(1)
Sorry I may be one hour late. Too much work today. Terribly sorry. As I get off my bike at ACE, I receive a message from Jing – my mom's ex-colleague's daughter and, this time, my blind date.
It's OK. Take your time. 😊 Or let's just cancel this meaningless blind date, shall we?
I text back. Of course, the last sentence only runs through my mind.
It's a warm day. One of the warmest this winter. But my hands are still cold as ice. It's really weird feeling butterflies in my stomach, for I thought I'd used them up before my first blind date. Now standing outside the restaurant, I put my hand on the left side of my chest and stroke the fabric of my sweater unconsciously, feeling my heart throbbing as if I was going to propose marriage. Coming here today might've been one of the worst decisions I've made so far in my life. To begin with, coming back for the first time after 10 years to the place where Chenhui and I used to hang out; second, a blind date with another girl; and third, being in the same room with Lee. Doing just one of these things seems already more than enough to make me feel on edge. What the hell was I thinking when I considered it a feasible plan to mix them together? I'll just have to learn that sometimes ideas in our minds are too abstract to make us comprehend how they're actually like when put into effect in reality. Just like me, having been told hundreds of times how terrible cat poop smelled before, I thought I was ready but almost threw up when I helped clean the litter box at my friend's one day, the day I decided not to keep a cat as long as my olfactory system still worked normally. Even though I feel slightly nauseous just thinking of it, picturing the cat (and its poop) does help calm my nerves a little somehow.
"How long are you gonna stand there?" My attempt to chill out is soon interrupted by a voice behind me, sudden but soft, so I'm not startled at all. I don't have to turn back to see who he is. I've been thinking about what I can say to this man when I enter the restaurant seeing him working at the bar counter. Feel kinda relieved I don't need to anymore. Lee walks up to my side with a cup of coffee from the coffeehouse opposite in hand. JERRYS COFFEE, huh, I hope he likes it.
"I saw you get here when I was waiting in line," he takes a sip, "and now I almost finish it up, you're still here."
I look at him curiously, "So how long have you been standing behind me?"
"Long enough to cool my coffee down," he quickly drains the last of it and tosses the cup into the trash can by the door, "and you know what I was thinking?"
"You were thinking… why you insisted on getting coffee from the shop across from your workplace when you already work at a restaurant?"
"This is exactly how you talked. And just FYI, we don't serve coffee here." Lee beams, "I was thinking if I could guess why you didn't go in."
"So did you figure anything out yet?" I ask him as I pull open the door that no longer creaks like it used to.
"Hmmm… Let me see, you don't think you're ready for the blind date." He reaches out his hand to hold the door for me, "Am I right?"
"Yep. I'll never be ready for that." He's got one of the reasons, the most obvious one though, "I was just told that the girl will be one hour late, so I guess I will have some more time to get prepared, or simply to list as many ways of how I may screw it up again as possible."
"Good for you. And…" He pauses, smiling. I return his smile, waiting for what he's gonna say. "I'm glad you chose to come here." The emphasis tells me that he's got the deepest reason I was hesitating by the door.
I thought memories would come flooding back so intensely that I might even have the urge to shed some tears the moment I stepped into the restaurant. But it turns out that I'm not feeling anything, either because the inside has been completely renovated and refurnished or merely because I don't get emotional as easily as I do when watching a movie with Justin Hurwitz's score playing in the background. Maybe it's high time, as Lili said at the party, I stopped watching La La Land and deleted it immediately from my iTunes library.
Here it is.
ACE. The Joker's.
A taxi driver told me the other day that "the restaurant always draws a large crowd with its big discount offered in the middle of the week." And now I wish he were here to tell me if his week starts from Wednesday. Of course, it's Sunday, and restaurants are supposed to be busy now, but from the guests who have to be sharing a table with others to the cooks, standing on the other side of some big windows that separate the restaurant and its semi-open kitchen in the far left corner, who are fully occupied chopping and grating on the boards, or grilling and frying by the stoves, I don't think I'm able to picture the space filled with one more person.
