He also took his laundry – two lavalavas – down to the reception counter. Someone else was on the desk today.
“Room number?”
“Eight seventy-two.”
The clerk nodded and tagged the clothes, then put them in a bag for pickup. He checked the time in his heads-up display.
“Figure four o’clock today. Saturdays are usually busy.”
“Thank you.”
JieMin tried to think of other things to do today, but the allure of the beach was just too compelling. He slipped out of his lavalava and flip-flops in his apartment, grabbed his lunch, and headed, nude, for the bus stop.
JieMin ate his lunch on the bus on the way to the beach. He dropped the refuse in the can at the bus parking lot and walked across the sand. He walked right on into the ocean, and, once he was deep enough, dove forward into a swim.
JieMin found he could lay out on the surface of the calm water. The salinity was high enough he floated just below the surface, and, with his arms behind his head, his face was out of the water.
JieMin floated there in the warm sun and daydreamed, as he always did, about the things he saw in his mind. The layout of the city. The motions of planets and stars. The way the insects in Chagu wove their webs.
JieMin swam some more, then walked out on the beach. He was settling down on the sand when someone called his name.
“JieMin!”
JieMin looked up to see ChaoLi coming toward him. She was nude. He sat up.
“Hi, ChaoLi. You made it to the beach finally.”
“Yes. I’m here with my girlfriends.”
She waved to a group of girls farther down the beach and they waved back.
“Come, JieMin. Swim with me.”
They swam and played tag in the water. ChaoLi was a strong swimmer, and JieMin found himself more than evenly matched. When they tired, he taught her his floating trick.
They floated on the surface, but kept drifting apart.
“Lock arms with me, JieMin.”
When they hooked their arms together, they floated together on the warm ocean, shoulder to shoulder. JieMin found the touch of her, the scent of her, intoxicating.
After several minutes, ChaoLi laughed her little bells laugh.
“JieMin, you have a periscope.”
JieMin blushed bright crimson and started to stammer an apology, but she put a finger over his lips and kissed his cheek. After that, he lay there with her in the sun unashamedly.
They left the beach together, after ChaoLi said goodbye to her friends, and rode the bus back into the city. They talked all the way, and JieMin was able to forget that they were both nude.
JieMin told her of his family, of course, and ChaoLi told him of hers. She was descended in part from Rachel Conroy and Gary Rockham, with other side branches from Kimberly Peterson and Carl Reynolds, one of the original Carolina couples. That explained her half-Asian features and the auburn highlights in her hair, which JieMin found exotic and beautiful.
More to the point, their lineages did not overlap in the last five generations, back to Chen LiQiang, which meant they were no closer than fourth cousins. Genetically, they were not unavailable to each other.
ChaoLi was just sixteen, which, if not exactly a spinster in the colony, was certainly old enough for marriage. The original colonists had partnered young, and that had become part of the culture on Arcadia.
JieMin, however, was only fourteen. Fourteen and a half, if pressed. The counter to that was that he had his college degree, was established, and had his own apartment. ChaoLi still lived with her family, the oldest of the siblings still at home.
They chattered about life in the city and how it compared to life in the country, which ChaoLi found exotic. She loved the mountains as well as the beach, but had only been there twice. JieMin promised to make up the deficiency.
They walked across Fifteenth Street together, crossed Market, and got to the apartment building. When they went in, the same clerk was at the reception desk.
“Eight seventy-two is back from the laundry,” he said.
JieMin took the bag absently, with a murmured ‘Thank you.’ He turned to ChaoLi.
“ChaoLi, will you go to dinner with me?”
“Of course, JieMin. If I can borrow one of those lavalavas?”
JieMin held the bag open to her and she picked a lavalava and put it on. JieMin put on the other, and threw the bag in the refuse can in the lobby.
They walked back across Market Street to the restaurant.
When they were seated in the restaurant, JieMin explained his system for determining the dishes most to his liking.
“It sounds like fun,” ChaoLi said.
“I thought you would know the best dishes here,” JieMin said.
“No, JieMin. I have never eaten here before. Oh, I think once or twice maybe, for a wedding, but that is a different menu. I have never eaten here before with this menu. Eating out is expensive.”
That surprised JieMin. He had come to think of the restaurant as his dining room. He never considered prices or costs. He suspected Chen Zumu would consider the cost of his time cooking for himself to be much higher than his restaurant bill.
ChaoLi agreed they should get the third and fourth soup, the third and fourth appetizer, and the third and fourth entree off the menu, and they would share and taste so JieMin could rate them.
They talked and ate, and ChaoLi laughed like little bells.
After dinner, over which they tarried, they walked back over to the apartment building. The elevator stopped at the eighth floor to let JieMin off, while ChaoLi was
