jawline and a weak yet stubborn chin, a California Girl chin. Beneath her face’s pale skin was an intricately expressive play of muscles: now molding a fleeting chipmunk cheeK, now forming a quick corrugation across her sweet brow. When Nga wrote out a sales check, she would rest her hand on a piece of paper she’d folded in four out of some ritual of Saigonese penmanship. Every time I talked to her, I did my best to stretch out our conversation.
“A medium roast beef croissant,” I said to Nga. “And a seltzer, please.”
“Yes,” said she. “Six forty-nine. How you doing today.”
“Fine.” I wanted to say so much more. How did you and your family escape from Vietnam? Do you like life in America? Do you have a boyfriend? Could you ever be attracted to a Western man? Will you move in with me? “It’s such nice weather,” I added breathlessly, as she counted out my change. “I hope you don’t have to work all day?”
“I here till six o’clock closing time.” Nga gave a quick laugh, breathless as a sob.
“Would… would you like to have dinner with me?” Yes! I’d finally said it!
Nga looked at me blankly. “What do you mean?” Her mother and aunt were watching us now, and the pushy pig behind me in line cleared his throat preparatory to placing his order.
“A date for dinner. You and me.”
Nga slid her eyes to one side and spoke in rapid Vietnamese to her mother. Her mother gave a very brief answer. Nga cast her eyes down.
“I no think so.”
Wearing a numb, frozen smile, I took my soda and sandwich outside to sit down at one of the bakery’s sidewalk tables. From inside came the chatter of Vietnamese voices. I swallowed the food too rapidly and it made a big painful lump in my throat. I was fat and old and crazy and nobody would ever love me again. Were those tears in my eyes?
A Vietnamese boy came out to clear the tables. He giggled when his eyes met mine.
“Are you Nga’s brother?” I asked desperately.
“She my cousin.” He nodded his head towards the bakery. “My name Khanh Pham. Nga say you ask her go on dinner date.”
“Yes,” said I. “Just to talk.”
“In traditional Vietnamese date, boy must come visit girl family. Maybe you yisit us, then Nga go on dinner date.”
“Uh… where do you live?”
“On East side.”
God. What if some of the Vo family were Carol’s students? I glanced down at my left hand, noticing the dent where my wedding ring had lived so many years. Asking Nga Vo for a date had been a stupid idea.
“Here our address,” said the boy, handing me a neat square of paper inscribed with Nga’s fine script. “Bakery close every Tuesday. Maybe you come visit tomorrow.”
My breath rushed out of me. “Yes. Yes, I will come!”
When I finished eating I took my paper plate and my seltzer bottle back. Nga’s mother, aunt, and cousin were there, with her father in the hallway out back. Nga slipped me a couple of bold, sneaky glances. “See you tomorrow!” I sang out.
The trees along Santa Ynez Avenue were blooming: bottlebrushes with cylindrical flowers made up of red bristles, catalpas with pendulous racemes of two-toned lavender flowers, and mimosas thick with tiny, sweet- smelling yellow blooms. Most of the fabulous plants in California are imported exotics. I wondered if the woman who reminded me of Carol was still at the Coffee Roasting. Now that I’d worked up the nerve to approach Nga, I felt brave enough to talk to anyone.
I put my card into the bank’s outdoor teller machine and pushed the buttons to get $200 in cash out of our checking account. UNABLE TO PERFORM THE REQUESTED TRANSACTION AT THIS TIME, read the machine’s little screen. PLEASE REMOVE CARD. I removed it and started over, this time trying to take the money out of the savings. Still no go. Had Carol-I reinserted the card and checked the balances of our checking and savings accounts. The balances were, respectively, $0.00 and $26.18. When our checking account runs short, money is transferred automatically from the savings. Carol had cleaned us out by writing too many checks. I seemed to remember her having mentioned something about having to pay the car insurance bill. I hadn’t realized it would come to so much.
I took the last whole $20 out of our savings and put it in my wallet, which gave me $34 dollars in all. Today was Monday, April 27, which meant GoMotion wouldn’t transfer my pay till like Friday. I was going to have to go all week on $34? And how was I going to get that pot from Queue? No way she’d take a check. Maybe I should pocket the weed and then pretend I’d forgotten my wallet? Being broke on top of being separated made me feel totally reckless. My mind flashed back to the bell-haired woman in the argyle sweater at the Roasting. I decided to hustle back there and try to talk to her before I did anything else.
I went down back streets the two blocks to the Roasting and yes, yes, the bell-haired woman was still there, sitting with the artsy-craftsy phone-toting woman I’d seen talking to Susan Poker before. But, despite her company, the bell-haired woman was definitely the type for me.
She had slightly stunned eyes and a plumpness in her neck beneath her chin. She was like someone’s sexy Mom, and I was old enough to be Daddy. I got a coffee with sugar and cream, sat down on a bench near her, and looked at her anew with each sip of my coffee. She noticed, she looked back at me, she looked again, our eyes met, and I smiled. Smoothly and deliberately, she stuck out her tongue and pressed it tight against her upper lip. Definitely a signal. In the past, women had occasionally given me such come-ons, but as a cautious married man I’d always passed them up. Today things would be different. I stood up and I walked over to her. I felt light-headed; my blood was pounding in my ears.
“Hi,” said I. “You’re really pretty.”
She laughed softly. “I was hoping you’d talk to me. Where are you from?”
“I live right here in Los Perros. My name’s Jerzy?” I stuck out my hand. She took it lightly. The touch of her hand was firm and warm.
“I’m Gretchen. And this is my friend Kay.” I nodded to stocky Kay and concentrated on Gretchen.
“What kind of work do you do?” asked Gretchen.
“I’m a computer programmer. I’m helping to design a personal robot. We’re going to call it the Veep. Like vice president?”
“Oh.” Gretchen turned and said something to her friend. “Do you work in an office?”
“No, I work at home. I’m all alone there. My wife left me six weeks ago.”
Gretchen looked very interested. “Are you planning to sell the property?”
“Don’t tell me you’re a Realtor!”
“I do a variety of things,” she said, her calm California eyes drilling into mine. Again she did that thing with her tongue.
“Would you like to come up to my house and look around?”
“Sure,” said Gretchen. “Why not.”
She talked some more with Kay, tying up loose ends, and then she walked slowly with me to my car and got in. Close up, she had tired eyes.
“Do you want anything?” I asked Gretchen.
She looked languidly greedy. “How about some fine wine? And two packs of Kents.”
The two crazy liquor store clerks were behind the counter, the thin giggling bearded one and the bowling pin-shaped one with the mustache. One of the nice things about California was how many workaday jobs were held by freaks. I got a bottle of good chardonnay and the Kents. It came to thirteen dollars and change. And then I was back in the car with Gretchen. This beautiful new woman was sitting in the bucket seat of my Animata, looking at her makeup in the mirror on the visor, fixing her face with the calm seriousness of a grown woman, her actual soft butt on the real leather of my car.
“I’m stoked,” said I. “I’m ready to party.”
Gretchen smiled. “I’m eager to see your house.” Again I studied her eyes. They were blue and… blank?
“I can show you my computer.”
“Yippee,” said Gretchen softly, and lit a cigarette. “I failed math in high school.”
