A woman and a man sat next to each other on the grass. They were fortune tellers, toothless and smelling of roasted rice from the pots in the alley. They rocked back and forth at the far end of the park, not necessarily in sync either. They were a couple, that I knew for sure from the first time I saw them.
I was 14 then but I was very fashionable. I didn’t have just one gold tooth. I had three! And all I thought about in those days were boys: how it would be to hold a boy’s hand. And to kiss―actually put my lips to his. I just could not fathom it. Nevertheless, even with these thoughts constantly running through my mind, I still had a keen sense of observation. I could always spot the cheaters in Mrs.’s Wu’s gambling house, where mama sold baskets of homemade baked goods. I had already saved Mrs. Wu hundreds of yen sniffing out those cheaters.
Yes, I knew where attractions of the heart lie, even then. And even in two as old and desheviled as the couple at the far end of the park, I knew what was going on. They rocked back and forth to invisible music, dancing and whirling together on a revolving dance floor in their minds.