The waiter at Sakura hates me. No, hate is a word no one should use. The waiter at my favorite sushi restaurant despises me, and I can feel the abhorrence in his stare penetrate my seaweed salad and California roll.
Honestly, I was just so young and foolish, and I never meant it to be this way between us. I really shouldn't cry over spilled soy sauce. But I want to make things right.
It all started last summer, the night I first broke out my white ruffle shirt and turquoise jewelry, bringing the western frontier right to the dinner table. White was the new black. The prairie girl look was all the rage. I was among a confused generation of girls who tore their peasant wardrobes out of covered wagons in time to strut back home to rent "Sex and the City" -- the entire third season.
Yes, we were a lost youth, like our tie-dye wearing, free love preaching counterparts of the past. So maybe we didn't listen to Joni Mitchell and rally for anti-war but we shared their fanaticism.
Except ours was fanaticism for sushi restaurants. Too bad I had to be the one to blow it.
My sushi waiter and I started off on a bad foot. I was demanding, took too much of his time and requested a lemon wedge in my water.
"Don't you realize I have other things going on in my life right now!" he wanted to scream. He was at his height in popularity, working his way around other tables of girls like a sleek and smooth operator. He received more calls in 15 minutes than I did in a week: table four wanted more steamed soybeans "edamame," table seven, another round of saki.
"Oh you think I'm one of those 'me, me, me,' girls, is that it?" I wanted to ask, tears beginning to flow profusely as I mistook a ball of wasabi paste for an avocado, and stuck the entire fiery chunk into my mouth. I cried out for water, yet he avoided me -- my melodrama too childlike for an experienced guy like him.
I wish I could have stopped there, but it really stung deep, the wasabi that is, and the tears clouded my vision. My chopsticks would not stay parallel, but crossed the way my skis once did during an elementary school winter outing. Repressed memories of plummeting down the mountain and being plowed over by a cocky snowboarder surfaced in my miso soup.
Yet, this was not fifth grade when a well strategized game of truth or dare on the bus ride home was a panacea for all wounds. My sushi waiter and I were playing a different game now, and our artillery of rice pellets and raw fish were not toys. Either the eel on my plate was going bad, or I could smell it in the air -- someone was going to get hurt.
A week later, deeply bronzed after sizzling at the pool like the deep fried shrimp dish "tempora," I returned for dinner. I wore a terry cloth tube top and cerulean blue wrap paraoe skirt, bringing the spas of Fiji right to the hostess stand. Friends had warned me not to go back, that I deserved better.
Why, they grilled me, had I lowered my standards, while paying such a high price?
"You don't understand," I stammered, "I, I, I love sushi."
That night, things started off fresh and bright, like the center of the spicy shrimp and mango roll. My sushi waiter led me to a table with a view of the gurgling rock fountain. He knew what I liked. See, things were changing, or so I thought until I saw him enthralled with a table of leggy brunettes who were on their fifth round of saki bombs, well on their way to getting trashed.
"Is that what's going to get your attention!" I wanted to scream. "Trashy girls!"
Yet, despite my glowing tan of vibrant health, I was plagued by a fallacy that was rooted in the depths of all boot kicking, ruffle skirt buying, city street stomping girls of our generation -- self-assertion. I needed specifics, to know what he saw in our future. So when he finally meandered over to take my order, I asked him to define the hosomaki on the menu.
He remained speechless, acting like he didn't know complex English adjectives tangy, succulent, hot and spicy ... incredible! Didn't he realize that I was a girl with expectations -- that the same old California roll just wasn't doing it for me anymore!
I needed more. What else could he offer me to make me stay?
But I knew all along what he thought of me. He thought I was a tease, the way I ever so slowly slipped my silver credit card out of my wallet, his mind fantasizing about the tip he might receive.
"You ignorant fool," I wanted to scream, my hand shaky as I signed the receipt. "I'd eliminate my credit limits if I knew you really meant it when you said, 'I love the tuna roll too.'"
I guess it's obvious what happened after that. I went into a sushi rut. Oh sure, I had a fling with the Harris Teeter package variety stuff, but it just wasn't the same. I wore running shorts and a beat up tee, bringing the pungent aroma of a locker room right to the produce section. Then I just moped around the house trying to pick things up with chopsticks: quarters, bottle caps, my life.
Things are better now that I started drowning the memories of my old sushi waiter in mugs of green tea at this new sushi bar. It was one of those spots where blind dates like to go and sit at the counter, so that they can watch the chefs slice and dice, instead of staring at each other chew.
My new sushi waiter is quite a sociable guy, and has introduced me to the remarkable giant clam. "I like that turquoise necklace," I imagine him saying. "I like your negamaki." I'd reply. Yet we are silent and do not need words to know we care.
I am older now. Everything is right. There will always be plenty of sushi in the city.
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