Man, Woman, and Meaning Between

I stood in the crowded arrivals line in the Pudong Airport in Shanghai China, holding a sign that read, "Welcome Robert and Anna!!!"

That morning the CEO had called me from America, not unheard of but rare.

"Push your return flight out a few days," he said. "We have clients flying in to Shanghai, looking to buy a company. Support is on the way, but you'll need to handle it for the weekend."

He gave me the details. CFO and a forensic accountant. Names, schedules, reservation details. Their job was to crawl inside the books of this prospective company and determine if it was worth buying.

I needed to show them around for the weekend as a kind of personal favor between rich old business owners. It didn't matter if I was the right person for the job. I was the only American we had in Shanghai, at least for the weekend.

"And Mark?" the CEO said.

"Yeah?"

"Spend some money for Godsakes," he said. "These are executives."

"Yes sir."

So I had a reputation for austerity. I didn't mind. I took pride in being low maintenance. Shoot me out of a cannon from space, and I would get to work. Help.

Even so, the timing was bad. My ticket back to America was already booked. I'd been in China for too long, months instead of weeks. My sister Sarah was organizing a birthday party for me, one I was going to miss.

I waited for strangers to arrive, reminding myself that I chose this life. I wasn't nervous, but... What do you call a dinner with two accountants and an engineer? It sounded like a joke, but I didn't know the punchline. Awkward silence?

The foot traffic picked up. Americans. This had to be the flight. I watched for couples, a man and a woman walking together, projecting expectations on to strangers. Executive. Accountant.

There weren't many couples, and I found myself watching attractive women instead. A tall blond, maybe forty, but with nice legs. Older man and trophy wife. Fake breasts. A short woman in a Dallas Mavericks hoodie, dark hair and a nice ass, rolling along with a giant suitcase, big enough to fit inside.

I sighed, too long in China. I had sworn off dating foreign women. On a long enough time line, distance and culture doomed every relationship. Chinese women, the kind I was attracted to at least, weren't interested in casual dating, and truthfully neither was I.

"Mark?"

The dark haired woman with the nice ass stopped in front of me.

"Anna?"

She nodded. Anna was much younger than I anticipated, maybe thirty, maybe younger. Her hair was pulled back in a pony tail. Large brown eyes and light skin. It's impossible to look your best after that flight, but even so, she was cute. Anna flashed a brilliant smile and extended a hand. I shook it.

"Where's Robert?" I asked.

"Scratched," Anna said. "Family emergency. He's okay, but yeah. Just me."

She bent over, reaching for shoelaces that had come loose. I wasn't trying to look, but I couldn't help but see the gap between her loose hoodie and t-shirt, to her ample cleavage and a sports bra.

I turned away, a shot of lust and also embarrassment. Had she noticed?

"Here's my card," I said. It felt important, a connection to my broader organization, letting her know I was who I claimed to be. She looked at the card then at me.

"A little young to be a Director," she said.

"I could say the same about you."

"I'm not a Dir--" she started.

"But you're here," I said, "Titles don't mean much anyway, all that matters is responsibility..."

Anna stared at me.

"Seems like you have plenty," I finished.

She sighed, a big heave of her shoulders. "Seems so."

"We have a car waiting," I said. I grabbed her giant suitcase and started rolling. It was the kind of luggage college kids pack when they are moving for a semester, trying to pack up their whole life.

"Great," she said. Anna pretended to be excited. I could tell she was tired.

"Mavericks fan?"

"Big time," she said.

"Luka or--"

"Dirk," she said.

We walked down the long corridors of the Pudong Airport.

"You in the military?" Anna asked.

"No," I said.

"Were you?"

"I do push ups. Gym access here is--"

"I meant your hair," she said.

"Oh," I said. "No. Getting a haircut in China is awkward, so I started doing it myself."

I turned to look at Anna. She was watching me, studying words or maybe my body language, drawing conclusions about me.

--

Anna and I loaded in to the company car. The driver shot me a burst of Mandarin, confirming destination and plans. Then we were off, navigating a dark maze of parking garage then out to the overcast exterior, to the underdeveloped "country side" around the Pudong airport.

"It's a long drive across the city," I said, "two hours maybe. I imagine you're tired."

"I have to stay up," she said, "only way to beat jet lag."

