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once in a while, but it’s never happened. Not that I’ve noticed, anyway.”
    “Don’t buy the whole ‘Minnesota nice’ thing,” he said. “This place is as racist as anywhere else. It’s because of all the Hmong refugees. They think we’re boat people, man. It’s as bad as Boston. Over there, you’ve got the ofays in Southie, the yokels in Dorchester—you know exactly what to expect from them—but the more sinister, corrosive, subtle shit comes from people like your chickadee, what’s her name, Didi.”
    “What about her?”
    “Were you purposely looking for WASP City?”
    “She’s Catholic.”
    “You know what I mean. She’s so white-bread. She’s, like, the apotheosis of white-bread. She’s sourdough, man. She has no soul. She’s never suffered or wanted for anything a day in her life.”
    “I like her.”
    “Do you, or you just on bush patrol? The story about the bell get to you?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Yeah, right. Listen, she’s a lemon sucker.”
    “What?”
    “A yellow dipper, a paddy melt, a Chiquita muncher. California slang for white chicks who want a taste of Asian.”
    “How come I’m from California and I’ve never heard of any of these terms?”
    “I can’t account for your ignorance,” Joshua said. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Sourdough is just slumming, man. It’s a phase, like every chick in college needing to go girl-on-girl at some point. Chicks like Sourdough like to think they’re pluralistic, but when it gets down to it, they’ll stick to their own kind.”
    “Meaning what?”
    “Meaning Sourdough would never get serious about you.”
    “Jesus,” I said, “we’re just hanging out. Who said anything about getting serious?”
    “Just so you understand. Have fun, wet your wick, but don’t expect it could ever go beyond that.”
    I didn’t believe Joshua, not really, but I kept thinking about what he had told me, and, against my better judgment, I started scrutinizing everything Didi said and did, as if searching for incriminating evidence. Was it significant, for example, that she bought a silk happi coat (Exhibit A) and began wearing it around campus? Was there something to her having a late-night craving for moo shu pork (Exhibit B) and making us take the bus up Snelling to the House of Dynasty on University Avenue? Should I have been perturbed that she once sang the chorus to the song “Turning Japanese” (Exhibit C) apropos of nothing? What about the fact that she wanted to learn tai chi (Exhibit D), or the time she uncupped her hands to give me an origami (Exhibit E) of a tiny blue bird?
    Then there was the night she wanted to cook me dinner, an odd whim, because she couldn’t cook—at all. Turck had a lounge on every floor with a stove, sink, and microwave, and there she whipped up an unholy concoction of frozen vegetables, shredded day-old chicken-salad sandwiches from the snack bar with the bread (which was sourdough!), a sprinkling of cashew nuts, and an entire jar of plum sauce (Exhibit F), all mashed together and sautéed in a wok (Exhibit G) and served in rice bowls (Exhibit H) with chopsticks (Exhibit I).
    “It’s good!” I told her, naturally.
    And then there was this conversation:
    “Your hair is so straight,” she said. “Is it this straight all over?” (Exhibit J.)
    “All over? Well, not completely straight. A little wavier, maybe.”
    “Let me see.” She lifted my left arm and peered through the sleeve at my armpit. Then she said, “What about down there?”
    “Where? You mean … my pubes?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “The same, I guess.”
    “I suppose I’ll have to check it out sometime for myself.”
    Things like that last statement made me ignore the strong circumstantial case that was building up against Sourdough, the sobriquet becoming more apt by the minute. I told myself I was being paranoid. So what if she was going a little Asian on me, so what if she’d contracted a bit of yellow fever? Maybe all the evidentiary pieces were merely coincidental, or just gestures of attraction, misguided as