I could still see the flames in the spaces between my fingers. I counted eight.
“Are you all right?” asked Miriam.
“I’m a menorah,” I said.
She laughed. I laughed too. Then I was more okay. I hadn’t turned to cinders. I felt safer.
At the banquette next to us, I saw the set designers eating from big plates of noodles, talking animatedly. I felt a swell of tenderness for them. I liked their talking. I liked their noodles. At the table of Chassidic men, one man stood up to give a toast. Everybody clinked their glasses with their spoons. I also liked the men. I could hear music playing on a speaker overhead. The music sounded beautiful to me. I wondered if it was Beethoven or Mozart or something. I laughed when I realized it was an instrumental pan flute version of Santana’s “Smooth.”
The toasting man called out, “L’Chaim!” The table of men chanted, “L’Chaim!” The gold dragon blew another round of smoke. The pan flute swelled.
“Hey,” said Miriam. “Did you have enough?”
I considered her question for a moment.
Then I said, “Yes. I did.”
CHAPTER 26
As we walked down the street from the Golden Dragon to the movie theater, Miriam cracked open her fortune cookie. It was dark out now, but the sidewalk was lit up with streetlamps.
“ ‘You know how to handle all situations,’ ” she said, reading hers aloud.
“Is that true?” I asked.
“Don’t doubt it,” she said, crunching down on the cookie, creating a downpour of crumbs on her breasts. “The cookie doesn’t lie.”
“Anyone who’s seen you in action when Yo!Good gets crowded would never contest that.”
“Oh, I’ve had far more intense jobs than Yo!Good,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Camp counselor. Five summers.”
“Overnight?”
“Day camp. Camp Shimshon in Beverly Grove. Youngest bunk. Arts and crafts, basketball. I’m great on defense.”
There were creases in her dress from where her stomach folded over when we were sitting down at the restaurant. As we walked, some of the fortune cookie crumbs floated down from her breasts and landed in the creases. I tried to picture her playing basketball.
“Parachute games, swimming,” she continued. “Twice I had to save those little runts from drowning.”
“Wow!”
“Yeah. Open your cookie,” she said.
I obliged, cracking open the cookie and reading my fortune out loud.
“ ‘Road work ahead. Expect delays,’ ” I read. “Great, of course I get the one about traffic.”
“Oy.”
“It’s really the perfect LA fortune, when you think about it. Avoid the 405 and have a nice life! That’s my fortune.”
She laughed.
“Steer clear of the 10 East between five and eight p.m.”
I put the two pieces of the cookie together and began making them talk, as though they were a bird’s beak, opening and closing.
“You think you can just glide down Santa Monica on a Thursday morning?” asked the bird. “Ain’t happening. And don’t even think about taking Wilshire. Enjoy your future.”
She laughed harder.
“Stop,” she said, sniffling and wiping her face. “Do I have lipstick all over me?”
“No,” I said, eating my cookie. “You licked it all off at dinner.”
“Oh,” she said. “I want to redo it.”
We stopped under the awning of a furniture store, closed but lit from the inside with one glowing light. She pulled the lipstick out of her purse, a small turquoise leather Coach bag, something an old lady might own.
“Can you put it on me again?” she asked. “I’m terrible.”
“Sure,” I said.
I moved closer to her in the yellow light. I was so near to her that I could smell the soy sauce and garlic and sweet liquor on her breath. She stifled a burp, and we both giggled. I wanted to say, It’s okay, don’t be embarrassed, let it out, I like you, the air inside you, all of you. Instead, I said nothing in that yellow light.
There was an awning above us, a palm tree hanging over the awning, as though it were some kind of double chuppa, the California god issuing its blessings, the California god saying, Yes, my daughters. I thought about kissing her, right there on the street, licking the bow of her upper lip, sucking on her underlip, that word echoing in my mind, daughters daughters daughters daughters. Instead, I did her lipstick. I did it quickly, then stepped away, out of the light, and said, “There.”
CHAPTER 27
“Twizzlers are kosher,” Miriam said as we stood in line to buy our candy at the movie theater. “M&M’s too, though they’re dairy, so technically I should wait an hour after dinner to eat them, because we had meat, but I won’t.”
“I’m sure god will forgive you. God loves M&M’s.”
We’d