Buddha Baby (8 page)

"Oh," Michael said. After a moment, he sprang off the couch. "I skipped lunch today. Are you up for an early dinner?"

"Sure," she said, and went to grab her jean jacket.

They walked hand in hand to their favorite Chinese restaurant. After sliding into a booth, they noticed an elderly Chinese lady at one of the front tables. Although she was sitting with her entire family—husband, children, and grandkids— the world seemed to melt away when she set her eyes on Michael. She stopped mid-chopstick and gaped at him.

A waiter came to their table and took their order, after which he collected their menus and shuffled away. The old woman from the front of the restaurant craned her neck for another eyeball-f of Michael, then put down a steaming beef bone and approached their table.

Walking fast, she stumbled to a halt, patted her hairdo, and beamed a partially toothless smile. She batted her sparse eyelashes and held her clasped hands beneath her chin. She pointed at Michael with starstruck awe and said, "You star in
Matrix
movie, eh?"

Lindsey stifled a laugh as she and Michael exchanged bemused glances. Gently, he replied, "Well, actually, no. I wasn't in that movie."

The woman was unswayed. "You can't fool me," she said. "Big secret, you probably on film location here, eh?" She winked at Michael as if she was keen to his little game. Looking him up and down, her gaze lingered from the top of his cowlick to the soles of his Stan Smiths. "Well, you look
velly nüce
." She smoldered, looking like a Chinese Broom Hilda.

She turned on her orthopedic heels and did her best rendition of skipping away. Before sitting down with her family and her beef bone, she turned and gave a final little wave.

Michael good-naturedly waved back. While absentmindedly rearranging the condiments on the table, he said, "It's been a while since we've had real Chinese food."

Lindsey nodded in agreement. Just last week, Michael's sister had visited and they took her to a yuppified Chinese restaurant. The menus were in English with nary a typo, and they ordered touristy stuff—innocuous-sounding dishes like Orange Chicken and Imperial Rice. They ate sweet and fried things with goopy sauces. But it wasn't really Chinese food to Lindsey, or by now, to Michael either.

When they first started going out, Lindsey had to get over her anxieties about eating Chinese food around a non-family member, but over their two years together, Michael had learned to eat some hardcore stuff.

At banquets with Lindsey's family, he got used to eating things like pork guts in brown sauce and salted bottomfeeder in red oil. Her grandparents would order dishes in Chinese and when Lindsey asked what was coming, Yeh Yeh would explain, "duck with medicinal insect in soup."

"third stomach of cow."

"pig's trotters with pineapple and fungus," or sometimes, "mother-and-child-meet," meaning pigeon with pigeon-egg sauce. Literal English translation didn't always sound very appetizing.

But Michael had eaten it all, bless him. Even dishes that Lindsey wouldn't touch, like the seaweed that looked like hair, red bean dessert soup, and tripe. Michael had drunk the wine steeped with mice (for flavor, silly) and gnawed on the gnarliest of preserved fruit
mui
.

Lindsey's relatives loved to watch Michael mow down all the Chinese delicacies. They listened with rapt attention when he described the pros and cons of baked
cha siu bows
versus steamed. He likened oxtail stew to Italian
osso buco
and compared Chinese beef tongue dishes to Mexican
lengua
. Lindsey would have loved Michael even if he was a fussy eater, but somehow their relationship was proof that the way to a man's heart was through sauteed cow stomach.

"Wow, that was fast," Lindsey said as their food arrived. She doused their potstickers with rice vinegar and chili paste, then stirred the
won ton mein
with
horn choi
, which was the house specialty.

Michael spooned some beef tendons and stewed turnips onto her plate, knowing it was her favorite. She responded by forking over some salt-baked tofu and a couple of pieces of almond-pressed duck.

While Michael ate with chopsticks, Lindsey used a fork because it was easier. They liked to take their time eating, but the food was so good they ended up stuffing themselves quickly. When they were done, they each washed down their meal with several cups of hot tea.

The waiter brought over orange slices and fortune cookies. As Michael paid the bill, he said, "Want to go for our walk?" She nodded, and they headed for the door.

There was about an hour of sun left before dusk, and they made their way toward Golden Gate Park. The windblown trees in the long, stretching shadows beckoned to them. Ducking below some overgrown foliage, they entered the cool green of a hidden path and held hands as they walked beneath a canopy of rustling leaves in dappled shade.

They strolled across bridges and through tunnels, behind bushes and around flowering, fragrant trees. As the air grew cooler, they stopped from time to time so Michael could rub warmth into her shoulders. Near the log cabin he let her trip him and they fell down on the grass to enjoy the weight of each other as they inhaled the scent of new-growth grass dotted with pipsqueak daisies.

Evenings like these, between five and eight, with their mixture of cool and warm air, kinetic energy, and laziness, were the bread and butter of their relationship. Their talks were sometimes serious or joking, and other times they didn't speak at all, just listened to the gentle, scooping slaps of their shoes.

She couldn't quite explain the feeling of Michael at her side, but she knew it was right. He never walked too far ahead or lagged behind, and they had a synchronicity while walking. When she reached out her hand, his was always there as if their fingertips had language without talking.

Lindsey held a handful of flat stones she had gathered along the paths. She carried them
in
case they ended up at Stow Lake, where Michael could skip them across water. Walking for a while, they instead ended up sitting on a bench, and she balanced the cool rocks on the inner part of Michael's forearm. His other hand in her hair, he whispered insipid nicknames in her ear that, if heard aloud, would undoubtedly gag the entire population of the city's hipper-than-thou pseudo-intellectuals. The sky was just getting dark now, and somewhere in the distance they heard the low, sonorous booms of detonating fireworks. Although they could see only a blank sky above them, it was exciting to know that somewhere not too far away, pyrotechnics were lighting up the evening with fizzy, exploding chrysanthemums.

