“They want to have a wedding for me at the club!” Emily told me. After Cheung had chased them from the Tai Hang house, she and Tak-Wing had gone to the Repulse Bay Hotel to shelter from the storm. Emily’s friends, Isadore Davis Wong and Tanaka Shigeru, were playing as a duo that night, with an expectation that she might come after dinner if it ended early. They played a fabulous set, danced, and drank champagne. When the storm let up, because they couldn’t afford to stay the night at the hotel, they went to visit our old school friend Lai Po-Chuen, who was now studying medicine at HKU and had a dorm room there. This was where I visited them after I had delivered my message to Cheung. I envied Po-Chuen’s room mightily because it sheltered her from ridiculous family dramas—those of her own family, at least. I couldn’t wait ’til I’d have my own in September. Emily and Tak-Wing crammed together on the narrow bed, while Po-Chuen slept on cushions on the floor. If the prefect caught them, Po-Chuen would be in a lot of trouble, so it wasn’t a permanent solution, but it was a solution for now.

Emily was still high from the feat they’d pulled off, and higher still because of the cricket club invitation. “Imagine that! Tak-Wing and I will be the first Chinese people to marry at the HKCC.”

“Who marries at a cricket club?” I said. “Chinese or not.” My green velvet jacket had been ruined by the rain while I ran her errands. I felt both irritated and scandalized.

“Don’t be such a stick in the mud,” said Emily. “If Father won’t acknowledge us, his betters will.”

“Those snooty foreigners are not better than us just because they’ve come here and taken the best of everything!”

“Of course they are. Why else do Chinese people copy them by setting up clubs that are exactly like the British kind?” Someone had given her a fancy tin of chocolates, and she popped one in her mouth without even offering me one first.

“Uh, because the British won’t let us into their clubs?”

“Well, there must be something good about the clubs for us to want to go in! You’re just jealous because no one’s asked you to have a wedding there. They’re pooling funds so Father won’t have to pay a thing. Because they respect Head Cook Cheung. They aren’t nearly as bad as you say.” She took one more chocolate, then held the tin out to me in a desultory fashion.

I ignored it.

She shook the tin, and the chocolates rattled against the sides.

“It’s a monkey’s wedding, Emily.”

“What are you talking about?” She shook the box again.