Mama Pho Ga's
As I approach the front door, I see a woman at the reception desk. She’s waving her hand vigorously as if trying to shoo a mosquito. But as I walk through the door, I hear “Good morningggg! Good morning!” she exclaims again. The bombardment of excitement streams across the lobby as she waves her waggling hand in my direction.
Oh yippee, a new flight attendant, I conclude, wincing at the energetic chipmunk with dark brown bangs.
“Hi, there!” she chirps.
“Hello,” I respond, trying to make my way past her with as little contact as possible.
“It’s a beautiful day today, don’t you think? Today is my first day, but I think it’s gonna be a good one, don’cha think?
I look back through the window toward the gray light and then back at her, “Yeah, I guess.” Her body pivots like a gun turret maintaining its target as my pace quickens.
“I’m Becky; pleased to meet you!”
“Jason,” I respond, “nice meeting you.” I’m past her now, my hand’s on the doorknob to the office. I’m almost there.
“Well, I’m looking forward to getting to know you, Jason. Have a great day!”
“You too,” I say, safely through the doorway.
“Good morning!” I hear her chirp as I glance back to see Delores coming through the front entrance just as I pull the door shut.
I settle into my desk and close my eyes, hoping that relaxing my body will allow the exhaustion to flow out of me.
“Tuckered out again, I see,” Randall’s voice bellows from within his cube. “Out gallivanting? When you gonna take me with?”
“Nah, I’ve been trying out this new meditation practice, and it doesn’t seem to be working.”
“Isn’t meditation supposed to help you sleep better and wake up more relaxed?”
“Well, it’s not quite meditation—it’s something else; I don’t really know how to explain it.”
“Does this have something to do with that Native dude I saw you leaving here with the other day?
“Uhm, yeah, I guess,” I say, staring at the wall of my cube.
“Dude! Do you have a shaman?”
I close my eyes, shaking my head, “No, uh, no. It’s not like that.”
“What’s it like?”
“It’s hard to explain; he’s just some guy I met at the carpet store. But then I saw him again on the side of the road, and then I dropped him at this rich lady’s house, and some bizarre things kind of happened with a gecko.”
“Holy shit! Dude, you have a shaman!”
Just then, the door from reception opens, and the new flight girl pokes her noggin through the opening. “Hi, Jason. Becky,” she says, pointing to herself, “we just met in the lobby. I was wondering, do you know any good places to eat lunch in the area?”
“Lunch? Isn’t it a little early for lunch?” I reply.
“Oh, yes, of course, I mean for later, when it’s lunchtime.”
“Uh, yeah, there’s plenty of places to eat around here.”
“Oh, neat! Would you mind showing me where a good place to eat would be?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Randall gawking.
“Sure, but Randall is a self-proclaimed foodie and I’m pretty sure he knows a lot more places than I do.”
Randall perks up, “What kind of culinary fare rocks your world, Becky?”
“Well, what is your favorite place to eat, Jason?” she responds, ignoring Randall.
“Uh, well, I like this noodle place, and it’s pretty cheap, so I go there a lot.”
Randall starts to comment but Becky blurts, “Oh, I love noodles! Do you think you could show me how to get there? I don’t know my way around here very well yet.”
“Uh, I guess I could, but it’s not that hard to find—”
“Oh, wonderful!” Becky cheers, before I can finish.
“How about 12:30?”
What Rachel said yesterday about feeling pushed through a door against one’s will flashes into my mind. I sit bewildered by the agony of what I already know I’m about to agree to. Then, as if the word climbs out of my mouth on its own, I utter, “Okay?”
“Great, it’s a date!” Becky responds gleefully, then her little head pokes back out the door like a chipmunk disappearing into her hole.
“A date?” I mutter, to myself.
With eyes closed, I turn toward Randall before opening them to the image I had already conjured in my mind. His mouth agape. “Duuuude,” he whispers.
Just then, a shadow appears over my desk. I look up, and it’s Rachel. She slams a cup of coffee on my desk like a judge would a gavel. “Sorry for all the drama yesterday,” she snarls, storming down the aisle toward her desk.
Bearing witness to the verdict of coffee, Randall points to the reception area and then to me, then to Rachel, and then back to me. He whispers, wide-eyed, “Damn, dude… when do I get to meet this shaman?”
