The Popstar & Me

Chapter 37 - Crashing Into A Jock

Chapter 37

It's Calvin. I can't believe my eyes. He climbed up thirty—freaking—floors to get to me. He's out of breath and on the verge of collapse, but he's here. I hug him even though there are sweat stains on his Hollister tank top. I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life! I take a deep breath. Even his sweat smells nice, like chestnuts that had been left in the sun a long time.

"You okay?" Calvin asks with a confused look in his gorgeous hazel eyes. "Andy and I came straight away. W-we thought you were being abducted by human traffickers or something stupid like that."

"There's a crazy lady after me. She's holding a knife!" I exclaim and glance about. For a second, I am so relieved to see Calvin, my savior, that I completely forget about the madwoman pursuing us. She's nowhere to be seen.

As I wander back into the emergency stairwell, this time with a much clearer head and a straighter spine, I don't see any signs of Rushi.

Did I imagine it all?

I slowly start to ascend the stairs, one by one. Before I am able to make it to the next landing, a silver metallic object flies by, about an inch from my cheek. It bounces off the handrail and falls noisily down past thirty flights of stairs.

"They'll never believe you!" Rushi screams from three flights above us. "You have no proof!"

With those words, she chuckles one last time and lets the door back into the hallway bang behind her. I'm surprised she didn't throw her deadly heels at me as well. It takes me a second to confirm that the metal object was exactly what I thought it was — my poor cell phone. It has been shattered into a thousand gnarly pieces. I didn't need to see it to know that it is beyond repair. There are probably bare wires sticking out of it and all.

"What did she mean?" Calvin asks as he catches up to me where I am standing at the next landing. I'm hugging the wall now to be extra sure Rushi doesn't send anything else flying down.

"Nothing," I reply. "Just girl things. Believe me. You don't want to know."

"You got into a catfight with some chick in this apartment complex?"

"Sort of, it was over a guy — that very famous guy everyone thought I was dating. You have no idea what women would do to get close to boys like that."

"Sounds like she's jealous of you."

"Yeah, I guess you can say that."

~*~

I'm at the airport about twenty-four hours later, after I was chased around a stairwell by a woman who spent her entire life stalking a boy that I went on one date with. If that's not a story that will get me into Harvard, I don't know what will.

I laugh to myself as I think about actually writing about what happened during this study abroad trip. No, not only will that essay topic get me rejected from Harvard, it will be a one-way ticket to the asylum. Rushi is right. No one would believe such a strange tale.

I have no proof.

I write one last email to Dr. Su in the airport lounge. I say to him that I strongly suspect Rushi to be the one to switch the pills in that fateful bottle that led Fang to send his car careening into that fiery wreckage. I know how ridiculous it sounds even as I type. The idea that the sweet, immaculately dressed, and perpetually well-mannered woman would be the culprit behind such a heinous deed sounds almost impossible to believe. It sounds even crazier as I recount it for Dr. Su. I'm starting to ask myself if that confrontation in Fang's apartment actually happened, and I was chased about in an abandoned stairwell by a knife-wielding maniac. I close my eyes as my finger taps the send button. I stare at the email in my sent box long after it is gone to its intended recipient.

Should I tell Fang too?

No, I finally decide. I don't have his personal email. What if Fang has an assistant who reads the material sent to his public email address for him?

Finally, I decide to think about something else. I stand up and look at the misty grasslands outside of Shanghai Pudong Airport. The last time I left this country, I was only a kid who had no idea where she was going and if she would ever see her friends that she left behind.

At least now, after taking this trip, I finally know what happened to my friends that I left back in Shanghai and what it means to fly out of here to a city on the other side of this planet. I think about sending an email to Calvin to wish him luck on the test and that I'll see him back in New York, but I decide not to. I don't want to look clingy, even though Calvin and I are just friends.

Instead, I have an idea of who to call up. I decide to FaceTime Lana to thank her for showing me around Shanghai this past month and a half. It is the polite thing to do, and my mother would be proud of me ( once she hears about it from her BFF Auntie Ting). As I think about my mother's friendship with Auntie Ting, spurn from their glory days on the battlefield and their almost-brush with fame as two amateur singers during the war, I decide I'm never going to tell my mom about Fang Yao.

No, she'll think I'm trying to take after her.

"Hey!" I say as Lana's face appears on my laptop screen. "Is this a bad time?"

"No, it's fine," Lana says and puts down her chopsticks. I've been so busy ruminating over Rushi, and I forgot that it's dinner time already. Lana wipes her mouth and comes back to the screen. "Zhang is here too if you want to say goodbye to him too."

"It's okay," I reply with a dismissive laugh. "I don't think he'll miss me very much when I'm gone. I want to thank you both, though, for taking the time of your busy summer plans to take me out. It wouldn't have been the same without you two."

"Hey, Gou Pei Měi Nǚ," Zhang yells from a corner of the doorway. "Come back and revisit us, any time." I grind my teeth at the mention of that dress, but he smiles. For a brief moment, he looks so charming that I can't help but ask the question that's been on my mind since I first met him at his apartment.

"Are you sure you don't know what happened to my penguin?" I blurt out. "The one I left with you when I left for America? It's okay if you threw it away. I-I guess I wish I knew."

As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized how ridiculous those words were, how sentimental. Of course, he didn't care.

"No idea," Zhang says. "Maybe a stray cat got it. Why don't you buy a new one?"

"Sure," I reply and turn my attention back to Lana. She's giggling at the gestures that Zhang is making off-camera now. I can't see him, but I could bet that the gesture conveys to her that I'm out of my mind.

"My flight is boarding now," I hastily announce even though I'm all alone at the Gate and there hasn't been a hint of any movement here for the past half an hour. "I'll talk to you when I get home, okay?"

That's a lie. I'm not going to be chatting with my mom's best friend's daughter when I'm back in New York. I want to think that we'll keep in touch, that we formed some special once-in-a-lifetime bond during my trip here — but the truth is — maybe the friends I've made here will eventually fade into memories.

As I wait to board the plane, I decide to have my dinner at the airport. I buy one last cup of bubble tea from one of the restaurants there that specialize in Hong Kong small bites. As I sip the milk tea and chew on the tapioca, I feel utterly content. I can't help but think to myself — who needs men when you have a nice, fresh, foamy cup of bubble tea?