https://www.angelfire.com/art2/dream/index.html
writegirl2000@hotmail.com
There I was digging my toes into the sand, deflecting the sun with my hand so I could see the swimmers splashing in the turquoise blue water of the Pacific, when I raised the tiki glass to my hungry lips and sipped the fruit juices swirling in rum. Ah, a mai tai.
Suddenly the yellow toothpick paper parasol (sans cherry...yummmmmmmmm) toppled out of the drink and rolled onto the bar.
“Mark come in tonight?”
“No. Not tonight. I’m by myself.”
“That Mark...he no good for you. You find nice man.”
I smiled. Linda, a Chinese woman in her sixties or maybe seventies, owned The China Palace for years...at least thirty from what I heard around town. Her accent was still firmly in place, so rooted that I could only understand every three words or so. Smiles came in handy, especially as responses to her motherly doses of dating advice.
“He not good man.” She shook her raven hair vigorishly.
“Okay.” the girl wanted to deflect the conversation. “Say do you have dim sum here?”
“Dim sum. You like dim sum?”
“Yes, a friend told me about pork buns. He says they are very good.”
“I have some home. People here not know dim sum. They come around.” she motioned with her hands.
“Yes with the carts and you select whatever you want.”
The woman smiled in agreement.
“You come next Thursday. I make pork buns. You meet nephew. He good man.”
I looked at Linda across the bar where she was washing glasses. “Do you mean a date?” I laughed lightly.
“You have dim sum and meet him.” She grinned broadly.
I knew of her penchant for fixing up couples.
I remembered her daughter’s wedding pictures she had shown me last summer. In the subdued bar light the girl dazzled all glittery white in 100s of photos...in front of the Windstone, next to the fountain in Lincoln Park, dancing in the ballroom with a handsome blonde man in a distinguished tux, cutting the seven-tier cake held up by crystal goblets, waving good-bye to the hundreds of dressed-to-heaven guests as they slipped into the limo. It was all so expensive, so fairy-tale, so suffocating. I hoped she wasn’t thinking anything near that idea for her nephew and me.
“He investment banker.” She was trying to sweeten the pot. Mark was a lawyer and a good customer of hers, a regular, but she read people from the moment she met them and he had landed on the wrong side. Funny she was right. Mark had so many personal lawsuits going he was the one that needed a lawyer.
“Okay. Yes.” I wanted the dim sum.
I flowed back into the sea with another mai tai and a bronzed surfer that said “dood” a lot.
The next morning I rethought this: a date with an Asian man and his aunt and dim sum!...interesting. Thursday came fast, as always.
I went with a gray pencil skirt, gold belly chain, little white sweater, and black boots. Monochromatic. I didn’t want to appear suggestive. This was some sort of old world date, after all. At the last minute I pulled on my red leather scuba-style jacket and pulled off the belly chain. Too wiggly.
Through the arched Gate of Heaven I saw the table: white tablecloth, a flickering white taper in a green jade Buddha candlestick. Now I was getting nervous. Yikes! This was a real date. Could be a strangling net with all of the seducements.
A handsome man, ebony-hair with blond tips, thin, yet squarish of body, came out from the rear kitchen door.
“I’m Wilkin. You must be Susan.”
“Yes. Hi nice to meet you Wilkin.” What an unusual name.
He sat down and started to talk blue-skies. He was very nervous..stumbling in his perfect English, tapping the Buddha’s belly. He was a “sweet”, uncomfortable man. I thought he might explode.
I leaned over.
“I have something to tell you, a secret.” I leaned even closer. “I’m gay.”
Wilkin smiled. “Thank you.” he said.
I smiled back and said, “Okay I’m not gay, but it sounded good, didn’t it?”
“Yes.” he said it with authority. “My aunt doesn’t understand or she is in denial.”
“I understand. No problem. Let’s just eat and laugh and make her think you had a wonderful date with a woman.”
“You are lovely.” he said.
We locked out mouths on the pork buns...juicy barbecued beef in a pastry shell...yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, hot sour soup, shrimp Cantonese, and stories about the renovation of the Chicago lakefront, Linda’s on-going foot ailments, and the recent 13” snowstorm.
Over Chinese tea we cracked open our fortunes. Wilkin’s said: "Many children inhabit your future." Too funny. Mine was simple and to the point: "Happy life be for you."
I took my date home. Part of the charade, part of my nurse-of-the-heart existence, partly out of loneliness. We watched “The Virgin Suicides.”
The man thanked me profusely and handed me a hand-carved alabaster Buddha, smiling with his hands raised over his head. “Good luck to you. I can’t thank you enough. Linda is always doing this. She likes you.”
I kissed him on the cheek, a baby peck, winked, and said, “Hey let’s do it again sometime!”
As to the dim sum? Well I have my own private connection. One mile from my house. One day a month. Call ahead.
