The Joy Luck Club

firms.

'Who needs another brass and oakwood bar and grill?' I said. 'Who wants another pasta place in sleek Italian moderno? How many places can you go to with police cars lurching out of the walls? This town is chockablock with restaurants that are just clones of the same old themes. You can find a niche. Do something different every time. Get the Hong Kong investors who are willing to sink some bucks into American ingenuity.'

He gave me his adoring smile, the one that said, 'I love it when you're so naive.' And I adored his looking at me like that.

So I stammered out my love. 'You…you…could do new theme eating places… a…a…Home on the Range! All the home-cooked mom stuff, mom at the kitchen range with a gingham apron and mom waitresses leaning over telling you to finish your soup.

'And maybe…maybe you could do a novel-menu restaurant…foods from fiction… sandwiches from Lawrence Sanders murder mysteries, just desserts from Nora Ephron's Heartburn. And something else with a magic theme, or jokes and gags, or…'

Harold actually listened to me. He took those ideas and he applied them in an educated, methodical way. He made it happen. But still, I remember, it was my idea.

And today Livotny amp; Associates is a growing firm of twelve full-time people, which specializes in thematic restaurant design, what I still like to call 'theme eating.' Harold is the concept man, the chief architect, the designer, the person who makes the final sales presentation to a new client. I work under the interior designer, because, as Harold explains, it would not seem fair to the other employees if he promoted me just because we are now married-that was five years ago, two years after he started Livotny amp; Associates. And even though I am very good at what I do, I have never been formally trained in this area. When I was majoring in Asian-American studies, I took only one relevant course, in theater set design, for a college production of Madama Butterfly.

At Livotny amp; Associates, I procure the theme elements. For one restaurant called The Fisherman's Tale, one of my prized findings was a yellow varnished wood boat stenciled with the name 'Overbored,' and I was the one who thought the menus should dangle from miniature fishing poles, and the napkins be printed with rulers that have inches translating into feet. For a Lawrence of Arabia deli called Tray Sheik, I was the one who thought the place should have a bazaar effect, and I found the replicas of cobras lying on fake Hollywood boulders.

I love my work when I don't think about it too much. And when I do think about it, how much I get paid, how hard I work, how fair Harold is to everybody except me, I get upset.

So really, we're equals, except that Harold makes about seven times more than what I make. He knows this, too, because he signs my monthly check, and then I deposit it into my separate checking account.

Lately, however, this business about being equals started to bother me. It's been on my mind, only I didn't really know it. I just felt a little uneasy about something. And then about a week ago, it all became clear. I was putting the breakfast dishes away and Harold was warming up the car so we could go to work. And I saw the newspaper spread open on the kitchen counter, Harold's glasses on top, his favorite coffee mug with the chipped handle off to the side. And for some reason, seeing all these little domestic signs of familiarity, our daily ritual, made me swoon inside. But it was as if I were seeing Harold the first time we made love, this feeling of surrendering everything to him, with abandon, without caring what I got in return.

And when I got into the car, I still had the glow of that feeling and I touched his hand and said, 'Harold, I love you.' And he looked in the rearview mirror, backing up the car, and said, 'I love you, too. Did you lock the door?' And just like that, I started to think, It's just not enough.

Harold jingles the car keys and says, 'I'm going down the hill to buy stuff for dinner. Steaks okay? Want anything special?'

'We're out of rice,' I say, discreetly nodding toward my mother, whose back is turned to me. She's looking out the kitchen window, at the trellis of bougainvillea. And then Harold is out the door and I hear the deep rumble of the car and then the sound of crunching gravel as he drives away.

My mother and I are alone in the house. I start to water the plants. She is standing on her tiptoes, peering at a list stuck on our refrigerator door.

The list says ' Lena ' and 'Harold' and under each of our names are things we've bought and how much they cost:

Lenu

chicken, veg., bread, broccoli, shampoo, beer $19.63

Maria (clean + tip) $65 groceries

(see shop list) $55.15

petunias, potting soil $14.11

Photo developing $13.83

Harold

Garage stuff $25.35

Bathroom stuff $5.41

Car stuff $6.57

Light Fixtures $87.26

Road gravel $19.99

Gas $22.00

Car Smog Check $35

Movies amp; Dinner $65

Ice Cream $4.50

The way things are going this week, Harold's already spent over a hundred dollars more, so I'll owe him around fifty from my checking account.

'What is this writing?' asks my mother in Chinese.

'Oh, nothing really. Just things we share,' I say as casually as I can.

And she looks at me and frowns but doesn't say anything. She goes back to reading the list, this time more carefully, moving her finger down each item.

And I feel embarrassed, knowing what she's seeing. I'm relieved that she doesn't see the other half of it, the discussions. Through countless talks, Harold and I reached an understanding about not including personal things like 'mascara,' and 'shaving lotion,' 'hair spray' or 'Bic shavers,' 'tampons,' or 'athlete's foot powder.'

When we got married at city hall, he insisted on paying the fee. I got my friend Robert to take photos. We held a party at our apartment and everybody brought champagne. And when we bought the house, we agreed that I should pay only a percentage of the mortgage based on what I earn and what he earns, and that I should own an equivalent percentage of community property; this is written in our prenuptial agreement. Since Harold pays more, he had the deciding vote on how the house should look. It is sleek, spare, and what he calls 'fluid,' nothing to disrupt the line, meaning none of my cluttered look. As for vacations, the one we choose together is fifty-fifty. The others Harold pays for, with the understanding that it's a birthday or Christmas present, or an anniversary gift.

And we've had philosophical arguments over things that have gray borders, like my birth control pills, or dinners at home when we entertain people who are really his clients or my old friends from college, or food magazines that I subscribe to but he also reads only because he's bored, not because he would have chosen them for himself.

And we still argue about Mirugai, the cat-not our cat, or my cat, but the cat that was his gift to me for my birthday last year.

'This, you do not share!' exclaims my mother in an astonished voice. And I am startled, thinking she had read my thoughts about Mirugai. But then I see she is pointing to 'ice cream' on Harold's