"Pie # 2 turned out even better than Pie # 1 aka (the best in the universe). Girlfriends loved it so much they wanted the recipe. I sent them the link to the series of photos I took of you making the pie. Frozen mixed berries - $2.99 at TJ's is better than fresh blue berries. Jiffy is not as good as TJ brand. Dark Brown sugar is the shit. Freshly whipped cream with a little bit of mint on top makes it summer like.
Oh God I'm turning into Martha Stewart! (I hate you!) I want to be the sexy kitten in high heels and not the plump smily Barefoot Contessa! Stop cooking delicious food!!
How did your stress analysis test go? What if it does not sustain the stress test? I have a visual of some flying object flying at 100 miles an hour during your stress test, through the window it goes, shattering the glass and hitting a poor teen on skateboard across the street.
That would be kind of fun."
I wrote to C. C was having a fun work day in his lab. I was out having fun with girlfriends. C made the original pie, not once but twice. C took me on this excursion, through Mission to Diamond Height onto Noe Valley, then through Twin Peaks, into Inner Sunset, and finally Outer Sunset. A neighborhood that I had not frequented since when I was in my early twenties. I spent my teen and early twenties in Outer Sunset. It had not changed much, like its own world. I knew Taraval street the most, but that was because I sort of lived there. Since then I moved to the Peninsula, had bought my first townhouse when I was barely 24. I dated many men in many parts of the city, and never once I returned to Outer Sunset, until recently.
It felt like a foreign country, and Ocean Beach felt like no other beach. C insisted on going to Ocean Beach again, and said "this time we should try to stay for more than 30 seconds." C held me tight as we walked onto the sandy beach. I thought he was afraid of me being blown away by the wind. It was already dark, at 9:30 PM PDT the ocean felt mysterious. I had this flash of old memory coming back to me, beach bonfire, many years ago, with bunch of people I was no longer in touch with.
C had lived in the city since the mid 90s. I started coming to the city since 1990. Yet some parts of the city had not changed. I saw a picture of C when he was in his early 30s, he looked goofy in his long hair. I would not have liked him at all. Some boys matured into men, and they did not appear to be at their prime until much later on. C was one of those boys.
In our own ways our interaction became the way we memorialized our youth spent in San Francisco; in that process we acknowledged our mortality and the inevitability of time passing and us aging.
Instead of going out and drinking at a bar, we went out for dinner and then took a walk on the beach. Instead of catching a movie in the theatre we often stayed inside and discussed world affairs and current events. We talked about books and culture, travels and work projects. Then we retreated to the bedroom and had sex for an hour or two until both of us were exhausted. It's not exactly what you'd call a passion filled romance. But when we were older we were less consumed by the constant go go go mentality, and we were even less inclined to show the world our affection for each other was real. It became a routine. A simple, unbreakable routine that was filled with tenderness and known expectations.
Or perhaps that was how this particular dynamics worked in this particular relationship.
C knew he was a good looking man. He listened well. He had two sisters. He knew how girls thought and worked. He was a left handed man who was more interested in talking about programming language, robots and mechanical things than watching sports or whatever it was for ordinary American men to do in their spare time. I was always attracted to such men. I liked men who lived in their heads and read a lot in their spare time. I liked men who were emotionally distant but adored me regardless of their inability to commit. I liked men who could keep up with me and respected me enough to know that I could not, and would not, stay faithfully loyal with one man at a time, because they could not do the same with only one woman, and expecting me to be so would be hypercritical and they were too emotionally advanced to feel that way.
Plus they enjoyed having sex with me. I smelled good. I took care of myself. I was disease free and was obsessive about my hygiene. I had been financially independent for over a decade. And I was generous to those men who I adored.
But there maybe something else.
C remembered how I came to this country. 15. Alone. Political Asylum. Turbulent childhood. Academically driven. Smartest girl in that country. He called me.
C liked me because I was smart. Low maintenance. And engaging. I was not into nagging him. I was OK with the arrangement.
C also liked me because in his mind I was pure and wholesome. I worked, had a family and I had him. There was not much else to discuss. I didn't have to disclose anything more than that.
Only one person in this world knew me and all my secrets, and it would be B. But B had chosen to vanish at the moment. So C would do.
C sang well. In the evening, after dinner and after we got back he played Frank. And he sang along. He sang in the morning as well. He had a nice voice. He was theatrical. In his early days he performed in a theatre in San Francisco.
The collective WE had been spending all of our recent time in every part of San Francisco except for the Outer Sunset area. As we drove pass Taraval street we saw a million new Chinese restaurants popped up. Taraval street was changing. From inner to outer Sunset. To our surprise.
We wanted to try every single one of these new restaurants. C would always order Kung Pao Chicken. I would always apologize in my native tongue to the waiter about us ordering a "whitie dish."
I had dated many men in my life. Only C wanted to have Chinese food with me. It was a bit unexpected, really. But I suspected that it was his way of getting to know me, through every Chinese restaurant we ate at and every Kung Pao Chicken he ordered.
I had entered a steady relationship, with C. Someone who was consistent, stable, emotionally unavailable, yet, who cared about me genuinely.
But I wondered if there was ever going to be any passion. I missed that the most. It was perhaps a nice break. A break that I needed before a real relationship would be allowed to happen.
Or, was C the one? Was this all there was?
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