Sailing from Plymouth

Every Last Joint in Chinatown

Jon Merit was bored, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it because he had been brought up to equate being bored with being boring. The idle brain was the devil’s playground. Work hard, play hard, keep moving, gather no moss.

Now, however, he was just plain bored. To hell with the devil. Ha, ha. As he sat in his cubicle on the fourth floor of an office like so many others in downtown Boston, his mind was blank. Dazedly his gaze drifted from the comforting, televisionistic stultifying glow of his computer screen to the scene below the large window next to him.

Across Essex Street was a large Chinese market, the Super 99… 99 Essex Street. Supermarket. Perfect sense. On the leafless tree out front, snagged shopping bags fluttered like inflated white flags. Baskets of fruit and vegetables lined the front of the store, and through its large plate glass Merit could see the carcasses of small skinned animals hanging like a modern art installation. On the building’s third floor, directly across from Jon Merit’s workspace, were large Victorian windows behind which was a cluttered storage area with dusty-looking cardboard boxes scattered haphazardly around the floor and on top of one another. Merit half-expected to see a gun-toting Lee Harvey Oswald emerge from behind one of the boxes.

That’s how bored he was.

His gaze focused, and he smiled. He had been inside Super 99 many times, and even looking at it made him feel better, less bored. He often went there at the end of lunch hour to pick up next morning’s breakfast, and-

“Hey, Chairman, planning lunch already? It’s only 9:45.” The voice snapped Merit back to the office, and he swung around to see Alan, the press guy, leaning over the thin low wall of his cubicle. Alan was unshaven and heavyset, his jowly head resting on sloping shoulders, looking like it was about to roll off onto Merit’s desk like a bowling ball.

Others in the office had taken to calling Merit “Chairman” because of his love of all things Chinese. They also joked about his empty chair during lunch hour, as in, “Why the empty chair, man?”

“I don’t eat at the 99,” replied Merit evenly. “I only shop there. And I don’t plan my lunches, I just go.”

Alan raised his hands in mock defense and uttered a high-pitched, “Ooooooh! ‘I just go!’ The Chairman, an impulse eater!”

Has it really come to this? thought Merit. Listening to a fat guy talk about lunch at 9:45 AM. Alan had launched into a monotonous monologue, “…don’t get me wrong, I like to go into Chinatown once in awhile, you know, to try something different… but EVERY DAY? I mean, what’s next, Tai Chi in the conference room? Green tea in the coffee machines?”

“Hey that sorta rhymes, and might not be a bad idea,” answered Merit in a more amiable tone. “We could do with a release of the stress that this place seems to thrive on.”

Alan seemed to be not interested in this line of thought, and lumberingly turned away from Merit’s cube with a heavy sigh and slumped off to his own.

‘This place’ was a travel agency, where Merit and Alan were Account Managers, Alan also being responsible for putting a positive spin on the company’s exhorbitant prices and diminishing market share. For his part, Merit had come back to Boston after two years teaching English to Chinese living in the Philippines, and he had never really meshed with its corporate style, panic-driven deadlines, targets and incentive plans. To compound his miseries, his Sino-Filipina wife had abruptly disappeared shortly after securing citizenship, leaving him, amongst other things, to cook for himself.

This turn of events had made Merit briefly hostile towards all things Pacific Rim (he’d already had a healthy antipathy towards anything to do with California), but his first tentative forays into Chinatown, seeking the sort of food his absent wife had once cooked, dispelled those feelings. He wouldn’t admit it to himself, much less to any of his family and small circle of friends, but he was also half-searching for Liucy – thinking she might have disappeared down one of the side streets in Chinatown and into the multiple employment opportunities of the Chinese restaurants there.

After his first seven or eight lunches, Merit had come up with the idea that he would visit and eat in (or take out from) every restaurant and hole-in-the-wall eatery in Chinatown, then write about it. He might even see Liucy again.

So it was that day that he ambled out of his building clutching his well-marked street map, and after a stroll of a few blocks and turns found himself on the lower end of Washington Street.

His goal today was the Empire Garden (also, for some strange reason, called Emperor’s Garden on a sign outside the front entrance), the largest restaurant in this part of Chinatown, and before entering Merit stood and marveled at the garish marquee which extended out over the sidewalk.

