At the Zen Buffet on Victory Boulevard, if you come late for lunch, they want you to check how much food they have left before they seat you. Everything looks fine, so we stay, and the hostess walks us to a booth by a window looking out onto the vast parking lot. I can see my mom’s Jeep from where I’m sitting, and the massive Golfsmith store, and the Nordstrom Rack.
Behind me sits a famous Iranian stage actor, by himself, digging into a plate of chow mein. He’s married to an even-more-famous Iranian actress who successfully crossed over to American films a few years ago, which makes every Iranian proud even if her last few films were not that great.
Her husband is very handsome, probably the best-looking man in the entire restaurant, with a lined, dignified face and jet-black hair. He is tall, which I know because I met him once, a few years ago. But because he is sitting down, I see for the first time a little bald patch on the back of his head.
There is no way he would remember meeting me. It was too long ago. I consider saying hello anyway, but I don’t have much to say beyond hello, and he spends most of his time scribbling in a notebook or talking on his cell phone.
So I focus on my food. This place serves Chinese and Japanese dishes, with an American touch. That means everything is covered in cheese: Cheese Potato, Cheese Spinach… and Cheese Mussels, Cheese Clams, Cheese Crabs. The last one sounds like a disease, and it’s the only Cheese Dish I try. It’s delicious - little crab shells filled with a mix of crab, herbs, and melted white cheese.
The actor gives directions on the phone, in Farsi: “Come to the shopping center with the Best Buy, I’m in the Chinese restaurant on the right side.” The wheels on the busboy’s cart squeak slowly past. A man at a table two feet away chews the ice from his water glass, and it sounds like teeth breaking.
I pull a short black hair from my salt-and-pepper squid. Lunch ends.
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