Enigmaria: A Stranger, a Lover, a Question

By Michael Tan

These people. What am I supposed to do? Do I tell them this story and expect myself to feel good about it? Can they actually help me? Ugh, not a chance. They’re just a bunch of strangers who happen to benefit from this so-called support group. Some even only come for the free donuts and wifi.

Quite useless, if I am being honest.

I remember the last time I asked a person for her opinion on this matter. A friend whom I trust. A friend who’s now 360 miles away. I’ve been wanting to call her. Ask her for an opinion.

Guess what? Somehow I have not done it.

Instead, I am stuck in this place, sitting in a circle among 12 strangers, holding my cup of coffee, about to share them a story.

“Hey, at least I’ve got myself an audience.”

So here I am, with a story. A question, actually.

An enigma to my very existence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Oct 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543746655

Michael Tan

Michael Tan is a former feature and sports journalist who has contributed for Tempo, the Jakarta Post, the Jakarta Globe News Channel, and Radio SBS Australia under the name Mikael Dian Teguh. Enigmaria is his second book to hit the market, a revamped version of his successful self-published memoir in 2017 entitled Enigma, Maria. Follow him on twitter, instagram, and wattpad under @michaeltan1769

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by Michael Tan.

Front Cover Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash.

Back cover by Drew Hays on Unsplash.

Edited by: Sarah Kardinah Schaffer, Adesti Komalasari

ISBN:                Hardcover              978-1-5437-4664-8

       Softcover                 978-1-5437-4818-5

                          eBook                       978-1-5437-4665-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ENIGMARIA is a work of fiction. Places, incidents, names, and characters are the product of author’s imagination and/or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, dead or alive, and other events are coincidental.

ENIGMARIA is rated moderate+ for fade-out intimacy with details or significant sexual discussion and some profanity; also contains mild kissing and brief nudity.

Images by Unsplash

Images on Unsplash are released under Creative Commons CC0. To the extent possible under law, uploaders of Unsplash have waived their copyright and related or neighboring rights to these Images and Videos.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

CONTENTS

PART 1

SUMMERTIME ROMANCE

Chapter 1     ONE FINE SATURDAY

Chapter 2     A GAME FOR TWO

Chapter 3     VANILLA TWIST

PART 2

BEFORE SUNRISE

Chapter 4     THIRTY MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

Chapter 5     MEET THE SINNERMAN

Chapter 6     A SWEET MISTAKE

PART 3

UNFINISHED SYMPHONY

Chapter 7     THE BALLAD OF A MUSIC MAN

Chapter 8     A KID’S GAMBIT

Chapter 9     WELCOME HOME

PART 4

SEVEN SUMMERS, COUNTLESS KISSES

Chapter 10   DANCING WITH THE GHOST

Chapter 11   TROUBLE IN PARADISE

Chapter 12   ONE FINAL PROBLEM

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE OF TOMORROW

To Tatiana Hendarto

To Sri Dean and Simon Williams

To Vina Mozes

Without your love and support,

this book would remain a work in progress.

SUMMERTIME ROMANCE

BEFORE SUNRISE

UNFINISHED SYMPHONY

SEVEN SUMMERS, COUNTLESS KISSES

PROLOGUE OF TOMORROW

PART 1

SUMMERTIME

ROMANCE

Part%201.jpg

Hi… Uh, I don’t know where to begin.

I have been here for a few weeks now. It’s, uh… a new thing for me. I mean, not that it’s a bad thing. I like being here. Sitting. Enjoying the donuts. Listening to you guys. It’s interesting.

The thing is, I’m not used to sharing a story. Hell, I’m not even used to sharing. I guess I’m selfish. I want to listen to yours, but when it comes to me, uh-oh, I don’t think I can tell you what’s going on.

But that’s not fair, isn’t it? And it took me a while to realize it.

So, here I am, after a few weeks being an attentive listener. I’m now sitting in a circle among you. I’m about to let you in on a story that, uh, probably too long that I might only tell part by part. But, it’s a step, isn’t it? A baby step.

So… here goes nothing.

It began when I met this woman, Maria. It was summer, and it was raining….

April 11

CHAPTER 1

ONE FINE

SATURDAY

IT WAS A SUMMER AFTERNOON, in an upscale corner of the city. It could have been a bright Saturday afternoon, but the sky was pouring with rain, and it didn’t seem to stop anytime soon.

It will be fine, I had told myself earlier that day, just a few hours before I traveled a couple of blocks across the city. You can do it.

But I had been standing there for more than 15 minutes, and things were far from the definition of fine. The rain would not stop. The person I was expecting had not shown up.

That was a little depressing for what could be a fine Saturday.

Meet me at five, she said on Thursday. On the corner of 5th and Berry.

I said yes, and I meant it. So I made it - on time.

I was a fool, believing that she would show up. I should have realized that it was too good to be true from the get-go. I should have known that it was probably just a fiction.

A part of me, however, disagreed.

A part of me insisted that I should just put on my best shirt and gave it a shot, even though the sky turned a little dark a few minutes before I took off from my place. I still believed she would show up, even though she did not pick up her phone when I called to let her know that I had arrived.