Many years ago Washington Street had been the Amazon in a jungle known as the Combat Zone, Boston’s “red light” district. A series of tributary side streets had teemed with second-tier strip clubs and sex shops. Washington was then a raging torrent of sleaze – that is, until redevelopment plans gained a footing. Now, there was nothing more than memories of bustling clubs like the Naked Eye (or was it Naked I? Twenty years had done nothing to Merit’s memory skills but weaken them.) and mammoth, crumbling vaudeville-era theatres which had once shown first-run porn films from the burgeoning “adult entertainment industry” in California.

Merit approached the Empire Garden with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu; walking down Washington Street, curious about what was going on behind the storefronts. Now, though, it was more to do with prawn curry than with porn, hurry.

The marquee blared:

DIM SUM
EXOTIC COCKTAILS
JAZZ

Merit thought: how about those “exotic cocktails”? He remembered the 80s, when the word might have been “Erotic”…He had once slunk under the marquee and into the theater to watch his very first “adult movie”, and the feelings of guilt and shame flooded back. Then, as now, he was out of his depth.

His thoughts shifted to Liucy, of how they would occasionally dine in Chinatown after they had relocated to Boston from the Philippines, the Garden being one of their favorites.

But this was now, he was hungry, and without further hesitation Merit ambled into the foyer and up the grand staircase to the second floor, site of the spacious dining room. He was immediately greeted by a smiling hostess standing behind a sort of lectern.

“Wan?”
“Yes. One.”
“Furrow me, prease.”

Merit dutifully tailed the hostess into the large, carpeted dining room. He recalled that it had been the balcony of the porn theatre (what was now happening downstairs?) The ceiling and walls were a lush red velvet – Merit hadn’t noticed, the last time he had been here – with a garish chandelier hanging from the center, and large framed Oriental paintings of jagged peaks and pale meandering rivers festooning the walls.

The room was crowded with occupied tables both large and small, most ringed with loudly-chattering, laughing Chinese people.

Merit was led to a small table against a wall, like Steve Martin in “The Lonely Guy” accepting the chair offered to him. Despite his aloneness he had a reassuring feeling of belonging here; an Occidental cocooned in his anonymity. Nobody would be coming up to him to ask how Liucy was.

The times he’d been here before with her, he had marveled at how she’d scanned the 167 item menu perfunctorily before ordering for them both in what sounded like perfect Cantonese.

Yet that had been then, and now, at lunch, he felt a bit like a fish – or perhaps octopus, if the menu was anything to go by – out of water. When the smiling waiter glided unobtrusively up to his table, Merit merely pointed to a Smoked Hock and Gai Poo Lo Mein combination and intoned, “thirty-seven and one-hundred-three, please.” The waiter slashed characters onto the pad he was holding, then sidled back away with a gentle bow.

Merit had no idea what Smoked Hock was, but that was part of the fun. No second thoughts, and wait for the surprise.

The day before, he had dined at Wok Wok City, across from his office, with someone he hoped to impress. The other man had sat down with a perplexed expression on his face. Where’s a menu? his roving eyes had communicated.

“It’s dim sum,” explained Merit. “Wait and see.”

As if on cue, a wizened Chinese woman, pushing a three-tiered trolley laden with round dishes covered with metal domes, pushed up to the table and stopped.

“You like noodle? Won ton? Dumpling?”

Merit turned to his companion to explain. “Each trolley has a number of related dishes… boiled, stir-fried, sweet… You just point to the ones you want, the waitress scribbles the prices on the tab on your table, and presto! Instant meal. Very reasonable, too. Each dish only three or four dollars, so I’ll only be paying about twenty bucks for the whole shebang.”

Merit was seated across from Mark Pelltier, editor-in-chief at Boston Beat, a publisher of “local guides for local people”… and Merit was eager to please, therefore the personal pronoun and the assurance that lunch was on him. If all went well, according to his plan, Pelltier would bite at Merit’s proposal for a guide to lunch in Chinatown.

“You know, I’ve been doing the guides for several years now,” began Pelltier, relaxing into his chair as the waitress shuffled and clanged the several dishes the men had chosen onto the table. “But this is my first Dim Sum. Strange, huh?”

Merit raised his chopsticks like pointers, making a point.

