rothniel
Active member
"Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well."
Voltaire
Miss Nyugen glowered as she pulled into the driveway and tried to take in the scent of flowering dogwood, but its usual joy was lost on her. Another trip to her doctor's office had left her drained. She was tired of hearing them stumble over her name, pronouncing it New-yen or worse, New-gen. And even worse than that were the periods of awkward silence when she related her medical issues quite clearly in English, and they would stop writing and stare and make her repeat herself over and over until at last she would just be silent. And stone-silent she would remain. Stone-silent, and let them stare. Rachel used to always come with her to translate, but now her American-born daughter had gone back to Vietnam for love and Miss Nyugen had told her it wouldn't last, it never does, and she had been right, though Rachel was too proud to call and admit it.
She was tired of always being Miss Nyugen. She was tired of being Miss When. But then as she stepped out of the car and smoothed the wrinkles of her floral pattern dress, she remembered, “Ah yes, today will be the day.” And she smelled the dogwood once again.
Entering the unlocked house she detected the decidedly unpleasant smell of not-cooking, that is, the smell of her son Danh not having prepared dinner and instead playing with the dog, which now ran past her through the living room into the kitchen, chased by her watergun-wielding grandson, Christopher.
“It was your night to cook,” she announced in her native tongue as she entered the kitchen. She decided she didn't like it much at all when there wasn't steam billowing to the ceiling. Too cold.
“But you do it so much better,” Danh replied in Vietnamese, and turned his attention to the golden retriever who was seeking sanctuary from his pint-sized assailant. Christopher circled the dog, squirting his already soaking fur until she snatched the dribbling little green toy from his hand and placed it on the spice shelf. He stared in indignation, his little jaw jutting forth.
“I cook chicken,” she said in English for Christopher's benefit, “you make rice.”
She opened the cabinet, removed a bag of rice and let the little door fall shut with a bang. She tossed Danh the bag, who caught it overhanded and gave her that look. He placed it on the table and snatched a worn tennis ball from the floor, sputtering sweet nothings into the dog's ear, working him into a tail-wagging frenzy. Danh stood, walked to the back door and opened it. The dog followed the trajectory of the ball carefully as it left Danh's hand before exploding into the backyard. Danh followed, shouting gleefully to his pet, and slammed the door behind him.
Miss Nguyen walked slowly to the kitchen table and sat, starting to pick up the bag and then stopping. Christopher's voice rang in her ear. “Grandmother, I'm hungry.”
She stood and walked down the hall toward her bedroom and the tiny foam pad that laid in its corner, leaning over with a grunt to pick up the gray tabby who slept there. It mewed as it awoke, then fell into soft purring as she stroked its head.
Christopher was still standing in the kitchen, jaw jutting unconsciously, picking at a chocolate ice cream stain on his t-shirt. She placed the cat on the bare table alongside the bag of rice. The cat stood and yawned, flexing its supple spine.
“There,” she said. “Eat.”
He looked up from his shirt at the cat on the table, then to his grandmother, who waited with an expectant smile. His eyes widened and he ran for the back door, calling as he threw it open, “Dad! Dad!”
Yes, she laughed. Today would be the day.
A moment later found her sitting once more, rubbing her sore varicose veined left leg, and winning a staring contest against the cat, who had no attention span. Danh entered the house with the smell of summer on him.
“Mother, did you tell Christopher to eat the cat?”
Christopher stood behind his father, skinny arms folded across his chest, giving her the best disapproving head shake a nine year-old could muster.
“Yes!” She smiled. “In Vietnam we would eat cat all the time. Cats and lizards and hamsters and...dogs!”
Christopher squealed and ran out back to protect his beloved animal.
“Christopher, it's not true,” Danh called after him. “Mother is telling stories. Strange stories,” he said, eyebrow cocked at her. “Can we please eat?”
Miss Nyugen, the image of serenity, rose from her chair and walked directly out the front door. She closed it quietly behind her.
The door handle of the Cadillac was already hot in the evening sun. She lowered herself into the seat, picking up her purse and placing it in the passenger side floorboard. And she sat.
She looked up into the rear view mirror, lowered it, and let herself release a single tear. Just one and that's enough. And don't brush it away. She watched the silver drop trace the line of her creased cheek, past her nose, and drop off her upper lip. She snapped the mirror back into position and started the car.
McDonald's was only four blocks away, just on the edge of the tree lined residential street of Walnut Terrace. She pulled into the drive beneath the glow of the golden arches set against a dusky sky, and observed the sign on the door: “Closed for maintenance. Drive thru open.” She drove around, thinking that it was funny that native English speakers couldn't spell “through” correctly.
“Number five,” she announced to the crackling speaker. There was a pause and she repeated herself.
“What size fries?” came the hesitant reply.
“Five.”
“Fries?”
“Five! FIVE!” she shouted, holding up the fingers of her left hand to the blind speaker. Something red passed through her vision or behind it, like the rush of blood through a vein, and Miss Nguyen watched herself exit the running car and walk to the window.
“Five! FIVE!” She yelled, knocking, waving at the cashier who at first tried his best to ignore her, then turned to speak to his ample-bellied manager, who wrinkled his nose at the woman as one might at the creatures on display at the reptile house.
“Five!” she continued. She was in a loop now, she felt, and the fat of her upper arm waggled as she banged on the glass mechanically, unable or unwilling to stop.
A police patrol car pulled up in the parking lot, blue lights flashing silently. The officer got out, unfolding his full height of six-and-a-half feet and approached her.
“Five!” she heard herself shout to him. He spoke but she couldn't hear him over her strained mantra. The red passed, the vein behind her eye emptied, and she found herself suddenly in the back of the patrol car, against the cool seats, with the air conditioner blowing pleasantly. The officer was at her car, checking her purse, to find that she carried no identification. He came back to the window and spoke to her. She stiffened. Stone-silent, she would be.
The red flash was gone, and the blue light, too, but now she was in the car, chauffeured behind metal grated-glass. The dashboard panel of the car crackled with announcements like the McDonald's speaker. And then, looking out the window ahead, through the sizzling raindrops that were beginning to fall, she spotted those blessed words on a giant sign, STATE HOSPITAL. She relaxed into the seat and smiled. Yes. Today is the day.
John Lowe don't take no crap from nobody, he told himself. The bookstore was so boring at night, doubly so behind the counter, far away from the mysteries and dusty occult relics in the back, the ones he loved and wasn't allowed to browse while he was working, partly because he couldn't see if anyone entered the store when he was in the back, and partly because, according to Jacob, John got weird when he read that stuff. As if Jacob has any say in what I read, John thought. Or did he say it?
