Chapter 16

I took Lara home after that.

She kept on telling me about the work. I told her that we did not work in Kenny Clark anymore. “We used to work there, remember?” I said. “Six years ago.”

“Huh? I don’t understand.” she scratched her head.

“Where’s your mother?”

“Overseas. Business trip. Well, she said that to me.”

I looked around her house. It reminded me of the day when she had high fever: How I had abandoned her here and enjoyed my dinner with Wendy. It was painful looking at the bed that she used to lie on. The soft toy that she hugged while she was battling her fever.

“Lara, what happened? Are you playing a prank?” I looked at my watch. It was October, not the first of April.

“Dear dear, are you sure we don’t need to work today?” she said.

“Lara… we don’t work at Kenny Clark anymore. Look,” I showed her the company’s name and the address that I had gone earlier. “This is where you work now.”

She read the words on the screen word by word then said, “That’s my mother’s office.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I managed to coax Lara to sleep before I went back to the office that I had gone to earlier.

I felt like a detective trying to solve a mystery. When I reached the office, the friendly guy saw me and approached me again. This time, he did not look sociable. He spun a pen on his fingers and said, “Yes?”

“Do you know an employee called Joanna?”

He shook his head.

“You must be new.” I replied. Now, he gritted his teeth. “Please, if you don’t mind, ask your colleagues.”
He turned and shouted, “Any Joanna here? Yoo hoo, Joanna? Joanna, Lara, anyone? Anyone ordered these two people?”

One of the workers stood up. She was in her forties and had wrinkles running all over her face. “Joanna Pang?” she said.

I walked past the young man and went towards the lady. “Yes, Joanna Pang. I think so. She’s a divorcee. I only know that her ex-husband’s surname is Wu. Do you know her? She’s on an overseas business trip now?”

“Business trip? No, she quitted six years ago.”

I stepped back. Everyone was looking at me.

“And just in case you are interested, we don’t send employees overseas. Our business is solely local. None of us has been on an overseas business trip before.”

Once again, I called my boss and applied for a full-day leave. He groaned and agreed laboriously. This had better be worth it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“We don’t work in Kenny Clark anymore.” I assured Lara.

“Okay. So, now what? Look for another job?” Lara asked. She had just awakened from her sleep
.
“No. Lara, we’re twenty-two, not seventeen. We should be working full-time. And-”

Lara was laughing. I did not know how to react. Her laugh had not infected me.

“Dear dear, we’re seventeen. Not twenty-two.” she said.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I tried to tell myself that Lara was just playing a prank and that everything would be fine again.
However, Lara would call me almost everyday. She did not go to work. She just stayed home, woke up at eleven, had breakfast at twelve, lunch at three, dinner at eight and then watched television till the wee hours.

I could not locate her mother. It was hard to concentrate on my work with Lara calling me every few hours. She said she wanted to work and asked if my company needed people. Bucking up all my courage, I went to my boss’ office and talked to him.

“Mr. Kano,” I started, “I have a-”

“Before you start, Jie Lun, I’d like to know why you applied for emergency leave two days ago. Why you looked lost yesterday. Why you had been spinning pens the whole day today.”

“I…” I paused. “There’s someone. My girlfriend. She’s…” I looked for the appropriate word and when I said it, I shivered hard. “Sick.”

“Well, that’s not a very good reason. How sick is she?”

I kept quiet. My answer was partially forged and Kano must have sensed that.

“You have great potential, Jie Lun. Don’t let personal affairs affect your future.”

I nodded.

“What is it that you wanted to talk about?”

“Nothing.” I went out after that.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I went out with Lara on the weekend. It was a normal routine outing but the introverted twenty-two-year old Lara was gone. She would speak and joke every few minutes, trying to grab my attention.
It was Lara of seventeen years old. Definitely.

She asked for a handphone strap. It was a small Hello Kitty strap. The head of the cat was so big and heavy that it could break from the strap. That burnt ten dollars in my wallet. I bought her that and she hugged me like there was no tomorrow.

That was so… seventeen years old.

And the worst came three days later.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I was asleep when my handphone rang. I ignored it. A few minutes later, I looked at the clock. It was going to be seven-thirty in the morning soon. Time to wake up.

I had a missed call from Lara and three messages.

Where r u?
U here yet?
I going myself.

I read and re-read the messages a few times. They were all from Lara in a stint of ten minutes and they did not make sense. As I was about to call her, her name flashed on the screen. She was calling me.
“Dear dear, they don’t let me in!”

I looked at the clock. It was seven-thirty. I was still half-asleep. “What? Who?”

“There’s this security guard at the entrance now… and he don’t let me in.”

“In what? What security guard? Where are you?”

“School! Where are you?”

I jolted up from my bed. The sun had risen. I looked at the clock again. “Lara, what the - what are you doing in school? What school?”

“Our school! Where are you? Come and protect me, please...”

I did not even bother to wash up. I told her I would be right there. I changed into a t-shirt and jeans within two minutes and then rushed to Regent Secondary School.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lara was at the gates with two guys in security uniforms and a thirty-something lady in blouse.

Lara wore her Regent Secondary School uniform. It looked a bit oversized for her. Her hair was tied up neatly and she carried a large sling bag. I ran towards them.

“Lara, what are you doing?” I turned to face the security guards and the lady.

One of the security guards, a man in his mid-forties, who resembled shaggy uncles smoking at coffee-shops, said, “She not student here.”

The lady stepped forward. “Are you related to her?”

I nodded.

“She’s not a student here. We’ve-”

“Dear dear, what happened?” Lara asked. “What happened?”

I turned to Lara. There were tears in her eyes and on her cheeks. She was waiting for an answer.

I grabbed her shoulders. Hard. Shook her a little, peeked at the security guards for a nanosecond and then turned back to her. My eyes met hers and they stayed there for a few seconds before I said, ever so softly that I could feel the air in my mouth.

“Lara, what happened to you?”

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