Crystal Clear

Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Keith

            I walk into the house and see thongs in numerous places in which they didn’t belong. How in the hell did they get there? I ask myself. Someone must have been in my house. Then I thought…Cara! Oh my god. She found another girls’ underwear in the house and rearranged them purposely so that I could see that she knew. I ran upstairs and went into the room. All/most of her clothes were gone. Crap! This wasn’t good. If she found out that I was sleeping with other girls, she’d never take me back. At least it’s not numerous girls like pluralized. It’s just this one girl.

I met her at wal-mart. I was trying to figure out which bread to buy and I ended up picking up something that sounded really gross. She came over to me and smiled.

“You really like this kind of bread?” She asked. I looked over at her smiling face. She was so pretty. Not gorgeous like Cara, no one looks more amazing than Cara. She just had a simple-ness to her that made me extremely attracted to her.

“Uh, sure, I guess.” I said. I looked back down at the bread I was holding. It reminded me of a kind of sweet roll.

“Do you even know what it is?” She asked smiling. Although she was smiling, she was still kind of making a face that indicated how grossed out she was.

“Course I do! The writing is in Japanese right?” I was trying to buy exotic things to make it seem like I was ‘exploring my other options’ whenever Cara decided to stop by. I was in the multicultural section and there was an area that looked like a deli that was selling international foods. I just asked the guy to give me anything from Japan; I always wanted to go there. But I had no idea what this bread said or what it was. It was tan(ish), almost like a type of bread I tasted at a friend’s house. It looked good! I figured it was some kind of delicious, exotic, different tasting bread. Even with that theory in my mind, the guy at the counter looked at me like I was insane.

            She laughed quietly and shook her head. “Do you take Japanese? Do you know what it says?” She asks me. I nod my head and smile. Part of me was like ‘give up man, you’re looking pretty stupid right now, just put it back and walk away.’ But another part of me was like ‘No, continue to look stupid. You’re making great conversation!’ I just stuck with that one.

“I do not take Japanese, I cannot read it, I cannot speak it, and I have no idea what it says.” I say mater of factly. She laughs and takes it out of my hands gently. She read it in Japanese for me. 

“Oishī Nihon no pan wa, massugu ni Nihon kara yunyū shita. Anpan man wa, aka mame subete de hari tsukete, aisade mitasa reta kashipan pandesu! O tanoshimi kudasai!” She says. I stare at her, trying to figure what the hell she just said. She didn’t make any sense to me at all. She laughed and shook her head.

“In other words, it says ‘great tasting Japanese bread, imported straight from Japan. Anpan is sweet roll bread filled with red bean paste and loved by all! Enjoy!’” She laughed hard and smiled at me.

“Well…I knew it was a sweet roll!” She laughed again. Her laugh was beginning to grow on me. I wanted to keep making her laugh.

“You crazy boy. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t like the filling. When I went on a class trip one time, I tried it and I wasn’t a fan. Everyone else liked it, except me.” She smiled and shook her head again.

“Well, I’m going to try it! You know what they say! New things, new experiences!” I say.

“I’ve never heard that one.” She says again laughing softly. Yes, I was definitely attracted to her.