Episode 96: Tea & Paper (Giana)

They transported to a side street in Sheung Wan, from silence to sound, from arid to humid, from the conference room to Mel’s embrace.

He kissed her before he took her hand, and they walked toward one of the busier roads. Giana breathed in the life of the city – the neon signs, the electric cables that criss-crossed high above the street, the cable cars and bikes and taxis and…

The delicious throng of people. She shared an exhilarated smile with Mel as a cable car trolled past and some tourists brushed against them, in a hurry to go wherever they were going.

All this life, in one place, all these millions of intentions and plans. It enlivened Giana to be part of it, to be here with Mel.

“I exchanged some Krone for Hong Kong Dollars,” she told him. It was possible that some of these places would accept Krone but it was more authentic to have the currency of the land. Even if Mel would stick out like a sore thumb.

“Try not to stand out too much,” she teased him. It was inevitable with his turnip-white skin and his turnip-white hair.

“Have I ever stood out?” he said, with his contented smile and that glint in his eyes.

His hand wasn’t enough for the energy of her joy, so she linked their elbows instead. “Perhaps you will just look very old to them,” she mused.

He laughed and kissed her again. He seemed to love the energy too, though she suspected he would need time to work the chaos of this place from his system later. She hoped he would indulge her by letting her give him a massage when they were home for the evening.

“What would you like to see?” he asked. He withdrew some pamphlets from the back pocket of his pants. “Cruise and dinner?” he suggested, holding one pamphlet toward her. “Amusement park?” He passed another pamphlet. “Walking through town?” there was no pamphlet to accompany this final suggestion, which made it immediately more appealing and adventurous to her.

“Hmm,” she pretended to debate, while she planned their evening in her mind. He was too casually disinterested in the cruise for it to not matter to him. “It’s difficult to decide between walking and the cruise with dinner.”

“It’s not even five,” Mel offered. “We should do both. We can have a light snack as we walk. The boat,” he kissed her again, “is at six.”

She loved his kisses. She’d had most of a lifetime to study movie kisses and kisses between people around her. Some kisses were impatient, urgent, desperate. Some were obligatory, some possessive.

His were a promise.

“One hour,” she breathed, deeply content. “Shall we go which direction?”

He laughed and took her hand again. “Forward,” he said, his voice laced with the double meaning. “Wherever it takes us.”

She tried not to let her worry show. He hadn’t spoken of his grief over Aadya yet – she suspected he thought he was sparing her – but she knew he would need to. If he were Niels, she would coax the feelings from him.

With Mel, she was lost on how best to approach his sorrow. The forward comment could be seen as flirty, and to an extent it was, but Giana also heard in it a refusal to address the Aadya feelings he suppressed.

Mel had been with Aadya for about as long as Nell had been with his previous husband. There were times when a sadness crossed Nell’s features and Giana supposed he was missing him, even after nearly seventeen years apart.

She needed to find a way, when they were alone, to give Mel space to grieve. To show him that she understood and that Aadya was a part of him, a part of the man she loved. To show him that when he hid from his connection to Aadya, he hid from himself.

For now, in this place, she would distract him.

“I would like to see the sewers,” she declared. “It is my goal to see the sewers in every country to study what distinguishes them.”

“Sewers?” he asked. “Why?”

Laughter bubbled from her; the distraction had been a success and she so dearly loved to tease him. It made her happier even than being here in this city.

“It feels like most other modern cities, in most ways,” Mel observed.

She agreed. 

A moment later, they passed the window of a little paper shop. It had paper and ribbons and lanterns and little glass jars, some empty and some full of miniature folded ribbons of paper. The jars were shaped like all sorts of things – little bears and trains and butterflies and houses.

She longed to see what was inside, if the window looked this inviting.

“I have always wondered how people have the patience for these,” she told Mel.

He rested his hand on the door, ready to open it. “One of my daughters loves making these. Can we stop in, for her?”

Giana grinned. For his daughter, of course. “Which one?” she wondered aloud. She ducked under his arm and opened the door for him before he could get it for her.

“Reihan,” he answered. The way he said his daughter’s name…

She loved that he loved his children like that. So protective, so encompassing, such an understanding of who each of them was. She vowed herself to get to know them anew, through his eyes. Perhaps one child per date, until she saw each of them the way he saw them.

He brushed his lips against her ear and held the door. “I believe that’s my job,” he teased, about her opening the door.

Giana was of a time and place when there were things that a particular set of well-born ladies simply did not do. Giana suspected it was because all of that high breeding left them with weaker arms when it came to things like opening doors for themselves and carrying their own children. 

