The Ritual

Whenever my pal Geoff returns home from Utah, we go out for a meal and catch up. I suggested a new Korean restaurant a town north due to his fondness for the cuisine, and we noshed there in June, sitting at a corner table while two younger children colored and quietly played with toy dinosaurs nearby. We both savored the fresh food (black bean sauce that could’ve lured us into a cave), the hole-in-the-wall décor, and Korean cooking videos playing on the room’s two elevated screens. The outing spurred on Geoff to recommend a high-end Korean restaurant before Sue and I vacationed in Los Angeles a couple months later, a meal that I almost instantly dubbed the best one I’d eaten in my life.

After Sue died, many friends took me out for dinner and kindly allowed me to select the place where we dined. Several people paid to eat Korean fried chicken with me, each of them in agreement that it ranked among the finest iterations of crispy poultry they’d ingested, the meat seemingly de-boned then returned to its original shape as if it were delicately pieced back together, texturally flawless and eyes-rolling-back-into-your-skull delicious. I became hellbent on sampling the entire menu, my routine when a new culinary infatuation develops. Many Saturdays I popped in alone to grab kimchi during a phase of its implementation as a substitute for salad dressing at lunchtime, and because I needed a new place with no attachments to Sue.

During most of these stops, I briefly chatted with the gorgeous girl behind the counter, not learning her name or interested beyond getting a laugh and appreciating her impeccable smile. She consistently wore a restaurant-branded baseball cap with an apron over a gray sweatshirt, gray sweatpants, and white socks with black slides. Much like I long respected Sue for never wearing cleavage-bearing or revealing clothing, I assumed this girl did the same in part to ward off the inevitable perverts dining in.

On our way home from Brattleboro a week ago, my friend Connor and I decided to pick up an order of the fried chicken (and ate corn dogs while we waited). A curious topic one must indulge solely with a trusted friend arose in the car: Is it racist to not be attracted to a specific ethnicity? We arrived at the most logical conclusion — How can it be if the dislike only concerns aesthetics? — and I divulged how I’d long struggled to find many Asian women striking, but knowing he would be seeing the waitress soon enough I guaranteed to him that she was an indisputable exception. As soon as we left, he agreed.

The next morning, Sue’s friend Amy posited the type of hypothetical question I live for: “Makes me think about all the years that I wanted more — like nicer things, but now, I just want more experiences like travel and concerts. Curious, where do you stand on the wanting front? Keep it clean, Adam. ;)”

My list included many deep-rooted wants — seeing Sade live in concert, trips to Pittsburgh, Japan, and the Bay of Fundy, and finding something completely alien to me that I could fall madly in love with — as well as a sudden compulsion. “When the time is right, I want another companion. Maybe I’ll ask out the beautiful Korean woman at the restaurant just to pull off the wildest 180 from Sue to her.”

It was an eerily Sue-like revelation, a lightning bolt to the heart that I instantly knew was true and real in part due to my endless loneliness without her in the house we rented, and got my head prepared to make it a reality. “If you put it out into The Universe, it will happen,” I could hear Sue cheering me on. During a spring 2020 Covid-generated bout of navel-gazing, we’d contemplated the possibility of seeking a new significant other should either of us die and encouraged one another to do so if the grim scenario played itself out. I knew in my soul that I was ready to be challenged by another woman, a woman who could open my mind to a new culture, customs, and ways of viewing the world.

Emails were sent to many cohorts both to shield myself from the clichéd “But it’s so soon!” knee-jerk reactions — these idiotic projections of mine were met by uniformly hopeful confidantes supporting my basic need for happiness — and to psych myself up in advance of asking the waitress out. Never in my life have I been particularly skilled at summoning the courage to speak with strangers when romance is at stake, but backing out wasn’t an option if I had a dozen people eagerly awaiting the outcome. Feel it, believe it, manifest it, execute it, celebrate it. Upon recently compiling Sue’s books into a shrine to her ineffable spirit and wisdom in my basement, the self-help mantras she often repeated became mine in the buildup.

I contacted my old boss, a man deeply fond of Asian women, for his advice. “Be yourself, ask her what she does for fun, and be funny without being weird or offensive, bud. And remember that some pretty girl at a restaurant probably has this conversation with other people, so make yourself stand out, which you kind of do by being you anyway. Ask her what she does for fun in the area so you can naturally tell her the cool concerts you’ve seen, which impresses anyone, and makes her think you’d take her to one. Say that you work in the entertainment industry. Wow her with facts. And don’t go there every day afterward! Let it happen. It will if she wants it to. Good luck. I need a text afterward to know what happened.”

Later that night, I got high prior to watching twenty minutes of hair brushing videos in bed. I’ve long ingested jazz cabbage to successfully inhibit R.E.M. cycle memories since they used to overflow with night terrors: pulling my teeth out with pliers, pushing screwdrivers through my big toes, flunking out of college, and other happy fun stuff. However, this time I remembered a pleasant dream. The Korean girl was at my house wearing a yellow dress. I asked her if she’d like to perform “the ritual” and she nodded. I handed her a towel, and we walked downstairs to the basement. She sat in my chair, removed her baseball hat (the one she’s always wearing at the restaurant), and her long, beautiful black hair fell down her back. I put Music for 18 Musicians on the turntable and sensually brushed her hair in silence for the length of the album until at the end she came all over herself (and my thoughtfully gifted towel). Then I woke up.

