Welcome to Envy Park (5 page)

My heart was beating fast and
hopefully in a healthy way as I made it up the first "hill," and I
felt great. No, not great—I felt pumped.

Because I might actually have been angry, a
little.

What made Arabella think we had that kind of
friendship? I was nothing but professional when we worked together,
never even talked to her about the guys I liked or the dates I went
on. Never asked her for work advice, even; the day she found out I
was leaving the company was the day I handed her my resignation
letter.

You don't have the right to project your regrets
onto me.

I ran on adrenaline for the rest of my workout.

"...want to grab something?" Ethan
was saying.

"What?" I was breathless as I
neared the end of my run, but I felt wonderful. I could have taken
on another hill. I was ready to do stuff. "A drink please?
Yes."

Chapter 6

"It looks complicated."

"Stop—it's not complicated. It's
exactly like making a sandwich."

"There are too many things
here."

"It's called ‘Duck Two Ways.’
You're just having it the one way."

"It's good duck."

"Wait, stop. Here, take
mine."

"No thanks."

"Please. I'll just make another.
Which will just take two seconds because it's easy."

"It's good."

"Did you dip it in the
sauce?"

"No. Which one, this
one?"

"You did it wrong again. Here,
have another. Dip."

"You're bossy."

"My flatmate and I foodtripped a
lot. I don't like it when I eat with people who never try anything.
Is it good now?"

"Yes, ma'am, it's better with the
sauce, thank you."

"So you're seriously at the gym
every night?"

"It's the first time I'm staying
in a place with a free gym. But this is a new thing for
me."

"Are you usually there so
late?"

"No, but had to work late
tonight."

"Doing what?"

"Had a call with the London
office."

"What do you do
exactly?"

"I'm a project
consultant."

"Which we know means nothing,
really. I was a 'consultant' for years too."

"It's really managing
projects."

"Hah, I was almost a 'project
manager' too, maybe if I stayed in my job here longer. But I had
dinner with my former boss and she seems to be stuck doing the same
thing, so now I know that it doesn't mean anything
either."

"Well we're in tech and software,
so it's usually about that. But it's not always the same project,
because the client could be, I don't know, a burger restaurant
today, a hospital tomorrow. Have to be flexible."

"I know. It kind of feels that way
if you move to another country to work."

"Like how?"

"I don't know if anyone else
thought that, but I felt... I felt I had to become anything they
needed me to be. I just needed to make rent, and the condo
payments, and it didn't matter what job I had. And then I had to
change jobs because it looked like I wasn't going to last long in
my first employer, and I was literally looking at every job
posting. I had no standards. Pretty much anything that allowed me
to stay in the country, I was willing to consider."

"So that sounds like my career,
exactly. But only because my work needed me to be whatever people
wanted me to be at the time."

"How long have you been at
it?"

"More than five years
now."

"Do you feel as aimless as I
do?"

"Hah. I guess."

"It didn't have to be like this,
you know. I could have made the same choices, like my friend Roxie,
and I'd probably have a job title and a staff and people who would
be calling me 'ma'am.'"

"Your friend Roxie, the one who
stayed, right?"

"Yeah. I'd be like her, with a
fancy business card and everything."

"It's not too late to get all
that. You're young."

"I know, but I've been away for
five years. I won't be able to find a job here that'll pay the same
what I made there."

"Apples and oranges. Cost of
living is cheaper here. It's about how much you save."

"I know what it's like. I've asked
around. I didn't gain enough management experience there to qualify
for higher positions here. I really have to stick to the plan and
go away again. I told you about that, right?"

"Yeah, you mentioned it. So that's
why you're just home all day? You can't find a job?"

"Not one that'll match what I used
to get."

"I can give your name to our HR
people, if you like."

"I don’t know. Um, sure. Thank
you. It’s my mom. She’s kind of kicking me out of my place when
school starts. She wants my cousin to live there because she’ll pay
rent, and I’m a bum."

"Where are you going to live when
she kicks you out? Are you going back home?"

"It all depends on what job I get,
I guess. But the goal is to be in Hong Kong or Thailand by
then."

"Is your cousin hot?"

"She’s a teenager."

"Hey, I’m trying out the friendly
thing. You seem nice enough."

"That’s nice. I can imagine just
telling my mother this story, it’ll kill the cousin move-in plans
really quick. Thanks!"

"Don’t be so sure. Mothers like
me. I cook. My shower has hot water."

"I’ve seen no evidence of
this."

"Try out my shower whenever you
like."

"Yeah... my aunt finds out about
this and Megan’s out of here. Just like that."

"Maybe I shouldn’t try it then.
Not a fan of abrupt disappearances."

"It won’t be abrupt, with my aunt.
There will be yelling."

"You know, there was one guy I
worked with...he was part of this regular Monday meeting about a
project, and then one day he just wasn’t. Stopped showing up. None
of us knew why. He wasn’t fired. I really thought he had died or
something. But my friend at HR assured me he didn’t, but no one
explained what had happened to him."

"Well if they know but would
rather not tell..."

"That’s fine, but I freaked out a
little. Went to that dark place for a few days. How crazy it was,
to be gone and everyone’s pretending it’s not weird."

"That reminds me of something I
saw on CNN, this laundromat in Baghdad—"

"I saw that. All those unclaimed
clothes. People who just—abruptly left. Yeah I saw that. I actually
thought of it when the guy disappeared. At least before I was
assured that he wasn’t dead."

