Blue Sun, Yellow Sky by Hoang Jamie

Author:Hoang, Jamie [Hoang, Jamie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Fiction, women's fiction, general fiction, upmarket women's fiction, literary fiction
Publisher: Hey Jamie
Published: 2014-12-11T00:00:00+00:00

Like most restaurants, Opaque was located on a busy street surrounded by shops and other brightly-lit restaurants. The exterior, however, was nothing more than a wall of black with a small, dim placard that read: Opaque Dining Door Handle, with an arrow pointing to a camouflaged, black steel handle. As Jeff pulled open the door, I noticed braille letters at the bottom of the nameplate.

“Are you sure this is a restaurant and not a strip-club-slash-whorehouse, slash-front-for-drug-deals?” I joked.

“I’m positive,” he replied simply. Once inside, we stood in a small, dimly lit room roughly the size of a freight elevator.

A hostess wearing dark sunglasses greeted us at the entrance saying, “Bienvenue a Opaque.”

“Bonjour, uh, J’ai une reservation a Anderson.”

“Ah, yes. Welcome to Opaque Mr. Anderson,” she replied in startlingly good English, obviously aware that Jeff’s accent and fumbled sentence meant he was American. “Have you dined with us before?”

“First-timers.”

“Well, we’re delighted to have you as our guests. As you probably read, our restaurant is served by a staff that is blind. Our philosophy is that without being able to see the food, your sense of taste is heightened and the meal becomes a whole different experience.”

As I listened to hostess explain, I turned to Jeff in a sort of panic and asked, “How did you know? Did Rati tell you?”

“About this restaurant? No. A friend told me about it a while ago, but I didn’t actually think of it until I saw you painting on the balcony with a blindfold,” Jeff said. “Why, you think it’s lame?”

He obviously didn’t know.

“No,” I said. Just highly coincidental, I thought.

The hostess asked us to hold each other’s hand and follow her as she guided us to our seats. Taking my hand, Jeff squeezed it and whispered, “Don’t worry, I checked the menu in advance, there’s nothing weird or gross.”

I laughed, “I’m sure we’ll be okay.” What wasn’t okay was the tingling sensation I felt, yet again, in the hand that he took hold of with such ease.

Once we were seated, our waiter immediately began an introduction to our place settings. We fumbled around a bit, slowly feeling for the surface of our plate, the location of our silverware, and the stem of our wine glasses. In case we knocked anything over, they had staff standing by to clear away any hazardous messes. The menu (spoken to us) was small, offering only four different main courses: chicken, steak, fish, or vegetarian. We both chose steak.

“For wine, we have a Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Pinot Grigio, and Merlot—all local French wineries. To accompany the steak dish, our chef recommends the Pinot Noir: It’s a 2009 medium-bodied, fruitful red wine. Is that okay with you? Or if you would prefer another bottle, we’re happy to switch,” the waiter said.

“Pinot Noir is my favorite,” I said.

“I’m good with that,” Jeff added.

“Great, you won’t be disappointed,” the waiter replied. I listened as the squeaky spin of a metal wine opener met the bottle’s rubbery cork. After a slow pull and faint pop, I heard the sound of liquid fill our glasses.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.