Chapter 2 The Friday Table
The Friday Table
The lobsters at Yat Sing were happy in their glass prison not knowing that it was a prison and not knowing that none of them ever got parole.
They crowded the front tank in a pile, claws banded in blue rubber, antennae waving with the hope of creatures who didn’t understand that being removed from the tank was no reward.
Natalie had always been sympathetic. We all have our cages, both you and me, and none of us ever really get out.
But, no matter how trapped she felt on any given Friday night, she knew the lobsters had it worse.
Tonight, this comfort was less effective than usual.
The salt-and-pepper squid arrived before anyone ordered it because Grace had called ahead. Grace always called ahead. She had never once mentioned that she would do this. The squid simply appeared every Friday at seven-fifteen, cut perfectly, with sauce.
By seven-thirty, the table was full.
Tessa sat at the center because Tessa always sat at the center.
Lung sat on her left, now confident of his place in the group.
Alexis sat on Tessa’s right, sharp-eyed and already annoyed by something she had not yet explained.
Grace sat beside Alexis, straight-backed, calm, and ready to advise and correct the record.
Constance sat on Lung’s left and Natalie sat on her left at the edge of the booth.
Tessa pushed the teapot toward Lung without looking. “Lung.”
He picked it up and refilled her cup.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
At the front tank, one lobster tried to climb over another to climb his way to freedom and failed.
Alexis speared a piece of squid. “I had a man today tell me he wanted his wedding to feel modest but iconic.”
Grace winced. “Those two words aren’t compatible.”
“Exactly. Then he said he didn’t want anything too feminine.”
“His own wedding?” Constance asked.
“Apparently masculinity is very fragile around floral arches.”
Tessa took a sip of tea. “Did you fire him?”
“No, I added an aesthetic incoherence surcharge.”
“Good.”
Constance looked up. “Is that legal?”
“No,” replied Grace.
Alexis looked at Grace and said, “It’s called creative invoicing.”
“Still no,” Grace said.
The waiter arrived with steamed fish. He pretended not to understand Alexis’ Cantonese, which was a weekly ritual between them.
Alexis then ordered in English out of spite.
He then pretended to now realize what she was saying and correct her in Cantonese out of deeper spite.
The ritual had been satisfied so he left.
Natalie ate squid. Drank tea. Listened.
Yat Sing was loud in the usual way: plates clattering, families squirming, waiters weaving between tables. The restaurant smelled of ginger, frying oil, hot tea, and the wet mineral sadness of the lobster tank.
It was familiar. It was also, tonight, unbearable.
Everyone at this table had a place. Tessa commanded. Alexis interjected. Grace corrected. Constance observed. Lung obeyed. And Natalie listened and was ignored.
For Natalie, that had been fine last week.
But last week was before Aaron Lam had stood in Galerie Cho Chou’s backroom, three feet from the green sofa, and Natalie’s arms had refused to move.
Grace looked at Lung’s phone on the table. “Is that the app?”
Lung put one hand over the screen. “Maybe.”
Alexis leaned forward. “Secret billionaire Tinder.”
“It is not Tinder,” Lung scoffed.
“It involves profiles, photos, matching, and sex. That’s Tinder.”
“It has no swiping.”
Alexis waved this away. “Details.”
Constance glanced at the phone. “Are we doing this?”
“Of course,” Alexis said.
Lung shrugged and asked, “Who goes next?”
Before anyone else could react, Natalie announced, “I’ll go next.”
They all looked at her.
“Really?” Grace asked. “Are you sure?”
“Maybe you want to wait until the rest of us have gone?” Constance asked. “Just to be safe?”
An uncharacteristic sharp look passed over Natalie’s face.
Alexis saw that and said, “Okay, Natalie this time. If she wants to try, let her.”
Lung unlocked the phone and passed it across the table.
Natalie took it.
That alone felt like a small victory. The weight of the phone in her hand. The table watching. The little black app open beneath her thumb.
