many years.  They both said “yes” to many things that night.