The Answer

Life is good. A man should never have anything to complain about when he achieves for himself; a decent mechanical technician job, good money, loyal dog, and a hell of a beautiful (and also loyal) girlfriend who happens to be from a different Blackfoot nation. And the latest edition to add to our happiness; a new house on the margins of the city suburbs before the commencement of the new-fangled neighborhood outskirts—where every house looks impeccably the same—which seem to stretch on for endless miles through the flat, prairie terrain of nothingness. Kat, my loyal lady of four and a half years, and I cherry-picked the house together after weeks of persistent searching.

A big yard was a must, for we plan to acquire a companion for our beloved dog, Kasper. And kids . . . well let’s just say that that is in the long run for something to talk about. But not just yet.

For an achievement well done, tonight is celebration night. We settled for the classiest Mexican restaurant in the city: Julio’s Barrio. Even though in my mind, every Mexican restaurant is classy in its own distinctive way. I’m a glass half full kind of guy. And I love Mexican cuisine. Anything spicy for that matter.

But tonight we’re not just celebrating. We’re also pre-celebrating. You see, Kat (short for Katherine) is fable story beautiful beyond all means—and not just in my own opinion. I’m talking out of my league beautiful. Okay, so I don’t have the best self-esteem, but Kat is helping out with that these days. She is an easy rival for the Indigenous model, Ashley Callingbull, whom we the people are so very proud of. Now, back to what I was saying: we are pre-celebrating. Kat has an audition coming up for a Hollywood movie that’s to be filmed right here in our city’s own Kananaskis backyard. Scores of Indigenous people are needed for the latest folklore versus legends movie. Extras and even main characters. With Kat’s movie star good looks and exceptional acting skills, she is sure to get the part.

“So, do you think I will get it?” Kat asks me with excitement, her beautiful smile and graceful face making me tingle on the inside like I was meeting her all over again for the first time.

I am slurping back on my Bulldog. Brain freeze. “Yeah,” I say with wincing eyes, “of course you will. I mean look at you, you’re literally the modern day representation of Pocahontas.”

She trains a lopsided glare at me, her keen smile nonetheless staying put. “Whoa, bud. Pocahontas was, like, twelve—fourteen years old, tops. I’m twenty-five years young. But still, you’re too sweet for trying, babe.”

“Oh wow, really? That is way too young,” I say, my face twisting like I bit into the fresh slice of lime clamped to the salted rim of my fishbowl chalice. “So you’re saying that John Schmidt was a skinner?”

Kat shifts the angle of her face, tosses me the cockeye and snickers boldly. “Firstly, I think you meant to say; Smith. And secondly, what the eff is a skinner?”

I try to let my sour face unwind to normalcy, munching on a few salty tortilla chips to level out my taste buds. “Skinner’s are, like,”—I hunch over and whisper just loud enough so that it’s inaudible to the family sized booth’s neighbouring us on each side—“they’re sex offenders and whatnot and such. It’s a prison slang my jailbird cousin explained to me.”

“Ewww,” she blurts out, triggering a few of the happy patrons sitting in the adjacent booths to swing their curious regards our way. “That’s such an ugly word. Please do not say it anymore. Ever again.”

“What, would you rather me use the word; rapist, or pervert?” I say loud-mouthed and bluntly. “Either way which word I use, they’re all just as ugly.”

“Shhhhh,” she hisses at me with a nervous giggle, her tensed up eyeballs darting around at the surrounding tables of onlookers. She looks ever more alluring the way her scouring eyes seem to glow with an added essence of enticement. “You just made everyone look at us.”

Being the center of attention was never my thing, but at the same time, it doesn’t bother me either. The upturned bottle of Corona stabbing into the Bulldog slush catches my eye. I wrap my fingers around it, turn it back over and raise it to the air, “Cheers,” I say to the curious gawkers, and slam back a swig.

“Cheers,” echoes one of the next table’s patrons, himself picking up a shot of tequila and shooting it back, while his party of five friends cheer him on.

“God, I love this place,” I say to Kat, my arms swinging through the aromatic air, humming of taco’s and spices, like a symphonic conductor.

“As much as you love me?” she asks, lowering her voice to a sugary falsetto.

