Fishing for Tigers by Emily Maguire

office? She’s got this fella, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous American, absolutely besotted with her. She broke up with him for a couple of days and the poor sweetheart sent her a bunch of flowers twice a day until she took him back. Just once in my life I’d like to have someone that mad over me. Someone who calls at three in the morning because he can’t sleep from thinking of me, and who almost starves because he’s spent all his money on roses and diamonds and champagne. I want to be someone’s obsession, you know?’
    â€˜Be careful what you wish for,’ I told her, thinking of hours spent justifying a facial expression Glen had found hurtful, nights wasted listening to him lecture me on how properly to demonstrate my gratitude for his adoration, of red eyes, sore throat, aching bones, constant weariness. ‘Obsession can be terribly tedious.’
    My phone rang. ‘Mischa? It’s Cal. Um, did you get my message?’
    â€˜Yes, hi. I was about to text you back.’ I pulled a face at Kerry. ‘I can’t find the book anywhere. I must’ve lent it out and forgotten. But listen, there’s an English-language bookshop on Hai Ba Trung, just down from the corner of Bà. You should be able to find it there for a couple of bucks.’
    â€˜Oh. Sure. Cool. Um. Thanks. Okay. So. I’ll see you later.’
    â€˜Bloody keen on that book,’ I said as I hung up.
    â€˜Oh, Mish, look. Oh, bless.’
    I joined Kerry at the kitchen window. Cal was on the street below, his too-white running shoes picking their way through the scattered washing buckets, plastic stools, cooking pots and parked motos.
    â€˜Crap. He didn’t say he was here . Now I feel awful. Should I call him back?’
    â€˜Nah. He’ll be embarrassed. Let him think you didn’t know. Funny kid.’
    â€˜Yeah. He’s heading the wrong way for the bookshop. I should’ve given him directions. I forget how easy it is to get lost here. I should go after him.’
    â€˜Oh, he’ll be right. That’s the best thing about being his age. Getting lost in a strange city is fun instead of terrifying. He’ll probably meet half a dozen other lost wanderers and end up getting shattered in some dusty dive and shagging some hot backpacker behind the hostel.’
    â€˜Sounds like your perfect night.’
    â€˜God. It actually does. So sad.’

    In my previous life I worked as a receptionist. I never cared for it, and was pleased that my inability to speak or understand Vietnamese ruled out that kind of work for me here. Of course, my lack of language skills and experience at anything other than answering phones and typing ruled out almost every other kind of work as well.
    Most of the expats in Hanoi teach English, although very few of them are English teachers back home. Only the elite schools for the children of foreigners require their teachers to have actual English-teaching qualifications. A few of the better private colleges, like the Australian-­affiliated one where Amanda worked, expect their teachers to have a degree in something (anything), but most will take anyone who is a native English speaker.
    So it was that my first week in Hanoi I managed to get a job teaching English to tourism students despite having no experience in either teaching or tourism. My training consisted of a ten-minute run-through of the series of 1980s textbooks and tapes that I was to follow unswervingly. The classes were held in a three-storey tube-house with no air-conditioning and only one desktop electric fan per classroom. There were nine classrooms – three on each floor – and the walls were so thin that whenever I paused for breath I could hear the teacher in the next room as clearly as if she was standing by my side. I taught six 45-minute classes every day. Each class had between twenty and thirty students who seemed to have been grouped randomly. Any given class could