The Way To A Man's Heart...

You'd think a girl like Lyn doesn't know any better the difference between ginger and lengkuas but she surprised Aunt Su and I with ikan masak halia, tomyam, sambal belacan and a nice pudding for dessert. Aunt Su had nothing but nice words to say about Lyn, about how well Lyn can cook and what a wonderful housewife she'd make for some lucky man if only that lucky man would be me. I said no doubt about it that I would be that lucky man but Lyn would be the unlucky woman married to a man without a job. I hushed Aunt Su to speak softly about this or better still not talk about it at all because Lyn could very well guess what we were whispering about between us when she is in the kitchen looking for a napkin opening one cabinet after another until she finally found a stack of napkins that I had arranged in a neat order in the cabinet above the rice-cooker.

Lyn took her seat next to Aunt Su. Aunt Su gives me the kind of look that she wants me to say something. She's got her head slightly tilted towards Lyn as if I need to say something right now and so I say, you cook very well, Lyn. Aunt Su gives me another look as if I have just said the wrong thing, and so I say again, the soup is very nice, Lyn. Aunt Su gives me the frown, her eyebrows raised in a pair of these '/\ /\' that I fumble with the ladle for the soup and when this happens there's nothing much a man can say except, sorry. This obviously doesn't please Aunt Su all that much that she says something to Lyn that I could barely hear but it goes something like this, he likes you, or something to that effect, or something that means the same thing. Something along these lines.

After this it's kind of difficult for me and Lyn to behave and enjoy the rest of the evening as two people with nothing in common now that both of us are aware about something that exist in between us that we can't quite define and that it took a person like Aunt Su to put it in words for us. Not that it's true, but maybe it's close enough, or maybe we can work on it to make it true.

Why are you so afraid of getting married? Aunt Su asked me this when I switched off the light in her bedroom to say good-night-sleep-well-have-a-nice-dream. In the dark when I couldn't see Aunt Su I thought I saw Aunt in that bed looking at me standing by the door with the light against me.

Don't worry about it, Aunt. I know it's too late to even think of marrying someone. It's just too late.