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Chapter 8 The Business Dinner
Chapter 8 The Business Dinner
On the first Friday of September, the client invited the people in the development stage to dinner at a private kitchen on the Bund. The private room's windows faced the river. The river wind was stopped by the glass. The food was local Shanghainese sweet, so sweet that every bite Fang Qitong took made her want water. She could have gone alone. On the phone Lin Qinian said bringing a companion was fine too, the atmosphere would be looser, and then he added a line: Duan Fei used to come often to this kind of table. Everyone is used to there being someone beside you. That sentence was what made her say Zhou Yu's name.
"Are you sure you want me to go?" Zhou Yu was changing clothes at her place. The shirt was newly bought. She watched him button it a second time, then reached to undo it and button it again. "Those people will look at you. They'll look at your age, look at your shoes, look at what you are to me. When they're done looking they'll laugh. I'll hear the laugh even if I'm not in the room."
"If you want me to go, I'll go." He pressed her hand to his chest so she could feel what was jumping under it. "I'm not going to perform as your husband. I'm going as your person. If they ask, I'll say I'm Zhou Yu. I make lamps. I'm with you. Do you accept that way of saying it?"
"I accept." She drew a deep breath. "If Director Lin presses wine on you, say you have a site the next day. That's true. If they bring up Duan Fei, you don't have to take it. I'll take it."
Six people were already seated in the private room. Lin Qinian was forty-six, well kept, with a loud laugh. When he saw Fang Qitong he stood. His gaze stopped a moment on her collarbone before it moved to Zhou Yu's face. Introductions went once around the table. Fund. Brand. Engineering. Someone did look at Zhou Yu an extra time or two. Fang Qitong said Zhou Yu's name clearly, and she said the words my partner clearly as well. When she finished, the roots of her own ears were hot, but her voice was steady. Zhou Yu's handshake was crisp. He was not humble, and he did not grab the talk.
After three rounds of wine, Lin Qinian leaned his body toward her side of the table. "Qitong, after the divorce you look even brighter. I said early on that Duan Fei couldn't keep you. That man can't see anything outside a spreadsheet. This young friend of yours now looks quite obedient. Makes lamps? It's good that young people can eat bitterness. Don't eat so much bitterness that you forget how to speak."
"He can speak." Fang Qitong turned her wine glass and did not drink. "He doesn't say useless things. Director Lin, the line of indirect light in the scheme was his proposal. If you think the faces at the bar look better than the last sample, you can credit him. You can credit me. Don't call him a little friend. He's twenty-seven, not seventeen. And I am not minding a child."
The table was quiet for two seconds. Manager Wang from engineering smoothed it over and praised the light for being truly soft. Lin Qinian smiled, raised his glass, as if nothing had happened. "All right, all right, all right. Partner. I toast the partner. Qitong, you know me. My mouth is fast. Don't be angry. Anger doesn't look good."
"I'm not angry," she said. "I only corrected the word. Come on. Eat. Sweet-and-sour ribs are too sweet once they go cold."
Under the table, Zhou Yu's hand rested on her knee. It did not wander. It only lay there, warm, like a sentence: I am here. She covered it with her hand and squeezed. His palm was sweating. Only then did she know he was not as loose as he looked. Her chest went soft, and then tight. She was the one who had brought him into this sweet taste that could eat a person.
Through the meal Lin Qinian still kept putting food on her plate. Between the lines of his talk was that he could introduce larger projects, and that at a certain age a person ought to rely on resources and not on temper. Once, under the table, his knee touched her knee and stayed too long. Fang Qitong moved her leg away, very clearly, and on her face she still smiled and talked about the delivery date for the stone. Zhou Yu saw that small moving away. His chopsticks paused. He did not break out at the table. Only, the next time Lin Qinian laid an arm along the back of her chair, he very naturally drew the wrap from the chair back and put it over her shoulders. The gesture was like a partner. It was also like a boundary.
"The air-conditioning is cold," he said, to her, and to the whole table.
When they broke up, Lin Qinian walked them to the elevator and patted Zhou Yu's shoulder. "Young man, keep close. A woman like this, if you don't keep close, there are plenty of people outside who want to. I'll tell you the truth. I've admired her for many years. Admiration isn't against the law."
"Whether admiration is against the law depends on where the hand is put." Zhou Yu finally spoke. His voice was not high. "Tonight the hand was not put in the wrong place. Thank you, Director Lin. About the lamps, on Monday I'll send the revised drawings to Engineer Wang. Good night."
The elevator door closed. In the mirror neither of them was smiling. Fang Qitong looked at his profile. On it there was a pressed anger, and the anger was new, as if he was not yet used to using it on an occasion like this.
"What you said just now was enough," she said. "Say more and it hurts the project."
"I know. That's why I only had one sentence." He watched the floor numbers drop. "But I hate the way he looks at you. I hate him saying keep close. As if you were a cup that might run. I also hate that I myself mind those two words, age, being rolled back and forth by other people. I thought I didn't mind. I mind."
"We'll talk when we get back," she said. She took his hand. "This is an elevator. In the elevator I want to kiss you too. But I want to take you out of this building's sweet taste first. The sweet sticks to clothes."
They did not go straight home. The wind by the river was strong. She pulled him along the Bund for a short stretch. Her heels struck the paving, step by step, very clear. There were many tourists in the night. No one knew them. His anger dropped a little in the wind. It did not disappear. She stopped by a relatively dark stretch of railing, turned, and held him, and buried her face in his chest. The new shirt smelled of the private kitchen's oil and smoke. Under it was his heartbeat, heavy and fast.
"I chose to bring you because you are my person," she said. "Not because I wanted to spite Duan Fei. Duan Fei was not at that table. And not because I wanted to prove to Director Lin that someone still wants me. Those are their ideas. My idea is that, at an important table, I wanted you to see, and I wanted you to be seen. Being seen is uncomfortable. The discomfort is an explanation I owe you. I'm making it up now."
He held her. His arms tightened until she could almost not breathe, and then he loosened a little, as if he were afraid of hurting her. "You don't owe me. I only... Qitong, for ten minutes at that table I felt I was your new accessory. An accessory gets compared too. After the comparison it gets replaced. I hate those ten minutes. I hate his knee more. You moved away. I saw it. I still hate it."
"Hating is allowed," she said, lifting her head. "Hate, and then go home. After we're home, whether you want me, or whether you want to be alone, you choose. I can take either."
"I want you." He said it almost at once, and then added, "But I don't want to treat you, in a temper, as that table. I want to finish saying the anger first. After it's said, I'll touch you. Can you wait?"
"I can wait." She kissed his chin. "This is what I want. You didn't treat me as a battlefield. We'll take a taxi back. Go home. Wash this sweet off. Then you keep talking. If, when you're done, you still want me, I'll be there."
In the taxi through the tunnel he held her hand the whole way, very hard. She did not pull it free. The river was behind them. Home was ahead. This dinner had dragged them off the bed and into other people's eyes. Other people's eyes were not gentle. But his hand was still there. She thought, as long as this hand still asked her whether he might, she was still willing to hand over more nights.