Anna stared out the window. I needed to give her space. That flight wore everyone out. Shanghai was my hobby, my real passion outside of work. I was a font of trivia and history, but I bit my tongue. Anna didn't need me talking about the opium wars or Mao ZeDong.

So I watched her watch the city, trying to see it again with fresh eyes. As I was studying her, Anna pulled her hoodie off over her head, no time to look away. It clung to her t-shirt, dragging it up her body, exposing pale skin almost up to her breasts. She wasn't thin in the typical Chinese girl kind of way. She looked... better.

I felt a stir of attraction as I tried to look away. Pulling off her hoodie triggered an inappropriate response, my body only registering that this cute woman was taking off her clothes. I had to force my eyes away from her very nice, very full breasts. Jesus. Too long in China or without a girlfriend. Both.

I spoke to the driver in Mandarin. My vocabulary here wasn't perfect. "We, right now, are hot. Please. Cold."

He nodded and cranked the AC.

"Thanks," she said. "You speak Mandarin?"

"Just barely," I said, but I wasn't sure if that was still true. I had been studying hard and spending weeks at a time in China. Fragments of language were starting to pull together. "You know what... actually, yes?"

"But you cut your own hair?" she asked.

"I may not have that vocabulary..." I said, "even in English."

She smiled at me. "I didn't want to say it..."

We were in traffic, running parallel with the elevated Maglev line. A train wooshed by.

"Did that train have wheels?" she asked.

"No," I said.

My phone started ringing. Anna looked at me. It was my sister, Sarah, calling from the states. She wouldn't like my news. I silenced the call.

Sarah called again.

"You can take that," Anna said.

She wouldn't stop calling. It was my birthday, and the more Sarah thought I was avoiding her, the more she would keep calling. I answered.

"Hi Sarah."

She immediately erupted in to Happy Birthday, so loud I held the phone away from my ear, not even on speaker but her voice still carried across the car. Sarah's tone became increasingly desperate as she rounded to the end.

Anna was all smiles, chuckling at my discomfort.

"Are you boarding your flight?" Sarah asked.

"Um," I started, "Sarah I have something--"

"You're staying in China," she said. I heard the disappointment in her voice.

"I'm with a customer," I said. "I need to call you back."

"This is... I can't believe you," she said.

"I know. I'm sorry."

I heard her sigh. I got off the phone as fast as possible. Anna's dark eyes followed with concern.

"Sorry," I said.

"That a... girlfriend?"

"You heard?"

"Hard not to," she said.

I sighed. "Sister."

"Oh," Anna said, "and you stayed in China... for me?"

"Don't worry about it," I said. "A few extra days."

"You can go if you need to," she said. "I'll be fine."

"Sarah will get over it," I said. "And it's... It's not your fault. I have orders."

"Orders for what?"

Shit. I looked at her. "Make sure you have a good experience in Shanghai."

"I'm an assignment?" she smiled at me, nervous more than happy. "Not sure how to feel about that."

This was off to a miserable start.

"A good assignment?" I volunteered.

"You ever done this before?" she asked.

I realized that Anna wasn't threatened by me, which was nice, but she did lack confidence. I had the vibe of a guy who needed direct orders to spend money. I needed to do something.

"I love this city," I said, feeling it in a way that I couldn't put in to words. I caught her eyes. She looked... probably just overwhelmed. It had been a long day. "And you will too."

"Forty eight hours to fall in love?" she asked. "Tight deadline. How you going to get that done?"

"I'll show you," I said, finally finding confidence.

"Show me what?"

"Everything."

"How you going to do that?"

The Maglev sped by again. The displaced air rippled across our car. Giving Anna space wasn't working. Every word I had chosen so far seemed to be the wrong one. My heart was racing, but I let go.

"That's the Maglev. Goes from the Pudong airport to the edge of the city, topping out around 400 kilometers per hour. It doesn't have wheels because it floats on a magnetic field. It was supposed to go across the entire city, but the first leg cost 1.4 billion, so they canceled the project. It goes from East Pudong to slightly less East Pudong."

Anna smiled at me. "Well that's certainly a lot of information."

I stared out the window, embarrassed. I wasn't used to failing.

"Shanghai is my... hobby," I said. I didn't make eye contact. "It's very possible I can talk about it longer than you can stand to listen."

"Mark?" Anna touched my arm. I turned. Her brown eyes studied me.

"Keep going," she said. "I'll tell you when to stop."

