Eight is too few, and twelve too many, so Dahlia Fowler bought ten dinner plates for her first home, a low-rise in Yau Yat Chuen, nestled amongst flowers, beyond the shade of the weeping willow. Here, like the pattern on the plates, Magnolia meets Marigold, and both converge with Osmanthus before connecting to Dianthus, while Cassia, Wisteria and Verbena lie adjacent to Begonia. Street names, though George liked to say she was Dahlia enough for the district.

     Dahlia was setting the table when the crashing sound startled her. No, no, no! Letting out a guttural sound, she looked at the pieces of the plate lying on the marble floor, a ceramic petal here, a stem there, leaves strewn about as if on a windy day. Ten guests, including George’s new boss, and only nine plates. She could always use the everyday dinnerware instead, but they weren’t savages! She cleaned up the mess, changed into her outside clothes and headed into town to look for a close-enough replacement. In the spare hour she had set aside for these types of pre-party emergencies, she visited two department stores, but her efforts were in vain.

     She gave up and headed to the Mong Kok Flower Market for her final errand, rehearsing the funny story she would tell at dinner about her clumsiness, and they’d laugh about it. She would make sure the evening would be perfect despite this faux pas. Hope George won’t be too upset about this – he was rather particular about entertaining.

     The market was busy as usual as shoppers zigzagged around the ubiquitous flower-filled plastic buckets spilling out onto the pavements, buying carnations at one store and daisies at the next. Dahlia made a beeline to her favourite spot and picked out a bouquet of tulips, a bit pedestrian perhaps, but they would look splendid against her Dutch chinoiserie wallpaper. Before she could pay, she noticed the largest dinner plate dahlias she had ever seen. Wider than the palm of her hand, streaked in a deep shade of maroon, rich, stately, and so full of their own drama. She set the tulips down and asked the sales lady to wrap up half a dozen of the oversized dahlias instead. 

     As she left, she noticed a new bric-a-brac store nearby. A stack of plates by the entrance caught her eye when she reached out to pick one up on a whim. It was covered with a film of dust fogging out the whimsy of the butterflies on the rim. The next one was the same, but the one below looked exactly like it belonged to her dining set. Flowers abounded, bursting forward in an unabashed glory of nature, practically falling off the plate. Even George won’t notice the difference. She paid the $80 it cost, embarrassingly cheap really, and headed home with a spring in her step. She swiftly washed and dried the newly purchased plate and set it inconspicuously amongst the others under a lotus flower-shaped napkin. An imposter in their midst, right under their noses.