《On The Same Days》橄榄树

19、4th October Friday, 2002 Shenyang

　　Een goed akkoord maakt een zachte scheiding
　　(A good agreement makes it less awkward to break)
　　By lunch table across their office building, Ling and May were having their flied lice and some dumpling soups.
　　“Tina is coming back next month,” Ling had told already almost everyone she met since she got Tina’s e-mail.

　　“Really? When? I mean which date?” May was really happy.
　　Though one way or another, Tina and she hadn’t paired up as Ling with Tina and Kerri with herself. But they were very close in another way, they had similar tastes in clothes, both crazy about black color, both had to fight like hell to work for the student union, they indeed shared a lot which they would not be able to share with Ling or Kerri, those topics wouldn’t interest their friends.

　　She missed Tina quite much sometimes, but they have not had much direct contact with each other, since Ling was always there acting as the intermediary.

　　But she’d love to talk with that crazy girl again. Tina had been much braver than May was. May would love to go to another country for a try too, but she was afraid of financial disability. Her parents might at least be able to give her 10 thousand dollars, of course that was far from enough.
　　But that crazy Tina even borrowed money for visa and tickets, simply went all the way to the other side of the world without a single penny in the pocket, neither $ nor ¥. But apparently Tina survived and would come back now on behalf of a Kui Lao’s company.

　　“She hasn’t booked the ticket yet. Would be somewhere in the first half of the month, she’d be here for a whole month or more, visiting many places in the south first for business, then coming back to us.” Ling almost felt humiliated that Tina wouldn’t come to north first.
　　God she had so many things to tell, those expensive talks they did already through the phone, but she had yet endless cheap talks that she’d need that whole month long to tell. But Tina would only be back in north probably in December, hell, yet better than next year or never.
　　Sometimes she wondered if she’d marry Tina had Tina been a boy, she never thought about lesbian of course, the concept simply never existed in their minds.

　　Till she felt some kind of weird feeling in her stomach recently when she was with Lee. Though she wasn’t sure what that really was, whatever it was, it wouldn’t be easy. She never even dared to mention to any member of her family yet that there might be something else than pure teacher-student’s father relationship. They’d force her quit her job if they knew she fancies an old father of a student, or maybe not, they mightn’t even believe that the general manager of Sunshine construction would take their daughter seriously, but would he?
　　“Don’t be sad, she will be traveling on Kui Lao’s money, she has to do something for that, we must be happy that the lunatic is still alive out there and is coming back soon. Don’t you still remember how did we forecast her death?”

　　“Yeah, single, real nerve broken down, at somewhere nobody knows, most probably in a tent in Sahara with loads mental junk food—books, but nothing to eat and drink as her punishment. On that note, she had consumed real junk food way above the limit a human being allowed to consume in an entire life anyway during her college years waitressing in those restaurants.” Ling had to laugh, “and you’d be really scared to death or laugh to death on your first the night upon marriage by your husband’s touch as you are so afraid of itchy, none of us ever could put a finger on you, not even on your arm.”

　　“Yeah, and you were forecasted as the first to be married and die of exhaustion by washing piles of dirty clothes and dirty dishes of your husband and an army of illegal children.” They both laughed till tears come into their eyes. God, what were they happy and creative in those happy idle colleague times.

　　“How is it going with Fan?” Ling was just curious if May is serious about it,
　　“Tell me, Linda, as he is your cousin,” Ling tried to press her smile back as May continued her question, “What do you know about his family?”
　　“His parents are very eager to get him a wife. That is why my aunt match made him to me in the first place, now it turned out to be my best friend took my potential boyfriend away from me.” Ling laughed at the open-mouthed May. The poor boy hadn’t dared to tell that episode yet, and he deserved at least this little punishment.
　　“You are kidding me! You are not serious.”
　　“Go and ask him. But the fact is that we both feel really ashamed of what our parents were doing and up to, we remained as real common friends just to put those parents at ease and buy ourselves peace. Otherwise I’d put white arsenic in your tea instead of sugar.”
　　“That is what I am going to do with him, imagine, the coward may never even tell me at all!”
　　“There isn’t that much to tell anyway, one thing you needn’t worry about is his parents’ attitude, they’d ask you to marry him immediately and give birth to 10 grand illegal children. They can’t even wait to pay for the fine.”
　　“I may need to reconsider the whole situation after all, marriage, child, God. That is something million years away, how am I going to deal with that kind of parents?”
　　“Stay away from them.”
　　“You know that is not possible.”
　　“While you may either tell them that you are unable to get pregnant or that you have had a miscarriage already, both would drive them away from you in a 1/%% second.”
　　“You terrible, I knew I did the right thing to walk away with your set up, you do deserve it.” They giggled further till the time for afternoon lecture. Ling didn’t dare to mention anything abnormal about Lee.

