What is it exactly about this man you’re about to marry?

Love, love, love. You can buy love at every five and dime, at Woolworth’s, at all the card shops. Love on lace-edged cards, love in chocolate boxes, love in so many inconsequential places.

CHOP SUEY BY KATHLEEN J STOWE 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 03

'“I like the color of your hat,” I said. “It matches the pattern in your scarf—and your eyes, too.”

My sister adjusted the bright blue cloche she wore, tugging it down over her ears. “Yours fits much better,” she said.

“Not really. And it’s such a dark ugly shade. I can’t imagine what I was thinking when I bought it.”

We sat at a table next to the window, in the long gray shadows of a January afternoon. Too early to light the small lamp with a chartreuse green shade that sat in the center of the table. And probably too early for dinner, but we weren’t the only ones in the restaurant. My sister moved the lamp to the windowsill. Her hands were restless and she repositioned the ashtray as well.

It might have been that she was simply hungry—we’d alr…