The Wild Woman's Guide to Traveling the World

by Kristin Rockaway

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Fans of Sophie Kinsella and The Devil Wears Prada will love this smart, sexy debut novel of wanderlust.

Objectively, Sophie is a success: She's got a coveted job at a top consulting firm, a Manhattan apartment, and a passport full of stamps. It isn't quite what she dreamed of when she was a teenager dog-earing pages in exotic travel guides, but it's secure. Then her best friend bails just hours after they arrive in Hong Kong for a girls' trip, and Sophie meets Carson, a free-spirited, globetrotting American artist.

In the midst of their whirlwind vacation romance, Carson invites Sophie to join him on his haphazard journey around the world. While the brief international jaunts she sneaks in between business trips don't feel like enough, Sophie is far too practical to throw away her five-year plan on a whim. Yet Carson's offer forces her to question whether the reliable life she's chosen is really what she wants – and she soon discovers that his feelings for her run deeper than she realized.

A Hachette Audio production.

Release date: June 6, 2017

Publisher: Center Street

Print pages: 352

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

So I think I’m going to go home.”

Elena said this to me as I swigged from my bottle of San Miguel. She wouldn’t look me in the eye. Instead, she stared down at her bowl of wiry brown noodles, jabbing at them with the fork she had procured from her purse. The emergency fork should have been my first indicator that she wasn’t comfortable in Hong Kong.

“What do you mean you think you’re going to go home?” I forced the words from the back of my throat, suppressing a cough from the mouthful of beer that I’d gulped. The bitter aftertaste burned the edges of my tongue. “We just got here eight hours ago. Our flight’s not for another week.”

“Well, when you were in the shower before, I called the airline and changed my return flight to tomorrow morning. So I think I’m going to go home.” She twirled the noodles repeatedly around her fork, watching them glisten, but never brought them to her mouth. It was the most perfect noodle I’d ever tasted, firm and salty, but here she was, wasting them with her mindless fiddling. I wanted to grab the fork from her pale, bony hand and stab her in the eye.

“What about me?”

“Oh, I didn’t change your ticket. You should stay,” she said. “You should definitely stay and enjoy the rest of your vacation.” It was now my vacation, not ours.

The din around us at the Temple Street Night Market began to fade and I felt a dull ache behind my eyes. Jet lag was descending. I had expected to spend this meal reviewing our itinerary for the rest of the week. The itinerary I’d so carefully and painstakingly planned. Instead, I was being abandoned by my best friend, seven thousand miles from home. The earmarked guidebook I had placed on the table mocked me.

An overburdened waitress deposited two plastic plates in front of us, each laden with food fresh from the makeshift sidewalk kitchen four feet away. Spicy fried pork piled atop a thin layer of shredded white cabbage, dotted with nickel slices of fiery red peppers. Razor clams heaped with green vegetables, sopping in a thick brown sauce. Steam rose from them in fragrant, gray plumes. A grimace passed over Elena’s face.

“Help yourself,” I challenged. “It’s probably your last chance for a meal in Hong Kong.”

The fork stood upright in her bowl, tangled in the cooling noodles. Her hands were clasped around the purse in her lap, signaling that she was done with this meal. I picked up my chopsticks and pinched a narrow, tubular clamshell from the serving dish.

“What is that?” she asked, recoiling slightly, the clam a potential threat to her well-being.

“It’s a fucking clam, Elena.” I tore the chewy flesh from the shell with my chopsticks and popped it in my mouth, getting a burst of sweet fishiness as I bit down. “Why don’t you try one instead of sitting there feeling sorry for yourself?”

“Why are you being so cold to me?” she said, her face twisted in disbelief, as if my aggression had been unprovoked. We’d known each other since grade school, but her Little Miss Innocent act still managed to astound me.

“As soon as we buckled ourselves in on the plane ride over here,” I said, “you started crying about how much you miss Roddy, and you haven’t let up since. I planned this whole trip for us, and now you’re ditching me without even giving it a chance.”

“If you were in love, you would understand.”

My eyes reflexively rolled to the back of my head. “Is this what love is? Being so obsessed with someone that you can’t be apart from them for a few days to have fun with a friend in a new country?”

