Featured Story

Waiting for Abalone over a Discussion of Favorite Books

By Elizabeth Rosen

You sat before I did, settling your handsome bulk into the chair across from me, eager to get started and learn if our mutual friend was right that we would have a lot to talk about. There was a pink glow to the wallpaper, to the tablecloths, to the rims of the water glasses through which the tea candle in the center of the table flickered. You waited for me to hang my bag over the back of my chair, to turn to you and smile beguilingly, to open myself to the experience of your handsomeness and the restaurant’s luminescent pinkness, a glean as mysterious as the slivers of abalone that would soon be delivered.

Only it wasn’t a friend who recommended we meet; it was a dating app. And you weren’t handsome, or muscular. You wore tan boat shoes and a blue, button-down shirt. You were slim and goatee-d. A wisp of a young man, of the kind who worshipped the fingerwork of Joe Satriani and felt condescending about gyms. It wasn’t a candle. It was an electric light in the shape of a flame. Trick fire. It gave off no heat and very little light. And I didn’t hang my purse over the back of my chair. I put it under the table between my feet where the reassuring shape rested against my ankles. When you sat down before me, your eagerness hummed with the soft vibrating excitement of a hunting dog waiting for release. I did not think you were indicating we were equals. What I thought was, That’s one.

You handed me a menu, watched as I ran my finger over the choices. “The scallop is good,” you told me, “but the abalone is better. You should try it.” I murmured appreciatively. A server went by carrying enameled bowls, the aroma of hot miso following. My mouth watered. At the table next to us, a couple leaned into a beautiful platform of sushi, their wooden chopsticks carefully dismantling the fish and rice to the soft plink of koto strings. The woman lifted a carved daikon flower from the plate and laughingly pretended to put it behind her ear. The man took out his phone to take a photo, and you leaned over, offering to take a picture of them both. When the waitress came to our table, I ordered the soup and a spicy California roll. “And two pieces of abalone,” you added, smiling.

You weren’t watching me as I read the menu. You were watching the petite waitress running hot green tea to tables. (She was Chinese, by the way, not Japanese.) And when you took the photo of the couple next to us, you tilted the camera so that the man was only partially visible and it was the smiling woman holding two vegetable garnishes next her face as decoration who was centered. It wasn’t the soup that made my mouth water. It was the smell of rice vinegar and wasabi. It was a sake bottle clinking against the edge of a clay drinking cup. The sharp edge of the sushi chef’s knife hissing across his cutting board. The rattle of the bead curtain that separated the kitchen from the diners. And when you ordered the abalone, I thought, That’s two.

While we waited for our food, you launched into a topic that had no antecedent. “Have you ever read The Fountainhead?” you said. “It’s my favorite book.” You watched me eagerly, waiting for me to agree that The Fountainhead was life-changing. Your eyes glowed in anticipation. I murmured something noncommittal, needing more. “Dominique is my ideal woman,” you explained.

It’s true I don’t remember much about the restaurant, but I remembered Dominique, how she liked to be hit by the architect Roark. I rose from my seat, placing my unused napkin on the plate and scooping my purse from under the table. I strode past the confused server carrying flesh-colored slices of abalone on a dark wood platter, and I exited the restaurant. And, yes, the dimming sky was indigo and azure, but also Egyptian blue, and I lowered the strap of my purse over my head so it lay safely across my body like a child cradled on my chest.

Top 10 celebrity deaths that rocked my world, in no particular order

1. Robin Williams – He will always be my Mork, but nothing was more creatively inspiring than watching this genius ad-lib on talk shows or in live performances. No one could keep up. No one even tried. Like the blazing star he was, we could see him using up his own fuel, and still we were surprised at the cost.

2. Freddy Mercury – That soaring voice. That bigger-than-life character. The teeth. The leather. The music. He was the champion, and then AIDs took him and all the astonishing music he still had in him.

3. Gilda Radner – All that vital humanity on Saturday nights. She taught little girls in the ‘70s that it was okay to be funny and silly and seen. Roseanne Roseannadanna. Baba WaWa. Emily Litella, we miss you.

4. Jim Henson – His death dropped on the world like a meteorite from the sky. No Kermit has ever spoken the same again. Miss his gentle heart.

5. Princess Di – I was up in the middle of the night watching TV when the news broke. It was hard to comprehend. Her death felt personal simply because the media had made her a common guest in my house.

6. Michael Jackson – Was there anything about MJ, even his death, that didn’t make us feel all kinds of complicated ways at the same time? The world seemed to stop in shock that day.

7. Farrah Fawcett – The hair flip. The head tilt. The mega-kilowatt smile that celebrities are still chasing today. We didn’t think she could die she was so present on our bedroom walls.

8. Koko the gorilla – The gentle simian beloved by the media. We watched her sign with Mr. Rogers and tickle Robin Williams, and our hearts grew large with understanding. Her death was a blow I felt in my solar plexus.

9. Steve Irwin – The working man’s David Attenborough. No one will ever talk to us with the same explosive mania about animals again.

10. Prince –The reason purple was cool in high school. We marveled at the platform shoes and dirty, dirty lyrics. It hurts to think of all the music we’ll never get to hear.

Elizabeth Rosen is a native New Orleanian, and a transplant to small-town Pennsylvania. She misses Gulf oysters and etouffee, but has become appreciative of snow and colorful scarves. Color-wise, she’s an autumn. Music-wise, she’s an MTV-baby. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as North American Review, Atticus Review, Pithead Chapel, Ascent, Macqueen’s Quinterly, Defenestration, and others. Learn how to follow her at www.thewritelifeliz.com.