Dragon Day by Lisa Brackmann Page B

yet.”
    â€œSo is Betty. My friend you meet before.”
    Rhinestone baseball cap. “Right.”
    Then it occurs to me that I could actually do something productive. “And Marsh is here.”
    She chuckles, a little belly laugh bottled up behind her closed lips. “Yes. I saw you talk to him.”
    â€œYeah. He’s . . . I don’t know. Interesting.”
    â€œYes. Interesting.” She takes a draw on her cigarette. “Sexy, I think. Don’t you?”
    â€œNot really my type.” Which is true and not true. He’s nobody I want to get anywhere near, but he’s got that kind of creepy charisma that some bad boys have, in part because you don’t know what they’ll do. It’s the kind of thrill you get in your gut going up a roller coaster that might actually be nausea.
    â€œHe likes to think he is dangerous,” Celine says suddenly.
    â€œOh, yeah?”
    Come up with something smart to say, dipshit, I tell myself.
    â€œSo is he?” I manage.
    She blows a few smoke rings into the dark. “I think he is just acting. But maybe he forgets this sometimes.”
    Okay, I tell myself. You need to go meet Tiantian. Pitch the museum or whatever and then get out. No reason to waste a lot of time. Because it’s not actually going to happen, right?—the kids all getting together to support Dad’s ego monument.
    I’m here to evaluate Marsh, download to Sidney, and di di mao the fuck out. I tell myself this as I limp up the shallow, broad steps that lead to the entrance of the main house.
    Two qipao -wearing serving girls stand by the entrance with trays holding glasses of wine. I take a red. One Moutai, one glass of wine. Doing okay, I tell myself. Even though my leg’s throbbing, this pulsing nerve in the middle of my thigh that feels like an electrical fire, and I really want a Percocet.
    After I meet Tiantian, I tell myself.
    It’s going to suck when I run out of Percocet.
    Another lacquer screen. I walk around it and through the little entry and then into the main room.
    There’s this low, almost yellow light. More carved Chinese furniture, antique urns and scrolls, black lacquer chests, red silk hangings, chunks of pale green jade. It kind of looks like Crouching Tiger exploded.
    I pick my way through the Chinascape. Knots of guests watch me pass, or maybe it’s my imagination. But there aren’t a lot of foreigners here. There’s Marsh, and there’s me.
    â€œSo you came.”
    I turn and see Meimei, lounging on one of those carved wooden bed things with the little table, smoking a Chinese brass water pipe, the kind with the chamber that fits in your hand and a long curved stem. She’s wearing a take on a men’s silk jacket with a mandarin collar, her hair slicked back like last time, and a pair of antique-looking round gold-framed spectacles with the lenses flipped up. China steampunk.
    She extends the hand with the pipe. “Care to try?”
    â€œWhat is it?” I ask.
    â€œI don’t know, maybe just some tobacco.”
    â€œNo thanks.”
    â€œYou can always have something else if you’d like.”
    I don’t know what she means, but man, am I tempted to ask.
    Don’t be stupid, I tell myself. “I’m good,” I say. “Got my wine here.”
    â€œHave you met Tiantian yet?”
    â€œNot yet.”
    She swings her legs off the side of the bed and hops to her feet in one nimble move. “I will introduce you.”
    I limp after her.
    We walk to the back of the main hall. There’s an exit that leads to a narrow courtyard and, like I thought, a two-story hall behind that. As we step up the three stairs that lead to the entrance, this random factoid flashes into my head, that the back house was where the unmarried daughters used to live. I don’t know if that’s true or something I’m just making up.
    Whatever the truth is, this doesn’t