Ever since the discovery of the unknown piano player, he had decided to walk Ting Ting past the corner house every day. Now that his mother had gone, there was no one he had to answer to, no meals he had to be on time for, and just as long as he dropped the kids off at day camp and returned to the house around 4 or 5pm to help them get settled and help Mei get dinner on the table, then she allowed him as much freedom as he needed. Although some days he spent his time brooding in his room with headphones on he soon abandoned this. The constant wet and dark of the earlier part of the year gave way to some stunning weather and he found that Vancouver was suddenly and unexpectedly beautiful. 

He was also careful to avoid making trouble for Mei, although sometimes it was unavoidable. Mei had come home one day to find that he had rearranged her sticky notes and organized them by colour regardless of what they said or what their priority had been. He had sheepishly admitted that the mess of colours had just been too hard for him to leave alone and he had finally given in to the urge to organize them in a way that annoyed him less.

As for the corner house, he soon grew familiar with its non-descript gray siding. The front façade was faced with jutting rectangular stones, also gray, only broken by a large and unusual window. It was made up of 4 pieces. A large piece bordered at the top with three smaller rectangles in a dark frame. The last two times he had passed the house, he had noticed someone standing there in the shadow watching as he passed.

He had seen her a few times now out on the street and was sure that she was the mistress of the corner house. Standing in the park the other day and had also noticed her there and watched from a distance as she played with her children in the final rays of sun. This time she was alone and burning with curiosity he decided to get a little closer, pretending to inspect the dirt. This didn’t last long.

“Why are you following me?” she asked, stomping up to him at last. She’d been sneaking furtive glances at him from under a fringe of hair, trying to be discreet but he had noticed her watching him as he stood with Ting Ting under the ever greens, shifting delicately so as not to get mud on his Adidas shoes. He closed his eyes, making a face as his shoes made an unattractive squelching noise.

English, he thought with dismay. She spoke English. This was going to be a problem.

He shuffled uncomfortably, looking at Ting Ting and then at the smashed grass in front of his feet. She was quite a bit shorter them him, only coming up to his chin, and dressed very casually, her feet housed in ridiculous looking green rubber rainboots. She looked like she had crawled out from a farm. 

He peaked at her face, which was defiantly upturned, her expression angry.  However, from her shallow breathing, he could tell she was afraid. Her foolish need to confront him, made him annoyed. Had he been something shadier, she might have experienced real danger. The thought turned possessively in his chest, startling him.

And she now was standing too close to him. 

He backed up, slowly, but in the next moment the wind swished her long hair in his direction and he paused, smelling a faint mixture of soap, something herbal, and a rather pleasant blend of coconut and some other exotic scent that he later found out was kukui oil.

He had no idea what to say to her or how to explain that he’d been watching and waiting for her to come out of her house so that he could meet her instead of standing on the corner pretending to walk his dog while desperately listening to her sad piano, her multiple arguments with her husband, and the constant shrieking of her small children. 

He looked up at last, squinting and frowning in frustration.

“Are you alright?” she asked, hesitating, seeming to weigh something out as she searched his face. He could see himself reflected in her eyes and noticed that they were now glimmering with curiosity rather than hostility. Her non-descript, somewhat shabby clothes, her long dark hair messily flipped over one eye, did nothing to conceal the sharply pointed face, the lovely gold tone of her skin, her prominent cheekbones and the full bottomed lip. Those lips belonged to a face that was used to smiling. However, right now they were thinned in annoyance. With a bit of a jolt, he realized that she was pretty.

Her gaze turned frank and appraising. Then it clicked over and softened a little as if she had come to some sort of decision.

He nodded cautiously, again noticing some other emotion flit across her face. How incredibly mobile her face was, he thought to himself.

“You can’t talk?” she asked, the annoyance back in her voice. He watched it ripple over her glass face and was suddenly amused. She was not good at hiding how she felt and that was a relief – he wasn’t particularly good at words, but he could read a person’s expression quite easily.

He shook his head, grimacing a little.

“E-english…” he shook his head again. He could understand her fine, but he couldn’t bring himself to make words.

“Oh,” she said, thoughtfully. “You don’t speak English. Cantonese?” she asked hopefully, tilting her head, and shading her eyes against the sun, which had suddenly decided to break out from behind the clouds again.

He shook his head.

“Mandarin,” she confirmed, nodding slowly. “Ok, well, I don’t speak Mandarin and barely any Cantonese, but whatever. I’m Viv - Vivian.”

“Au,” he replied, relaxing. “William,” surprising himself with the lack of stutter.

He extended his hand, but Ting Ting tugged unexpectedly and spun a circle around him tying up his legs with the leash. He gingerly unwound the leash, his annoyance clear, and saw her turn her face to hide her laughter. When she turned back to him, her lips were still quirked up slightly and her eyes sparkled with barely suppressed mirth. He did smile then, and once again tried to extend his hand. She took it cautiously, but could see her sense of humour was now over-riding whatever reservations she still had. How foolish she was! He thought to himself. She had no sense of danger. Again he was a little surprised by his own feelings, but luckily Ting Ting was distracting him enough that he wasn’t showing it.

They shook hands and he had to keep his face neutral as his skin met hers. Her palms were smooth, but the skin over the knuckles was rough and dry where it had split and sealed, leaving bloody red marks behind. They were working hands and he could see that she didn’t take proper care of them. The roughness irritated him, and it was everything he could do to prevent himself from wrenching his hand away. He would have to do something about that. At the back of his mind, a small voice said that he shouldn’t plan for something that wasn’t going to happen, but still the roughness had been jarring enough to incite a reaction if not an action.

Her face was relaxed now, and it was apparent that she had determined him to be non-threatening. This was also a relief as he really didn’t want to frighten her. He just wanted to—well, ‘talk’ was probably not the right word because he didn’t really know how to talk to her, but at least the first hurdle of actually meeting with her had passed. Sneaking past her house at random times throughout the day had become cumbersome and worse than that, he was beginning to suspect the neighbors thought he was a burglar.

They stood awkwardly for a moment, and then she flipped her hair away from her face, turning her back to him once more.

“Well nice meeting you. Bye.” She said abruptly, as if reassessing the whole situation and thinking better of it.

“Ming tian? (tomorrow?),” he asked earnestly, trying not to let himself sound too hopeful.

“No, I think not,” she shot back over her shoulder and walked away across the grass.

“Mmmmn”, he nodded to himself, disappointed. Letting his breath out, he watched her trudge away and then tugged Ting Ting in the opposite direction. His heart thumped a little and the mix of emotions was at once confusing and pleasurable at the same time.

At dinner, even Mei noticed that he was distracted. However, she didn’t ask.