“When it happens to you, you’ll see,” she said, turning her nose up. I expected her to storm away in her usual theatrical fashion, but I could see in the way her eyes darted that the crowd was intimidating her. She was too afraid to get up from this table and take the subway by herself back to our hotel in Wan Chai. So I held her hostage while I ate, taking my time to savor the flavors before me, the meal that I’d looked forward to for so long. Hong Kong had a reputation for delectable street food; at least one of us was going to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

It was my own fault, really, for suggesting that we go away together. Elena rarely left the tri-state area; her idea of an exotic getaway involved tanning on the Jersey Shore. I, on the other hand, was on a mission to fill my passport with as many stamps as I could. I’d stood atop the Eiffel Tower, I’d sipped warm Guinness in a Dublin pub, I’d sunbathed on the balmy beaches of Ibiza—and I’d done it all alone. As a traveling IT consultant for an international firm, I’d found myself on the Tube in London one week and soaking up the sun in LA two weeks later. There was no denying that I had the travel bug. Life on the road was so much more interesting than staying at home in New York.

So when Elena came to me two months earlier, devastated by her breakup with Roddy, I took her out for an exorcism by alcohol and told her that a trip was what she needed to clear her head. And this time, we should go on vacation together.

“It’ll be great,” I said, still tasting the sweetness of the Jägerbomb on my lips. “We’ll sightsee and shop and drink and eat all this awesome food. And pick up hot foreign guys! Let’s do it!”

“I don’t know, Sophie,” she said. Her eyes were swollen from hours of crying and were growing increasingly glassy with each shot she threw back. “I don’t even have a passport.”

“We’ll get you one; that’s not a problem at all.”

“There’s no way I could afford it. Not all of us can be a big-shot IT consultant with a fat paycheck like you, Soph. I’m a receptionist. I’m not exactly rolling in dough.”

“Then you don’t have to worry about the plane ticket,” I said, unwilling to take no for an answer. “I’ve got plenty of frequent-flyer miles. It’s my treat!”

She smiled for the first time that night. “Really?”

“Of course!” I squealed, the booze turning up the volume on my enthusiasm. “I’m going to book this now before you change your mind and chicken out.”

Three weeks later, she and Roddy reconciled and started talking about moving in together. I felt that the makers of Jägermeister now owed me a refund for the 120,000 hard-earned frequent-flyer miles I’d blown on her plane ticket.

Looking back on it, I should’ve planned a weekend in Miami or Vegas, someplace closer to home and more familiar for her. Someplace where the restaurants laid a fork on every table. To be honest, I wasn’t really thinking about what would be most comfortable for Elena when I booked those tickets. Hong Kong had been next on my list of places I wanted to visit, and her breakup just happened to coincide with a trip I was already planning to take. My first vacation that wasn’t incidentally tacked on to the end of a business trip.

But I also wanted to give her the opportunity to see something different, to introduce her to new experiences, to show her there was more to life than Roddy and New Jersey. So far, she’d lived a very sheltered life; she still lived at home with her mom, still slept in the same bedroom in which she’d grown up. Meanwhile, I’d struck out on my own and moved into the city. It had been so long since we’d spent any quality time together. I thought a foreign country would be the perfect place for us to rekindle our bond. Now, as we glared at each other over these Chinese delicacies, I realized I had made an error in judgment.

Elena pursed her lips. “You travel alone all the time. I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“Yes, I travel alone all the time, but this was something we planned together. A girls’ trip. I wasn’t expecting to be on my own here.” I tore into a pork chop, the peppery juices stinging my soft palate, trying not to think about all the business trips I’d have to go on to recover those lost frequent-flyer miles.

“I thought you’d be happier this way.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She tossed her long blond hair over her shoulder and took a deep breath. “It’s clear I’m annoying you. I’ve been annoying you all day. I’m sorry I’m not comfortable here, but I’m not into traveling like you are. You’ll have a better time without me.”

“I really want us to have a good time together,” I said. And despite that momentary fantasy about gouging her eye out, I meant it, sincerely. “I think if you just let go and forget about Roddy for a minute, you’ll be able to relax and enjoy yourself.”

“I don’t want to forget about Roddy!” she cried. “I feel empty without him, like part of me is on the other end of the earth.”

Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes and her fair skin flushed pink. Her display of melodrama elicited no sympathy from me.

“For God’s sake, Elena, two months ago, you swore you’d never speak to him again. Now you suddenly can’t live without him? This seems like the definition of a dysfunctional relationship.”

