Big blue eyes. Thirtyish, fourtyish, not yet an old man.
I order, I smile gaily as I normally do; I like waiters. He does not return my warmth.
On his way back, I decide he's british. A stuck up british waiter that meets my eyes directly as I am sitting on a comfortably tall stool.
The more often he comes, the more I get annoyed. Stupid accent. It's hard to understand him. My responses are not becoming more surly, however, but the opposite. Despite my annoyances, I am grinning more and speaking less in order to acquire the type of waiter-customer comradeship I am accustomed to.
He brings my last plate, spring rolls. I pick at them, they're not great. Eh.
Upon his return, he expresses anxiety over the remains of the king crab spring rolls. 'Do you usually not like king crab?' More underhanded snobbery? 'What didn't you like about it?' Truly, he's concerned. His big blue eyes are glinting, his largeish British nose level with my own face.
'It's fine,' I assure him, a little offset by the breach in his cool service. 'Wonderful,' I insist.
'Would you like coffee?' I shake my head.
'A cocktail? Sherry? Port? Wine? Tea?' The cheeky bugger. I like him at once, and I see my sly look reflected in his big eyes, if not his well composed face. The quiet funny ones, those are always the best. The sardonic British. He's not British though.
When he brings me my check, he flourishes a small shining red package at me as well.
'A fortune cookie,' he pronounces, both lightly reprimanding me for my minor consumptions and implying that I have never seen such a treat before.
I smile my sneaky gratitude, wait for him to turn, and open the cookie.
Flowers speak their own language.
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