--

It was dark when we arrived at her hotel, The Renaissance on Zhongshan park. Even in the misty smog, it was an obvious landmark, a forty story skyscraper with brilliant LED lights lining around the edges, bathing the darkness in blue light.

I waited with Anna and made sure there were no issues at check-in.

"All set," she said.

"You're probably tired," I said.

"Yeah," Anna said.

"You can get dinner at the hotel. Or room service," I said. "Western stuff. For tomorrow--"

"If I stay in my room, I'll pass out," she said, "and I need to be steady by Monday."

"Dinner then?"

She smiled.

--

I waited in the lobby while Anna got ready. That flight was brutal. Sixteen hours plus, cramped, no sleep. I couldn't imagine going out after.

Even if she hurried it would take a half hour to get ready. I needed to call my sister. Sarah was throwing a birthday party. For me. It wasn't the first time I bailed on plans in favor of China, but it was a dick move. She picked up on the first ring.

"Mark?"

"Sorry about that," I said.

"How could you extend your trip again?" she said. I expected her to yell. The disappointment in her voice hit harder.

"I had to," I said.

"You can say no," she said.

"Not to the CEO," I said. He was an old man who promised the world and mostly delivered, but I always said yes. It was the foundation of our relationship. "And anyway I want to be here. I caught an interesting... assignment."

"Visiting another shit hole factory?"

"I have to show someone around Shanghai," I said. "A client."

"You ditched your birthday to wine and dine?" She sounded suspicious. I wasn't a people person.

"How's the new job going?"

"Fine. I guess," she said. Sarah was an adjunct professor of mathematics. Entry level, but a job with potential. "Did you change the subject?"

"Doesn't sound fine," I said.

"It's just... I'm teaching business Calc," she said. "You so much as smile at these frat boys, and they think you want to fuck them."

I thought of Anna, her exposed stomach and easy smile, already there was a lonely pit of want forming in my body.

Boundaries. I wasn't a frat boy.

"Burden of being pretty," I said. "I'm sure you'll manage."

"You showing around a celebrity or something?"

"Just a girl," I said. "An accountant."

"A cute one?" she asked. I could hear the smile in her voice. What was the point in lying?

"Yes."

"Good for you," she said. "You could have told me--"

"It's not like that," I said.

"God knows you need to get laid."

"I'm hanging up now."

--

When Anna came back down to the lobby, she was transformed.

The same smile and sparkling eyes, but everything else was different. Anna was wearing a floral printed shirt, maybe silk, that clung to her breasts and stomach, the faint outline of her bra showing through as she approached. She wore dark slacks that hugged her ass along with moderate heels. Her brown hair bounced around her shoulders, loose and wavy. Maybe a little damp.

I thought about sending her back for better footwear, but it would be okay. Probably.

"Thanks for waiting. It's nice to feel human again."

"You look... uh..." Goddammit. Don't start a sentence you don't know how to finish. "You look great."

I was mad at myself. I was here to be a professional. Anna was in a foreign country. Her expected traveling companion was ten thousand miles away. She didn't need to feel pretty. She needed to feel safe.

"I know," she said. "Want to know why?"

I did my very best to drink in her beauty indirectly, not to obviously focus on her full breasts or the pleasing curve of her hips. Anna was watching my eyes. It was torture.

"It was a rhetorical question," she said.

"Why?" I answered.

"Because you're taking me somewhere nice. You can do that?"

"Yeah. Yes," I said. "You want the shortcut or the scenic route?"

"Give me the scenic," she said.

--

I led her down toward the maze of subways that criss-cross beneath the streets of Shanghai.

"You have an odd interpretation of scenic," she said.

"Trust me."

We walked around the sprawling underground compound below the Renaissance, around a full sized supermarket, bakeries and Japanese restaurants, ice cream and clothing boutiques, a whole world below the surface.

I spent extra time buying her a subway card, showing her how to navigate the maps and stations. I over explained the city, trying to provide her multiple ways to get home safe without me. I framed it as information for "next time." I just wanted her to feel secure.

"We're going to Xin Tian Di," I told her. "It literally means 'new Earth-Sky' but the combination of Earth and Sky together means place. The New Place. A trendy restaurant development. We can get any kind of food there."

We went riding the escalator down to the subway proper.

"Mandarin is interesting that way. The real meaning is sometimes smashed between opposites. East-West together means 'something.' Left-right together means 'approximately' and--"

I looked up at Anna. She was a step and a half above me. "I'm babbling," I said.

