Chapter 67

There was no doubt that Mrs. Trinh was a quiet woman. So quiet it was difficult to hold a conversation with her. Thankfully Edwina was able to interpret the silences more or less appropriately.

Nhu Trinh was a petite woman, slender and short, with long graying hair, though most of it was still jet black. She had small, sad brown eyes and a small mouth that was mostly set in a neutral horizontal slit, as if either smiling or frowning would be too great a show of emotion.

We talked for over an hour about her past life, going back to her grandparent's arrival in the states back in 1956 and her mother's own arranged marriage the following year at the age of 15. Her own arranged marriage to Trinh Cong Min in 1973. She had been 15 as well when she married the much older man. Their son Dinh had been born less than a year later.

Some of that got glossed over, perhaps still too painful to speak of in front of a stranger, even if it was a prospective employer.

I spoke a while, telling her what Edwina probably already had, that I was a young, former soldier now trying to settle into life in Santa Rosa and learning to deal with wealth I hadn't been used to as a child, as well as the loss of parents that had not confided in me about their own family and financial status while they were alive.

The two of us managed, in the end to look on each other with some mutual sympathy. After the long conversation, Edwina told me to go watch TV or something for a while. Mrs. Trinh was going to make me lunch.

"Don't worry," Edwina laughed. "I'll only be here to show here where things are. She'll do all the cooking."

I took my laptop to the living room and checked my email. And surfed the internet for a while. I was considering looking for a set of golf clubs rather than relying on a set of loaners from the resort, though apparently they prided themselves on their ability to match people up to a set of outstanding Calloway clubs. I did a little surfing around with the clubs in mind, but wasn't sure yet if I even wanted to go through the effort to buy clubs, given my lack of recent experience.

If we were going to play tennis though, I was going to have to shop for that. I didn't want to seem as if I was completely unprepared for a resort vacation. I needed golf clothes too, which had me looking again at some of the places I'd looked before.

My quest was interrupted by the call to lunch from Mrs. Trinh. Quiet though she was, her voice was pleasant, with clear, bell-like tones when she spoke up.

I sat at the table, finding a glass of orange juice waiting for me.

"I've made you Eggs Benedict and cottage fries for lunch Mr. James," she said, placing an elegant plate in front of me. "I've also made a small Moroccan orange and carrot salad. This is a slight adaptation of the recipe, as you did not have orange blossom water,"

"I didn't have orange blossom water?" I feigned indignation at Edwina. "Edwina, I thought you had my pantry well stocked!"

"Sorry sir," she answered in an obviously exaggerated drawl. "Safeway was fresh outta orange blossom water."

Edwina and I laughed, and after a moment, I thought I heard a small, clear titter coming from behind the hand covering Mrs. Trinh's mouth.

The meal was fine, though the salad was not something I would go out of my way to ask for. It certainly showed me that Mrs. Trinh was a good cook, and the cuisine she had access to was impressive.

"You're a small woman, and I know you're no little old lady, but you are in your fifties," I said as we walked back up the stairs from looking at the laundry room and gym. "Hauling laundry up two flights of stairs might begin to wear on you after a while."

"Perhaps," she said in her small voice. "After a dozen years or so."

Quiet she might be, but she had some wit about her, no doubt about it. We looked upstairs, and while we did I talked about the changes happening soon, both the ADT security changes and the pool installation. She was especially pleased to hear my idea about lining the road with trees.

Edwina cautioned me about having someone living in the house and setting off the alarm systems, and I told them both not to worry, that the security people were mindful of these needs.

"What time do you get up in the morning, sir?" Mrs. Trinh asked.

"I'm usually up by six, sometimes earlier," I answered.

"What time would you expect breakfast?"

"On days when I am home, I usually eat at eight, unless I have an early appointment. I would not expect you to make breakfast on days when I had to leave early. At this time I don't expect that to be something that happens very often."

"Will you have lunch at noon?"

"I would expect so, yes. Lunch though is the meal I will probably most consistently be gone for. What we will have to do is see how consistently I can keep you apprised of my schedule, so you're not cooking meals I wind up missing."