Read The Expat Diaries: Misfortune Cookie (Single in the City Book 2) for Free Online

‘But they get a bit healthy . You know, apple juice for sugar, fat-free, that kind of thing. Mom makes proper ones for me.’
    I wonder how to wangle an invitation to her mother’s house without seeming forward.
    After being completely alone for more than a week, it’s a relief to talk to someone who answers me back. Grocery clerks across the city are getting tired of my conversational attempts. Rachel seems happy enough to indulge me though, which I soon realize isn’t because she sees me as potential friend material. It’s because she speaks in c-r-a-z-y and needs an audience.
    She’s just explained that she’s moving out because her parents disapprove of her chosen career path. She talks to rocks. She claims they tell her when people have illnesses. Like medical Magic 8-Balls. ‘Uh, that’s interesting. And you make a living from this crystal stuff?’
    ‘It’s called crystal healing. It’s not about the money.’ She chuckles, seized by another gas attack. ‘It’s about helping people. I’m, like, a physician!’
    Yes you are. Except for the training and the medical degree. ‘Mmm. How long have you been… practicing?’ Am I supposed to call her Doctor Rachel?
    ‘Six weeks.’
    ‘I see. Well it sounds like you’ve got a long career ahead of you then.’
    ‘It’s not a career, it’s a calling,’ she says, suddenly taking a turn for the serious. ‘I’ve had jobs before, lots of them. After university I was a barista, although I don’t like to define myself by my career, you know? I wasn’t a barista . I worked as a barista. There’s a difference. Then I worked in Lane Crawford… it’s a department store,’ she adds, seeing my confusion. ‘I wanted to help people there, but you’d be surprised how few women want honest advice when clothes don’t suit them.’ Her already wide eyes are positively fish-like with the shock that a woman might not appreciate unsolicited advice about the size of her ass. Imagine. ‘Then I worked for a bank. I’ll never do that again. It was way too much pressure.’
    ‘What did you do there?’ I’ve burned off a layer of taste buds in my haste to finish this coffee and make my escape. And she was right; the cakes are much too wholesome, though the cafe’s tables are full. It must be the place for ladies who lunch, this jumble of bars, restaurants and cafes running along the escalator.
    My body may be hostage to this hippy but my mind can come and go as it pleases. I watch the world’s longest outdoor escalator running alongside the cafe. It may sound like an epic indulgence, until you see the hills here. What they spent on mechanics they more than saved in coronary unit hospital costs. And it’s as functional as it is curious. It runs up the hills or down, depending on the time of day, between Central and the Mid-levels in a series of moving stairs and sidewalks. Every so often a narrow street bisects the system, where little red and white taxis hopefully cruise for fares. Stairs run alongside the escalator for those who’d like a calf workout, or find themselves needing to go up, or down, when the escalator is running the other way. The moving sidewalk is on the less steep bottom bit, which makes even me feel lazy, and the whole thing is covered on top, but open to the elements on the sides. It’s probably a real treat in cyclone season. It’s wedged tightly between multiple-story buildings on either side, but these aren’t the shiny glass high-rises like those in Central’s business district, or the Mid-levels’ swank and towering apartment blocks. They look like they were built in the fifties or sixties, concrete, painted at one time in pinks, creams and yellows, up to about ten stories high, and they’ve been adapted to their occupiers’ uses in a staggering array of inventiveness. Air conditioners, antennae, washing lines and all manner of signs, neon and otherwise, grow from their sides. The many balconies are variously used for storage,