peking duck

It was dusk, and someone somewhere was blasting Beyonce from their car speakers. The bass thundered down her little street, and Chloe could see Mrs Huang across the way, watering her plants in her kitchen window. She smiled and waved. Chloe smiled and waved back. She must be paying like 200 a month in rent.

Not that Chloe's rent wasn't cheaper than a New York apartment of similar size. It was rent-stabilized, which meant that her landlord would raise her rent every year to the maximum allowable percentage, in the effort to finally reach the magical two grand mark, at which point rent stabilized apartments are allowed to go to market rate. But the percentage per year wasn't too high, and she hoped that by the time it got anywhere near two grand she would be long gone to the Carolinas or some other mild-weathered state.

It was 6 pm and Mildred was late, due to a shoe shopping trip gone awry. She really didn't want Mildred to come over, but invited her over out of habit, or boredom, she wasn't sure which. Mildred had become sort of scrappy lately, succumbing to the societal pressures to get married and have babies before she hit forty and taking it upon herself to make sure she didn't "fall behind the pack." She had started wearing high heels and going on dates with guys like "Aaron from the art gallery" and "Tim from the coffee shop." She used to be more unexpected. Now she did the boring things everyone else in New York did, like go to Sheep's Meadow on Saturday afternoons and the Meatpacking district at night. It made Chloe sick to her stomach, and she had almost had enough.

At 6:25, the small bell rang outside her bedroom window. She had rigged it up when, after moving in, she realized there was no buzzer in the 100-year-old tenement building. So she hung a brass ringer from the 99 cent store on the rail outside on her fire escape, and attached a long, inconspicuous string that blended in with the parasols sold by the vendor in the downstairs storefront.

She ambled down the two flights of stairs, tipsy having now drunk half of the bottle of wine that she and Mildred were supposed to share.

"Hiiiiiiiii Chloe! How are you?," shrieked Mildred, giving her a hug.
Poor Mildred. She was well-intentioned, but offensively girly. Chloe faked a smile.
"Come up. Would you like some wine?"
"Sure!," she said. Hiking back up the stairs, Chloe wondered how to tell her, how to break it off.

Inside the door, Mildred plopped down on the couch with a large sigh, while Chloe resumed her place on the chaise. "So, how did the date go?"

"Oh! It was so lovely! The whole time I was thinking, This might be the one!"

Chloe set down her wine glass and felt she might gag. But she attempted a feigned excitement. "Ohhh, that's wonderful, what happened?," she forced out of herself.

Couldn't she tell she was faking it? That she didn't give a shit about this guy who seemed hideously boring. That she thought Mildred herself was hideously boring.

"Well! So he took me to Central Park and he had a picnic basket! He even thought of the blanket. So we sat there, in sheep's meadow, having a lunch of lemon curd and toast. I do love lemon curd. Just as soon as he brought out that jar, I knew he was the one."

There was a pause, with which Chloe didn't know what to do. It was awkward. She could tell her feigning was fading. Certainly Mildred couldn't actually be this superficial.

Well, enough was enough. Plus, the wine bottle was empty. Chloe stood up and announced that she was so sorry, that she must leave to pick up her Peking Duck for tomorrow night's feast at the mah jong parlor.

They gave each other kisses on the cheek, and after closing the door, Chloe heaved a sigh of relief, purging Mildred's putrid words out of her system. She changed out of her clothes and slipped on her silk Chinese robe. There was no feast tomorrow, and there certainly was no Peking Duck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peking_Duck

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mah_jong

pungent sights

On a perfectly brisk yet sunny October Saturday, Chloe was inside selling overpriced but good croissants and coffee at Ceci-Cela on Spring. She thought it might be a fun thing, like a hobby, working in what would be the closest thing to a real Parisian cafe. Plus, it was just a few blocks north of her apartment. She imagined herself blithely tying on a cute apron and joyfully serving smiling, happy customers delicious pastries, chatting with the locals in between. Instead, it was all drudgery and belittlement. The customers, both tourists and natives alike, were downright rude, and the smell of croissants was now sickening. She was about to tell the manager she would like to quit when in walked a familiar face.

One look at his trendy new boots and she knew he wasn't the same. It had been five years, of course, and one was certainly allowed to change. But not for the worse. Not while still in your twenties. He reeked of expensive cologne, and he produced an iPhone4 from his back pocket.
"Really? An iPhone?"
"Yeah, aren't they great?"
"I wouldn't know. I though you hated iPhones." Chloe cast a jaded glance out the window over her right shoulder, then turned to face him again.
"I did, in theory. But now I don't live in the theoretical world. I live in the practical one."
"I can see that."

She motioned to the rear of the cafe, if you could call it a cafe. It was more like a claustrophobic hallway. Not more than one person could stand between the wall and the glass case. She walked out from behind the counter and followed him to a pair of rickety chairs set around a table still strewn with the remnants of someone's breakfast.

There they chatted about the usual things one chats about with someone from the past. Jobs ["Are you still at...?"], haircuts ["Your hair seems longer..."], apartments ["You've moved five times?!"], and relationship status ["So, how's Tara? Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."]. By that time, he had finished his coffee and croissant, and Chloe saw him on his way, ["It was great to see you. I'll see you around."], never to be seen again, in all his pungent, high-tech glory.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pungent

these were the days

Chloe secretly hoped that everything would turn out, but she secretly knew it wouldn't. These were the days of burnt toast and missed subway trains. Of sugared dreams and dashed hopes. The light at the end of the tunnel was dim, and the bats had taken over now. Gaining in number, they flew furiously through the long hallways of her mind, slapping against the walls, the rush of wings carrying her forth into nothing, something. She drifted in and out, here, standing in her kitchen without an oven. Staring out the window in night silence, she wondered when that goddamn tinnitus in her right ear would go away, or whether it would only get worse from here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus

http://209.161.37.21/dictionary/batty