Liana walked toward them, still carrying the girl. She greeted Gideon with a warm kiss, then shook Ivy’s hand. Ivy found it impossible to determine Liana’s age or accent, which was clipped and sounded vaguely German.

Gideon said, “How old are you now, Coco?” The little girl held up five fingers. She was dressed in a lime-green tutu and white tights, and much fuss was made about the green glitter on her chubby cheeks in the shape of a dragonfly. “What’s a dragonfly called in Chinese, Coco?” said Dave. No response. “You learned it this morning.” Everyone waited. Coco whispered something Ivy was pretty sure did not mean dragonfly. “You are so smart, my love,” said Liana. Dave gave his daughter three exuberant smacks, pulling away with glittering lips. I was five, Ivy thought, when the flight attendant left me at Logan Airport.

“I read the other day that toddlers can learn up to four languages with relative ease,” Liana said to Ivy, handing the girl to the nanny. “So Coco is a little behind.”

“She seems smarter than many of my six-year-olds,” said Ivy.

“She is precocious,” Liana conceded, “but maybe everyone feels that way about their own child.”

A waiter came around with a tray of mojitos. Both Ivy and Liana took one. Liana stirred the mint leaves in her glass until the rum turned muddy. “Before Coco,” she said, “I thought having children would be tiresome. I would be tied down. Lose everything I’ve worked for. But actually it’s the opposite—she’s given meaning to everything I do. You’ll understand when you have your own.”

Ivy nodded earnestly. So this was Liana’s main theme. Powerful human rights lawyer, gave it all up for the charms of motherhood. Not a new story. Yet, for the rest of her life, Liana would still feel compelled to demonstrate that she regretted nothing, she was in no way diminished or lesser than her ancient, white-haired husband, whom everyone secretly believed she’d married for his money (had he supported her through law school?). All women, Ivy was beginning to understand, had a theme. The story they constantly told themselves. The innermost wound.

When Liana stopped talking, Ivy complimented the other woman on her satin slippers—“They’re so intricate, and they go so well with your dress”—but actually, she thought they looked like those dollar shoes they sold to tourists in Chinatown, red and shiny, with a black plastic sole, the cloth embroidered with cherry blossoms.

Liana smiled kindly but the kindness felt condescending. So we’re back to this, the smile seemed to say.

“They’re by this amazing designer, Ralph Li-Ping. I try to support Asian designers and artists.”

Ivy smiled. Both women took a long sip of their drinks.

“Dave, what are you looking at?” Liana asked, clearly finished with playing the role of mentor. Ivy felt like a new toy passed around from Dave to Liana, neither of them particularly interested in playing with it, but obligated to feign minimal enthusiasm for Gideon’s sake.

Dave was showing Gideon something on his phone. “We’re not supposed to tell anyone yet, but Liana will be the face of Christopher Zhu’s fall campaign. This is a video he sent me of Liana at Tokyo’s fashion week. He said he hoped I didn’t mind sharing her—he called her his muse.”

Gideon and Ivy bent their heads over the screen. There was Liana, her face announcing itself like a blazing sun amongst moons, sitting in the first row with two willowy models on either side. Her deep voice carried over the chatter of the room to the person recording the video. She was speaking Chinese to the black-haired companion on her left, but badly. Her pronunciation was even worse than Austin’s.

Dave beamed expectantly. Ivy murmured her praise.

“You know,” said Dave, cocking his head from Ivy to Liana. “I didn’t notice it until just now, but you two could be sisters.”

“We look nothing alike, sweetie,” said Liana. “I have at least ten years on Ivy.”

Gideon replayed the video, listening with surprise. “I didn’t know you could speak Chinese, Liana.”

“Kindergarten level,” said Liana. She explained how she’d been taking classes twice a week to learn Mandarin. She was expected to make a five-minute speech for her charity foundation that would be broadcast on CCTV.

“When is this?” asked Gideon.

“September.”

“You still have time. Will it be recorded? I’d love to see it.”

