The Ramen King And I : How The Inventor Of Instant Noodles Fixed My Love Life Part 5

Matt instructed me to keep a small notebook in my pocket at all times, and to write in it when I felt like breaking my commitment. Whenever I wanted to post a personal ad on Craigslist or ask out a woman at a party or in a coffee shop, I was supposed to write a memo to Momof.u.ku Ando describing what else was happening or what I had been thinking about. For the first couple of weeks, I didn't write in the notebook at all. I went to morning meetings at the church nearly every day, but most of the time I was in a state of shock-there were also moments of euphoria-over confronting this part of my life. I couldn't believe that people in the meetings were talking openly about what they were talking about. I wondered what my colleagues at the magazine would have thought if they knew what I was doing before work.

Gradually, though, the cravings came back. It was difficult not to act on them, but I followed Matt's instructions and wrote in the notebook every time. In each entry, I marked the number of days that had pa.s.sed in my abstinence period.

Momof.u.ku: (17 days) Josh didn't like my story idea. Said it was "facile." Josh didn't like my story idea. Said it was "facile."

Momof.u.ku: (19 days) I sucked today playing Ultimate Frisbee. Matt said I should try some new activities, especially new activities where women were not the central focus. So I showed up at an Ultimate Frisbee pickup game in Golden Gate Park. I dropped three pa.s.ses, and one of the guys on my team said, "Maybe we should screen new guys before we let them play." Later I made a great pa.s.s that resulted in a score, but no one gave me any credit. I sucked today playing Ultimate Frisbee. Matt said I should try some new activities, especially new activities where women were not the central focus. So I showed up at an Ultimate Frisbee pickup game in Golden Gate Park. I dropped three pa.s.ses, and one of the guys on my team said, "Maybe we should screen new guys before we let them play." Later I made a great pa.s.s that resulted in a score, but no one gave me any credit.

Momof.u.ku: (22 days) I finally got Josh to let me run with my story idea and now I'm sitting here at my desk in my tiny office staring at the computer screen and I don't know what to write. I have no idea. Maybe it was facile. I finally got Josh to let me run with my story idea and now I'm sitting here at my desk in my tiny office staring at the computer screen and I don't know what to write. I have no idea. Maybe it was facile.

Momof.u.ku: (22 days) I am sitting around my apartment doing nothing. I have no friends. I'm bored. I am sitting around my apartment doing nothing. I have no friends. I'm bored.

Momof.u.ku: (23 days) I just got bawled out by the managing editor. We were in the big story meeting and I was so afraid of being criticized that I said, "Would it be possible if I just said my idea and we moved on to the next person?" The managing editor called me into his office later and told me I was the most conceited person he had ever met and that he had worked with writers who had reason to be conceited but even they weren't as conceited as I was. I really, really want to go on a date tonight. I just got bawled out by the managing editor. We were in the big story meeting and I was so afraid of being criticized that I said, "Would it be possible if I just said my idea and we moved on to the next person?" The managing editor called me into his office later and told me I was the most conceited person he had ever met and that he had worked with writers who had reason to be conceited but even they weren't as conceited as I was. I really, really want to go on a date tonight.

I noticed that, at least in these first few entries, almost every time I wanted to break my commitment, there had been some conflict. It did not escape me that the conflict usually involved men.

The next appearance of ramen in my life came several weeks later. I'll describe what led up to it, beginning with some entries in my notebook.

Momof.u.ku: (31 days) I am in a coffee shop, and there is a woman at the next table I want to talk to. Just before coming here, my father called. Actually, he left a message on my answering machine. It started with, "Hi, And. It's Dad." He always calls me And, but I knew something was wrong because whenever my parents leave a message, it's always my mother who leaves it. My father spoke in his usual flat, unemotional tone, even though he was telling me that his mother was dead. "It's Grandma Sylvia," he said. "She succ.u.mbed to the cancer." I feel guilty because when I heard that Grandma Sylvia was dead, the first thing I thought about was her clam chowder. It was white, but loose, not starchy. The "secret" ingredient was dill, but she used so much of it that it was hardly a secret. I am in a coffee shop, and there is a woman at the next table I want to talk to. Just before coming here, my father called. Actually, he left a message on my answering machine. It started with, "Hi, And. It's Dad." He always calls me And, but I knew something was wrong because whenever my parents leave a message, it's always my mother who leaves it. My father spoke in his usual flat, unemotional tone, even though he was telling me that his mother was dead. "It's Grandma Sylvia," he said. "She succ.u.mbed to the cancer." I feel guilty because when I heard that Grandma Sylvia was dead, the first thing I thought about was her clam chowder. It was white, but loose, not starchy. The "secret" ingredient was dill, but she used so much of it that it was hardly a secret.