But what I don't wanna deny is that I do prefer how the atmosphere is now, much buzzier than it was a decade ago when the music playing was nothing but some cheesy tunes I might've heard thousands of times in elevators and the lights were too dark for me to figure out what plants were placed by the walls.
"Anything… that reminds you of anything?" Maybe seeing me stand there without doing or saying anything, Lee asks me.
"No." I turn to look at him, "It's totally different from what I remember."
Then our attention is drawn by a lady sitting at the second table from the door, who shrieks at the waiter, asking him to change the steak she just ordered from medium to medium-well. I remember clearly that Chenhui and I liked to sit at the same table because it was the only one available that wasn't far from the windows the first time we came here so that we could see how dark it was outside and decide when to go back home.
Then come kiss me.
My heart skips a beat. I almost forget this. The very table. The night we came here for the last time.
"What are you thinking?" Lee bends a little and asks gently.
"Nothing." I avert my gaze from the lady at the table abruptly to look back at Lee.
"Then," He cups my shoulders from behind, pushing me towards the far-right corner of the room, next to the kitchen, where the bar counter is located, "go there, and I'll make you some drinks."
"The counter seems smaller than before," I murmur while running my eyes over all the alcohol whose names I don't really know on the wine cabinet that touches the ceiling behind the counter, "but I'm glad it is still here."
"Sure." Lee smiles and gives me a barstool over the counter, "People always need alcohol to keep their life rolling." He lowers his voice when saying the last few words so as not to be overheard by the guests sitting around me.
"Exactly." I lower my voice deliberately to mirror him.
Lee giggles secretly and passes me the drinks menu, which is much fancier now. At least the cover is leather-like pasteboard, the restaurant's name imprinted with gilt lettering on it.
However, despite the fancy look of the menu, the content still makes no sense to me just like before – the types of grapes, the origins, the tastes, even the units of drinks. How many milliliters are there in a pint?
When I'm about to close the menu and tell Lee that I give up and he can just make me whatever he wants, I suddenly see something familiar.
"Arrogant Bastard Ale?!"
Lee stops talking with his coworker to look at me, "What?"
"You still have Arrogant Bastard Ale here?" I look up to him, "It… It is… what evil must taste like!" Tastes like crap must sound too rude in public, so I quote what Phoebe said in FRIENDS.
"Yeah… It really tastes strange. I'm afraid I can recognize all the guests who have ordered it." He squints his eyes a little as if he's thinking of the faces of those people, "Why?" He turns to me.
"It's just… We used to order it a lot." Mentioning Chenhui's name might be embarrassing, but who knows, using the pronoun sounds even more awkward.
"Were you punishing yourselves for anything?" He smiles, "Don't tell me that's your order today."
"I'd rather not. But I have no idea what to order. The words on the menu almost blind me." I say as I give the menu back to him.
"I thought you were an English major." He teases, placing the menu back on the display rack.
"I was! I mean I know every single word on it, but… Why do I have to explain? Screw you."
He laughs, "Fine. Let me make something for you, and I'm sure you'll like it."
Sitting here inside of ACE and talking with Lee like this is surreal. A couple of days ago, I didn't even know that I'd eventually see this man again. I'd even imagined what would happen if I ran into him on the street one day. Would we just pretend not to see each other? Or who would say hello first? In which way? And what should be followed next? Would fixing a date for a coffee or a brunch seem too affected?
Anyway, I don't have to worry about it anymore, for it seems that we've already skipped to the phase where both of us are trying to chitchat like old friends who just haven't seen one another for ages. He talks about how he found the part-time job here by accident and his plan for a trip to Paris, which was put off due to the heavy workload at his painting studio, while I tell him about how I quit my last job for the current one and that I almost forgot I had an oven at home wasn't meant to be a joke. He wonders if Lili has gotten married, so I have to brief him about the on-again, off-again relationship between Lili and her boyfriend…
Tacitly, neither of us mentions the very reason why it has taken this long for us to meet again. Lee's "I thought you were an English major" might've been the closest thing to our college life, at the end of which we broke up.
