Rewind Hero

Chapter 4

Chúc mừng phở is always a comforting place to me. Marcus, Violet, and I had basically all our birthdays here together and we've been meeting here after school since we've known each other. Violet has to work after school and we do our best to keep her company. Her dad, Thao and her mom, Hang bought the shop as soon as they came over from Vietnam to escape the ravages of the Second World Super War. China had invaded a lot of Southeast Asia at the time and they weren't exactly kind to the locals. With this in mind, it's only natural that my friends learn of the greatest day of my life inside the walls of Chúc mừng phở.

"And she just ran away?" Marcus looked confused, but that's nothing new.

"Yeah, just booked it without even saying bye."

"Well yeah, she's really shy. She's nice enough, but I've never heard her raise her voice, even when she needs to." Violet had changed into the apron and branded t-shirt that meant she was on the clock, but no one eats at four o'clock, so there weren't many customers that needed tending to.

"I get that, it's just...so bizarre, I mean, aren't guys usually supposed to initiate?"

"She probably got tired of waiting on ya, bud."

Marcus laughed at his own joke and violet joined in. They were probably right, so I couldn't do much but sit there and stew in my shame.

"Violet! No sitting in front of customers!" Her dad called from the back kitchen.

"Cha, there aren't any customers!" She called back

"But if someone comes in, then what? He sees lazy girl sitting, no one take his order, he leaves. Go stand at the register."

She turned up her nose and wrinkled her mouth to stop herself from saying what she actually wanted to. Once the anger simmered away, she allowed herself to respond.

"Ok, Cha."

Violet got up in a huff and stood behind the register in front of the entrance, ready to seat and take the order of the non-existent man who would come buy Vietnamese soup at four in the afternoon.

"So what are ya gonna do?"

"Well, call her, obviously, or maybe text? It's not the nineties anymore, I should probably just text first, right?"

"Oh yeah, text for sure."

I looked down at the little slip of paper, a scrap of notebook paper she had folded over after signing her number and name. I like the way she wrote things, it looked nice. God, I'm lame. But I just can't get over how cute it is. I'm lucky she made the first move, now I can't screw it up. After finishing my pho, I said goodbye to Violet and Marcus then walked home. The city isn't half bad at night, when the lack of light hides the absurd amount of imperfections, still the homeless problem is noticeable. I was asked by no less than three bums for change. I all declined, they all left me alone. I wondered why our wonderful and heroic Saint Bernard didn't do something about it. If he stopped beating the hell out of guys selling weed and instead built houses for some of these guys, the city would be so much nicer. But alas, heroes are nothing but hammers, blunt instruments used to treat symptoms rather than causes.

I got home around six o'clock, mom had ordered pizza and dad was watching a hockey game.

"Hey there Danny, how was school?"

"It was good actually, got asked out on a date."

"Get outta town!"

"I'd rather not, the dates this weekend so I don't want to miss it by leaving town."