She broke out in a full-force sob, salty streaks streaming down her splotchy cheeks. The waitress gave a sideways glance as she hurried past us with a stack of empty bowls. I covered my face with my hands, embarrassed to be a part of this performance.

“When did you stop being my friend?” she wailed. The couple at the table next to us paused their meal to gawk at the spectacle we were creating, the chopsticks in their hands suspended midair.

“Would you please stop making a scene?” I muttered this quietly, trying not to make eye contact with her, hoping that my body language would send the message to onlookers that I was not a willing participant in her tantrum.

“Oh sure, Sophie, let’s not make a scene!” she said, waving her arms about in a very scene-making gesture. “That is so typical.”

“Typical of what?”

“Typical of you!” she spat. “Controlling and judgmental. You have no emotions, no passion. You don’t understand how I feel because you don’t even know how to love someone! And no one could ever love you because you’re so closed off and miserable!”

I reached inside my wallet and threw a wad of cash on the table, a rainbow of strange bills. I had no idea how much it was, if it was even enough to cover the cost of the meal. I had no time to convert the currency; I just needed to get away from her.

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” I chugged the last of my San Miguel, snatched my guidebook off the table, and pushed my way out through the tent and into the tangle of people beyond.

“Sophie, I’m sorry! Please wait!” I heard her call behind me, but I was busy weaving among a pack of moving bodies, trying to lose her in the floodlit night. “I don’t know how to get back to the hotel!”

Passionless. Closed off, unlovable, and miserable.

“Figure it out!” I yelled over my shoulder, and stalked through the narrow aisles of the market, past tables piled high with plastic trinkets and irregular counterfeit T-shirts. I fumed, hoping she’d get lost trying to make her way back to the hotel. Perhaps I was being cold and spiteful; maybe Elena was right about me. Then again, I wasn’t the one who’d secretly booked an early flight home while my unsuspecting friend was shampooing her hair.

It was hard to imagine that after all these years, our friendship was now deteriorating thousands of miles away from Garden Avenue, the tree-lined New Jersey street on which we’d grown up together. It was true we’d drifted apart in recent years, with me constantly traveling for work, and her relationship with Roddy taking precedence above all else. But I hadn’t realized exactly how different we’d become. I felt like we didn’t even know each other at all anymore.

If Elena really thought I was cold and emotionless, though, why did she even agree to come to Hong Kong with me? Considering our history, everything we’d been through together, her attack seemed vicious and, frankly, untrue. I had always been there to support her. The day her father packed his boxes and moved out of their house, I sat with her for hours in my room, reading Seventeen magazine on the pink bedspread, pretending that we couldn’t hear the rumbling of the moving truck down the street. On prom night, I held her hair back as she hung her head out of the open limo door, the effects of too much blackberry schnapps splattering in the gutter. Lately, our only interactions had consisted of me listening to her mourn each of the breakups she’d endured with Roddy—three breakups in three years. After this, I didn’t intend to be around for the fourth.

The night was still young, and I didn’t intend to waste it seething about Elena, or worse yet, watching her pack her bags back at the hotel. Feeling suddenly energized, I slipped into an alley and opened my guidebook to the “Nightlife” section. Near the top of the list was Lan Kwai Fong, a district packed with bars and clubs, popular with tourists and locals alike, described as “a party in the streets.” It seemed like it might be a good place to find company on what had turned into a solitary Saturday night in a strange town.

As I ducked into the entrance of the Jordan subway station, a sour gust of air rose up from its depths and washed over my face. I breathed it in, immersed in the unfamiliar sensation of this bustling city. Even if Elena was right, even if I was unlovable, in that moment I thought I didn’t need to be loved. I was Sophie Bruno, international adventurer, and tonight I was flying solo.

CHAPTER TWO

Saturday night in Lan Kwai Fong wasn’t just a party in the streets; it was an explosion of steam and voices and fluorescent light. Pennant banners fluttered above me as I made my way down and around the pedestrian-only curve of D’Aguilar Street. Bars lined the pavement with their front walls retracted, seats spilling onto the sidewalk. People congregated around tables with openmouthed grins, their hands wrapped around sweating glasses, cigarettes propped between their fingers. Women perched on stools, their bare legs emerging from the hems of short skirts. Men with damp shirt collars hovered over them. Music pumped out of invisible speakers, a bubble of beat enveloping the street. The night was on fire.

