I pick mine up and mimic him, trying to roll my r’s in the same way. ‘Naz-da rrrrou vyah!’
We drain our glasses.
‘Was that English or French?’ I ask.
‘That was Russian.’
I set my glass down. English, French, Russian? ‘How many languages do you speak?’
His smile is warm and somehow my insides warm in answer. Though it’s more likely the vodka.
‘Aside from Mandarin, Shanghainese, and Hokkien, I also speak English and French, and a smattering of Russian. It’s necessary to do business in Shanghai.’
‘What kind of business do you do?’
‘I’ll trade you an answer for an answer.’
I narrow my eyes at him, and he raises his hands in surrender, laughing silently.
‘You really want to know?’
I nod.
He gazes out over the balcony, to where the sun dips over the horizon. The sky is a brilliant shade of indigo. Strings of lights now twinkle in the trees, and multicoloured lanterns glow softly in greens, blues and pinks above each table.
‘My father owns property. He died when I was living in New York and I came home to manage his portfolio,’ Mr Lee says.
The waiter brings a second bottle of vodka. I don’t remember finishing the first, but from the warm, fuzzy feeling swimming around in my chest, even though the bottles are small, I can’t deny I’ve got a fair amount of vodka in me.
I wave my empty shot glass at him.
He moves to pour me a shot, then stops. ‘I’ll top you up, but only if you tell me something about you that I don’t know.’
I gaze into my empty glass. Thinking about my past brings on a wave of melancholy. My grandmother wishes I was never born. My mother sold me then died. My father abandoned me. The only person I have is Big Wang, who only bought me so he could get the Longnu dragon pearl.
‘Do you ever feel like you don’t belong anywhere?’ I gaze out across the Whangpoo, thinking about the realms of Tian – the Celestial lands and Hell. ‘I’m titled, but the Hulijing Court would rather burn their fine silks than welcome me into the fold. Drinking blood makes the yaojing in Hell side-eye me, except the jiangshi, but everyone side-eyes the jiangshi so it’s not really the VIP membership I’m looking for.’ I sigh into the bottom of my glass. ‘I can’t function properly here either.’
‘You’re looking at all the ways you’re different. I could say that too – having spent half my life in the US. I’m too American in my ways when I’m home, and when I’m in America, they can never forget that I’m Chinese.’ Mr Lee fills my glass and his. ‘But you know, I could also say I’ve grown from the influences of these different places. There are things I love about America, and things I love about China. My world is one of my own making – much like how Big Wang creates Shanghai from those things he admires and enjoys.’
A last ray of the setting sun lances through our vodka glasses, spilling honeyed light across the table.
‘We’re quite similar, you and I,’ Mr Lee continues. ‘We both embody things that maybe people don’t expect to go together, but which surprises them, hopefully in good ways.’
His perspective makes me reconsider mine; I smile into my glass, now full.
I raise my vodka. ‘Rrrou-zda no-vyah!’
‘Na-zda rro-vya!’ He clinks his glass with mine.
We drain our shots. His cheeks are rosy, and from the heat of my own I probably am just as pink-faced.
‘Enough sadness,’ I say. ‘Effort makes the mind, I’ve heard. I choose to be happy.’
‘Here here.’ He raises his glass again. ‘To happiness and new friends.’
I am lost for a few moments in the warmth of his gaze, before remembering myself. The fake talisman nags at the back of my mind, but I can’t do anything without reinforcements. I might as well enjoy this evening.
I raise my glass. ‘To happiness and new friends,’ I say and drain it.
