The rest of the story….

“Excuse me,” a voice, clear as a bell and surprisingly unruffled, chimed from within the depths. “Are you going to help, or just admire my technique?”

I froze, half-in, half-out of the dumpster, looking like a startled raccoon caught mid-raid. And then I saw her.

She was perched precariously on a stack of flattened delivery boxes, a single, stray strand of hair escaping her bun, illuminated by the neon glow from the street. In her hand, she held not a flashlight, but a small, elegant silver penlight, its beam focused intently on a discarded, half-eaten spring roll. Her eyes, even in the dim light, sparkled with an intelligent mischief.

“Oh,” I stammered, pulling back slightly, my face burning. “I, uh, I didn’t realize… I thought…”

“Oh,” I stammered, pulling back slightly, my face burning. “I, uh, I didn’t realize… I thought…”

She smiled, a slow, captivating curve of her lips that made the grimy alley feel, for a moment, like a moonlit garden. “You thought you’d found the motherlode, didn’t you? The mythical, perfectly preserved Peking duck.”

My jaw dropped. “How did you know?”

“Because,” she said, gesturing around the dumpster with her penlight, “that’s usually what brings us here. Though tonight, I’m more interested in the structural integrity of these spring rolls. Fascinating how they maintain their crispness even after a significant fall.”

Her name, I would soon learn, was Mei. She was an architect, currently obsessed with sustainable waste management and, apparently, the surprising resilience of fried dough. I, a struggling writer perpetually on the brink of a culinary discovery, was utterly smitten.

We spent the next hour, not just sifting through the Golden Dragon Palace’s discards, but talking. We discussed the ethics of dumpster diving, the architectural marvels of forgotten takeout containers, and the existential dread of a perfectly good dumpling gone to waste. She had a laugh that was like wind chimes in a gentle breeze, and a mind that darted from one brilliant observation to the next.

The Peking duck, it turned out, was indeed magnificent. We shared it, sitting on an overturned crate, under the watchful gaze of a stray cat, our fingers sticky with hoisin sauce and our hearts a little lighter.

As the night deepened and the city began to quiet, we exchanged numbers, not with the awkward formality of a bar pickup, but with the comfortable ease of two kindred spirits who had found each other in the most improbable of places.

Some people meet in cafes, some at parties, some through mutual friends. We met in a dumpster, surrounded by the discarded remnants of a bustling city. And every time I look at my wife, I’m reminded that sometimes, the most fabulous treasures are found where you least expect them, even if they’re a little bit sticky and smell faintly of ginger and soy. It was, after all, our dumpling destiny.