Momof.u.ku: (33 days) Back in Long Island for Grandma Sylvia's funeral. It's two a.m. I am resisting the urge to go down to the den and log on to my mother's computer. Momof.u.ku, if she only knew what I have been writing to you about. She picked me up at Kennedy Airport a couple of hours ago. She was waiting at the baggage claim even though my flight didn't get in until after midnight. The first thing she said was, "Are you hungry?" It was right out of a Woody Allen movie, so I said, "Ma, you sound like you're out of a Woody Allen movie." She said, "Just because I don't want you to starve, that makes me Woody Allen?" I didn't mean that she was Woody Allen, but that she reminded me of the mothers in Woody Allen movies. Whatever. I can't believe she's almost sixty-five. She's in great shape for her age. On the way to the short-term parking lot, she said she had eliminated processed sugars from her diet and that I should do the same. Basically, I think she was telling me to lose weight. When we got to the parking lot, she led me to her new car. It's an SUV called a GMC Denali. I remarked that the car was huge, and she started rubbing her forehead, which she does when she feels guilty. She said the car was the president's fault, because he had pushed a law through Congress granting a tax break to anyone who purchased small trucks, and the Denali qualified. "It's going to be like $10,000 to buy this car when all is said and done taxwise," my mother told me. "We would have paid $30,000 for any other car we were looking at. So the president gave us no choice. I feel terrible. I want to put a b.u.mper sticker on the back that says, 'The President Made Me Buy It.' " I'm staying in my old room. My parents have painted it blue and put frilly throw pillows on the bed so it looks like a guest room. Back in Long Island for Grandma Sylvia's funeral. It's two a.m. I am resisting the urge to go down to the den and log on to my mother's computer. Momof.u.ku, if she only knew what I have been writing to you about. She picked me up at Kennedy Airport a couple of hours ago. She was waiting at the baggage claim even though my flight didn't get in until after midnight. The first thing she said was, "Are you hungry?" It was right out of a Woody Allen movie, so I said, "Ma, you sound like you're out of a Woody Allen movie." She said, "Just because I don't want you to starve, that makes me Woody Allen?" I didn't mean that she was Woody Allen, but that she reminded me of the mothers in Woody Allen movies. Whatever. I can't believe she's almost sixty-five. She's in great shape for her age. On the way to the short-term parking lot, she said she had eliminated processed sugars from her diet and that I should do the same. Basically, I think she was telling me to lose weight. When we got to the parking lot, she led me to her new car. It's an SUV called a GMC Denali. I remarked that the car was huge, and she started rubbing her forehead, which she does when she feels guilty. She said the car was the president's fault, because he had pushed a law through Congress granting a tax break to anyone who purchased small trucks, and the Denali qualified. "It's going to be like $10,000 to buy this car when all is said and done taxwise," my mother told me. "We would have paid $30,000 for any other car we were looking at. So the president gave us no choice. I feel terrible. I want to put a b.u.mper sticker on the back that says, 'The President Made Me Buy It.' " I'm staying in my old room. My parents have painted it blue and put frilly throw pillows on the bed so it looks like a guest room.

In the morning, when I awoke, Grandpa Walter was standing in front of me. He had been sleeping in my sister's old room.

"Hey, buddy. How's it going?"

I rubbed my eyes. "Grandpa, I'm really sorry."

He seemed not to hear me, and I remembered that he had begun using a hearing aid. His once-broad physique-the product of years of working in machine shops and being on sailboats-had begun to slump.

"Listen, Andrew. Will you drive me to the cemetery?"

In her will, Grandma Sylvia had asked to be cremated and to have her ashes tossed over the Atlantic Ocean. That was because she and Grandpa Walter had spent nearly every summer of their lives sailing, usually off the coast of Brooklyn. When he was in his twenties, my grandfather found a small whaling boat beached in Sheepshead Bay. He took it to his father's metal shop, where he patched a hole in the hull, soldered on a mast, and made a sail out of canvas. He taught himself how to sail, then sold the whaling boat and bought another sailboat. My grandparents would sail north to New England, and as far south as the Caribbean. My father and his brothers grew up sailing, and so did I, though I never really took to it. Even though Grandma Sylvia had asked to be cremated, she had also requested a headstone bearing her name in the family's cemetery plot in Staten Island.

