In My Desperate Time

I pick up the pieces and put them all in a bag, and take it out of the door.

Frances Louis will be back in the evening, so I must solve it during the day.

I call Steven Song and tell him I'd be late. I get the leave permit so easily. It’s nice to have a boss buddy.

Then I call Mindy Sue. She tells me a shop that restores antiques, and I go there excitedly.

The boss is a woman of about thirty, not glamorous, but graceful, who looks very comfortable.

When I get in, she is cleaning an inkstone.

She sees me come in and gives me a soft smile.

“Hello.” I go up to her and take the bag out. “Ms, please have a look at this vase and would you repair it?”

The boss puts down the inkstone and takes over the bag.

She frowns when she sees the pieces.

“Broke into pieces.”

suddenly stops and I ask her hurriedly, “Can it be

no. It must be repaired. Or I can’t pay it off even if

try my best but I can’t

Can it be repaired

can't be fixed today, I

eager eyes, looks at me and says, “Since you're in a hurry, I'm not going to do anything else today and will focus on this. But I'm not

me and dumps out the

this blue-and-white porcelain vase. It is not very big. But it must be difficult to be repaired because it has been broken into forty or fifty pieces

you. I will come again around six in

of the antique

again. Who knows what you have done last

Snow says to me

love to me yesterday. It was she who said gossips that made it so awkward. Much of Nicole Snow's hostility toward me comes from misunderstanding

explained but she doesn’t believe it. What

do my job. You have no business

great idea last night during my menstrual cramps. I must draw it as soon as possible in case I

doing. A designer’s work is a private thing. I turn to her and say, “What are you doing behind