“I didn’t even think about you being Asian until you brought it up,” she said.
Curiously, he believed her. Though he didn’t know her well, he already knew that she was different from other people, and he was willing to believe that she had just now noticed the slant of his eyes and the burnt-brass shade of his skin.
Chagrined, he said, “I’m sorry.”
“I was only asking if you ate tofu because if you eat it five times a week or more, then you’ll never have to worry about prostate cancer. It’s a homeopathic preventative.”
He had never met anyone whose conversation was as unpredictable as Del Payne’s. “I’m not worried about prostate cancer.”
“Well, you should be. It’s the third largest cause of death among men. Or maybe fourth. Anyway, for men, it’s right up there with heart disease and crushing beer cans against the forehead.”
“I’m only thirty. Men don’t get prostate cancer until they’re in their fifties or sixties.”
“So one day, when you’re forty-nine, you’ll wake up in the morning, and your prostate will be the size of a basketball, and you’ll realize you’re a statistical anomaly, but by then it’ll be too late.”
She plucked a carton of tofu from the cooler and dropped it into the shopping cart.
“I don’t want it,” Tommy said.
“Don’t be silly. You’re never too young to start taking care of yourself.”
She grabbed the front of the cart and pulled it along the aisle, forcing him to keep pace with her, so he didn’t have an opportunity to return the tofu to the cooler.
Hurrying after her, he said, “What do you care whether I wake up twenty years from now with a prostate the size of Cleveland?”
“We’re both human beings, aren’t we? What kind of person would I be if I didn’t care what happens to you?”
“You don’t really know me,” he said.
“Sure I do. You’re Tuong Tommy.”
“Tommy Phan.”
“That’s right.”
“At the checkout station, Tommy insisted on paying. After all, you wouldn’t have a broken window or all the mess in the van if not for me.”
“Okay,” she said, as he took out his wallet, “but just because you’re paying for some plumbing tape and paper towels doesn’t mean I have to sleep with you.”
Chip Nguyen would have replied instantly and with a playful witticism that would have charmed her, because in addition to being a damn fine private detective, he was a master of romantic repartee. Tommy, however, blinked stupidly at Del, racked his brain, but could think of nothing to say.
If he could just sit down at his computer for a couple of hours and polish up a few gems of dialogue, he would develop some repartee that would have Ms. Deliverance Payne begging for mercy.
“You’re blushing,” she said, amused.
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
Del turned to the cashier, a middle-aged Hispanic woman wearing a tiny gold crucifix on a gold chain at her throat, and said, “Is he blushing or isn’t he?”
The cashier giggled. “He’s blushing.”
“Of course he is,” said Del.
“He’s cute when he blushes,” said the cashier.
“I’ll bet he knows that,” Del said, mischievously delighted by the woman’s comment. “He probably uses it as a tool for seduction, can blush any time he wants to, the way some really good actors can cry on cue.”
The cashier giggled again.
Tommy let out a long-suffering sigh and surveyed the nearly deserted market, relieved that there were no other customers close enough to hear. He was blushing so intensely that his ears felt as though they were on fire.
When the cashier ran the carton of tofu across the bar-code scanner, Del said, “He worries about prostate cancer.”
Mortified, Tommy said, “I do not.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“But he won’t listen to me, won’t believe that tofu can prevent it,” Del told the cashier.
After hitting the key to total their order, the cashier frowned at Tommy, and in a matronly voice with no trace of the former musical giggle, almost as if speaking to a child, she said, “Listen here, you better believe it, ’cause it’s true. The Japanese eat it every day and they have almost no prostate cancer.”