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  “Thank you, miss,” Roger said. “But I think my lady here will have a regular martini, like she asked.”

  After the waitress left, Judy grabbed the knife and formed a hot, tight fist around the handle. She saw herself jumping out of her chair and stabbing Roger in the eye with it. She could see it happening, bloody ooze dribbling down his face, the image so violent that she immediately dropped the knife back on the table for the fear that she might actually do it.

  “I’m not your lady,” Judy said.

  “I’m sorry,” Roger said, “I didn’t mean to call you that; it just came out. But I felt as if you were going to say something you were going to regret.”

  Judy let out a burst of bitter laughter. Was this some kind of a joke? “You made me wait for almost two hours, and now you’re telling me how I should behave? Wow, Roger, this is like the best first date ever. You really know how to get to a girl. Now I understand why all you have in your cubicle is that shitty little photo of a cat, because that animal is probably the only thing that can stand you.”

  As Judy’s heart pounded, Roger’s very long, very Japanese face revealed nothing. His expression remained as still as a lake of Botox injections, and watching him, Judy realized how different they were. To most people, they looked alike, a pair of Asians sitting down for dinner, but Korea and Japan, the Land of the Morning Calm and the Land of the Rising Sun, were opposites in temperament. Koreans tended to be angrier, brasher people while the Japanese were famous for their infinite composure; it was the difference between red-hot kimchi and serene sushi, hard-hitting soju versus the elegant sake. Even the kamikaze, the Japanese suicide pilots who crashed their planes into enemies, possessed at their very core a steadiness that enabled them to keep their eyes open as they flew into their targets. This was the face Judy was staring into now, a bedrock of solidity, not smiling, not frowning, just being.

  The waitress returned with their drinks and asked if they’d made up their minds. Roger surprised her by ordering linguini and clams; after her outburst, she thought for sure their dinner was over. She fumbled through the menu and asked for spinach lasagna. The silence that had descended upon their table continued to spread, and Judy wondered why she didn’t just get up and leave. It was what she should do, what mature, grown-up people did in situations like this. Except she couldn’t just leave because she’d drank all that water waiting for Roger.

  “Excuse me,” she said, and she left for the bathroom. She walked past the waiting station and pushed open the door with a silhouette of a Victorian-era woman sitting in front of a vanity, the word ladies prominently displayed in cursive underneath the art.

  There was no one else in the dimly lit bathroom with its black tiles and stainless steel sinks that sat on top of the counter like woks. Judy hurried to the toilet and hiked up her skirt and rolled down her stockings and pulled down her lacy panties, silently cursing the fate of women who had to go through so much more shit than men to look decent. Even after she was done, she remained sitting in the blackness of everything: the toilet itself, the toilet paper holder, the metal walls of the stall. She wanted to stay longer, but she made herself get up and head over to the sink to wash her hands and touch up her face.

  She’d never considered herself pretty even when she was young, but compared to now? Compared to these pouches under her eyes, the crow’s feet threatening to become eagle’s talons, she’d been beauty-pageant worthy. She reapplied her lipstick; she brushed her hair. As she walked out the door of the bathroom and back to their table, she chose the words she’d say to him: Thanks for trying, but it’ll be best if we go our separate ways. That sounded good, that sounded calm and adult, except she wouldn’t be saying anything because he wasn’t in his seat. In fact, it was as if their entire table had been replaced, because where they’d been sitting, the napkins and the utensils were reset to their default setting. She was sure it was their table, but now it wasn’t their table because he was gone and she’d be getting her coat. It was a relief, actually. She could now go home, released from the constriction of her clothes, climb into bed, pull the covers over her head, and slip into darkness.

  “Over here, Judy,” Roger said. He’d sneaked up behind her. He took her hand and led her to the other end of the room, the table next to the fireplace. He sat her down, pushed in her chair, then took a seat himself.

  “I asked the waitress if we could start over,” he said.