"Sure, Grandpa. I can drive you there."

My parents caught a ride with my uncle and left me the Denali. I backed the "car" out of the garage and onto the driveway, giving Grandpa Walter a hand getting in. As I drove toward the Long Island Expressway, we pa.s.sed several split-level homes being torn down to make room for new construction. Grandpa Walter muttered a remark about surging real estate prices, and at the mention of money I made a note to write later in my notebook.

Momof.u.ku: (34 days) I was thinking today, while driving Grandpa Walter to the funeral, that after the memorial service I wanted to call Jennifer, in Connecticut. What was I thinking about just before that moment? Grandpa mentioned real estate prices, and then I thought about how I don't own a home and how I'm the first entrepreneurial failure in four Raskin generations. I was thinking today, while driving Grandpa Walter to the funeral, that after the memorial service I wanted to call Jennifer, in Connecticut. What was I thinking about just before that moment? Grandpa mentioned real estate prices, and then I thought about how I don't own a home and how I'm the first entrepreneurial failure in four Raskin generations.Max Raskin, Grandpa's father, emigrated from Russia, and with two of his brothers built a business converting horse-drawn carriages into motorized trucks. ( (To perform a conversion, Max bought a Model T Ford and sc.r.a.pped everything but the cha.s.sis, which he soldered underneath the carriage.) According to the family history, the company, Standard Body Corporation, produced three-quarters of the trucks in metropolitan New York by 1931. When trucks from Ford and General Motors flooded the market, Max secured a niche, converting regular trucks into ice-cream trucks and other specialized vehicles. As a teenager, Grandpa Walter worked in Max's factory, helping solder miles of copper tubing onto the insides of truck walls; the interiors were cooled by pumping refrigerants such as Freon gas through the pipes. Then Walter had a better idea. He stamped a flow pattern in a metal plate the size of the truck wall, soldered that to a flat metal sheet, and installed the a.s.sembly in the side of a truck. He got a patent, and with capital from his father, he founded a company called Dean Products According to the family history, the company, Standard Body Corporation, produced three-quarters of the trucks in metropolitan New York by 1931. When trucks from Ford and General Motors flooded the market, Max secured a niche, converting regular trucks into ice-cream trucks and other specialized vehicles. As a teenager, Grandpa Walter worked in Max's factory, helping solder miles of copper tubing onto the insides of truck walls; the interiors were cooled by pumping refrigerants such as Freon gas through the pipes. Then Walter had a better idea. He stamped a flow pattern in a metal plate the size of the truck wall, soldered that to a flat metal sheet, and installed the a.s.sembly in the side of a truck. He got a patent, and with capital from his father, he founded a company called Dean Products ( (named for its address on Brooklyn's Dean Street), which sold heating and cooling surfaces to everyone from Budweiser to NASA. My father worked for Dean until he was forty years old, but he didn't always enjoy working with his relatives, so he quit. His friend offered to teach my father the home-building business in exchange for sailing lessons. Later, my father formed his own, very successful, real estate development company.

Driving along the expressway, I asked my grandfather a question I had never asked him before.

"How are you feeling?"

"Wha.s.sat?"

The hearing aid. I repeated the question.

My grandfather tilted his head and opened his hand, which is what he always did when he was sharing important information.

"You know, I went with a lot of girls before I met your grandmother."

This was unexpected and, needless to say, new territory for our relations.h.i.+p.

"I thought you and Grandma got married when you were nineteen."

They met on a beach, near Coney Island.

"Well, yeah, that's true. But there were some things before that."

Things?

"In any case," he continued, "when I met Sylvia, I knew that she was special because it was going to be about more than just s.e.x."

I tried, unsuccessfully, not to imagine my grandparents having intercourse.

"I knew that I could build something with her."

I didn't know what to say. "That's great" was the best I could muster. Ugh.

"It's very important to find that," he advised. "Very important."