The same affliction seemed, unfortunately, to have affected their breasts, which were not made for such abuse as nursing. Years ago, while Giana’s children found food and comfort in the arms of a stranger, Giana wore cabbage leaves in her lingerie and a tiny crystal of feminism broke through the tissue-paper veneer of her life.

She faltered at the door, a wave of regret rolling into her.

If she had children again, they would be hers. Hers. No one would force her to let another nurse and hold and raise them.

She squared her shoulders against the feeling; this was a date, a happy date. She would not ruin it over regrets she could never hope to mend.

“How does Reihan have the patience for it?” she asked him. “I think I would give up after an hour and hide all evidence of it in the back of the closet.”

“I think the repetition, mixed with the creativity and the precision, settles her mind,” he explained.

She imagined Rei, the calmest and steadiest of the Alandrial children, working at this for hours. She wondered if Rei was such a patient soul naturally, or whether she fought against the irrational fear that if she didn’t control herself, she would become like her wild twin, Eshne.

“It’s meditative for her?” she asked, unnecessary. They passed a little train-engine shaped jar filled with copper, brass, and silver-colored stars. They were made of ribbon and were the size of small beads. “Look at the exquisite stars!” she exclaimed.

Though the shelf was full of similar jars for sale, of varying colors and shapes, he picked the train up. “We’ll get them,” he said. He knew, so well, which one she loved. “Maybe we can start a display, with souvenirs from our travels.”

That was an excellent idea. “You should pick something too,” she suggested. She imagined a curio cabinet, backlit, with little pieces of both of them contained within, little treasures from their time together.

They needed an apartment, badly, but she had a discomfort about asking Aadya, so she had resolved to live small for now and give time for her friend to heal before she made such a request of her.

“When something catches my eye, I will,” Mel said. He selected a set of pastel papers with little golden designs imprinted. “I think she may like these,” he decided.

She wondered why those, out of all the colors and paper packets he could have chosen. “What is your favorite thing about Reihan?” she asked.

“She’s incredibly practical but also a dreamer. I love the way she balances the two.” He thought for another moment before adding, “She’s graceful.”

“She seems so contained,” Giana commented.

Where Eshne was like a boat being tossed about in a storm, Reihan was a miniature boat, handcrafted and stored inside a bottle.

“She is,” Mel agreed. “But she feels things beneath the surface. Like a pool of water.”

Like her father, Giana thought.

She wondered whether he saw Reihan in himself, as she did. “Why did you choose that name for her?” she asked.

“Aadya chose it,” he said, voice tight as it curved around Aadya’s name. “The meaning is floral. Scene of blossoms.”

“That is beautiful,” she thought. “And the name itself, outside the meaning, sounds powerful.”

She enjoyed the names of all his children. She knew there were stories behind the four names Aadya had chosen for the children she had with Drey – they were part of the family lore at this point – but her understanding of Meldrick’s name choices was lacking. There was such a variety of names, no discernable pattern.

“Are you ready for another?” he asked.

She would have dropped anything she had been holding.

Above two years, she’d sat and sipped her tea, slept alone, while Aadya continued to have children that weren’t Mel’s, while Mel stood by Aadya.

Children, more children, the idea of that…it was such a tenderly-stored notion that Giana wasn’t sure how to draw forth from the deepest part of her soul. To give that hope light and freedom now, knowing it might not happen, was a risk…

“Perhaps sooner than later,” she said carefully. What if she was wrong, and Aadya had looked elsewhere for heirs because Mel didn’t want more? “I am not in any rush. What about you?”

He rested his palm, warmer than usual, against her lower back. “I enjoy children. I am always ready.”

It felt to her as though all of her lower organs sank within her and resurfaced, insatiable.

“Is that so?” she asked in a flirtatious tone.

What in the world were they doing in a paper shop in Hong Kong, when they could be at home solving this very important issue of neither of them having enough children?

He bumped his hip into hers and then twirled her so that she spun into him. He kissed her, soft but with a hint of that same hunger. “I found what I want,” he said, looking into her eyes.

She wanted to melt against him. That was precisely what a well-bred lady would have done, and she could see he wanted it, but it wasn’t what he needed. Time, and relationship-building were at least as important as intimacy. She pulled away from him, unable to keep the smile off her face. “But I have the money,” she teased him.

“I could procure it,” he teased back, challenge in his tone. It made her wish she had thought of somewhere more creative to hide the money.

He reached above her head, to the strand of paper things which hung from the store’s ceiling. “A lantern,” he said.