The magazines were within reach but John had no desire for them. They were bright, dull, dry, sultry things, full of sulking lips and eyeliner tips. And so pink. Pink and neon green. Teen Queen and Seventeen.
John dropped the collection of murder mysteries flat on the desk where it laid, open to where he had broken its spine at the end of a disappointing story. He knew it had been coercion the whole time. Coercion by the Whisper Assassin. He had stared at the end of the page all afternoon, waiting for it to change to something new and different and intriguing before his very eyes.
He sighed. Dull and dullery, scullery maids, the butler never does it...
Eight minutes until closing time. He glanced around the store, spotting Stephen hunched in the corner, taking his precious time re-shelving bulks of books. On hooks. Runaway crooks, bad guys and bandits, bulks of hulking skulls...
Stop it, John ordered himself. The floor was filthy with shoe prints. Mop it. He sighed.
“If you're going to keep making that sound,” Stephen said, “why don't you just go?”
“Thought you'd never ask...say...tell...pray!” John launched himself at the coat rack and grabbed his hat. It was raining. He grinned. Finally. It's time. He draped the black three-quarter length coat across his shoulders and cocked the fedora over one eye.
“Oh, wait,” he said as he headed for the door and feigned remembrance. “Forgot something. Gotta check something.”
Now it was Stephen's turn to sigh with an exasperated head-tilt. John catapulted over Stephen's kneeling body and caught himself on the wall before toppling into American History. Down two aisles, three back, two over, heart attack...the bookstore was a maze. Normally this got monotonous when it came to re-shelving and searching, but now, it was quitting time, and it was raining, and the maze was perfection.
John stopped in front of the used Dashiel Hammett novel centered on an otherwise empty rack, alone with his prize and the pleasant smell of yellow pages in his nostrils. So much better than the waxy odor of magazine paper. Now.
He pocketed the compact volume, letting it rest in his hand as he walked back to the front, this time stepping carefully around Stephen, moving slowly so as not to reveal the treasure that swung within his coat, feeling a strange tingle in his heels and throat as he reached the door, his deed undiscovered. He'd read from cover to cover.
“Good night!” he sang to the store, and let the glass door close behind him.
Night. Rain. Hammett. Perfect.
As the newborn detective walked, he realized he had been eighteen for a full four months and had never even thought to buy a pack of cigarettes. And now that he stopped at the newsstand on route to the subway and noticed the thick fog hanging around the ankles of trotting pedestrians in the distance, it seemed a necessity.
“One pack of...uh...those! And a lighter.” he said, pointing to the yellow American Spirits and proudly bearing his driver's license to the clerk, who rolled his eyes and accepted a wad of crumpled bills.
John tapped the pack against the palm of his hand like he had seen people do, eagerly withdrew a cigarette and lit it. He puffed as he walked, letting his shoulders harden against the rain, head down. The smoke filled his mouth and he blew it out, but it didn't look right, somehow. An ox-like metalhead, oblivious to the rain in his tank top, stared as John passed and blew smoke through his pierced nose. John waited until he was out of sight and attempted it. It burned, and he quickly wiped the tears from his eyes. Most decidedly un-hardboiled, he thought. Soft-boiled, even. Scrambled. He re-inserted the cigarette in his mouth and was satisfied to walk that way with it, breathing through the corner of his mouth, watching skinny rain fizz against the ember.
John's fingers ran over the book and he stopped in his tracks, suddenly self-aware. He thought for a moment to go back, to return it to the shelf, but he couldn't, not now. The shop would be locked up by now. And he wasn't working tomorrow, he couldn't replace it then. What if someone came in and noticed? The book had been alone. How could he have been so stupid to swipe that one, lonely book? Someone was sure to notice, there was no doubt about it. But maybe they'd just think it was another shoplifter. It happened all the time. No, Stephen had just been re-shelving, he'd know the book had been there. He must have passed it, he must have noticed it. He'd remember when someone asked him tomorrow. And who would he say had been working that night? And who would he say had returned to the back of the store before leaving, with no good reason at all? John! A tar-like feeling formed in his gut.
He was glad for this, though, for the rain. He looked up at it before lowering his head to protect the smoldering cigarette under the brim of his hat. And he made himself walk on, for some reason, past the subway stairs. A heap of crumpled newspapers beckoned his foot, much like a pile of dry leaves, simply begging to be scattered. John's long loafer dashed into the pile and struck something solid that yelped.
The red, haggard face of a man appeared, hunched over, his shelter demolished. The face turned redder still and seemed to shrivel like a rotten tomato as he summoned a raging breath.
“Yaaahh!” the face yelled beneath its Eskimo-like hood. Jack jumped. He felt himself lift from the ground. The loafer that had inadvertently kicked the street dweller left his foot and spun upward into the air where he caught it, staring for a moment in silence while his sock soaked up the puddle it was standing in. Another wordless scream brought Jack to his senses. He ran in the opposite direction, hopping on one foot to replace his shoe, jamming the moistened sock inside.
He passed the stationary metalhead once again, who eyed him this time with an invasive curiosity. John slowed his feet deliberately, self-consciously, and felt the man's stare like a ray, emanating from his eyes, scanning the gangly boy he saw before him. John felt something well up in his throat and flow into the back of his head. He thrust his hand into his pocket and wrapped it around the bent volume.
“Another man whose social life has ruined him.” That's what Dashiel would have said. That's what he did say. But no, it didn't really make any sense at all...and then, with horror, John realized he had not merely thought it but said it, too, and now he covered his treacherous mouth with the book he loathed.
The man threw down his cigarette and a look of confused anger crossed his face, one that, John knew, was only capable of showing on the countenance of the most pitifully stupid creatures. He stepped toward John, assuming he had been insulted in some strange manner, letting the swinging motion of his sausage-like arms propel him into a challenging stance. John ran.
The cigarette, he realized, had been in his mouth the whole time, until it escaped his lips and took flight. John's loafers slapped flat on the wet sidewalk and he wished they would pound, know they should pound, but he wasn't the sort who could sprint down a rainy street that way, especially not because if John was running, he was running away from someone. He set his sights on the streetlight ahead, and decided that he most certainly must be chasing someone, for he was running with fire in his heels. His stiff back was freed and he allowed his full height to be pulled forward, shoulders and knees pumping, chasing down his target. There was a man there, at the streetlight, not now, for he was no longer visible. But he had, of course, ducked into the shadows, as was customary. He was awaiting the package. John had it, he had the goods, and he was planning to deliver them. The book slapped against his waist and pushed him on, faster and faster, blurring the dim street-side windows to a rush of quicksilver. He was almost to the streetlight, with seconds to spare. And there his man would be. No need to check his watch, John thought. Dashiel was always on time. He knew, for John, he simply must be, because John Lowe don't take no crap from nobody.
