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Subject: {ASSM} A Winning Move 2/3 (MF rom)
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Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:10:02 -0500
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A Winning Move
by parthenogenesis


Chapter 2

My ride with Milpitas Systems lasted through November. On December 1,
I found myself no longer employed, for the first time in eight years.
Merry Christmas. Because of my time with the company, I got six weeks'
severance, and my rent was paid through December. Getting laid off in
December was kind of a double whammy, though, because even in the best
of times nobody's hiring during December. It was time for me to
economize, which meant that I had to move out of Vida Libre, too.

I sold my BMW--for less than it was worth, of course--but the upside
of that deal was that I was able to buy a used Honda Civic for less
than it was worth, too, and used it to cover the valley looking for a
new place to live.

My approach to finding a new apartment was to decide how much rent I
thought I'd be comfortable with, then look to see what I could find in
that price range. What I found were places in parts of town that I'd
prefer not to live in, buildings that were coming apart at the seams,
and older apartment neighborhoods with lots of Harleys parked on the
street. I was feeling more than discouraged after two weeks of
concerted looking and starting to get a stomach ache about the whole
thing.

Returning home after yet another morning of fruitless searching, I was
almost to the point of deciding that I was going to have to accept a
living environment far less pleasant than I would prefer, and I was
stewing about it so intently that I missed a turn and wound up
temporarily lost in an older neighborhood in Santa Clara. In the
process of getting my bearings, I turned onto a street that was lined
with immaculately maintained residences. The neighborhood looked to be
forty or fifty years old, and was a mix of duplexes and single-family
homes, none of which were in visible need of paint or repair, and all
of which had well-groomed lawns and landscaping. I slowed almost to
walking speed just to look at the houses. Especially when compared
with the apartments I'd been looking at, the houses on this street
were mouthwateringly attractive.

On the front lawn of one duplex was a sign that read "Apartment for
Rent." I stopped and considered. There was no way, I was virtually
certain, that I'd be able to afford a duplex unit in this area any
more than I could continue to afford Vida Libre, but I felt compelled
to stop and ask. Perhaps I'd be able to return in better times. I
parked, walked to the front door of the front unit, and rang the bell.

I don't know what I'd expected--maybe a grandmotherly lady or a
paunch-bellied guy in a wife beater chewing on the stub of a
cigar--but I know that I wasn't expecting the most beautiful woman I'd
ever seen. She was Vietnamese and small; when she opened the door, she
was looking directly at my collarbones. I guessed her to be in her
late thirties. She was wearing a pair of form-fitted Jordache jeans
filled out with a perfect shape, a white Oxford shirt with the sleeves
rolled back, and a pair of black, low-heeled pumps. Half her gleaming
black hair was behind her; half of it came forward over her shoulder
almost to her waist. Peeking out from her beauty was the hint of an
imp. Something inside me went clunk. I'd never had this kind of a
reaction to a woman before. Ever. Not even when I first met my
ex-wife.

It wasn't until she said, "Can I help you?" with amusement evident on
her face, that I realized I'd been standing there mute for an
embarrassing amount of time.

My mouth was suddenly dry. I cleared my throat, swallowed, and said,
"Uh, yes. I mean, my name is Michael Wynn, and I'd like to inquire
about the duplex unit for rent."

"How do you do, Mr. Wynn," she said, with bells around her voice. "I
am Mrs. Nguyen. Would you like to see the unit?"

I nodded.

"Then follow me, please."

She stepped out of her door and walked across the porch. Her Jordache
jeans were an absolute treat to walk behind.

She opened the door to the rear unit and motioned me in. It was more
like a small house than an apartment, with two spacious bedrooms, a
well-defined living room, and a kitchen with dinette area that looked
onto the back yard. The yard was deep, with a large lawn flanked by
flowerbeds and two orange trees; near the back fence was an unplanted
area that looked like it might be used for a summer vegetable garden.
It looked like a little piece of heaven to me.

"Why are you looking for a new place to live, Mr. Wynn?" Mrs. Nguyen
asked.

I gave her the short version of having been laid off at Milpitas
Systems and a need to seek less expensive quarters. I'd kind of hoped
I'd be able to fudge being out of work; after all, what landlord wants
to rent to an unemployed tenant?

"And what has brought you to my door?"

