“For two?” the waiter said, reaching for a stack of menus before hearing a response.

“Yes. Thanks,” J said.

“This way please.”

They followed the waiter as he made his way across the restaurant to a table sitting against the far wall. J and her companion sat down, smiling their thanks at the waiter, who disappeared behind them into the kitchen, moving rapidly.

“This is a big place,” her companion said, looking around the room.

“Hm,” J said, intent on the menu.

When she finally glanced up she saw her companion was correct. The restaurant was L-shaped and they sat near the junction of the two parts of the letter. The top part of the L, which extended from the entrance to the kitchen behind them, had more than twenty tables easily, she guessed, set in four precise rows. The other end of the L was longer and had even more tables. Maybe a third of those tables were filled now, a low murmur of conversation reaching their ears.

“What are you thinking?” her companion said, flipping through the menu. “Dim sum? And maybe some noodles?”

J did not reply. In her study of the room, she had set her eyes upon a group at a table two rows across from them. She hadn’t noticed them when they first entered the restaurant—for which she was now cursing herself—and now that she had, she found herself unable to stop looking. At last she forced herself to turn away—before they noticed, and before her companion did as well.

Read the rest at Circumambient Scenery.

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