Getting take out.
There is something about ordering take-out that screams single white female to me. Maybe it is the visual of sitting at home alone, in pajamas with a carton of fried rice in one hand and chop sticks in the other, watching a rom-com that leads me to this. Who knows. What I do know is last night was the first time since moving into my apartment nearly two years ago that I legitimately ordered take-out.
It went something like this.
I called Kinhdo. The guy who answered the phone - perhaps too affluent and well spoken for his own good - implied that perhaps I had ordered this a few times in the past and have finally tweaked it to perfection. Mock duck fried rice, no msg no onion, extra vegetables. I think he meant I was a pain in the ass. He tells me, Fifteen minutes. I show up in fourteen.
A blind man sits in the waiting area as I enter on the corner of 28th and Hennepin. I nearly trip on his cane as I walk towards the register. We have the same glasses. Momentarily I pause and look him straight in the eyes. I wonder if he sees me, if he knows that we are wearing the same glasses. The man at the register interrupts our glance. He asks if I'm Emily. And I am. My order of course is running late and I eye at the last chair in the waiting area. Before I turn to sit down I hear my name again.
An old man with a long grey beard and glasses walks over to me. It's David. He's a regular at my coffeeshop. As he approaches me he extends his hand and asks how I've been. I answer Well, with a smile, and do not ask how he is because he will answer Not Well. I've been writing again, he tells me. David used to run a halfway house for crazy people. Mentally unsound. He knows them well as he is one. Harvard educated, incredibly intelligent, drove himself mad. I shift my glance towards the vacant chair and he insists on getting back to his meal, and that he was delighted to see me.
Multiple tables walk in. They look at me as they pass and know I am getting take out for myself. My mind drifts as the woman next to me brushes my arm with her newspaper. I recognize this strange holding pattern the three of us are in --the blind man, the woman with the newspaper and myself. A vision of us eating together crosses my mind and I wonder how we would interact since not even the slightest eye contact has yet to be made. I pull out my phone and type, A blind man has the same glasses as me. Maybe he's not blind.
The affluent man speaks my name. He rattles off some line about me having to have been a baby when I started coming to Kinhdo because I mentioned being a customer for over eight years and he fumbles on his words. I can tell he is nervous. He places my order on the counter and I leave with little said.
When I get home, I replicate the exact image I loathe. Carton of fried rice in one hand, chopsticks in the other, and watch An Education on my laptop. For one night, and one night only, I am that single white female.
