Dragon Day by Lisa Brackmann Page A

shower off to one side. Do my business. There’s another door on the other side, and I decide to go out that way, just because. I’m thinking about a Percocet. I’m thinking about a beer. I’m thinking, What do I have to do here before I can leave?
    Find Tiantian, I guess. He wasn’t in the first hall, so maybe he’s in this one up ahead: the north hall, the main house. I mean, that’s where the lord of the manor is likely to hang out, right?
    The second door opens onto the side courtyard, a narrow rectangle between the west house and the north house. The smaller wing of the north house is closed up, though I can see lights inside. I’ll have to go over to the main entrance if I want to go in and check it out.
    â€œHello!”
    I flinch a little, but everything has me jumpy tonight. A young woman with pigtails, wearing a sort of designer baby-doll outfit. She looks familiar, but I can’t quite place her.
    â€œFrom Gugu’s party,” she supplies. “I am Celine.”
    â€œRight. You have a website.” The one she said I should read to learn something about modern Chinese culture. I think she was giving me shit, but I’d actually meant to check it out.
    â€œYes. And I hear some things about you.” She gives me a look. I think she’s amused, but I’m not sure why. Just ’cause I’m funny, I guess. “I hear you work with artists,” she says. “Some interesting ones.”
    â€œYeah,” I say. “Are you interested in art?”
    â€œRecently I become more and more interested. I even work in a gallery sometimes. Artists say fascinating things about society. Don’t you think?”
    â€œI do,” I say. I have to admit, not what I expected from a twenty-something club kid. Is she talking about Lao Zhang?
    I try to think of something to say, something to ask about what artists she finds particularly fascinating, but she beats me to the next question.
    â€œDo you like this house?” she asks.
    â€œSure. It’s pretty. I mean, it’s traditional Chinese, right?”
    â€œYes. Tiantian likes such styles. He always says China culture is over five thousand years old—what does rest of the world have to compare?” She giggles. “But he likes some modern things, too.”
    Am I supposed to ask? Ever since I started hanging out around the younger Caos, I feel like everyone’s speaking in some kind of code all the time and I’m not really deciphering it.
    â€œLike what?” I ask. “Fancy cars? New plumbing?”
    She leans forward. “Modern girls,” she says, peering at me through her eyelashes. “Did you see Mrs. Cao just now?”
    â€œTiantian’s wife?” I think about it. The only person I’ve seen just now was the angry and/or crying woman in the bathroom. “Maybe.”
    â€œShe is unhappy with Tiantian, because he has this modern taste,” she says, fumbling a cigarette pack out of her tiny purse. “And she is hong er dai , so it is better if she is happy.”
    Hong er dai. Second-generation red. The sons and daughters of the revolution, born into privilege.
    She taps out a cigarette. “Smoke?”
    I shake my head. I haven’t smoked since the Sandbox. Though I still get the itch sometimes.
    â€œThey are Panda.” She shows me the pack. Two pandas on a sea-foam green background. “Deng Xiaoping’s favorite.”
    â€œIs that why you smoke them?”
    â€œNo. It’s because I like pandas. Zhen ke ai. ” She flicks her lighter and inhales, then blows out a dainty cloud. “Very cute.”
    I don’t really want to make small talk with this girl, but it’s not clear to me what else I should be doing, other than organizing a museum or something.
    â€œYou’re here with Gugu?” I ask.
    She lifts one shoulder. “He is here, and I am here.”
    â€œOh. I haven’t seen him