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The train was good. She liked being up over everything: the freeways and the houses and the LIRR tracks and the river, 5 Pointz and the gas stations and the little storefronts that sold cell phones and pastries and halal meat. She liked disappearing into the crowd and being just another commuter. She liked seeing all the secrets that were invisible from the street, the broken-down car locked in the back yard and the laundry hanging on a rack on the balcony and the pigeons nesting behind the grocery store sign.
Manhattan appeared and disappeared between buildings as the 7 came around a bend, early light gleaming off thousands of windows. She wondered what it would be like to be up on the side of a skyscraper, keeping those windows clean; if you ever got used to being up so high. Maybe it got more frightening the longer you did it. She'd never met anyone who washed windows. It was probably a union thing, like being a firefighter or a cop. What if you were born into a family of window washers and you were afraid of heights?
Vivian nudged her, and Wil started. "Sorry," Viv said. "You look worried."
"Not really," she said, noncommitally. "Thinking about window washers. And trains."
"Window washers?" Vivian said, and Wil could hear the skepticism in her voice. "Not the party?"
"Not until you asked," Wil said, snorting. She leaned closer, over the edge of the hard plastic seat, so her thigh and her shoulder were just touching Viv's.
"Well, all right, then," Vivian said, crossing her arms over her chest. She tipped her head onto Wil's shoulder as the black walls of the tunnel came up around them, train brakes squealing as they pulled into the station. Viv's hair fell across Wil's shoulder, dark and heavy, and Wil swallowed against the sudden tightness in her throat, pressing her cheek against the top of her girlfriend's head.
The platform was busy. The platform was always busy. They pushed their way over to the stairs, crowd bubbling around them. Wil held her jacket shut against the cold drafting down from above. "Which way is it?" Vivian asked when they reached the street, shouting so Wil could hear her over the roar of the diesel bus that was pulling away from the curb.
Wil pulled a folded map printout from her pocket, turned it until the Main Street on the paper ran parallel to the Main Street in front of her, and answered, "Left." The restaurant wasn't far from the station. A lone smoker huddled under the red and yellow awning that proclaimed "Jade Ocean Seafood House" in three languages, and Wil wished that she could have one herself before they went in.
"I'm still amazed your wai gong let them have the party here rather than at the usual place," Vivian said, pulling open the brass-trimmed glass door of the restaurant. The murmur of voices and the clatter of dishes flooded out onto the sidewalk in a great puff of warm, food-scented air.
"It's Ma's big rebellion," Wil answered. "I think after, you know, the wedding thing –" Her voice trailed off as she saw her mother's friends through the half-open door, waiting in the restaurant lobby, and remembered how little she wanted to talk with them about weddings. Of any kind.
"Yeah, there is that," Vivian said dryly.
Wil's new blouse rode up a little as she caught the door, shifting on her shoulders in a weird way that Vivian insisted was perfectly normal for something bias-cut. Wil twitched a little and brought her hand up to the placket, wondering if she shouldn't do up another button. And maybe go into the bathroom and cut the underwires out of her bra.
Viv frowned at her half-raised hand, in that disapproving way that meant we've talked about this, before turning to say hello to Mrs. Chen in her cheeriest Nice Chinese Girl voice. Wil, obediently, left the buttons as they were, with only the slightest of glances down at her nonexistent cleavage as she took off her jacket and folded it over her arm. Vivian was much better at clothes than she was. Wil knew that. Heck, everyone knew that.
A moment later Wil was backed against the lobby fish tank, shaking hands with Hwang Jin the beauty supply wholesaler, who was telling her about how customs kept holding up the new dyes he was bringing over from the mainland. Viv was nowhere to be seen.
"Three cases! I told him, that is all I want, is the three cases, I don't know what's in the rest of the container, I can't be responsible -- " Hwang was saying when the hostess, calling, "Yu party?" collected them up and ushered them toward the little banquet room in the back.
Vivian fell in beside her, and Wil murmured, "You had to disappear on me?"
"My mom made me promise I'd find out if Mr. Chen really is wearing a toupee," Viv whispered back.
Wil blinked at her. "Is he?" she asked, louder than she'd meant to.
"Ssst!" Vivian hissed, as they walked through the doorway of the banquet room. Ma, Xiao Yu, and baby Elizabeth, bundled in a red blanket in her car seat carrier, were surrounded by family friends and Ma's salon ladies and a little knot of strangers who must be Xiao Yu's MTA co-workers. A shiny mylar banner with "It's a girl!" printed on it in hot pink letters was taped incongruously to the wall between a pair of gold dragon wall hangings.
"Wil!" Ma called, waving her over. "You look so nice!" She beamed at Vivian. "You took her shopping."
