"So...," Mr. Giang grins after we’ve walked for a minute or two in silence, “Don’t you want to know where we’re going?”

Oh.

I guess?

I hadn’t thought to ask. Just so long as I’m not getting in a stranger’s car, it doesn’t matter a whole lot to me where we’re going. 

I can always take an Uber home if I’m too tired to walk back…

Wait, did I not answer yet?

He’s still staring at me.

“I thought it was a surprise,” I shrug and he laughs like a loon.

Too loud…

“Well inasmuch as everything we don’t know is a surprise, I guess it is,” he beams. We’ll just stick with a surprise then. They make things more fun anyway, right?”

I shrug again.

“Few things surprise me, so I wouldn’t know.”

And the things that do usually aren’t fun surprises…

He’s looking at me again, a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth implying a smile. And again the quizzical raise of his eyebrows as he bites his lip, squinting curiously.

I don’t remember what that expression means.

A hot rod speeds past the sidewalk and leaves the road smelling of leaking gasoline.

I’m getting light-headed.

What are you supposed to do when you’re dizzy? Stare at the horizon?

Just try to focus on something relatively stable…

I glance down at Mr. Giang at the same time he looks up at me and he laughs again, though I can’t imagine why.

I just smile weakly, raising my eyebrows.

“Did you say something?”

“Oh, yeah,” he picks up his pace until I’m the one lagging behind, and he can walk backward a few steps, looking me in the face as he raises one finger, “I have a riddle for you. If you answer it right, you can ask me as many questions as you like, but if you can’t guess, I get to ask.”

“Alright,” I shrug. I’ve read quite a lot of riddles, so this might be something I can actually do. “What’s the riddle?”

“What has no face, but is always blushing and no mouth, yet it has teeth and bites?”

He grins with a self-satisfied air like he’s confident that he’ll stump me, or maybe proud of the riddle itself.

My mind runs over all the animals I can think of, but while I can think of some with mouths and no teeth, I can’t think of any scenarios where it’s the other way around.

If we’re talking less literally, combs have teeth but that wouldn’t tie into the blushing part…

After a minute or so of musing, I have to admit defeat and Mr. Giang smiles with exaggerated relief.

“Oh, I wasn’t expecting to win that one. It’s a rose. The thorns are their teeth, and the blush is their color.”

“Roses come in colors other than pink and red though…,” I start to argue, but that’s beside the point. 

What did Beth say the last time I went off on a long woman-splaining spiel with a guy…

“Alright, you won fair and square then, I guess. What was your question?”

“Questions,” he emphasizes the ‘s’ to make sure I remember it’s plural, “Believe me, I can be quite the interrogator.”

He says it with a grin like he’s teasing me.

I’m missing something again.

“But anyway, I’ll start off with an easy one. What’s your ideal type?”

That’s not easy. It’s just opening a can of worms.

Mr Giang is looking up at me with apparently casual curiosity, having let me catch up to him again so that we’re now walking side by side, but I know I'm as stiff as a poker.

This feels like a trick question, even when answering honestly is simple, or should be simple, for me.

“I don’t actually have one.”

For some reason, everyone always assumes that’s a lie.

The eyebrows go up again, this time with the same smile I remember from the convenience store, like he’s almost amused by my opinion, “Really? Nothing at all? You must have some preferences right? Build? Height?”

Height?

I almost squint at him at that question, but stop myself just in time when I realize how that would look.

Still, why would he even ask that?

If I did have a preference, he has to know it could only make things harder for him. 

Well, maybe he likes a challenge.

I guess he’s lucky I’m comparatively easy.

No, that doesn’t sound good, for either of us.

I give up. I can’t be conversational on five hours of sleep…

“Height doesn’t really doesn’t matter to me, honestly. My ex-boyfriend was pretty tall, but not that tall in comparison to me…”

Only after the words have already left my mouth do I remember that I shouldn’t have mentioned my ex.

Even I know that much…

Mr. Giang gets really quiet really fast, and I could kick myself…though…I guess that might cut this whole rigamarole short too.

I didn’t quite mean to blow it that badly…

“How about age then?” he says after a minute, with a heave of his shoulders that looks like a silent sigh, “Older, younger?” 

I wish I had a little more to say. Rather than answering, I skirt the question the same way I did with Ayla.

“How old are you?” 

Well, more or less the same way, because ‘years little’ would definitely be conversational suicide in this context.

“I’m a ‘96 kid,” I add, “September 8th, 1996.”

“Oh?” His lips part in surprise, “For real? That’s one of my sisters’ birthdays. Not the ‘96 thing, she’s ‘02. But we’re all three September babies. I was born in ‘95 though, so I’m beating you.”