She let her eyes trace the curve of his arms to look at what he touched, and saw that he reached toward an array of lanterns. “There are so many to choose from,” she murmured.

“What is your favorite color?” he asked.

She had many. The green-brown of a pond in shade. The color of Niels’ and Viggo’s eyes. The vibrancy of sunlight in a spring forest.

She looked at him, in her effort to decide, and she saw the redness of blood vessels that showed through his pale, pale blue eyes.

“Red,” she decided, because it was true.

He reached up and selected a red one with gold orchids on it. “How about this one?”

“Very suitable,” she teased. Perhaps they could hang it in their room, unless he had a plan for it at the summer festival. 

She took the money from her back pocket and held it close, between them but where he could see. “Shall I pay, or would you like to?”

“I’ll let you, this time,” he said.

She beamed. She couldn’t help the amusement, which came as a relief. She needed some way to distract herself from him if they were to make it through the cruise.

She carried the lantern and the jar and the papers to the counter and paid the old man who watched them with lidded eyes. He left Giana with the conviction that he was old enough to talk to her ancestors and all of them glowered at her through that man’s eyes.

It was a relief to leave the shop, but she’d done it; she’d paid for something, other than food, rather than letting a man or an agent handle the transaction.

It was liberating.

In the street, she quietly passed him the rest of the money. That was quite enough liberation for today, in her book. “Where to next?” she asked him.

“There’s one more thing I want, unless you don’t agree that we need a traditional tea pot from here.”

“A teapot?” she breathed. Did he want one for himself, or because he knew she would want one?

Contented warmth flooded her; she was certain, somehow, that it was both.

“One of those flat heavy ones, yes.” he said. Serious, no teasing, joking, flirting, just him wanting a teapot.

“I don’t think I’ve seen one before,” she admitted. European teapots, she considered herself an expert on, but these were so different. “Where do you think we could buy one?”

He gestured toward a shop midway down the street. “A tea shop, before our cruise?”

He might have already planned this whole trip out. She had no way of knowing. He was so careful, so steady. He wanted a teapot.

It meant he cherished their years of afternoon tea encounters, just as she did. More than the intimacy, more than the outings together, more than the scent of him in all her space now, the feel of him beside her – more than all of those things, this showed her the depth of his feelings.

She froze mid step and looked at him, as a blush flooded her cheeks and neck. “Mel?” she asked.

He turned, a foot or two ahead of her, and looked at her face. The blush deepened. “Yes, Giana?”

She took a step closer to him so that she wouldn’t have to speak so loudly. “I hope you know that I love you,” she said. Her voice sounded so demure compared to the racing of her heart. “And that I hold our memories and time together so dear. And that each new thing I discover about you only makes me love you more.”

“Did I do something you like?” he asked lightly. He closed the space between them and drew her into a hug, then a sweet kiss. “I love you,” he said.

“Just…” she stammered. “Doing this, with you. It’s so much more.”

He wrapped her in his arms for another moment before they resumed their walk toward the tea shop. “You allowing me to accompany you means a lot to me as well. It’s something I’ve longed for.”

She wondered how long he’d longed for this. Years, as she had?
She hadn’t wanted it for years. She’d longed to have a man like Mel, for years, while she watched him struggle in his relationship. She had never meant to drive them apart. However much she told herself it was Aadya’s doing, with her affairs, she knew that if Mel had slept alone their first night apart, things might have settled differently in the end.

The fact that he went to Giana had sealed their divorce, she suspected. It was why she couldn’t bring herself to talk to Aadya just yet.

If only Konrad had not left her in the same week that Mel had. It was such an unfortunate timing.

Giana pulled herself together: She worried, obviously, for Aadya. She ought to find her and speak with her. Anything Aadya might accuse her of, she deserved, though she didn’t believe Aadya was the sort of woman to accuse.

Regardless, Gi was her friend. Aadya didn’t need to lose a friendship, the same week she lost her husband and her lover, if it could be avoided.

For now, she would focus on Mel. But tomorrow, at the festival, she resolved that she would spend time with Aadya.

Mel opened the tea shop door for her, with a sly kiss to her cheek as she passed him, and together they stepped into the shop. She breathed in the air.

How she would love to work in a place like this. “It smells delicious,” she breathed.

“What do you smell?” he asked.

“Cloves.” Cardamom, licorice, anise, peppermint, lemon, ginger, lavender…so many scents.

Mel scanned the menu and then ordered something which Giana suspected would turn out to have an ample amount of cloves in it.

