Fu Tingli truly hadn’t given much thought to what she should do at the time.
But later on, when she was booking a room for their second night, her one firm demand was that it absolutely had to have air conditioning.
Clutching the card in her pocket once more, she reflected that if the thermometer had truly read over thirty-seven degrees back then, she probably would have switched rooms anyway.
Of course, the result that first night was that the room never exceeded thirty-seven degrees.
After confirming as much, she gazed at the fine sheen of sweat beading on the woman’s neck and hurried downstairs with hurried thumps of her feet. She made two trips without complaint, haggling relentlessly with the innkeeper.
In the end, she managed to borrow a rattling old fan from him that blew air over both of them, and that night they left the windows wide open to catch the sea breeze.
The stifling, humid heat in the room gradually dissipated.
It wasn’t just the woman—even Fu Tingli herself started feeling the heat later on. But there was something odd about this woman. Until Fu Tingli asked, she bore the thin layer of sweat in complete silence.
It wasn’t mere endurance. It was as if even the things she despised most didn’t truly faze her.
And yet, those moments of intimacy were when her intensity burned the brightest. Fu Tingli loved that fire; everything about this woman felt perfectly suited to her.
All was bliss, save for the mosquito bites from that one night of sleep, which had Fu Tingli scratching at them extra.
On the second day of their road trip, they pressed on toward Los Angeles. Fu Tingli had some self-driving experience under her belt, so after a night’s rest, her energy had mostly bounced back.
The woman, who had kept her from any real sleep the night before, slumped wearily against the passenger seat after climbing in. Her eyes stayed half-lidded, leaving it unclear if she was asleep or merely resting.
The wind had tousled her hair into a soft, drifting mess across her face, but she made no move to fix it.
Fu Tingli watched her for a moment before reaching to switch off the radio she’d turned on before they got in the car.
“Don’t,” the woman murmured lazily.
“Should I turn the volume down?” Fu Tingli asked.
The woman didn’t reply at first, as if drowsiness weighed heavily on her. Only after a pause did a soft hum escape her nostrils.
Like a cat greedily soaking up the sunlight.
~~~
But likening this woman to such a tame creature as a kitten didn’t quite fit.
She was anything but docile, possessing a serene madness—a beauty laced with something concealed.
She resembled no animal on earth, nor any person who’d ever walked it.
Fu Tingli mulled this over, then chuckled at how overwrought her own words sounded. She reached out and lowered the radio’s volume.
The station droned on with the same old “California Dreamin’,” overlaid by the host’s clumsy attempt at some foreign tongue—Arabic, maybe?—a jumble she couldn’t make heads or tails of.
So all that lingered was the song itself.
With her eyes shut, sunlight streamed down alongside the wind, dancing across the woman’s faintly quivering lashes.
Her hand draped casually over the edge of the door rocked with the motion, her fingers tapping out the rhythm against the panel.
A fierce gust whipped the woman’s straight black hair into the air. One strand caught the light, slicing through it before drifting perfectly onto Fu Tingli’s hand as she twisted the dial.
The dark lock hovered there for nearly a second, trailing over her wrist and slipping between her fingers before drifting away.
Everything felt just right.
Fu Tingli’s mind unbidden flashed back to the previous night: the motel room awash in blue-green light and shadow, the woman’s sweat-dampened hair gliding over her hand, her collarbone, her ribs… even swaying lazily, teasingly down to the base of her spine.
A single strand possessed such enchantment, sending tingles and itches racing through every bone.
Beep—
A shrill horn yanked Fu Tingli from her reverie. She gripped the wheel in a panic, letting the aggressive driver behind them barrel past first.
Once the car was gone, she glanced over at the woman in the passenger seat as if emerging from a dream. The woman appeared utterly oblivious to the near-miss on the road.
Fu Tingli half-wondered if even a crash right then would faze her—if she’d simply stay there, eyes lazily shut, fingers drumming idly on the door.
Racing toward death side by side.
~~~
Her hair would still fly in wild disarray, veiling most of her face, and she’d make no effort to smooth it down.
Fu Tingli watched a moment longer, then let out a sigh.
