I open my eyes and sit up. “Yes?”
The little, old Asian man at the top of the deck stairs, wearing baggy linen trousers, a matching frock-type shirt, and black Tom’s sandals, presses his palms together at his heart and bows. “Good morning.”
“Sorry, uh…” I share, at best, an awkward smile. There’s an uninvited stranger on my deck. That’s…strange. I knew only one of my neighbors in London.
One.
And we only talked on rare occasions and only about the weather.
I’m short, but this man is definitely shorter—five feet max. “So, uh… sorry, how do you know my name?”
“Nolan.”
I nod.
“You come for breakfast. Yes?”
“Uh…” It’s food. Why is my brain hesitating? “Do you live close by?”
He nods and points to the small, pale yellow house over the grassy dune, maybe a hundred meters away.
I look down at my white satin dressing gown. “Give me five minutes?”
A nod and another bow as I stand.
I slip on a long, white T-shirt that used to be Daniel’s, over my rainbow-striped bikini, then shove my feet into my flip-flops.
“I’m at a disadvantage,” I say, slipping on my sunglasses. “I don’t know your name.”
“Yimin.” He moves his hand toward my face.
I pull back a fraction.
“May I?”
After a few seconds, I return a slow nod. Yimin eases off my sunglasses.
“Eyes need a little sun too.”
“O—K.”
He nods once and walks down the stairs. I follow. I’ve been in Savannah for twenty-four hours, and I’ve experienced weirder—as in complete mad—moments than I have the previous thirty-one years of my life combined: Nolan’s parents, Theo the angry giant, and now the little Asian man leading me to breakfast. People who live in the U.S. demonstrate more peculiar behavior than I’d imagined.
Yimin slips off his shoes. Then he wipes his feet on a grass mat before opening a warped screen door that resists his first attempt. I kick off my flip-flops and brush the sand from my feet before stepping inside.
“Please. Sit.” He nods to the table by the window with only two wooden chairs: one painted red, the other gold.
“The red one.”
I pause before my bum hits the seat to the gold chair.
“Drink tea.”
I can do this. I like tea.
After moving to the red chair, I wrap my hand around the teacup. It can’t be more than a hundred milliliters and there’s no steam rising from the surface. I bring it to my nose. It smells pungent. Maybe I don’t like tea after all.
“Drink.” From the worktop, he glances over his shoulder with a warm smile and easy nod. He’s quite commanding with his nods.
