Loren is Fooled Twice in One Decade By a Smart Cookie

It all started with a fourtune cookie. One evening on our honeymoon, Milk Man and I travel all over Provincetown, Cape Cod looking for a Chinese food restaurant. After our meal, I stop in a public bathroom at the back of a bar, stuffing the slip of paper from a half-eaten fortune cookie in my purse.

"Nothing is as it seems," is the cryptic message. I marvel at how clean the bar is; the floor shines. The bathroom door isn't marked. When I come out Milk Man is sitting on a stool. The female bartender is twirling her hair, and laughing as they talk. My new husband looks as red as the lobster he ate for dinner. Obviously, I'm peeved and freaking out remembering the cookie message, especially because the chic is a dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe. I drag him out of there and almost start to cry.

"You looked like you were flirting. You never do that." I complain. He starts laughing and spins me around to face a poster on the wall of the building.

"I wasn't flirting, I was squirming. She's a guy." There she is on the poster. The bartender, a drag queen, apparently had a running show there at night. I want to slap her/him, but I'm suddenly overcome by a sense of relief. Marilyn and I exchange waves and smiles through the picture window, and it's clear from her grin that she enjoyed watching our tense exchange outside the bar.

Almost 10 years after the honeymoon, we make dating a priority. I still love Chinese food, in fact, I crave it. On our "date night," this week, Milk Man and I try a new restaurant. The place is really beautiful. It has soft lighting, scented candles and nice Asian decor. We are seated near an indoor pond and water fountain. Our food is really good, a little spicy even, like Thai. I order my old standby, chicken and broccoli, plus soup and an appetizer. The manager and waiters are so polite. This just might be my new favorite Chinese restaurant.

I save the best part of the meal for when we get home, just like I used to do when I was a kid. On the couch, I open my snack. "Look, they liked me so much, I even got extra fortune cookies," I say, storing the rest in the cookie jar on my lap.

Then I turn green. The fortune is hand-written. Milk Man catches the little slip of paper floating down to the floor as I'm already washing my mouth out in the bathroom. He reads it aloud to himself. "That wasn't chicken."

I can hear a voice coming from the television set as I gag in the bathroom,

"The roses are in bloom in Orkney."