She was in a different school from my all-boy school. I was in the tenth grade and she was in the eighth grade. I was a "grown-up," and she should match me perfectly! I thought.
I bet her mom must have taught her how to make up, because she was distinctively standing out from her classmates. The first time when I saw her was during a music performance at her school. Her hair was somewhat "blond." Yes, I guessed she used some kind of chemical (peroxide?) to bleach her hair. Because of her blond hair, I paid attention to this beautiful girl forgetting the whole night of music. I heard her friends calling her Lien. And that's it for our first day.
But story did not stop there. Because, my father was a tailor in a small town, her family had their clothes made by my father. So, the following day I saw that beautiful fake-blond girl again. I could not resist but bicycling after her to her home from my father's shop. I found her house, that's the first sucessful mission. I knew her address, that's the second successful mission. Now what would I do?
Now follow my most creative action in the world to approach my dreamed lover. I took the most handsome picture of mine, the picture that all my hair is cleanly combed up (not falling down disorderly on my face.) I put it in the envelope, and MAILED it to her, to cause her attention, I thought.
I got more than what I bargained for: Two weeks later, she came to my father's shop with her sister. My goodness! her sister knew me because we were both in the same night physics class. They looked at me, covered their mouths with their hands, talked something, then laughed. I played dumb, standing there, looked at the traffic on the street, and once in a while glanced at my dreamed girl.
Months parked my battered bicycle under the cover of a store. I did not notice that next to me IT WAS HER. The most beautiful black-haired girl on the surface of the earth. My heart was drumming, my lips was dried, my throat was dried. I was trembling. I had never been scared of anything in my life, now I was shaking in front of the defenseless little girl. How ridiculous it was! It's unexplainable. What's a stupid useless me! What should I do? I had only about fifteen minutes. What should I do? Help!
I missed my chance, badly. I could not initiate anything. I was motionless during the entire episode. She's waiting I guessed. Since she's very confident looking out to the drain drops. The rain stopped. She calmly climbed on her bicycle an pedaled it away. Now I gained my strength, I could move my legs, too late boy! I followed her again like the way I did several years ago in our poor small town, to her new home in SAIGON city.
One day, I expected that she was NOT at home, I stopped by her house. The old lady came out and told me that she was sick. Oh, no. My lover was sick. I rushed to the market and bought six big yellow oranges as a gift for my sick girl. It cost me a fortune to do this because I was at the bottom of the poorest country in the world. Oh, what's the heck, love is priceless. I stopped by her house again, this time HER SISTER came out! I dropped my oranges into her sister's hands and rushed away without saying a word.
I think a broke a barrier. I think somehow I scored a homerun through my unexplainable stupid actions. Because the next day, when I came back, her mom came out and asked me to get into her house. This is the most courageous, important step that anybody could ever make: Stepping into your lover's home, honestly, cincerely, tall-ly. I met my dreamed girl. She was pale. Still had the romantic beauty of the dat-than-kinh girls.
She sat there, on one chair. I sat here, on another chair. And her mom was talking to her uncle(?) by the next table. I did not know what to say. She did not know what to say either. In fact, I think that we might exchanged only about ten words durring our one-hour long "conversation." If she reads this story today, she might recognize me.
When I walked out of her house, I remembered saying something like "going overseas." Because of my poverty, I did not have the means to do that kind of escape at that time, but somehow, unexplainablely, I said it to her. I did not know that those words became reality. I did not know that the first time I talked to her was also the last time I met her. We have been far apart forever after....
yva