My anger began to evaporate and swirl away over the rooftops. There were people here who weren’t armed with contingency forks, people who knew how to have a good time. Why was I so upset about Elena leaving me when there was a city full of folks like this? I stopped in front of a pub, the words BITTER SPOT shouting at me from the neon sign above the door. Pushing through bistro tables and flailing arms, I made my way inside, where the bartender set a napkin down in front of me.

“San Miguel, please,” I said.

As I gripped the bottle and brought it to my lips, someone snickered softly behind me.

“You’re at the best German pub in Hong Kong, and you’re ordering a bottle of San Miguel?”

I turned around and saw his blue eyes glinting in the low light, plump pink lips curled in a playful smile.

“I mean, I know it’s the local beer of choice,” he said, “but you should get a Bitburger. This is the only place on the island that has it on tap.”

He lifted his glass, half full of golden lager, emblazoned with a Bitburger logo, and tipped it in my direction with a wink. His sandy hair was perfectly tousled atop his head like a wheat field in a windstorm. Instinctively, I touched my dark curls. I was sure they were out of place; the Hong Kong humidity had laid claim to them the moment I disembarked the plane. I made a mental note to buy some serious hair product the next day.

“I’ll pass,” I said, willing my mouth to form words in the midst of my aesthetic crisis. “I get to drink plenty of German beer at home. San Miguel is a treat.”

“Do you live in Germany? From your accent, I figured you were a fellow American.”

“No, I live in New York, in a tiny apartment above a German restaurant called Zum Bauer. So sometimes I like to end the day there with a nightcap. Or two.”

“The Germans know how to brew a fine beer.”

“That they do.”

“Ever been there?”

“Last year, for Oktoberfest,” I said.

His eyes lit up. “Get out of here. I was there, too. Maybe we saw each other.”

“Maybe,” I said. But there was little I remembered of my hours in the Hofbräuhaus tent. After I finished my first stein of festbier, details of the evening grew fuzzy. It was possible I’d seen this handsome stranger but had no recollection of it. He could’ve even been that guy I made out with at the end of the night, when the crowds were shuffling into the streets. I never did catch his name.

“You travel a lot, then?” he asked.

“Yup. Always got a flight booked somewhere.”

“That’s the best way to live, I think.” He tipped his head back and drained his glass, his Adam’s apple bobbing with each swallow. I stared at the long curve of his neck and spotted the corner of a tattoo peeking out from under the collar of his shirt before he put his glass down on the bar and ordered another Bitburger.

“And a San Miguel,” he said, before looking at me. “You want another one?”

“Sure.” I had only taken two sips of the bottle in my hand, but I wasn’t about to turn down another drink before I found out this guy’s name. I started chugging.

“I’m Carson, by the way,” he said, extending a hand toward me for a shake. It was slightly moist, radiating heat. I felt soft calluses along the heel of his palm.

“Sophie.”

“So, Sophie, what are you doing in Hong Kong?”

“Taking a much-needed vacation.”

“Alone?” He looked past me, over my shoulders, suddenly aware that he could be encroaching on some other guy’s territory.

“Well, I was here with my friend, until she decided to go back home because she missed her boyfriend. So now I’m here alone.”

“What?” He laughed. “She just picked up and left you here?”

“Her flight’s tomorrow morning. Right now I guess she’s packing her bag, or calling her boyfriend for the fifteenth time. But yeah, she’s just picking up and leaving me here. Nice, huh?”

He shook his head. “That’s unbelievable. I don’t know if you can really call her a friend now. A friend wouldn’t desert you like that.”

I wanted to feel smug. Here was someone who was shocked and appalled by Elena’s decision to leave, someone declaring her as the bad friend, not me. But I only felt an ache in my chest and a sense of dread, like I’d forgotten to pack underwear or lost my credit card.

“What are you gonna do now?” he asked.

“Enjoy myself,” I said. “She was kind of a wet blanket anyway.”

“What made you decide to come to Hong Kong with her, then?”

“I don’t know. I wanted to reconnect with her. And I thought it might do her some good to see a different part of the world.” I picked at the label on the bottle, peeling it back in thin, soggy shreds. “I’m sick of thinking about it.”

“Then let’s change the subject. What do you do back in New York, aside from drink German beer?”

“Sometimes I enjoy a schnitzel platter.”

He laughed, revealing a dimple in his stubbled cheek. “Do you work?”

