"So, you are going for a cookie monster meets French Renaissance theme in your performance?" Sara teases, shoving her hand into the back pocket of her wife's jeans.
"Umm," Mimi flushes, and her tails fluff out, pointing at Sara in mock outrage, "yeah, it was Rick's idea. You know capitalist classicism, and the cookie monster may have quite a lot in common. I think the guy organizing the show has a Sesame Street fetish. But it's not for another two months."
Sara ignores the strange looks at her wife's comment and drags her through the farmer market to a booth that held an assortment of candles.
"I could spend all day smelling these," Sara kindly smiles at the woman running the booth, "oh look, sweetheart, sandalwood."
Mimi obligatory sniffs the candle and wrinkles her nose unhappily. Mimi eyes the blue raspberry shave ice in her wife's hand.
"Do you have peppermint?" Sara asks the woman; Mimi leans over and devours the residual shave ice in a single mouthful.
"I'm going to get another shave ice," Mimi whispers to her wife and quickly darts away.
Seeing Mimi head over to the shave ice, Sara looks down at her own cone and holds it upside down before glaring at her wife's backside. As if summoned by a siren song, Mimi glides across the cobblestones to the shaved ice booth. Wondering if it were possible to mix all twelve flavors together, Mimi almost misses the man working the booth with emerald eyes.
"Can I…" Mimi is flummoxed. It was like staring at a mirror, except his black hair is long, "sorry man, must have been having a brain fart there. Umm, can I have a blue raspberry shave ice and a pink lemonade shave ice, please?"
"Yeah, of course, ma'am," he busies himself, cranking the eye machine. This relaxes Mimi enough to bust out her wallet.
"Hey, you're the Golden Phoenix, right?"
Mimi pulls out her Wonder Woman's wallet and stops. This dude couldn't be a weird Instagram stalker, could he? It would explain why he was replicating her good looks.
"Erm, yes," Mimi snuffles at the man but cannot get a scent with all the intermingling syrups and people.
"That's awesome! My girlfriend loves you! She claims your performance of the La Llorona made her cry for days!"
Mimi relaxes a little and demurely slides her American Express over to him, "Tell your girlfriend thanks for me. I am fortunate to be able to do what I love and share that with others.
"If it is not too much, can I get a selfie? Otherwise, she would never believe I met you!"
He takes out an iPhone and beseechingly stares at her. Mimi cringes on the inside but smiles and nods her head. They take the picture, and being close to the man, Mimi picks up a strange musky smell. It was weirdly familiar. Where had she smelled it before? The man set the large shave ices on the counter.
"You know what, let me get you two more of those, on the house!"
Smiling approvingly at this suddenly very polite gentleman Mimi looks over her shoulder at her wife, "You really don't have to do that."
"Please, I insist," the man is cranking the ice machine, and well wouldn't it be impolite to refuse?
"Okay, you twisted my tail," Mimi says, "Just the same as before. Blue raspberry and pink lemonade."
"You obviously know what you like," the man says with a smile. Mimi glances once more over her shoulder to see her wife coming over with a self-satisfied expression on her face, "Yeah, I think I have pretty good taste."
Tails wagging, Mimi smiles sheepishly at her wife, who wraps an arm around her, before giving one of her tails a good tug.
"One of those better be for me," Sara quips, as Mimi hides her wince and the impulse to rub the soreness out of her back.
"But of course, my love," Mimi says gently, giving her the pink lemonade one she was holding, "and these three are for me."
Before Sara can protest, Mimi squashes two of the blue raspberry shave ices together, "Now isn't that a wonderful sight!"
Rolling her eyes, Sara looks over at the shave ice seller and regards him with curiosity.
"Come on, babe, I am craving something other than concentrated sugar. Oh, there's Lydia! She's the wonderful Chinese folktales professor I was telling you about."
"Weren't you here when we first opened?" the man suddenly asks, amused as hell.
Mimi shrugs, "My wife likes to be here early to avoid the crowds."
"But weren't you looking to buy the snow cone machine? Like offered the boss five thousand dollars?"
"You what?" Sara's voice cut through the crowd.
"You know you can buy these on Amazon for much less than that," the guy said kindly.
"That is genius. Did you hear that, babe? I can make shave ice year-round!" Mimi gesticulates to Sara excitedly, who was looking anywhere but at the shave ice booth.
Sara puts her hand in her wife's pocket and pulls out her credit card, "Then I am buying mushroom noodles!"
Her wife waddles away to the noodle stand, clicking away with her blue kitten heels.
"You know," Mimi turns back to the shave ice seller, contemplatively," you look really familiar."
"Mimi!"
"Did we go to the same circus camp?" Mimi watches as the man shakes his head and turns to his other customers.
"Mimi!"
Finally, turning away from the strange man, Mimi is pulled over to a fruit stand.
"Did you see that guy?" Mimi asks, looking back at the shave ice seller.
"Let's go, babe," Sara pulls her wife to the car and pushes her in, and locks the door.
Getting behind the wheel, Sara peeks at the guy in the rearview mirror before pulling out, "I didn't like the look of that guy. He kinda freaked me out. He was looking me over like I was a piece of meat. When you were getting your credit card out, that guy was glaring at you. That was why I was yelling for you."
Sara puts her hand on her stomach, "Gave me the heebie-jeebies. But the weird thing was I could swear he has the same eyes as you. Hell, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were twins."
"We didn't look that much alike," Mimi crosses her arms over her chest, but a seed of doubt is forming in her mind.
"Hhmm," Sara parks the car, leaning back in her seat, "babe, why don't you talk about your family or talk to your family?"
Mimi leans over the gear shift and pulls Sara to her in an awkward hug, one arm wrapping around her wife and the other resting on her stomach, "You are my family. My . . .family lost interest in me a long time ago."
Her phone rings, and it is from an unknown number. Mimi ignores it and pats her wife's hair.
"You are one of the most important people to me, babe. I don't know what I would do without you. But I am here for us."
Shaking her head, Sara returns her wife's smile, "Sometimes I think there are pieces of you that I am missing. We've been married a year, and there are still things that I don't know."
"Then ask me," Mimi nuzzles her mate's nose and playfully licks it.