Before I can respond, the door opens again and Rich Stern walks in.
“Rich!” Randall announces in a loud whisper,
“Jason has a shaman.”
“No, I don’t have a shaman.”
“He does,” Randall refutes, “he’s been hanging out with this Native guy.”
“No, I haven’t,” I say, debilitated from lack of sleep and impatience with this conversation.
“Been holding out on us?” Rich replies. “You on some kind of a vision quest?”
“Guys, please, I’m tired and have a lot of work to do.”
“That’s okay,” Rich responds. “Randall, I need you to run me through the digital strategy on the stuff-making concept. Can you join me in my office, please?”
With Randall out of the way, Rachel’s cup of coffee is the kickstart I need to wallow through the next set of spreadsheets. I finally get into a number-injecting rhythm when the door opens, after what feels like only minutes.
“12:30! I’m ready for some noodles; how about you?” Becky beams.
“Uhm, I’m kinda stuck on this deadline; I’m not sure I can make it.”
“Oh no, I was so looking forward to noodles,” Becky despairs.
Just then, Leslie lumbers up on her way past my desk. “Jason, you gonna leave this poor starving child with no place to eat? Whatch’you working on here that’s so important?” she says, glaring at my screen over the wall of my cube. “Oh my word, that thing ain’t due ’til next week. Get your butt out of that seat and show this girl where to get some good eats.”
She turns to Becky, “Where you planning on going?”
“Jason said he knows of a noodle place.”
“Oh, you going to Mama’s. It ain’t just a noodle shop no more! Uh uhh. She’s got a whole new thing going on over there… and it’s hotter and spicier than ever!” Leslie looks at Becky, “girl, you’re gonna like it!”
With my cover blown and no way out, I succumb to the imminent torture of lunch with Becky. “Okay, give me two minutes and I’ll meet you out front.”
Becky squeaks with delight and skips through the door.
Three minutes later, we’re in my truck, on our way to lunch. The conversation with Becky on the trip to the restaurant is like communing with a game of Wack-a-Mole.” I am so excited to try out your noodle place, Jason! I feel so lucky that Mr. Stern hired me; I love this job already. What do you do when you’re not at work?” Before I can respond to one question or comment, a new one pops up. I widen my eyes, both in an effort to stay awake during the drive and in response to the sustained impact of Becky’s one-way Twitter conversation.
At last, we arrive at Mama’s. I look up at the sign that used to say: “Mama’s Pho (Mama’s Noodles)” but the new name is unmistakable in large, red lettering: “Mama Pho Ga’s.” Wow, I think, looking up at the sign through the windshield of my truck. “Leslie was right; this is different.”
“Hmmm, Mama Fo Ga’s,” Becky iterates aloud.
“Actually, it’s pronounced a little different,” I reply, looking to see if she catches the double meaning. She doesn’t, and I don’t bother to interpret.
We walk in and wait at the hostess stand. “I’m so excited to try your noodle shop, Jason. I just love the bright colors in here! I hope it’s not too spicy,” Becky tweets.
A minute later, an elderly Vietnamese woman swings past the hostess stand, “C’mon, Jason. I got you, honey.” The tenor of her voice creaks like a rusty door hinge, but it has a snappy cadence intensified by her Vietnamese accent. Mama must be in her mid-70s, and she sports a gray coiffure wound up with purple hairdresser curlers. She wears a tight T-shirt that accentuates the individual rolls of flesh that jostle around her midsection as she walks us to our table. The T-shirt serves as an informal uniform, bearing the restaurant’s new name and logo: Mama Pho Ga’s Spicy Hot Noodle.
We follow Mama back into the dining area and sit at a yellow Formica table with vinyl chairs on either side. Both table and chairs are accentuated with chrome trim befitting a pinball machine. White globes encased in metal bird cages hang from the ceiling, illuminating the otherwise drab interior.
“Where you been, Jason? I haven’t seen you for a while,” Mama says.
“Oh, been busy, I guess; I see you’ve rebranded the place.”
“We sure did!” Mama shouts. Most of her speech is annunciated as an exclamation. “Leslie’s, the bomb, she’s so talented! She did our logo and menu and all our T-shirts.”