Liana said she would try to get someone to film her. She and Gideon smiled at each other.

Liana turned to Ivy. “Do you speak Mandarin?”

“Not well.”

“Say something,” said Dave.

“Like what?” said Ivy, feeling a new degree of sympathy for Coco Finley.

“Say, ‘The weather today is seventy degrees.’?”

Ivy said the phrase in Chinese.

“Your accent is good!” Liana said in surprise—too much surprise, Ivy thought resentfully. “Maybe you could go over my speech with me. My Chinese tutor has been insufferable lately, I’d be thrilled to make some real progress for once.”

“If it would help,” said Ivy. She stared and stared. She could not fathom the idea that any man, let alone Gideon, would find such a face attractive—and yet Liana had inspired a designer to artistic glory! He’d called her his muse!

“Have you ever been to China, Ivy?” Dave asked.

“I was born there,” said Ivy. “I came to the States when I was five. But I went back once when I was fourteen.” She briefly described her one vacation in Chongqing, but when she realized she was holding court for the first time—Dave and Liana’s interest seemed genuine—she began to embellish this one summer to many summers, speaking of a childhood spent in both rural villages and glittering metropolises, of the discrepancy between the rich and the poor, the abject poverty, the ostentatious excess, families of four squeezed onto a single motorbike, fields and fields of rice paddies. She described Jojo, Aunt Hong, Sunrin and Sunrin’s ayi: where they lived, where they worked, how they viewed people from America, reducing her relatives to avatars for the poor, the rich, the Chinese. As she spoke, Gideon took her glass from her hand and signaled a waiter for another.

“What you said about the class and gender discrepancies really struck home with me,” said Liana. “My great-grandmother was sold by her parents to a peddler so they could feed her brothers. She still came from the foot-binding generation but she taught herself how to read. She raised my grandmother to be the first woman to attend a previously all-male engineering school in Beijing. If you’re interested, I have this book on how Chinese women overcame the class barriers in the pre-Mao era. I can lend it to you.”

Ivy said she would love to read it. Liana suggested that Ivy come to her next book club.

“Am I invited?” Gideon teased.

“Women only.”

“Even I can’t get in,” said Dave, his white curls bouncing around his temples as he shook his head. “They lock the doors for hours and all I hear is nonstop giggling. You must be our mole, Ivy. Give us the inside scoop.”

Liana placed her arm around Ivy’s waist. “She’d never betray her fellow women.”

Ivy felt something loyal and protective emit from the heat of Liana’s hand, something that inducted her into Liana’s inner circle, even if she barely understood how to navigate such a circle in which her Chinese-ness wasn’t something to hide under the tablecloth like an unseemly dog, but flaunted in a qipao with a slit up the thigh. Suddenly, she felt ashamed of her earlier simplification of Liana’s life, of her relatives’ lives. Maybe there were no new stories, only your story. But what did the real story even matter, when most people judged you based on the shallowest surfaces?

After they’d eaten their scallop ceviche and pistachio tapenade, Dave suggested that Liana show Ivy the roses. “Everything’s blooming wonderfully this year”—he tapped Liana’s hip—“all thanks to you, my dear.”

“It’s all thanks to Francisco,” said Liana, taking Ivy’s arm. “I just write the checks.”

They walked toward the well-manicured garden near the gazebo, not speaking much. Liana occasionally waved to a friend or pointed out vegetables to Ivy she was particularly proud of: the bright red tomatoes, splitting with juices, and the fat zucchinis as long as an arm. “We used to have so many problems with parasites and rabbits. But after we hired Francisco, almost everything we eat is homegrown.”

“What a time commitment,” said Ivy. “And you’re so busy already, with Coco and your charities.”

“Just throw money at the problem,” said Liana. She frowned and bent down to pluck a weed that had been wrapped around the stem of a red rose. When she straightened up, a black-vested staff member appeared from thin air to take the weed from Liana’s manicured fingers, handing her a wet napkin with his other hand.