The Way It Works (2 page)
“Real good,” I say. Then I swallow hard and decide to go for it. What the heck? I've been wanting to talk to this girl for weeks. It's not gonna happen unless I make it happen.
“Did I just hear you speaking Chinese?” I ask.
She smiles.
“Yes, you did,” she says. “Mandarin, actually.”
“Andâ¦you speak Mandarin
why
?”
“My mom is Chinese. I grew up speaking to her in Mandarin and to my dad in English.”
“You're kidding,” I say. “So, you're half Chinese and half black?”
“Yup.”
“Wow. That's quite a mix.”
“Sure is,” she says.
“Me, I'm half black and half white,”
I tell her.
“Are those copies everything for today?”
Uh-oh. Maybe I've gone too far. She doesn't want to talk about this. I'm just one more customer, being too nosy. Better make a joke, then leave on a high note.
“Being mixed race sure can be interesting,” I say. “I remember one time, I was in a store with my moms. The guy behind the counter whispers to her, âDid you know there's a black guy following you around?' And she goes, âYeah, he's my son.'”
Yolanda laughs at that. Her teeth are perfect, like two rows of polished gems.
“Your mom is white?” she says.
“She passed away a little while ago.”
“I'm sorry to hear that.”
I give her a small bill from my precious stash. I carry my money on me at all times, in a big roll. This is partly for security. I don't trust banks. And it's partly because I like to flash a wad from time to time. It's a good way to impress people. Because would Yolanda be talking to me if she knew I was homeless? No way.
Yolanda gives me my change.
“You want something to put those copies in?” she says.
“Sure,” I say.
She slides them into a paper bag. But first, I notice she peeks at them.
“Résumés, huh?” she says.
“Yeah. I'm doin' the job-hunt thing.”
“What kind of job are you looking for?”
“Finance,” I say. “Anything to do with finance. That's my field.”
“Impressive,” she says, smiling again.
“Thanks,” I say. And then, before I even know what I'm doing, I say, “I'd love to take you out to dinner sometime. I think we'd have a lot of fun. What do you say?”
She looks at me like she can't believe what she just heard. I can't believe it either. I wasn't even planning on asking. It just slipped out.
“Dinner?” she says, real casual. “Sure.
When?”
I make a big show of looking up at the ceiling, like I'm running through dates in my head. Then I smile.
“Tonight?” I say.
She shrugs.
“Okay,” she says. “Let me write my address down for you.”
O
nly after I leave the postal center do I realize what I've done. I've committed to picking Yolanda up in seven hours. But there's no way I can let her see my car. Not in the shape it's in. I have to clean it.
But first, I have to find someplace to put my stuff. And I still have my daily rounds to make. The world doesn't stop just because I have a date. I still need a job. I'm going to have to hurry to get everything done in time.
I go through the same routine, knocking on doors, sitting through interviews. But it's the same old story. Either I don't have enough education, or they're just not hiring right now.
It would be easy to get upset. But I know I have to keep my head on straight. And I've got tonight to look forward to.
I decide to rent a locker at the bus station. Whatever doesn't fit in my trunk can go in there. Then I take the Caprice to a car wash. I spend forty bucks getting it cleaned, inside and out.
Forty dollars is a lot of money to me. When I sold all our stuff, I got about eight hundred bucks for it. That sounds like a fortune, but if that's all you've got, it's nothing. That money is the only thing keeping me from starving to death. I never spend money unless I have to. Not even on food. And now, not only am I dropping forty on the detailing, but I'm planning on paying for dinner for two. Today is easily going to cost me a hundred bucks.
But you know what? I don't care. A man has to live a little too. It's been a long time since I've been on a date.
I take a sponge bath in a public washroom in the downtown mall. I have to move fast. Security comes through here every twenty minutes, looking for guys just like me. Then I put my suit back on. I check myself in the mirror. I'm not thrilled with what I see. But there's no time to work miracles. I walk back out to my car and check the time. Five thirty. Half an hour to go.
I follow Yolanda's directions to her house. I'm early, so I drive around, checking out the neighborhood. It's nice. Working class, but respectable. There's a decent car in every driveway. A satellite dish on every roof. It's the kind of place I wouldn't mind living someday.
Who am I kidding? I'd live in a cardboard box, as long as I could call it mine.
At six sharp I park in front of Yolanda's house. I've got some flowers I picked on the down low from a nearby park. No roses yet. It's too soon for that. And roses are expensive.
I knock on the door. I hear footsteps inside too heavy to be Yolanda's. The front door opens. There stands the largest black man I've ever seen in my life. I don't mean fat. I mean giant. He must be seven feet tall. He's as wide as a tree trunk. And he's not smiling.
“Good evening,” he says.
“Uhâ¦hello, sir,” I say. “I must have the wrong house.”
“You looking for Yolanda?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you don't have the wrong house.
Baby! Somebody at the door for you.”
My nervousness turns to joy at the sight of Yolanda. She comes to the door in a yellow dress that looks like a cloud of light. Her smile makes me forget there's anyone else in the world besides us two.
“Daddy, this is Walter,” she says. “Remember? I told you I have a date tonight.”
“A date? Oh, yeah. I musta forgot,” he says. But I can tell he didn't forget at all. He was just hoping I wouldn't show up.
Yolanda holds the door open for me. I step inside.
“Walter Davis,” I say, holding out my hand to her dad.
“Parnell Jefferson,” he says. His hand makes mine look like a child's. I try not to wince as he crushes it.
“So, what do you do, Walter?” he asks.
“I work in finance,” I say.
“Oh, yeah? What firm?”
“I'm, uhâ¦between positions at the moment.”
Mr. Jefferson looks unimpressed. But I'm saved when someone else walks into the room.
“Oh, Yolanda, who this handsome young guy! What a nice suit he wear!”
I turn to see a tiny Chinese lady. I'm not tall, but she only comes to my chest. She's smiling so hard her face has disappeared in a mass of friendly wrinkles.
Yolanda rattles something off in Mandarin to her mother. She bows to me.
I bow back.
Out of nowhere, I remember learning a single phrase of Mandarin from a movie I saw a long time ago. It's
N
h
o ma
, which means “How are you?” I decide to bust it out. Why not? When you have nothing to lose, you're not afraid to try anything.
So I bow again and say, “Nho ma?”
You would think I just grew a pair of wings. Her mom's eyes get big.
“I like this boy!” she says. “He okay!”
Yolanda laughs. She kisses her mom and dad good night and puts her arm in mine.
“Not too late, right?” says Mr. Jefferson.
“You be quiet!” says Mrs. Jefferson, hitting him on the arm. “She big girl now.”
“Good night, Mom and Dad,” says Yolanda.
We walk out the door together.
F
or our first date, I decide it would be a good idea to go to a Chinese restaurant. That shows I'm interested in Yolanda's heritage and open-minded enough to try new kinds of food. So we go to a little place I found earlier. Nice, clean, but not too pricey.
The owners look at us strangely. I guess you don't see too many black people in Chinese restaurants. But they lighten up when Yolanda starts talking to them in Mandarin. Next thing you know, we've got three waiters swarming around us. They treat us like royalty.
“Wow,” I say. “I need to learn how to speak more of that.”
“You really impressed my mother,” she says. “Where did you learn how to say Nho ma?”