“Oh, cool, I didn’t realize Leslie did the work?” I say, remembering her last missed deadline.
“You know I kicked my ex-husband to the curb last year. All he did was sit in the back and watch the internet while I ran this whole place. Finally, I said enough is enough. I said, ‘You gotta go.’ You know he cried like a baby. He was like, ‘I’ll be better; I’ll help you more.’ I said, ‘Nope, uh-ah honey, it’s too late for all that.’ I didn’t come all this way from Vietnam to be his slave—mm-mmm no more.”
“Well, that’s quite a name change!” I say, looking at her T-shirt, which features noodles and chopsticks extruding from a bikini bottom.
“Don’t look at me dirty, Jason! You know, Leslie said to me, ‘What do you want the new name to be?’ I said, ‘I want it to be simple, like Mama’s Chicken Soup.’ So she asked, ‘What’s the words for chicken soup in Vietnamese?’ I said, ‘Pho Ga.’ And she started laughing hysterically. I said ‘What so funny?’ Then she said it all together, ‘Mama Pho Ga.’ I still didn’t get it. So she said it again, louder, ‘Mama FUH GA!’ Then I start laughing too! And we said it over and over, ‘Mama Pho Ga, Mama Pho Ga.’ That was it, new name! Like it?”
“I love it!” I reply, chuckling.
Becky has her hand over her mouth, covering up a snicker.
“Oh, look, Jason, I embarrass your girlfriend.”
“Ha,” I say, shaking my head. “No, we just work together. Today’s Becky’s first day on the job.”
“Oh, so you jumped on her the first day? Ain’t gonna give no one else a chance? I don’t blame you—she’s a cute little lady.”
Becky looked at me, nodding in agreement, “I think I like your Mama.”
“Wow, it’s getting hot in here,” I say, wiping my forehead.
“It’s gonna get hotter now,” Mama replies.
“Whatch’you gonna order, Becky? You look to me like you go for some big spicy meat in your soup.”
“Uhm, how big is the big spicy meat?” Becky asks.
Mama extends her two index fingers, holding them four inches apart. “Four inches, spicy eye-round; five inches, add spicy flank steak,” as she continues enlarging the space between her fingers at each interval. “Six inches, add spicy beef balls; seven inches, add spicy tripe; and eight inches—” she says, holding her hands a foot-and-a-half apart, “spicy tendon!”
“I think I’ll have it with the smallest spicy meat, please.”
“Girl, you go slow; that’s okay. You try a little more every time you come back, and pretty soon, nothing else will do,” she says, taking our menus. “Jason, I got you, honey; I know what you like.”
Once Mama leaves me stuck alone with Becky, whose Wack-a-Mole tweeting has subsided for the moment. Now she’s grinning at me while staring into my eyes.
“So, Becky, where are you from?” I say, attempting to break the awkwardness.
Becky doesn’t say anything back, she just smiles at me some more. Eventually, she says “All over, I guess,” without breaking her focus.
“So, what do you like to do when you’re all over?” I reply.
After a brief pause, she says, “I love my garden.”
“Oh, so you’re a gardener?”
“Yes, I am!” she replies proudly. “I think of them—my plants and trees and herbs and flowers—as my little friends. I talk to them, give them water, and tuck them into their little patches of soil; I love them so much. They are my favorite people.”
“So—you must be a big salad-eater?”
“Oh no, I never eat them. I just eat other peoples’—it’s less personal, mine are too precious to me. They glow with such colorful vibrance and smell like the sweetest perfume. I’m so lucky to have them in my life. I love sitting among them, surrounded by all of their vitality.”
“So you’re sort of a vegetarian? Do you normally eat meat?”
Just then, Mama comes back with two steaming bowls of soup. “Here your noodles with spicy meat,” she says, placing the bowls on the table.
“Only certain kinds of meat,” Becky responds.
“What kinds of meat are the certain kinds you eat?” I reply.
“Right now, the spicy kind!” she says, widening her eyes at the bowl of soup in front of her.
“That’s what I’m talking about, honey,” Mama remarks. “Spicy kind is good!”
Mama walks away, leaving us to our soup. “What a funny spoon,” Becky says, looking at the oversized ceramic soup spoon.