“Not necessarily so,” he replied. “If you’re like most of us, you like the feel of a menu in your hand. You like being able to read what the dishes are, even though you may not know what’s in them. So you go to a traditional Chinese joint, where they have menus. On the other hand, with DS he hoped abbreviating would convince Pelltier he was an expert you can see what’s about to go into your mouth. Now, about lunches. Sure, Bostonians are used to Chinatown at night… takeouts and sit-downs, the whole ritual of it… but lunch is still a bit of a mystery. Maybe the Town is just a bit too far from the Financial District, Back Bay, the Hill… Easier to grab a quick bite in a sandwich shop… But a clear, well-written guide could change that.”

Pelltier seemed mesmerized by Merit’s chopsticks, joined by a practiced three-finger grip, and was nodding his head in agreement. Tentatively, he started poking the dumpling on his plate with his own chopsticks.

“So,” he ventured. “You want to write the book that’s gonna show how easy it is to chow Chinese in daylight.”

Merit took a quick sip of tea. “Well, maybe a pamphlet… a map, with notes… a brochure? You’re the expert.”

Pelltier pinched a dumpling between his chopsticks, raised it to his mouth, and began to nibble. Tentatively.

“It could be good,” he said. “But you’re gonna have to do your homework. Visit each place twice, never on the same day of the week, order as many different dishes as possible. Then write it all down in a way that’ll make people wanna see – taste – for themselves.”

He paused, then: “Can you do it? I mean, what qualifies you to write this?”

Merit met his gaze, thinking: is it good news or bad? This guy could walk out of here with a free lunch then disappear. Phone on voicemail, emails unanswered, spur-of-the-moment office visit inaccessible due to security.

Another trolley had pulled up like a docking cruise ship next to the table. Merit inhaled deeply of the pungent aromas, trying to clear his head of any doubt, and suddenly an idea came to him.

“OK, it’s time to play a game; Russian Roulette, Chinese-style.” He was making it up, but hoped Pelltier wouldn’t notice. The other man raised his eyebrows, showing interest. “We each choose three dishes, and ask for extra Tabasco sauce Merit had been startled, on his first visit to the restaurant, to see large bottles of the Mexican condiment on every table to be put on one of the dishes. We take turns tasting each dish, and whoever gets the burn first loses!”

Pelltier frowned. “Hmm. Sounds a little gimmicky, maybe better suited to a guide to Mexican joints. On the other hand, it might be just the sort of diversion that could spice up – pardon the pun – an otherwise ordinary guidebook.”

Merit nodded in relief, glad to see that he and Pelltier seemed to be on the same wavelength. He gestured to a passing waiter and explained the Tabasco proposal. The waiter looked skeptical, impassive, but then turned suddenly, snatched a bottle of Tabasco from a nearby table and with his back to Merit and Pelltier, performed the requested task on one of the trolleys close to their table.

A few minutes later Merit became the loser in the hot sauce game, burning his lips and tongue on an innocent-looking Deep Fried Oyster… but relieved that Pelltier would not be leaving the restaurant with his mouth on fire.

The next day, Merit decided he again wanted company at lunch, knowing that being with another person in a new restaurant would increase the number of dishes he could review. He and Pelltier had left Wok Wok the day before on good terms, with Merit promising to send an excerpt to the editor after he’d reviewed another eatery.

Now he had his sights on a very different lunchmate: Jan, the company president’s secretary. Jan, with the blond highlights and the solid build; the Steer from Revere was what the men in the company called her. Friendly, gregarious, and like a bull when she had a head of steam on. These qualities were much appreciated by the president, a reclusive office-dwelling email-writer.

Merit knew that Jan had a healthy appetite, and would no doubt provide him with the sort of frank, unadulterated review of a series of dishes which would give the guidebook an earthy authenticity. Merit also surmised that she probably enjoyed the occasional Chinese takeaway, but would otherwise enter the New Shanghai with no pretensions or preconceptions.

That morning, Merit had played cautious, sending Jan an email invitation:

“Jan: I’m a man with a plan. Join me for lunch in Chinatown?”

“Sure! : ) Time and place?”

“12:30. My cube. Restaurant to be determined.”

Merit figured Jan’s salary made a free lunch appealing, regardless of what she might think of him. She’d given him a tour of the building on his first day on the job, and they’d chatted amiably – Jan moaning about “low pay and benefits” at the company – but since then they’d exchanged little more than pleasantries on the rare occasions they’d crossed paths in the company kitchen. Otherwise they’d stayed worlds apart.

