Second Act

Chapter 3

Sol heard frantic knocking on her door. She peeked out of the peephole to see Shownu standing outside, looking terrified. She opened the door and smiled.

"What can I do for you?" she asked good-naturedly.

"I hear gun!" he exclaimed.

"You heard gunshots?" she clarified. "That happens sometimes now. Celaya used to be pretty safe, but the cartel violence is moving further South now."

Shownu showed no sign of having understood. He just stared at her with wide eyes and repeated, "Gun!"

"If you go back upstairs and stay away from the windows, you'll be fine," she assured him.

Again, he looked at her pleadingly and simply said, "Gun!"

"Do you want to come in?" Sol asked. He had slipped in the door before she was even able to finish her sentence. "Well, he understood that," she thought with a smile.

Shownu moved toward the interior of the house, ending up in Sol's kitchen which was currently in quite a state. She had aloe plants split open and oozing their insides all over the counter. She also had a bowl filled with some sort of brown, congealed liquid.

"What you do?" Shownu asked, trying to take his mind off of the terrifying gun violence playing out close by.

"I'm making my own hair gel," Sol answered, as if that were the most normal thing in the world to be doing on a Saturday night.

"Hair gel?" he asked, using his hands to pantomime applying hair gel.

"Have you ever read the ingredients on mass-produced hair gel? I refuse to put that stuff in my hair. This is a blend of coconut oil, aloe, and the water left after soaking flax seeds. I make my own toothpaste with turmeric, but we won't get into that now," Sol said, waving her hand above her head. She was starting to like the fact that Shownu didn't understand her. It gave her the space to talk as much as she wanted to about things no one else wanted to hear about. She added all the ingredients into the blender and gave it a good whirr. She poured the very viscous semi-liquid into a container and offered it to Shownu. He dunked his fingers into it and placed a glop of it into his palm. He rubbed it through his hair and smiled.

"I buy" he said. "It's nice."

"No, the first batch is free. That's how I get you hooked. Once you try it, you'll never go back to the old stuff again. I've got you now."

"You got me?" he asked with innocent confusion.

"Don't worry about it," Sol said, feeling no desire to explain further.

Shownu pulled his phone from his pocket and searched up something. He turned up the volume and turned the screen toward her. Sol was shocked to see what looked like Shownu dancing in perfect step with a group of highly polished bandmates.

"Is this guy in a K-pop band," she asked herself, but said nothing aloud. She pulled out her own phone and simply put the word "Shownu" into Google. What came up were pages of articles and pictures of the very man standing barefoot in front of her.

"Why didn't you say you were famous?" she asked, sounding a bit accusatory in spite of herself.

"I just come back from Korean military," he answered. "I was almost two years," he added.

"You were in the military almost two years?" she recast his statement without correcting him directly. Her ESL teacher had always said not to correct people, just to recast what they said back to them correctly. And when they were ready to hear it, they would hear how your version was different from what they said.

"Yes, no singing for long time," he explained.

"So, are you going back to the band now that you're out of the military?" Sol asked, finding this man to be much more fascinating than she had first suspected.

Sol didn't give him a chance to answer before she let her finger land on a thumbnail for a music video for "Middle of the Night." Shownu looked about uncomfortably, feeling self-conscious about Sol watching one of their videos in his presence.

"Damn!" Sol exclaimed when she saw Shownu driving a car in the video. "That is so hot!" she said before she could censor herself. "You got me," she said, echoing the lyrics of the song.

Shownu looked about sheepishly. They were similar to the words she had said earlier about the hair gel, but they sounded different now as Sol looked him up and down appreciatively.

"All the guys are hot, but you're the hottest," Sol exclaimed. It was uncharacteristic for her to be so effusive in her praise, particularly toward a handsome man. In her experience, handsome men almost always knew they were handsome, and that knowledge made them much less attractive somehow. But Shownu didn't seem to have any of usual handsome-man arrogance.

In fact, at this moment, he looked much more embarrassed than cocky. His uncertain eyes made him look so incredibly attractive. Sol couldn't contain her desire to stroke his angular cheek. His eyes grew wide in surprise, but he did not move away from her touch.

Seeing his fearful look, Sol teased, "Are you still scared of the gunshots?"

"Yes," he said, without taking his eyes from her own.

She stepped forward and placed her full lips against his. He froze for a second, but eventually, his shoulders relaxed, and he began to return her kiss, very slowly at first. Then, in a rapid move, he swung his arm behind her waist and drew her in against him. Sol ran her tongue along his lips, asking for permission to enter his warm mouth. He opened his lips and let her in, kissing her back with a desperate passion he couldn't hold back. Sol ran her hands down his back until they cupped his buttocks. At that moment, Shownu pulled back abruptly and began to move toward the door.

"I go now," he said, pulling the heavy, metal door open.

Sol called after him, "Where are you going? Aren't you afraid of the gunshots?"

"No, I be fine," he answered quickly before running out the door and darting up the steps. He ran into his place and slammed the door behind him. Sol watched him from her doorway. He had never even turned around to say goodnight.

The chirping of her parakeets made her finally look away from Shownu's closed door. She put her face close to the cage to talk to her beloved birds face-to-face.

"I guess he got scared off by my dynamic sexuality," she said in a sing-songy voice. She shrugged. "Oh, well, he'll get over it," she assured her little birds. "He'll come back. They always do," she said aloud to reassure herself.

As she went back in the house, she found his container of gel still sitting on the counter. She considered running up the stairs with it but decided it might be best to give him some space to unwind his muddled brain. He had looked utterly terrified as he ran out the door.

"Well, I guess not everyone appreciates my unbridled enthusiasm," she thought as she pulled off her sweatshirt and jeans and slipped into her soft cotton Hello Kitty pajamas. She slipped under the light blanket and listened to the noises outside. She could hear children playing jump rope even at this late hour. She heard a salesman on a bicycle yelling, "¡Tamales!" For now, the gunshots were behind them --- until another random night when they would start up again. Sol closed her eyes and let sleep wash over her, hoping that Shownu was sleeping as well.