A Wedding Invitation (18 page)

I’m not sure why she assumes that I’ve never had the real stuff before. But I play along. Lifting a large piece of pancake with my fork, I watch the syrup drip onto the plate. The morsel fills my mouth. “Wow, it is good.”

“Better, right?”

“So much better.” I take another bite.

Beanie smiles and pours herself a cup of coffee. “Want a cup?”

She reaches for a mug as I answer, “Please.”

“Someone made a pot of coffee last night and didn’t bother to wash it out.” Beanie’s gaze hovers around mine.

Guilty, I confess, “It was me. Sorry.”

As she hands me a mug, she says, “Coffee at bedtime. I don’t know how you do that and actually sleep.”

I take a sip; the warmth from the strong liquid glides down my throat. “In theory,” I say, borrowing her phrase, “caffeine is supposed to make you not able to sleep. I guess I’m wired wrong.”

She laughs. “I suppose we all have our little quirks. Dovie thinks it odd that I listen to WKLV every night.”

The call letters for the station sound familiar. “Carson’s station, right?”

She adds more sugar to her coffee, then stirs the beverage with the handle of a wooden mixing spoon. “Sure is. And by the way, he is a good D.J.”

I don’t want to keep the conversation on Carson. He already occupies way too many of my thoughts. I focus on the mosaic that decorates the wall behind Dovie’s stove. The pattern is a monarch butterfly, marigold wings spread, ready to fly.

“He has a lot of fans.”

“That was fun dancing,” I say, changing the subject.

Beanie stares at me over the counter. After a moment she says, “Until it reminded me of the old days.”

“Old days?”

“When I lived in New York City and was a dancer.”

“Do you miss New York?”

“Never.” She spits the word.

“Where’s your family? Do they live up there still?”

“I’m from all over.”

“That’s right. You’re every woman.” Eager to learn more about her past, I lean on my elbows and say, “Were you really homeless?”

She nods. “The rumors are true.”

She seems sad. Perhaps I’ve gone and opened a can of memories she’d prefer to keep shut. I try to mask my own discomfort by asking if she got the bank job she interviewed for weeks ago.

“No.”

“Sorry.”

“Not a problem.” She wipes the counter with a cloth. “In theory, I want to work. But then there’s my health issue.”

“Your health?” Oh no, I think. What is wrong with Beanie? Please not cancer, please not cancer.

But Pearl enters the room before Beanie can answer. The elderly woman is dressed in a flowered duster, her head covered by a brimmed straw hat, her black shoes firmly on her tiny feet. “I was going out to take care of the garden and feed the hens.”

Beanie takes one look at her and says, “I’ll come too.” I’m not sure why she feels she must supervise the old woman. It’s only the garden, I think. Pearl is not going combat fighting.

Beanie challenges my thoughts. “Those hens can be a handful,” she says. “Dinner is an exceptional bear.” She opens the back door and waits for Pearl to join her outside. They’ll water the herbs, feed the chickens, and no doubt converse about the old days like all good Southerners do.

I finish my breakfast as the hens chatter outside. I consider calling Mom at the beach house. She should be awake and drinking her coffee, sweetened with a teaspoon and a half of sugar. I can see her in a straw hat, a little less worn than Pearl’s, and adorned with a few flowers she’s picked on a walk to the beach. She and Maralinda are probably deciding where they’ll eat lunch. A wave of jealousy sweeps over my heart. If they would invite me to join them, I’d accept the invitation in a second.

Minutes later, when Carson appears at the back door, my mind is still on Mom. In fact, the cordless kitchen phone is in my hand. “Carson!” Here I am in a frayed T-shirt and pair of cutoffs and without any makeup.

As he grins through the screen door, I run a hand down my uncombed hair. “What are you doing here?”

“I was in the neighborhood.”

I don’t know whether to let him in or make him wait until I feel more presentable.

He opens the door and lets himself in. “How are you?”

“Good.” I place the phone back in its cradle. “And what are you up to? Breaking and entering?”

His smile is genuine. There were times in the camp that his smile was clearly fake, only used to appease Dr. Rogers, our staunch director, or an irate student. I also remember that at the camp, he just waltzed into my dorm to see me whenever he pleased. “I was thinking we could go over to the bistro,” he says.

“I don’t think so.” The words come out unfiltered, but once they’re said, I stand behind them.

He doesn’t leave, just grins, his eyes shiny and knowing. It’s that knowing look that gets to me. Like he can see into my soul or read my mind. I’m not sure which is worse.

We are no longer at the Philippine Refugee Processing Center, I want to tell him. Here, people call before coming over. This is the South, and as a Southerner he should know that there are invitations, rules and regulations. Even in the Philippines I questioned his motivations when he’d knock on my dorm room door Saturday mornings and tell me I needed to go with him to the market for a breakfast of Vietnamese sandwiches or spicy noodle soup. Why did he want to spend so much time with me when he was saving his heart for Mindy?

“It’s Saturday, Carson,” I’d tell him at the camp.

“I know,” he’d whisper. “The day’s not hot yet. Plus, you like to walk.”

Today I mumble, “I have . . . I have . . . things . . . to do.” I know Dovie is headed to the homeless shelter. Who’s to say I wasn’t planning to go there with her?

His look of disappointment surprises me. Stuffing his hands into his jeans pockets, he confesses, “It doesn’t have to take long.”