  The light from the fire flickered orange, bronzing the right side of his face. For a moment he looked like a statue, never to move again, and Judy froze, too, wanting to be a part of this stable, dependable universe of his.

  You could never start over. You could never take back the things that happened or the words you said. But she appreciated his gesture, even if she feared it was foolish.

  She had her martini, then she had another, and two more after that. She wanted to get drunk. Was it because she was happy? Or was it because she was sad? Or was it because she wanted to go home with him, for after four drinks, she had trouble standing up, never mind getting behind the wheel? Way to go, Judy, way to play hard to get. Why couldn’t she just be like everybody else and have a normal date, one that didn’t require a table change because she’d said such awful, mean things to this nice man?

  She didn’t know. And after finishing her dish of crème brûlée, the creamy sweetness lingering on her tongue, Roger, ever the gentleman, told her he’d drop her off at her house.

  “That’s very kind of you,” she said slowly, trying to keep her words from sliding into one another. “But maybe you should take me to your place.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “I mean, you’re . . . I just want to make sure this is what you want.”

  “I’m what?” she asked playfully. “Drunk? Is that what you wanted to say?”

  Roger cleared his throat. “Well, yes, you do seem a little tipsy.”

  “You think so,” she said, then added, “Roger?” On paper, it was a stupid-looking name, making her think of Mr. Rogers and his cardigan, but saying it was a different experience. The first syllable opened up her mouth in full, then it tapered down to a sensuous pout of her lips. Rah-jur, Rah-jur, Rah-jur! It was a muscular name, a sexy name.

  Maybe she was drunker than she thought.

  The check came, and Roger took out two one-hundred-dollar bills. Judy picked one up and stared at Benjamin Franklin, who stared back at her with a hint of a smirk. She remembered reading somewhere that he’d been a bad boy in his time, a player.

  She darted a devilish look to Roger. Or at least one she thought—she hoped—was devilish. He laughed, which was good. It was nice that she was still able to make a man laugh.

  “You know,” Judy said, “just because I’m going home with you doesn’t mean we’re going to have sex.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “For all I know, I’ll just fall asleep.”

  “Entirely possible.”

  “Or maybe it’ll turn out that you have a tiny pecker.”

  It was supposed to be a joke, but instead of chuckling or retorting in an equally silly manner, he seemed embarrassed. Lord, did he have a tiny pecker? Asian men supposedly had smaller penises, though from personal experience, Judy couldn’t say. To her, whether Asian or white or black, they all looked the same, all those eager phalluses akin to annoying, know-it-all schoolchildren who thrust their hands in the air when the teacher asked a question. Me, me! Pick me, pick me!

  “It’s of appropriate dimensions,” he said, and she realized his embarrassment hadn’t been for him but rather for her crude attempt at humor.

  Outside, the chilly air shrank her pleasant round buzz. Roger opened the passenger door for her, and she sank into the leather seat. As she watched him make his way around the front of his car, she considered telling him to drive her home instead. In the restaurant, behind the soothing gauze of alcohol, the night had seemed full of passion. She’d envisioned stripping for him, unbuttoning her blouse one white disc at a t
ime as he watched, until he got so hot that he couldn’t wait any longer and ripped away her clothes so he could ravage her beautiful body.

  Except she wasn’t beautiful. She had love handles, which jiggled like Jell-O and felt like Play-Doh. The other day she caught a flint of silver in her pubic hair. She plucked it out with tweezers, but if there was one, there had to be others. And as she grew older, she’d become highly lactose intolerant, so if she didn’t take her Lactaid pill, the cheese in the spinach lasagna she had for dinner would produce farts so foul she could hardly stand it herself. Jesus, had she taken that pill? Her stomach rumbled, but then she remembered slipping the foil cover of the pill tablet in the pocket of her skirt, and when she patted it, she felt the tiny, reassuring bulge.

  “Halfway there,” Roger said.

