The Art of Losing

By Ruby Lang

Gia Franchetti is being haunted by her adoptive father who died disappointed with his life—and Gia’s. To make sure she doesn’t look back with the same regrets, Gia makes plans to move from her hometown, Boston, to China, her country of origin, to learn more about herself and her background.

But while following her father’s ghost, Gia meets musician Cal Webb. Cal is gorgeous, sweet, and has his life (and piano) planted firmly in Boston. The two fall recklessly into a relationship knowing there is an expiration date. As the unlikely couple draws closer, Gia starts to wonder if she’s chasing one dream only to abandon the possibility of love.

Content warning: This novella deals with grief, death, and cancer. It also depicts on-page sex, alcohol use, and complicated family dynamics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryant Street Publishing
• Release date: Sep 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9781094463759

Ruby Lang

Ruby Lang is the author of the acclaimed Practice Perfect series and the Uptown series. Her alter ego, Mindy Hung, wrote about romance novels (among other things) for The Toast. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Walrus, Bitch, and other fine venues. She enjoys running (slowly), reading (quickly), and ice cream (at any speed). She lives in New York with a small child and a medium-sized husband.

Book preview

1

Ihad taken an unexpected turn.

In the middle of a marketplace in Shanghai, on my last full day here, I turned and saw my father beckoning to me. Of course, I put down the embroidered satin purses I’d been fingering and started to follow his form as he dodged carts and parked bicycles and crowds and crowds of people, until I rounded a corner and looked around, and he was gone. Which was how I ended up in the middle of a busy sidewalk, in the shadow of the tall buildings, in an unfamiliar and complicated city without any idea of where I was.

Worse, I realized that I hadn’t really seen my father.

It took me a few minutes of scanning the streets. Bright vertical signs clustered thickly on the buildings, and there was a hypnotic beauty in the crowds. One of the things that I had liked about it here was how easy it was to get lost, how easy it was to forget. Sometimes when I was out like this I could feel my senses come alive again. But just as I was about to remember what it was to breathe without heaviness, reality dragged me down: It was growing dark, and I was the only still figure in a sea of walking, hurrying, purposeful people. I was no longer in that touristy district of market stalls and insistent vendors. I couldn’t read the signs, or speak the language. My phone was back in my hotel room charging.

And I hadn’t really seen my dad because he’d been dead for nearly a year.

I was so much more used to him being alive than not, and I was apparently one of those people who spied their deceased loved ones everywhere, although never in the places you’d expect. I’d see his face in my running shoe, the line of the laces as they crossed over the top so like his brows—the zigzagging beneath mimicked the slash of his eyes, his cheeks. I’d put my feet together and stare at them. Left shoe, right shoe. Two puzzled dad faces, frowning up from the ground. In the middle of the night, I’d lie on my side, staring at the chest of drawers in my apartment, the sturdy rectangular pulls reminding me of the backs of the cargo pants he wore when he was fixing things around my parents’ house in Boston.

I saw him in mounds of mashed potatoes, in the pile of leaves on the sidewalk. I saw him in coffee cups. It was a trick of the brain, I knew that. My mind, my heart was filling in the blank space he’d left. And even as my eyes kept swirling his face into the wood and steel and cement of everyday life, I tried to ignore the sightings.

But that day, I wasn’t in my ordinary life. I was in an unfamiliar city—which, in another life, should have been familiar—and this sighting was different.

Dad had been wearing his khaki pants and an old button-down blue shirt. His face was tan and ruddy, the way I remembered it—the way I remembered him—and not that awful gray from those last days in the hospital. This time, I had seen him in life, in flesh, and not sculpted from stone or mud, or piles of rice. He was a separate, independently moving being. He turned and waved his hand at me once, that big, soft hand so at odds with his sharp-cornered body. It had been the only familiar thing in my life at that moment. I hadn’t thought. I just followed. In that moment, in my disoriented state, I didn’t remember that he’d passed away. I followed him, and I didn’t stop to wonder why he was in China, or why he didn’t just call my name, or wait for me to come to his side.

So when he disappeared, I was distracted, elated, then scared. Then I was just disappointed, so disappointed that it was like my throat twisted around and shoved the air back up through my mouth. My eyes smarted with tears that I hadn’t shed.

Even though it was probably the worst thing in the world to do, right there, on a sidewalk in Shanghai, I closed my eyes and breathed in and out, and in and out.

When I opened them, I saw bright eyes, a flash of a smile. A man was looking right at me as if he saw something I couldn’t.

Sir, I yelled without thinking. Sir, please.

Please let him speak English.

I want to think that there is some logic to why I chose Cal that day, or to why he responded. It was silly, calling to a face across a crowd. To someone who may not have heard me above the busyness of people walking and talking on phones or swishing by on bicycles and scooters.

But after a moment, the man came toward me, and as he did he looked at me with something like recognition. Except that wasn’t quite it either. His surprise made my belly tense. He’d seen me.

No one had seen me in months. My mother was wrapped up in her trying to adjust to a life without the man she’d been with for more than 30 years. My cousin was too busy to do anything other than hold my hand and ask, How are you? Sure, people had assessed me, searched my eyes and mouth for sadness and signs of tears. Even the job interviewer, across his big desk, had let his gaze flit from my resume to the desk. But he’d hardly been thinking of me. He’d been thinking of how I might fit, like I was a puzzle piece. Since I’d never fit anywhere before, I didn’t hold out much hope.

