My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [62]
I begin my ascent, planning to find a tea shop. But then I remember what happened last year when I went exploring on an empty stomach, and I decide to stop first to take in some sustenance. I smell something amazing and do a Toucan Sam, only my nose leads me to a bakery and not the Froot Loop jungle.123
I enter the front door, which is flanked by display windows almost completely obscured by posters covered in Chinese writing. They effectively block the light, so the store is considerably darker than the street. It takes me a minute to see what the store looks like and when I do . . . wow.
Okay, here’s the thing—if feng shui is Chinese, then what happened here? This place looks like a train full of flour sacks collided with a truck transporting office supplies, leaving staplers and pencils and drifts of white powder scattered for miles. There are mountains of boxes stacked haphazardly, and the walls are covered in flyers and old calendars, and there is a bunch of ratty bamboo shoots surrounded by a million other pieces of detritus. I’m instantly claustrophobic and I kind of want to run.
Beneath a stratum of debris, the glass counter boasts many exotic offerings. I don’t recognize anything, even though I’m a huge fan of Chinese food. Shouldn’t something be moderately familiar? Like, where are the egg rolls? Or fortune cookies? Then it dawns on me this is real-deal authentic fare, and not the watered-down, Americanized, McAsian stuff I’m used to.124 This food is scary and weird and I would like a corn dog now, please.
I’m about to leave when it occurs to me I may be overreacting. I scold myself for my vaguely xenophobic reaction to this place. Just because it’s different from what I’m used to doesn’t mean it’s bad. I mean, the Chinese culture thrived for thousands of years without benefit of a Whole Foods Market. The point of this exercise is to push myself out of my pretty, perfect, plastic bubble, and if I scurry away every time something’s different, I’m never going to grow.
Basically, I need to dive in.
I resolve to stay and order and not be the coward who, despite being in an amazing food city, opts for a room service cheeseburger. Again.
But what do I get? I gawp at all the choices for a full minute before I even realize there’s a clerk waiting for my order.
“Hi,” I say to the wizened old woman behind the counter. Her face has been deeply etched by the years, and her mouth has a permanent downward cast that bleeds all the way into her determined jawline. She’s clad in layers and layers of mismatched shirts and a Paddington Bear- type jacket, and her outfit’s topped with a dirty apron. She has sparse little tufts of downy white hair, which are a striking contrast with her shiny black button eyes. She reminds me of one those dried apple-head dolls. I want to whisk her away from this chaos and put her in my pocket because I don’t want one of the massive walls of junk to topple over and crush her.
“How are you?” I inquire. I flash my best Midwestern grin. “Listen, I’ve never been to a Chinese bakery before, so I don’t really know what to get. I’m not sure what I smell right now, but, really . . . ? It’s kind of divine. Can you suggest something that might—”
“WHATCHU WANT?” she shouts.
Huh.
That’s a really enormous voice for such an ancient little body.
“Oh! Gosh, I’m sorry. I guess I haven’t decided. But I do need some protein. Real quick? Last year, when I was in town, I filled up on chocolate, and then I stopped in a winery’s storefront and I accidentally got drunk on free samples and joined, like, four wine clubs, and now I have all these unopened cases in my basement. Can you maybe—”
“YOU NO WASTE TIME.” She waves a crooked, clawed finger in my direction.
Wow, that outburst generated more than a little spittle, and it kind of rattles me. I inadvertently take a step back and begin to stammer. “But I . . . just want—”
“YOU ORDER NOW OR GET OUT.”
The woman who’s screaming is no less than a thousand years old and