his forecast has been stormy, gray and cloudy; his demeanor tells me he wants to be left alone, and so I keep my distance.
Whenever our paths cross, we wave, say Hi, put on a happy facade. Although outwardly friendly, our exchanges are more a strained politeness.
Ingeborg keeps mostly to herself, Mika is in his own gloomy world and Kars is hiking the Appalachian Trail, violating women code.
But that’s okay, I have Truong. I watch him attack his food with wanton abandon. Sniffing deeply, I am rewarded with the sweet aroma of fried rice.
Ahh, nothing beats fried rice from a restaurant.
No matter how hard I try, I simply can’t duplicate this dish at home. I firmly believe that you need the scorching fire from a gas stove to heat up the wok to insanely high temperatures. One afternoon, after watching Iron Chef Chen Kenichi whip up a dish of fluffy fried rice, I became inspired. I puttered around my kitchen trying to mimic it. It was disastrous! Cooking fried rice on my electric stove, in the absence of high heat, was crippling.
My mouth waters at the sight of Truong’s fluffy fried rice.
He wags his wooden chopsticks. “Changed your mind?”
Before I can respond, he scoops up a hefty portion of fried rice, plops it onto a plate and sets it on my desk.
“Thanks, Truong,” I say gratefully and dive right in.
Mmmmm it pops with flavor and oozes with oomph.
I scarf it down in minutes.
Sighing contentedly, I lean back and my eyes fall on the plate of sushi rolls. I was planning on saving them for later, but the caterpillar rolls beckon me to eat them now.
My mind conjures up a bizarre image of the sushi rolls.
They morph into caterpillars, wriggle their bodies and sing in chorus, “Eat me! Eat me! Eat me!” I cave in and plunk a roll in my mouth.
“Truong, can I ask you a personal question?” I ask in between chewing.
“Of course,” he tweets.
I hesitate, “Have you ever slept with an uncircumcised man?”
“Why of course,” he says blatantly. “I’m not circumcised myself, you know. I fancy the turtleneck look. Or, as I like to call it—hot dog with a bun.” He shrugs and continues, “I’ve never understood the weird practice of decapitating one’s penis.”
I stifle a laugh. “So have you, or have you not?”
“Yes.” He shoots me a devilish smirk. “And for your info my dear Maddy, uncut cocks are the best.” Then he winks and adds, “There’s more to chew on.”
I gag and almost throw up my roll.
Sparing no details, he continues frenetically, “Yeah, I was with this uncut guy once and he kept yelling ‘Bite it! Gnaw it! Chomp it!’ He liked it real rough you know, and with plenty of teeth.”
Ugh. I’m feeling slightly nauseous. Scrambling to my feet, I race to the restroom and regurgitate my sushi roll.
God help me. As I’m bent over the accursed toilet, it flushes!
My entire face is drenched in toilet water.
I really want this day to end.
After my last call for the day, Mika magically materializes at my cubicle. I hope this means he’s snapped out of his funk.
“Hey,” he says, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
All my senses are on full alert. “Hey.”
After a pause, he says, “Sorry I’ve been kind of distant lately...”
“You have?” I wrinkle my brows. “Haven’t noticed.”
A flicker of a smile ignites across his lips, and I realize just how much I’ve missed him.
“I…” he struggles for the words, “I just needed some time to myself. To clear my head, figure things out...about Inge.”
“Of course.”
“So, I know you usually tutor me on the weekends, but I was wondering if you could tutor me today instead.”
I hoist my bag over my shoulder. “Like right now?” I ask and he nods. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he echoes, and we start for the elevator. “Let’s hit the library.”
I smile inwardly. I finally find a man I like and all he wants to do is take me to the library.
Ah, c’est la vie.
I try to focus. I really do. But every time I look at Mika, a vivid image of an uncut penis pops into my head. Out of sheer curiosity, I googled an image of an uncircumcised penis.
That image had me reverberating in shock, and I don’t believe I’ve recovered since. It has been irrevocably burned into my retina, and it takes everything in me to block out that disturbing image—the image of a wrinkled anteater ready to suck up its lunch. Eeeps!!!
We’re in the county library, seated on squashy,