We crossed the Verrazano Bridge. The sun was out, but fallen leaves were swirling in the wind. When we got to the cemetery, around twenty people were standing near Grandma Sylvia's headstone-mostly relatives and friends from my grandparents' sailing days. I helped Grandpa Walter out of the car and he joined the other mourners. He gave an unscripted eulogy, repeating the stuff about how he always knew he could build something with my grandmother, but this time he didn't explicitly mention s.e.x. Later, we all had lunch at a nearby diner. I don't remember why, but instead of riding home with me, Grandpa Walter left with someone else, and my parents drove me back to their house in the Denali. On the way, my mother announced that she wanted to be cremated, too, but she didn't care to have her ashes spread anywhere. Rather, she hoped to be split into two urns that my sister and I would keep in our living rooms. I listened to my parents' conversation from the backseat.

"That's a little weird, Jude."

"What's weird?"

"It would be a little weird for them to have you in their living rooms."

"What's weird about that?"

"Where would they put you, on the mantel?"

"OK, they can bury the urns in their backyards."

"What if they move? You'll be buried in some stranger's backyard."

"They can dig me up and take me with them."

Shortly after the funeral, my grandfather moved to an a.s.sisted-living facility. To prepare his house for sale, my parents, along with my aunt and uncle, flew to Florida. They sent Polaroids to all our relatives of items my grandfather didn't want, and asked everyone to put in requests. I didn't have a big apartment, so I inquired about my grandmother's KitchenAid mixer. Everyone, it turned out, wanted the KitchenAid mixer. I settled instead for a framed photograph of my grandparents on their sailboat, a dictionary on a display stand, and Grandma Sylvia's recipe box. UPS delivered the package a few weeks later. I hung the sailing photograph in my living room, and set up the dictionary on its stand near my desk.

The recipe box was made of pressboard, its cover attached with a rusted hinge. Opening the box, I saw that it was stuffed with index cards. I wondered if Grandma Sylvia's clam chowder recipe was among them, so I reached in and pulled out a random card.

The t.i.tle was "Cousin Jody's Asian Coleslaw," and the list of ingredients included "instant ramen, one-half cup (crushed)."

A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF MOMOf.u.kU ANDO, PART 3 : SOMETHING CUTTING INTO HIS HEART

The various accounts I have read of Ando's life agree on many points. For instance, they all state that his parents died in Taiwan when he was very young (although none explains how), and that, along with two older brothers and a younger sister, he was raised by his paternal grandfather, a textile distributor.

He calls his grandfather "a strict disciplinarian" and an excellent role model for life as an entrepreneur. Starting in elementary school, Ando was expected to do his own laundry and to cook for himself. He learned how to dress chickens, and made box lunches each morning for himself and his sister. He was surrounded by the vitality of commerce-steady streams of customers and suppliers, workers busily preparing s.h.i.+pments, and the sounds of looms operating in the neighborhood.

At age twenty-two, with an inheritance from his father, Ando started a company to import socks from j.a.pan. He focused on synthetic fabrics that were just becoming available. Demand was so high that, to ensure supply, he left Taiwan and established a wholesale buying operation in Osaka. On the side, he took management cla.s.ses at Kyoto's Ritsumeikan University. By the time he was twenty-eight, Ando had built a thriving business.

Four years later, during one of Ando's visits back to Taiwan, j.a.panese warplanes attacked Pearl Harbor. In Conception of a Fantastic Idea Conception of a Fantastic Idea, Ando writes that, as he listened to radio reports of the bombing, he decided to return to j.a.pan and never again set foot in his home-land. But in none of his autobiographies does he really explain why, and it's easy to draw the conclusion that he's not being entirely forthcoming.

Of the decision, he simply states (in Magic Noodles Magic Noodles), "It is difficult to communicate exactly how I was feeling at the time, except to say that there was something cutting into my heart."

The longer I was abstinent from dating and s.e.x, the more ramen showed up unexpectedly in my life. Typically, it would appear just after I had written in my notebook.

Momof.u.ku: (48 days) Josh just called me into his office. His office is on the side of the building with gorgeous views of the Bay Bridge and the Oakland Hills. He said he wants to do a story in the magazine about a new mobile phone that everyone's buying. The company that makes it is in Chicago, so I asked him if he wanted me to go there and do some interviews. He said that no, he wanted me to edit the story and hire a writer. So that means he's thinking about promoting me to an editor! I've never edited anything in my life, but I'm really excited to try it. I'm so excited that I wanna go online and meet someone. So it's not just when I'm down that I want to meet someone. It's also when I'm excited. Matt says excitement can be like money in your pocket, capital you think you can spend on getting someone to like you. What will I do with it if I don't spend it? My father once said, "Money burns a hole in your pocket." By "your" he meant my pocket, not pockets in general. Josh just called me into his office. His office is on the side of the building with gorgeous views of the Bay Bridge and the Oakland Hills. He said he wants to do a story in the magazine about a new mobile phone that everyone's buying. The company that makes it is in Chicago, so I asked him if he wanted me to go there and do some interviews. He said that no, he wanted me to edit the story and hire a writer. So that means he's thinking about promoting me to an editor! I've never edited anything in my life, but I'm really excited to try it. I'm so excited that I wanna go online and meet someone. So it's not just when I'm down that I want to meet someone. It's also when I'm excited. Matt says excitement can be like money in your pocket, capital you think you can spend on getting someone to like you. What will I do with it if I don't spend it? My father once said, "Money burns a hole in your pocket." By "your" he meant my pocket, not pockets in general.