But I didn’t have time to examine what this was, because the dark-skinned man I’d flagged down had leaned in to speak. I’m sorry, are you all right? he said, his voice sounding surprisingly low, belying the boyishness of his face.

He spoke English. He was American. But despite my relief, that roughened voice, like the lick of a cat’s tongue, made me shiver even as we watched each other. His alert gaze had already blazed across my broken-down jeans and sneakers, so unpolished in the midst of this shiny, citified crowd. He’d already taken in my eyes, my chin, my lips..

Again, I felt that recognition. But I was sure I’d never seen him before.

I don’t know where I am, I said. I’m completely lost.

The man rubbed his hands through his curly hair—I noticed that it was a little shinier at the nape, damp—and shook his head.

Another pause and I pushed my own hair back. His eyes fastened on my thumb as it caught the tendrils at my cheek and traced a comma over my ear.

You don’t have your phone? he asked.

I left it charging in my hotel room, I said, my voice a little high. I was nervous. Why was I nervous? My lips pressed together. I’m leaving tomorrow, so I thought I’d just step out for a few moments, I added.

He gave a huff of laughter. Funny how dependent we’ve become on these things, he said, extracting an iPhone from his pocket. I’m a tourist, too.

In the distance, the sky had begun to darken and, if possible, the crowds grew thicker around us. The shouts, the swoop of cars and bicycles, the various bumps from bags and elbows keeping us from being perfectly still or quiet. Our interaction felt strange and intense. Maybe it was because I had been worried and lost before and was so relieved now. He darted another quick searching glance at me.

I didn’t know what to do with this single-minded attention, so I blushed again. You say you’re leaving tomorrow, he murmured. Where are you staying?

The Fuchsia, I said.

I shrugged a little deeper into my jacket, even though I wasn’t cold. I hadn’t seen my father, but I’d seen this man and for the first time in a long time I felt alert, like I wasn’t merely drifting. There was something important about him if only I could figure out what it was. I caught his scent as he stood close. He smelled of pool chlorine and crispy dumplings, and for a moment, it felt intimate to think that maybe I knew things about him. That he’d been swimming, that his skin was drying out too tight across his face, that he’d succumbed to the smells of street food afterward, that his lips would be soft with oil.

He tapped at the screen, and I noted how the leather jacket outlined firm but lean packets of muscle across his shoulders and arms, his legs in a pair of dark jeans. Nothing can come of this, I told myself, and forced myself to focus on his face.

It was a nice face.

As if he knew what I was thinking, crinkles appeared at the corners of his long-lashed eyes. His mouth quirked up as he tapped on his device. I spied a single dimple, a lure winking out at me from under a smooth cheek. His eyes flicked toward me, once, twice, as if he couldn’t stop looking at me either.

I took a small step back. But he only leaned toward me. I guess it was only fair. It was his turn.

He showed me his handiwork. It’s not far, he said, his voice prickling the little hairs near my ear.

He traced the screen with one long finger. My hotel was a little blue star.

Let me walk you there, he said. Just make sure you arrive all right.

A strange man had proposed to lead me to my hotel. I didn’t even know his name. I thought I should learn it in case something happened. But he didn’t seem dangerous, and my body was starting to prickle as if my arm had been asleep, or my foot. Except it was my whole self. I’d say it was painful, but it wasn’t quite that either.

When he glanced at me, almost shyly, he couldn’t obscure the shine of his bright eyes. He had certainly warmed up my skin. Thank you for helping me. I stuck my hand out. Gia Franchetti, I said.

He frowned. Gia. Franchetti?

That old annoyance reared up, and really, I was glad to feel it, too. I should have been used to seeing people go through that sequence of thoughts: But she’s Asian, so why... ?

I’d been getting it almost my whole life whenever people heard my name and then saw my un-Italian features. Some people thought it was okay right away to ask about my adoption. At one of the companies I’d interviewed with, a manager—a blond man from the UK—wanted to be assured I wouldn’t spend the whole time looking for my birth parents. People always assumed. Even my family assumed that was why I’d decided to get a job here. The reasons why were more and less complicated than all that.

Never mind, I said tightly. Thanks for the directions.

I was about to just walk off in the direction that he’d indicated when he said, I’m sorry.

I couldn’t help myself. I was here for some job interviews.

You don’t have to explain. You should never have to explain.

He turned another quick look at me. He seemed embarrassed. Good, I thought, welcoming the cold shot of scorn into my confused and overheated system. I’d already felt more in this last ten minutes than in the last few months. I hitched up my shoulders and told myself that I didn’t know why he seemed so worried about what I thought of him. He was just a stranger, after all.

I’m sorry, he said. More firmly, I made assumptions. That must get annoying. My name’s Cal, Cal Webb, he said, giving his name as if he were still apologizing.

God, and you gave me crap over my name? I said, even though there was nothing wrong with his. It just felt like something the old me would have said. Or maybe a better version of me, one who could tease people and who might even have a sense of humor.

He laughed. The man actually laughed. I deserve that, he said, with such ease that I felt a helpless