　　Actually Lee was going to pick up Jane later in the evening. For a few times already, he’d call Ling and tell her that he’d come to pick Jane up, sometimes they went for tea, sometimes just waving hands if there were other parents with their children staying after class for some questions. At those times, she wished so badly that she was still a student, and then she’d able to just leave right after classes. Funnily enough, they had never been alone with each other. Jane was the one who did much of the talking.

　　Ling ware a dark dress from Bamboo today, put on a little make up too, which made her looked not as much childish as she usually seemed. She smiled very sweetly to all the children the whole afternoon and tried to explain everything three times over and over again, in the hope that nobody would stay after asking her questions.

　　Yet at the very end Ben stayed till everyone else was gone, with a quite concerned face, asking “Miss, is your head that still aches or is it your tooth now?”
　　“What?!”
　　“You behaved weird lately, with a false smile, almost aching smile…” he had difficulty to put his worry in words, frowning.
　　“I am perfectly fine, Ben, thanks all the same for your care, your parents are waiting for you outside.” Ling flushed, how on earth could these little devils be so sensitive? She collected her things, and hold Ben’s hand while walking him out to his mother.

　　Lee stood in the hallway, without Jane and the driver. Continued her tooth aching smile with Ben’s mother for another 5 minutes describing how progressive Ben always had been in the class, the pair finally went away.

　　Lee is in his suit, with the file case under one arm, quizzically looking at her as she walked up to him, “Where is Jane?”
　　“Went home with the driver, I need to tell you something, where did you stole your dress from?”
　　“Don’t you think I might have one of my own?”
　　“You should have a whole wardrobe of them, you look nice in it.”
　　“I didn’t know you do give compliments too.”
　　“Only to those who worth it.”
　　“I am well prepared for your big bad news that had to be preceded by two compliments in one day.”
　　“Don’t be so sensitive. Let’s go to the Dumplings Restaurant for something to eat, my stomach is rebelling.”

　　They settled themselves in a corner of the Dumplings Restaurant, ordered tea and a few kinds of dumplings with the fillings of shrimps, leeks, eggs and mutton.
　　“I am going on a business trip to HK for a week,” He started, a bit hesitated,
　　“So?” Ling encouraged for the second half of the sentence.
　　“More to check out the possibility of working there then to negotiate the Joint Venture plan with a HK based real estate firm.” He finished, drinking his tea in silence without looking at Ling.
　　Ling turned the teacup without drinking it, at a loss of words. Why was he telling her this? Why couldn’t it be like every other time? That they just talked about some nonsense and laughed with Jane together? Was he angry because she hadn’t got the help from Mr. Zhao yet? She met Mr.Zhao the other day when she went to see Lily, but he left hastily right upon her arrival that she couldn’t get time to manage a conversation with him. She felt her heart aching.

　　“Jane then?” she broke the silence first.
　　“It is not sure yet, I have no idea what those Kui Lao companies would offer, but, of course Jane would go with me, I am a father.”

　　Had she have enough courage she’d asked “Me then? Just a teacher of your daughter?”
　　Instead, she said “Well, good luck then, I should be able to check out the possibility of the loan for private entrepreneur when you are back.”

　　“Thanks.” His voice suddenly turned businesslike, with some slight disappointment, or was it relief? Ling tried to smile and behave normal through the rather embarrassingly silent meal.

　　Lied that she still has to meet up someone else, Ling refused his offer to sent her back home by Taxi, she didn’t even take a bus, she just walked, with a rather blank mind, all the way from People’s Square, along Cultural Square, Victory Park and Ever bright street back home.
　　She didn’t feel even a tiny bit of tired, she even waved hands with a sweet smile to Fan and May strolling around cultural square. She still remembered she only walked such a distance with Tina a few years ago for a bet with May, yet then Tina had to drag her along the way as Ling’s foot were aching all over. But this time not. She felt nothing. Searching her keys in the hallway, it was totally dark, why was it so difficult to have a light in the hallway? Just how much extra would that cost?

　　Nobody was home, Bamboo was still in Peking, Roc was on duty in hospital and Tiffany was having her part Master course. Without turning any light on, Ling threw herself on the sofa, motionlessly sitting there for a very long while till Tiffany screamed of shock when she turned on the light. Ling told her sister that she just had a terrible headache then went to bed biting her pillows while crying without a sound. The worst about it all was that she couldn’t tell anyone, there might never be anything to tell anyway.