CHLOE BAKER'S LOST DATE

Chapter Thirty-One: Dim Sum

"Where is this place?"

"Not too far. We can take the subway."

"Isn't it even hotter down there?"

"Good point. Hop-on hop-off bus?"

"Are we allowed on there if we live here?"

"Don't see why not." He takes my hand. "Come on, there's a stop not far from here."

"You know the schedule?"

"I do."

"Do I want to know why?"

"It was a perk of my mom's job. She got these free passes to it all the time. In high school, my friends and I would use it to get around the city."

"And terrorize the tourists?"

"Probably."

"Someday we'll go to Cincy and I'll show you all the places where I was a brat when I was a kid."

"Will there be marionettes?"

"One can hope."

We walk to the hop-on hop-off stop and get on the next bus. The guide is an old-timer, with a thousand stories and a voice that sounds like cigarettes. I listen to his patter, holding Ben's hand, seeing the city in a new way. There are so many things I should've done when I got here, but instead, I just settled into work and my little routine and now I barely know anything about the place that I live in except for what I've seen in movies or read in books.

When we get to Chinatown, Ben leads the way to a restaurant that can only be described as a hole in the wall. The décor is from the seventies, and the air is full of the smell of fried things. But it also smells amazing, and, as promised, we're the only white people in here.

A waiter leads us to a table and we sit down.

"You trust me?" Ben asks.

"Is this a trick question?"

"I meant about the food."

"Oh, yes, of course. I like everything but chicken feet." My grandfather loved Dim Sum and he used to take me to the one good place back home when I was a kid. When he was feeling playful he'd get a plate of fried chicken feet and make them walk across the table. I was never able to eat them; they look too realistic.

"Noted." A woman pushes a cart up full of steaming bamboo baskets. "We'll have the Har Gow, Shumai, and the peanut dumpling."

She plucks the containers off her cart and puts them on the table, then marks what we ordered on our bill, then leaves. Another cart will be by shortly, but for now, this looks like we're off to a good start.

"Tell me something I don't know about you," I ask Ben as I grab a dumpling with my chopsticks.

"What category of thing?"

"Doesn't matter. Anything."

"I'm enjoying Felicity."

"It's good, right?" We've only made it five episodes in. Ben hasn't won Felicity back yet, but she's thawing.

"It is. Ben makes some questionable choices, but I feel for the guy."

"This is really good," I say, pointing to the Har Gow.

"I know. Your turn."

"Okay. Hmmm. When I was ten I had scarlet fever."

"For real? Like in the olden days?"

"Yeah. I was pretty sick."

"Were you in the hospital?"

"Almost. My parents were super stressed. It was only a couple of years after Sarah died."