"I – yes, ah yi, she does look good, doesn't she?" Vivian replied, her smile tight. Wil forced a pleasant expression onto her own face and clutched her jacket.
"But you couldn't do something about the pants?" Ma asked, gesturing at Wil's jeans.
Vivian shrugged. "You know what she's like," she said.
They'd had an argument in the fitting room, Viv trying to talk her into a pair of flares, sewn from something shiny and synthetic and snug through the hips. Wil had shaken her head and shaken her head and finally walked to the cash register with the least bad of the shirts, refusing to listen to her girlfriend's protests. When Vivian asked if she wanted to stop in the intimates section, just for fun, Wil had muttered something extremely vulgar in Cantonese, followed up with, "I have got a perfectly fine bra, I promise," in English, and kept going.
"Oh, I do know. I do," Ma said sympathetically. "She never wants to look pretty." She turned toward the baby, who Lao Yu, every bit the proud grandfather, was lifting carefully out of her carrier to show off to a friend. "This one, I can already tell, she is going to be such a girl."
Wil swallowed her reaction, saying instead, "Is she sleeping through the night yet?"
"Oh, soon, soon," Ma said, her expression flickering, and Wil's smile broadened a little.
Xiao Yu, turning from a woman in an MTA fleece jacket, shook their hands enthusiastically. "So glad to see you both," he said.
"Likewise," Wil said, meaning it. He really was a nice man, and what her wai po would have called a looker. Also he was completely stupid about Ma and Elizabeth, which went a long way.
"Will you have a seat?" Yu asked. "We thought you'd be here at our table. You, and your grandfather, and my father. And this is my manager, Jerry Briggs, and his wife LaTonya." Yu gestured toward the couple who were already seated. "Jerry, LaTonya, my, ah," he hesitated, "Hwei-lang's daughter Wilhelmina, and her partner Vivian. Wil is a doctor!" he finished, proudly.
"So nice to meet you," Vivian said, taking the chair Yu pulled out for her.
Wil hitched her own chair forward to the round table and tugged her napkin down onto her lap.
"That's a lot for your little girl to live up to, Yu," Jerry said. "Big sister who's a doctor! And hey, when the baby's sick, I bet she makes housecalls!"
Wil shrugged, thinking of all the trips she'd made to her mother and Yu's apartment in the last month, even as Viv said, "She's a cardiac surgeon. Housecalls – well, not so much her thing. She's at the hospital all day, sometimes. How long was it yesterday?"
"Eighteen hours?" Wil offered guiltily. "It, ah – there were complications." There were always complications. Residency was nothing but complications, most days.
"Wow," Jerry said. "A little thing like you? Gosh. You know, I had a bypass three years ago, and since then –" and he went on to tell them all about his surgery, the big scar he had on his chest that didn't go away even though he taped this silicone pad to it every night, the tingling he had sometimes in his left foot, and the shortness of breath he still got when the elevator at work went out and he had to take the stairs.
By the time he started describing the side-effects his heart medication had on his and LaTonya's love life, the other guests were seated, a sleepy Elizabeth had been tucked back into her carrier (with much discussion, on that side of the table, about how much babies should sleep at various ages and what Ma ought to be eating to keep her milk up), and Wil's wai gong was openly staring at the transit manager.
Wil offered, wordlessly, to pour her grandfather a cup of tea; he signaled his approval. She poured for Vivian, continuing to nod politely at Jerry every time it seemed appropriate, then filled her own cup and set the pot up on the lazy susan. Better to keep her hands busy than to gawk at Xiao Yu's boss, no matter what he was saying.
"I wanted to take the Viagra, and my doctor wasn't sure it was the best thing for me, after the surgery, but I know this guy at district, and he said –" Jerry was telling them, when LaTonya finally leaned forward, tapping at her husband's hand with a gold-ringed finger.
"Honey, this is a party," she said firmly. "You want to talk about that with a doctor, I will make you an appointment with Dr. Peterson down at the clinic." She shook her head and gave Wil a rueful smile.
"Oh," Jerry said, taken aback. "I, ah, right!" He grinned good-naturedly at Wil. "You probably hear enough about people's heart problems at work."
"Enh," Wil said, lowering her cup. "Well." Vivian patted her knee under the table.
"I have herbs that work much better than Viagra," Lao Yu said, in Mandarin, with a sly look at Dr. Gao. "Do you think I should offer, Professor?"
Vivian's eyes met Wil's with a look which said Did he just say what I think he said? and were answered by a twitch of the lip that replied Oh yes he did, and I am so not translating that into English.
Viv, clearly eager to find another topic of conversation, turned toward the steam cart that a smock-clad waitress was trundling into the room. "Oh, look," she said brightly, "I wonder what we'll get first."