The streetlight arrived at his feet, welcoming his rain-driven appearance, and he gripped the tungsten in his right hand, letting the momentum carry him spinning around it. No, no, he thought, not right at all. Like dancing in the rain, without music. Not hardboiled at all.
Dashiel was nowhere to be found. He could not be crowned, without his old lady around. She's gone away and he'll rue the day...stop it.
John Lowe didn't take no crap from nobody.
He took the book from his pocket and threw it with all his might at the storefront window. That was where bad books belonged.
“Take your damned package!” he screamed. Then there was a squeal of tires. The blue-light inquisition, midnight flight imminent. Pack your bags, he thought. And again, he ran.
That was why they hired him, wasn't it? Because he was such a fast runner. Good runners are hard to find. Heavies are a dime a dozen but you don't try to cheat your runners, because...well, they'll run. They'll find you. And he had been cheated. Where was Dashiel, where was the money?
“I am eighteen, and I throw books at windows,” he said or thought, but either way felt the stinging water hit his tongue and he swallowed it. The copper teleported to John's position as he scurried to round the corner. And then there were the steel bracelets. John lowered his head, giving a good approximation of a controlled struggle, pivoting his shoulders to and fro. But it was no use. Dashiel had set him up. John's head bowed and rain poured down the brim of his hat. Underneath the shadow of his forelocks, John grinned with relief.
Jasmine, Crystal, and Heather sat in a triangular pow-wow on the lavender bedspread, cooing celebrity incantions. In their midst and passed between them was the holy relic, fresh and hot pink, with pages that smelled like the grocery store and the shoplifted perfume that Crystal had promptly spilled.
On the wall above the headboard was the face of a man or boy Anne didn't recognize. She scarcely had the time to learn their names before they went out of style, according to Jasmine or to Seventeen.
“How can you read that junk?” Anne finally erupted from the corner of the room, where she sat cross-legged. The oversized headphones slipped from her ears.
The twittering was silenced, and three blonde heads rotated with an air of accusation.
“How can you listen to that junk?” Heather demanded.
Anne began to raise her voice in defense, telling them they had no idea what she was listening to, but realized with a glance at the shag carpet that she had proudly laid out the album cover of The Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream. She stopped, and let the tiny rubber bands that kept her orthodontistry secure to snap her teeth on edge, where they habitually set when she was in this room. And she had been here for far too long, both today and this week, and all this month. She had made a terrible mistake, telling them what she did, and even worse, blushing at her confession of love for the young Hollywood vampire whose portrait still hung on the back of Jasmine's door.
This was a confusing time, Anne thought, mostly because that's what all her teachers said and it surely must be so, but also because no one seemed to know what they were allowed to like. The three heads had turned back in blessed forgetfulness, and she let herself recline and sink into the floor, while “Today” began again on loop. She had written the lyrics in her geometry notebook, bordered them with stars. And then she had attempted with great difficulty to trace a picture of the members of the band, before she realized that the beautiful bassist possessed, in fact, long, straight, blonde hair. Anne had left off filling D'Arcy's face with features and tossed the notebook aside.
“Today” was not, in fact, the greatest she had ever known. But it was true, also, that she could not “live for tomorrow, tomorrow's much too long.” If it wasn't pouring outside, she would have simply walked out the door and left, thanking Jasmine's mother rather than Jasmine herself for her hospitality. And then, perhaps, she could accept another chocolate chip cookie away from the disgusted eyes of the girls who allowed themselves only one, whereas Anne had already had two. Or was it three?
Anne pulled herself from the floor and silently replaced the CD in its case. The other girls had begun one of their clandestine meetings, speaking in hushed tones sprinkled with the kind of giggling that made Anne wonder if they were talking about her. It really didn't matter, though. She walked to the bathroom and closed the door, making an inconspicuous exit through the next door which lead into the hallway. But before she could stop herself, she reflexively glanced in the mirror, catching a glimpse of her own round face, her clenched jaw, her small, brown eyes, all of which was surrounded by a thick mass of dark, unruly hair. She frowned and continued, tip-toeing down the stairs.
Jasmine's mother had left the house, and Anne didn't know if she should be glad or not. She resisted the plate of cookies and left through the back door, crossing the backyard to the sidewalk that lead home.
How rude she had been, she thought. It wasn't their fault, after all. She couldn't expect the same from other people she expected from herself, and at this realization, she scolded herself for breaking her first rule. Never, ever expect anything back, she reminded herself.
She was six blocks away now, the halfway point between Jasmine's home and her own, and there was the little boy whose name she was ashamed to have forgotten, and so she called to him in the usual fashion.
“Hey...buddy.”
“Hello, Anne.” He couldn't have been older than nine, but he had old man's eyes, and they always secretly frightened her. Somehow the nearly grotesque contrast between his overly mature gaze and the huge t-shirt that hung nearly to the knees of his threadbare corduroys made her fear even worse. And yet, despite this, she loved him because of it.
“You seem...perturbed.” He cocked an eyebrow.
“Am I?” She was seriously amused by this young gent, and a little alarmed at her own apparent incapacity to hide her own feelings, something she thought she had mastered. “So what are you doing out here?”
The boy crossed his arms over his little belly, which he inflated and released with a deep sigh. The deep-set eyes that rested over his fat cheeks held a sort of concern she could not identify.
“I have no idea,” he said. “I can't stay inside. It's too boring. It's boring out here, too. Nothing to do. I was hoping you'd come along, though.”
“Were you? Well, that makes me feel good.” She smiled.
“Don't condescend to me, Anne.” he shook. “I was hoping you'd come so I could tell you that I'm very disappointed in you. Do you remember that you told me you would walk me home that day we ran into each other at the Coke machine? You ditched me for those girls.”
“I'm so sorry, I don't even remember...”
“Of course you don't. Grow up.” The nine-year old turned and slapped the mailbox with a chubby hand before entering his house. He slammed the door shut. Anne's phone rang before she could react.
She pulled out the cell. It was Jasmine.
“Where did you go?” her saccharine voice intoned. Twittering in the background. “We were going to show you something.”
“Show me what?” Anne turned, debating on whether or not she would return. She certainly did not want to stand in front of this particular house, and so she slowly backtracked a single block.
“We took a quiz for you. We know you pretty well, right?”
“I guess,” Anne hesitated.
“You know we're all just like sisters. So we took the quiz for you, because we know how you would answer. So, here's the results, I'll give them to you over the phone if you want to be a party pooper. It says you're an Ice Queen! 'Take it easy, baby! Don't scare 'em away before you give them a chance. The reason you never find a man is because you're unapproachable. Smile more, and bat those baby blue eyes. And, you always might want to consider showing more skin! Get back in there and find your man!'”
