Leaves [gxg]

25

25

It took weeks to receive the acceptance of her applications and then preparations for the trip began in earnest. Erisa continued to question her, reluctant to let River put herself into a possible bad situation, but she also didn't want to stand in River's way. River appreciated her friend's concerns. More than she could ever say, and she tried to say it. Often.

The chance to visit a whole different country, with a history and tradition of tea-making that dated back hundreds of years was too much for River to pass up, however. Were it not for Celeste, she would never have even considered it. And, if nothing else, River had to acknowledge that Celeste had broadened her horizons beyond anything she could have imagined.

She had to, of course, put aside any thoughts about Celeste as anything but a travelling companion. That bothered her, but she couldn't force someone to find her attractive, or to compromise their sexuality for her. She could no more expect Celeste to do that than River could do for a man. People were attracted to who they were attracted to. That was life.

Once the applications returned, however, Celeste's planning and scheduling went into overdrive and River could hardly keep up. She felt like a spare wheel as Celeste talked about flights and accommodations and getting in touch with the relevant plantation and of having a competent translator and a million other things that made River's head spin. She had no idea how complicated such a trip could become.

She tried. An online course in Chinese occupied her spare time, but she had trouble with the pronunciations. And she abandoned any hope of learning more than a few Chinese characters. She felt confident she could recognise the character for 'toilet', but little else. She didn't doubt she would rely heavily upon the translator that Celeste hired.

It salved her fears and worries that Antoine had started to become far better at his job and that Celeste had chosen dates for the trip that coincided with a break in Erisa's packed university schedule. Without both of those things happening, River didn't think she could have even thought about going to China.

China! She still couldn't believe it. The sum total of her trips abroad came to one. A weekend in France, with school, which she had only limited memories of. She thought she remembered seeing the Eiffel Tower, but that could just as easy be a memory of a day trip to Blackpool. For many years of her life, paying attention was what other people, who had nothing better to do, did. She wasn't proud of it.

"Well, I think it's all proper exciting." In a lull between customers, Antoine sat with River and Erisa. "I'd love to learn martial arts from a real Chinese master. That would be brilliant!"

"Oh, you do martial arts? That wasn't on your list of interests." Erisa gave River a hidden wink, but River didn't know why.

"Never done martial arts in my life." Antoine dropped a ridged hand in a chop against the surface of the counter, rattling cups, saucers, spoons and biscuits. He rubbed it with his other hand. "But I've seen loads of old martial arts movies. Bruce Lee. Jet Li. Jackie Chan. Sammo Hung. I love martial arts movies!"

Now River understood the wink. Of course Antoine had never practiced martial arts. He had proven himself a nice, friendly lad, if a little directionless. River could never see him putting the time and energy into martial arts, no matter how much he wanted to. After knowing him for a few weeks, she felt surprised he had managed to stay in the job this long. Every day she expected to receive the call that he wanted to quit. Strangely, it hadn't come.

She felt glad that she had hired Antoine, but, if he were female, she expected people would consider him 'flighty' or some other disparaging word that stereotyped women into arbitrary groupings. Perhaps 'free-spirited'? Or 'erratic', 'fickle', 'capricious'? As a man, he got away with 'care-free'. He never meany any harm and many customers liked him as he was, but River also felt glad that she had Erisa to keep Antoine's worst excesses to a minimum.