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Chapter 8 Julu Road
Chapter 8 Julu Road
Monday evening came fast. At the firm Lin Xi checked the reconsideration plan one more time, and at the end she deliberately left the folder in her office and did not take it to dinner. Xiaoyao came downstairs to collect her at five-forty. Dark blue shirt, one button open at the collar, jacket over his arm. He did not look like the gallery. He looked like a person who knew how to walk on a street like this.
The car was hers. He drove. West Nanjing Road to Julu Road was not far, but there were many red lights. Lin Xi looked at her dark green dress. Her hair really was down. The underwear was on. Silk against her skin, reminding her that someone had made, for her, a decision she had been ready to hand over.
"If I look at you," she said, "you pour water. What do you say while you pour."
"I say I'm changing this glass for tea. Then I ask Gu Wan which scent in the shop smells best right now. Pull the talk off the door. If you want to take it back yourself, you take it. The signal is help. It isn't stealing your mouth."
"All right." She put her hand on his thigh for a while, then took it back. "Xiaoyao, I want you a little. Right now. It's not appropriate. I'm saying it so it doesn't turn into an accident in the private room."
"Received." The corner of his mouth moved. "We deal with it at home. Eat first. You can redo your lipstick once. I could also kiss it off after, but then walking in would be too obvious. Bear it."
Wutong Hall was on the second floor of an old house. There really were plane trees outside the windows. Inside was a round table, the lamps a little yellow. Gu Chengyan was already there. Fifty-five, complexion well kept, voice large. He shook Xiaoyao's hand first, and he shook it hard.
"Mr. Jiang, I've long heard of you. In this little matter of ours, Ms. Lin is the pillar that keeps us steady. You have to let her come home now and then. Of course, tonight we are not allowed to settle the account of coming home. Family meal."
"Mr. Gu." Xiaoyao's smile was shallow. "She didn't bring a folder today. That's a fact I saw. The other accounts we'll do ourselves. They don't go on this table."
Gu Chengyan blinked, then laughed out loud, and after the laugh he looked at Lin Xi as if he were pricing her again. Gu Wan arrived two minutes late, a little wind in her short hair. She sat and said the dishes were already ordered, don't add any, adding would turn it into a banquet and not a meal. Pei Song arrived last. Forty, a very thin watch, a smile that was not thin. He wore a good, restrained wood scent, exactly enough to show he had studied the Gu family, and not so heavy as to be rude.
"Ms. Lin, I heard about your manner in court," Pei Song said. The handshake was exactly long enough, not so short as to be discourteous, not so long as to occupy. "Mr. Jiang makes books. I saw the binding you did for The Paper Edge. The black was very clean."
Xiaoyao looked at him. "That set was two years ago. You remember it, which means you did the homework. I'll accept the homework. Tonight I only came to eat."
Under the table, Lin Xi's hand loosened a little. He did not need her to rescue the scene. That both settled her and made a heat she did not know. The dishes came. Eel in sizzling oil, plain stir-fried shrimp, a pot of soup. The huangjiu was warmed. Gu Chengyan poured for her. Xiaoyao naturally offered his own empty cup and took the place of the second glass.
"Ms. Lin holds her drink. Let her drink," Gu Chengyan said.
"Tomorrow she still has to see whether Zhao Heng actually files for reconsideration," Xiaoyao said. "I'll take this glass. After I've taken it, if the food is salty, pour her tea. Mr. Gu, this is looking after your own counsel, not pressing her to drink. I understand. So I'm not polite about taking it."
Gu Wan tapped her bowl with her chopsticks, which counted as praise. Pei Song smiled and slid the subject toward where the spices came from, toward the temperature and humidity of warehouses. He slid so smoothly that Lin Xi could almost hear the track.
"Speaking of preservation," Pei Song said, "the story outside about Beicheng's warehouse plan is very crude. In fact, if it's only two people, two locks, and the Gu family free to inspect at any time, it may not be a bad thing for an old shop. Ms. Lin, you're a professional. A professional doesn't look only at hostility. Custody offered in good faith can sometimes make reconsideration unnecessary. What do you think."
