I said, "That's you," and paused, beer bottle poised in the air where I'd stopped in mid "salud" when I realized the song I was hearing, and that couples were swaying to on the tiny dance floor up by an even tinier stage, was the one AJ'd written about me.

He winked and nodded, looking almost as drunk as I was.

And boy, I was sloshed. From gulping down lots of sweaty bottles of cold beer into my hot sweaty body, trying to get at least a few minutes of relief.

My clothes and hair were wringing wet. Clinging to me so bad I was afraid to get up out of my seat with my dress all stuck to my butt and boobs like that.

But I managed to focus as he pointed his bottle at me and said, "It is. Charted all over Asia, Europe--made the Top 200 in the States, too."

"But not Korea."

"Oh, it charted but there was this big brouhaha about it. That the company had done the mass buy thing. And botted the stats."

I frowned--he'd lost me there. "Whatted the who?"

"They buy the albums themselves, the companies. Which is both environmentally and ethically fucked up. Cause they just dump 'em out somewhere--huge mounds of CDs and packaging material and all that, dumped and deserted. As for the bots, they're from these massive networks of computers. I don't understand the technology all that well, but it's like having millions of phony fans voting for your artists on those promotional shows we all go on for every comeback or new mini album or whatever. If your company's well connected, you're going to make the top 3. If your company's really well-connected, you're going to win."

"So... all that voting stuff I saw... the posts telling fans to download apps and copy and paste this hashtag and that URL--"

"It's not totally useless, but it's just a drop in the bucket. And every now and then it makes a real difference if the stats are particularly low in one category. Though sometimes I think the companies do that on purpose, to make it look more legit."

A tipsy twosome bumped our table--the ruddy-cheeked male half of the pair offered profuse but almost unintelligible apologies before they stumbled back onto the dance floor again.

"Your company did that for you? With all this crazy shit going on?"

"Oh, they hopped right on it, yeah. They need the good PR. They even got their hired media hacks to write some push back articles with titles like, 'Controversy Can't Stop the Music.' All about how well my new music was doing despite all the controversy. And then the bots dove in with the adoring comments to match."

I glared. Glowered, more like.

And he sat back and sung a few bars at me. Reaching out to me all theatrically, like they did in the silent movies back in the day.

I couldn't help but laugh. Drunk as I was.

But also because of the setting it was happening in. We'd decided to actually get up off each other and go somewhere--to the American inn I'd heard so much about. We got what I thought was called a tuk tuk (it's "xe loi" or "xe lam" in Viet Nam, apparently) to take us the 10 miles uphill to what almost looked like an abandoned movie set from some kind of kitschy 50s movie.

I mean those really wrong World of Susie Wong types of movies about Asia, with the beautiful Asian woman, usually a "geisha" or a prostitute or something like that, who falls for the American G.I. or reporter or some big shot who can't take her back to the States because of the prejudice or military rules or because he's already married or something else complicated that keeps cropping up throughout.

The buildings, set at the top of a hill that gave you a glorious view of the sea, were all sort of gaudy amusement park-style pagodas. The interiors were festooned with big red paper lanterns and murals of big, pop eyed dragons on the walls.

I was surprised to see so many locals there, among the tourists from damned near everywhere else. Sooo many languages out on that dance floor.

Sarah, too. Lumbering around with a very tall guy whose nationality I couldn't guess. She waggled "hello" fingers at me on the way past, looking happy as a schoolgirl at the prom, so I guessed he was someone she was rather fond of...

And swatted AJ as he leaned in to croon the last few lines of the song to me.

"You're so drunk," I said.

"You're so beautiful," he said. "It's so nice being able to look up and see the real you. Instead of having to haul out that old picture of you, at times like this."

Didn't get a chance to answer that because this DJ guy started yammering real loud about something--"Whoa! Karaoke contest," AJ explained, having translated the important parts of the harangue somehow.

I cannot tell you how much I did not want that. But the crowd was this crazy mixture of older touristy types from nearby countries and European countries where I guess people kinda liked that stuff.

And young eco-tourist types who were too woke to diss the cultures that liked that kinda stuff. And local folks of all ages who just loved having a bar to go to and didn't care what the hell went on in those places as long as there was liquor and music of some sort.

And once this scrawny little local guy in a Hawaiian shirt and really baggy khaki shorts had squawked and gyrated his way through that Rod Stewart Do You Think I'm Sexy song, I just gave up and guffawed along with everyone else.

And oh Lord, when they cranked up This Is How We Do It, AJ leapt up on the table, and put on a show, y'all. Had people throwin' their hands up like the song says and just hoppin' and boppin' around. I laughed 'til I almost peed myself.

I don't know, there was just something about all those people from all those places, each one doing their own personal dancey dances in that room decorated so damned wrong on almost every level imaginable and not giving a flying frick--I loved it. I'm embarrassed to say it, but I did.

I didn't get up on the table but I got up out of my seat and did my own little wiggle--wound up teaching them some cookout dances, too, before the night was through. Had a whole dance floor full of tipsy women doing The Wobble like pros before I was done.

