by Fiona Zedde
“Just water, please, but for my entrée I’ll have the wild salmon with the roasted vegetables and potatoes.” Sara didn’t attempt the Italian pronunciation of the dishes on the menu.
“Salmoni selvaggi,” the waitress said, her voice lightly teasing. “I’ll put that in for you right away.”
Rille’s eyes went stormy with jealousy. She tapped an index finger against the table. When the waitress finally arrived at her side, she gave her order in clipped Italian, not once looking up.
“Thank you,” Stephen said to make up for her rudeness, surprised that Rille would let her jealousy show.
As the waitress left to put in their orders, Sara turned to Rille with a slightly raised brow. “Are you feeling your oats tonight, Rille?” she asked. “I thought Stephen already soothed all your ruffled feathers.”
“You know it takes more than that to calm me.” Her hand squeezed Stephen’s. “I have a lot on my mind.”
“Including terrorizing sweet little waitresses?”
“So you think she’s sweet.”
“Of course. I know you think so too. If you’d been the one she wanted,” Sara murmured.
So Sara had noticed the waitress flirting with her. Then again, the girl hadn’t been very subtle. Rille smiled, pleased again to be the center of their attention.
Sara shook her head. “I think I will have a drink after all.” She pushed back from the table. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”
Sara stood, graceful in the black pencil skirt and white blouse that flattered her hourglass shape. She moved easily through the crowded restaurant to the bar. Male and female alike watched her, helpless to her allure.
“She’ll never leave you,” Stephen said to Rille, and she startled.
“Of course not.” But her eyes were uncertain. They flickered over the cutlery; her hand briefly flirted with the knife’s edge even as she looked at Sara again.
At the bar, predators surrounded her. A man leaned close and she turned to him without leaning away, said something, and he withdrew. She paid for her drink and, with the iced cranberry liquid held aloft, made her way back to the table. Knowing Stephen watched her, Rille’s face was carefully blank as she in turn watched Sara.
In the last few days, there had been some tension in the house. It had started with Rille’s moodiness and odd disappearances from home for hours at a time, then things went back to normal but not before Sara grew concerned, then fed up, freezing Rille out until she reacted out of desperation, coming as close to begging Sara for affection without actually begging. Stephen had merely weathered the emotional storm, waiting for both women to settle back into place. He had a feeling his wait was just about over.
Sara walked up to the table, set down her drink, and reached for her chair to settle back in its depths.
With the three of them once again seated in the configuration that worked best—Sara and Stephen glowing points in Rille’s star—their dinner continued as before. Rille smiled and preened. Sara and Stephen appreciated. But when dinner arrived, they picked at their meals, in separate galaxies, isolated and adrift in their own thoughts.
The restaurant, Stephen noticed, was as much a place to be seen as it was to eat. The mirrored surfaces, ultra modern décor, and extensive drink and food menus were all designed to make the patrons glow a little brighter, their laughter sparkle just that much more. Rille had brought them there for herself.
“Is everything to your liking?” The waitress made another flirtatious appearance at Sara’s elbow.
“The meal and service are both wonderful.” Sara’s playful look brought out the girl’s laughter.
“Then I consider my job well done tonight.”
To her credit, Rille didn’t snap at the waitress and make herself look like a jealous bitch. That would be telling. Instead, she was all charm again.
“Thank you for taking particular care of us, my dear.”
Her sugary tone caught the waitress off guard and the little thing looked Rille in the face for the first time. Stephen could almost see her getting ensnared by those sparkling eyes, the saturnine curve of mouth.
“Anytime,” the waitress said.
Another Rille captive. When Stephen laughed, the women looked at him in surprise. But awareness slowly settled into Sara’s features.
“Can you tell me where your restroom is?” she asked the girl, and the enterprising young thing pointed toward a dark hallway across the restaurant, then, after a telling pause, offered to walk her there.
“Thank you.” Sara’s manners were impeccable.
As they walked away, Rille’s brow wrinkled with irritation.
Stephen leaned toward her. “It’s not like they’re going to fuck in the bathroom, you know.”
She made a noise with her teeth and tongue. “That’s what I would do in that little slut’s position.”
Stephen chuckled, knowing she wasn’t joking. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the pushy guy from the bar head for that same darkened hallway that Sara disappeared into. The man smoothed down the front of his gray suit and adjusted his tie as he walked through the restaurant.
“Have you ever even been a waitress?” Stephen turned his attention back to Rille.
“One summer in Provincetown.”
