An Interrupted Dinner

A Story by Laurel

The smell of hot peppers charring on a greasy grill slapped me in the face as we walked into the cramped Thai restaurant. "Could this really be considered a restaurant?" I thought to myself, examining the four grouted tile top tables pushed against the wall and the two booths sandwiched in between a separate set of walls just parallel to those. We seated ourselves in the uncomfortable wooden chairs that reminded me of the same ones I would buy at a yard sale strictly to refurbish. The chubby faced, American-mixed looking cashier slid over and tossed two wax paper menus on our table without so much as a "hello" or a "welcome". "Wonderful", I thought, "another dinner ruined by terrible service."
I opened the menu anxiously, yet pleasantly surprised to see several choices ranging from appetizers to soups and house specials. While weighing out the options, I asked my father for recommendations of what he'd enjoyed the times he'd been there before, this being my first(and quite possibly only) visit there. Without a chance to offer up any opinions, he was silenced by the woman in the table only inches away from us. "Pad Thai" she muttered, still swallowing her last bite of food. "The pad Thai here is wonderful, it's noodles with chicken and it's a really good dish" she finished while looking at me, in search of some sort of response.
She was a big, slovenly looking Hispanic woman. I couldn't help but judge her. Her dark eyes hid behind thick framed black glasses and the messy bun that rested on her head looked more like an abandoned rat's nest than a bundle of hair. The gray baggy t-shirt she wore clashed with the bright blue jean capris that nearly suffocated her legs. "Of course she is eating alone" I told myself, "no one would choose to go out in public with a woman of this kind."
I made eye contact with her, pretending to be gracious and interested in her thoughts that she so willingly offered to me and asked "Oh, really?" By my irritated surprise, she then went on explaining to us her favorite dishes. She had told us she never liked curry until she gave the Thai restaurant a try one day. She lived in the area and had often liked to experiment with small restaurants such as the one we were eating at. Soon enough, my father had been manipulated into her conversation.
The woman had taken turns expressing her cornucopia of tastes in Asian dishes and spooning the noodles into her mouth. Sometimes she wouldn't even chew at all, but swallow the noodles whole, reminding me something of a person held captive only fed every few days, not even taking a chance to savor the different flavors she was experiencing. I was internally aggravated by the mere fact that a stranger could so openly push herself upon someone else's dinner table, without even knowing them or having spoken to them before. The dialogue quickly shifted from food to work to her children and family and back again. She spoke of the cultural differences in her neighborhood; how she enjoyed the diversity or how she couldn't believe someone would paint their house lime green or purple. She talked with us about her job being a prison guard and how the peppers we were eating were what pepper spray was made of. She explained to us why she had been eating alone; that her sister had recently moved across town and her husband worked late.
Somewhere in the middle of this forced conversation, I became infatuated with this woman. She no longer looked to me like a desperate stranger reaching out for some company. She no longer was a fat piggish stranger to me, but a charismatic and charming woman. It wasn't in the stories she shared and most definitely was not in the way she had looked, but in the way she talked and carried herself. Yes, she seemed ill mannered and a bit obtrusive, but this woman had become interesting to me.
I admired her confidence. Her willingness to open up to strangers had in fact wakened deep thought in me. If only I could have been more like this woman, inviting standers-by into my life or more simply into a conversation during a meal, maybe I too could gain confidence and an air about me that struck a chord in people. Or maybe it had just been me that had become entranced with her way. She had changed my dining experience and maybe even an outlook or two I had on life. I envied her for that.
The woman had finished her meal and grabbed her check by the time our food had arrived. "How is that eggplant?" She asked of one of the dishes we had ordered. I, by that time honestly excited rather than just a pretending to get her off my back, had told her it was all so wonderful. She shared my excitement as was happy that I had enjoyed what I had ordered. She reached the shabby doorknob quickly and bid us a goodnight and great week and slowly puttered out of the door into the heat of the afternoon.
I thoroughly enjoyed my meal not just because the flavors were explosive like the woman had suggested, but because I had learned something new that day. The large Hispanic woman I had met at the Thai restaurant had inspired me. She had never offered her name or asked for ours, but I thought I might as well know her as Pad Thai; an homage to the silly pathway that had suddenly led her to us.