Chapter 1 - Of Gawdy Bags & Starbucks Coffee

That annoying sound of trolleys moving itched my ears. Goddamn, was it so hard to grease the wheels once in a while? I scratched the back of my ears, as if the itchy pain in it would go away and clumsily raided my handbag for my iPod while I waited for my luggage to at least peep out on the luggage belt. Just as my back stopped clenching from all that stress and my ears were being filled in with sugar, that small piece of blue luggage appeared.
Timing just loves me, don't it?
Back into that stressed posture of mine, I braced myself for that heavy luggage that awaited me. Oh no, don't let that small baggage fool anyone. No one knows what shoot I have to carry home from the country to my spoilt city-kind-of-girls housemates. I stuffed my iPod into my back pocket, dropped my bag to my feet and wriggled my fingers. Here it comes, I said in my head. One, two—WHOOP! The bag gripped between my fingers flung off the belt, over my head, and—unfortunately—into someone's face. Maybe I had more strength than I thought.
… Or maybe I took the wrong bag.
Oh. My. God. "I am so sorry," I finished my thoughts out loud. I quickly placed the bag down in front of me and pasted on my apologetic face that usually worked—on half-blind and almost senile grannies. So I hoped to god that I had hit a man close to his grave. When I looked up, I faced this young man, mid-twenties, hair hidden in his striped top hat, one hell of a cute facial expression that was showing pain and a red mark on his right cheek. I held my breath, hoping he wouldn't explode.
So much for holding my breath, "I'm so sorry I mean, I thought it was my bag and my bag is really heavy cos my girlfriends are such spoilt brats asking me for this and that and I have no idea why I'm telling you this." Nervous giggle. Cute giggle? Yeah right, I sounded like a constipating sheep.
He rubbed his face a little then faced me and I quickly stared down at my feet. And just when I thought he was going to lay one in my face, the tall, top hat, buffed arm, crazy nice eyes guy laughed. LAUGHED! Boy, was I relieved. I heaved a huge sigh before I faced him. Just as my breathing rate went to its normal pace, it stopped completely. He was still laughing and thank god he was because I caught glimpse of his smile. Holy hell, was that a Kodak moment. That smile was pure picture perfect. Excuse me for being dramatic but I can't help it.
"I was wondering why this tiny girl was attacking my bag," he said, pressing on his bruise a little and then facing me. "Well then, I apologize for getting one of the most common bags to buy for traveling," he flashed a smile and just sucked out all that oxygen out of my body again. What the hell is he trying to do? Kill me? Gosh.
"One, it's not your fault," I gave him that puppy dog face again, "and three, you shouldn't be apologizing."
"What's two?" he asked, heaving his bag onto one of those squeaky trolleys.
Uh-oh. "Two, its not THAT common. Look at it. It's so nice, with the tacky orange handle and the gaudy royal blue colour," nice save with a tint of sarcasm. Who knew I had it in me, ey?
"Nuh-uh-uh! The orange is tacky because it doesn't match your outfit."
"Oh, oh, and it matches with yours?" I teased, taking my stuff aside as he pushed his trolley away.
"It does! Look!" he showed off his orange camouflage printed shoes. "AND! The blue goes with the jeans," he shook his legs a little.
He was about three feet away from me and I had a good head to toe view of him. And he was right. It didn't look tacky next to him at all. He looked damn @$$ good in fact. "Okay, fine, you win," I gave in to his accurate cockiness. "Oh, you're good." I narrowed my eyes at him and he narrowed his eyes right back at me.
For such an aggressive look, it felt like Charlie Sheen was looking right at me with his I'm-hot-lets-get-to-bed-look. This feeling in my knees made me feel like collapsing. There was something in the aura that made me feel like he was different. He was so… unusual.
"Calling for the owner of a blue bag with an orange handle!" an airport patrol officer spoke through a megaphone. "Again, calling for the owner of a blue bag with an orange handle."
The guy and I snapped out of our little trance when he said, "Whoa, how many people have this bag?" he asked, looking like a complete dumb head.
I looked at the direction of the officer and saw the guy fiddling with the exact same bag the guy had and it had a yellow troll hanging from the zip. It was my bag.


"It's my bag! What more proof do you want?" I exploded at the officer who didn't seem to believe that it was mine. So. Damn. Frustrating.
"It's odd that you don't padlock it," the officer said, fiddling with the zip. "If you had one and had the key, I could give it back to you."