Anne didn't have an answer.
Jasmine continued after an awkward moment of silence. “Yeah, you got that one because of your boyfriend status. We felt too bad for you to circle zero so we counted one. You know...for Robert Pattinson!”
Giggling erupted from the background.
“I have to go,” Anne said.
“See, you're doing it right now. You'll never find a guy if you can't even be nice to your friends!”
“Bye,” Anne replied, hitting END and cutting off Jasmine's sputter of disdain.
Anne pivoted one one foot and walked back home, moving more quickly by that one house. Oh, if only she could remember that boy's name...Robert! That was it. Like...Robert Pattinson.
A wintry wave settled on Anne's shoulders, and she felt suddenly that it was becoming more difficult to walk. She forced her legs to keep moving at the same pace, but it was as if she was now moving through a snowdrift. She might have cried now if she was a normal girl, she thought, but she wasn't. Instead Jasmine's voice drifted back into her ears like an icepick, and jabbed somewhere deep in her head. Her chest felt suddenly heavy.
The front door of her house was unlocked, unfortunately, because that meant that Mom was home, and if she got a glimpse of Anne's face she'd know she was upset. And she'd want to hold her on the couch like she was a little girl and say, “Just let it out! Just cry it all out!” But Anne never would.
She bolted up the stairs past the kitchen and shut her bedroom door on her mother's cheery voice. It sounded, right now, like Jasmine's, like Crystal's and Heather's. Happy women. She hated them.
She cast her body across the bed and loathed herself instantly for it. “Stop being so melodramatic,” she said. But she couldn't be sure they were her words or Jasmine's. Then, like a bolt of ice, something passed through her, some unknown resolution. She forced herself off the bed and walked to the bathroom, stifling the burning behind her eyes. It was too late to cry, now. Only weak women cry.
She found as she turned on the bathroom light that she had suddenly done something else that she considered to be most unbecoming to a lady; she had spat across the mirror. And, staring at the face behind the dribbling saliva, she wished it was Jasmine's. At this moment, she didn't know if that meant she had spat on Jasmine or that she wished she was Jasmine. She hated her anger in the first case and her envy in the latter.
There was, obviously, no reasonable way to deal with this sort of thing.
She laid face down in the bathtub, still fully dressed, and plugged the drain. The purple razor she had only recently started using to shave her legs rested on the edge of the tub, and she found herself grasping it. The other girls in gym had called her Chewbacca when they had seen her hairy calves a few months back. They hadn't mentioned it since she started shaving, but she knew they were still thinking it.
Anne kicked back at the faucet and recoiled at the flood of cold water. It soaked through her jeans instantly, a discomfort that was strangely welcome. She broke the plastic in two and retrieved the blade, glancing down, and then regretting it. Keeping it well out of eyesight, hidden under the body she hated, she pulled up her left sleeve and yanked. White lightning burned through her brain, and the Smashing Pumpkins were playing again as the bathtub filled, slowly, to the brim.
Anne awoke for the third or tenth time since she had first heard her mother scream. There had been a hospital, she was sure of that. She was sure, too, that there had been nurses, at least that one nurse who had welcomed her opening eyes with a look that was anything but scolding. And then the woman had smiled big. Anne had liked how her face looked when she smiled, especially underneath her mop of big black hair. Rhea, her badge had read. Green scrubs...she felt herself drift off again.
Anne's mother was once again at her side, patting her hand.
“Why, baby, why?”
“I want to be a nurse,” Anne enunciated slowly. intrigued by her heavy, drugged lips. Her mother smiled and explained that she was going to be here for a little while, at least overnight for observation. And then, as one fat involuntary tear fell from Anne's eye her mother heaved a sigh of relief, one that sounded as if it had been saved for such a very long time.
Anne found herself waking up again and she was alone in the room. She stood with difficulty, pulling her floating head back down onto her shoulders. Pulling on the robe that laid next to the bed, she stepped slowly, deliberately planting one foot in front of the other, and moved out into the florescent light.
There were other patients here, she realized. Well, obviously, she scolded herself, and thought then that their presence was so abundantly apparent because some of them, around the corner, sounded as if they were having a little party. Anne shuffled over to spot a long folding table covered with large bowls and plates, cups and salad tongs.
“What is this?” she slurred to the orderly.
“That,” he answered with a jolly grin, “is Dr. Greg's new thing. Culinary therapy! A lot of his ideas don't pan out to well, but everyone really seems to be enjoying this one. Especially that Asian lady. I'm afraid I still don't know her name. Go ahead, meet people, enjoy yourself. Meds are at nine.”
The little Asian woman was, indeed, in the throes of delight. She wore a makeshift apron and was slicing vegetables, tossing them into the salad bowl, and engaging in three different conversations at once, all of which were focused on her divulging her own recipes, which she knew by heart. A tall boy at the woman's was beside himself, arching his back dramatically as he savored each bite of the chicken and rice this woman had prepared.
“Isn't it dangerous for us to have stoves?” Anne asked the orderly.
“Don't worry, we're watchin' real close. Besides, Dr. Greg thinks a little more space is what does everyone some good.”
Anne found that without intending to she had walked to the boy's side, if only to learn what was so amazing about this food. He was in adulation over the little cook, and she beamed with delight.
“Ahoy!” he turned. “Hi there!” he balanced his bowl and fork in one hand and extended a long-fingered handshake. “I'm John, This is Miss Nyugen. She makes the food of the gods.”
“Oh, you said my name right!” she exclaimed with a slight Vietnamese accent. “Please dear, eat.” Miss Nyugen handed Anne a bowl.
“What was your name? What's the name of the game? Sorry, I promise I'm tame. A tame tiger. No, kitten. Lion. Sorry.” he laughed.
She laughed too, but she wasn't sure why. It may have only been that he was so able to laugh at himself that he couldn't even tell how silly he was being. “I'm Anne,” she grinned, exposing her braces before she remembered and snapped her mouth shut.
“Wow,” John stared dumbly at her.
“What?” she asked, averting her eyes. The braces, as often as she commanded them, would not fall off.
“You're stunningly beautiful!”
She looked back at him and saw that he was still staring, slack-jawed.
“Oh,” was all she could manage. And she smiled.
“Eat, eat!” Miss Nyugen demanded, laughing at the two of them. John, Anne realized, was not exaggerating his reaction; the cuisine was, indeed, divine. John was still staring at her, and if Anne was the sort of girl that let herself blush, she would have. The Smashing Pumpkins played in her head: “Today's the greatest...”