"Sheer chance," I said. "I missed a turn and just happened onto this
street."

"Ah," she said.

Fully prepared to tell her that I wouldn't be able to afford her
duplex unit, I asked Mrs. Nguyen what the rent was. The figure she
quoted was roughly a quarter of what I'd been paying at Vida Libre. A
place like this had to be worth way more than that. I'm sure I must
have reflected more than a little surprise, but Mrs. Nguyen merely
looked inscrutable. "Pardon me?" I said.

She repeated the same price.

"I'd like to take it, then," I said.

"Excellent," she said, as we moved to the door of the duplex. "You
will have to fill out a rental application first, though."

Back in her unit, she handed me the form. "You can take it with you
and either return it to me when you've completed it, or fax me a copy.
Or you can fill it out here, if you wish, and I can start processing
it immediately."

"I'll fill it out here, if you don't mind," I said. "I'll feel a lot
better when I know where I'm going to be living next month as soon as
possible."

Mrs. Nguyen handed me the form and showed me to her kitchen table. I
sneaked a quick peek around. Her house looked quite thoroughly
western, except for a good luck bamboo plant on the table in front of
me and a small Buddhist shrine in one corner of the living room.

When I finished filling out the form, I handed it to her, and she
said, "It should take me about a day to verify your information. I'll
call you as soon as I have the results."

After good-byes, I drove back to Vida Libre and did little more than
worry through the next twenty-four hours. I wanted that duplex unit so
bad I could almost taste it, but I knew that my rental application
form showed that I was unemployed with a history of only one previous
rental. Although I was prepared to offer Mrs. Nguyen a year's rent in
advance as a show of good faith, I had to admit that, on paper, I
didn't look like a good prospect. Sleep that night was fitful, mixing
dreams of Mrs. Nguyen's beautiful face, her long hair, and her
formfitting jeans with images of me sleeping under a bridge.

Twenty-four hours virtually to the minute after I had handed the
rental application to Mrs. Nguyen, my phone rang. After two fumbles, I
got it to my ear.

"Hello!" I nearly shouted.

"Mr. Wynn?" a voice with bells asked.

"Yes," I panted, "this is Michael Wynn."

"This is Mrs. Nguyen." As if I didn't know. "I'm happy to tell you
that your rental application has been approved. The unit is available
now, so you can move in any time you like."

I'm not a religious person, but I cast my eyes heavenward with
heartfelt thanks--and then made a moving plan on the spur of the
moment. I was going to need the boys' help to lug furniture around,
which would mean it would have to be during their Christmas break from
school. December 27, I decided, would be my moving day.

"It would work best for me if I could move in on the twenty-seventh,"
I said. "Would that be okay with you?"

"I'll see you then," she said.

Christmas with the boys was drearier than it had been last year.
Because I was going to be moving, I didn't set up a tree, and I didn't
cook dinner because I didn't want to have a refrigerator full of food
to deal with. We did a modest exchange of gifts and went out to eat.
But I did secure the boys' promise to help me move--in exchange for
pizza afterward and a trip to see Dude, Where's My Car the weekend
following.

By the morning of December 27, I had all my books, clothes,
kitchenware, and other loose items packed and ready to go. I rented a
small U-Haul truck, picked up the boys, and we were on our way. It
didn't take all that long to load my stuff into the truck, and by
2:00, we were pulling away. The Vida Libre chapter of my life had
ended.

As I was walking out the door of the duplex to get another box from
the truck, I nearly ran headlong into Mrs. Nguyen. Today she was
wearing a sweatshirt, formfitting Calvin Klein jeans, and a pair of
dazzlingly white Nikes. Her hair was pulled back into a pony tail. I
felt that clunk inside again.

"You're here!" she said. "Can I help with anything?"

"That's really not necessary," I said, even as Mrs. Nguyen walked past
me and into my unit. I was obligated to say that her help wasn't
necessary, of course; of course, I was delighted that she might be
near.

The boys were slumped on the couch, taking five before they started
bringing in beds. "Oh, these must be your sons!" Mrs. Nguyen
exclaimed.

"Yes, they are," I said, giving the boys a hand sign to stand up.
"Mrs. Nguyen, I'd like you to meet my sons Adam and Jonathan; boys,
this is my new landlady, Mrs. Nguyen."

