The truth is this: usually, I dread going home. It's oppressively hot that far east, the pushy drivers in the Asian plazas stress me out, and my father invariably sends me off with boxes of bric-a-brac I just don't need, but feel guilty turning down. The lure that keeps me going back is plain daughterly duty, and the promise of delicious Chinese food.Today did much more than not disappoint. At first, I sat there in a questionably clean Chinese restaurant with hunger of cavernous proportions. I was irritated that our waiter had a large black mole from which many hairs sprouted. I asked my dad with impatience what the deal was with that mole. I suspected that it was rooted in some ludicrous Chinese superstition that plucking or cutting any of those repugnant hairs would be "bad luck." My dad confirmed this, adding that perhaps such a practice was distasteful in modern times. I mean, yeah, it was gross. I thought to myself, this waiter's mole alone is grounds for never returning to this Chinese restaurant. However tasty.
I felt pretty resolute in that until the food actually arrived. Glorious clay pot stews of tender beef braised in hot oil, a pork roast cooked so tender that you needed great dexterity with your chopsticks to pinch the meat. A chicken soup so flavorful and invigorating, I felt I could fight 100 kung fu fights right out on Colima Road after lunch. Chicken fried so crisply and so spicy that I had to take large gulps of lukewarm tea for comfort. I reasoned, this waiter is out on the floor and rarely in the kitchen. There's no definite relationship between his hairy mole and this delectable feast.
After lunch, any plans I had for the Sunday pretty much evaporated into the warm Diamond Bar air. Work? Laundry? It all can wait. I needed that epic food coma nap. So I stopped my parents' house, with few expectations except a soft and flat surface.
What I found on my bed at home sent my pulse racing and my eyes bulging. It was a pink Marc Jacobs purse, the exact same one as the white one recently swiped from me in the Great Theft of 2005. (Of which no details were relayed to my parents, fully aware of their paranoia.) What it was doing on my bed, I had no answers for. I clutched it tightly to my chest and ran downstairs to interrogate my mom. She was standing there with her friend, and they were about to head off to choral practice.
"Is this purse for me? Why is it on my bed? Where did you get it? Where did you find it?"
"It's not for you, it's mine. I just wanted to show you."
(Not a problem, I thought. I can haggle, it's in my blood.) I tightened my grip.
"I like it. Can I have it?"
"No, but if you like it I can call Auntie Sherry because she ordered one from Nordstrom. And they have one in TO-MAY-TO RED. What does that mean?"
"It means it's red. I like pink. How about you give me this one, and get Auntie Sherry's? I'll pay you back for this."
My mom's friend hooked me up. "Wow, you'd have her pay for this?"
"I guess not," my mom said with a bit of disgust, "even though she gives me plenty of attitude. But she did buy me a bag from Barney's for my birthday."
I continued to hug the bag to my chest, boring my eyes into my mom's.
"Alright, fine," she relented. "Just take it."
"Thanks," I practically whispered, before running upstairs to my bedroom to hyperventilate.
It all seemed too good to be true. I thought I would never see this Marc Jacobs shape again, except slung on other arms. And on Friday, we had lit a candle in memoriam of the white MJ so precipitously taken from me. It seemed like a beautiful coincidence, almost divine, poetic.
I asked Justin if it was OK that material things made me happy. He told me, no. I promised that I'd read some of the Dalai Lama's works this week to rehabilitate myself. I asked j., all giddy, "How many times can this kind of thing happen?"
"Well, we'll see," he quipped.
No witnesses. No leads. No problem.
You're easy breezy, and I'm Japanesey.
posted by Lucy Sloan @ 6:22 PM
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