Author’s note: This is a story of love, not sex – an erotic coupling of hearts, not bodies (necessarily). A romance in the end, I suppose, though not a typical offering.
My goal was to tell the story of two people almost entirely through their conversation. Virtually nothing is revealed except through the voices of the characters – so be forewarned.
*****
We were seated on the restaurant’s patio under a trellis of leafy grape vines and a strand of white lights. I wasn’t used to the humidity in L.A. I had been on a plane from crackling dry Las Vegas only two hours before, so I hadn’t had a chance to decompress, and small beads of perspiration were gathered on my forehead. I had asked the hostess to seat us inside at first, but then I saw Addie’s frown.
“Then again, the patio does look inviting,” I had said to the hostess to correct our course. I could endure the sultry air for Addie.
We sat without speaking for a moment. Her eyes laughed and flirted, just like when we were kids.
“I am so glad we could make this happen,” I said. “I hardly got a chance to speak to you at the reunion.”
“Do you come to L.A. often?” she asked. I wished I could have said yes.
“No, not on business like this. We used to take the kids to Disneyland every few years, but not anymore.”
“It’s not ‘cool enough’ for them now.”
“It’s not that. It’s my wife; Rebecca has lupus. Her joints hurt all the time. I suppose I should take the kids myself, before they really are too old and it isn’t ‘cool.’”
“How old are they again.”
“Twelve and ten.”
“Your daughter is twelve, right?” she said with a knowing smile.
“Yes, the hormone ride has definitely started. She is so sweet though; we hope she doesn’t give us too much trouble.”
We were quiet for a moment and I heard the wind against the building high above us. I noticed faint wisps of gray in her jet-black curls. So she didn’t use dye. It would be so easy for her, with such dark hair. Good for her.
“So your boyfriend, um…” I snapped my fingers lightly like I couldn’t recall his name. She knew I was teasing her.
“You mean Dave?” She raised her eyebrows. His name was Rob, and she knew I knew that. I laughed. We had fallen right back into our easy ways. It seemed so natural.
“No, that’s not it. Your other boyfriend, the one that had so much fun at our reunion.” Rob had picked up a nametag of someone who couldn’t make it and had pretended to be one of us, with some humorous results.
“Oh him.”
“He’s a lot older than you, isn’t he?” She knew it was a compliment.
“Just a couple years.”
“You’re kidding. Really?” Now I was going to take a real shot at him. “I bet you and he didn’t go to his twenty-fifth.”
“No, we didn’t.”
“Not ‘cool enough’ for him?”
She smiled coyly, with me. “Something like that,” she said conceding he had been a bit smug.
“I thought he was funny,” I conceded. “I’ll probably do the same thing at my wife’s twenty-fifth – make fun of all the staid and pudgy Midwesterners.”
“He wasn’t making fun.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Stop it, Mark.”
“Yes Addie.”
Our waitress introduced herself as Gwen and asked for our drink order. Addie handed her menu to Gwen.
“You order for me,” she said looking at me with her warm golden-brown eyes. She had done the exact same thing twenty-five years earlier at dinner on the night of our senior prom. And she smiled, like then, but the light in her eyes seemed different now, less magical. There were some scars, I thought.
“Oh no, not another challenge,” I replied.
“No challenge; I like everything. You know that.”
I remembered her generous and adventurous appetite. I admired that about her.
“Okay. A double Stoly martini for her – lemon slices, no olives. I’ll have a double Glenfidditch rocks.
Addie started to speak but waited for the waitress to leave.
“Are you trying to get me drunk?” She whispered accusingly.
“Sure, just like our prom night.”
“It didn’t work then, either.”
I was going to say that we were just kids then, but decided against it.
“How long have you and Rob been together?”
“You mean Rob whose name you couldn’t remember?”
“I was just being a jerk.” I shrugged and grimaced appropriately.
“Ten years.”
“Exclusively.”
She frowned at me with exasperation. “You think you’re so damn smart.”
She was right; now I was being smug. “I’m sorry.”
“Okay – seven years, ‘exclusively.’”
But I was right.
“You work together, right?”
“Used to. Rob is making movies now: independent films.”
“Producing?”
“No, directing.”
“Any luck?”
“Not yet.”