She plucked the baseball cap from her own head, gathered up every strand of the woman’s unruly locks, and settled it over her.
She noted how the woman’s tapping fingers stilled, even as “California Dream” hung in the air.
She knew the woman would insist she wasn’t afraid of pain, but Fu Tingli explained anyway. “The wind stings your face.”
“I’m not afraid of pain,” the woman replied tonelessly, as expected.
“I’m afraid you’ll feel it.”
They’d traded these words many times before.
Fu Tingli glanced indifferently back at the road. The wind had whipped her own hair into a tangle that lashed her face—painfully so.
She brushed it back without a second thought. Pain was one thing; an itch was far harder to ignore.
Right then, the radio crooned a particular line:
/If I was in L.A.
If I was in Los Angeles/
Fu Tingli glanced over on instinct and saw the woman had ceased her tapping. She’d nudged up the brim of the blue baseball cap, peering at her thoughtfully.
Gazing into her eyes beneath the blazing sun, at the scattered red welts from mosquito bites.
She asked abruptly,
“How much longer till Los Angeles?”
Fu Tingli was caught off guard. She’d assumed the woman had no rush to reach L.A.—not once in the past day and night had she asked about their destination.
Still, she gauged the route. “If we don’t stop, we should make it around noon.”
The woman hummed in acknowledgment, then lifted a hand to remove the cap. She tucked her hair more neatly inside before replacing it, leaving her lower face bathed in golden light.
She faced forward, as if appraising herself in a mirror—or perhaps merely giving her reflection a cool, detached glance.
An enigmatic expression played over her features: part estrangement from the face staring back, part quiet contemplation.
After a long moment, she turned her eyes to Fu Tingli, reached out to tousle her windblown hair…
And smiled for no apparent reason. She slumped lazily against the door and asked sidelong,
“Want to check out Nicole’s exhibition?”
Fu Tingli thought she’d misheard. She turned toward the passenger seat amid the rising wind and shouted,
“What?”
The woman continued gently stroking her disheveled locks, threads of gold slipping between her fingers.
Just then, the radio hit another line: /If I didn’t tell her I could leave today/
The woman laughed amid the lyric, shook her cigarette pack, and patiently repeated,
“Didn’t Nicole invite you to her show?”
~~~
Fu Tingli didn’t hesitate for long.
She barely had time to, as the wide-open road approached a turnaround.
With no second thoughts, she slammed the accelerator and cranked the wheel. Even after swinging around, she kept the pedal floored.
The car, which had been cruising leisurely before, now tore along far quicker than their original path to L.A.
Nicole’s exhibition wasn’t in the seaside town where they’d overnighted but somewhere even farther afield from Los Angeles.
Though they were heading in the opposite direction, Fu Tingli’s foot felt strangely light on the gas. She even accelerated without realizing it.
The show opened tomorrow morning. They paused midway in a small town for lunch, and by the time they rolled in dusty and road-worn that afternoon, the day was well advanced.
The town lay near San Francisco, its vibe worlds apart from the Pacific coast spot of the night before.
Likely owing to Town Celebration Day the next day, the place buzzed with activity.
They spotted it before even pulling all the way in: a strikingly bright patch of sky at the edge where verdant blue met hazy dusk, amid the pitch-black highway for miles around.
The terrain curved into a rough circle, glowing fuzzily like a massive thousand-watt bulb.
Fu Tingli drove into the heart of it, and a rush of hot, vibrant energy enveloped them. She’d planned to book a hotel, park the car, and venture out for food, but halfway there, the aromas of sizzling oil and savory sauces sapped her will.
She could neither drive nor walk another step. Wrinkling her nose, she turned to the woman. “How about we eat first?”
The woman nodded. “Whatever works for me. Once we get there—”
“Once we’re in L.A., you can settle up.” Fu Tingli jumped in.
Two days and a night in, she could practically recite the woman’s line backward.
“You don’t have to remind me every time,” she said with an honest grin. “I know you’ll make good.”
“Aren’t you scared I’ll stiff you?”
The woman tossed the words out carelessly, then popped open the car door and hopped out with agile steps, her wide brown Martin boots hitting the ground.