"Well maybe it’s not all bad when
someone abruptly disappears. Good news can be just as urgent as bad
you know. An opportunity comes and sometimes you don’t have time to
pick up your laundry."

"That’s nice. Too
nice."

"Too nice?"

"You’ve been out in the world
longer than I have, but you can still say that. What was it like
out there, Moira? Didn’t they give you a hard time?"

"Hey, you’re enjoying my company
now because I see the best in people. Who were you even a week ago?
Just a guy."

"I apologize. But seriously—was it
difficult living somewhere else?"

"Not really, no. But it wasn’t
like I was a pioneer. I had an entire support system
there."

"What was the worst thing about
being away?"

"Oh at first, every little thing
bothered me. Like, I totally took for granted that my dad made a
pot of
barako
every morning and shared it with me. Then I think after two
months in Singapore, I just started crying because I missed it. I
was so looking forward to my next visit because I wanted to slip
back into that familiar routine, but he had stopped doing it by
then. He bought that pod thing that makes one cup at a time.
Because I wasn’t there anymore."

"Aw."

"I know right. And then I insisted
that we have coffee the old way just because, but it was such a
production. Had to look for the coffee pot in the pantry storage,
clean it, and then we didn’t have enough beans...it was a
disaster."

"Or a heartwarming family comedy.
Some things you just can’t go back to, I guess."

"That’s right. It wasn’t fair of
me to leave
for me
—because it was always for me, and not because I needed to
find work to help them—and expect them not to change. But my
leaving made the changes easier for them. Now they live in Bulacan
and I haven’t seen them since the airport."

"Do you regret going away for so
long?"

"It wasn’t long. Didn’t feel like
it. And I can’t regret anything. I have NV Park now, kind of, so
it’s worth it."

Ethan nodded, and busied himself
with making his own little duck roll. "This is great duck," he
said. "Doesn’t taste...ducky. I usually don’t like it."

I watched him bite into it and
chew, not so slowly, slightly sloppily, in that less than graceful
way that real people eat. "I told you so."

Chapter 7

This is it, Moira. Stop playing around.

The job applications to employers
in three different countries were all ready and sitting in my
outbox. They’d been there for several weeks now. I had made "Hi! So
I’m looking for a job!" phone calls to some friends, because by now
everyone had at least one friend or family member in Hong Kong,
Bangkok and Phnom Penh (such was my small world), and they had
responded by giving me leads. If I wanted to, I could be an English
editor in one country, an NGO program assistant in another, and an
advertising copywriter in another.

My flatmate Allie told me that this was going to be
a problem. She was against my leaving, period, and insisted that I
was going through a phase and if I stuck it out six months longer,
I’d get over it. Like she did.

What did I want to be, though? I
hit "send" on all nine draft emails, and let the universe decide
for me.

The other new thing about my email
was that Ethan was starting to send me some. It started with a
simple web link to a review of the place that served the
coffee-flavored cotton candy we tried (they called it "bitter and
sweet and right and wrong"), and then a review of the band playing
this weekend in NV Park’s central plaza because we saw the poster
and didn’t know who they were (apparently they were "the best local
pretty boy musician-dancers currently not that there’s much
competition").

I replied for the first time with,
"Let’s skip the dancing pretty boys. Unless you really want to see
them. I don’t mind being your cover story."

In the meantime, I needed a job. The not-real
kind.

Based on my calculations, I had enough money to live
comfortably until Megan arrived. But if I was going to move to
another country for the Real Job, I needed some startup money.
Plane tickets, spending money, new clothes, all of that needed to
be funded.

I didn't like asking my parents for it. As I just
learned yet again from dealing with my mother, my plans would have
a chance of surviving if they were involved in no way at all.

And then, a reply from Ethan: "I
would rather eat ducky duck."

Of course.

NV Park was right next to a business and commercial
area, so I figured I’d take a look around and see what was nearby.
Got out of bed bright and somewhat early at ten-thirty. As I waited
for the elevator, my beautiful neighbor Lucille came out of
10C.

Lucille was gorgeous. Not just in
the "everyone’s beautiful on the inside" sense, but also in the
objective, attention-grabbing, in-your-face kind of way. She had
the height, hair, and posture of a beauty queen, and maybe she was,
and I would have recognized her if I had been more into that. Even
I felt fluttery just looking at her. She seemed nice, too. I got
her name when we rode the elevator together once before, and she
introduced herself in an easygoing way. She had been wheeling a
small piece of luggage at the time.

She was doing the same thing right then.

"Leaving again?" I said, as we
stepped into the elevator together.

She smiled, and sighed, and
shrugged. "Yes, always."

There were three other guys in the elevator and I
could see that they all tried to figure out how to look at her
without looking at her, and that was funny.

It was a Saturday, apparently. Car and human traffic
was lighter than usual, but apparently NV Park was one of those
global workplaces that was always on, all day all week. I crossed
the street from our condo complex to the business park area and
wondered what it was like to work there. It reminded me a little
bit about being in another country.

Which, by the way, always made me uncomfortable when
I heard it from other people. Because I didn’t mean oh clean up
this place a bit and it looks like a different country! I meant, I
always associated working in Manila with living at home, with my
parents. And then living in another country with doing my own
groceries, paying my own bills, and then seeing them at Christmas.
So this was a strange in-between, strange but not unwelcome.