The heat of the huangjiu was still in her stomach. The lamp over the round table made every face gentle. Gentleness was the easiest way to soften a sentence. Pei Song looked at her. Gu Chengyan looked at her too. In Gu Chengyan's eyes was the expectation that if she only nodded, tonight could become easy. On the tip of Lin Xi's tongue the dangerous word had already appeared: could. Could discuss. Could look at the text. Could be not tonight, but leave a crack in the door.
Just then Xiaoyao's knee touched her knee. Not sex. A reminder. One touch, then it stayed. She cut her eyes sideways. He had already picked up the teapot. Tea ran into her cup. The sound was light.
"I'm changing this one for tea," he said, in the tone of someone only looking after a person who had to be up early tomorrow. "Ms. Gu, if the shop kept only one scent for autumn, which would you keep. I'm an outsider. I've only smelled the one at your door. Like wood after rain."
Gu Wan caught it fast. "Camphor wood and aged tangerine peel. Not the sweet ones that try to please. Sweet sells fast. What it leaves behind is a smell return customers don't want to smell again."
The talk was pulled off. The door was not discussed into a door that could be evaluated. Lin Xi's word "could" died behind her teeth, and it died hard enough that a thin sweat came up on her back. She lifted the tea. The tea was hot. The heat put her back inside her own mouth.
"Mr. Pei," she said. Her voice was half a degree lower than usual. She heard it, and she still finished the sentence. "A change in the place of custody is not on tonight's table. We have answered Zhao Heng's letter. If Beicheng or any investor has a proposal, it goes in writing. If, in the writing, the key sits with the board, then it isn't custody. It's a move. A move is not good faith. I've said that. Next I want to hear Ms. Gu on camphor wood. I actually want to hear it."
The room was quiet for a second. Pei Song's smile was still there, thinned by a layer. Gu Chengyan's expectation cracked, and Gu Wan caught it with one line: "My brother is most afraid of camphor wood. He says it smells like medicine." The table turned again. Under it, Lin Xi's hand was shaking. Xiaoyao's hand came over it and covered it. He did not rub. He only covered, the way you cover a seal so it will not be smeared before it dries.
She knew where the danger was in her voice having dropped half a degree. That was not her voice in court. That was the voice from Saturday's sofa, after she had finally changed an instruction into a request. If Pei Song's ear was sharp, he would hear that this was not weakness. It was another kind of private. He looked at her once, looked at Xiaoyao once, and raised his glass only to Gu Chengyan. He did not push that door again.
Halfway through she went to the washroom. In the mirror the lipstick was still there, but her eyes were too bright. Gu Wan pushed the door in, stood beside her to wash her hands, and did not look at her.
"The tea was changed well," Gu Wan said. "It wasn't your husband taking the words. It was you swallowing that 'could' yourself. I saw you swallow it. Pei Song saw it too. He'll change strategy. He won't change the target. After you go back, don't drink, and don't explain to my brother for too long. Explaining will make him feel the door is still there."
"I almost said it," Lin Xi said to the mirror. She did not dodge. "Not because of the wine. Because the light was too warm, and his sentence sounded too much like care. My husband touched me once. Then I came back. This is private. Ms. Gu can treat it as unheard."
"I heard it." Gu Wan shut off the tap. "I'll take the private talk with me. Your person is outside. Go back and sit. I can say two more sentences about camphor wood, and leave your breath somewhere to go."
Back at the table, Pei Song had switched to his collection of old books. He asked Xiaoyao what cover was in his hands now. Xiaoyao said a book of poems about plane trees and receipts, one gold line only, no varnish accepted. Pei Song praised it as restraint. After the praise he turned to Lin Xi, and the smile was tender.
"A person like Ms. Lin, with someone at home who makes books, that's good. Outside they all say a lawyer's marriage is hard. Seeing the two of you, it doesn't seem so hard. Everything stable, and then the case is stable."