“You’re no con artist,” Fu Tingli countered, shaking her head. She hadn’t claimed fearlessness—just that the woman wasn’t the type.
At those words, the woman’s stride hitched for a beat.
“I’m no fool, either,” Fu Tingli added brightly.
She lived her life freely, unafraid of a little chaos. But she knew she didn’t match the stereotypical image people formed at first glance of her face—that wide-eyed innocence, that pure-hearted kindness.
Most of the time, she treated others as they treated her. She never took advantage without reason, nor did she suffer a loss without cause.
She had thought it through carefully. If the woman had truly been after her money, she wouldn’t have targeted someone as unremarkable-looking as Fu Tingli, and she certainly wouldn’t have gone to such extremes.
Of course, if it had been about scamming emotions, that was another story.
After all, Fu Tingli had never believed that conning someone’s feelings was ever one-sided.
She wasn’t afraid of such lies.
Besides, she still had those photos she’d snapped of the woman. She trusted there was a reason the woman had let those frozen moments stay on her phone.
If worst came to worst, she could always call the cops on her.
And as it turned out, they really did make it to Los Angeles later, and the woman did pay back every penny spent—double, in fact.
By then, though, Fu Tingli would have preferred the woman to stay indebted to her forever. But at this moment, she still knew nothing about what lay ahead on their journey.
Fu Tingli grabbed her bag and stepped out of the car. She glanced around at the gleaming shop windows, caught the irresistible aroma of coffee wafting from one spot, and zeroed in on a sign that boldly declared: “Our coffee is the best in town.”
She stared at those words and said in her mild, unhurried tone, “Yeah, right. I don’t buy that for a second.”
The woman stood beside her, gave it a quick glance like she couldn’t care less, and showed no rebellious spark from the claim.
But she smiled at Fu Tingli anyway, as if she already knew what was coming.
“So, you gonna give it a try?” the woman asked.
“Yeah.” Fu Tingli pondered for a split second and nodded decisively.
With that, she headed into the shop. Her hand, dangling at her side, swung casually and nearly smacked the one next to it.
It hung there awkwardly in midair for a beat as she explained, “Oops, swung into you by accident. Doesn’t hurt, does it?”
The woman eyed her hand and replied slowly, “Nah, doesn’t hurt.”
Then she rotated her wrist and strode into the shop ahead, as if nothing had happened.
Fu Tingli watched the woman’s casual retreating back, dazed, before pulling her own hand back to her side and wiping it haphazardly on her clothes.
Even though there was nothing on her palm—just a lingering trace of warmth from the brief touch—it still made her fingers curl involuntarily.
She shook her head and followed her inside, her thoughts a jumbled mess:
We’ve already done it a few times now, so why does accidentally brushing hands still make my heart race like this?
As it turned out, the coffee at that café was nothing special, but the mashed potatoes and toast weren’t half bad.
When they stepped out, a lift of the head revealed pink sunset clouds streaked across the deepening blue evening sky, mirroring the festive buzz and clamor of the town.
Fu Tingli had eaten her fill—maybe a bit too much—and ambled slowly back toward the car, taking in the street scenes along the way.
The night before Town Celebration Day was alive with energy, street stalls spilling right onto the roads like a glittering neon amusement park.
With so many people packed in, the heat built up fast; walking felt like being trapped in a sealed glass jar.
Fu Tingli snagged a flyer from a roadside vendor, folded it into a fan, and fanned herself—once for her, once for the woman beside her. The faint breeze was better than nothing.
As they fanned along, they passed a face-painting stall. The vendor called out enthusiastically in broken Chinese, “Wanna try?”
Fu Tingli blinked in surprise. “How’d you know we’re from China?”
The vendor gave a thumbs-up. “Chinese beauties! So pretty!”
Fu Tingli burst out laughing. She knew it was just a sales pitch, but it charmed her anyway. She nudged the woman’s arm. “Wanna give it a shot?”
She imagined those designs on the woman’s face would be stunning—breathtaking, even.
The woman took the brochure the vendor handed over. She didn’t object or agree right away, just flipped through it casually.
When she set it down, her finger tapped a page as she asked Fu Tingli, “You get in touch with Nicole yet?”