“Have you eaten pho before?”
“Fuh—what’s fuh?” Becky responds.
“It’s spelled P-H-O, but it’s pronounced ‘fuh.’ That’s why the new name is so evocative.”
“Oh, I see… but how do I get these noodles onto this spoon?” she says, making futile scoops into the bowl of noodles.
“With the chopsticks.”
“Oh, I never learned how. Do you think they have any forks? Oh—Mama, may I have a fork, please?” Becky asks as Mama walks past.
“Sure thing,” Mama says, without breaking her stride toward the kitchen.
“Thank you,” Becky shouts. “I’ll just eat the broth until she gets back,” she says, slurping a massive swallow of soup. “Oh! Oh my!” Becky says, waving her hand in front of her mouth. “This is so spicy!”
“Is it too much?” I ask, squinting my eyes as her face turns bright pink.
“No, no, it’s delicious,” she gasps, slurping up more of the broth.
“That’s how you eat soup, girl; you got the hang of it,” Mama says, setting the fork next to Becky’s bowl.
Becky begins spinning the noodles around her fork like linguini and then crams a colossal spindle of Vietnamese pasta into her mouth. Her voice, muffled by the enormous mouthful that bulges her cheeks on both sides, groans, “Mmm, it’s sooo good! Oh my goodness, this is amazing,” as she swirls up another yarn ball with her fork and spoon while chomping like a cow to a bowlful of cud.
Becky continues devouring her food as if it is her last meal and could be taken away at any minute. Her complexion is now the color of watermelon, her eyes stream with tears, her cheeks are so stuffed they would be the envy of the most laborious of squirrels, and lanyards of noodles pour from her mouth like a waterfall. The whole scene makes me laugh hysterically. Neighboring tables notice the spectacle and snicker to each other. “Don’t laugh at me, I can’t help it,” she slurps, wiping her nose. “It’s just so… mmmf, mmm, mmm.”
After lunch, on the ride back to the office, Becky leans her seat back, rubbing her belly like a pregnant woman who just had a near-death experience. “Oh my. Oh my goodness. What happened to me? I’m so full!”
I open the door to the office for her. She wobbles through, hunched over, cradling her noodle baby with both hands.
“I’m sorry you’re in so much discomfort,” I empathize.
She stops, turns around, and rasps in the voice of a petite Godfather, “That was the best lunch I’ve ever had. That was so much fun. I’m gonna remember this forever.” Then she kisses me on the cheek and mopes back toward her desk.
“You’re hilarious.” I say, squeezing her on the shoulder on my way to the back office.
While looking down, with one hand gripping her desk to hold her weight steady, she sighs, “Thank you.”
I exit through the door into the back office, laughing out loud to myself with a big smile. Just before I sit down, I notice Rachel’s annoyed grimace at my intrusion on her state of concentration from several desks back. In contrast, Leslie’s grinning face nods in approval.
I spend the rest of the day trying to stave off a no-sleep, noodle-induced coma. At the day’s end, as I trudge through the door into the lobby, I wonder how Becky’s afternoon went, but she’s not at her post. Out in the parking lot, I put my key into the door of my truck while longing for my bed. This thought is snatched away as I nearly jump out of my skin, surprised by a voice directly behind me.
“Hi, Jason!”
With my shoulders squinched up to my ears, I spin around to see Becky standing so close to me that my belt buckle snags on the middle button of her shirt.
“Hi, Becky,” I say, attempting to regain my composure while unhooking myself from her clothing.
“I was wondering if you’d like to come by and see my garden sometime?” Becky asks.
“Sure, yeah, that would be nice… sometime.”
“Great, how about this weekend?” she cheeps.
“Wow, I see you got the snap back in your step, Becky.”
“How about Saturday?” she says, her focus undeterred.
“Uhh, let me check my schedule… ”
“Sure, go ahead,” she replies, blinking patiently.
All I can think of is how desperate I am to go home and sleep. I let out an exhausted sigh, “Okay, sure, Saturday.”
She thrusts her hands into the air and shimmies her hips, mambo-style. “Yayyyy! See you at twelve noon on Saturday!!”
“Okay, see you then,” I reply, opening the door to my truck to punctuate the end of the conversation.
Scene End.