Yes, our lives were falling apart bit by bit back in the real world. I had a tiny panic attack in the bathroom once, when I looked at myself in the mirror all sweaty and bushy haired and bare-faced cause makeup just melted off so I hadn't even put any lipstick on.

I stared into my bloodshot eyes and thought, "What the hell are you doing, fool?"

But then I heard Motownphilly crank up and went running out to make sure I got to do the "doo doo doo dah dah" part before the last beer buzz wore off.

I was that kind of crazy. Pushed into it by all the other crazy and I didn't want to stop. Or think. Or beat myself up about it.

I could understand why Sarah loved that godforsaken little place--why AJ had fallen in love with it when he got stranded there with Tae once 'way back in the day.

In fact, I went out to dance around with Sarah, even, when we were all so smashed that we women stopped waiting for some guy to ask us and just went out on the floor whenever our feet just couldn't keep still and grabbed onto whoever else was out there. I don't even remember the song--Janet Jackson, I think, though.

And when AJ spun me around and back into his arms, I said, "This is how we are when we're not tryin'a be whoever we are back there."

And he laughed and nodded and said, "Somehow, I heard that."

"Yeah, but let's be this, though," I begged him. "Let 'em take all the money! Let 'em take everything we thought we cared about so we have to start from scratch, you and me--maybe that's the point! Maybe that's what needs to die so we can live, like those Deepak Chopra type people are always saying."

He squinted at me and said, "That is some serious Live, Eat, Pray kinda shit right there, Oprah."

"But baby let's do it! Let's go back and just be us. And if they don't like it, to hell with 'em. Only I hate to do it to Hae Won, but I need a couple more days with you here, like this. So it's burned into my brain, this feeling. Can we do that? Please tell me we can do that."

He gave me a kiss that sizzled its way into that long-term memory of mine for sure--people cheered, watching him do it.

And then we went out and slow danced to Johnny Gill. Me staring into AJs eyes as he sang the "My, my, my... you sure look good tonight" part to me in that hilariously cheesy way that had made me almost pee myself earlier.

This was the life.

##

Butch growled, "Where you at? Mars?

I stuck a finger in my ear to help block out some of the noise from the markets and the general hub bub of the goings on up top where all the haggling and fish selling and whatnot went on almost 24/7.

"I feel like it," I told him, fanning myself with the big leaf shaped straw thing I'd bought from one of the stalls. "Jennie tells me this fine brown thang came knocking on her door the other day."

He chortled all deep down in his chest and said, "She got that part right."

"So you're not in Brazil?"

"You first!"

"I'm in a tiny little fishing village a world away. And you better hurry up because there's no Net or phone service half the time. Even AJ's satellite phone doesn't work that well so I'm at this little store the size of a phone booth with all these other tourists trying to blurt something out before it dies."

"Well, 'way things are goin' in the States, you better start thinkin' about learnin' how to fish, maybe. Stayin' where you're at. Me, I'm breedin' bulls in Brazil, yeah. But I sent some papers to Wally won't mean nothin' to you but they'll tell a helluva tale to him and other people owns property over your way. You get 'em to the right people, you'll make a whole lotta people pretty damned mad but you'll also make a whole lotta people pretty damned glad in another way--I can't go into it, 'cause they can listen in even on a connection this bad. Sounds like we're talkin' on one o' them play phones kids make with a string and two tin cans."

"But those numbers you gave me on the card that--"

"One on the front'll still work. It'll take a while, but I'll hear sooner or later. Listen up, now, before this thing fades out again. You give them papers anonymous-like. Drop 'em somewhere'n' have whoever pick 'em up while you watch or sum. Unless you really wanna stay down there wherever you are for the rest of your life. You hear me?"

"Oh, that part I heard loud and clear, yeah. But if--shit!"

There were lots of "shits" like that, or similar cuss words in a whole bunch of different languages. White folks rolling their eyes and hissing and raising cells to heaven.

I heard, "We wait a week for it to come and now," from this German bean pole I'd been talking to while we were waiting for the WiFi to actually sputter to life at that store. His two guy friends scowled--one threw his cell onto an old, threadbare couch on the porch we were all huddled up on, turning our phones and tablets and things in all kinds of awkward positions...

I sighed and sat down on the splintery stairs to check the texts that had finally been able to show up just as AJ came out and sat down next to me, brandishing two ice cold Cokes in the little bottles we used to get at the Ahn's grocery store. They got them from Mexico. And there was a difference in the taste...

"Blaine scored a commercial," I said. "And some kind of editorial shoot."

And AJ held up his bottle, clinked with me, and said, "May there be many more!"

I swigged and smiled kinda devilishly. "You're feeling generous all of a sudden."

"So he stays busy. And away from you."

I gave him a kiss for looking so healthy and happy. All brown and buff.

He gave me one back for just being. That's such a lovely feeling...

And then he told me, "Your girl Sarah set up a boat that'll take us to Ho Chi Minh City. We'll fly after that."

I swiped the texts, smiling. Tapped the one from Yoli right quick.

And it slapped that smile right off my face.