Lindsey nestled her face into Michael's neck. After a moment he whispered in her ear, "Hey, did you hear the one about the Chinese newlyweds? On their honeymoon the husband says he wants to try sixty-nine and the wife says, 'What? You want broccoli with beef?'"

Lindsey smiled and swept the rocks off his arm with her hand, watching as they tumbled into the grass.

"Maybe we'll be newlyweds someday," he added.

Their eyes met for a second. Then she gave him a little shove and stood up, brushing herself off.

Back at home, Lindsey took a shower while Michael organized the recycling and dragged it down to the curb. After shutting off the water, she pulled open the curtain to discover that there wasn't a towel on the rack, so she stepped out into the hall and promptly screamed, startled to see Michael, who'd just thrown open the front door.

"Well, hi," he said, kicking off his shoes. Modestly trying to cover herself with her hands, she fumbled in the linen closet. Michael moved toward her and wrapped his arms around her from behind.

"Your clothes are getting all wet," she said, trying to wriggle free, but he held her tight.

"I don't care," he said, smooching her.

"Well, you should care," she said between kisses. "Dry cleaning is expensive, and…"

"Forget dry cleaning. In fact, I'm never washing my clothes again, and they're gonna get filthy and full of germs and I'm gonna hide all your Purell, and you're gonna love me anyway."

Lindsey turned around and undid several buttons of his shirt, unlatched his belt and pulled it through the loops of his pants.

She put her arms around his neck and he hoisted her up and carried her to the bedroom. Her wet skin was slippery, and as soon as they made it to the bed he clumsily dropped her on the mattress with a thud.

"Ow!"

He smiled, pulling his shirt over his head and falling on her. More kissing and fooling around eventually led to the hamster dance. They laughed as several Hello Kitty plush toys catapulted off the bed and onto the floor. In time, the gravity of
la petite mort
ceased all giggles. Moments later Michael rolled over and they lay side by side for a minute or so, exhaling the contented sighs of the recently nailed.

Propping himself on an elbow, Michael turned to face Lindsey and played with several tangled strands of her hair. He gazed at her for a moment, then whispered, "I like how you trimmed your bangs." He gently touched her forehead and brushed a few wisps of hair to the side.

"Most guys wouldn't have even noticed."

He rolled over her and said, "I hope you like me more than most guys."

She struggled as he playfully held her down. "I'd venture to say I
very
like you."

Michael lay on his back and gazed at the ceiling. Staring into space he said, "Remember when I rented
Fight Club
, and then I thought it would be tough to get in that brawl with that giant from Ireland's 32? That fucker knocked my lights out, but you never said, 'I told ya so.' You just went and got an ice pack."

Lindsey turned to face him. "What made you think about that?"

Michael was pensive and didn't answer right away. He continued on his own train of thought. He said, "Do you know what I like about you?"

She looked at him quizzically.

He said, "When we get into arguments, even when you're really pissed at me, you don't tear me to shreds like I know you could. Even when you're hating me, you're loving me."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I can see steam coming out of your little head and you're simmering, but you never go for the jugular, and in the way you look at me there's something, I don't know. It's like you've already forgiven me. You're like a cat and I'm a mouse you've caught, and instead of sinking your teeth into me, you just let me go. I don't know what I'm trying to say."

"I know you're mine, so I let you live."

"Yeah."

Michael propped himself up on an elbow. "I'm glad you woke me up the other night when you had a bad dream. I need someone to make milkshakes for at two in the morning, and I want that person to always be you. I know you prefer it all smooth, but when I goof and leave the bananas too chunky you still say it's perfect and that makes me feel pretty perfect, too…"

He pushed up and rolled over her again, making sure not to squish her. He went on, "I hope that I make you feel as good, as happy and strong as you make me feel. In fact, I hope that you want to be with me for a really long time, as much as I, right now, very positively want to be with you. I guess what I'm trying to say is, well… let's get married. Will you… marry me?"

Lindsey couldn't quite believe what she'd heard. Did he just say… Yes. He said the word
marry
. This was not a joke with a punch line.

After all the marriage proposals she had watched in movies and on television she never once imagined how
the question
might be asked in real life, and more to the point, to
her
specifically.

Michael's words were still floating above her head as her mind sprinted off in several directions at once. She thought about when they first started going out. He always called when he said he would, not three hours later or even three days later, but exactly the time he said. In her dating universe before she met him, she had such low expectations that Michael's courtesy and common decency were a revelation. As their romance progressed, his everyday chivalry had quickly won her over.

She recalled how once he took her swimming along the American River, and he helped her climb down the steep embankment while simultaneously carrying towels, a cooler full of food, and a small tent so she would have shade to sit in. She carefully noted that he had quietly noticed her aversion to the sun and factored this detail into his preparations. The fact that he brought a tent had impressed her, and his tender attentive-ness had melted her heart as well as her, um, panties.

Michael consistently considered her needs first. He always gave her the bigger piece of pie, the cake with more frosting, or the unburnt toast. He even claimed to like burnt toast so she wouldn't have to feel guilty. With these small gestures he taught her something she surprisingly had not quite believed at first, which was that she deserved kindness.

Theirs was not a romance of screaming tantrums followed by dramatic reconciliations, but she had come to realize that a clock-radio hurled at one's face at 2 a.m. did not equal passion. Pat Benatar was wrong. Love didn't have to be a battlefield.

She looked up at Michael.

"Tell you what," he said. "If you can wrestle me off you, you can say no. Otherwise, you have to say yes."

Lindsey grabbed him and pulled him down. "I don't need to fight you," she said. "Of course I'll marry you."