Saigon Tea

SAIGON TEA / John Deming THERE WAS A RECORD PLAYER, a bartender, and a girl behind the bar. The girl was young, not more than sixteen, and wore the long white tunic and silk trousers of a student. She sat on a high stool behind the bar and worked the cash register and changed the records on the record player. The songs alternated between rock and roll, country, French ballads, and Vietnamese songs. There was no pattern and the girl did not appear to listen to the music or pick out the songs. She was flat-chested, wore thick glasses, and never smiled. "Charming," I said to Tom. "Ten to one she's the owner's daughter." "No, she's a poor relation of the owner's wife. The daughter's probably a student at the Sorbonne in Paris." "You think there's a chance she'll go home with me?" "Maybe. If you play your cards right." "Speaking of playing cards," Tom said. "How about the two in the booth?" It was still early, and we were the only customers. I looked down the row of dark empty booths that lined the wall opposite the bar. In the last booth two women were playing cards. One of the women wore a red sweater and the other one had on a white evening dress. The room was long and narrow and very dark, but even in the dark and far away, the one in the red sweater looked young and very pretty, and the one in the white evening dress looked old and very ugly. "I'll take the one in the red sweater," I said. "You must be psychic," Tom said. "How did you know I wanted the one in the white dress?" The street door opened and a heavily made-up woman in a black evening dress came in. She stopped to talk to the cashier and when she saw me watching she arched an eyebrow and smiled. I looked away. "Don't look now," I said to Tom. "Just turn around and smile. The girl of your dreams is talking to the cashier." Tom turned and looked at her and she smiled back at him and arched her eyebrow. Tom turned back to his drink, but he wasn't quick enough, and she moved down the bar and sat on the stool next to him. "You mind I sit here?" she asked Tom. The Missouri Review · 45 Tom stood up. "Why don't you move over and sit here," he said. "Between us." We sat at the bar with the heavily made-up woman between us, and drank our drinks, and looked at the room through the mirror behind the bar. The woman caught my eye in the mirror. "You look sad," she said. "No. I'm not sad." "I bother you and your friend?" she asked. "I will leave if you want." "No. You don't bother me." "He always looks like that," Tom said. "I think he is a serious man." "That's right," Tom said. "He's serious about you." "Now you make fun of me," she said, and laughed. Gold teeth showed in the back of her mouth when she laughed. "I think you sau. I think he is a serious man." Just then, a girl came through the door. She wore a blue ao dai cut in the northern style with a high collar, and as she came through the door I decided she was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. She came through the door talking very fast, gesturing with her arms, and laughing. The bartender and the other women in the bar called out to her and laughed at what she said. Even the cashier smiled. Where before the bar had seemed dark and sleepy, there was a change in the air, like an electric charge, and even the music seemed louder. The women who were playing cards and the woman with us at the bar, gathered around the new girl, and they were all talking very fast and laughing together. Then, customers started to come in from outside, and the bar began to fill up. More...