After getting to know one another better, each persevering through those awkward moments of initial contact and picking our way through the minefield of a blooming relationship, we found we had a lot in common. We liked the same TV shows, the same music, and shared a penchant for wildlife and the outdoors. Best of all, when we made each other laugh, it was effortless. It was almost as if we were two missing pieces of a complex puzzle that, once discovered, completed the picture.”
It wasn’t too long before we arranged our first date, dinner at a local fast food restaurant followed by a walk in the park. During the walk I let him hold my hand, but it was another full month before we kissed. I’m a traditional girl, remember. But if only I knew then what I know now, I would never have wasted so much time dithering.
Wang Chen’s family background was similar to mine, minus the new house and pay-off from the government, and that was down to simply living in the wrong part of town at the wrong time. Who was to say that in five or ten years his neighbourhood wouldn’t be earmarked for development? But by then, of course, the money would come too late to send Wang Chen to university.
By the time we left high school his fate was sealed, and despite achieving high grades in every subject he took, when he was put to work in the fields. It made no difference to me. I didn’t care what he did for a living. Then, my mind was too narrow to think much about my future. I was blinded by the present. All that really mattered was that Wang Chen and I could be together, share the same hopes and dreams, and nurture a mutual desire to carve out a future together. We talked about leaving Loudi and joining the southern migration in moving to a larger city. Shanghai, maybe. Changsha, or Shenzhen. Even Beijing, though I knew deep down that moving to the capital would forever be beyond our means. Like most young people we weren’t sure where our future lay, just that it lay somewhere else.
We shared our first kiss standing next to the lake at sunset. He would never admit as much, but I know Wang Chen planned it that way. It was too picture-book perfect to be pure luck. We were enjoying the way the last of the fading light played on the surface of the water and talking about poetry, when he took my face tenderly in his hands and gently, confidently, lowered his strong lips onto mine. His merest touch took my breath away, and I often thought afterwards whether he had practiced on watermelons beforehand. That lucky fruit!