"What handsome young men!" Mrs. Nguyen enthused, with a beaming smile.
"You must be very proud of them. I would be so happy to have sons just
like them."

The boys, who had turned beet red, were barely able to look up from
their toes long enough to say hello to Mrs. Nguyen and shake her
proffered hand. They scooted out to the truck for their next load, and
Mrs. Nguyen went on into the kitchen. "Why don't I unpack and put away
your dishes while you and the boys are doing the heavy work?" she
said. Before I could respond, she was on her way out the front door,
only to return moments later with a step-stool, go to the kitchen, and
set about her self-appointed task.

The boys and I continued bringing in the beds, bedding, and desks. On
one pass through, I looked into the kitchen and saw Mrs. Nguyen
industriously washing the plates and glasses. "Why are you doing
that?" I asked. "All the kitchenware was clean when it was packed."

"You had them wrapped in newspaper," she said, looking at me like I
was the village idiot. "They need to have the greasy ink residue
washed off before you can use them."

All I could say was, "Oh." They hadn't taught that in any of the
classes I took.

We got all the beds and mattresses in, and got my room set up. While
the boys began reassembling their bunk beds, I went to the kitchen to
check up on Mrs. Nguyen. She was perched on tiptoe on her step-stool,
stretching to put a wine glass on a top shelf. Just as I walked behind
her, she let out a squeak and toppled backward--directly into my arms.
My nostrils were suddenly filled with a delicate aroma of sweet
spices, cinnamon and ginger and something exotic I couldn't identify.
I caught her and lowered her to the floor, not in any hurry to release
her from what was, for all intents and purposes, a hug. She didn't
hurry to escape, either. "Ooooh," she said, looking up and back over
her shoulder at me. "It sure was lucky that you were there to catch
me." I let her go, resisting an urge to kiss the top of her head.

After the last box was off the truck and the final arrangements inside
were being made, I called and ordered pizza, surprised that Mrs.
Nguyen had accepted my offer to join us. I was even more surprised
that she was able to achieve a rapport with the boys with seemingly
little effort. It wasn't long before they were happily chatting with
her as if she were an old friend.

When we'd finished the pizza, I thanked Mrs. Nguyen for her help,
delivered the boys back to their mother's house, returned the truck,
and drove my car back to my new digs. Utterly exhausted, I took a
shower and hit the sack.

When I awoke the next morning, sore all over from my lifting and
toting, I heard silence. Gone were the sounds of a hundred doors
slamming and heels clicking as my nearest neighbors began their days,
gone were the sounds of traffic from North First Street and the bells
and horns of the light rail trains, gone was the roar of jet airplanes
climbing away from the San Jose airport. It was delightfully quiet. I
did not miss Vida Libre in the slightest.

I spent the better part of a week just puttering, finishing unpacking
boxes of linens and books, and assembling bookcases and getting
everything in order. For my part, the new year went by unnoticed; just
another day. After I got settled, I felt that I had to establish some
sort of routine for myself. The activities of selling the old car and
buying the new, finding a new home, Christmas, and moving had occupied
my attention after getting laid off, but now I had, quite literally,
nothing to do. Between my severance package, a modest gain on the car
exchange, unemployment, and savings, I figured that I could survive
about a year of unemployment. I didn't have any idea what I might do
if I found myself wholly indigent. Never in my life had I considered
such a situation even to be possible, but all of a sudden I could see
faint images of myself standing on the traffic island at a freeway
entrance, holding a clumsily lettered cardboard sign reading
"Homeless. Please help." I needed the routine to keep myself from
dwelling on that image.

And so I established my schedule: first thing in the morning, I
scoured the employment boards and sent out resumes wherever possible,
no matter how unlikely the prospect of actually being hired might be;
weekends, I scoured the newspaper want ads, looking not just in my
field but in other areas as well, just in case there might be
something I was qualified to do. When I'd finished my "job search," I
checked my email. I was keeping in touch with several of my unemployed
coworkers, my halfhearted attempt at networking; the boys and I often
exchanged brief notes; Jeannine and I wrote to each other
sporadically, primarily just news, such as it was. After email, I
checked MSNBC for a quick look at what might be going on in the world,
and then played a bit with a couple of Yahoo! Groups and newsgroups.
With any luck at all, that kept me busy until noon or so. I then took
my walk and did my calisthenics, and followed that with a light lunch.
Then I read. Although my practice for years had been to buy paperbacks
whenever one caught my eye, I got a library card as a cost-saving
measure and made weekly trips to the library instead. I also found
lots of on-line magazines, and read them, too. For some reason, I
particularly enjoyed reading the amateur fiction.