I want to say that I’m sorry, that he will have to go without me, that I am a busy woman now and not at all able or willing to respond to his spontaneity. “Okay,” I say. “But can I take a shower first?”

“Sure, that would be acceptable.”

“You can wait in the den. Dovie’s in there with Milkweed watching
The Price Is Right
.”

At Saigon Bistro, the only table available is in a corner near the restrooms. I hate sitting by the restrooms. As customers walk to and from the lavatory, my hope is that they wash their hands.

Lien comes from the kitchen to greet us. Her dyed-brown hair is in a ponytail and her makeup adds sophistication to her round face. She looks Carson over and says, “You look handsome like movie star.”

Normally I would laugh at such a line, but I’m at a loss for words.

Carson seems unmoved. Casually, he says, “Thank you.”

“What you want today?” she asks, running fingers down her white apron with
Saigon Bistro
embroidered in baby blue over her chest.

We know what we want; there is no mulling it over. Carson orders two bowls of pho with pork.

Before heading back to the kitchen, she sticks around our table to tell us how she thinks movie stars came to eat at the restaurant yesterday. “They very nice and very beautiful.”

“Do you know who they were?” asks Carson.

“Maybe Lady Diana. And someone else.”

“Lady Di is not a movie star,” I say.

Lien produces a small smile at Carson. “To me, she is.”

When she leaves us alone, I let out the first thing that comes to mind. “She still adores you. Clearly.”

“She’s appreciative.”

Huy brings our lunch on a black lacquer tray. Seeing we have nothing to drink, he cries, “She didn’t get you anything?” Frowning, he asks what we’d like.

We agree that water is fine, even after he suggests soda. Carson tells him to wait on the other paying customers, not to worry about us.

Steam fills our nostrils and eyes as Carson and I lean over our bowls with identical pairs of chopsticks.

Later, Lien smiles down at us as we eat. “Like PRPC,” she says, refilling our water glasses from a metal pitcher. “Just like days there.”

Carson smiles, I smile, and Lien giggles. I feel silly.

She insists that we eat the sweetened rice concoction that she’s invented. It’s a cross between the Indian kheer that Sanjay makes and Scottish oatmeal with brown sugar.

“You like?” Her eyes are hopeful.

Carson responds in Vietnamese.

“Good,” I say, but I suspect that Lien has not heard me at all. She tells us that she wants to open another restaurant in High Point and serve hamburgers.

“Why?” I ask.

Gazing at Carson, she replies, “Americans eat hamburger more than bok choy.” Her laughter continues; it hasn’t changed since she was a rambunctious student in my classroom. I expect that she’d take a swing at a customer who got under her skin.

After our bowls are empty, Carson looks at me. “Want to walk a bit?”

“Where?”

“There’s a park near here.”

I think of the summer heat that rages outside these doors. But then I recall how we managed to walk and talk all over the camp during the sticky days and nights of our time in the tropics. “Okay,” I say.

This will be my chance to talk with you without anyone else vying for your attention.
Mentally, I form my questions, and as we stand to leave, a certainty takes over my mind. I’ll ask about
her
.

Although he knows that the gesture is futile, before leaving the restaurant Carson hands Lien a twenty-dollar bill for our lunch.

“I tell you no pay,” she says, waving his offer away. “How you say? On top of the house?”

“On the house.” My teacher side comes out.

“I get it.” Slowly, she says, “Santa Claus goes up on top of house, but when you give friends a meal, it is on the house.”

We smile at her manner of memorizing the English language, and then in Vietnamese thank her for our lunch, Carson’s gratitude a bit more lengthy than mine.

Washington Park is about two miles from the restaurant, near the North Carolina School of the Arts, an area filled with elite homes and well-groomed gardens.

“I think Dovie’s taken me here before,” I say when I see the two stone columns holding up the wrought-iron arch displaying the name of the park. “Some organization held a butterfly release.”

“Most likely,” says Carson. “It’s a right nice place. Lots of history here.” He parks his car near the entrance and then leads the way under the arch. Soon we are walking along a path under large oak trees, their leaves sheltering us from the sun.

Squirrels pounce and run up tree trunks as birds flit around us. The sky is a brilliant blue with white cumulus clouds that sashay across it, driven by a light wind.

Walking usually gives me the freedom to think and even say things I might not say in a living room. Perhaps I feel that if I mess up and say the wrong thing, I can easily take off down a side street or walk off in the opposite direction from whomever I’m walking with. I’ve never actually done this, but perhaps just knowing I can provides me with some kind of tranquil assurance.

“Why aren’t you married?” I blurt while keeping pace with him, looking straight ahead.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean what do I mean? It’s a simple question.”

“Is there a simple answer?”

“Yes.”

We continue down the dirt path and then pause at a playground. I eye the swing set as Carson volunteers, “Want me to push you in one?”

“No. I want you to tell me what happened to Mindy.”

Standing across from him, I study Carson’s expression. Part of me wants to watch him squirm as he realizes he can’t ignore my prodding.

“Let’s see.” He acts like he can’t quite remember, like he’s trying to recall who Mindy is. “I think we grew apart.”

That’s a lame response, and I tell him so. “There has to be more.”

“Does there?”

“She was your life! You talked about her all the time.”

His eyes are somber, as though going back to a place far away. “She was. We were together for a long time.”

We stand next to each other under a hot sun as we did many times in camp. Just like during those times, I want more. He knows this; he knows so well what I want to hear, yet he will not budge.