"I have something for you," Jack said with a smile. He took out a business card and handed it to her. "I'm sure you'll like it."
When Rachel saw the name printed on the card, she exclaimed, "Oh my God! Why do you have her card?"
"She has a model exhibition tomorrow afternoon. I'll take you there," Jack announced. He smiled broadly at her, but Rachel's attention was focused on the card in her hand. She failed to notice the unusual brightness in his eyes. It had an excitement that seemed to anticipate the fulfillment of a plot.
"Okay," Rachel replied and nodded as if hypnotized.
For years, she had developed a hobby of piecing together models. It was a good hobby for doctors to have because it provided a platform to practice their accuracy, patience and the agility of their fingers.
Each doctor would have had an encounter with models more than once throughout their career. And some doctors had taken up model making as a hobby.
And Rachel was a good example of this.
There was a special bookcase in her study room that had a small area for thick medical books while the rest of the space was taken up by models that she had pieced together.
However, as work became busier, her hobby had to take a back seat to her profession. But each time there was a model exhibition, she never failed to attend.
And Jack knew about this very well. The card that he gave her was from a person that always had exhibitions for a limited number of people only. Rachel wanted to buy a ticket, but they were sold out befo
voice called out from behind them. "Jack!"
They both stopped at the same time and turned to the direction of the voice. A woman stared at them with a smile. Rachel suddenly felt that she looked somewhat familiar. A short moment later, her countenance suddenly changed and looked pleasantly surprised. "Cherry Xu?" she asked in disbelief.
She was the owner of the models on display.
Cherry Xu grinned sweetly at Rachel revealing her two canine teeth. "Hello, are you Jack's girlfriend?" she asked.
Rachel wanted to explain and was halfway to saying something when her hand was suddenly grabbed by Jack. He quickly turned his head towards her and whispered, "Please, do me a favor, okay?"
The words "I'm not" reached the tip of Rachel's tongue, but quickly retreated back into the unreachable areas of her throat without getting spoken.
Jack gently placed his arm around Rachel's waist and introduced her in an intimate manner. "This is Cherry Xu, my college classmate's sister."
"Nice to meet you," Cherry said to Rachel.
Rachel felt embarrassed as she reached out her hand to shake Cherry's outstretched hand. All of her attention shifted to the arm around her waist. All of her senses focused on that arm that felt unnatural to her, but so warm at the same time.
In the past, Jack introduced her to his friends in the same manner at banquets and gatherings, but she had never been as restless as she was at that moment.
She felt like she was a young girl who suddenly found herself in the arms of her idol.