Merit’s choice of venue - the New Shanghai – was one he thought Jan would appreciate: clean, small, a simple menu. It had a website, which he expected would impress Jan, whose eyes always seemed glued to her computer screen in the office whenever he passed by.

To offset the predictability of their lunch, Merit decided to be reckless with his ordering, choosing dishes he wouldn’t ordinarily consider. While Jan scanned the menu with a hungry look in her eyes, Merit pegged the foods he thought looked most unusual. The thought came to him: another form of Russian Roulette! Order things with no clue what they will taste like!

For an appetizer, he had his eye on A20, Sweet Lotus Roots. He planned to follow that with Shanghai Style Chicken Feet, accompanied by Home Style Tofu.

Jan slapped down her menu and looked at Merit with a mischievous expression.

“My parents and I always ordah Chow Mein and Sweet ‘n Sour Pock,” she declared. “But I feel like trying something else. Whaddya think I should try, Jonny?”

Merit shifted uncomfortably in his seat, both due to the unwanted extension of his name, and because he didn’t feel happy recommending dishes to someone he didn’t know that well. Although he now felt skilled in choosing a wide range of dishes, he also needed, for the accuracy of his guidebook (or map, or pamphlet) for Jan to have a completely spontaneous, unaided eating experience. On the other hand, he was curious to hear what she thought about certain items on the menu that had caught his eye.

“Why don’t you start with the Steamed Chive Ravioli?” he suggested. “You could follow that with the D5, Jelly Fish With Chinese Vegetables, or the P5, Roast Hoof With Chinese Vegetables. Either of those would nicely complement the Ravioli.”

“Jellyfish?!? No way! I got stung by one of those at R. Beach once. And I thought ravioli was Italian…”

“Well, it used to be,” answered Merit. “Countries have always adopted food from other countries. For example, in the vice versa category, we have Italy inheriting noodles from China, thank you very much Marco Polo!”

Jan wasn’t listening, and had flagged a passing waiter to order a Mai Tai. Merit asked for a Tsing Tao.

The service was briskly efficient, and soon the two were passing plates across the table. Jan had opted to start with the 8-Treasure Sweet Sticky Rice, followed by the L14, Three Flavor Delight [“I like the names!”] but she was piling her plate high with Merit’s orders as well.

To his dismay, she then began mixing the different dishes together, creating a mound of gooey brown rice with pieces of meat and vegetables visible throughout. On top of this amalgamation she tapped exactly four drops of Tabasco Sauce, “like Ma and Pa have been doing for years. For a little extra kick!”

With a sigh, Merit reached slowly under the table to his lap, switching off the small tape recorder he’d been using to record what he’d hoped would be Jan’s simple yet illuminating observations about the food. At least she knows how to use chopsticks, he thought to himself, half-heartedly watching her attack the heaped plate in front of her with the two thin implements. A day earlier, Pelltier had given up on the things, using them only to push food onto his fork. Merit made a mental note to himself to include in his writings an explanation of proper chopstick technique, and possibly a comparison of plastic versus wood.

Back at the office, Merit and Jan parted company at her cube, she with a hearty “Thanks!” Nobody who had seen them as they entered the building, rode up the elevator, and buzzed their way through the fourth floor security door so much as glanced at them with the “unusual couple” appraisal; by now, the legend of what Alan had dubbed “Merit’s Manchurian Meanderings” was firmly rooted, as was the understanding that he would be seen in the company of a variety of lunchmates.

In the inner office beyond Jan’s cube, the company President, a bald man in his mid-forties named Jerry Dingley, looked up from his computer and gestured impatiently to Merit to join him in his office. Merit had seen the same look on Dingle’s face during tense staff meetings, and knew it didn’t mean good news.

Once seated in the lone hardback chair facing Dingle’s desk, Merit began to relax, thinking that a reprimand, or even a firing, wouldn’t be so bad, given the encouraging news he had earlier received from Pelltier. Plus, he knew Dingle well enough to know that anything the boss said would be done in an evasive, non-confrontational way. The boss’ routinely slavish attention to the computer monitor in front of him rendered him ineffectual in interpersonal discourse. Hence the other person or people always seemed to have the upper hand, if any hand was to be had at all.