“I’m an IT consultant.”

“What does that mean?”

“I work with computers, doing strategic planning for big businesses. Goal setting, scheduling, resource allocation. That sort of thing.”

“Interesting.” The blank stare on his face made it clear he hadn’t spent much time in a corporate environment. “Do you like doing…that sort of thing?”

Shrugging, I took a sip of my beer. “It’s all right. I’m good at it and it pays well. It looks good on my résumé, too.”

“So the short answer is no,” he said. “How did you get into it?”

“I went to college, got a business degree,” I said. “Landed a job right after I graduated three years ago, and I’ve been there ever since.”

The full story? I attended college on a full-ride scholarship, completed my degree a semester early, with honors, and had three companies clamoring to employ me. Even though I wasn’t necessarily gung ho about working for McKinley Consultants Worldwide, I accepted their generous offer of employment. McKinley was one of the world’s most prestigious firms; if they offered you a job, you’d be a fool to say no. Now, at twenty-four, I was routinely working a minimum of twelve hours a day, on the fast track to making partner. My career was, more or less, my life.

“The best part of the job is that I get to travel a lot,” I said. “My company has offices all over the world. The payoff in frequent-flyer miles alone is worth it.”

“That’s great.” He took a long drink, his eyes fixed on the flat screen behind the bar showing closed-captioned commercials.

“What about you?” I said, trying to reel in his attention. “What do you do for a living?”

“Ah, you know,” he said, still looking at the television. “Nothing like what you do. Just…artsy stuff.”

“So you’re an artist?”

“I mean, kind of,” he said, clearing his throat. “I dabble here and there. I’m twenty-five. I’ve got time to figure it out, you know?”

In the real world, if I had asked a guy about his career aspirations and received this kind of vague, evasive response, I’d politely excuse myself and run for the exit. I needed a man with a plan, someone who was responsible and goal-oriented, who had his head screwed tightly on his shoulders—a tall order for guys in my age bracket. But this wasn’t real life; this was life on the road. Who cared if Carson had no direction or discernible career path? After tonight, I’d probably never see him again.

“Where do you live?”

“Well, I’m originally from San Francisco,” he said, his gaze finally focused back on my face, “but right now, I’m kind of living on the road. I’ve been traveling around Asia for the past month, been in Hong Kong for a week. I bounce around a lot. My home is where I lay my head. Know what I mean?”

“Totally.” In truth, I didn’t know what he meant. I definitely understood the feeling of restlessness, the need to pick up and fly somewhere new. But I always had an anchor grounding me at home, a place to come back to, with an organized closet full of clothes and a fireproof box to safeguard important paperwork. I also had a steady job with a paycheck, something I doubted Carson treated with priority. He struck me as someone who got by on his good looks, perhaps a playboy from a rich family who never had to save up his frequent-flyer miles to book a trip halfway around the world. Unlike me, working hard for every dime I spent.

“So, no boyfriend?” he asked me.

“Nope.”

“Why’s that?”

“Are you asking what’s wrong with me?”

“No, no!” he said. “I’m just wondering how a cool girl like you is still single. Well traveled, educated, beautiful. I thought for sure someone would’ve scooped you up.”

“Does that line usually work for you?”

“Sometimes.” He flashed a smile.

“I’m not really into the idea of a relationship right now. Especially after seeing my friend with her boyfriend. They can’t even be away from each other for a week. I travel a lot. I work long hours. I need room to breathe.”

“Relationships don’t always have to be that way, though.”

“I don’t know.” After what Elena told me earlier that evening, I didn’t feel I had the authority to speak on this subject. I’d never been in a serious relationship; hell, I’d never even made it past a third or fourth date. There’d only been fling after fling, heated but meaningless sexual encounters, most of which were on the road, one-night stands with guys I’d never spoken to again. Some guys whose names I never even knew. As far as I was concerned, men were only good for one thing. I’d always considered myself fiercely independent, a woman who didn’t need a man to be happy. But maybe Elena was right. Maybe I really was incapable of love.

“I believe that when you really love someone,” he said, “when it’s right, it’s always with you, even when you’re apart. It’s like a fire, burning in your heart. It needs air to live and breathe; if you smother it, it’ll die.”

“That’s very poetic.”

“I’m a poetic kinda guy. Ruled by my heart.”

“Is there a girlfriend pining f. . .