Chapter 24: Two Names on the Door

Every face at the long table turned to Jinyu.

"I am," she said. "Wen Jinyu."

"And what's the board to say, madam?"

"Tingsong Teahouse," Jinyu said. "That stays. My father painted it himself, and it was crooked, and I never let anyone fix it."

"And beneath?"

She looked at Qiao.

Qiao's eyes behind the steel rims were as round as saucers.

"Wen," Jinyu said, slowly, to the painter. "And Lin."

Nobody spoke.

Auntie Hu blew her nose into her apron with a noise.

"Two names," the painter said, writing nothing, as though it were an ordinary order. "Side by side or one under the other?"

"Side by side," said Qiao, in a very small voice. "If it's allowed."

"It's allowed," said Ruolan, and the printer began to clap.

The painter worked on a ladder by lantern light until midnight, with the whole lane holding the ladder.

By the time he was done the lacquer was wet and black and gleaming.

Jinyu sat on the bottom step and watched the last stroke, and found that Qiao had sat down beside her.

Their shoulders touched.

"I have nothing," Qiao said softly. "A satchel, two gowns, and a pair of pawn tickets."

"You have a board."

"It's your board."

"Look at it again."

Qiao looked.

Then she put her head down on her knees and laughed until she shook.

When the lane had gone home and Auntie Hu had bolted the shutters, Jinyu took the lamp and led her up the stair.

Her room at the top had changed in three weeks.

There was a second cardigan on the hook, and a stack of ruled paper on the table.

A small tin of ink stood by the pillow, and a pen lay across it.

It looked, Jinyu thought, like a room that two women lived in.

Qiao shut the door and leaned against it.

"Come here," Jinyu said.

"Aunt."

"Don't."

"Aunt Jinyu," Qiao said, and crossed the floor.

They kissed for a long time.

It was not like the storeroom or the cot or the boarding house.

It had no fear in it and no hurry.

Each of them paid the other tender attention.

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