“Are you asking me to choose between my favorite bar and restaurant in one—that’s two-in-one—and my girlfriend?”

“Uh-huh,” she says friskily, entwining a plastic straw erotically around her tongue.

“Well here’s the thing. . . ” I bow my head in shame and fall silent to anticipate her reaction. The straw drops from her mouth and she gazes at me with cold-hearted eyes. Beautiful eyes.

“You’re such an ass, you know that?” she snaps.

“I was just kidding. You know how much I love you. Don’t I say it enough, like, everyday?” I take another slurp from my Bulldog.

“Okay then,” she says, slamming back her shot of tequila that’s been sitting on the table for at least ten minutes. The agave stoutness doesn’t even phase her as she says: “I dunno, I just wanna hear you say it again. Now, if you will. How much do you love me?”

“Thanks for waiting for me, by the way.” I shoot back my deserted shot glass of moon glimmering tequila, wince, re-establish myself and stare affectionately into her coffee bean colored eyes. “I love you to the . . . Mexican border and back.”

She rolls her eyes and sprouts her body to a standing position. “I’m gonna go.”

“W-w-wait.” I lightly grasp her by the wrist. “I was just joking. I meant to say—”

“—say whatever you want, bud,” she snaps, her words icing my veins over. “But I’m still gonna go.” She yanks free of my grasp, takes a few steps and whirls around. “To the ladies room,” she says, poking her tongue stud out at me. “You’re not the only one with crude jokes around here, bud.” Another whirl with her hair thrashing the air like leather whips, and then the strut as she waddles away from me.

Bud. A designating word only ever used by Kat when she’s mad at me or wants to get a solid point across. Point taken.

I watch her wiggle her bubbly backside for a mesmerizing moment, then I slither into the middle of the curved booth. Drink in hand, I raise my giant chalice to the air and say to absolutely no one in particular, “Cheers.” My fingers smell like her tempting perfume.

Life is good.

. . .

“Today’s the day, today’s the day,” Kat recites over and over again as she marches in and then out of the bedroom, our dog Kasper playing a game of stop-and-go as he tries to gallop at her side without tripping her.

I open my weary eyes, scan the digital alarm clock, and then glare at her drowsily. “Tryna sleep here, bud. You mind?”

“Fine,” she answers brusquely, her tone painted in her attitude that I find more racy than threatening. She summons the dog and both of their light, carpet thudding footsteps vanish out of the bedroom, leaving me in a state of lethargic peace.

“Thanks, babe. You’re the bee’s knees,” I mumble whisper and begin sealing my eyes shut.

BOOM.

A rude awakening by any means necessary as Kat wallops her slender body over mine, making me liberate a brassy, grumbling exhale. Kasper releases a barrage of ecstatic barks as he whirls around in figure eights at the foot of the bed.

“But I can’t leave you alone, I’m too excited. Come, be excited with me, pleeease,” she whispers ecstatically into my ear. Receiving no reply from me, she mows her face downward until her lips merge with mine. I taste strawberry flavored Crystal Light. Her favorite.

My eyes cast open and I am reminded why I can never stay angry at this woman. Even if she won’t let me sleep in on a Saturday morning. Not a drop of makeup. Flawless. Her skin is a serene lake of caramel.

She leans back and stares at me with her soul stealing, almond shaped eyes, slicing through my inner essence like Cupid’s last spear tip. “I love you,” she says in her sweetest tone. Sweeter than the tangy fruit taste flaunting on her reddened lips.

“I love you, also.” I rise up to a sitting position. “Now that I’m up, what’s for breakfast?” I ask, my mind now wide-awake.

“Anything you want, babe.”

“Anything?” I echo.

“Yes.” She pushes herself off me and does a shuffle across the floor until she’s out of the bedroom. A moment of quiet before she pops only her muddled bedhead back inside the room. “Yup, anything you want. As soon as you get up and cook it.”

. . .

McDonald’s was the answer to satiating my hunger, being as Kat was too excited to cook—or eat. And I was too lazy. So I took it upon myself to gladly finish her Mcmuffin breakfast sandwich. Her insistence. And besides, McDonald’s never tastes as good when it’s reheated.

