"Chad, I need to see you right away," Rieko said in an exasperated tone over my mobile phone. "Can you pick me up at my work place?" Even though I had been expecting her call, I pretended that I wasn't sure as to my availability.
"Come on, Chad. You're holding my Raymond's markers. Don't deny it," she interjected. "He came home late last night and said that he lost big at your poker game. And that you took his paycheck...again!"
"Hey, Rieko, don't get mad at me. I didn't force your husband to show up my door uninvited, much less sit down at the table. I didn't twist his arm to bet like an idiot, trying to bluff when everyone knew he had lousy hands. I even told him to quit early and go home, but the idiot refused.
"Rieko, I didn't have to hold your husband's IOUs. I could have let the other guys hold them. Would you have wanted that, Rieko?"
There was a long pause on the other end of the call, followed by a loud sigh of frustration and capitulation. I could hear Rieko choking up with emotion when she finally replied, "Look, Chad, you know the kids and I need that paycheck. I need to 'talk' with you about his debts. Now, I told my boss that I was sick and had to leave. Will you pick me up? Please?"
Moments later, I pulled up to the back of her working place, and Rieko quickly slipped into the front seat of my car next to me. A quick glance at her before merging into traffic told me she was upset by the set of her lips and the tenseness in her body. As tears swelled in those almond-shaped eyes of hers, I knew better than to say anything. I figured that Rieko would speak when she was good and ready.
"What can I say, Chad?" When I failed to respond, Rieko turned face me,
with her arm resting on the seat back. "I need the money that Raymond lost last night. The rent is overdue and the bills are piling up. He's...he's sick, Chad. You know that. He can't control himself."
The tears were now trickling down her cheeks as Rieko swallowed and struggled to compose herself. Then swallowing the last shred of her pride, and dejectedly asked, "Will you to help me out...again?"
I reached into my shirt pocket and pulling out her husband's signed-over paycheck, placed it seat between us without saying a word. Rieko picked it up, looked at it, then trembling placed it in her purse, mumbling a soft, "Thank you, Chad."
We continued down the road, riding in uncomfortable silence. Then finally at a stop light Rieko whispered, "You know I just can't let it go like that...I' have to repay you one way or another..."
I looked at her lovely Asian face and calmly said, "Rieko, the question isn't whether you 'have to,' but whether you 'wanted to' make it up to me."
Rieko sat there as if wrestling with her own internal conflict. She then said, "Turn left here, Chad, and head to the 'motel.' You already know the answer to your question. Head to the 'our' motel."
Rieko and I knew each other quite well. We had dated in high school and had been quite an item. She was an attractive Japanese-American girl back then with long wavy jet-black hair, laughing eyes, high cheek bones, a cute little button nose, and a toothy warm smile. I was her opposite, dark and brooding, always skirting on the edge of being legit.
"Jeez, Chad, why did you always have to be the proverbial rebel without a cause," Rieko wistfully signed, "that 'bad boy' whom 'good girls' like me were always drawn to."
Leaning back in the car seat, Rieko softly reminisced, "With you, I did all the things I wasn't supposed to do. God, I can still remember our hot and heavy sessions in the back seat of your old man's car. I can't believe how shameless I was with you back then."
.
"Well, maybe that explains why your parents hated my guts. I know your father wanted to karate-chop me for leading his precious baby-girl astray. And your mom, talk about the icy stare of death. I never knew that silence could say so much.
"Anyway, I couldn't really blame them. I was forever on the verge of getting into trouble with hustling and gambling as my mainstay. That's why when we graduated it was widely acknowledged by our classmates that 'Chad the Cad' was most likely end up in jail.
"I don't blame you for breaking up with me, Rieko. I know you were looking to settle down, marry a college guy, and have kids. But, that wasn't something I was into at the time. I didn't realize how much I would regret losing you untiI you were married to geeky Raymond."
"Hey Chad, at the time I thought Raymond was whom I was looking for. My parents really liked him and constantly pointed out how different he was from you. He was 'Mister Straight-and-Narrow' who wanted to get married, have a family and a home - something you weren't into. I thought Raymond would be a good provider and that I'd have a secure life with him being a certified public accountant for a large firm."
"Well, Rieko, I hate to tell you but while Raymond may be a whiz at numbers and accounts, he sucks when it comes to poker. The term 'fish' applied to him because he sure likes swimming in shark-infested waters where he didn't belong. He lost his shirt quite a few times in the friendly poker game at my house, but I covered his losses...for you, Rieko."
"Yes, Chad," Rieko murmured as we crossed into the wrong side of the tracks, "I know. Thank you, but I still owe you."