  Already? She should’ve told him that she’d changed her mind, that she wanted to return to her home the second he got in the car, but now it was too late. Maybe it was what she wanted after all, because wasn’t this better than being alone, even if she hardly knew this man? He had a cat, that’s all she knew, but Judy had to remind herself this was how relationships worked, that every friend or lover at some point had been a stranger.

  Still, this was too fast. She wasn’t going to sleep with him.

  “I’m not going to sleep with you tonight,” she blurted out, and she couldn’t believe how loud her voice was.

  “Okay,” Roger said.

  “I hope you’re not disappointed,” Judy said.

  “I’m not,” he said, and her heart sank a little, but only momentarily. “And I am.”

  Judy had been so preoccupied with her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed what a nice car this was. It was an old BMW, but it didn’t look old. In fact, it looked as if it had come directly from a showroom, the black dashboard a polished obsidian, the chrome spokes on the steering wheel gleaming like mirrors. He must’ve had the car detailed for their date, and Judy realized that Roger must’ve had his own dreams for this evening, dreams that were no doubt shattered with his car breaking down and her bitchy attitude.

  “Cool car,” she said.

  He told her about his BMW New Class 2002 Turbo. Only about seventeen hundred of them were made; this was one of the first ones off the assembly line, circa 1968. He bought it from a guy who specialized in restoring old Bimmers, so even though it looked authentic, almost nothing inside the car was original.

  “Must’ve been expensive,” she said, and she wondered how someone who worked in customer service, one of those headset-wearing lobotomites who answered the phones, could afford a car like this.

  He shrugged. “I’m still paying off the loan, but you only live once, right?”

  “Why this one?” she asked.

  “It was what my dad drove. I have good memories of it.”

  “You like your dad,” she said.

  Roger nodded, chuckling. “Most people do, don’t they?”

  They crested a hilly part of Route 287, white and yellow lines of the highway disappearing over the black horizon.

  “Maybe not everyone,” he said.

  “Maybe not,” she said.

  Growing up, she hardly saw her father’s face, which was mostly hidden behind the newspaper. When he spoke, it was to tell her she’d done something wrong, and she’d given him plenty of opportunities: getting arrested for shoplifting, repeating tenth grade, breaking her ankle on prom night when she fell down a flight of stairs. Was it all to get his attention? Her various shrinks throughout the years thought so. He was a prototypical Asian father, content to keep his distance from his children. Why this didn’t disturb her brother, she never knew. Maybe Kevin was a more accepting person than she was, a stronger, better person. Or maybe he was just different—different sex, different genes, different everything.

  Roger lived in a gigantic development of townhouses called the Hills, in a section called Long Meadow. It was like driving through a maze, every corner looking like the one before.

  “Are you sure we’re going to your house and not someone else’s?” Judy joked.

  “I did get lost a few times in the beginning,” Roger said. “But now it’s home.” He unlocked the door, and she stepped in.

  As he helped her take off her coat, she noticed nothing particularly remarkable about the living room—a leather sofa, a widescreen TV, and a minimalist glass table—except for the reading lamp that lit up the corner when Roger had flipped on the lights. The lampshade, made of stained glass arranged in the shape of yellow and red flowers, glowed beautifully but looked out of place with the rest of the modern décor.

  “It’s a Tiffany,” Roger said.

  “Really?”

  “A Dale Tiffany. A reproduction.”

  “Kind of like your car.”

  He tilted his head for a moment, then laughed, as if the thought had never occurred to him before. “I suppose you’re right.”

  They walked over to the strip of a kitchen, where he poured a glass of water from the tap. Judy, beginning to feel the weight of the night, squinted as the fluorescent lights flickered on. She leaned against the counter and stared at the black handle of the microwave that had worn to a point where the silver underneath was coming through.

  Roger handed her a full glass, and she chugged it, the kitchen filling with the sound of her gulping water.

  “I never knew I had such a loud throat,” she said.

  “It’s very impressive,” he said.