They selected a table and sat side-by-side rather than across from each other. Mel hooked his ankle behind hers and ran his foot up and down her calf. His eyes scanned the shelf, where teapots were on display with price labels beneath them.

The server brought their tea.

A moment later, while Giana was pouring her tea, a group of three people – Americans, by the look of their clothing – transported to the corner of the store.

Giana frowned into her tea. Whoever they were, it seemed no one had explained to them that transporting was supposed to be subtle, not draw attention, certainly not be in the middle of a place of business.

She took a sip of her tea. Just because they called attention to themselves didn’t mean she had to give it.

Mel seemed to have drawn the same conclusion. “What do you think?” he asked, his eyes refocused on her.

It was a black tea, cloves and cinnamon and heavenly. “It’s very rich,” she said. “It wants a vanilla ice cream, I think.”

He laughed. “Fried ice cream.” He ran his foot up her leg again and she met his eyes, hungry for something tea could never offer. They were never going to make the cruise at this rate.

“Yes,” she agreed. Her voice gave her away, all her hunger revealed in that one word.

He reached for her hand. “Gi,” he said, holding her gaze. “You’re perfect.”

Giana started to lean towards a kiss, when the girl from the rude strangers party sat down at one of the empty chairs at their table. “Am I perfect?” she asked. She fixed her attention on Mel: “Why aren’t you freaking out and why are you whiter than a crayon?”

Giana suspected that Mel swore in his head. He slid his eyes toward the stranger, slowly. “Good evening,” he said.

It was the king in him, ever-pleasant.

“Good,” the short male stranger said. He had reddish brown hair that curled every which way on top of his head and looked as though he hadn’t shaved in days, potentially not by choice. “You speak English.”

“May I help you?” Mel asked in the same polite tone.

“We need to get to wherever you, the white man, is from.” That was the girl, again. 

Giana wanted to equal Mel’s calm demeanor. This was her opportunity to show him that she could do parts of his job. In fact, she was skilled at hosting and at helping others to feel comfortable even if she was not.

“I think he’s more of a cornsilk yellow,” she declared. She smiled at Mel. “I thought you were trying not to stand out.”

The short man spoke again. Giana was doing her best to avoid looking too closely at the tall man, because he looked like a cross between a bouncer and a security guard in a certain type of movie.

The short man, she suspected, was more capable than he looked.

“We just teleported to this room and you didn’t so much as flinch,” he accused Mel. Giana sighed; it was true. In the future, she would need to appear shocked and perhaps panicked about aliens. Americans were obsessed with aliens. 

Next time Americans transported nearby her, she would panic and accuse them of being Martians. Then, perhaps, they would leave her to enjoy her date in peace.

On the other hand…she loved new people, and the mystery of what they needed had caught her attention.

“Is that what gave me away?” Mel asked. “I can deliver you to a queen, if you’d like. I’m not sure how I can help you.”

The short man sat at their table, overturned one of the empty teacups, and poured himself a serving. “Thank you,” he said, as though they’d offered it to him.

Mel stared at the teacup for a second. His lips moved once.

Giana made a very valiant effort at not laughing, and nearly lost except that Mel chose that precise instant to ask her, “Would you mind if I vanish for a moment?”

“I’ll be here,” she said placidly. She turned her attention to the strangers, ready to play hostess in Mel’s absence. “What sort of help do you need?”

Mel stood. “Aadya’s,” he stated. He put his hand on the short man’s shoulder and vanished, with him.

Now Giana did laugh, as she imagined the man’s shock at being transported, away from his group. The other two in his party didn’t look concerned. The girl drank the tea the short man had poured, and the tall man paced, doing his best impression of a bull in a china shop.

Literally. 

She giggled again.

And then Mel was back, wearing a pleased expression. He looked uncannily like Acheron did when he’d cleaned a room.

“How did he like your help?” she asked.

She secretly loved what he’d done for her, the message that he was on a date and wasn’t available to deal with minor problems.

Poor Aadya, though. The man had such a rude demeanor…

“We won’t be friends this year,” Mel mused. Giana thought that would have been unlikely either way. Mel looked at the other two strangers. “Would you two care to join us while my ex-wife prepares your rooms? We’re going on a dinner cruise.”

Giana grinned. She could see what the new game was: Stay out of the Dells long enough for the short man to be thoroughly dealt with, before they returned home.

She took Mel’s hand, prepared to spend the entire evening flirting mercilessly with him, as he had no escape or reprieve without ruining his own game.

“Ready?” she asked. 

It would be so fun.

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