"No," she said. "It's... cute. I don't know many passionate engineers. You really love China?"

I took a deep breath. It felt like a date. That was probably a good thing. Show her a good time.

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe just Shanghai. I grew up in a small town, never really knowing a place like this could exist until I found myself dumped in the middle of it."

I cut myself off, not telling her how I took every chance to stay in the city, to wander the streets, always exploring, looking and often finding something new.

We transfered lines, and I found myself riding up an escalator with Anna, nearly three floors. She was standing ahead of me, two steps up. Her ass was almost eye level, slacks so tight I could see the outline of her panties cutting across half her butt cheek.

I told myself to stop looking.

--

I showed Anna around Xin Tian Di, a low slung neighborhood of brick buildings surrounded on all sides by skyscrapers. Everything was carefully curated to look rustic, but modern five star restaurants and clubs erupted from the buildings out in to European style plazas.

Groups of wealthy foreigners and the occasional escort walked through.

"When I wander around, I like to play a game," I said, "American or European."

"What are the rules?"

Anna had several tells that marked her as an experienced traveler. Maybe not in China, but Europe at least. It wasn't just her strategy about jet lag. She seemed to accept things at face value, China, maybe even me.

"When you spot a foreigner, you call out where they are from. America or Europe. Bonus points if you get the specific country. No points if you hear the accent first."

Anna started scanning the crowd.

"That guy is definitely Dutch," she said, and nodded at a gentleman, a Chinese woman on his arm, a little too pretty.

"Very ambitious to call your shot on the first round," I said.

I looked this potential European over. He was tall. Fine hair, maybe blond, but it was too thin to tell in the low light. Clothing was business casual, an untucked dress shirt, dress shoes. I don't know anything about fashion, but the scarf was a dead give away.

"Maybe German," I said. The height was a tell. Northern Europe for sure.

"Not German," she said. She kept her eyes on him. "Too haughty to be German."

"Known a lot of German men?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. I looked at her. She shrugged. "What if I get this right? What do I win?"

"We mostly play for pride around here," I said, gesturing to my non-existent friends.

Anna didn't make eye contact. She was soaking everything in, this faux European town square in the middle of Shanghai, hundreds of people from all over the world, fine dining, new money, the not so far away pulsing beat of a night club.

"If I win," she said, "you buy the first round."

"Anna?"

"Yeah?" she said. No eye contact.

"I'm buying all the rounds," I said.

She turned back to me. "Your assignment?"

I nodded.

"Any other orders I should know about?" she asked.

"Spend money. More than I'm comfortable," I said.

Anna laughed at me, the kind that ambushes you, that would make you spit out your drink.

"What?" I asked.

Anna bit her lip and looked at me, really took a moment to process. She smoothed her blouse, framing the contours of her body.

"You needed a direct order to take a woman out for a nice dinner?"

Anna was... intoxicating. The kind of woman I should be afraid to approach. I sighed.

"Apparently," I said.

She smiled. Some tension in her body broke. "Let's get you a drink," she said.

Anna dragged me toward the nearest bar. Along the way we passed the target of our little game. She touched his elbow and spoke to him in Dutch. His face lit up.

She turned to me. "Point. Anna."

"You speak Dutch?"

"Just barely," she said. I was impressed. Dutch is... not an obscure language, but under represented. English was sufficient in the Netherlands. You'd really have to put in time for it to pay off.

I caught the edge of the suspected Dutch man as he spoke to his date. It sounded like German.

"No point," I said.

"What?" Anna shot back. "I spoke Dutch."

"I heard German," I said. "Are you actually trying to cheat at American or European?"

Anna smiled at me. "How dare you!" she said, mock outrage. "You saw his face. He clearly understood--"

"Just because he was happy you approached him, that doesn't make him Dutch. It makes him human," I said.

Anna swerved in to me, knocking her shoulder against mine. "Was that a compliment?"

"An observation."

"Maybe you're right," she said. "But it doesn't really matter. You already won anyway."

"How's that?"

"You're the one taking me to dinner."

I stopped. She took two more steps and turned to me.

"What?" she asked.

"You are not what I imagined," I said. "Accountant. Corporate."

She stared back at me. "You mentioned that Mao ZeDong lived around here?"

"Yeah. No," I said. "The original meeting site... the conspiracy, the revolution was hatched right around the corner."