Merit also surmised that Dingle would be understanding of his regular forays into Chinatown, given that the boss regularly dined at an upscale Asian place around the corner called Peking Phil’s. This was Dingle’s restaurant of choice whenever “the suits” were in town, as it was the sort of place where everyone in a party of six or more would find something to like on the menu, which managed to fuse (or possibly con-fuse) every popular Asian cuisine. Menu items included Seared Ahi Tuna, Vegetable Potstickers, Korean Beef and the ever-popular Pad Thai. Merit had avoided the place since an initial visit, however, as it required reservations for lunch – a no-no in Merit’s book of Chinese lunch priorities.

Meanwhile, across a desk clear of all but his beloved monitor, Dingle clearly had something other than Phil’s Chicken Wings in Hot Bean Sauce on his mind.

“Merit, the quarterly sales figures are in,” he intoned grimly, his brow furrowed, “and they don’t look good for your territory and a few others. Any thoughts?”

Faced with such a relatively open-ended question, Merit’s mind began to drift. He pictured Dingle at a single table in the New Shanghai; the boss yanked out of his comfort zone at Phil’s, and forced to order from a menu ranging from A to P, each letter with as many as 20 combinations. Would it be the A20, 8-Treasure Sweet Sticky Rice, with the P5, Roast Hoof with Chinese Vegetable? The boss looks up from his corner seat: perplexed, indecisive. Merit walks in and grabs a menu from a passing waiter, eager to help.

“I inherited some of those numbers from Albrecht,” he replied, hoping the reference to his predecessor would deflect Dingle. “Plus, Spring is a slow quarter for all of us. Are my numbers really that far below the others’?”

Dingle opened a desk drawer and pulled out a sheaf of spreadsheets, slapping the pile down on the desk like he might a menu at the New Shanghai.

“Look, this isn’t about picking clients and their business, like courses in a restaurant,” asserted the bald man. “In some cases, they pick you; in others, you have to go out and find them. Yes, everyone’s numbers are down this quarter, but we had higher hopes for you than for the others when we hired you. You have more worldly experience. Language. Cuisine. There aren’t many in this building who would dive into Chinatown like you have.”

Merit tried to interpret Dingle’s feelings from the flat tone in which he’d delivered this judgement, and decided they were mostly complimentary. However, he persisted in his vision of Dingle at the New Shanghai, now suddenly pushing his chair back, rising abruptly, and storming out of the restaurant – Merit unable to help him.

In real time, Dingle rose up out of his office chair, before placing both of his hands on top of his computer monitor, as if conferring upon it some sort of blessing. He looked at Merit evenly.

“I’ll put it to you bluntly, Jon,” he said in a measured tone. “We’ve… you’ve… got to get your sales figures up, and chop chop. Too late to wait for the end of this quarter – Senior Team are already talking layoffs. We’ve really come to a crossroads here, and need to turn the corner without delay.”

Mention of a crossroads brought to Merit’s mind the busy junction of Beach Street and Harrison Avenue, where there always – day or night – seemed to be restaurant business being transacted. Bags of dried noodles tossed off of small trucks, bags of trash tossed on. Product in, waste out.

Merit then noticed Dingle staring at him, so he sheepishly rose from his chair and two exchanged small talk of mutual reassurance and promise before Merit stepped out of the boss’ office.

Just beyond the doorway, Jan wheeled around in her chair, waving a small cellophane wrapper with what appeared to be a twisted biscuit inside.

“Johnny!” she declared. “You fuhgawt ya fawchin cookie! Ma and Pa and I like to eat about ten each at a time, until we find one that makes sense, but that lousy lunch place only gave us one each!”

Merit stood frozen in place, while she continued.

“I meant to give you yaws out on the street, but you seemed to be in a hurry to get back to the awffice. I awready ate mine; ‘Pleashah and prawfit will be yaws.’ Not bad for a one-outah-one, instead of a one-outah-ten, eh?”

Merit gently took the dangling packet from Jan’s pinched fingertips. He didn’t care, at that exact moment, to compare philosophies and futures with her, so he dropped the packet into his coat pocket.

“Thanks!” he imparted glibly, then: “See ya soon!” before hurrying on his way to his own cube.

Safely seated, he noted half-interestedly that the number of emails in his Inbox had doubled during his lunch break. With an equal level of disinterest he extracted the fortune cookie from, first, his coat pocket, and then its cellophane cell, bit into the sweet biscuit, and pulled out the slip of paper.

Fate will guide you, but luck will chide you.