Needless to say, I still believed in her. A part of me, at least.

This is stupid, the other part of me argued. I should just leave now, and I’ll probably still be able to catch the playoff on TV.

That seemed reasonable. Going home. Forgetting her.

It was definitely better than staying a little longer, expecting the rain to stop and her to show up. Home, that lightly furnished one-bedroom apartment, was a better alternative.

But the universe always has a crazy way to make you realize that occasionally, you should just trust your gut.

Hi, I heard her cry from across the street.

*****

I WOULD NOT BE MAD if she were a no-show. I mean, obviously, I would be a little disappointed. But I could understand.

All she knew about me before that Saturday was my name and my social media handle – vice versa. I could tell she was smart and pretty, but I could not say what her impression of me was.

So to me that day, it would be great if she showed up. If she didn’t, well… at least I tried.

Hi, her voice was masked by the sound of the falling rain and passing cars, but somehow I could hear it.

Somehow, her voice transcended those noises and reached my ears. Straight away, I knew that it was her. Across the street where I was standing, she was waving her hand at me and calling out my name, probably just to make sure that she didn’t get the wrong guy.

Hi, I said to her from a distance.

We were some feet away, but she was closer to me than ever before. And only then, I truly realized how beautiful she was. Dressed in crimson red and standing across the street under her yellow umbrella, she was way more than just that pretty voice that I had been talking to in the past couple of days.

She was real.

And when I was busy rating how good my day was going to be that day, the light turned green, and she walked across the street, sending me into a state of perplexity.

What should I do? What do I say? Should I give her a handshake or a hug? A handshake is a little conservative, isn’t it? But a hug is not practical, because we are both holding our umbrella. So a handshake, then? But….

So many questions I asked myself and before I realized it, she was already two feet before me.

Hi Maria, for lack of better words, I could only say those two.

*****

I DIDN’T WANT TO DO it, at first. I thought it was stupid. Swiping the phone screen for a date. That was not me.

I was more of a traditional kind of guy. I went to a party. I saw someone I liked. I talked to her. Then we went on a date.

But that was some time ago….

Eventually, I found myself too old for a rave party and too bored to do the whole nine yards. So I started cutting corners. And I started swiping right.

Only then I realized that it was not so bad. Or perhaps I was just lucky. Either way, I started enjoying it. I started picking up matches and initiating conversation with these beautiful strangers.

One of them was this 27-year-old woman named Maria.

I’ll see you on Saturday, she said on Thursday, three days after we had matched on this online dating app.

I was not expecting much, to be honest. I was well aware that some users might not look exactly the same as they depicted in their profile. So I was kind of okay if she turned out not to be this petite brunette with hazel eyes I had been chatting for a couple of days.

Well… not ‘okay’ as in okay. More of ‘okay’ as in, we’ll wait and see.

I mean, it’s Tinder. What could I expect? A princess? Pfftt! I was not dreaming. But hey, the universe could be full of surprises.

And she was one of few pleasant surprises that the universe had in store to me. A petite brunette dressed in crimson mini dress and designer coat, underneath striking yellow umbrella. She made the gloom air around me turn colorful the moment she folded her umbrella and leaned on me.

No handshake, no hug. She just leaned on me, taking shelter under my umbrella. As if we had known each other for more than only a few days. As if we were no stranger to each other.

I’m truly sorry I’m late. I was caught up for a few minutes. Maria said to me while I was still trying to figure out what words to say next. I promise I’ll make it up to you.

It’s okay. You don’t have to. It’s nice to finally meet you.

I really could not think of anything else but this generic response. I was a little bugged that Maria asked me to pick her up in this corner of nowhere instead of her place. It would have been easier to just wait in the driveway, assuming that she lived in an apartment with a proper and sheltered entrance. I would not have to hold my umbrella in the corner of 5th and Berry, looking like an idiot. More annoyingly, she was late. Hence my mood was not precisely summertime sunshine at that time. Luckily for me, I was never defined by my mood alone.

So I looked at the bright side. The silver lining. At least she showed up. At least she was real.

Nice to meet you too, she said. Let’s go!

I didn’t need to say anything to that, because my eyes had told her everything. Everything she needed to know from me that day. That we were going to a date and that it was going to be a fine Saturday.

*****

ONE THING I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND though. One thing bothered me on our way to Brenda’s, a fine dining restaurant at Polk Street.

Why?

I asked this question to myself ever since we jumped into my silver Honda Civic I’d parked in the lot down the street. My hands were behind the wheel, but my brain was pushing to find the answer to that question.

Not why she swiped right at me. But more of why she did Tinder in the first place.

It piqued my interest.

From what I learned from her social media, she worked as an auditor at one of the finest accounting firms in the country. Her dad, although she never mentioned him, was one of few top lawyers in the city.

I was not saying that those contradicted her decision to go on a date with a stranger via Tinder. It was just a little odd for me.

She’d easily score a date. No Tinder needed. Pretty face, young age, well-paid occupation. Who would say no to her?

What’s on your mind? She asked me a question as I was pulled farther away into the silence.

Uh, nothing, I was yanked from my imagination. "I mean, I’m sorry. I