Koon Chai Cafe

Chapter Thirty-Two - A Love Story

Eugene

Yeona paced frantically by the foot of my bed, anxiously biting down on the nail of her right thumb. It was a habit she'd had for over thirty years and never quite managed to get rid of, despite her hatred of it. I'd always found it endearing.

I was surprised at how little I felt. There was no sense of impending doom, no heavy weight of dread on my chest. If anything, my head and heart felt clearer than they had done in months. I felt a sense of clarity as I put my thoughts into action. I knew what it was time to do.

With an enormous effort, I sat up straighter in my bed and she stopped, turning to look at me. I shuffled over to one side of the bed. "Here," I called over hoarsely, patted the empty space beside me, and smiled. Tentatively, she walked over and perched herself at the edge of the bed without looking at me.

Her soft, curly black hair was messily scraped back into a loose knot at the back of her head, with strands of hair falling around the curve of her plump, oval face. Her dimpled cheeks were a shade of light speckled pink after so many harsh winters working in all weather conditions and when she smiled, her kind, black eyes crinkled with age lines that the years had gifted her. She was even more breathtaking than the first time I laid eyes upon her thirty years ago.

My chest swelled with warmth as I remembered, thirty long years ago when my eyes first laid upon what was to be my first and last love. Of course, it was love at first sight for me, even if it was a long time before she even knew my name.

I knew her long before we went to school together, even if she didn't. Her parents ran a local grocery store that sat between the butcher's and the fishmongers in a small, winding dirt road three streets behind my house. It was an old building, as were all the structures in our small run-down countryside town. I can still remember it so clearly, a small, crumbling old building with bright green vines scattered across the pale yellow walls. Underneath one of the cracked white window frames, there was a broken down A/C unit set into the wall that leaked and barely worked. On hot days when the unit failed to work, she'd tie her curly hair up into a knot, held neatly together by a strip of blue silk with a white edge.

I was only twelve years old when I first saw her. It was a warm evening in late May when I spotted her on my way to meet some friends. She was crouched in a sun-lit alley and wore a pale green sundress and dirty white shoes. She was surrounded by meowing cats of every shade and colour, gathered at her feet. Intrigued, I paused in the shade of the entrance and watched her as she held out handfuls of dry kibble to them from a bag beside her which they took cautiously from her hand.

She spoke softly to them and stroked them with a gentle hand as they rubbed against her legs affectionately. When the bag was finally empty, she stood up and I remember the way her sundress rippled as a gust of warm wind blew through the alley behind her, scattering petals and leaves across the cracked concrete. The scent of fresh mandarins filled the air as she turned, covering her eyes from the glare of the sun, and spotted me as I watched her.

She raised one hand, smiled, and that was it. I was in love.

From that day on, I was smitten. I watched her, too nervous to talk to her or ask her to come out and play with my friends, as she swept the floors and stocked the shelves of her parents' store.

I saved every penny I got from doing odd jobs for friends and family just so I could walk into that store once a week and place those copper coins in her hand in exchange for an ice-cream in the sweltering summer heat, or a freshly baked pastry in the winter. Each week she smiled and thanked me, unaware that I was the same boy from last week, or the week before that.