THE SADDEST GIRL SINCE THE SONG DYNASTY

AND THEN - DUANG! - PART III

Mrs. Ruy wanted, first of all, to thank Lady Zhao for being there for her daughter in a time of significant familial stress. How wonderful it was, she said, that Bingbing had found such a loving friendship group in Lady Zhao and Ander and the others from the dinner – her daughter had told her all about it and in great detail, apparently. Mrs. Ruy also said she was thinking of flying out to Shanghai from Lanzhou in China's west to keep Bingbing company for a while as she struggles with whatever demons she's struggling with, make for Bingbing her favorite home-cooked meals. "She's eating out too much," Mrs. Ruy declared. "The oil they use these days in street stalls and even some restaurants – scraped out of drains, you know. Made of excrement. Cancerous, all very cancerous, and bad for the mind too." Perhaps they could meet when she's in town, have girlfriend chats and go to a teahouse together, Bingbing's mother proposed.

Lady Zhao did not have girlfriend chats. She would see if she had time, she told Mrs. Ruy, but she couldn't promise anything.

As the call duration ticked along towards forty minutes, Lady Zhao began conceding yes, yes, in an effort to get off the phone –messages had begun stacking from upstairs demanding to know where Lady Zhao had vanished to so suddenly and for so long. Mrs. Ruy was asking if Lady Zhao could do one small favor for her. It involved going to a specific shop, buying a prescribed list of gifts, and taking them to Bingbing. Of course she would reimburse Lady Zhao, she promised, adding that Lady Zhao should also find something for herself.

"No need for that, no need. It's easy. I can do it. Not inconvenient, honestly. Mrs. Ruy, thanks for your call. But I need to go now."

"Don't forget to tell that girl to send her mother a message once she receives the things. She is so forgetful, it drives me crazy."

When Lady Zhao actually looked up the address of the shop that was specified, she discovered it was a great deal more out of the way than she remembered the Yu Gardens to be. Normally she would tell visiting friends and family to stay away from what she considered to be an indefensibly tasteless district, with its souvenir boutiques housed in 1990s imitations of medieval construction, but Mrs. Ruy testified that this particular place had historical significance for Bingbing personally. Apparently she loved their bakery and arbitrary ornaments sold alongside because they reminded her of a previous dark period in her life when her mother had flown in, literally, to the rescue. They had gone there, just to two of them, a mother and daughter pair often mistaken for sisters, after an act of questionable psychological stability on the part of Bingbing. Mrs. Ruy had said, pick out anything you want, and Bingbing had chosen a paper mayfly and an overpriced Old Lady Cake. And that was when they, as a family, were still extremely poor.