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Chapter 12 Daylight
Chapter 12 Daylight
Thursday morning, Hengshi at eleven was bright. The glass no longer reflected only a yellow lamp and bodies, the way it had that night. It gave the whole floor's white light back to people. Lin Xi was in her office with a young assistant, finishing the format of the maintenance list. She looked up and only then saw Xiaoyao standing outside the glass. He kept the courtesy she had named: he did not push the door. He waited for her nod.
The thermal box was in his hand, washed clean, together with an eyebrow pencil she had left at home. An eyebrow pencil delivered to the firm by a husband was so slight it almost did not make sense. Slight was exactly right.
"Ten minutes," she said, and let him in. The door, as she had promised, was left a crack open. "Sit. I'll get a cup from the pantry. Or you drink nothing and only sit. Sitting counts too."
"Sitting," he said.
He sat on the narrow sofa. In daylight the sofa looked perfectly clean. Only she knew which seam had once held their wet. The knowing heated her ears once. She did not lock the door. She sat back in her own chair and looked at him across a desk. Both of them suddenly resembled people being introduced for the first time. Paper lint from the print shop was still on his cuff. On her desk the maintenance list was spread out. Names, times, the notary's supervisor, column after column, perfectly clear.
"Did the proof match," she asked.
"It matched. The gold line is finally that one line, not a smear." He picked the lint off his cuff. "Your list looks like a bridge. It's enough if the bridge can be crossed. Don't build the bridge into scenery."
"I'll try." She smiled. "In the ten minutes I won't talk about Pei Song. I'll say one private thing. Yesterday morning's eggs, I really did like the scorched edge. Not to soothe you. A fact. You can scorch them now and then after this. You don't have to succeed every time."
Xiaoyao looked at her. In his eyes was a softness rare in daylight. He was about to answer when someone knocked. Zhou Ning put half her body in, saw Xiaoyao, and stopped. She held a folder to her chest as if it had temporarily become a shield.
"I'm sorry. The door was open and I thought I could come in. Notice from the court. Friday at three in the afternoon, the handling judge will have both sides' lawyers and the parties communicate once on enforcement of the preservation order. Not a hearing. There will be a record. The place is still the original conference room. Zhao Heng has confirmed he will attend. If Mr. Gu attends, you need to decide."
"Mr. Gu attends. Gu Wan attends too," Lin Xi said. "We attend. Beicheng's legal representative may come. Pei Song is not on the chain of engagement. He can't come in. Reply to the clerk now, copy the other side. Neutral tone. Write 'informal observation will not be arranged' as a fact. Don't write it as a feeling."
Zhou Ning took it down. Her eyes were still careful not to rest too long on the sofa. Lin Xi felt an old impulse rise out of her spine: to say to Xiaoyao, in a cold voice, "You step out first," so the assistant would see a partner with no private parts. The impulse was very concrete. Concrete enough that the sentence was already composed. She saw Xiaoyao's eyes. He did not beg her. He only looked at her, to see whether she would let that sentence out.
She tore the sentence up.
"Zhou Ning," she said. The voice was a work voice, and it was not the kind that had gone cold. "Mr. Jiang will sit another five minutes. Put the materials on the desk. Draft the reply first. When it's written, don't run it over to me. Send it to my email. If Pei Song calls the firm, have him find Zhao Heng. He is not a person in this case."
"All right." Zhou Ning set the folder down. Before she backed out she finally looked at Xiaoyao once, and nodded. "Mr. Jiang."
"Thank you for the work," Xiaoyao said.
The door went back to that crack. White light came in through it. Lin Xi's palms were a little damp. She did not hide it.
"I almost sent you away just now," she said. "The sentence was ready. Very polite, and very dirty. Dirty because I wanted to buy five minutes without a husband, in exchange for looking professional in a colleague's eyes. I didn't say it. Not because I'm noble. Because you were looking at me. I still have to tell you the impulse is there. It may be there again. If you hear me speak to you in that voice, say my name on the spot. If you say it, I'll know I've fallen in."