She was next, not last.
Natalie scrolled through the phone.
A hotel heir. No.
A venture capitalist. No.
A shipping family grandson. No.
A man whose profile photo involved a polo pony. Absolutely not.
“Go slower,” Alexis said. “Some of us might want one of them.”
Natalie kept scrolling.
“There,” Grace said. “He looks nice.”
Natalie passed him.
Lung leaned over. “That one collects ceramics.”
“No.”
“That one has very good references.”
“No.”
“That one has a philanthropic foundation,” Grace said.
“No.”
Natalie knew that she was looking for someone but didn’t know who.
“You are being very judgmental,” Tessa said. “All of those are good matches for you.”
That stung. They were nice. Polite. Boring. Exactly who I deserve, Natalie thought darkly.
“I’m looking for a specific kind of man.”
Tessa watched her, her eyes narrowing.
Then Natalie found him.
Danny Yeung.
Unlike the others, he wasn’t in a business suit, smiling blandly.
He stood on a film set, one arm wrapped in tape, black T-shirt damp at the collar, jaw bruised, face cut.
He was smiling widely, showing his muscles, his eyes promising fun.
Promising sex. His profile said actor, martial artist, fantastic lover.
His photo showed muscle, sweat, excitement, and no quiet dinners with a man who collected ceramics.
His eyes said, “I like to fuck, not date.”
Natalie stopped.
A strange calm moved through her.
That’s him.
Natalie set the phone in the center of the table and turned it around.
“Him,” she said.
Everyone stared.
Alexis’s mouth opened, then closed.
Grace looked at the screen, then at Natalie, then at the screen again, as if she could muster a good objection if she studied the evidence hard enough.
Constance asked, “Danny Yeung? Really?”
“Yes.”
“You think that’s the right guy for you?” Alexis asked. She laughed. “For me, maybe, but for you?”
“Yes.”
“Natalie,” Grace said carefully. “Look at him. That kind of guy? He’ll just have sex with you and leave you crying and sad. You don’t want that.”
“You don’t know that will happen.”
Tessa cleared her throat.
They all looked at her.
Tessa did not smile. “No,” she said flatly.
The word landed flat on the table.
Natalie looked at her. “No?”
“No, not Danny Yeung. Choose someone appropriate.”
Appropriate. Natalie hated that word. Someone appropriate for quiet Natalie Chan who always should settle for less.
Or for nothing.
“I can choose who I want.”
Tessa said, “Lung has the final say. It’s his neck on the line.”
Lung looked at Tessa, then at Natalie.
“No,” he said to Natalie. This was the second time that Tessa had said no but she had used Lung’s mouth to say it.
“But that’s not fair. I can date who I want. You can’t force me to date someone that I don’t want. And I want Danny Yeung.”
“True,” Tessa said again. “But, if you want to use Lung’s app, you’ve got to stay in your lane.”
“But it’s my life.”
Grace folded her hands. “Natalie, he’s a movie star. A public figure. You’ll be in the public eye. You won’t be able to handle that.”
“How do you know what I can handle?”
“You don’t want that.”
“How do you know what I want?”
“No,” Tessa said for the third time. “That is not what you want.”
Natalie’s hands were under the table and she pressed her fingernails painfully deep into her palm in her frustration.
“What do I want then?” she asked anxiously.
Tessa leaned back. “We understand. You want to try to be someone different. Try to be one of those girlfriends that you see him with on TV. That’s understandable. But Danny Yeung is not a date. Danny Yeung is a mistake.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re not—” Grace stopped herself.
Natalie turned to her. “I’m not what?”
Grace looked pained. “That’s not what I meant.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“I was going to say experienced.”
“How do you know what kind of experience I have?”
Alexis snorted. “Natalie, if you had any experience, we’d all know. I have experience. Leave the Danny Yeungs of the world to girls like me and you can handle the businessmen."