I called a writer I knew in Chicago and left a voice mail message. He had just written a book about economic development in Asia, and I congratulated him on breaking into the New York Times New York Times best-seller list. The next day, he called back. I was at lunch, so he left a message: best-seller list. The next day, he called back. I was at lunch, so he left a message: "Cool, I'd be into doing the story. Give me a call back and we'll talk. And thanks for the kind words on the book. Hey, you used to live in j.a.pan, right? Are you by any chance into instant ramen? Because I am getting totally into it. My favorite is an Indonesian brand called Indomie. Their Chicken Rendang has five-count 'em-five flavor packets. This is not instant ramen. This is theater!"

Momof.u.ku: (58 days) I am so bored. I'm on vacation from work, but I didn't go anywhere, and I want more than anything to place an ad on Craigslist and meet someone. I thought maybe I would call Matt and ask him to reduce the ninety days to sixty, but I know what he'll say. I had two weeks of vacation time saved up, so it was, like, use it or lose it, but I couldn't think of anywhere I wanted to go, even though I still have some frequent flier miles left from my management-consulting days if I wanted to take a trip. I thought about going hiking in South America or scuba diving in the Caribbean, but the idea of going to those places by myself-without the chance to hook up with someone-seems lonely and boring. Two days ago, for the first day of my vacation, I went to a meeting at the church in the morning and then I spent the rest of the day cleaning my apartment. Yesterday I went to a meeting at the church, paid my bills, and watched TV. When I woke up this morning, I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I stayed in bed and read I am so bored. I'm on vacation from work, but I didn't go anywhere, and I want more than anything to place an ad on Craigslist and meet someone. I thought maybe I would call Matt and ask him to reduce the ninety days to sixty, but I know what he'll say. I had two weeks of vacation time saved up, so it was, like, use it or lose it, but I couldn't think of anywhere I wanted to go, even though I still have some frequent flier miles left from my management-consulting days if I wanted to take a trip. I thought about going hiking in South America or scuba diving in the Caribbean, but the idea of going to those places by myself-without the chance to hook up with someone-seems lonely and boring. Two days ago, for the first day of my vacation, I went to a meeting at the church in the morning and then I spent the rest of the day cleaning my apartment. Yesterday I went to a meeting at the church, paid my bills, and watched TV. When I woke up this morning, I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I stayed in bed and read Spider Monkey in the Night Spider Monkey in the Night, a collection of Haruki Murakami short stories.

I once met Murakami. It was while I was getting my MBA. I was taking a j.a.panese literature cla.s.s at the University of Pennsylvania, and for my final project I translated one of his short stories. It took place in a hotel, and one of the main characters was a guest who was always smelling her hand. My professor happened to know Murakami's wife, who arranged for me to meet him at Princeton (where he was giving a lecture). I found him in a dark, Gothic hallway, and sitting on cement benches, we discussed the story I had translated. I asked Murakami what the smell on the woman's hand represented, but he wouldn't tell me. "What do you think it represents?" he kept asking back. I couldn't understand why a writer would write something like that and not tell a student what it represented.

Several stories in Spider Monkey in the Night Spider Monkey in the Night had food-related t.i.tles, including "Croquettes," "Donut-ification," "Eel," "Beer," "Milk," and "Donuts Again." In the final chapter, Murakami had composed a song to the tune of "If I Had a Hammer." He called his version "Ramen in the Morning." "Honestly," Murakami wrote in an afterword, "I don't like ramen. I don't even like walking past ramen restaurants. But with this ramen song, it was as if I had been dragged by fate to write it. If you feel the urge, sing along." had food-related t.i.tles, including "Croquettes," "Donut-ification," "Eel," "Beer," "Milk," and "Donuts Again." In the final chapter, Murakami had composed a song to the tune of "If I Had a Hammer." He called his version "Ramen in the Morning." "Honestly," Murakami wrote in an afterword, "I don't like ramen. I don't even like walking past ramen restaurants. But with this ramen song, it was as if I had been dragged by fate to write it. If you feel the urge, sing along."

