If You Lived Here Read Online Free PDF Page B

talent the rest of us lack. “Hey, Mai. How are you?” she asks, as if we’re the best of friends. Her gaze settles on me, waiting for an answer. Her fingers rest on the edge of my counter.
    “Okay,” I tell her. Might as well forget about eating. The woman will stay for ages, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to hang around my grocery and pester me. Maybe she’s losing her mind. She’s shopped here for years, coming by every couple of weeks to stock up on her supplies of ginger tea, or chutney, or whatever it is she usually buys. I never had a problem with her before. Once, when the Vietnamese manager of Hardee’s died in a car wreck, I helped her out by setting up a prayer altar for the funeral. She seemed completely normal then. She never got chatty. In the past couple of weeks, though, she has rematerialized as a kook. She appears every couple of days, asking questions. Not normal questions, like, “How long do you cook this fish?” Or, “Is chicken good with Hoisin sauce?” She asks bizarre questions, like, “Do people eat ramen noodles in Hanoi?” And, “What do Vietnamese cook for New Year’s?” I end up spending fifteen, even twenty minutes responding. The conversations grow like weeds, distracting me.
    Several times, I’ve managed to avoid these sessions by pretending I’m busy. But still, she lurks. Her voice sounds discreet, but it is actually focused and prodding, and it carries across the aisles from where she hovers near Gladys or Marcy, pressing them for answers, too. They love the attention. She has the kind of hair that you see on the heroines of soap operas, and a look on her face that says you’re the most fascinating thing on the planet. Gladys has rarely conversed with an American, and she responds to the woman Shelley’s notice with giddy gratitude, as she would a proclamation from the government that she has succeeded here. Marcy, who can be careless and moody, swells with maturity at the idea that someone older, and attractive, has turned to her for information. As soon as the woman approaches, they stop whatever they’re
    doing and address her questions with the concentration they normally reserve for their own conflicts. But their answers meander. Once, when she asked Gladys, “Who is the most talented Vietnamese composer?” Gladys explained that she had to quit school and go to work at the age of eleven. Another time, she asked Marcy, “Why is red considered such a lucky color?” Marcy ended up describing an elegant Chinese wedding she attended in Charlotte last year. What are they thinking? If a customer asks for tofu, would you give them cheese? The truth is, the woman wants to know about Vietnam and Marcy barely remembers it. And Gladys? Well, Gladys grew up in a village a three-hour walk from the nearest town. Try asking a redneck from Castle Hayne to name the most talented American composer. They’d probably say the Beatles.
    “Van Cao,” I told her, but I did not offer to loan her a CD.
    This afternoon, the funeral director sets her purse on my counter and makes to fan herself with her hand. “What do you make of this weather?” she asks, feigning exasperation. “Freezing one day, a scorcher the next.”
    “Yeah,” I say.
    “Did you get weeks like this in Vietnam? Where it changes back and forth so often?”
    Could the woman be more annoying? I force myself to recollect sum-mer afternoons of blinding sunshine followed by driving rain, then sunshine and rainbows later. “Days,” I say.
    She lets out an extravagant gasp. “How dramatic! I really can’t imagine.” “It not that different here,” I remind her. Wilmington has moments when the fertile smell of the summer air reminds me exactly of home. But I am really only interested in putting her off. I push my ph d aside, pick up
    a pile of order forms, and start to fill them out.
    “Um. Here,” she says suddenly, unzipping her bag and reaching inside. “I brought you these.” She pulls