This was the trap that wanted her to say everything was fine, laid with velvet. Lin Xi's back tightened. She looked at Xiaoyao. This look was not the signal to pour water. The water had already been used. This look said: you told me you couldn't take everything is fine. You say it. I'm giving this sentence back to you. Not because I can't say it. Because this sentence belongs to both our mouths.
Xiaoyao set his cup down. He did not look at Pei Song for long, but every word arrived.
"It isn't stable," he said. "We only recently pulled our talk out of a calendar. The rescue was average. The people are real. Whether the case is stable depends on Ms. Lin's work and the court's ruling. It doesn't depend on us performing affection at this table. To Mr. Gu. To Ms. Gu. If the old shop's door is to stay, don't tie it to someone else's marriage."
Gu Chengyan's smile stiffened, then truly loosened. When it loosened he looked a little older, and a little truer.
"Mr. Jiang is frank," he said. "I'm old-fashioned. Old-fashioned people sometimes look at a person and see a memorial arch. I won't make anyone drink a forfeit. Gu Wan would scold me. Come, eat the shrimp. The shrimp is about to go cold."
Pei Song did not offer that cup again. His watch flashed once under the lamp, thin, expensive, and it lit nothing. When the meal broke up he left first. The handshake was still exactly right. He left one sentence: "Written things will always have writing." Gu Chengyan walked them to the head of the stairs, started to speak, stopped, and in the end only said, Ms. Lin, today's tea was very good.
In the car, the door shut, and only then did Lin Xi's shoulders drop. Her palms were all sweat. Xiaoyao did not drive at once. The shadow of a plane tree lay on the windshield.
"I almost talked the case away," she said. "By a little. The word 'could' was already on my tongue. If you hadn't touched me, I would have left a crack in that door. If I had left the crack, we would have lost the structure before reconsideration. Xiaoyao, this isn't sweet talk. It's a fact. You pulled me back out of one sentence. I'm grateful, and I'm afraid. Afraid that later I'll use your knee to make legal judgments."
"You didn't use my knee to judge," he said. "The judgment was what you said yourself. A move is not good faith. That sentence was yours. I only poured tea and asked about camphor wood. Gu Wan was the one who caught the camphor wood. Don't write a pull-back that belonged to three people as me saving your profession."
She turned to look at him. The streetlight laid a thin line along the side of his face. She suddenly wanted to cry, and wanted to laugh.
"You never take the credit."
"If I take the credit it becomes varnish." He started the car. "Home. At home you can shake however you want. In the car, drink some water first. The water is in the cup holder on your side. I put it there before we left. Not a schedule. I knew you'd be afraid afterward."
She drank. The water was warm. The flask had sat in the car overnight and was somehow still right. Julu Road fell back toward Hunan Road. Her legs were together. The silk underwear was still on. Her body, though, was quietly heating from the afterfear and from the memory of that knee. She did not deal with it in the car. She remembered what he had said. The sex they would do at home.
"When we get home, don't shower first," she said softly. "Let me look at you first. I want to tell you how much, in that room, I wanted to say that request to you alone. I held it. After holding it, I want a reward now. The reward isn't because I performed well. It's because I still want you. If you're tired, we only hold each other. If you aren't—"
"I'm not tired," Xiaoyao said. His eyes stayed on the road. "The reward starts when you open your mouth. Open it with a complete sentence. We're almost home. The elm bench is still crooked. When the door opens, you leave Julu Road outside. Leave Zhao Heng outside. Leave Pei Song's watch outside. The only person who comes in is the one you want."
"I want you," she said.
The car stopped under the plane tree. They had forgotten to turn off one light on the third floor before they left. There was a little yellow in the window. It did not look like a schedule. It looked like light someone had left on, and it was not expensive. Lin Xi undid her seat belt, leaned over, and kissed him once before he got out. The kiss was short. Short as a private seal, set on this evening that had nearly slipped, proving they had still come back.