"Har gau?" asked the waitress, tipping the lid off the little silver dish. A puff of steam rose off the glistening dumplings, fat with shrimp and vegetables. Vivian nodded and the waitress set the dish on the table.
Wil offered a dumpling to her wai gong, who seemed only too glad to focus on something other than what Lao Yu was saying. He poured a little puddle of soy sauce into his saucer, dipped the har gau into it, put it in his mouth, and nodded when Wil offered him a second.
"She's such a beautiful baby," LaTonya said, waving a hand toward the sleeping Elizabeth. "Are the two of you planning to have children?" she asked Vivian, and Dr. Gao choked on his mouthful of shrimp.
"I don't think we've decided on that yet," Vivian said, as Wil, chewing her own har gau, patted her grandfather's back. He waved her off with one hand and took a swallow of tea.
"Well, you're still young. Plenty of time," LaTonya said. "I didn't have my first until I was thirty-four." She pushed the lazy susan around, ball bearings tick-ticking, lifted the lid on another little covered dish, and exclaimed, "Oh, look, Jerry, it's those buns you like."
"I love the custard ones," Viv said, obviously glad to change the subject. Wil looked at her nervously, and Vivian smiled back, I so don't want to talk about us and babies anywhere near your family clear in her expression. "Let me give you one of these," she said, nimbly turning her chopsticks to lift one of the fluffy white bao.
"No, no, I'm good," Wil said, shaking her head.
"You're sure?"
"Later," Wil said.
Ma leaned past Lao Yu. "Are you all right?" she asked her still-coughing father.
"Oh, yes," he said, in Mandarin, glaring first at her and then at Wil. "I am fine."
Wil and Ma exchanged a look, Ma's eyes turning worriedly to her father, then returning to her daughter. A second steam cart clattered by, and both women raised their hands simultaneously to wave the waitress over. "Gai lan?" she asked, and they both nodded, making a bit of a show of concentrating on the little ritual of the hot-water bath and the oyster sauce.
"Bad enough she's still not married him," Wil heard her grandfather mutter, "but how would a baby even know which one of those two is the –" He broke off, putting his second dumpling in his mouth.
Wil held her breath as Viv leaned around her and said, softly, in her slow Chinese-school Mandarin, "How would a baby know which one is the what, bo fu?"
Oh, shit. "Let me give you some of these, wai gong," Wil said, pulling the dish of greens from the waitress' hand. She didn't so much kick Vivian as, well, happen to put her foot where Vivian's ankle was. Inadvertently. She was sure she hadn't done it hard enough that Viv should gasp like that.
"Pass those down here!" Lao Yu said. "Greens are good for the digestion. Keeps a person in balance. You should have a good helping, professor," he said, turning to his old friend.
Viv pushed her chair back. "Excuse me," she said, "I need to go to the ladies' room."
"I'll, ah, join you," Wil said, her chopsticks clattering onto her plate.
The restroom door hadn't closed behind them before Viv was turning to her, voice low and indignant, saying, "What are you -- did your grandfather seriously just ask, in front of all those people, which one of us is the man?"
"I – " Wil's hands twitched. "I'm sorry. He's very old-fashioned."
"Old-fashioned would be being polite at a family party!" Vivian exclaimed.
And that was when Wil's phone rang. The work phone. The one she'd programmed to play the ridiculously cheerful samba ringtone, because sometimes that made Viv laugh, and since the on call phone never rang with good news -- yeah. With an apologetic look at her girlfriend, she fished it out of her jeans pocket and flipped it open.
"Doctor Pang?" the nurse asked, voice crackling. "It's Marcy, at the ICU. Mrs. Bussey's blood pressure is real low, and Doctor Shing wanted me to call. He's worried about internal bleeding."
Wil leaned back against the edge of the sink, resting her forehead in her hand, listening as the nurse ran through Mrs. Bussey's symptoms and the medications and dosages they'd tried already. Vivian shook her head, exasperated, and disappeared into one of the stalls.
"Yeah, okay, I'm all the way out in Flushing, so it'll be a while before I can get there. The traffic shouldn't be too bad, but still. Tell him I'm on my way," Wil was saying when Vivian emerged. She shut the phone and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Viv, but I've got to –"
Vivian shut off the tap so forcefully it squeaked and tugged a paper towel from the holder. She wouldn't even look at Wil. "You're about to go in to work and leave me here with your family, aren't you." It wasn't a question.
"I – " she bit her lip, sighing. "Look, it's your father making me go in. It's not like I want to."
Viv glared at her.
That maybe hadn't been the best way to put it, Wil thought. She shoved the phone back in her pocket, looking away from Vivian's unhappy face, before finally offering, "You could come with me. I've got to get a cab anyhow, I could have it drop you at your place."