Voltaire
Miss Nyugen glowered as she pulled into the driveway and tried to take in the scent of flowering dogwood, but its usual joy was lost on her. Another trip to her doctor's office had left her drained. She was tired of hearing them stumble over her name, pronouncing it New-yen or worse, New-gen. And even worse than that were the periods of awkward silence when she related her medical issues quite clearly in English, and they would stop writing and stare and make her repeat herself over and over until at last she would just be silent. And stone-silent she would remain. Stone-silent, and let them stare. Rachel used to always come with her to translate, but now her American-born daughter had gone back to Vietnam for love and Miss Nyugen had told her it wouldn't last, it never does, and she had been right, though Rachel was too proud to call and admit it.
She was tired of always being Miss Nyugen. She was tired of being Miss When. But then as she stepped out of the car and smoothed the wrinkles of her floral pattern dress, she remembered, “Ah yes, today will be the day.” And she smelled the dogwood once again.
Entering the unlocked house she detected the decidedly unpleasant smell of not-cooking, that is, the smell of her son Danh not having prepared dinner and instead playing with the dog, which now ran past her through the living room into the kitchen, chased by her watergun-wielding grandson, Christopher.
“It was your night to cook,” she announced in her native tongue as she entered the kitchen. She decided she didn't like it much at all when there wasn't steam billowing to the ceiling. Too cold.
“But you do it so much better,” Danh replied in Vietnamese, and turned his attention to the golden retriever who was seeking sanctuary from his pint-sized assailant. Christopher circled the dog, squirting his already soaking fur until she snatched the dribbling little green toy from his hand and placed it on the spice shelf. He stared in indignation, his little jaw jutting forth.
“I cook chicken,” she said in English for Christopher's benefit, “you make rice.”
She opened the cabinet, removed a bag of rice and let the little door fall shut with a bang. She tossed Danh the bag, who caught it overhanded and gave her that look. He placed it on the table and snatched a worn tennis ball from the floor, sputtering sweet nothings into the dog's ear, working him into a tail-wagging frenzy. Danh stood, walked to the back door and opened it. The dog followed the trajectory of the ball carefully as it left Danh's hand before exploding into the backyard. Danh followed, shouting gleefully to his pet, and slammed the door behind him.
Miss Nguyen walked slowly to the kitchen table and sat, starting to pick up the bag and then stopping. Christopher's voice rang in her ear. “Grandmother, I'm hungry.”
She stood and walked down the hall toward her bedroom and the tiny foam pad that laid in its corner, leaning over with a grunt to pick up the gray tabby who slept there. It mewed as it awoke, then fell into soft purring as she stroked its head.
Christopher was still standing in the kitchen, jaw jutting unconsciously, picking at a chocolate ice cream stain on his t-shirt. She placed the cat on the bare table alongside the bag of rice. The cat stood and yawned, flexing its supple spine.
“There,” she said. “Eat.”
He looked up from his shirt at the cat on the table, then to his grandmother, who waited with an expectant smile. His eyes widened and he ran for the back door, calling as he threw it open, “Dad! Dad!”
Yes, she laughed. Today would be the day.
A moment later found her sitting once more, rubbing her sore varicose veined left leg, and winning a staring contest against the cat, who had no attention span. Danh entered the house with the smell of summer on him.
“Mother, did you tell Christopher to eat the cat?”
Christopher stood behind his father, skinny arms folded across his chest, giving her the best disapproving head shake a nine year-old could muster.
“Yes!” She smiled. “In Vietnam we would eat cat all the time. Cats and lizards and hamsters and...dogs!”
Christopher squealed and ran out back to protect his beloved animal.
“Christopher, it's not true,” Danh called after him. “Mother is telling stories. Strange stories,” he said, eyebrow cocked at her. “Can we please eat?”
Miss Nyugen, the image of serenity, rose from her chair and walked directly out the front door. She closed it quietly behind her.
The door handle of the Cadillac was already hot in the evening sun. She lowered herself into the seat, picking up her purse and placing it in the passenger side floorboard. And she sat.
She looked up into the rear view mirror, lowered it, and let herself release a single tear. Just one and that's enough. And don't brush it away. She watched the silver drop trace the line of her creased cheek, past her nose, and drop off her upper lip. She snapped the mirror back into position and started the car.
McDonald's was only four blocks away, just on the edge of the tree lined residential street of Walnut Terrace. She pulled into the drive beneath the glow of the golden arches set against a dusky sky, and observed the sign on the door: “Closed for maintenance. Drive thru open.” She drove around, thinking that it was funny that native English speakers couldn't spell “through” correctly.
“Number five,” she announced to the crackling speaker. There was a pause and she repeated herself.
“What size fries?” came the hesitant reply.
“Five.”
“Fries?”
“Five! FIVE!” she shouted, holding up the fingers of her left hand to the blind speaker. Something red passed through her vision or behind it, like the rush of blood through a vein, and Miss Nguyen watched herself exit the running car and walk to the window.
“Five! FIVE!” She yelled, knocking, waving at the cashier who at first tried his best to ignore her, then turned to speak to his ample-bellied manager, who wrinkled his nose at the woman as one might at the creatures on display at the reptile house.
“Five!” she continued. She was in a loop now, she felt, and the fat of her upper arm waggled as she banged on the glass mechanically, unable or unwilling to stop.
A police patrol car pulled up in the parking lot, blue lights flashing silently. The officer got out, unfolding his full height of six-and-a-half feet and approached her.
“Five!” she heard herself shout to him. He spoke but she couldn't hear him over her strained mantra. The red passed, the vein behind her eye emptied, and she found herself suddenly in the back of the patrol car, against the cool seats, with the air conditioner blowing pleasantly. The officer was at her car, checking her purse, to find that she carried no identification. He came back to the window and spoke to her. She stiffened. Stone-silent, she would be.
The red flash was gone, and the blue light, too, but now she was in the car, chauffeured behind metal grated-glass. The dashboard panel of the car crackled with announcements like the McDonald's speaker. And then, looking out the window ahead, through the sizzling raindrops that were beginning to fall, she spotted those blessed words on a giant sign, STATE HOSPITAL. She relaxed into the seat and smiled. Yes. Today is the day.
John Lowe don't take no crap from nobody, he told himself. The bookstore was so boring at night, doubly so behind the counter, far away from the mysteries and dusty occult relics in the back, the ones he loved and wasn't allowed to browse while he was working, partly because he couldn't see if anyone entered the store when he was in the back, and partly because, according to Jacob, John got weird when he read that stuff. As if Jacob has any say in what I read, John thought. Or did he say it?