“I swear it would have come right back up if I even tried to force it down,” Kat says, her concerned stare fixed at the vast body of water we are cruising over as she takes baby sips from her coffee. The city’s daytime skyline rests directly in the background, mirroring off the water’s placid surface.

“You’re that nervous, huh?” I ask.

“Ugh, you wouldn’t even know where to begin on how I feel right now?” Kat had been a star in some local TV commercials and a few local rap artists’ low budget videos. Although she mostly regrets doing the music videos because of the negative comments she had received not long after they were posted to YouTube. Ninety-nine percent of the hateful comments derived straight from our own people. Indigenous women mostly. Haters is all I had to say. A bunch of troublemaking, good for nothing women that have nothing better to do than party their lives away and hate on other Indigenous women whom are actually doing something productive with their own lives.

“I bet I know where to start thinking. Is it anything like the time I drove you down to that audition—whatchu call it? You know, the one where you were like—” I straighten one arm out, stoop low and pretend like I’m turning the steering wheel on a lowrider.

“Oh, the SUV commercial?” she finishes for me.

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“I didn’t even have any dialogue in that one though. I think they just wanted me in it for my ass and my smile. That’s it.”

I muse over my pictographic thoughts, beaming like I’m high on some sort of heavy painkiller. “Yeeah, I love that one. And the best part was when I showed the guys at work and was like, ‘yo, that’s my lady’.”

Kat squints a glare at me. “That’s the best part? And you guys do that kind of stuff at work?”

“Do what kind of stuff at work?”

“Show each other videos of your girlfriends?”

“More than that,” I say, pointing my mischievous, smiling face toward her. “You remember, Dean, from the company Christmas party?”

She squints her eyes narrower as she taps her chin in contemplation, her gaze moving to the felt covered ceiling. “The tall redheaded guy?”

“Yee, that’s the dude.”

“I kind of do, and I kind of don’t. Why, what are you getting at?”

“Well him, he’s married to a stripper . . .”

“And your point?” she asks, throwing her attention back out her window as a bearded man on a Harley Davidson motorcycle thunders by.

“I showed him a video of the work you do, and he showed us a video of the work she does. Get it?”

My girlfriend spears me with another narrow eyed regard for a few silent seconds before finally saying, “Oh? So he showed you a video of her stripping?” she barks, half angry and half amused.

“Yes. But it wasn’t a private video, it was like—let’s just call it—a résumé. You know, for the owners and higher ups of a gentleman’s club to observe. So they can make their final choices and whatnot. And there was no bare breasts or sheer nudity, in case you were wondering.”

“Okay let me get this straight. Dean showed you—”

“—Us.”

“—a video that is meant for strip club owners and whatnot, huh?”

“Gentleman’s club,” I correct her. “And yes, that is precisely it.”

She giggles cheekily. “Wow, did this conversation ever take a wide left turn.”

I nod and am about to make an additional statement when Kasper hops to all fours from his custom made bedding in the backseats, and begins barking like a mad hyena at a nearby car while a miniature Chihuahua does the same thing, only twisting in small circles on its unconcerned owners lap.

“Stupid Taco Bell dog. Making my dog all restless,” I say coldly. “Who even buys those things? They’re like oversized rats that bark. So friggin’ ugly.”

“I don’t know,” Kat says sweetly, turning to face the yapping dog as it tries to jump on the dashboard. “I think they’re kind of cute—in a cute rat sort of way.”

“Grrross,” I retort, my face twisting in disgust.

She leans over the center console, grabs my thigh, and squeezes it gently. “Don’t be so mean. You like beavers don’t you?”

“Hell yeah. They’re Canada’s animal. I mean they’re cute and they also build badass—”

“They’re the same thing as rats, in case you didn’t know,” she cuts in.

“Nooo,” I groan. “Beavers are cute and fresh, while rats are ugly and filth ridden.”

Kat rolls her window down a little so that Kasper is able to stab his black snout to the wind and inhale the airstream that flaps his loose mouth pelt like batwings. “They’re all rodents. Rats and beavers and even your old pet hamster, what was her name—”

“You gotta be shittin’ me. Delilah was a rat?”