It was raining absolute cats and dogs when I took Mrs. Nguyen my check
for the February rent. She greeted me warmly. "Oh, hello, Mr. Wynn,"
she said with a smile. I handed her the check. "Thank you. Would you
like to come in and have a cup of coffee?"

I couldn't think of anything I'd like to do more. I followed Mrs.
Nguyen to the kitchen, where she filled two generous mugs. Today, her
hair was loose down her back. She was wearing a shapeless sweatshirt,
sweatpants that hugged every contour of her hips and thighs, and a
pair of fuzzy slippers. "Delightful weather we're having today, don't
you think?" she said.

Totally nonplused, I just looked at her, not having any idea how to
respond.

"Gotcha!" she said, wrinkling her nose. Besides being beautiful, she
was delightfully cute. "C'mon, let's go to the living room where it's
more comfortable."

My eyes were immediately drawn to a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, which
wasn't visible from the kitchen. On it were standard works of English
literature, texts about literature and writing, and a large collection
of both hardcover and paperback contemporary novels.

"Ah," she said, "you are surprised I speak your ranguage. But I was
educated at San Jose State, not UCRA."

This time, I nearly goggled, and Mrs. Nguyen broke into laughter.
"C'mon, Mr. Wynn, lighten up. You really have to learn to relax a
little."

Mrs. Nguyen sat down on the sofa, kicked off her slippers, and folded
her feet under her. I took a chair facing her. "I'm sorry," I sighed.
"I guess my social skills aren't very good, especially when talking to
a beautiful woman, and even more especially when that beautiful woman
happens to be my landlady. I don't want to say something that's going
to put me out on the street."

"Well, then," she said softly, "why don't you consider me to be your
neighbor, or perhaps even your housemate. We are, after all, sharing a
common roof. Why are you so ill at ease talking to a woman?"

"I guess the easiest answer is that I'm out of practice." I ended a
short version of my married life and divorce by saying, "My experience
with women as a divorcé is limited to one neighbor at Vida Libre.
Things were different twenty years ago, and I haven't tried to catch
up."

She smiled. "My suggestion, Mr. Wynn, would be not to worry about it.
I'll bet that if you can relax and just respond to the situation in
front of you, you'll do fine."

Not wanting to go further with the subject of my social ineptitude, I
let my gaze wander back to the bookcase while I tried to think of
something to say.

"Is there something on my bookcase that you find interesting?" Mrs.
Nguyen asked.

"Lots of things," I said, "and yes, I am surprised to see that
collection of books. I assumed that you were born in Vietnam, but you
have native command of English and idiom, and virtually no accent,
which leaves me a bit puzzled."

"Thank you," she said. "That's a great compliment. I was born in
Vietnam. I was eleven years old when my parents came to the States in
1971. Have you seen that picture of the naked Vietnamese girl running
down a dirt road toward the camera, her clothes having been burned off
by napalm?"

I nodded that I had.

"But for fortune," she continued calmly, "that could have been me. The
culture shock I experienced when we arrived in the States was so great
that I was sick for a week. I had lived in the middle of war for all
my life. Can you imagine living in the middle of war for all your life
until the age of eleven, Mr. Wynn?"

"No," I said, my voice barely audible, "I can't."

"Just as you can't imagine growing up in the middle of a war, I could
hardly believe how Americans lived. There was no gunfire, no soldiers
in the streets, no airplanes, no bombs, no napalm, no need to be
constantly on guard, prepared to run for your life at any moment, day
or night. Children walked to school smiling and happy, without fear.
They lived in wonderful houses and they had books and clothes and
bicycles and other material possessions in a profusion I could
scarcely imagine. After I recovered from my culture shock, I decided
that I wanted to be an American.

"You know," she said, looking up at the ceiling, "I've never told this
to anyone before. I mean, sure, people know that I came to the States
at the end of the war, and all that, but I've never told anyone what
it was like for me, and I suddenly find myself feeling slightly
embarrassed, baring so many personal things to a near stranger."