Honestly, I had nothing better to do.

Delicious menma menma1 Roast pork in the morning Ramen for breakfast, I am so glad Broth is hot and good Scallions so nice and green Just that, there'd be love between my brothers and my sisters I am satisfied Slurpin' it down Bamboo shoots in the morning Ramen for breakfast, I am so glad Together you and me Cheeks all nice and red Just that, there'd be love between my brothers and my sisters I am satisfied

Your loss if you don't eat it Ramen in the morning Today's another clear day outside, sun s.h.i.+ning bright I ate some seaweed Drank some soup, too Just eating that, there'd be love between my brothers and my sisters I am satisfied On the fourth day of my vacation, my friend Ellen called. It was Ellen who, a year earlier, turned me on to the record company that produced the CDs for Pottery Barn and Eddie Bauer. We had been driving to the beach in her car when I opened her glove compartment and discovered that it was filled with CDs branded by chain stores. She owned Williams-Sonoma: Dinner Is Served Williams-Sonoma: Dinner Is Served, Pottery Barn: Sounds of Soul, Pottery Barn: Sounds of Soul, and and Swingin' Holiday Swingin' Holiday, a collection of big-band Christmas songs distributed by plus-size clothier Lane Bryant. "I don't know how I got that one," Ellen said at the time. "I'm a size four."

For a long time, Ellen and I enjoyed an ambiguous relations.h.i.+p that included a onetime hookup, but now I couldn't do that. She said she was house-sitting at her wealthy friend's home, and that there was a big pool. Her friend Carla would also be there, and Ellen invited me to join them. At first I thought it might be a bad idea, because the last thing I needed on Day Fifty-Nine was to be alone with two bikini-clad women, one of whom I had been involved with. But I was bored sitting at home, and Ellen and I wouldn't be alone.

Not that I thought it would do any good, but I found myself whispering Matt's prayer as I drove south on Highway 101.

O Momof.u.ku, show me how to live so that I may better do your will.

The house was in Woodside, a Silicon Valley suburb famous for sprawling homes, wooded vistas, and dot-com millionaires. It took about an hour to reach it from San Francisco. Ellen's directions led to a curvy street and then a dirt road. I made my way up a long, steep driveway and parked in front of the house, one of the largest I had ever seen. The front door was open, so I walked in. The owners must have been art collectors; huge contemporary paintings hung on the walls. I spotted Ellen and Carla through the back window. They were sitting by the pool.

"Hey, you guys."

Ellen was overjoyed to learn that I had brought along Jiffy Lube's Romantic Moments Jiffy Lube's Romantic Moments, a CD I had purchased while getting an oil change.

"I cannot even believe this thing exists," Carla said.

Ellen wore an orange bikini and she was lying on a deck chair. Carla's bikini was turquoise, and her feet dangled over the pool's edge. Part of me was disappointed not to be alone with Ellen, but part of me was relieved.

"Hey, why aren't you at the magazine today?" Carla asked.

She and Ellen worked as freelance marketing consultants, but they were between contracts, and the downturn in the Silicon Valley economy was making it hard to find new jobs. I sat on the deck chair next to Ellen's.

"I'm off for a week. I had the vacation time."

"Use it or lose it," Ellen said.

"Right."

Carla wanted to know why I hadn't taken advantage of the opportunity to travel.

"I thought about it, but I couldn't come up with anywhere I wanted to go."

"Come on," Carla said. "There's no place you want to see?"

Carla slid into the pool and climbed onto an inflated blue raft. She paddled around with her hands.

"Mostly I've just been cleaning my apartment and reading," I said.

Carla didn't give up.

"You mean to tell me that there's nothing in the whole world that interests you?"

I thought about it.

"Well, there's this one thing," I admitted.

"Yeah?"

"You remember when I was in the hospital?"

Ellen remembered, sort of.

"For your spleen, right?"

"Gallbladder. Anyway, the day after the surgery, I read an article in a j.a.panese magazine about the inventor of instant ramen."

Carla sat up on her raft.

"The inventor of what?"