“A rodent,” she rectifies nonchalantly, realizing that she had won an argument—more or less—without either of us having to raise our voices.

“Why is it that you dropped out of university again? I mean you’re so smart. It’s as if you teach me new things, like, almost every day. Like tobacco and tomatoes. If it wasn’t for you, than I would have carried on thinking that Europeans invented the stuff. But it was us and our now Spanish speaking kinsfolk to the south.”

She turns her full attention to me, swivelling her body in the leather bucket seat. Had I an old-school truck, she would have slid right over on the bench seat and rested her potpourri smelling head against my shoulder. “You’re so sweet, you know that. Always reminding me of how smart I am.”

“The truth speaks for itself, baby.”

“All this talk has made me forget how nervous I am supposed to be. You know what? I think I can eat now.”

I feel like I can go for thirds, myself. “Yeah? Alright. Let’s do it.”

. . .

The long stretch of highway with its view of the local Stoney-Nakoda reserve’s housing—looking like they were just dropped randomly from the sky—dotted along the sprawling sidelines of foothills is always a welcomed sight. The foothills and the commencement of the sprouting Rocky Mountains stabbing into the ethereal sky of cloudless azure is a paramount greeting for us and any visitors. The small, resort town of Banff lies just beyond, in the center of the Kananaskis region, where wildlife roams freely amongst the swathe of jagged Rocky Mountains, ice cold rivers and glacier lakes.

“Oh god, I’m shaking, babe,” Kat says, darting her silky hand outward, her quivering fingers reminding me of Tom Hanks from the movie Saving Private Ryan.

I take my eyes off the winding road for a split second, eyeing her wobbly hand. “Wow. That is quite the shake.” I liberate one of my hands from the steering wheel, jacket it over hers and embrace warmly. “You’ll be okay, baby girl. Trust me. What time is the audition again?”

“They said they want me there at four-thirty sharp, and it’s in the main symposium room of the Banff Conference Center.”

I eye the dash digital clock. “Alright, well it looks like we have more than a few hours to kill. I know, let’s go to the hot springs. That’ll be sure to chill you out. Not literally.”

She twists her neck and observes me head on. “But I didn’t bring any swim wear.”

I snicker boldly. “What, you serious? You know we are staying the night, right?” Oops. I just spilled the beans on my own surprise.

Kat’s dismayed face is immediately swapped for pleasure, her abrupt smile sending butterflies fluttering through my stomach. I always feel a tinge of nervousness when it’s just her eyes on me. “What? Are you serious right now?” She slams her other hand over mine and makes a sandwich, squeezing tightly.

“Damn. It was supposed to be a congratulatory surprise for when you got the part. But since I’ve already gone and spilled the beans. Why don’t we go and check into our hotel, I’ll take the Mutster for a quick walk while you get ready, and then we can go to the hot springs for an hour or two. Sound good?”

“Oh my gosh, babe, you’re the best.” She leans all the way over the middle console and plants a warm smooch to my cheek. “Just for that. You know what you’re getting tonight,” she says erotically with a wink and twist of her protruding tongue.

I smile sedately and say, “Awesome. Well we can do that, but we just gotta make sure as not to wake up the young one.” I point to the backseats with a tilt of my head. Kasper is out cold, the hum of the road vibration like his very own lullaby.

. . .

Kat puckers her lips and exhales deeply. She closes her eyes and looks like she is lost in a deep thought of effective meditation. One of her hands is resting with a light grip on my forearm, something she always does, once saying that it helps to calm her down feeling me within her grasp. A wave of light murmurs is the only sound broadcasting through the wide-open marbled hall decorated in framed nature portraits that we stand in. She at last opens her eyes and says, “Okay, babe here I go. Wish me luck.”

“You don’t need it,” I say, my half-glass-full rationality coming into play. I had always been the type of guy that didn’t believe in wishing people good fortune. Just as much as I don’t believe that prayers will actually help matters out.

She pecks me on the lips and turns to march into the glass enshrouded, studio room with a small panel of three sitting behind an elongated rectangular desk. I am reminded of America’s Got Talent, by the way the panelists sit before a small step-up stage, one of them sipping from a red unmarked cup.