"Don't stop, please," I gulped, blown away by what she'd said. I
wanted to go sit beside Mrs. Nguyen and put my arm around her or take
her hand, but I was afraid I'd spoil the moment. I wanted to know
everything I could about this woman. "I'm honored that you're willing
to share so much of yourself with me."

Mrs. Nguyen took a sip of her coffee and then folded her hands in her
lap. "When I started school, I knew only a few words of English. I
stood in the middle of life all around me, watching the American
children talk and joke and laugh and smile, but I couldn't understand
them, and I couldn't talk to them. I felt like I was alone in the
universe. I did talk to other Vietnamese children--some. I knew that
if I associated only with other Vietnamese, then I'd never learn to
speak English the way I wanted to, and I'd never become an American.
The result of that was that I became even more lonely: the Vietnamese
kids started to shun me because they thought I was insulting them, and
the American kids treated me like the foreigner that I was.

"So I paid close attention in my English as a second language classes,
I practiced pronunciation over and over at home at night. After six
months or so, I began to understand enough that I could listen closely
to what was said around me. I was never without a notebook in which I
listed words I didn't understand so that I could look them up in the
dictionary. I wrote down slang expressions I didn't understand,
waiting for the opportunity to be able to ask someone what they meant.

"To make a long story short, I was successful at what I wanted to do.
By my senior year in high school, I was accepted by the kids around
me, and even was, believe it or not, a cheerleader, though I think
that had more to do with my size than anything else. I was the one who
got hoisted to the top of pyramids," she laughed.

"I'm at a loss for words," I said. "I was one of those American kids
with a nice house and a bicycle and all the rest of it. I wasn't even
really aware of the war in Vietnam until the protests started." I felt
ashamed of my idyllic childhood, and sensed a huge gap between myself
and Mrs. Nguyen.

"I think, Mr. Wynn," Mrs. Nguyen said, "that where we end our journey
through life is more important than where we started it. Believe me,
if I could have chosen my own childhood, it wouldn't have been the one
I had."

"Somehow," I said, "your journey led you from Vietnam to a shelf full
of American literature. That's a pretty long trip."

She laughed again. "Oh, no," she said, "that's the easy part. I
majored in English in college. But that's a story for another time."

Our conversation then moved on to our tastes in reading, which I found
much more comfortable territory. By and by, we'd drunk our mugs of
coffee--a rich French roast--and one refill, and I decided that it was
time for me to take my leave. I didn't really want to go, but I didn't
want to wear out my welcome.

"Well," I said, looking at my watch, "I've been here quite a while,
and I really should let you get on with your day."

Mrs. Nguyen accepted my suggestion with grace. "Your visit has greatly
brightened my grey, rainy day, Mr. Wynn," she smiled. "If you'd like
to borrow any of my books, please, help yourself."

I made a beeline for Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.

"Good choice," she said. "One of my favorites."

"I'll get it back to you as soon as I can," I said, standing by the
front door with my hand on the knob.

"Take all the time you need," Mrs. Nguyen said. "There's no hurry.
But," she added, gripping my upper arm with both her hands and pulling
herself against my side, "in the meanwhile, don't be a stranger, Mr.
Wynn."

I left understanding that Mrs. Nguyen wanted to see me again. She had
been able to make me, despite my social disabilities, see three
invitations: a "story for another time," a book I'd have to return,
and, just in case I missed the first two, the urging not to be a
stranger. I hurried through Cryptonomicon as fast as I could, but its
918 pages still took me the better part of two weeks.

When I returned Cryptonomicon to Mrs. Nguyen, she invited me in for
coffee, and we talked some more. This time, we stayed away from
personal topics; instead of discovering differences between ourselves,
we found similarities. We both had college degrees in English, so our
conversation was quick to turn to our interests in literature and
books we'd read. We were easily and comfortably able to talk about
books and authors and what we thought was good and bad and why.

That conversation set the pattern for others. We saw each other more
or less weekly. I invited her to my place for coffee, and she borrowed
books from me. Even while we were talking about books and current
events and other people and the world, we still were, however
indirectly, talking about ourselves, our ethics and morals, and how we
viewed the world. In those regards, we were very similar indeed. My
attraction to Mrs. Nguyen didn't fade in the least, and what I found
more and more as time went on was that I was viewing her as a friend
as well as a woman so beautiful that she could still leave me
tongue-tied on occasion. Mrs. Nguyen was intelligent, quick on the
uptake, and a merciless tease. She seemed to take particular delight
in one-line zingers that would stop me cold.

