A Place Beside the Work

The print shop asks Shuyin whether she wants the reflection brightened. She has the photograph open on her phone, her gloved thumb resting beside the faint shape of me in the station glass.

“Keep it as it is,” she says.

The clerk taps the screen to dismiss the adjustment. Shuyin chooses a small matte print, the sort that will fit between her monitor and the pen cup on her desk. While the machine runs, she stands near the counter with Yanqiao’s coat buttoned over her work clothes. A paper bag of breakfast sits in her bicycle basket outside.

I follow the red thread into the shop. The image appears slowly beneath the printer’s cover, first a pale wash of station lights, then Shuyin by the glass. My reflection stays faint. Her face is clear.

The clerk slides the print into a paper sleeve. Shuyin checks it once, without lifting it out. She pays and puts it in the inner pocket of her bag, where it lies flat against a notebook.

At the office, she parks Yanqiao’s bicycle in the rack and takes the stairs with her bag held close to her side. The day has already started. A delivery cart blocks half the hallway, and someone has left a stack of folders on the ledge by the door. Shuyin shifts the folders to make room for herself, then hangs her coat on the back of her chair.

The desk has kept its usual clutter. A calendar, a mug with a chipped handle, two pens that don’t write well. She sits and sets the print beside her keyboard, still inside its sleeve. Her hand rests on it while she logs in.

A message arrives. She answers it, opens a document, then reaches for the photograph again.

The paper is cool against her fingers. She takes it out and turns it once to check the edges. The crop includes the station sign and the slant of her scarf. Behind her, the reflected lights veil most of my face. The red tie around my wrist is a dark curve near the bottom of the glass.

Shuyin shifts the pen cup to the far side of the monitor. She tries the photo against the monitor stand, but it slides forward. She takes a small binder clip from the desk drawer and props the print in its metal jaws. The clip holds it upright, tilted slightly toward her chair.

She studies the arrangement, then turns the photograph a little. Now someone passing her desk can see it, though the angle still favors her.

The red thread lies along the edge of the desk. It passes over the calendar and disappears behind the monitor, toward the small picture she has set among her working things. I can’t cross the space between us. I can only stay with the choice she makes.

A coworker stops with a folder in hand. “You got that printed?”