“Alexis,” Grace said.
“What? We all know it’s true.”
Lung reached for his phone. “There are other profiles.”
Natalie kept her hand on it.
He stopped. Then he looked at Tessa.
Tessa gave the smallest nod.
Lung moved Natalie’s hand out of the way and took the phone.
“Here,” he said, gaining confidence now that Tessa had backed him. “Look at this one. Wai-Ku Wong. Technology fund. Very private. His family owns—”
“No.”
“He has excellent references.”
“No.”
“He donated to M+.”
“No.”
“He has a good face,” Lung said, as if that made a difference.
“I said no.”
He turned the screen toward her anyway.
Wai-Ku Wong smiled gently beside a sculpture. Good suit. Good hair. Good family. Good manners. The kind of man who would ask before touching her elbow and then thank her for the opportunity.
The old Natalie would have dated him.
The thought was so clear and so horrible that her face went hot.
“I said Danny Yeung.”
“Natalie,” Tessa said.
“No.” Natalie’s voice sharpened. Not loud. Sharp. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Say my name like I’m a client at your firm who needs to be handled.”
Tessa’s eyes narrowed.
Grace inhaled.
Constance looked down at the table.
Natalie pointed at the phone. “I don’t need a committee recommendation. I can choose for myself.”
“We’re trying to help you,” Grace said.
“I know.”
“We love you,” Constance said quietly.
“I know that too.”
“Then let us help,” Tessa said.
Natalie laughed once. It came out wrong.
The lobster in the front tank finally managed to climb over the other one. Freedom. A waiter reached in with tongs and removed it from the water.
Natalie watched the blue-banded claws wave in the air.
“No,” she said.
The table turned back to her.
“No,” she repeated. “I don’t want safe. I don’t want private. I don’t want kind and cultured and appropriate and good for me. I don’t want a man who likes art because that makes sense for Natalie.”
Alexis’s expression softened, which somehow made it worse.
Natalie kept going.
“I didn’t know you had all decided what made sense for me.”
“Nobody decided,” Grace said.
“You did. All of you. You just did it so long ago that now it feels like objective fact.” She went on earnestly. “People can surprise you. People can be different on the inside than you know them on the outside.”
Silence.
Natalie looked at Danny Yeung’s face on the screen.
Sweat. Bruise. Tape. Camera light. A man who looked like he hit the world back.
“I want him,” she said.
No one spoke.
“I want Danny Yeung.”
Tessa held her gaze for a long moment.
Then, very slowly, she said, “Fine.”
Lung looked at her. “Fine?”
“If Natalie wants Danny Yeung,” Tessa said, “then Natalie can choose Danny Yeung.”
The table was quiet with shock. Forceful Tessa yielding to quiet Natalie? That had never happened before.
Grace looked relieved. Alexis muttered something about the world not making sense anymore. Constance touched Natalie’s arm under the table, just once, in reassurance
Dinner continued. Food was eaten. Tea was poured. Alexis told a story too loudly. Grace corrected the bill before it arrived. Tessa discussed a client who wanted crisis communications without admitting there had been a crisis.
They all stayed until the fish was gone and the last piece of squid had become too cold to tempt anyone. Then Constance, Grace and Alexis got up. Natalie stood, too, and pulled on her jacket.
The four friends stepped out onto the pavement.
Outside, Wellington Street shone from the earlier rain. Neon ran in the puddles. The air smelled of roast meat, wet pavement, and bus exhaust. Natalie walked past the lobster tank window without looking in.
“Text when you get home,” Grace said to Natalie.
“I will.”
Constance smiled.
Inside, just Tessa and Lung still sat at the table.
Lung turned to Tessa.
“So,” he said. “Danny Yeung?”
“No,” Tessa said.
Lung nodded. “I’ll take care of it. No Danny Yeung. I’ll make her choose someone appropriate. ”
Tessa looked at him, no mercy in her eye.
“You better.”