"Lin Xi." He said it now, lightly, like a sound check. "This is a rehearsal. Not catching you. Does the rehearsal work."
"It works." She stood, walked to the sofa, and with the door open bent and kissed his forehead. She did not kiss his mouth. "The forehead is allowed. The mouth waits until we're home. Your ten minutes are up. I have to go write the preparation for Friday's record. You go eat. Tonight, seven to seven-thirty. The communication is Friday afternoon, so tonight we need to sleep. Sleeping can also be an arrangement. Not the chart. The body needs it."
"Tonight, me," he said, standing, picking up the thermal box he no longer needed. "Leading means I decide we're in bed before eleven, and we don't go all the way. We hold each other. If you want to, you say so, and we change it. Advance notice isn't an order. I want your voice still there on Friday."
"No veto," she said. "How do you make even restraint sound like something a person wants to violate."
"It can be violated." He smiled. "We vote again at home. I'm going now. I'll pull the door to a normal crack for you. Not a lock. A lock is a night thing."
After he left, the office was still white. Lin Xi sat down. Her fingers paused on the keyboard for a few seconds, and then she began to write. While she wrote, the warmth at the corner of her mouth was still there. Friday's conference room, Zhao Heng's wording, the softening that might come from Gu Chengyan, all went back into her profession. The profession had not been damaged by a kiss. It only no longer required her to wipe the warmth off her forehead.
That night she was home at seven-ten. The time was beginning to turn into a kind of normal she herself found extravagant. Xiaoyao had not made a complicated meal. Congee, a few small dishes, a plate of fruit already cut. While they ate they talked about Zhou Ning's knock, and about the gold line. They did not talk through a full strategy for court. She left strategy at the firm. He asked once whether Pei Song would be kept outside the door. She said he would. After she said it she kissed him, the toll, and then put the phone on the stool.
Before eleven they were in bed. The light was off. He held her from behind, palm on her lower belly, and did not reach lower. Lin Xi's body wanted him, of course. It wanted him for about ten minutes. She spoke in the dark.
"I want to. But I also want to hear your notice. Tonight we don't go all the way. So we kiss, and when I react we stop, and after we stop you hold me and we sleep. That's my request. If you already want to change the notice, say tonight me, or tonight you. We use the words in the box."
Xiaoyao turned her over and kissed her for a long time. He kissed her until her legs wound up on their own, until he was hard against her stomach, until both their breaths were a mess. Then he stopped. Forehead to forehead. He laughed once, and the laugh was hoarse.
"Stop," he said. "Not refusing you. I'm keeping the notice. On Friday you need this voice. I also need to see that we can stop. Lin Xi, sleeping hard once won't kill anyone. You sleeping wet once won't either. We keep this discomfort, and we keep it for after we come back tomorrow. Who leads tomorrow, we say tomorrow."
"This stop of yours is hateful," she said, and kissed his chin. "And lovable. I accept it. Xiaoyao, if I climb on you in the middle of the night, you can push me awake and remind me of this sentence. A reminder isn't killing the mood. It's what we agreed."
"I'll remind you." He pressed her into his chest. "Sleep. Whether I come on Friday afternoon. You haven't asked. I'll answer now. If you want me in the last row, I'll go. I won't sit with the parties. I'm not a party. I'm the person you can see when you've won, or when you've gotten through it."
"I want you to go," she said. "The last row. Seeing is enough. You don't have to hand me water. I can pour my own. If you're there, my sentences will come back into my own mouth. I believe that now. Not relying on your knee. Relying on the fact that you're present. Presence and substitution, I can tell them apart."
"Good that you can."
The night was very quiet. Now and then the old floor sounded, the building contracting, not someone pacing. When Lin Xi fell asleep in his arms, her body still held a little unfinished heat. The heat did not become resentment. It became a very concrete Friday: a conference room, a record, a black shirt or a dark blue one in the last row, and then home, and then the decision, tonight you, or tonight me.
