? ? ?
?Later, another black car paid for by Theo drops us outside a restaurant sandwiched between a TGI Fridays and a deli. A vinyl sign affixed to the scaffolding reads dim sum authentic banquet with some Chinese characters below it.
Last week I heard a group of boys complaining about their hangovers after a wild night at China Chalet while we waited in a fluorescent-lit hallway for our turn to audition to play an unnamed factory worker in the chorus in Kinky Boots. I called for a reservation the minute I left and pitched the plan to Hannah and Priya as a surprise, mostly because I’d been eavesdropping and wasn’t sure about the particulars.
“Is it open?” Hannah asks, sounding underwhelmed. The Financial District, which is always quiet outside of market hours, feels abandoned to the point of eeriness, like we’ve stepped into the opening scene of an Unsolved Mysteries reenactment.
I’m surprised when I pull the restaurant’s door handle and it opens. We ascend a flight of stairs and emerge into a stodgy banquet room dotted with white-linen-topped tables. Each place setting has a green napkin folded into a fan. The napkins clash with the worn red-and-gold carpet, which clashes with the strip of pink neon lights that ring the room. Only a handful of tables are seated.
“Isn’t this great!” I say with forced cheer.
“Jews have been eating Chinese food on Christmas forever,” Priya says as the host leads us to our table. “I think they have it right. I mean, nobody even likes turkey, but everyone loves dumplings.” I make a mental note to get her a better belated Christmas gift than the rainbow socks I gave her earlier for pretending that this is not a total bust.
Once we’re seated, a waitress pulls up to our table with a cart full of bamboo baskets. She holds up items one by one, taking off their lids and presenting them to us like she’s the Vanna White of dim sum. By the time she wheels her cart away, every inch of the table is filled with baskets of pork buns and pot stickers and satays.
The addition of food eases the mood. “These are fucking great!” Hannah says through a mouthful of cold sesame noodles.
Having a newcomer gives us an obvious topic of conversation, but Theo is sparse with details, like he’s embarrassed by the largesse of his upbringing. Over the course of dinner we eke out a few basic biographical tidbits: He grew up in a townhouse in Belgravia, but left for boarding school in Switzerland at eleven before going on to college in Paris. He has an older brother, so old that he was at university by the time Theo was in primary school. He speaks four languages fluently and a few others less fluently. This we learn when he summons the waitress and requests more shrimp dumplings in rapid Cantonese. She laughs at something he says and ruffles his curls. When she returns, she has an extra basket, even though we only ordered one. His father is skiing in Gstaad for the holiday and his mother is on a beach vacation in Thailand.
“Do you miss home?” Priya asks.
“Not really, no.” He rushes to cover: “Does that make me sound awful? I guess I don’t think of it as home. I haven’t properly lived there since I was eleven. In a lot of ways, it’s easier to be away.”
A wave of recognition crashes over me, like his words could have been my own. Outside of Hannah, I’ve never met anyone else who doesn’t have a family. I feel blindsided when friends mention going on family vacations or having two birthday parties—one with friends and another with family—even now that we’re firmly into our twenties. A reminder that they’re part of a set, while I’m a lone Lego piece. Those people I don’t get, but this . . . this, I get.
When the check arrives, Theo lunges for it, putting down his credit card despite our objections. “You got me breakfast,” he says, “this is only fair.”
When the waitress returns with the credit card receipt, she takes inventory of our group. “Are you going in back?”
“In back?” I’m intrigued.
“To dance?” she clarifies.
“We’re definitely going in back to dance!” I tell her before anyone can object. “And where do we go to do that, again?”
She points to an unremarkable swinging metal door opposite where we entered, which leads to a mirrored hallway. We follow it deeper into the building before taking two turns and a flight of stairs that deposit us into a cavernous basement, the air thick with cigarette smoke despite the city’s nonsmoking ordinances. The floor shakes with the driving beat of “I Love It” by Icona Pop. I’m shocked we didn’t hear music in the dining room, there must be some industrial-grade soundproofing. A disparate crowd of revelers—from skater punks to glossy uptown girls—wave their hands in the air dancing with reckless abandon. Here are our people. Here are the other Christmas strays dancing the night away at China Chalet.
* * *
? ? ?
?Later that night, or more accurately, early the next morning, Hannah and I stagger into her apartment on tired legs. My ears still ring from the music. We left Priya there, her mouth fused onto the face of the DJ, who periodically broke their kiss to switch out the record on his turntable. Theo hopped into yet another black SUV with promises we’d do this again soon.
I could sleep in Priya’s room. She won’t be using it tonight. But instead, Hannah and I lie face-to-face in her full-sized bed, under the watchful gaze of Florence Welch, whose illustrated form stares down at us from a poster above the dresser.
“Did you have a nice Christmas?” Hannah asks through a yawn. She’s already half asleep despite the cacophonous performance the old steam radiator is putting on.
“Definitely top three.”
“Because of Theo?”
I’m glad my back is to the window so the slant of streetlight doesn’t catch the gooey smile that comes to my face unbidden. I reach up and cover my mouth with my hand just in case.
“Do you like him?” she follows up when I don’t answer.
“Maybe.”
She kicks my shin. “Okay, yes,” I admit.
“I do, too,” she says. “For you, I mean. But promise me if you fall in love with him, we can still have Christmas together every year.” There’s a whiff of desperation in her voice, but I could never leave her.
“Of course I promise.” I reach out my pinky finger and she hooks it with her own.
three
Hannah
This year, November 14