What the hell does that mean? he thought. Why can’t I just have pleasure and profit, like Jan? Thinking of her drew Merit back to their lunch together, which also made him realize that he was hungry again. Maybe it’s true what they say about Chinese food.

He glanced at his watch. Three hours until quitting time. .. maybe another Chinese after work, on the way to South Station… or would two Chineses in a day be tempting fate?

He had in mind a joint called the Hei La Moon, on the southern fringe of Chinatown. It and couple of other establishments had been ccut off from the rest of the Town by the sweeping hand of the financially-disastrous Big Dig, and was now separated from the Pagoda Gate by a multi-lane access road.

Yet the Hei La still managed to attract large numbers of Asian families, as well as unhurried commuters content to nibble through the last available Pu Pu Platter, or 182 other items, before the train home.

For the more harried, there was also a Chinese version of McDonald’s in the station: the Walkie Wok. But early on in his quest Merit had been put off by the indifferent, slow service, as well as a misleading menu advertising white rice. (When Merit had ordered it, the cashier had charged him for egg-fried rice; maybe the misspelling on the menu board – “Withe Rice” – allowed for what he assumed was a form of deceit.)

Idly, Merit’s gaze drifted back to his computer screen, and to one bold-fonted email in particular. It was from Pelltier.

Placing the cursor over “MPelltier” and hitting the Return button, Merit read:

Jon-
Enjyd mtng u. Also enjyd samples, both DS and your wrtngs. OK to the prjct. Gv me a call.
MP

Merit leaned back with a smile; tempted to hit the Delete button on the remaining (unread) emails, he nevertheless felt the need to fulfill his responsibilties, despite the threat to his job. The cube was, after all, still his.

Suddenly appearing above its hall-side partition like a stubbly misshapen moon was Alan’s head. He didn’t say anything at first, but instead raised two forefingers to the sides of his face and pulled the skin taut, making Chinese eyes.
“You have good runch, Merit-san?” he asked in a singsong voice.

“That’s Japanese,” Merit growled. “And watch out: I know karate, judo, kung fu, and three other Chinese words.”

Alan’s head retreated. “Old jokey, bad jokey,” came his disembodied voice, then there was silence again in Merit’s cube.

He continued to sit still, random thoughts flashing through his mind. Across the street the Super 99 was its usual beehive of activity, the storefront stands of colorful fruit attracting the most attention.

Merit glanced at the spreadsheet next to his keyboard, its rows and columns filled with the numbers which he daily produced and consumed, and which calculated his fate as an employee.

On the other side of the keyboard lay an open menu from the Empire (or was it Emperor’s?) Garden, the inside of its three folds revealing the letters and numbers (A1 through P20), and both Cantonese and English text descriptors, of its many offerings.

Guided or chided? To sit at a table and be offered advice, or to sit at a desk and be told what to do, where to go… and to be treated to the site of Alan’s head at unexpected intervals?

Merit pondered the fact that he had 15 restaurants remaining before the reviewing part of his guide would be finished. Then would come the work of writing: sifting and sorting, assimilating, enlivening, visualizing, editing, proofreading. But that work would come easily to him, unlike the hard graft which lay ahead in trying to reverse the spreadsheet data… to coax it to work in his favor. And this couldn’t be done alone; certain things had to fall into place.

On the other hand, in turning from office to restaurant, he would be giving up his salary, benefits, and regular contact with the few friends he had in the office. He would be trading these in for the uncertainties of the freelance life: selling projects while developing others, networking at every possible opportunity… and could he rely on Pelltier?

All this was roiling in his head when a new email popped onto the top of his screen. “LChu” was the sender, in bold font: Liucy. Her maiden name.

Without hesitation, Merit rushed the cursor over the subject line (“Contact?”) and clicked.

Hey, stranger. I’m here. You’re there. We have a lot to discuss. Meet at the Empire for lunch? – Mabuhay.”

Merit stared with some uncertainty at the last word, a Tagalog multi-purpose greeting which they’d shared so many mornings and evenings after the eight- to ten-hour separations of “sleep and slavery”, as she’d termed them.

He re-read the brief message, marveling at its juxtaposition of Oriental abruptness and directness, and Western chit-chat. Was he still in love?

Now smiling, Merit hit the “x” in the upper right hand corner, then began to move his mouse lazily up and down the mousemat, watching the cursor shift between Liucy’s and Pelltier’s emails.

Review, reply. There were fortunes to seek.