The Moon Festival Cousin Switch novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Same Bench

The grandmother makes the two cousins by marriage light the lantern and split one mooncake. In the dark car outside Mengyao's building their hands touch and stay, and her mother's window is lit.

Downstairs, the grandmother had already set up the moon table.

It stood on the balcony: a red cloth, four mooncakes, a pomelo, and two thick candles that guttered in the wind.

"Every Mid-Autumn the unmarried women of the family bow to the moon," she announced. "Mengyao, Anqi. Both of you."

"Nainai," Mengyao said, "I'm twenty-four, not four."

"Then you can bow without being carried."

The grandmother pushed the two of them shoulder to shoulder in front of the table.

She put one lit incense stick in each of their hands.

Anqi bowed.

Mengyao bowed a half second later, so their foreheads nearly met.

When Anqi straightened, Mengyao was grinning at her with the incense smoke curling up between them.

"Now the cake," the grandmother said.

She cut a lotus-seed mooncake into two unequal halves and handed the larger to Anqi and the smaller to Mengyao.

"Swap," she said. "Cousins give each other the bigger piece."

"We aren't really cousins," Anqi said. "We have no blood in common. Anning is my sister and Haoran is her husband, that's all."

"Exactly," the grandmother said happily. "It is the best kind. You can marry whoever you like."

Anning choked on her wine.

Haoran found something fascinating in his bowl of soup.

At the far end of the room, Gao Chenyu stood with his gift box and a thin, patient smile.

Mengyao's mother was talking to him in a low voice, nodding too hard.

Mengyao swapped the pieces with Anqi.

Their fingers touched on the paper, and neither of them moved quickly.

"Bigger one's yours," Mengyao said.

"You're giving me the bigger one on purpose."

"It's a family rule. I was told."

"By a woman who's trying to marry us off to each other."

"She's seventy-eight," Mengyao said. "She's allowed one scheme per festival."

Anqi bit into the cake to hide her smile, and it was sweet and dense and tasted like lotus and salted yolk.

Anning crossed the room and caught her by the sleeve.

"Don't you dare be difficult tonight," she whispered. "You were practically glowing up there on the roof."

"There was a moon."

"There is a moon every month. You don't usually glow."

"Anning."

"Be nice to her," Anning said, and let go of the sleeve with a look so innocent it was suspicious.

It was past ten when the party began to break up.

Mengyao's mother wanted to drive Gao Chenyu home herself and wanted Mengyao in the back seat.

"I'll take her," Anqi said.

Every head in the hallway turned.

"I live out near Gongshu," Anqi said, which was a lie, "and she's on the way. It's no trouble."

Gao Chenyu opened his mouth.

Mengyao's mother looked from Anqi to the grandmother, who was beaming from her armchair.

"Fine," the mother said finally. "Mengyao, text me when you're in."

Anqi's small grey car smelled of old paper and the lemon candy she kept in the cup holder.

She drove along the river with the windows cracked and the moon following them on the water.

Mengyao sat with her hands under her knees and was quiet for two bridges.

"You don't live anywhere near Gongshu," she said at last.

"No."

"You lied to my mother's face."

"I was raised to lie to elders only when it was kind."

"Is that a rule?"

"It's a family rule," Anqi said. "I was told."

Mengyao laughed so hard that she had to wipe her eyes on her cardigan sleeve.

When Anqi stopped in front of an old brick apartment building, the engine ticked and neither of them reached for a door.

The street was empty.

A single streetlamp threw yellow light on the dashboard and across the back of Mengyao's hand.

"Can I tell you something stupid?" Mengyao said.

"Please."

"At my cousin's wedding I almost asked for your number. I thought, she'll think it's strange. I'm his cousin, she's her sister. It's complicated."

"It's not complicated," Anqi said. "I was keeping a list of reasons not to look at you, and the list was very short."

Mengyao turned her head.

For a moment Anqi could hear nothing at all except the engine and her own pulse.

Mengyao reached over and took Anqi's hand off the gear stick.

She turned it palm up under the streetlamp and ran her thumb over the faint blue ink at the edge of Anqi's thumb.

"You write on yourself," Mengyao said softly.

"I translate. I write down words I can't hold in my head."

"What word are you holding right now?"

Anqi looked at the small warm hand around her hand.

"I don't have one," she said. "That's the problem."

Mengyao's thumb stopped moving.

Her face was only a foot away, round and flushed and very serious, with the curtain bangs shadowing her eyes.

Anqi did not breathe.

Then Mengyao's phone buzzed in her lap, and both of them jumped.

She read the screen, and the color went out of her face.

"What is it?" Anqi said.

"My mother. 'I'm at your flat. Come up, I brought something for you.'"

Mengyao looked up at the fourth floor of the brick building.

One window was lit, and a woman's silhouette stood behind the curtain.

A small plum-colored car was parked at the curb with its hazard lights blinking.

"She dropped Gao Chenyu off and came straight here," Mengyao said. "She has my spare key."

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