Now it seemed like come-stained fate. My mother’s old pal Gregorio (aka Greg), a positive presence in her life predating my birth, got in touch hours after my non-nocturnal emission. As a gay Filipino man who has traveled the world, I sought his input about the nameless knockout at the restaurant.

“She’ll go out with you, Adma! You’re handsome and white!”

“She could be married.”

“I bet she’s a family friend of the restaurant owners.”

“She did tell me she was a family friend when I inquired.”

“See! Asians know Asians! She ain’t married.”

Greg calls me Adma because it’s what I called myself when I was about two years old, and it has long remained my most endearing nickname. When I disclosed how Connor insisted that I confirm the waitress’s age, Greg urged me to do the same. Nobody else had thought to approach the age of consent topic with a man who, as a teenager, longed for bygone lookers like Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde.

One final sign surfaced on Friday morning. I message a Filipina co-worker each day with an emoji sequence — sunshine, coffee cup, croissant, and banana — along with a YouTube link to my selection for “Song of the Day.” She always returns the favor, and on this day she sent a ballad titled “Only” by Korean pop singer Lee Hi. Unfamiliar with the chanteuse, I instantly loved the woman’s voice and song, later listening to the album from which it generated, titled 4 Only, the numeral Sue was obsessed with her entire life. I added a boar bristle hairbrush to my Amazon cart to purchase once I wooed the waitress.

Having retired my Taylor Swift 1989 tour tee shirt when its luck ran out, I donned my Eras tee underneath a collared shirt to initiate a new run of good fortune, leaving one button undone so the waitress could see Ms. Swift’s curly blonde hair. A vibrant sky akin to the specter of Sue’s shocking pink locks hugged the treetops as I drove to the restaurant. The monkey-themed pouch containing her talismans was zipped inside my right jacket pocket, Sue’s essence a necessity when asking the woman out.

Deep in an anxious vortex within my own psyche, I sat diagonally opposite a man with a ginger-colored chin beard who had two full glasses of red wine on the table while dining alone. “He’s waiting for the waitress to finish her shift and sit with him,” I told myself then wrote in my notebook to rip apart how illogical my assumption was. The waitress brought my water, and I asked her name.

“It’s (H)anna(h),” she said.

“Anna?”

“Han-nah.”

“Hi, Hannah. I’m Adam.”

“Nice to formally meet you.”

“You, too. May I please have a fork?”

She smiled — surely realizing what an asshole I was for my inability to use chopsticks — and walked away. The Amish man paid and asked if Hannah could toss out the wine. Score! Wanting to woo her without any eavesdroppers, a middle-aged white couple immediately entered, ordered food to go, and sat two feet away from me stalling my plan. In no surprise, I had to use the bathroom, which requires leaving the restaurant to unlock the door in back.

“Hannah, you’ve forgotten my fork,” I said in jest. “How could you do this to me?”

“Oh, gosh. I’m so sorry!”

“I’m kidding. Don’t worry about it. May I please have the bathroom key?”

“It should be unlocked.”

It was not. I returned and the cook came outside to unlock it for me while I established that her name was indeed Hannah after pronouncing it with semi-silent h’s since the reveal. Treating my food like a man recovering from jaw surgery, I ate the most methodically I have in my life, an imposing feat when you can feel adrenaline engorging all your blood vessels, ordering a cup of green tea moments before the couple received their corn dogs and departed. Hannah returned to confirm I was done eating.

“Is this your playlist?” I asked about the Korean pop and electronica shuffling on the speakers.

“No,” she said as she shook her head, fucking with my desire to discuss concerts.

“Well, Hannah, what do you do for fun in the greater Agawam area?”

“I’m actually from Connecticut.”

“Me, too. Where in Connecticut?”

“I live in Granby.”

“That’s a bit of a ride, huh? How often are you here?”

“On Monday afternoon, Wednesday, Friday, and all day Saturday.”

“Wow, you’re here a lot. What do you do when you’re back in Granby?”

“I study a lot.”

“Oh, so you’re in college?”

“I’m a junior…in high school.”

I had a split second to not reveal where my original line of inquiry was traveling, taking a moment or two of stunned silence to reconfigure my perspective, and said how I’d finish my tea since I knew the restaurant was closing.

“Take your time,” she told me, surely aware of why I’d asked but maintaining her mature streak and bluffing. “I get paid overtime for staying late, so I don’t care.”

“Good for you. Thank you, Hannah.”

Then part of my shirtsleeve fell in the tea as she cleared my plates. I sent a few text messages declaring how my betrothed wasn’t to be. Even Connor couldn’t believe she was the age of his older son, a kid who I suggested should visit the restaurant and date her on my behalf.

“You’re out of kimchi?” I asked while paying, pretending things were normal to ensure more return trips.

“Yeah,” Hannah said while exhaling, disappointed for me. “End of the week. We’ve gotta make more.”

“Bummer. Well, I’m sure I’ll see you again soon enough.”

“Okay,” she said with a smile. “Thanks for coming in. Have a nice night.”

“You, too.”

I may have entered the restaurant with no expectations but attempting to follow up a woman thirteen years my senior with a girl twenty-four years my junior truly shocked me. At least I’d gone for it, failed on a level so absurd it had to be laughed off, and could now begin the search for a fetching Korean woman born in the nineties. On the drive back to Connecticut two things came to mind: How this would be the first phase in my quest to love another woman more than anything in this world, and how in the world would I be able to brush my scalp alone when I got home.