"Why don't you believe me?"
"It's airport rules. Why don't you tell me what you have in this 'bag of yours'," he said annoyingly.
"GOSH! Why didn't you suggest that before, Robocop?" I mocked. "You'll find a box in there with a shoot load of thongs and also a small box of tampons you can only get in Chicago. HAPPY?" and he stubbornly slid the bag across the counter to me "Airport security these days!" I heaved the bag off the metal counter and walked off in a huff.
Not only did I have to waste half an hour of my time trying to convince that guy, I had to stop a pleasant conversation with one of the nicest, dorkiest guys I've ever met. Gosh. I didn't even get his name. In all this frustration, I kept on tripping over my own foot and my roller bag kept on turning over.
I think frustration had a way with me because when I reached the glass doors to the arrival hall, it didn't slide open and I walked right into it. I wobbled back a few steps before gaining full stability of my own body. A small fat kid on my right started laughing at me. His cap was obviously way to tight for his fat head. I stuck my tongue out at him and waited for the doors to slide open. When they finally did, I noticed many other people staring at me with the same look the fat kid had on his face.
Honestly. The nerve of people these days. Didn't their mums teach them it was rude to stare? Gosh. The people were parting like the red sea as I walked pass them and it was getting really annoying, all these strange eyes looking at me just because I walked into a glass door. Okay, I know that sounds ridiculous. But still. Cut me some slack. Wrong bag, annoying officer, glass door. Gosh, could this day get any worse? I thought to myself.
Well, it didn't. Cos at the end of the 'Red Sea', instead of a clean land to start anew, which really doesn't sound like a bad idea, was something even better. Mr. Top Hat stood at the back of the crowd, geeky gaudy bag in one hand and a cup of hot steamy Starbucks in the other. So steamy, you could see that one long stream of steam coming out of the edge of the cup.
He had this smile on his face, the kind of smile that said, Hey, don't worry so much, love. Good things happen too. And here it is! He had that cocky kind of attitude. And usually that would bother me but this guy is pulling me out of Hades' pit of glaring death.
As stupid as I am, I glanced back to see if he was looking at someone else. I turned around and there was no one looking back at him, cos they all were still staring at me. Son of your dog. Gosh. I turned back to him and he was two feet away from me. I stopped. Cue for sheepish smile. And action!
"You better run, bruised-head monster is standing right ahead of you," I joked, touching my head and flinching a little.
"Monsters of the world are really misunderstood, ya know?" he said, like the most philosophical dork I've never met. "Here, this is for you," he extended his arm with the coffee to me. FOR ME? My god.
"No, I really shouldn't," I declined.
"Really?" he looked astonished. "Okay. More for me!"
He let go of his bag and opened the lid of the coffee and that pang of strong coffee smell just whipped me into Cloud 9. He lifted the cup to his lips but just before it hit his gorgeous well-formed lips, I noticed he was watching me with this face that just made my insides gurgle.
"Want it?" he asked.
"Yes!" I snatched it from him with a thank you and gave the coffee one big whiff. Ah, pleasure to the nose.
"Why don't I bring you and your coffee to someplace else. These people are giving ME the creeps," he gestured to the door that led to the outside of the airport. The air was chilly. The chilly night air of California. Home sweet home. Kind of. "Where are you staying? Do you stay here or…?'
"Yes, I stay here in a beach house with two very loud girls who can't sleep unless they have a cocktail after 11," sip of the coffee, "You?"
"Oh, I'm here on a job," aw, he wasn't staying long.
Casually, "As what?" and another sip of the coffee.
"Oh, just as…" he sounded like he was going to finish his sentence but he didn't. So mysterious. Couldn't stop shaking on the inside. That was just so I wouldn't laugh at everything he did. He was humorous and lovely and I've only known him for less than an hour. I looked at him with questioning eyes and he said into his watch, "Houston, we have a problem. I've been discovered."
"Haha, very funny!" I whacked his arm. Biceps. Mm.
"Well, here, you can take this cab first," he hailed a cab just by raising two fingers. A cab god. He opened the door and helped my bag in then held the door open for me. "And I'll see you around."
The coffee cup froze at my lips. "What?"
"What, what?" dorky smile.
"That's it?" my eyebrows burrowed. "The rescue, the coffee and now the cab that you unbelievable hailed without effort and that you are now sending me away in? What are you? A smooth son of a dog?"
