“How are you, tonight?” He asked the usual smalltalk, “Where are you from?”
I zoomed my camera back into the sunset, leaving my avatar and his out of view. I answered him with half a mind, the other half still not yet ready to leave the reminisces I’d been eschewing when I was alone.
Just yesterday, I had broken up with a man I’d been engaged to. We had our whole lives planned out, and all of a sudden, I found that whatever future I’d envisioned him and me in could only be a fantasy, if not a vicious self-lie.
He was drunk when that fatal conversation started. In hindsight, I’d have to give him that benefit of the doubt, at least. He couldn’t have said it if sober, even if he…
But, he’d meant it; he’d believed in it, and that was the part of him I couldn’t change. It was the part of him that made him run, and the part of him that made him return my call, continue the second date we had so long ago, which would lead to the third, and the whole series—spawn the rest of our relationship.
It started with an offhand comment, to his brother, who was visiting. They were waiting for a show on one of his channels. The hour before the show started, a Cantonese news station had booked broadcast.
I was cooking, at the time. But, I’d set the timer for everything, and nothing would be ready for at least half an hour. I’d decided to join my fiancé and his brother, my brother-in-law-to-be.
I guess I might have approached them from behind.
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“Why is it that Asian people always have ‘em flabby lidless eyes and snout nose?” My fiancé said to his brother after taking a heavy gulp of the dark stuff in his glass. “It’s ugly. It’s dis-a-pleasing to look at it. Freddy,” He said to his brother, “Y’oughta go give ‘em all free corrective plastic surgery so they can learn to look normal or somethin’.”
I froze in midstep, inches away from sinking onto the couch. He had his back to me, but Freddy had seen my approach.
My fiancé turned around, the clue on Freddy’s face much too evident.
“Ming!” He jumped, “Darlin’, why… why I didn’t know you’d be a-joining us for the TV. Thought you’d be a-cookin’ down there.”
In hindsight, I think he knew then that he’d said something wrong, something that he knew I shouldn’t have heard. But…
“Ming, darlin’. Sit down, why dontja? Standin’ there like that all stiff with yer arm on yer hips must be a-tirin’ for ye.”
I sat, as he said, barely making the edge of the couch, on the other end, away from him. I closed my eyes. The clock ticked. I breathed. And the clock ticked again. And I breathed. Far away, a Cantonese voice droned on, the words fading together, the language totally lost to me despite common ancestry.
“Gosh darnit. Freddy, why can’t they have some overseas emergency some other day?”
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