Chapter 7: The Osmanthus Walk

They did not use the front door.

When the lion-dance drums started, every head turned to the stage.

Anqi stood, took Mengyao's hand, and walked toward the kitchen corridor.

The grandmother watched them go and raised her tea cup in a small, solemn salute.

Behind the kitchen was a loading bay with a green metal door.

It opened on a back stair, and the stair opened on a side street and a bright October afternoon.

Mengyao ran the last six steps.

She burst out onto the pavement with her green dress hiked in one fist and her face wide open.

"I did it!" she shouted at a startled delivery man. "I walked out of my own engagement banquet!"

"It's a tasting," Anqi said, laughing. "It's a dumpling tasting."

"It's the same thing!"

She was radiant.

Anqi stood on the pavement with her palm still faintly gray from the pencil, and wanted to remember her exactly like this.

"Come on," Mengyao said. "I want to show you something."

They walked a long time, along the lake and under the willows.

Mengyao took off her work-scuffed ballet flats and carried them, and the green hem trailed in the dust.

The Su Causeway ran across the west of the lake like a long green ribbon.

There was water on both sides and old trees leaned over the path.

The afternoon had turned gold, and the whole causeway smelled of osmanthus.

It came in waves, sweet and warm.

"These are mine," Mengyao said, with a sweep of her arm.

"All of them?"

"I tend sixty-two on this stretch. That one with the split trunk is number nine. I talk to it."

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