The magazines were within reach but John had no desire for them. They were bright, dull, dry, sultry things, full of sulking lips and eyeliner tips. And so pink. Pink and neon green. Teen Queen and Seventeen.
John dropped the collection of murder mysteries flat on the desk where it laid, open to where he had broken its spine at the end of a disappointing story. He knew it had been coercion the whole time. Coercion by the Whisper Assassin. He had stared at the end of the page all afternoon, waiting for it to change to something new and different and intriguing before his very eyes.
He sighed. Dull and dullery, scullery maids, the butler never does it...
Eight minutes until closing time. He glanced around the store, spotting Stephen hunched in the corner, taking his precious time re-shelving bulks of books. On hooks. Runaway crooks, bad guys and bandits, bulks of hulking skulls...
Stop it, John ordered himself. The floor was filthy with shoe prints. Mop it. He sighed.
“If you're going to keep making that sound,” Stephen said, “why don't you just go?”
“Thought you'd never ask...say...tell...pray!” John launched himself at the coat rack and grabbed his hat. It was raining. He grinned. Finally. It's time. He draped the black three-quarter length coat across his shoulders and cocked the fedora over one eye.
“Oh, wait,” he said as he headed for the door and feigned remembrance. “Forgot something. Gotta check something.”
Now it was Stephen's turn to sigh with an exasperated head-tilt. John catapulted over Stephen's kneeling body and caught himself on the wall before toppling into American History. Down two aisles, three back, two over, heart attack...the bookstore was a maze. Normally this got monotonous when it came to re-shelving and searching, but now, it was quitting time, and it was raining, and the maze was perfection.
John stopped in front of the used Dashiel Hammett novel centered on an otherwise empty rack, alone with his prize and the pleasant smell of yellow pages in his nostrils. So much better than the waxy odor of magazine paper. Now.
He pocketed the compact volume, letting it rest in his hand as he walked back to the front, this time stepping carefully around Stephen, moving slowly so as not to reveal the treasure that swung within his coat, feeling a strange tingle in his heels and throat as he reached the door, his deed undiscovered. He'd read from cover to cover.
“Good night!” he sang to the store, and let the glass door close behind him.
Night. Rain. Hammett. Perfect.
As the newborn detective walked, he realized he had been eighteen for a full four months and had never even thought to buy a pack of cigarettes. And now that he stopped at the newsstand on route to the subway and noticed the thick fog hanging around the ankles of trotting pedestrians in the distance, it seemed a necessity.
“One pack of...uh...those! And a lighter.” he said, pointing to the yellow American Spirits and proudly bearing his driver's license to the clerk, who rolled his eyes and accepted a wad of crumpled bills.
John tapped the pack against the palm of his hand like he had seen people do, eagerly withdrew a cigarette and lit it. He puffed as he walked, letting his shoulders harden against the rain, head down. The smoke filled his mouth and he blew it out, but it didn't look right, somehow. An ox-like metalhead, oblivious to the rain in his tank top, stared as John passed and blew smoke through his pierced nose. John waited until he was out of sight and attempted it. It burned, and he quickly wiped the tears from his eyes. Most decidedly un-hardboiled, he thought. Soft-boiled, even. Scrambled. He re-inserted the cigarette in his mouth and was satisfied to walk that way with it, breathing through the corner of his mouth, watching skinny rain fizz against the ember.
John's fingers ran over the book and he stopped in his tracks, suddenly self-aware. He thought for a moment to go back, to return it to the shelf, but he couldn't, not now. The shop would be locked up by now. And he wasn't working tomorrow, he couldn't replace it then. What if someone came in and noticed? The book had been alone. How could he have been so stupid to swipe that one, lonely book? Someone was sure to notice, there was no doubt about it. But maybe they'd just think it was another shoplifter. It happened all the time. No, Stephen had just been re-shelving, he'd know the book had been there. He must have passed it, he must have noticed it. He'd remember when someone asked him tomorrow. And who would he say had been working that night? And who would he say had returned to the back of the store before leaving, with no good reason at all? John! A tar-like feeling formed in his gut.
He was glad for this, though, for the rain. He looked up at it before lowering his head to protect the smoldering cigarette under the brim of his hat. And he made himself walk on, for some reason, past the subway stairs. A heap of crumpled newspapers beckoned his foot, much like a pile of dry leaves, simply begging to be scattered. John's long loafer dashed into the pile and struck something solid that yelped.
The red, haggard face of a man appeared, hunched over, his shelter demolished. The face turned redder still and seemed to shrivel like a rotten tomato as he summoned a raging breath.
“Yaaahh!” the face yelled beneath its Eskimo-like hood. Jack jumped. He felt himself lift from the ground. The loafer that had inadvertently kicked the street dweller left his foot and spun upward into the air where he caught it, staring for a moment in silence while his sock soaked up the puddle it was standing in. Another wordless scream brought Jack to his senses. He ran in the opposite direction, hopping on one foot to replace his shoe, jamming the moistened sock inside.
He passed the stationary metalhead once again, who eyed him this time with an invasive curiosity. John slowed his feet deliberately, self-consciously, and felt the man's stare like a ray, emanating from his eyes, scanning the gangly boy he saw before him. John felt something well up in his throat and flow into the back of his head. He thrust his hand into his pocket and wrapped it around the bent volume.
“Another man whose social life has ruined him.” That's what Dashiel would have said. That's what he did say. But no, it didn't really make any sense at all...and then, with horror, John realized he had not merely thought it but said it, too, and now he covered his treacherous mouth with the book he loathed.
The man threw down his cigarette and a look of confused anger crossed his face, one that, John knew, was only capable of showing on the countenance of the most pitifully stupid creatures. He stepped toward John, assuming he had been insulted in some strange manner, letting the swinging motion of his sausage-like arms propel him into a challenging stance. John ran.
The cigarette, he realized, had been in his mouth the whole time, until it escaped his lips and took flight. John's loafers slapped flat on the wet sidewalk and he wished they would pound, know they should pound, but he wasn't the sort who could sprint down a rainy street that way, especially not because if John was running, he was running away from someone. He set his sights on the streetlight ahead, and decided that he most certainly must be chasing someone, for he was running with fire in his heels. His stiff back was freed and he allowed his full height to be pulled forward, shoulders and knees pumping, chasing down his target. There was a man there, at the streetlight, not now, for he was no longer visible. But he had, of course, ducked into the shadows, as was customary. He was awaiting the package. John had it, he had the goods, and he was planning to deliver them. The book slapped against his waist and pushed him on, faster and faster, blurring the dim street-side windows to a rush of quicksilver. He was almost to the streetlight, with seconds to spare. And there his man would be. No need to check his watch, John thought. Dashiel was always on time. He knew, for John, he simply must be, because John Lowe don't take no crap from nobody.