He laughs at his last statement, so I laugh back, but the sound is unimpressive.

People will consider the oddest things worth bragging about…

Mr. Giang puts a finger gun under his chin with a teasing smile and jokes, “Does that make me a silver fox?”

“Not really,” I shake my head, “until you're 37, you’re barely even an eligible bachelor.”

Where did I read that? Maybe a Jane Austen novel.

Oh well, it could pass as a sense of humor.

He smiles at that statement, quickening his pace to match mine.

For some reason, I’d started speed walking again, which is ridiculous when I don’t even know where we're going. 

Though considering the area, maybe ‘Monday Nights Cafe?’

“Do you prefer much older guys then?” he asks as soon as we’re side by side again.

“Old guys, young guys,” I shrug, glancing down at him again, but this time I move too fast and am hit by another wave of blurriness.

Focus.

The last thing I need is to fall.

Regaining my balance I shake my head slightly, “It doesn’t really matter to me. I don’t have a lot of random rules for who can be an acceptable partner. It’s too hard to judge until you meet someone…”

I force myself to look up quickly in an attempt to reset my vision, but he seems to mistake it for rolling my eyes and tilts his head at me with a mixture of surprise and disconcertion.

“O...kay,” he seems to be at a loss for words for a minute, before shaking his head with a slightly crooked, playful smile. “So, where do you think I would fall then? Scale from one to ten?”

That’s what that expression was - flirting.

Flirting?

Well…okay…?

“I couldn’t possibly guess,” I tilt my head slightly rather than shrugging again because I've done that too many times. I think my posture looks casual, but his only response is to frown slightly.

Maybe I should have tried harder to answer…

There has to be something I can say right?

Tilting my head, I try to force myself to focus, without seeming too conspicuous, but he clearly realizes I’m studying him and looks up at me with a steady, unflinching expression.

Is he daring me? Or just confident?

I wish I could think of something, but there’s not a lot that particularly stands out to me from amongst his features, so I just go with the first thing that comes to mind, as his steady look is broken by a grin.

“Probably like a seven,” again the eyebrow raises, and I recalibrate. “At least a seven. You seem smiley, so you’d probably make whoever you dated pretty happy.”

For some reason, his smile falls slightly and he just nods, his head bobbing back and forth like he’s weighing my answer.

“Well, that’s not the worst score a guy could get,” he laughs lightly.

Come on…

That was supposed to be a compliment...

I did it again, Beth. Feel free to gloat.

“What is your guiding line then?” he asks suddenly, looking up with a much mellower expression than he’s worn so far. “Everybody has to have something specific they’re looking for, right? Otherwise, we’d all just be married already…”

Maybe just peace?

Don’t say that. That would sound rude.

I rack my head and try to think back on all the things I used to wish for when I had the energy to wish at all. But those thoughts are distant and faint at this point.

Probably just girlish fantasies…

Still. He asked…

Here we go…

“I guess my ideal is just something even. Someone who will pull their own weight, and not expect me to do everything for them. Making sure I’m not overworked.”

That sounds heavy. Lighten it up somehow...

I am heavy.

I’m tired.

“Just…mutual care…I guess. A caring guy is all.”

I smell cigarettes, and the nausea rises up again. Mr. Giang is looking at me as if he’s expecting more. But when I don’t say anything else, he shoves his hands deep into his pockets, smiling uncomfortably.

“I mean, if that’s all, just get a roommate, or a golden retriever,” he laughs.

Well, husband…roommate...

“Shouldn’t there be something to add a little more…,” he teeters his hands in the air with a motion that makes me think of scales again as he tries to pick a word, “Spice?’ maybe?” 

He smiles lightheartedly, but I frown without meaning to, feeling lost again with a sudden heaviness - heavier tiredness sitting on top of the usual tiredness as I try to find a good way to explain…

He can’t expect that from me.

I don’t think this is going to go well for him. Or us.

“There are more important things in a relationship than spice,” I shrug, wishing I had pockets to stick my hands in. Since I don’t, I just cross my arms. “The basis of whether something is ‘love’ or not isn’t how exciting it is…”

I’m making it awkward…talking like I'm giving a lecture.

Mr. Giang smiles uncomfortably like he feels the need to defend himself, and I wish I’d answered the riddle correctly so I could have been the one asking the questions.

At least I could keep the topic on something a little safer…

“I mean…yeah…of course, but we still want to enjoy our lives too, don’t we?”

He looks up at me with an expression that seems to be asking more questions than the one he voiced out loud, even behind the unaffected smile.

But I’m too tired to read facial cues or try to interpret when I’ll probably misinterpret either way.

Well, at least I tried.

They can’t complain about me for that.

Sorry. 

I’m just not meant to be, yet again.