“Wait.” I snatch her free hand and yank her in, landing a wet kiss to her dry lips. The embrace lasts a few seconds, my neck sensing her own neck muscles working against mine like it was wrestling match. Since the very beginning of our relationship, neither of us had ever been hesitant to our display of public affection. I draw my head back and wait for her to open her eyes slowly, as she always does after I kiss her sensually.

“Wow. Thank you, babes,” she says, staggering drunkenly back a few steps before turning on the heels of her feet.

“That’s the only luck you’re gonna need,” I state and watch her slip nervously past the heavy glass door. My own sense of anxiety takes effect as I stand and watch for a few moments whilst she faces the panel, her lips moving inaudibly, and her facial expressions transforming throughout the many facades of acting.

Finally, I must sit. I take a seat beside the next set of actors waiting in line, some looking as though they were about to get sick at any given moment.

“Good luck in there, babe,” I whisper almost soundlessly and rest my chin into my palm, my stomach churning into knots.

. . .

My beloved girlfriend is infuriated, and I can’t help but feel offended by the fact that she was unanimously denied by all three of the audition judges.

I sat next to Kat, holding her hand tightly as the kingpin of the acting judges stepped out from the glass room after tense minutes of discussion, their words oblivious to our ears. “I’m so sorry,” she commenced, her own expression just as wounded as my Kat’s, “we feel that you are a very prominent actor by all means. But it is just that we are currently seeking actors that portray the more traditional Native American look.” She then carried on stating how all three panel judges were blown away by Kat’s acting dialogue, but thought that she looked too Asian, rather than Native American. No matter how they tried to alleviate it, either way, the answer was no.

I observe for a moment of silence as Kat stares across the stylish bar top, her eyes probably judging the timeless, souvenir style knick-knacks that line the bar’s mirror wall like the panel that had judged her acting.

My hand sweeps over hers and I squeeze lightly. “You gonna be okay, baby girl?”

She doesn’t face me, saying boldly to the air in front of her face, “Ugh, I’m such a fuck up. My acting sucks. I should have just stayed in university like you said.” Kat was never the one to cuss or use shrewd language. I know she is in a bad mood.

“Come on now. Don’t say that. They liked your acting, remember? It was just that—”

She yanks her hand from under mine and snatches her glass of soda water with a lime wedged onto the rim and shoots it back, finishing it up before heatedly slamming the tempered glass goblet back on the bar top. “Why do I have to look like such a stupid Asian?” she snaps shamelessly.

My eyes flare as I notice a group of touristy looking Asian people sitting at a round table a mere few feet behind us, all five of them relinquishing their drinks to stare curiously our way. An apology is about to escape my mouth when the well-dressed usher approaches the bar and interrupts, his masculine fragrance swathed in way too much cologne.

“Mister and Misses Delaney?” he politely asks, quieting to await for an affirmation.

I swivel around in the rotating barstool. “Yes, that’s me—us.” Kat finally eyes me, her expression swimming in a not-so-upset inquisitiveness.

“Your reservation is ready, sir. If you and your wife will just follow me, I will guide the both of you to your table.” The usher already starts ambling ahead of us even before Kat or I have a chance to vacate our barstools.

I take in Kat’s hand as she eyes me with the tiniest of smiles. “Misses Delaney, huh?” she whispers friskily.

“Um yeah, about that. I uhh—”

“No its okay,” she cuts in, smashing our intertwined hands to her soft hip. “I like the way it sounds; Katherine Delaney. Sounds very extravagant for a Native woman’s name, don’t you think?”

“I concur.” My smile instantly fades as we walk by the table with the Asian tourists, one of them gazing at Kat like she was an unwanted insect in their domain. As we stroll by, all I can do is clasp my hands together, and nod with a slight bow, my only way of expressing sorrow that may have also looked a little racist.

“Who are they?” Kat asks with interest.

I tilt my head to whisper into her ear, “Just some people.”

“Here you are, Mister and Misses Delaney. Your server will be with you shortly, but before I go, is there anything else I can provide to make your visit more enjoyable, perhaps?”