The streetlight arrived at his feet, welcoming his rain-driven appearance, and he gripped the tungsten in his right hand, letting the momentum carry him spinning around it. No, no, he thought, not right at all. Like dancing in the rain, without music. Not hardboiled at all.
Dashiel was nowhere to be found. He could not be crowned, without his old lady around. She's gone away and he'll rue the day...stop it.
John Lowe didn't take no crap from nobody.
He took the book from his pocket and threw it with all his might at the storefront window. That was where bad books belonged.
“Take your damned package!” he screamed. Then there was a squeal of tires. The blue-light inquisition, midnight flight imminent. Pack your bags, he thought. And again, he ran.
That was why they hired him, wasn't it? Because he was such a fast runner. Good runners are hard to find. Heavies are a dime a dozen but you don't try to cheat your runners, because...well, they'll run. They'll find you. And he had been cheated. Where was Dashiel, where was the money?
“I am eighteen, and I throw books at windows,” he said or thought, but either way felt the stinging water hit his tongue and he swallowed it. The copper teleported to John's position as he scurried to round the corner. And then there were the steel bracelets. John lowered his head, giving a good approximation of a controlled struggle, pivoting his shoulders to and fro. But it was no use. Dashiel had set him up. John's head bowed and rain poured down the brim of his hat. Underneath the shadow of his forelocks, John grinned with relief.
Jasmine, Crystal, and Heather sat in a triangular pow-wow on the lavender bedspread, cooing celebrity incantions. In their midst and passed between them was the holy relic, fresh and hot pink, with pages that smelled like the grocery store and the shoplifted perfume that Crystal had promptly spilled.
On the wall above the headboard was the face of a man or boy Anne didn't recognize. She scarcely had the time to learn their names before they went out of style, according to Jasmine or to Seventeen.
“How can you read that junk?” Anne finally erupted from the corner of the room, where she sat cross-legged. The oversized headphones slipped from her ears.
The twittering was silenced, and three blonde heads rotated with an air of accusation.
“How can you listen to that junk?” Heather demanded.
Anne began to raise her voice in defense, telling them they had no idea what she was listening to, but realized with a glance at the shag carpet that she had proudly laid out the album cover of The Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream. She stopped, and let the tiny rubber bands that kept her orthodontistry secure to snap her teeth on edge, where they habitually set when she was in this room. And she had been here for far too long, both today and this week, and all this month. She had made a terrible mistake, telling them what she did, and even worse, blushing at her confession of love for the young Hollywood vampire whose portrait still hung on the back of Jasmine's door.
This was a confusing time, Anne thought, mostly because that's what all her teachers said and it surely must be so, but also because no one seemed to know what they were allowed to like. The three heads had turned back in blessed forgetfulness, and she let herself recline and sink into the floor, while “Today” began again on loop. She had written the lyrics in her geometry notebook, bordered them with stars. And then she had attempted with great difficulty to trace a picture of the members of the band, before she realized that the beautiful bassist possessed, in fact, long, straight, blonde hair. Anne had left off filling D'Arcy's face with features and tossed the notebook aside.
“Today” was not, in fact, the greatest she had ever known. But it was true, also, that she could not “live for tomorrow, tomorrow's much too long.” If it wasn't pouring outside, she would have simply walked out the door and left, thanking Jasmine's mother rather than Jasmine herself for her hospitality. And then, perhaps, she could accept another chocolate chip cookie away from the disgusted eyes of the girls who allowed themselves only one, whereas Anne had already had two. Or was it three?
Anne pulled herself from the floor and silently replaced the CD in its case. The other girls had begun one of their clandestine meetings, speaking in hushed tones sprinkled with the kind of giggling that made Anne wonder if they were talking about her. It really didn't matter, though. She walked to the bathroom and closed the door, making an inconspicuous exit through the next door which lead into the hallway. But before she could stop herself, she reflexively glanced in the mirror, catching a glimpse of her own round face, her clenched jaw, her small, brown eyes, all of which was surrounded by a thick mass of dark, unruly hair. She frowned and continued, tip-toeing down the stairs.
Jasmine's mother had left the house, and Anne didn't know if she should be glad or not. She resisted the plate of cookies and left through the back door, crossing the backyard to the sidewalk that lead home.
How rude she had been, she thought. It wasn't their fault, after all. She couldn't expect the same from other people she expected from herself, and at this realization, she scolded herself for breaking her first rule. Never, ever expect anything back, she reminded herself.
She was six blocks away now, the halfway point between Jasmine's home and her own, and there was the little boy whose name she was ashamed to have forgotten, and so she called to him in the usual fashion.
“Hey...buddy.”
“Hello, Anne.” He couldn't have been older than nine, but he had old man's eyes, and they always secretly frightened her. Somehow the nearly grotesque contrast between his overly mature gaze and the huge t-shirt that hung nearly to the knees of his threadbare corduroys made her fear even worse. And yet, despite this, she loved him because of it.
“You seem...perturbed.” He cocked an eyebrow.
“Am I?” She was seriously amused by this young gent, and a little alarmed at her own apparent incapacity to hide her own feelings, something she thought she had mastered. “So what are you doing out here?”
The boy crossed his arms over his little belly, which he inflated and released with a deep sigh. The deep-set eyes that rested over his fat cheeks held a sort of concern she could not identify.
“I have no idea,” he said. “I can't stay inside. It's too boring. It's boring out here, too. Nothing to do. I was hoping you'd come along, though.”
“Were you? Well, that makes me feel good.” She smiled.
“Don't condescend to me, Anne.” he shook. “I was hoping you'd come so I could tell you that I'm very disappointed in you. Do you remember that you told me you would walk me home that day we ran into each other at the Coke machine? You ditched me for those girls.”
“I'm so sorry, I don't even remember...”
“Of course you don't. Grow up.” The nine-year old turned and slapped the mailbox with a chubby hand before entering his house. He slammed the door shut. Anne's phone rang before she could react.
She pulled out the cell. It was Jasmine.
“Where did you go?” her saccharine voice intoned. Twittering in the background. “We were going to show you something.”
“Show me what?” Anne turned, debating on whether or not she would return. She certainly did not want to stand in front of this particular house, and so she slowly backtracked a single block.
“We took a quiz for you. We know you pretty well, right?”
“I guess,” Anne hesitated.
“You know we're all just like sisters. So we took the quiz for you, because we know how you would answer. So, here's the results, I'll give them to you over the phone if you want to be a party pooper. It says you're an Ice Queen! 'Take it easy, baby! Don't scare 'em away before you give them a chance. The reason you never find a man is because you're unapproachable. Smile more, and bat those baby blue eyes. And, you always might want to consider showing more skin! Get back in there and find your man!'”
