THE SADDEST GIRL SINCE THE SONG DYNASTY

THE SECOND LAST SUPPER - PART IV

"Ander. I actually wanted to know where you plan to travel," said Trav.

"I'm taking him to a water village this weekend," Lady Zhao said.

"I totally loved Suzhou," said Trav. "You know, the gardens, the canals. They say, there is heaven, and then there is Suzhou."

"Suzhou? Once you've seen one garden, you'll be sick to death of gardens," said Lady Zhao. She then added a spurious fact about the water quality in the canals and the origin of the city's odors. She stabbed her rice.

"You know they also say, there is hell, and then there is China," Dor-Yen's fiancée said.

"Oh, you know where you should definitely take him? Because, as a fellow individual of foreign origin who totally understands Western mindsets, I make an excellent counselor. I mean, this is one of the most awesome places I've been to, and I've been to many very cool places," Trav said. "Spiritual. Have you heard of Dar-For Mountain? It's even close by, relatively at least. Maybe a couple of hours by bus. It's actually an island."

Lady Zhao's faced dropped like she had been slapped. She wanted to know if he was being serious, because if he was, he was being a fool. "It is so packed there on the weekends," she said, with an incredulous lilt. "It is so far away. You must take a train and a bus and a boat and your own food because the food there is sick. The desperate people of Shanghai go there to ask Buddha to cleanse their souls and give them more money, and there are a lot of desperate people in Shanghai. This is your worst idea yet."

"Don't listen to her. I'm serious, Ander, it's well worth going to, if you have the time."

"Is that the one with the hundred-meter tall Buddha?" Dor-Yen asked.

"I am not taking him. Ander can go by himself if he wants. Do you want to Ander?"

The, for the first time in the evening, Bingbing, who had been quietly picturing her life with each guy in the room in turn, but so quietly that none of them really registered her presence, leaned forward, actually raised her hand in a shy wave to call attention to her announcement. She said something like, "I'd like to go. It sounds nice. Can we go, Zhao Lei?" But the remark was too quiet for Ander to hear clearly, and too late to capture anyone's enthusiasm. The subject of Ander and his most pressing travel priorities had been quickly dropped at the dual occurrence of more ribs arriving, and the splintering of pairs into seat-localized conversations.