I could have said, “Oh, so he’s unemployed,” if I had wanted to risk ruining the evening.
“Does he treat you all right?” I asked instead.
“We’re compatible.”
I asked her about the talent agency. We talked for a while about her job.
“I specialize in kids,” she said wrapping it up, “and I enjoy it – the few nice kids, anyway. I get invited to their birthday parties sometimes. Sometimes I feel like family, watching out for them.”
“But most of them are spoiled brats with pretentious parents?”
“It goes with the territory.”
Ironic, I thought. I so much wanted to know why she didn’t have any kids of her own – but that was too personal, for now.
“So you’re a famous author now,” she said.
“I am not famous. Occasionally one of my students will ask me to sign a paperback. And the only reason anyone has ever heard of the book is because of the movie.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is. And trust me, the movie is better than the book, and the movie isn’t all that good.”
She patted my hand on the table. “I loved your book.”
“Thank you.” I suppose I wasn’t surprised that she had read it, so I didn’t pretend to be.
“It is a very moral story,” she said trying, at least, to sound sincere.
“A morality play about hookers, criminals, drugs, gambling, and deviant sex.”
“I suppose, but some of the characters were very decent, and very brave.” She looked at me sympathetically.
“I’ve got three ‘literary’ manuscripts sitting on a shelf. Much better stuff, really, but I could never get anyone to read it. So an agent at one of these writing conferences says to me, rather pointedly, ‘Jesus, Mark, you’re a criminal law professor at UNLV – write a goddamn Vegas crime story. I might read that!’ So I did, and he did. I still can’t get anyone to read my good stuff, though. ‘Write another crime thriller,’ they say.”
“Maybe I could get someone to take a look at your good stuff.”
She busted me. “Actually, they’re not ready yet,” I said like a man caught in a lie.
“The good stuff never is,” she said knowingly.
I ordered lamb for her, duck for me, and a bottle of Merlot. We shared our meals like a married couple, forking at will at the other’s plate (just like when we were kids). The conversation was pleasant and uneventful. Half the wine was left when Gwen took our dishes. She asked if we wanted dessert, and I said we wanted to talk.
A floral scent in the breeze, gardenias maybe. The grape leaves rustled. All around us, steely blue skyscrapers lurched into the darkness. We were in the heart of the city, and yet it was quiet and green and the lights were soft. So we talked.
“You know what always amazed me about you?” I started, feeling emboldened by the alcohol.
“Hmm… my relentless and naïve devotion to virginity?”
The glint in her eye – it was like she winked at me without winking. I coughed a laugh and had to cover my mouth.
“Okay, that too,” I said catching my breath, “but I was thinking about how you used to talk to your mom after school, right after, you know, ‘homework time,’” I said raising my eyebrows. I used to sneak into her basement after school, and she would meet me there under the guise of needing a quiet place to do her homework.
“You mean after having your tongue in my crotch and your dick in my mouth,” she said brightly and wryly. I had to cough again, this time in surprise.
“Yes; that would be the more direct way of putting it.”
“You could hear us?”
“Yes, through the vent grates. That’s why we had to be so…”
“Quiet, I know” she interrupted, “but I didn’t know you were listening.”
“Sometimes I’d linger in the bathroom. I thought it was so funny I had to listen.”
“What was so funny?” she asked warily.
“Not ‘funny’ funny, but cute. You’re not mad at me?”
“I don’t know.”
“It was nothing, really – church picnics, piano lessons, volunteer work. I never had a life like that, and how you could switch gears like that…”
“Oh, from being a slut?”
“No. I didn’t mean that,” I said solemnly.
“I know you didn’t.” She smiled. “I was just giving you a hard time.”
“I meant it as a compliment; I thought it was great how you were this genuinely nice, sweet person, and yet you could seem to enjoy yourself like that, at least I think…” I was sinking now, hoping she’d throw me a line.
“Oh, I enjoyed it.”
“I learned a lot from you – a lot about being a decent human being.”
“Thank you. I learned a lot from you too,” she said with a coy smile that reconnected us to the past.
We sipped our wine and wondered what the other was thinking.
“How’s your mom,” Addie finally said, more seriously now.
“She’s great. She’s never had another breakdown. Must have gotten it out of her system. She’s got a condo in a high-rise near the loop, right across from the campus.”
