date with Ajumma

I’m sitting with her in an underground hookah bar. It’s dark, with a few orange lights. We’re sitting in an enclosed booth, with only the upper part of our torsos showing above the table. She complains though, that we’re the only booth that doesn’t have a beaded screen surrounding it. We each order our drinks and then look around at everything in the dark bar except for each other’s eyes.  I make a comment about a boring piece of the décor; she complains about the hard seat and we both take a few pillows from an empty booth nearby. I think about how old she is and why she’s here with me. She should be getting married; she should already be married. I’m not nearly ready enough to start thinking about marriage.

I talked to my ex-girlfriend the day before: “Drinks mean sex,” she advised. My date had suggested a bar, as well as the cocktails we had with dinner.

We talk about what we each do after work. I say I read or go to Tae Kwon Do. She says she watches TV or plays with her little dog. We take a sip of our drinks.

I ask about her job again because I didn’t really understand what she does. She says she works with people who have problems, and analyzes their art. Not for how good it is, but to see how to help them. She decides to use me as an example to describe what she means. She draws a shape that she can’t come up with the name for, but then after some explaining I realize it’s a fish bowl. She tells me to pick a relationship, any relationship, maybe my friends, or my work, or my family, or me and her, anything. I pick my family. Despite actually harboring some shame for my family, it’s usually a safe topic. So she tells me to draw my family, as fish, in the fish bowl. I think it’s funny that, with her accent, she says “fish-ee.”

So I draw. While drawing, I think about not thinking about it too much. When I’m done, she explains what she sees. She says my family is close. She guesses that I’m the favorite in my family and that I look out for my younger brother. Most of her hypotheses are pretty good, when they’re not they’re pretty close. It’s a perfect time to talk about my family so I do a little bit. There’s six of us so there’s a decent amount to talk about. Five other short, small-talk introductions: “my sister’s an engineer, she lives in Washington, D.C. and we used to fight when we were younger” “my youngest brother’s in high school. He’s not so good in school so I worry about him sometimes.” I start to miss my family as I’m telling her about them, and I tell her that I miss my family. She smiles and giggles nervously and says “OK”. In that moment I want to be home more than anything, but I’m also glad I’m there with her, glad that she made me realize how much I miss them, even though I tell myself I don’t even like them sometimes.

We finish our drinks and I pay. I paid for dinner too. On our way back towards the busses and subway she offers to get ice-cream. The first shop doesn’t have any, so we go to a 24-hour convenience store. There are really young college kids there eating instant noodles under the bright fluorescent lights. She wants to buy the ice cream and I just shuffle behind her, looking at the floor. Out of the corner of my eye I think I see the college kids facing us and laughing or at least smiling. I don’t want to look at her in this store.

She gives me my ice cream and we walk down the street a little further. I need to catch the train soon because the subway and busses will stop running soon. She tries to help me figure out which bus I need to take, but eventually she gives up because it seems too complicated. I decide to take the subway instead. I realize it’s time to say goodbye to her. Maybe I won’t see her again. She’s nice but seems sad. I’m disappointed in myself that I can’t make her happy, that I can’t bring myself to make her happy. Her face is looking up at mine and our eyes meet for an instant. It’s time to say goodbye and I lean in, just giving her a hug. I still feel like everyone around us is looking at us. I feel her sigh during our short embrace, and I notice her sad smile as I walk away.