  She was glad he was still flirting with her, though she wondered how much longer she could stay on her feet. She wanted to keep moving, let momentum drive away the fatigue, so she was grateful when Roger suggested a quick tour of the house. In the dining room, which was really just an extension of the kitchen, there were two brown place mats on the wooden table, but only one was painted with ring marks and stains. Upstairs, the bathroom shower had no conditioner, just shampoo.

  Roger’s cell phone rang.

  “One sec,” he said, and he spoke rapidly in Japanese. He nudged his bedroom door open and gestured her to enter while he stayed out in the hall, talking on the phone. She’d always found that language frustrating to her ear, almost as if the syllables were in combat with one other. Yes was hai, but the long i was so shortened that it came out like a cough.

  Judy knew what his room would look like even before she entered: dark-hued sheets (navy blue), two pillows maximum (bingo), blinds instead of drapes (vertical). How many bachelor bedrooms had she seen? Twenty, fifty, maybe a hundred? No, not a hundred, she hadn’t been that big of a slut, but fifty was probably a fair guess. All those spartan bedrooms had been sadly similar in their own way, and she supposed the same could be said about her breed, the aging bachelorette.

  Roger snapped his cell phone off as he returned to her.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yes. Just some business I had to take care of.”

  “Must’ve been important, to call this late.”

  “It’s morning in Japan,” he said.

  “Waaaaaah!” The sound came from under the bed.

  “That’s Momo,” Roger said.

  “That doesn’t sound like a cat.”

  “The Siamese don’t meow, they sort of wail.”

  “Does it do it all night?”

  “Once we get quiet, he’ll stop. He may even come out to say hello.”

  “Then let’s get quiet.”

  “Okay.”

  She sat at the edge of the bed, and he sat down next to her. She took off her blouse, and he took off his shirt. She slipped out of her skirt, and he stepped out of his pants. She wasn’t looking at him as she rolled off her pantyhose, and he wasn’t looking at her as he pulled off his socks. When her left foot accidentally brushed against his right, both of their eyes were drawn to the point of contact.

  “You have nice toes,” Judy said.

  “Thank you,” Roger said, putting his feet together. “Yours are lovely as well.”

  Was this how people got to know one ano
ther, by talking about their toes?

  “On three, let’s look at each other, okay?” Judy asked.

  “All right,” Roger said.

  They counted down together, and on three, Judy stared into the face of an angry dragon, its white fangs outlined in black, the flames inside the pupils of its bulging eyes matching the larger fiery breath exploding from its screaming mouth. Talons out, claws fully extended, a tattoo of this creature that existed in fairy tales was perched on Roger’s left shoulder, and when he turned around, Judy saw the entirety of the dragon’s snakelike body uncoiling itself down to the small of his back.

  8

  “Honey,” Kevin said, “I’m home.”

  From the kitchen, he heard the familiar two-step greeting of Snaps, his German shepherd, who welcomed him with a quick bark that segued into a more robust, full-bodied howl that would’ve made any wolf proud.

  He opened the kitchen door and out came his dog, jumping around him a couple of times to tell him just how much she’d missed him, and as she did, small tuffs of her fur flew off like confetti. If he didn’t brush her today, he’d be seeing tumbleweeds of her hair in every part of the house.

  He’d been gone for only a couple of hours, running errands and stopping at the grocery store, but for Snaps, time never held any meaning. When Kevin was here, she was happy. When he wasn’t, she was sad. And when he came back, it was the best part of her day. Clichés existed because they were true: There was no purer love than the love from your dog.

  Kevin grabbed the wire brush from the sideboard drawer in the living room, and Snaps was already sitting down, waiting to be groomed.

  “Little genius,” Kevin said, and she wagged her tail.

  As he brushed her, he bestowed a silent thanks on Alice, because if not for her, he would never have gotten a dog. There were many things she’d introduced him to—like sushi. Even though he was the Asian, it was the blue-eyed and blond-haired Alice who got him to eat raw fish, on their third date. When he told her he would be ordering the teriyaki chicken, Alice frowned beautifully and asked him why he didn’t want the tekka maki hand roll, which was supposed to be the best in the state.