22
It was a simple thing for Brooke to have lunch with her friend Ling Chu: their workplaces were an easy bus ride apart at either end of 42nd Street, she at the UN, Ling at the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China. The restaurant choices were definitely more numerous at Brooke’s end of the street, and more numerous still halfway between; but those pricier restaurants were reserved for special occasions. This month it was Brooke’s turn to make the trip across the island, which meant that they would share a medium-sized vegetarian pizza with extra mushrooms and olives.
If it was dull to be a secretary, Ling didn’t say so. Her chief complaint was how often she had to craft and disseminate official responses to some slander about her home country in popular US media. Whether