There were two framed photographs on Mrs. Nguyen's shrine. I'd been
curious who the people were, but reluctant to ask because I thought
the question might be too personal. But one day in March, during a
lull in our conversation, the question just sort of popped out.

"The couple on the left are my parents," Mrs. Nguyen said. "They're
both dead now." She got up, walked to the shrine, picked up the
picture on the right, and handed it to me. "This is Nguyen Vo," she
said, "my husband. He died three years ago."

"I'm sorry," I said. This was the first time Mrs. Nguyen had mentioned
her husband. Because a Mr. Nguyen had never been present, I had
wondered, sure, but was reluctant to ask outright lest I appear crude
or too forward. Then I actually looked at Nguyen Vo's picture, and did
a double-take: he appeared to be older than her parents.

"It was an arranged marriage," she said, answering the question I
didn't ask. "I was an only child, and my parents doted on me. They
believed that my marrying Nguyen Vo would provide me with a secure
future."

"Arranged marriages are so alien to me that I've never really
understood them," I said. "You had no choice in the matter at all?"

Mrs. Nguyen laughed again. "I pitched a fit when they told me," she
said. "I pitched several fits. I wailed and cried and locked myself in
my room. I had just graduated from high school, and my dream was to go
on to college, get a Ph.D., and teach English literature and English
as a second language. I sure as heck didn't want to get married. And
not to someone as old as Nguyen Vo. He was a friend of my parents,
after all.

"My parents wouldn't relent, but they loved me enough that we were
able to negotiate terms. Nguyen Vo agreed to defer the marriage until
I graduated with a bachelor's degree, subject to one other
condition--that I get a degree in business administration as well. I
graduated in five years with a double major. I was 23 and Vo was 51
when we married."

I was once again aware of a huge gap in experience between Mrs. Nguyen
and myself. These sorts of things just didn't happen in America. "Why
the degree in business administration?" I asked.

"I knew you'd ask," she said, with a smile. "Vo was a very shrewd
businessman. He knew that by marrying me he was promising to provide
for me after his death as well as during his lifetime, but he saw me
as an investment in his future, too. He owned two restaurants, a dry
cleaning service, and a number of rental properties. I served as his
accountant."

I must have looked shocked. "It wasn't all that bad," Mrs. Nguyen
said. "There was no love in our marriage, but I did respect Vo and he
respected me in turn. I provided a valuable service, and he knew it. I
was worth maybe $50,000 a year to him, so over the course of our
marriage, I put a million dollars in his pocket. He was never mean to
me, and gave me a lot of leeway to be way more American than he was."

"Except that you never got to pursue your dream," I said.

"No," she said. "I didn't."

March didn't really become a lion, but the heavy rains during the
month tapered off into showers the first part of April. One morning,
when the sky was a pure blue, the air was clean, and temperatures were
predicted to go into the mid-seventies, I was sitting at my kitchen
table with a cup of coffee when I saw Mrs. Nguyen walk down the
driveway to her garage. She was wearing a pair of waffle-stompers,
Daisy Dukes that didn't quite cover her gluteal folds, a tee-shirt
that was molded to her torso like a second skin, dark glasses, and a
nón lá, the traditional conical, leaf-covered Vietnamese hat. She went
into the garage and came out with a shovel and a pair of heavy gloves,
then proceeded on to the unplanted area of the back yard.

I watched her place the shovel tip on the ground, get up on it with
both feet and bounce until it had sunk in about half way, then
laboriously turn over the shovelful of wet dirt. And then I watched
her repeat that action ten times. Nah, I thought, she couldn't be ....

I walked outside and approached Mrs. Nguyen so that she'd see me
coming. When she looked up, I asked: "What on earth are you doing?"

"Good morning, Mr. Wynn," she said. "I'm getting ready to plant my
vegetable garden."

I looked at Mrs. Nguyen's spare arms and the end of the shovel handle
two inches above the top of her nón lá. "You've got to be kidding," I
said. "It would take you weeks to turn over all that dirt by hand."

She just smiled and shrugged.