"I don't wanna flatter you. But it tastes really good." I take a sip of the drink he has passed me.
"Told you."
"What's in it?" I really like the coconut flavor.
"It's called Bodega Negra. The main ingredients are Milagro Tequila and Coco Lopez, with lime juice." Lee sits down opposite me, leaning his elbows on the counter, "See the spice? That's Tajín Clásico Seasoning."
"You've lost me since you said the name of the drink." And what is Coco Lopez? JLo is the only Lopez I've known.
"Just call it coconut thing next time you wanna drink it." He shrugs.
"Are you… Yang?" Neither Lee nor I noticed when the girl came to us. She must be Jing, for she does look a little familiar.
"Oh, yes. Hi. Long time no see." I jump off the barstool and offer a handshake.
"Sorry I've been one hour late. Too much work today. Terribly sorry." She explains by repeating the message she sent me earlier with a bit of grammatical change, "And the traffic was way worse than I'd thought."
"Doesn't matter. It's Sunday after all." I say, wearing a friendly smile. The truth is, I didn't even realize it's already been one hour since I came here.
"The table over there is available now." Lee points at a table behind me.
"Thank you." Says Jing. I turn around only to find that the table Chenhui and I used to sit at is the only one available in the restaurant now. Fate. What else can I say?
"What's wrong?" Lee must've noticed me gazing at the table.
"No. I'm just feeling nervous."
"Take it easy." He pats me on my shoulder and, right before I go, whispers behind me, "The way you shook hands looked unnatural."
"I knew it!"
(2)
On such a beautiful day, I should've been doing something more meaningful than this, like binge-watching the Japanese TV series my colleagues have been heatedly discussing for weeks, or… just sleeping in. Fine. I admit that my life isn't that interesting sometimes. But when looking at Jing, who sits opposite me, talking non-stop about her childhood, her overseas experience as an exchange student in the States, and her college life, I just feel guilty about wasting her time here. She seems so serious about this whole blind date thing.
And, I have to say, I like the way sunshine brightens her face making her much prettier than in the picture. Guys would fall for her. Some guys, of course. Should I introduce her to Kai? But probably I should make sure if Lulu is fine by this first. Wait a second, I remember the last girl I went on the blind date with looked better in person as well. What happens to their pictures?
"Hello? Are you thinking of anything?" Jing puts her glass down and stops to ask me.
Where was she?
"Ah… I was thinking about your… major?" I'm afraid I almost lost sight of what we're doing here now.
"Business Administration and Management? Oh right. There was another funny story when I was taking strategic planning class one day…"
That's funny. Same distance to each other, same windows on my right side, but with a different person. What I can still recall is me, like what I'm doing right now, gazing at the other, and Chenhui, with Arrogant Bastard Ale in his right hand, gabbing. I was slightly drunk, so I don't think I'm able to cast my mind back over what he said precisely. But I still remember the vibes somehow and how much I was enjoying them. It still feels real. It's just like when waking up in the morning, you find yourself happy and smiling, so you close your eyes again, attempting to recollect the dream that has pleased you. You'll always have that smile on your face for the rest of the day, no matter what you're doing. Bit by bit, what the dream is about doesn't seem to matter that much, and, eventually, you may even forget to remember it.
"CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?" The sudden rising intonation scares me out of the thought.
"Noooooooooo…"
"Me neither! I mean, it wasn't I who was snoring in his class. Why was I the one to blame?" So I guess we're still in the middle of one of the academic stories.
