I was sitting on the bed in my hotel in Amsterdam when the fish commercial came on. Geena was in the bathroom. I had the TV on because I was nervous—she’d only been in there a minute, but it felt like longer. I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying on the TV, maybe the occasional Wow! or Hi! I wasn’t even sure if I’d been watching a program or a commercial—some attractive people were sitting in big chairs, fanned like on a talk show. They were all eating these pink waffle cookies, passing them around, trying to finish them as fast as they could. Lots of laughing, crumbs spitting everywhere.
Then the fish commercial came on.
Three kids burst into a sunny kitchen through a back door, dropping their backpacks like they’d just been at school. There was a tall Black guy with a gold earring and a backwards baseball cap. There was a tiny girl with freckles and red hair in a ponytail, wearing bright yellow overalls. There was a plain-looking white kid in a red dress shirt and rainbow suspenders. It seemed to be suspenders kid’s house, how he came in first, beelined to the refrigerator. Just three average Dutch kids home from school, prowling for a snack.
The suspenders kid held up a bunch of options from the fridge: a bowl of vanilla pudding, some kind of red sauce in a jar, and a big wedge of cheese on a wood block with a knife sticking out of it. The friends shook their heads at each one, looking disappointed. The suspenders kid then dug into a cabinet and showed them a bag of chips, a box of spaghetti, and something indiscernible that was held together with yarn. His friends didn’t want any of it.
Then the shot focused on suspenders kid’s face, his eyes getting huge and a smile taking over the rest; he even snapped his fingers as if to say, I’ve got it! He opened the freezer and pulled out fish fillets. Not a box of fish sticks or those breaded triangle pieces they sell in the frozen food aisle in America. Just fillets of white fish, wrapped in transparent plastic. He held them up to his friends. Immediately, they lit up, their faces electric. High fives abound.
The shot cut to fish fillets frying in a cast-iron pan, bubbling and sizzling. The three kids looked on, hunched over, glancing sideways at each other in anticipation, licking their lips. The next shot was a spatula flipping the fillets over, then to the kids wide-eyed again. No children had ever wanted anything more than those three kids wanted that fish.
The final shot had the kids sitting crossed legged on the carpet in front of the TV, forking their fish off plates and laughing as if the funniest jokes in history had just been told. Then the word VIS appeared in big purple letters. I looked it up on my phone: “VIS” is Dutch for fish. That’s it: FISH.
The screen returned to the cookie people on the talk show and Geena emerged. She was wearing ridiculous lingerie, a getup just like the one in the pamphlet I was handed at the train station. It covered parts underwear didn’t normally cover and left the parts that were normally covered out in the open. Geena had a little matching mask on a stick that she held up to her face. There was even a satiny cape hanging off her back, like she was Super Hooker.
“Have you seen that fish commercial?” I asked.
“What?” Geena said.
“The fish commercial. Kids come home from school and fry fish.”
“I don’t think so,” Geena said.
“Do kids here do that, fry fish? Like as a snack?”
Geena appeared perplexed. “Is this how we’re spending your time?”
“No,” I said.
“We can eat. That’s a different thing. It costs less, but you’ve already paid and there’s no refunds.”
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
“Should we get started?”
I shrugged.
Geena pushed me back onto the bed. She was bracketed by the TV screen behind her. It was still the talk show. I closed my eyes but soon reopened them. The sides of the screen, Geena still front and center, looked like the kitchen from the fish commercial. Then the edges of the frying pan.
“Hey, it’s back,” I said.
Geena looked up.
“What’s back?”
“The fish commercial!”
“Seriously?”
I pointed. “There it is. I can’t see because your head’s in the way, but the kids … they’re really into that fish.”
Geena turned around just as the screen returned to the talk show with the celebrities all covered in pink crumbs.
“I don’t see fish.”
“You turned around too late.
“I was otherwise occupied,” Geena said, annoyance accompanying her voice.
“Maybe it’ll come on again.”
“Let me know.” Geena resumed what she’d been doing.
I couldn’t concentrate. I wanted Geena to see the fish commercial, then explain it, at least give it some context.
My distraction was obvious before long.
Geena sat on the bed. “We can watch together, wait for it to come back on.”
I sat up. “You don’t mind?”
“It’s your time. Fifty-one more minutes.”
We sat. The talk show went on and on. I hoped they would at least try to gang-eat more foods. But they just talked. Then credits, crawling up the screen.
“I bet it’ll come on again,” Geena said.
“I hope so. Like next.”
The credits took forever. Everyone in the Netherlands apparently worked on this show.
“You’ve got me curious,” Geena said.
“I want you to see it,” I said. “However much it costs, I’ll pay you for you to see it.”
“It’ll be next.” Geena took my hand.
I believed her, that she wanted to see it, that it would come on again, come on next. I believed that back door was about to fly open, that we’d be in that kitchen, all those possibilities firmly within our grasp.