I scan the arrangement of the restaurant. The rustic design and cherry painted walls with the lighting on a lower level catches my eye. Sexy lighting, my grandfather used to call it. “No, I think we’re fine for now. Thank you.”

The usher nods courteously before marching casually back to his small podium perched just before the elegant restaurant’s coatroom.

“Well, I was hoping for this to be a happy dinner. But it looks like it just might not be,” I grumble, trying my dandiest to make the best out of a somewhat bleak situation.

Kat moves her chair back and gets out of it. She hunches over me and places her hands over my shoulders, working her fingertips through my tensed up tendons. Her warm, enticing breath is all I feel on the back of my neck and ears as she whispers suggestively, “I love it baby. I know you’re trying, and it’s absolutely working. I am starting to feel way better thanks to you. And as for after this, you’re still getting that treat I promised.” With that said, she strolls towards the washrooms, adding an extra shake to her already sexy way of walking in the lavish, form fitting summer dress I had requested her to wear.

Mind still stunned, I am not fully restored when a stranger adorned in an expensive suit plops down in Kat’s empty chair, his aftershave almost as overpowering as the usher’s. I glance up to see that he is one of the Asian tourists that Kat may have unintentionally insulted.

“Well I’ll be hot damned, if I was to ever see for myself such a beauty in my whole existence,” he says, his accent smeared in overseas elegance. English most likely.

“You know that’s my girlfriend you’re talking about,” I say with a tinge of austerity.

“Oh I know. I was quite sure of it too.” He stabs his hand toward me. “I am Dennis Wong-McAllister, agent of the performing arts. Talent seeker in other words.”

I unhurriedly take in his hand and shake warily. “Nice to meet you. I am Eddie Delaney.”

“I hate to be a bother. So let’s get right to the point, shall we? Have you ever been to Japan, Mister Delaney?”

“No.”

“Great. Look, over there the people have a fascination with mountains and anything to do with mountains, much so like the Germans. I have been sent here from my production company, hailing out of Hong Kong. The name, we’ll get into that later. We are currently in pre-production of a very action packed mountain adventure movie.” He stops to make sure I am apprehending his onslaught of information. “Excellent. Now as I was saying; Hong Kong and a secondary production company from Tokyo have decided that they want to film over here in Canada. It’s a price thing, and the Rocky Mountains here look close enough to the Japanese alps,” he says with grimacing eyes. “Now, why I am here is because you see, I have already observed many of the local Asian women and their talent try-outs. Beautiful, but terrible. Hardly a few of them looked at all like they could even hold their own body weight, let alone a climbing rucksack. I was ready to pack it up and call it quits—that is—until I laid eyes on your lovely girlfriend. And I couldn’t help but to overhear that she is an actor. Am I correct?”

I grin mischievously. “That’s is very true, and—”

“Excellent. If I may ask, where is she from? I am guessing, Philippines, or perhaps Southern China—maybe even somewhere amongst the South Pacific islands?”

“Well here’s the thing,” I say nervously, hoping I don’t blow Kat’s second chance at an acting shot before she even meets the man. “She’s uhh, well she’s—”

“What’s going on here?” interrupts Kat with wide eyes, giggling distrustfully as she takes a stand behind the acting agent’s chair—her chair.

I elevate out of my own seat and motion for her to sit down, waving my hand and saying, “This here is Dennis Wong-McAllister. He’s uhh—well he’ll introduce himself.” I flutter my eyebrows in a way to show that the stranger is not unwelcome. “I think I will go grab us some drinks while he explains everything to you that he just explained to me. Isn’t that right, Mister Dennis?”

Dennis seems caught by surprise, like a deer a mere few seconds before the monstrous truck reaches it. He adjusts his eyeglasses, tightens his shimmering tie and shoots out his hand. “Yes, that is correct. Hello, Misses Delaney.”

Kat takes in his hand. For a second time she doesn’t bother correcting a man about her actual last name.

Perfect.

I watch for a moment as Kat’s face brightens up, then be on my way. But first a pit stop to the men’s room.

