Chapter 27.5 — Xu Fang’s Date

The restaurant Xu Fang had chosen was not the restaurant he’d immediately planned on.

The original restaurant — a Sichuan place on Renmin Road that he’d been to twice before — had a two-hour wait when he arrived, which he discovered ten minutes before she was due to show up. He’d stood outside it for a moment, assessing his options, and walked briskly in the direction of somewhere else.

Somewhere else turned out to be a Japanese place a couple of streets over that he’d never been to, but had a menu posted outside that, upon rapid inspection, contained food which sounded good enough for a first date.

He got a table for two.

He texted: Change of plan — I’ve found somewhere better. I’ll send the address.

She replied with a thumbs up.

He put his phone away and looked at the interior of the restaurant he’d never been to, which was fine. It had paper lanterns in red and white and the tables were clean. Other diners appeared to be having acceptable experiences.

The waiter came and asked if he wanted to order drinks.

“Two waters,” said Xu Fang.

***

Fang Ruoyan arrived about fifteen minutes later.

He had seen her profile photos approximately forty times over the past two weeks of messaging, which he’d thought would mean he was prepared to meet her. He was not fully prepared.

The profile photos had done an accurate job — she looked like herself, which was more than Xu Fang could say about his own profile, but she was significantly more dressed up for the occasion than he was.

She was a primary school teacher, which she’d told him early in the conversation. She was thirty-one and had short hair. There was some dried paint on her wrist which he was not sure she had yet noticed, as it blended decently into her skin.

Xu Fang decided not to mention it.

“This place?” she said, looking at the interior.

“Good or bad?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said, sitting down. “I like the lanterns, I suppose.”

“The original place had a two-hour wait.”

“So this is the backup plan.”

“This is an improvement. I’ve decided.”

She looked at him for a moment and picked up the menu.

***

He asked her what she was having and she said “The salmon thing” pointing at it, and he decided to order the same thing out of panic. When the waiter asked what they would like, he froze up, said “The salmon thing for me” instead of “for her” and simply had to go with the flow there.

The water arrived and she poured her own glass.

“How was school?” he asked.

She looked up from the menu, which she was still reading even though they’d already ordered. “Today?”

“This week, I suppose.”

“Exhausting,” she said, somehow without complaint despite her complaint. “We’re doing a segment on local animals and one of the kids brought in something he said was a frog. It was not a frog.”

“What was it?”

“We’re not entirely sure, but he shouldn’t have brought it into the classroom!” she laughed.

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“He must have been having fun.”

“He’s been like this all term. Last month it was a feather he said was from a phoenix. The month before that, a rock he was convinced had a face.”

“Did the rock have a face?”

She considered this honestly and showed a picture from her phone. “A bit, yes,” she admitted.

“A bit? I know this guy!” he laughed back.

“So what have you been up to?”