truth

She woke up feeling sick. Not again, she thought, I didn’t even drink last night. Or did I? She wracked her memory and tested her breath in her cupped hand for alcohol. Shit.

The horrible events of the night before came flooding back to her quickly, sloshing through her memory like the glasses of wine she hadn’t drunk. She had to call in sick. Or maybe she shouldn’t call at all; maybe she should just let them think she was dead. She picked up the receiver and tried to sound as feeble as possible when her boss answered a few rings later.

She had ditched Jeff in the restaurant last night. She had just left. That scrap of paper had seemed so very important at the time, and, if she was completely honest with herself, it wasn’t just the paper that made her want to give him the slip. He was boring, chauvinistic and annoying. It had been inappropriate for him to ask her out, that much she knew. She had accepted, though. Damn it, why couldn’t she have had a spine for once? She began to feel angry: angry at Jeff for asking her out and angry at herself for accepting.

She had already decided not to go looking for the old man at the Lucky Dragon. After she had waited for a waitress to pass the bathroom door and then slipped down the hall and out past the kitchen door to emerge among the dumpsters, the old man and his fortune cookies suddenly didn’t seem so important anymore. At that point she was relieved to be away from Jeff, but her reason for leaving was quickly abandoned when she realized she just wanted to go home. She hailed a cab and the scrap of paper in her purse was soon forgotten.

As she thought of this she decided she was also angry at the old man for complicating her life. She hated complications just like she hated conflict. It was these two hatreds that Jeff had to thank for her acceptance of his invitation as well as for her stealthy departure the night before. The one thing she hated more than conflict with other people, however, was conflict with herself. But the conflict was over now that she had decided against visiting the Lucky Dragon. Now she only had the problem of lying to her boss.

“I’m not coming in to work today. I think I’m coming down with something,” she told her boss when she answered the phone.

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that!” her boss exclaimed, her voice rife with insincerity. “Well, get well soon, okay? We need you around here.”

“Okay, I’ll try,” she responded trying to sound both weak and insincerely cheerful.

She felt slightly guilty, but she made herself a cup of tea and settled down on the couch to watch TV and to try to forget everything complicated or conflicting. She still felt a little sick to her stomach, but she tried to forget that, too.

She went out to buy a few groceries and managed to forget. That is, until she saw the package of fortune cookies in the grocery store. She was suddenly thrown into a state of panic. She felt the same thing she had felt the night before: the insuppressible urge to go to the Lucky Dragon, to find Bill and to tell him she was ready to learn the secrets of the happiness cookies. Tiny beads of cool sweat broke out all over her skin, and she left her shopping cart where it was to turn and walk down the aisle towards the exit. When she got outside she tried to breathe, slowly and carefully. Her body was shaking and she had trouble thinking clearly. She forced her steps toward her house and her senses slowly righted themselves as she measured each breath and hugged her elbows.

She made herself some dinner and tried to watch some more TV. She couldn’t help it; Bill, the strange drink he’d given her, happiness cookies, and the scrap of paper kept surging up through her other thoughts. She decided to go find the piece of paper. She just wanted to look at it again, she thought. She’d just read what it said and then throw it away. She found it and stared at it. She had to go. So she got up and went.

The waiter with the blue hat recognized her immediately. Probably because I’m the only white person in here, she thought. He asked her to come into a little office in the back of the restaurant and disappeared down some stairs next to the office. The restaurant was nice, well, expensively decorated anyway. It was one of those swanky, dimly lit places with fancy carpets and leather-cushioned booths. There were tall green plants in pots decorated with oriental designs. She couldn’t help wondering what Bill had to do with this place.

The waiter in the blue hat returned after several minutes and led her down the back stairs. They passed through a long hallway at the end of which was a small, wooden door that the waiter opened with a small key on a key ring dense with keys of various sizes. The door let into another, much narrower, much grayer, hallway, which met the first hallway at a ninety-degree angle. This hallway was very long and ended in another door, which he unlocked with a second key. On the other side of this door was a narrow staircase that spiraled down into the darkness. At the bottom of the staircase was another locked door, and this one led into and underground passage that resembled those she had seen the night she had fallen through the sidewalk.

When they reached Bill’s room with the typewriter, he had a glass of the happiness drink waiting for her. He smiled eagerly and introduced her to the waiter, “This is Humlee, he ret you thoo side doo’ aftah tonight. I give you addless latah.” He dismissed the waiter and gestured for her to sit down and have her drink. As he expostulated about her job as a fortune writer and gestured wildly with his short arms, her mind was pulsating with questions, memories and doubts. He paused in his enthusiastic explanations only to repeat his friendly command of the first night, “Dlink! Dlink!”

She looked down at the untouched drink in her hand. I might as well, she thought apathetically. As she felt the liquid slide into her stomach, however, she knew she’d be calling in sick the next day.