Anne didn't have an answer.
Jasmine continued after an awkward moment of silence. “Yeah, you got that one because of your boyfriend status. We felt too bad for you to circle zero so we counted one. You know...for Robert Pattinson!”
Giggling erupted from the background.
“I have to go,” Anne said.
“See, you're doing it right now. You'll never find a guy if you can't even be nice to your friends!”
“Bye,” Anne replied, hitting END and cutting off Jasmine's sputter of disdain.
Anne pivoted one one foot and walked back home, moving more quickly by that one house. Oh, if only she could remember that boy's name...Robert! That was it. Like...Robert Pattinson.
A wintry wave settled on Anne's shoulders, and she felt suddenly that it was becoming more difficult to walk. She forced her legs to keep moving at the same pace, but it was as if she was now moving through a snowdrift. She might have cried now if she was a normal girl, she thought, but she wasn't. Instead Jasmine's voice drifted back into her ears like an icepick, and jabbed somewhere deep in her head. Her chest felt suddenly heavy.
The front door of her house was unlocked, unfortunately, because that meant that Mom was home, and if she got a glimpse of Anne's face she'd know she was upset. And she'd want to hold her on the couch like she was a little girl and say, “Just let it out! Just cry it all out!” But Anne never would.
She bolted up the stairs past the kitchen and shut her bedroom door on her mother's cheery voice. It sounded, right now, like Jasmine's, like Crystal's and Heather's. Happy women. She hated them.
She cast her body across the bed and loathed herself instantly for it. “Stop being so melodramatic,” she said. But she couldn't be sure they were her words or Jasmine's. Then, like a bolt of ice, something passed through her, some unknown resolution. She forced herself off the bed and walked to the bathroom, stifling the burning behind her eyes. It was too late to cry, now. Only weak women cry.
She found as she turned on the bathroom light that she had suddenly done something else that she considered to be most unbecoming to a lady; she had spat across the mirror. And, staring at the face behind the dribbling saliva, she wished it was Jasmine's. At this moment, she didn't know if that meant she had spat on Jasmine or that she wished she was Jasmine. She hated her anger in the first case and her envy in the latter.
There was, obviously, no reasonable way to deal with this sort of thing.
She laid face down in the bathtub, still fully dressed, and plugged the drain. The purple razor she had only recently started using to shave her legs rested on the edge of the tub, and she found herself grasping it. The other girls in gym had called her Chewbacca when they had seen her hairy calves a few months back. They hadn't mentioned it since she started shaving, but she knew they were still thinking it.
Anne kicked back at the faucet and recoiled at the flood of cold water. It soaked through her jeans instantly, a discomfort that was strangely welcome. She broke the plastic in two and retrieved the blade, glancing down, and then regretting it. Keeping it well out of eyesight, hidden under the body she hated, she pulled up her left sleeve and yanked. White lightning burned through her brain, and the Smashing Pumpkins were playing again as the bathtub filled, slowly, to the brim.
Anne awoke for the third or tenth time since she had first heard her mother scream. There had been a hospital, she was sure of that. She was sure, too, that there had been nurses, at least that one nurse who had welcomed her opening eyes with a look that was anything but scolding. And then the woman had smiled big. Anne had liked how her face looked when she smiled, especially underneath her mop of big black hair. Rhea, her badge had read. Green scrubs...she felt herself drift off again.
Anne's mother was once again at her side, patting her hand.
“Why, baby, why?”
“I want to be a nurse,” Anne enunciated slowly. intrigued by her heavy, drugged lips. Her mother smiled and explained that she was going to be here for a little while, at least overnight for observation. And then, as one fat involuntary tear fell from Anne's eye her mother heaved a sigh of relief, one that sounded as if it had been saved for such a very long time.
Anne found herself waking up again and she was alone in the room. She stood with difficulty, pulling her floating head back down onto her shoulders. Pulling on the robe that laid next to the bed, she stepped slowly, deliberately planting one foot in front of the other, and moved out into the florescent light.
There were other patients here, she realized. Well, obviously, she scolded herself, and thought then that their presence was so abundantly apparent because some of them, around the corner, sounded as if they were having a little party. Anne shuffled over to spot a long folding table covered with large bowls and plates, cups and salad tongs.
“What is this?” she slurred to the orderly.
“That,” he answered with a jolly grin, “is Dr. Greg's new thing. Culinary therapy! A lot of his ideas don't pan out to well, but everyone really seems to be enjoying this one. Especially that Asian lady. I'm afraid I still don't know her name. Go ahead, meet people, enjoy yourself. Meds are at nine.”
The little Asian woman was, indeed, in the throes of delight. She wore a makeshift apron and was slicing vegetables, tossing them into the salad bowl, and engaging in three different conversations at once, all of which were focused on her divulging her own recipes, which she knew by heart. A tall boy at the woman's was beside himself, arching his back dramatically as he savored each bite of the chicken and rice this woman had prepared.
“Isn't it dangerous for us to have stoves?” Anne asked the orderly.
“Don't worry, we're watchin' real close. Besides, Dr. Greg thinks a little more space is what does everyone some good.”
Anne found that without intending to she had walked to the boy's side, if only to learn what was so amazing about this food. He was in adulation over the little cook, and she beamed with delight.
“Ahoy!” he turned. “Hi there!” he balanced his bowl and fork in one hand and extended a long-fingered handshake. “I'm John, This is Miss Nyugen. She makes the food of the gods.”
“Oh, you said my name right!” she exclaimed with a slight Vietnamese accent. “Please dear, eat.” Miss Nyugen handed Anne a bowl.
“What was your name? What's the name of the game? Sorry, I promise I'm tame. A tame tiger. No, kitten. Lion. Sorry.” he laughed.
She laughed too, but she wasn't sure why. It may have only been that he was so able to laugh at himself that he couldn't even tell how silly he was being. “I'm Anne,” she grinned, exposing her braces before she remembered and snapped her mouth shut.
“Wow,” John stared dumbly at her.
“What?” she asked, averting her eyes. The braces, as often as she commanded them, would not fall off.
“You're stunningly beautiful!”
She looked back at him and saw that he was still staring, slack-jawed.
“Oh,” was all she could manage. And she smiled.
“Eat, eat!” Miss Nyugen demanded, laughing at the two of them. John, Anne realized, was not exaggerating his reaction; the cuisine was, indeed, divine. John was still staring at her, and if Anne was the sort of girl that let herself blush, she would have. The Smashing Pumpkins played in her head: “Today's the greatest...”
