“Auntie, I need to find jewelers who speak Mandarin or Shanghainese. Do you know any?”

“Oh, I don’t know if I can help. I’m so busy here in the store, I have no time to waste gossiping with other jewelers.” Having established her bona fides, she went straight on. “Of course, Mr. Lee, at Canal Diamonds, is from Beijing. And Old Wong at Harmony Jewelers, he speaks a dozen dialects-anything for a sale, that old man. Yang Nuanyi’s husband is Shanghainese, so maybe she’s learned his dialect. Or maybe not. If I were married to him I’d be happy for an excuse not to talk to him. Mr. Chen at Bright Hopes is from Shanghai, but he’s been here many years.” She kept that up for a full five minutes. I made a list, excluding the editorials.

“Thank you, Auntie,” I said, when she finally ran out of steam. “I’m grateful for your time, and I won’t take up any more of it. But I imagine you want to know why I’m asking.”

“Oh, it’s not my concern.” Her eyes were wide with innocence, but to head off a commiserating phone call to my mother about the difficulty of living with a daughter always in too much of a rush for common courtesy, I showed Mrs. Chan the photos. She shook her head, at both the jewelry and Wong Pan. “But I’ll call you without delay if I see him,” she promised, aglow at the prospect of striking a blow for justice.

I spent the rest of the morning working my way through Mrs. Chan’s list. I showed the photos and marveled at the variety of ways people had for saying no. I’d gotten simultaneously halfway through the list, halfway down the street, and nowhere when it was time to knock off and meet Mary for lunch.

I headed to our favorite Taiwanese tea shop and slipped onto a stool at a front table. I was a few minutes early, and Mary, being on duty, was likely to be late. I almost ordered black tea, but the old man at the next table swirled a pot of sweet-smelling osmanthus flower, releasing the fragrance. I ordered some of that and pulled the next of Rosalie Gilder’s letters from my bag.