Vivian crumpled the paper into a little ball, her hand tight around it. "You don't think they'll think I'm rude?"
Wil took a deep breath, let it out. "I -- don't really care what they think right now," she said, slowly, and watched as Viv's face relaxed, just a little. "Come on. They're not going to believe that I've actually been called back to the hospital anyhow."
And that actually got a half-smile. "It does sound like the sort of thing we'd make up just to get out of here." Vivian shouldered her purse, drew herself up. "All right, you say goodbye to your mom, I'll call us a cab."
Besides, Wil thought, I so want to get out of this shirt. And this fucking brassiere. As the bathroom door closed behind Vivian, she tugged the underwires back into place, did up one more button, then glanced at herself in the mirror. She was so changing when she got to the hospital.
~*~
Vivian would have looked asleep, eyes closed, buried under the duvet, hair curling across the pillow, to someone who hadn't seen her twitch. Which Wil had.
She dropped the little pink bakery box on the bedspread and watched Vivian's eyelashes flutter in response, then shucked off her jacket, kicked off her sneakers, and crawled onto the bed.
"Brought you something," she murmured.
Vivian's eyes opened halfway. "What?" She didn't sound friendly.
Wil set the bakery box next to her head and lifted the lid. The egg-and-honey smell of the naihuangbao rose from it, phoenixlike. "You didn't get your bao, so I got some for you."
"I – you –" She rose on one elbow and peered into the box. "You seriously – where did you find that has them hot, this time of night?"
Wil grinned. "I have to have some secrets." She pulled one of the buns out of the box and held it before Vivian's mouth. "Enh?"
Vivian leaned forward and bit, sighing a little as the warm custard on the inside of the pastry hit her tongue. She chewed, pensively, and Wil saw a little tiny smile starting at one corner of her mouth. Vivian swallowed, and Wil, raising her eyebrows inquiringly, held the rest of the bun as she took a second bite.
"These are so good," Vivian said, swallowing.
They should be, Wil thought, I paid the bakery enough for a special order, but she didn't say that. She was learning. She said, instead, "You deserve something sweet," half-shrugging, trying to indicate our family, they make no sense, we love them, please don't blame me you know I am useless about this.
Vivian shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it."
Wil gestured with the remains of the bun. "Okay."
Vivian reached up and took the rest of the bao in her hand, saying, around another warm mouthful, "Aren't you going to have any?"
"Oh, yeah," Wil told her, and snatched the last bite from her hand, lipping her fingertips.
Vivian laughed, and Wil knew she had her. Wil put a hand on her shoulder and said, "You're a messy eater."
"I am?" Vivian said incredulously.
"You are." She leaned down and kissed the corner of her mouth, tasting a sweetness that was part bao and mostly Vivian, and said, "You've got custard on your face."
"I do?"
"Mmmhm. Here," and she licked at Vivian's chin, "and here," and she dropped a kiss on one high cheekbone, "and I'm sure there's some right –" and the rest was muffled because they were kissing, and Vivian's hands were coming up from under the duvet to slide under her t-shirt.
"I don't think so," Vivian said, laughing.
"Oh, I'm quite sure," Wil told her, seriously, tugging the blanket down. "I should perform a complete examination. Make sure you haven't gotten any of it anywhere else." She dropped another kiss on Vivian's cheek. "See, there was some, right there, and you missed it. As your doctor, I'm very concerned about any issues you're having with your eating –"
"You're not my doctor. And what happened to your good bra?" She was giggling now, arching up to meet Wil's mouth, and Wil felt that reassuring rush: she's going for it, she's going for it, oh good, I can do this.
"I am totally your doctor," Wil said. "Yours personally. All yours." She pulled at the buttons running down the placket of Vivian's nightgown, popping them through the knit fabric and kissing at her collarbone, sucking along her shoulder, listening to her gasp, then ran her mouth along the upswept curve of one breast and onto her nipple.
"You are so playing me," Vivian said, breathlessly. "If you think you can come back in here and feed me bao and have your way with me and – ooh." Wil sucked hard and flicked her tongue and smiled as Vivian gasped, eyes falling shut.
Vivian would have been more persuasive, Wil thought, if she hadn't been stripping Wil's t-shirt off over her head – Wil helpfully raised her arms – and tugging at the tie of her scrub pants. She lifted her hips and toed her way under the duvet and sank into the warmth of a soft bed on a cold night.
There was a muttered curse from Vivian, a few minutes later, when she rolled Wil over and knocked the bakery box onto the floor. "Don't worry about it," Wil said, clutching at the lean-muscled strength of her back. "Oh, that again, please, please, your hand –"
The rest of the bao were cold, when they finally got to them, and one had a weird flat spot on one side where it had been lying against the side of the box.
Neither of them minded. They were still sweet.