Page 39 of He Is My Bride
“Oh,that’s too bad.”
Damn it.She didn’t seem ready to endorse Li Ying sticking around for a ‘next time.’ Yet.
“Our Hanjun is musical too, Hanrong as well,” Grandmother Linming said.
“Mm, I play the piano,” Hanrong said, “Hanjun plays the violin.”
“Wow! How come I never heard you play?” Li Ying asked Hanjun.
“Not much time to play nowadays,” Hanjun said.
“He used to play in a youth orchestra,” Grandmother Linming said proudly.
It seemed to alleviate the awkwardness at the table to talk about the many pedigrees of the Wus, instead of dancing around Li Ying’s suspiciously mysterious background.
“Can you play for me sometime?” Li Ying asked Hanjun, putting his hands together and looking up at him with a face Hanjun couldn’t say no to.
“I will,” Hanjun promised, and Li Ying beamed at him.
“Do you play often?” Li Ying asked Cousin Hanrong, wanting to be polite and keep up the conversation with him.
They talked about music for a while. It seemed the Wus were avid patrons of the arts. The way they discussed the arts and culture left Li Ying in the dust, but he was glad those flute lessons were paying off when he could at least keep up with the conversation about music. Even if Li Ying had barely had the mind to focus on his lessons back in the day.
Wu Yiheng eventually moved the conversation to business between himself, Hanjun, and Hanrong. He didn’t seem interested in inquiring about Li Ying’s foster family. At first this seemed like a boon, as Li Ying didn’t have to start dishing out the half-truths about how they didn’t want to be involved in his marriage prospects, but soon Li Ying became worried; why wasn’t Wu Yiheng more interested in him? Tea was soon running out, and so was Li Ying’s time to make his moves.
They moved up the three-tiered silver tray onto the sweet pastries. Li Ying tried eating the cream-bursting profiterole daintily to not mess up his lipstick, but managed to get some cream at the corner of his mouth anyway. He carefully dabbed it off with a napkin, feeling himself clumsier than he ought to be when simply trying to eat. Grandmother Linming praised the pastry chef and lamented that such delicacies were hard to reproduce at home.
“I’m more of a traditional home cook, and I fear it’s too late for me to learn how to make fancy pastries.”
“Auntie cooks?” Li Ying sought to rejoin the conversation when he saw his opening.
“I used to cook more for my sons and grandsons.” She looked softly upon her son Wu Yiheng, whose face remained stern and impassioned, or as Li Ying liked to call it, his resting bitch face. Li Ying honestly now saw where Hanjun had gotten it from.
Grandmother Linming went on, “Now, with everyone living in their own places and being so busy all the time, I mostly cook for myself.”
Li Ying pursued the topic, hoping to find common ground, “What kind of cooking does Auntie do? I really enjoy both Chinese and Western cooking myself.”
“You know how to cook?” Grandmother Linming asked Li Ying.
“I learned from my Grandma. Uh, I always called her Grandma, although we’re not blood-related. She is the mother of my foster father. My siblings and I used to spend a lot of time in the kitchen with her, so I picked up a few things. Grandma was born here on the mainland, and she taught me all the traditional recipes she knew. My favorite was her Dan Dan noodles. I think I’m pretty good at making them myself.”
“You like spice?” Grandmother Linming asked.
“Yes! But Junjun can never handle my Sichuanese cooking, so I tone it down for his sake.” Li Ying laughed, rubbing Hanjun’s arm in tease.
Hanjun had tensed. Li Ying had just called him by his nickname so casually in front of everyone.
But why not, Hanjun thought; they had been dating and living together for a while, after all. He resumed sipping his tea while his cheeks grew pink.
“Oh, I know,” Grandmother Linming said. “I originally learned to cook Sichuan style from my mother, but the local cuisine in Shanghai is not so spicy, and the Wus aren’t used to it. You should come over to my place some day and we could cook together.”
Yes, a chance to win Grandma Wang over!Li Ying rejoiced. “I would love to!”
Wu Yiheng put his teacup down as if as an interjection. “Being so clever,” he said, picking up a pastry consisting of a tiny shortbread crust filled with pastry cream and pieces of fresh fruit, “does Missy Liknow what that’s called in English?” Wu Yiheng was looking at him oddly.
Li Ying blinked in confusion. “Uh, ‘tart?’” he said in English.
“Hm.” Wu Yiheng bit into the fruity pastry, still staring Li Ying down.