“I just messaged her.” Fu Tingli checked her phone. “No reply so far. We can get painted first and meet up after she gets back to me.”
The vendor jumped in eagerly. “Special today: two faces painted, get a free balloon. Balloons great—fly three days straight, no pop!”
He dragged over a bundle of tethered balloons, a riot of cartoon characters. His Chinese vocab must’ve run dry; this time it was in English.
The woman turned to stare at the cluster floating overhead, seemingly oblivious to the vendor’s pitch.
Fu Tingli could only make out the vague contours of her profile. Assuming she was sticking to her role and waiting for a translation, Fu Tingli opened her mouth—but the woman spoke first.
“I’ll pay you back when we hit Los Angeles.”
Fu Tingli froze, realizing this meant the woman wanted to go for it. She was about to say, “No need to tally this one—it’s on me.” After all, it was pocket change.
But in the next instant, the woman whipped her head around, fixed her with a long stare, and tossed something straight into Fu Tingli’s arms with crisp efficiency.
Fu Tingli caught it on reflex. It felt cool and smooth.
Like a necklace, still carrying a hint of body warmth. She hadn’t even gotten a good look at it yet.
Her fingers were curled by the woman, pressed over the necklace, and balled into a fist. Fu Tingli looked up in confusion.
The woman’s eyes were softly downcast, her lashes trailing dense, shifting light and shadow—like a scene from an indigo-hued summer film.
They were smack in the muggy summer night, both of them radiating heat, but the skin covering hers felt slightly cool, damp.
The woman enveloped her hand. Then their clasped hands slipped together into Fu Tingli’s pocket.
Slender fingers wove between hers, rubbing slowly, coaxing her to loosen her grip on the necklace clutched in her palm.
The chain slid into the pocket against her ribs, brushing her skin through the fabric—or maybe not. Perhaps just the faintest jingle, or maybe Fu Tingli’s imagination.
Before she could process it, her fingers got a cool squeeze. She glanced up in astonishment.
“Hold onto it for me first. But don’t look.”
Light and shadow played across the woman’s deep brows and eyes—reds, whites, greens, blues, every color imaginable.
All those hues gathered on her face without clashing, like a cinematic close-up from an art film, drawing you in irrationally.
The open brochure’s flashy designs caught the wind; in Fu Tingli’s eyes, they suddenly morphed into the woman’s face right in front of her.
For the first time, she felt her imagination was sorely lacking.
Because in that moment, staring at those flickering patterns, she couldn’t picture what this face would look like adorned with face paint—how devastatingly beautiful it might be.
“What’s this?” she asked, still dazed.
“Um—” The woman drawled lazily, glancing sideways at her, then murmured in an ambiguous tone, “Without it, I won’t last three days?”
“What?” Fu Tingli nearly choked.
Street lights swayed, the rowdy crowd roaring like some event was kicking off; they were getting swept up in the throng.
“Kidding.”
The woman’s other hand reached over and lightly patted the back of Fu Tingli’s head—like a lesson, or a tease—before adding carelessly,
“You said earlier you weren’t scared of bad guys? Looks like you can’t tell good from bad anyway.
How do you fall for something like that?”
Fu Tingli fell silent.
She tried flexing her fingers in her pocket, but the cool palm pinned them tighter the next second.
The necklace in her palm was slick with her sweat now, while the hand overlying her own stayed cool.
“You’re sweating buckets,” Fu Tingli blurted out. “How are your hands still cold?”
The offbeat question made the woman pause, as if caught off guard.
“I get cold hands in summer. No big deal.”
“Even over ninety-nine degrees?”
The woman didn’t answer, just gave her a faint, dismissive smile before gazing at her amid the impending chaos.
“Pledge it for now. I’ll redeem it in Los Angeles.”
With that, she withdrew her hand from Fu Tingli’s pocket and casually shifted her gaze, pointing to one balloon in the bunch nearby.
“The balloon… “
She tucked her hair—half-obscuring her face—behind her ear. Light blurred most of her expression.
But Fu Tingli heard clearly as the woman smiled lazily, her voice smooth and velvety with flawless pronunciation, saying softly to the vendor,
“We’ll take that one. Buzz Lightyear.”
