Seemy and I always said that the discovery of the Vegetarian Dim Sum House was the official start of our best-friendship.
We’d hung out a bunch of times before, and were growing closer and closer, but it wasn’t until that brutally hot summer day that things felt like they really clicked into place. We were down on Canal Street because Seemy had heard there was a place we could get matching sets of brass knuckles with our names on them. I don’t know why she thought we could find them down there, and I warned her Canal Street was the most annoying place in the city, especially in summer, and I would rather gouge my own eyes out than go there. Canal Street is in Chinatown, but I think it gives Chinatown a bad name. Canal Street is a ten-block stretch of street filled on both sides with tiny stores selling chintsy scarves and junky jewelry and cheap electronics. But the real reason tourists flock to Canal Street like cockroaches to a bagel crumb is the illegal knockoffs. Chanel, Prada, Gucci, Fendi. Purses, scarves, watches, wallets, whatever. I hated it. Hated it. But Seemy pouted and said she really, really wanted to go, so I gave in.
So we walked down to Canal Street, and just like I’d said it would be, the place was filthy with tourists moving slower than snails, loaded down with black plastic bags filled with contraband knockoff purses that they’d bought with thumping hearts in the back rooms of the storefronts that lined the street. And worse, every five seconds some sketchy-looking guy would walk up to us and say in a low voice, “Gucci, Prada, Birkin,” wanting us to follow him into those same back rooms to buy crappy knockoffs.
Worse still, it was hot, just ridiculously, stupidly HOT.
And then one of those creepy, whispering purse guys actually touched my arm to try and get me to stop, and I lost it. I know this city is filled to bursting with people, and sure, you’re constantly bumping into each other, but there’s an unspoken rule, the reason that people don’t go postal and kill each other every other minute. We’re crowded, but we don’t touch each other unless we have to. Unless someone’s on fire or about to step in front of a bus, you can count on the fact that no one is going to reach out and make contact.
But this guy did.
“Don’t you touch me!” I screamed in his face. “Do I look like a goddamn tourist to you?” My whole body was shaking, and I thought for a second that I wanted to hit him, that I wanted to punch him right in the nose, and it seemed like such a good idea that I was afraid I might actually do it. So instead I screamed at him again, just screamed right in his face hoping to blow his ears right off his head, and then I grabbed Seemy’s arm and pulled her across the street. We got yelled at by the traffic cop and kept walking down one side street and then another until we were on a narrow street shaded by buildings.
“Nan, stop!” Seemy was laughing, but I could tell she was freaked out. I still had her wrist, but she stopped walking, dug in her heels, and I let her drag me to a stop. “It’s okay, Nan, seriously, it’s okay.”
I didn’t even realize I was crying until she handed me the napkin that’d been wrapped around her iced coffee. It was soaked with condensation from the cup, but it felt good on my face.
“It’s just . . .” I hiccupped. “It’s so hot!” And then I turned to look at the window of the restaurant we were standing in front of. It had this giant aquarium filled with gray, bulbous fish with bulging eyes. “And what the hell is wrong with those fish!” They were so slimy and looked so soft, like they were about to fall apart, and all of a sudden I thought I was going to be sick, so I ran into the restaurant next door and asked if I could use the bathroom. I barely even waited for a yes, just bolted for the back of the narrow dining room. I didn’t actually throw up in the bathroom, just sat on the can until I stopped crying. I washed my face in the sink, and they were out of paper towels, so I dried it on my shirt.
When I came out, Seemy was sitting at a table. She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the seat next to her, laughing and whispering, “Oh my God, the bathroom’s for customers only! I think we have to eat here now or they’ll call the police!”
“What?” I laughed. “Says who?”
“The owner lady at the front!” Seemy hissed, still cracking up. “Don’t look, don’t look!”
“Oh my God, you are such a country mouse,” I groaned, poking her in the ribs. “All restaurants say that, but they can’t, like, legally make you eat.”
Her face went from happy to glum.
I’d forgotten that she was kind of sensitive about the whole country mouse thing, so I said, “I’m starving, though, so let’s eat.”
“Nope, false alarm. What is this place, anyway?”
“Vegetarian dim sum, apparently,” she answered coldly, not looking up from the menu.
Of course, when we retold the story to my mom and her mom and whoever else would listen, we left out the country mouse part. We just talked about how we didn’t realize that each dim sum item we ordered off the menu came with at least four pieces, so we ordered way too much, and the waiters kept coming out of the kitchen one after another with trays stacked with bamboo steamers filled with delicious dumplings stuffed with mock pork or spinach or banana. They had names like Treasure Boxes and Treasure Balls, and at first when we started eating, we were happy that the waiters kept coming with more and we were laughing at our good food fortune.
But then we started to get full, and they just kept coming with more and more food, and then all of the doughy, fake-meat goodness felt like it had expanded in our stomachs, and by the end we just sat there with glazed eyes, rubbing our bellies and groaning while the waiters laughed at us.
After that we were there at least twice a week for the rest of the summer.