“It means, ‘Let me take the wheel.’ ”
Lark seemed not to have heard me. Returning her eyes to the road, she yelped and then crossed two lanes in a mad dash to get into a left turn lane while the light was still green.
“You’re lucky you’re bilingual, Tyler. Most Americans can only speak English. We’re useless when we travel abroad. I went to Paris in between my freshman and sophomore year in college, and it was pathetic. And even though I had two years of Spanish in high school, when I went to Mexico City a couple of years ago, I could barely ask for directions, and when I did, I couldn’t understand the answer I was given.”
The mere mention of her travels intrigued me enough to distract me from her driving. “You’ve been to France and Mexico?”
“Yep. I absolutely love to travel. Love it. I am going to Thailand next summer on an internship. I can’t wait. It’s going to be so cool. I am going to take a million pictures.”
We pulled into a conglomeration of buildings that included the sushi bar, a coffee shop, clothing stores, and other specialty shops.
Lark parked by the sushi bar, which appeared to be quite busy. When we stepped inside, she instructed me to “snag a table” while she ordered for us at the bar, adding that it would be her treat.
“That’s not necessary.”
“Hush. You can get the next one. Hurry up and grab that empty table before someone else takes it, would you?”
She shooed me in the direction of a table for two in the corner. I sat down and took in my surroundings. The place was filled with people of every age and ethnicity. Though I was at the back of the restaurant, I could see the chefs up front in their white hats and stern faces, working behind a bar with speed and precision. The energy in the room was accented by dozens of conversations, some in languages I had never heard before.
Lark returned to our table with a little bowl of pudgy peas in their pods, tiny plates of pink shavings and a greenish paste, some smaller dishes, and two sets of chopsticks.
She set the dishes down and I took a closer look, recognizing the beans as edamame but otherwise clueless as to the various foods she was expecting me to eat.
“Okay,” she said, as though I had asked her a question. “We’ll start with this as our appetizer, and then for your meal, I ordered you a California roll because you’re new at this and it’s pretty tame. You’ll like it. You can be more daring next time.”
“A roll?” I was picturing one of Mammi’s yeast rolls, slathered with butter and her plum preserves, yet I saw no one in the restaurant with anything resembling bread at all.
“They make sushi in rolls. Long and skinny. And then they cut them into pieces so that you can pick them up with your chopsticks.”
She withdrew wooden chopsticks from a paper sleeve and broke them apart. I took the second set and followed suit. Next, she pulled one of the doll-sized dishes toward her and used her chopstick to put some of the green paste in it. Then she took a container of soy sauce sitting on our table like a ketchup bottle back home and spilled some drops into the paste. She mixed the two together.
“The green stuff is wasabi and it’s super hot. You’re not going to want to lick it off your chopstick. The pink stuff is ginger. It cleanses your palate in between bites. Here. Watch me.”
Lark opened the edamame pod and emptied the beans onto a tiny plate. She picked up a single bean with her chopsticks, dipped it into the sauce she had made, and placed it in her mouth. “Mmm. Delish. Now you try.”
I tried to mimic her seemingly simple actions, but it took me several minutes to get the sticks to obey me. I was able to make the sauce with the wasabi and soy, but three beans skittered off to who knows where when I tried to pick them up. On the fourth try I managed to douse the bean into the sauce and then place it in my mouth. The taste was pleasant, even for all the work.
“Do you like it?” Lark asked
I nodded. “Pretty good.”
“Pretty good? C’mon. What do you have back on the farm that’s as good as this?”
I smiled, and when she smiled in return, I realized she was actually quite pretty under the strange hair and nose ring and tattoo. “Mammi’s succotash is tasty.”
“Succowhat?”
“Succotash. Lima beans and corn mixed together. With butter, salt, and pepper.”
Lark made a face. “Ick. I hate lima beans. They’re disgusting.”
I pointed a chopstick at her. “This said by a woman who enjoys raw fish.”
She smiled.
“Nothing my mammi makes is disgusting,” I added.
“Your mommy?”
“Mammi. She’s my grandmother. I call her Mammi the way you might call your grandmother Granny.”