Free The Black & The White by Evelin Weber Page B

excited to
email Stephen about my new acquisition.
    “ Good Morning. Great news. I
just adopted a new cat. It’s called a Bengal.”
    Within moments, Stephen wrote back. “I
have a Bengal too. Are you serious? I knew I liked you for a
reason. Now you’re just giving me more reasons.”
    I blushed each of the four times I
read that message.
    “ You’re sweet. Thank you,” I
wrote, losing the words to write anything more colorful.
    “ Does that mean that I get
to see you today for a drink? I am getting desperate
here.”
    “ You’ve always been
desperate,” I wrote back.
    “ Does that mean it’s a yes?
You really do make a guy work hard for your attention!”
    “ You get everything easy as
it is. Drinks sound possible, although not probable.” I knew that
at this point I was playing hard to get. Stephen was a good
distraction for the moment.
    “ What’s going on over
there?” Andrew wondered. I quickly changed the screens of my
computer to my Excel spreadsheet and began to intently stare at my
trading monitors. The keyboard shortcut to
switch between screens was something I started to use so often, it
nearly became automatic.
    That weekend, I took a bus home to see
my mother. She lived in a small house. I was born and raised in
this all-American small town called Amersham, Pennsylvania,
populated by many Amish.
    Coming home was always a treat—the
perfect mental escape. Immediately upon arriving, I always found
myself lounged on the sofa in my favorite black sweatpants and
white tank top with the quilted blanket my mother had bought from
an Amish woman down the road. Mom would always hand me my warm
lunch whilst I lay cuddled up in front of the
television.
    My mom’s house was furnished with an
eccentric blend of Malaysian and old-English. The house was
cluttered with old and unnecessary things she couldn’t bear to part
with.
    My sister lived close to my mother, so
she came that Saturday to see me. It was nice to be home, to be
cared for, to sleep in my own bed, to enjoy a home-cooked meal, to
talk on the telephone with friends, to be nurtured by loved ones. I
missed my family.
    On Saturday night, my mother, my
sister, and I were all in the kitchen preparing my favorite
dinner—a Malysian curry. The kitchen was the largest room in the
house. My mom loved to cook.
    “ You’re still such a freak,”
my sister said to me as I meticulously arranged the carrots,
onions, and potatoes so that none of the groups were touching. I
stuck my tongue out at her. When we were growing up, she had teased
me incessantly about my compulsion to use different utensils for
each food group. No food groups could touch each other. My mom had
to make a separate dish for me each night. Somewhere in middle
school, I had stopped that habit, although I still liked order and
organization.
    Out of the blue, my mother said, “I
spoke to Dani the other day. He said he misses you. He’s a good
guy.”
    “ He’s a nice guy, Mom, but
I’m young. I will find a husband later.”
    I looked at her to see how she would
respond. She continued preparing the vegetables, ignoring what I
had just said.
    “ I’m not going to settle,
Mom.” She still disregarded my comment.
    My sister had always said she wished
she had never married so young, yet she seemed content. I always
questioned why my sister didn’t want more out of life.
    “ Why would you stay in this
small town with these small-minded people?” I once asked
her.
    “ Mom is close by, so it’s
easy,” she had replied. “You know Mom. She likes to take care of
people.”
    “ Is she still doing your
laundry?” I had asked, although I already knew what she would
say.
    “ Well, I mean. I bring it
and it magically gets done,” she had said, smiling. I also enjoyed
my mother’s nurturing nature. When I came home on the odd weekend
from Philadelphia, mom’s first question was if I needed laundry to
be done. The next day, they’d be perfectly folded—stacked