What have I gotten myself into? Here I am, ringing the doorbell of 970 N. Montgomery Avenue, and wondering, what have I gotten myself into this time?
You know what I mean. When you offer to help your roommate move furniture into his new place without finding out that his apartment is on the third floor with no elevator. And he’s moving in mid-August. Or when you agree to help your little brother on his science project without knowing the due date is tomorrow. And it’s 11:34 p.m. right now. It’s like in Never Been Kissed, when Drew Barrymore accepts her undercover assignment to pose as a high school senior without remembering what a loser she was in high school. It’s like when you agree to watch a movie marathon with your girlfriend before knowing it’s a chick flick marathon. And they’ve just begun.
They say people learn from their mistakes. Either my parents were chimpanzees or I have some major learning disabilities. A week ago my girlfriend said, “Next Friday is Chinese New Year’s Eve, do you want to come and celebrate with us?”
So here I am. After standing in front of the cream-colored door for seven minutes, I ring the doorbell at exactly 4:30 p.m. I’m not really sure what to bring to an occasion like this, so I left my apartment with nothing. But I can’t help it, so I went to the market and bought two pounds of oranges. Everyone likes oranges, right? But I begin to realize how ridiculous I must look right now, standing at the doorstep with a ribbon decorated wicker basket filled with nothing but oranges. I look nervously at my watch, it’s 4:30 still, and I’m ninety-nine percent positive that my watch is accurate. The door suddenly opens.
“Hey, Seth! Come in! Shoes off, okay? There’re slippers behind the door.” Emma, my girlfriend’s sister, grins at me and then shouts toward the kitchen. “Katie! Katie! Your boyfriend’s here!”
Katie runs over and hugs me. “Two rules, Seth. You have to wear slippers in the house at all times; my parents think running barefoot means you have no class. Be really really respectful and quiet, even if they ask you a question, just smile and nod your head, it’s better for them to think you’re dumb than to think you talk too much.”
“I brought something. Hope you guys like oranges.”
“Wow,” she looks at me with a ray of admiration in her eyes. “And you’
re wearing red. Very…festive.”
“I was deciding between orange or grape, but—“
“That’s a good choice though. Orange means lucky in Chinese.”
I smile and nod. I’m not very good at talking, especially in an unfamiliar place. Before we get to the kitchen, Emma blocks us by the kitchen door. “Can you guys wait a little bit? Topher isn’t here yet, so mom and dad are trying to help me get things ready. I want their help as much as possible.”
“Do you need my help?” Katie asks.
“I could, Katie.” Emma looks at me nervously while she speaks to her little sister in Chinese, which leaves me totally clueless. Katie nods her head and leads me toward the living room. She places the basket of oranges on the coffee table and looks at me apologetically.
“Honey,” she begins, “Emma is suppose to make dinner tonight but she can’t cook. She wants Topher to think that she can, so I’m going to help her until Topher shows up. When Topher gets here, I’ll introduce you to my parents.”
She leaves me sitting in front of the TV. Gilmore Girls is on but after ten minutes of it, I’d rather help in the kitchen. “Katie, can I change the channel?” I whine as Katie comes over to give me my drink.
“Yeah, sure, no one was watching that.”
“Then why was it on?”
“My dad wants some noise. The TV is going to stay on no matter what. It’s like the slippers; it has to stay on even if no one is watching.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you’re supposed to have a lot of noise during Chinese New Year. Last year, we ate while Bush gave his State of the Union speech. It was so boring but no one noticed. Just watch whatever you want.”
People say curiosity kills the cat. Good thing I’m not a cat. “Why not just put on a CD?”
“Well,” Katie looks at the clock, and then at me, “ a CD isn’t live noise.”
“Radio show?”
“I don’t know, Seth. You can ask my dad.”
“But I thought you wanted me to just smile and nod?”
She rolls her eyes. “Honey, I love you,” she pauses, “but you think too much.”
She disappears into the kitchen. Katie is wearing a red plaid skirt with an orange sweater. I have this theory: A girl should never wear a dress, because either it makes her look like a seven-year-old, or it makes her look seventy years old. Katie is the type of girl that looks seven. With her pale yellow skin and rounded dark brown eyes, at five foot one, people think she’s still in high school. She told me in her senior year she needed a formal dress for the prom, but at the time she looked so young: “My friend Tawny and I looked like two princesses in a Disney cartoon.”
I begin to start a mental slideshow of “Katie in Skirts”. In conclusion, Katie is definitely the kind of girl who should never wear a skirt. While I am thinking about Katie’s dresses, Topher finally arrives. Hallelujah!
“Topher’s in the kitchen with Emma now. You’re next.” Katie announces.
Suddenly Katie sounds like the nurse from my dentist’s office. I begin to panic a little. Fine. I begin to panic big time. I hardly ever get to meet my girlfriends’ parents. The last time I met a girlfriend’s mom, my face was breaking out with zits and popping like a piece of microwaved fried chicken, not to mention I was studying for the SAT. Mrs. Reed liked me, but I didn’t care whether she did or not; my mind was preoccupied with how to arrive at second base with Heather Reed.
“Call my dad Mr. Brighton and my mom Ms. Lynn.”
“Why? Shouldn’t I call them by their last name?”
“No. Because white people can never pronounce our last name correctly,” she smirks, “But it’s disrespectful to call them by their first name.”
Mr. Brighton greets me briefly; he speaks English quite well, but remains a quiet man. I think he doesn’t know what to say, regardless of my skin color. Ms. Lynn, on the other hand, chats with me as we set the table: “Seth, I’m glad you came tonight.”
She speaks slowly and clearly. For some reason I expected Katie’s mom to speak in Pidgin English. And I really expected her to hate me. To my joy, that didn’t happen. Ms. Lynn speaks in rapid Chinese to Katie, and Katie laughs wildly. Ms. Lynn begins to tell Katie the meaning of the dishes in Chinese, while Katie translates in English for me. She thought that would be fun.
I thought it was confusing. You must have chicken because in the dialect they speak, chicken means ‘home’. The chicken is prepared with chestnut and garlic, which I thought was the oddest combination. There are two fish dishes. The pan-fried fish is a crispy, golden-brown codfish. Katie says we are suppose to “observe” that fish because it means people will always have “leftover” to spare for the whole year and never go hungry. In fact, the fish looks really creepy because the head is still attached and there are little teeth in its dime-size mouth.
“It looks like he’s gasping for air and calling for help.”
“Don’t say that, Seth, that’s gross.” She replies me with a stare.
The other fish dish looks brown and I’m not sure what’s in it. Beside that stands a plate of leafy vegetables that looks long and rubbery. Katie says that’s for long life. I’d rather skip that dish and live shorter. There’s a bowl of rice cake, spinach, and shitake mushroom. She explains to me that rice cake will help us rise in our career. Spring rolls, so spring will come forward; shrimp with pineapple, because like orange, pineapple brings good luck. Steamed dumplings, because dumplings look like coin purses, although I can’t really make any connection between the dumplings and the coin purses.
“What about the plate of sliced beef?” I decide to be an annoying ass and let curiosity take over.
“My mom didn’t say,” she hands me a spring roll wrapped in a paper towel. “I think it just tastes good,” she adds.
Cont. Tomorrow!
*圖片 from : http://www.angelfire.com/ut/peppertown/smile.html*
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