"That's so ridiculous." I put on a wry smile, trying my best to make out I've been immersed in her story all the time. Even though I'm not really listening, I can bet, based on her facial expressions, that her college life was full of fun and, more importantly, why does she still remember doing everything like it just happened yesterday?
Not until this moment do I realize that I rarely talk to anyone around me about my college life (including Lili, coz she already knows everything). Why? Is it because it isn't worth a mention at all? I'm sure it is. I did have weird teachers who said ridiculous stuff that I can always joke about, and I did behave so stupidly when getting drunk that I once, totally unaware that my fly was undone, didn't notice my pants falling off as I tottered back to my seat from the bathroom. I guess, however, the real reason why I hardly ever feel like talking about anything may lie in the fact that most of the fun I had concerned the man who is busy working at the bar counter in this room.
To most people around me, Lee was nothing but a friend of mine from another major. Whenever I'm about to share something fun about my college life, before anything comes out of my mouth, I have to rewrite the story in my head on the double to alter or even omit the parts where Lee seems to be too significant a role. This whole script-editing thing gradually wears me out. If the hidden truth ever comes to light in any way someday, it might actually not be so bad for me.
"Oh my goodness. I must've talked too much about myself." Jing takes a sip of her drink, "Why don't you tell me something about yourself?"
"I…"
Her phone rings before I make I any longer. A Head Full of Dreams. OK, I guess we can talk about Coldplay if we run out of things to say later.
"Sorry. It's from work." Then she picks up her phone from the table and leaves.
Something about myself? I've taught thousands of students how to introduce themselves in our online English courses, and now I cannot think of anything about myself to say, even in my mother tongue.
"How's it going?" Having noticed Jing leaving, Lee walks over from his counter.
"Lee."
"Uh… Yes." He frowns a little, "What's wrong?"
"Do you think it's a good idea to tell her the truth?" Yes, I heard myself. It doesn't sound wise.
"That… we were together?" Lee sits down next to me and says jokingly.
"Not that far." I titter.
"Just kidding."
Then he sighs, the smile on his face fading, "Seriously though, you can say anything you want, whether or not I'm part of it. I never care what people say about me and you know that. But the problem is, have you really thought it through? Do you really want this girl to be the one you come out to?"
"It wouldn't hurt. Or… would it?" I mean, it would be easier than to come out to those I'm familiar with. However, given her connection with my mom, if she ever found out, the story might eventually make its way to my mom's ears. So, do I really need to come out to mom in such a roundabout way? If she were to find out like that, she'd probably feel quite humiliated, wouldn't she?
"It's your call."
Seeing Jing come back from outside after finishing her phone call, Lee stands up.
"Hey. There's something I'd like to tell you…" I make myself sound more light-hearted to hide my nerves.
"Sure. I'm all ears." She seats herself, resting her elbows on the table and leaning forward.
"I was in a relationship at college," Can't believe I'm doing this, is it too late to stop? "and what I'm about to tell you may be a little unexpected."
"Are you telling me… you are still in love with your ex-girlfriend?"
"Interesting." Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lee stop walking and turn back, waiting for what I'm gonna say, "OK. Let me see how I can put this."
Following my gaze, Jing turns around, taking a brief glance at Lee, and then asks me, "Why are you looking at him?"
"Because…"
"Because his ex-girlfriend is my little sister." Lee comes to us and sits down next to me again, "She is still crazy about him even though they broke up years ago."
"So why did you break up?" Jing asks the exact question that I also want to ask Lee.
"Because… she married a businessman introduced by our father, who is very strict and demanding by the way." Lee continues his story.
"Geez. Is she still married now?" Does she believe the story? Oh, come on, I could name hundreds of soap operas with a similar plot.
"Yes. She is. And what I want to warn you is," Lee leans a little forward, "that Yang still has feelings for her as well."
"Is that true?" She turns to me.
"I hate to say this, but yes, I'm afraid so." I think there's nothing else left for me to say.