"Please," I said, "let me help. Why don't you just go have another cup
of coffee or something while I run an errand. I'll be right back."

She agreed without argument, and I raced off to U-Rentz for a small
rototiller. When I got back, I went directly to work on the garden.
While I plowed up the ground, going first up and down the long way,
and then back and forth across the short dimension, Mrs. Nguyen
alternately observed and brought out glasses of ice water. It took
about two hours to get the soil loosened up to my satisfaction.

By the time I'd returned from taking the rototiller back to U-Rentz,
Mrs. Nguyen had raked the plot smooth. We spent the the afternoon
together making mounds and digging furrows, and planting tomato sets,
summer squash, bell peppers, peas, and green beans. By 4:30 we were
starting to drag. Mrs. Nguyen leaned on a hoe, taking in the work we'd
accomplished on her garden. A sunset breeze was beginning to cool the
warmth of the day. Mrs. Nguyen had sweat enough to dampen her
formfitting tee-shirt and render it translucent. Her breasts were
virtually nonexistent, but her nipples were announcing themselves as
maroon bullets rising from small areolae. I had a terrible time
keeping my attention on her face.

"It looks marvelous, don't you think, Mr. Wynn?" she asked. She wiped
the back of her hand across her forehead, leaving a muddy streak
behind. "I really enjoyed working in the garden this afternoon. Your
company made the work so much more pleasant. Come September, we'll
have a nice crop of fresh vegetables. Now, why don't you let me thank
you by letting me cook dinner for you tonight?"

Once again, my face must have given me away. Despite the number of
Vietnamese restaurants in the area, I'd never eaten at one of them. I
liked Chinese, Japanese, Cambodian, and Thai food, but I'd never been
too sure about Vietnamese. I didn't know anything about it, and I was
wary. "Oh, you don't have to do that," I said, after probably a
too-long pause. "I enjoyed working in the garden, too. Thanks aren't
necessary. I was glad to help."

Mrs. Nguyen tried unsuccessfully to hide a smile beneath the brim of
her nón lá. "I'll see you at seven," she said.

I was at her door at seven o'clock, with a bottle of Merlot crooked in
my arm. "Right on time," Mrs. Nguyen said. "Come on in."

Dinner was a grilled strip steak with a butter and parsley sauce, red
new potatoes, and braised green beans and mushrooms with slivered
almonds. "It looks wonderful," I gulped.

Mrs. Nguyen swatted my arm. A serious swat for such a small woman.
"What?" she exclaimed. "Did you think I was going to feed you dog for
dinner?" Then she broke up at my discomfiture. I was redeemed slightly
by the serendipitous choice of Merlot.

Although the table setting was quite formal, with bone china, silver,
and two crystal candlesticks, Mrs. Nguyen was wearing floppy nylon
jogging shorts, a loose tank top, and flip-flops. Our conversation
with dinner was informal and easygoing, too. We didn't talk about our
personal histories or great literature. I tried to convince her that I
really, really did enjoy working in the garden for its own sake
because of my love of garden-fresh vegetables.

"When I was a kid," I told her, "my parents always grew a backyard
vegetable garden in the summer. After living in apartments for several
years, I was dying for a tomato right off the vine, so I built a
five-foot square planter--and then stole dirt from construction sites
to fill it."

Dessert was a chocolate mousse so light that it practically floated
out of its dish, and espresso.

After we'd finished eating, Mrs. Nguyen ushered me into the living
room, where she brandished a videotape of True Lies and announced,
"And now for the after-dinner entertainment.

"I just love Ah-nult," she snickered. "He's such a parody of himself."
She popped the tape into the VCR and we settled down on the couch.

Some time later, I awoke to the hiss of the TV's sound system. Its
screen was no-tape blue. Apparently, I'd fallen asleep during the
movie's final gunshots and explosions. I was saved from my own chagrin
by seeing that Mrs. Nguyen had fallen asleep, too. Her arm was linked
through mine, and her head was nestled against my shoulder. Without
thinking, I leaned down and kissed her forehead. Her eyes opened.

"Hey," I whispered. "It looks like we fell asleep. I guess it's time
for me to get myself back home."

She looked up through sleepy eyes. "Mr. Wynn," she said, in a small
voice. "Please stay with me tonight? Sometimes I am so lonely it
hurts."


parthenogenesis1@XXXyahoo.com

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