The fancy bathroom smells like an array of men’s cologne. Most likely from the collection of half full bottles stationed on the sparkling, granite wash basin table. And no attendant. Wow, how fancy of a restaurant to trust its customers not to pocket any of the cologne’s—some looking to be worth well over $100, I think to myself. I quickly shake off the notion and refocus, spraying myself with some Swiss Army.

My chance was almost destroyed. Quite literally. But thankfully for my lucky run-in with Mr. Wong-McAllister and his first-rate news, my opportunity had arisen once again. I take in a deep breath, exhale and fish through my blazer jacket pocket.

I extract a little black box swathed in suede. Its contents; a ring worth at least $5000, but to me it’s much more than that because it was given to me by my mother, and before that, her own mother. Mother loves Kat almost as much as I. Mother gave me the green light to offer the ring to my beloved Kat in exchange for her hand in marriage.

A hell of a fine trade.

I stare into the spot free looking glass and recite the words I’m about to say. Another slow breath. In and then out.

It is time.

Welcoming scents of wine, pasta sauce, and other fine, zesty aromas greet me as I step out of the men’s room. The walk to our reserved seating seems longer than it should be, my eyes subliminally admiring the romantic arrangement with a large, illuminated fish tank established in the center. Kat and I are not the only couple. As a matter of fact the whole inner restaurant is filled with nothing but couples wining and dining, the only non-twosomes sitting nearer to the bar. Everyone is dressed to impress.

I reach the table and notice Kat is now sitting by herself, her face glowing like a neon painted illustration as she finger traces the lettering of the glossy paged menu. She sees me approaching and smiles, looking like she is about to spring from her chair. “No drinks?” she asks light-heartedly.

“Oops,” I say and stop in my tracks. “I, uhh, musta forgot. Hold up, I’ll be right—”

“No, no, babe. Sit with me. I got some really good news.”

I take a seat, my fidgeting hands snatching the cloth napkin and twisting nervously.

“You okay?” she asks with a sideways regard from her warm, narrow eyes, still smiling wide nonetheless.

“Yeah, no, I’m good. Real good actually.” I rake my head around curiously. “Where did Mister Wong-McAllister go?”

“About that. Look.” She pulls out his business card and flashes it to me. Chinese characters are stamped into the paper bordered in a lavish gold trim. “It’s his business card. He wants me to call him tomorrow. Said he’ll even come to the house, just to see me audition before he heads back to Hong Kong. Hong Kong! You believe that, babe?”

Her overly excited mood actually starts to calm me down. “I can believe it, yes,” I snicker.

“He thought I was Asian,” she states brazenly, her amused smile reforming. “But then I revealed that I was a hundred percent Blackfoot—”

“So he was okay with it?” I ask warily.

“Oh yeah, totally. He said that it happens more often than not, these days: Asian Girls playing Native American girls. So he thought it would be interesting to see it vice versa. You remember the movie, Wind River, right?” she asks excitedly.

“Yeah, of course. Awesome movie.”

“Well did you know that the actor, Kelsey Asbille—the murder victim, she is actually half Caucasian, half Chinese? No Native American blood in her whatsoever. Weird right?”

“Really?” I say, scratching my freshly shaved chin. “Coulda fooled me.”

“And Breaking Bad.”

“Breaking Bad? No way. Are you serious right now?”

“Yeah. You remember the Indian gas bar attendant that Jessie trades meth for gas? The actor’s name is Jolene Aiko Purdy.”

“What? No way. I totally thought she was a straight up Neechi woman.”

“Right? Dennis said she is actually Japanese and Caucasian. She’s on a few more shows. But yeah, anyways, I’ve pretty much already got the part. And the movie is all in English, so therefore I don’t have to learn too much Mandarin—but I still wanna start learning. So he just wants to see me audition for him for the heck of it.” She slams her hand over mine. “Now, it feels like I am blabbing on. I feel like you have something important to say?”

“Yes, I do actually. Too very, uhh, wicked important. You could say.”

“Well, I’ve told you my good news. Now tell me yours.”

One more inhale, and then a strident exhale as my eyes are drawn in by her mesmerizing stare of optimism. It helps. I keep my nervous gaze fixated on hers as I am up onto my feet, and then back down to one knee.

She gasps loudly and cups her hands over her mouth.

A gasp of delight.