"Well… I wasn't expecting this." She leans backward, "I thought you were gonna say something about your sexual orientation. Haha."
Crap. Would it be easier for her to accept?
Then she continues, "I don't wanna get involved in such a complicated relationship. Yang, I know it's not my place to say, but I just wanna tell you, you can never start a new life if you don't forget her." Though I know we're just discussing my affair with Lee's imaginary sister, her words do disconcert me a little.
"Thanks. I'm still trying." Believe me, I am trying.
(3)
"What does it mean if girls insist on splitting the check?" When Jing has left, I go back to the bar counter, which is much emptier now after the lunchtime rush, so I just take a barstool closest to the wall so that I can see the menu board clearly, "Does it mean that they don't want to go on another date with you?"
"Don't overthink it. Perhaps it just means that they don't wanna feel like they owe you anything. In your case, however," Lee waits a beat, putting the Martini back in the cabinet, and turns to me, "yes, it does."
"Whatever." I shrug, "Anyway, I managed to get through another task successfully. I just hope my mom really meant what she said and won't set me up on any more of these."
Having said goodbye to the last guest who just checked out, Lee pops a bar stool opposite me behind the counter and straddles it.
"It's just a blind date – no need to overthink it. Why are you acting like it's a battlefield?" Then he leans slightly toward me, asking me with interest, "So basically, you've never fallen in love with a woman, have you?"
This is the question I sometimes ask myself too. There was this pretty girl in my class about 20 years ago – clever, tender, and a little taller than I was, since, as far as I can remember, she was two years older than me. For kids still in the single digits, that age gap made a big difference. Now I can't tell if I really liked her, as many other students in our elementary school did, or if I just enjoyed spending time with her. Either way, it probably wasn't the kind of love we talk about today. Or… was it?
"Jennifer Aniston." I blurt out.
"Not her! Celebrities don't count." Lee laughs.
"Why not? I do love her."
"Sure," He nods his fake consent, "then good luck marrying her."
"Then good luck dealing with your little sister and the man she's entangled with."
"Hey! That story was for your sake!" Argues Lee, "Wait a sec." Then he gets up to welcome a new guest.
How was your date with Lee, sweetheart? A message from Lili arrives as I'm about to tell Lee that I'm gonna go.
We did have a great time. Thanks for asking.
We should hang out together sometime. You think? She asks.
I peek at Lee, who is chitchatting with the man waiting for his drink. It doesn't sound bad, does it? Though Lili was studying at a different college, the three of us used to hang out a few times, and I don't think I have to be the reason why it's not happening again.
"Lee. I'm gonna take off."
"OK." Says Lee, "Have you requested a cab?"
"No. I'll bike home." I get up and look outside the window, "There seems to be a lot of traffic."
"Since when do you ride a bike?" Lee asks surprisingly. I mean, this is something he doesn't have to remember that clearly.
"Huh! Since forever." Since this summer, when I happened to find out how convenient biking was (and that I was the only one in my company who couldn't do it), which Lee doesn't need to know.
Before I open the door, my eyes are caught by something on the wall stuck with quite a few colorful Post-It notes. It's not uncommon to see this kind of stuff these years, leaving some comments on the food they've eaten or simply some wishes they wanna carry out. But why I'm standing here and staring is that there's a photo in the center of all the notes. Some notes around it apparently ripped off, the photo is perfectly accentuated. In the photo stands Lee behind the counter, a broad smile on his face, I sitting on a bar stool, Bodega Negra in hand.
This is kind of creepy, for I didn't know someone was photographing us. Is this somewhat of a surprise that a new guest of the restaurant usually gets?
I rip it off and stuff it into my pocket. After that, I swivel round to look at Lee, not knowing if I should tell him this. When his eyes meet mine, he raises his arm, giving me a big wave. I manage a smile with a slight nod of my head. Then I push open the door and get out.
The traffic is, if not worse, as terrible as I thought.