Triple door opens wide

You know, the one with the triple door,8221; she says. I8217;m in trouble. Not yet six months here, still a green student getting used to ...

You know, the one with the triple door,8221; she says. I8217;m in trouble. Not yet six months here, still a green student getting used to American accents, and this woman makes no sense to me. She has called to ask me out. She has suggested a restaurant I don8217;t know. So she says: 8220;The one with the triple door.8221; Triple door? What8217;s that? Why would a restaurant have one anyway?

Feel for me. Yes, I8217;m new to America, to the delight of an attractive young lady asking me out. I want to seem cool, like this has happened a hundred times it hasn8217;t, not once. Yet I am baffled by what she says, nervous about admitting as much. Not cool at all. 8220;I don8217;t know,8221; I say hesitantly, 8220;any restaurant with a triple door.8221; She laughs, slows for breath, and gasps: 8220;Not triple, silly! Pripple! Pripple.8221; Enlightenment? Not yet! It has a 8220;pripple8221; door? But then I say it out loud 8212; well, not so loud, just a whisper so she won8217;t hear me 8212; and it makes sense. 8220;Purple.8221; Ah. But in her succulent, curvaceous, fruity Noo Yawk accent: 8220;Pripple.8221;

Restaurant with the purple door, yes. On Wickenden Street. Now I know it. She keeps laughing. On the phone. When I ring her bell to pick her up. All the way there in my rattletrap Dodge. Sure it8217;s funny, but this isn8217;t the best start to our date. At any rate, it is doing some damage to my still fresh-off-the-boat ego.

Nevertheless, dinner is fun. The restaurant is cheery, friendly waitresses and clientele. Company8217;s good, food too. Best of all, a guitar man is singing. Several tuneful standards 8212; Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Paul Simon, Joan Baez. I lap it up, thinking this is America! This is the American life, this cozy restaurant, these songs that have only ever been tracks on albums to me. Then he finishes a tune and asks, 8220;Any requests?8221;

I have one. He has been singing Joan Baez, surely he8217;ll know this tune that she sings so well? You know, 8220;Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord8221;? So I call out 8212; getting the hang of being American, aren8217;t I? 8212; 8220;Battle Hymn of the Republic, please!8221;

There8217;s a moment of silence. Then a familiar sound starts up and has soon swept the entire room. Laughter. Like I heard trilling on the phone, then in the car. The whole damn place is laughing at me. Guitar man drawls, 8220;You from the South, man?8221; As I wait for a hole to swallow me up, I notice one person isn8217;t laughing. In the same fruity accent, she explains the Civil War significance of the song; why it8217;s odd, at best, to request it in a restaurant in this heart of Yankee America.

Months later, I realise this was the moment the green student feeling started wearing off. To this day, I8217;m grateful to her for that. Triply grateful, even.