Pasadena Lunch

Pasadena Lunch

It is late morning on a Friday and I am in Pasadena, sitting in the office of my dental group, waiting to have some stitches removed. A young black man stands at the counter with his daughter. She seems to be eight or nine years of age, third or fourth grade, and has the radiant kind of complexion that only the young have. She squirms around while he tries to deal with the dental assistant at the counter over post-care, scheduling and billing issues. He is not tall, but is slim and in fine shape. He wears an olive-drab sweater; I wonder if he is in the armed services or recently released. He talks calmly and intelligently to the dental assistant, and to his daughter who interjects herself regularly by talking to him, or hugging him around the waist.
 
“I told you,” he says, turning to his daughter, speaking quietly but with authority, “that I will pick you up this evening after dance. We’ll have dinner at home with mom later on, but let me finish here and I will take you to school.”
 
He turns to the woman behind the counter and speaks with her as his daughter tugs at his arm and chatters away at him. The daughter has two braids tied into buns on top of each side of her head; they could be Mickey Mouse ears except that they are round. He turns his attention from the woman behind the counter and bends down to answer his daughter, “Yes, we can go to lunch anywhere you want before we go to school. Where would you like to go?”

 I sit there watching, awaiting the expected reply. The daughter ponders the question for a moment, and then she looks up at him and excitedly gives the surprise one word reply. “Sushi.”

November  2007