He smirked this time. "Hell yeah," he held my hand to let me in. His hands were soft as hell, "So I'll see you."
As convincing as he sounded that he'd never want to see me ever again, the look in his eyes just screamed, 'Don't worry, I've come up with something.' I decided to trust him and just get the hell out of there while the magic was still hanging in the air.


An hour's drive from the airport to my shared house, I didn't lift one finger off the cup Mr. Top Hat gave me. The taxi pulled up in the driveway of the beach house my pals and I managed to whip out. Not big like something you'd see Charlie Sheen staying in. Just a small cozy house to fit the three of us.
The cab driver asked for his fare of overpriced taxi rates and helped my bag out of the car. Too lazy to let go of the bag and too attached to let go off the coffee cup to get my keys to open the door, I used my elbow to ring the doorbell. And before ten seconds were up, two very cheerful girls were there at the door, looking like Santa just popped up.
Emma, typical blue eyed-blonde, model, not that tall but crazy pretty with brains. Unbelievable? Believe it. Koki, Japanese-American, really small, dark black hair, crazy pretty as well, brains of Einstein. No, not dyslexic.
"Oh my god, Sam! We've missed you!" the girls attacked me like dog on heat, forcing me to let go of one object in my hand. Coffee or bag? Coffee or bag? Bag, of course. I let the handle slip through my fingers so I could hold one of their backs.
"How's your mum?" Emma asked, as she usually would.
"Instead of saying, 'Honey, welcome home,' she said, 'Where's Emma, how come she's not here?'" we laughed. But it was a hundred percent true. "How's the house?" I looked around, hoping not to see anything broken. Koki took my bag for me and dragged it into the living room.
"We managed to fix it up just before you arrived," Koki said. "Don't look under rugs, the wood has swelled up with alcohol stains."
WHAT?
"JOKE!" Koki yelled out before I could. Thank god.
"Gosh. NEVER pull that sort of shoot on me," I put a hand to my heart. But when my feet gained its strength again, I chased the girls to the couch where we ended up wrestling. Ah, the good days. Three best friends on a beach house in California. Nothing could get better than this.
And then I noticed, in all the wrestling, I dropped my coffee cup. I leaped over the coffee table and took it off the floor quickly.
"Whoa, what the hell was that?" Emma asked, sitting up on our sofa, glaring over the edge of the coffee table.
"Are you alright?" Koki.
I placed the coffee cup carefully on the table and smiled like a dork. Oh, dork. The word dork reminds me of Mr. Top Hat.
"What. Is. That?" Koki asked, staring at the Starbucks cup.
"A Starbucks drink. Empty. Duh," Emma said.
"Well done, Sherlock," Koki mocked.
"No, but yeah. Like Koki said, what's that?" Emma asked again, leaning forward and looking at me with her fingers reaching for the cup, trying to figure out whether I'd let her take it. I nodded and two of her perfectly manicured fingers whiffed it off the table.
"See, long story short. Took the wrong bag, was his, my bag was in the claim counter, got stressed, got my bag, hit into a glass door, got stared at, guy came up to me with coffee and a joke. Perfect knight in shining armor. Well, more like dork in beat up top hat."
"One hell of an airport fairytale," Koki sighed as she played with the tussle of the pillow. "Got his name?"
"NO! That's the problem. He saved me from embarrassment, then sent me off in a cab," I explained, climbing back over the table to join the girls. "I call him Mr. Top Hat and—"
"JM," Emma murmured.
"What?" Koki and I said simultaneously.
"You know how the coffee dude writes your initials on your cup when you order?" she looked at the cup again, "Well yeah, Mr. Top Hat's initials are JM."
"Emma, you ARE Sherlock! Give it here," Koki said and snatched the cup. "What kind of a J did he look like?"
"James?" Emma suggested.
"Hells no."
"Jonathan?"
"Hells no."
"Jack?"
"Hells no."
"Aw, I give up," Emma sighed, exhausted already.
"Hey, at least we know his initials," Koki said, placing the cup back on the table.
"That's as far as we'll get for tonight I guess," I yawned. "I'm beat."
"We'll find out more about Mr. Top Hat tomorrow," Koki announced, getting off the sofa to go to her room. "Night babes, nice to have you home."
Emma did just about the same thing. Got up and said, "I'll second that. Nights!"
After they both went up the stairs, I just stayed there staring at the cup.
The only thing that was running through my head was JM. JM JM JM JM JM JM JM JM JM JM JM.

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