“And I’m sure you specialized in providing services that weren’t on the menu.”
A look of mock surprise took over her face. “How did you know?” Smiling, she plucked a silver pillbox from her purse, shook out Friday evening’s dose of meds, and quickly downed the two pills with water.
“A wild guess.” Stephen stood. “Be right back.”
In the narrow hallway, there was no sign for the men’s room, but the man stood there anyway with his broad football player’s shoulders and back nearly blocking the passageway. He leaned against the wood-paneled wall talking with someone. As Stephen approached, the man straightened, showing a flash of black and white—Sara’s eye-catching outfit. The football player shoved his hands in his pockets, still blocking her in as he talked, still hopeful. Stephen knew that calm look on her face, the one that said her patience was being tested. A movement from the man had her shaking her head and her face changed. Her look of scorn shoved him back one foot, then two. But in a moment, he recovered, asserting his masculinity with a hard grasp of Sara’s arm. She winced and tried to pull away.
“That’s not really necessary,” Stephen said, walking up to them.
The man sized him up then, immediately dismissive, turned back to Sara. He didn’t let go of her arm. “My friend and I are having a private conversation,” he said without looking away from her. “Go find your own.”
Stephen stepped closer.
“I don’t need your help.” Sara’s eyes were venomous. The scornful look turned on Stephen and he understood the urge to violence that drove the bull-necked man, the need to assert that he was not that loathsome thing her look made him into.
“I’m not doing this for you. Rille wants you.” Stephen spoke quietly, focusing on her and not the squirming humiliation in his belly at the other man’s self-satisfied smirk.
With an abrupt jerk of her arm, Sara freed herself. Her pursuer’s grin disappeared; instead, he looked a bit ashamed now with his inflated muscles and model’s face dismissed by someone who couldn’t care less about his reaction. Stephen knew how he felt. With a brief nod at the poor bastard, he turned and walked away.
The Smile
Sara/1994
The sun flooded through the large window, warming Sara’s side as she sat in her bed studying. The rights of man, Hobbes, social Darwinism. The words ran through her head, skating through that place she knew would retain them and give them life when she took the test tomorrow. But even as she studied, a face surfaced, smiling and beautiful. She reached up and touched her ear and the face laughed soundlessly. Sara smiled.
“What are you grinning at?”
Raven walked out of the bathroom, drying her thick hair with a towel. Sara’s
eyes fluttered toward Raven then looked away.
“I think you forgot to dry yourself,” she said.
“No big,” Raven said with her gap-toothed smile. “You can look if you want to. I don’t mind it.”
Sara turned back to her, an uncertain smile on her lips. Raven had washed her hair and showered, but just as the hair she vigorously rubbed the towel through was wet, so was the body with its thin cotton dress. The colorful patterns on the pale cotton didn’t hide the press of apple round breasts and hard nipples, softly rounded belly, the cradle of her hips and the dark smear of pubic hair. Raven looked like she’d walked out into the beginning of rain and come back wet.
“Now I’m smiling about something totally different,” she said.
Raven snorted. “I know what that second thing is.” She sat on her bed with her hair oil and conditioner, the towel draped across her lap.
“The first is nothing. Just homework. Can you imagine being a philosophy major? What would that really prepare you for except arguing?” She gestured to the book in her lap and shook her head.
“I can’t talk,” Raven said. “My major is women’s studies and anthropology so I don’t know what good that will do me either except get me ready for grad school.”
“That could be interesting, though. Digging up lost things. Finding explanations for the things that we think we know now.”
“That’s a good way of putting it.”
Sara glanced at her with a quick smile. “Life is all about perspective.”
Raven nodded. She dried her hair again for a few minutes with the towel then rubbed the hair oil into her scalp and the strands of her short hair. With a slight twist of her body on the bed, she turned to face the mirror she had nailed on the wall, just over her bed against dorm regulations. Looking in the mirror, she started to braid her hair.
“That guy is hot,” she said after only a few minutes of silence. “Who is he?”
What?” Sara looked where Raven pointed with her comb. “Oh, that’s my brother.”
“He’s a cutie. If I didn’t have a man already, I’d definitely be tempted to ask for his number.”
“He would have been a good time,” she said, smiling up from her book.
“I bet.” Raven grinned with her arms lifted as she pulled her hair together into a long, two-inch wide braid running from the front of her head to the back.
Sara didn’t have to look back at the picture to know what Raven had seen. Raven’s reaction wasn’t unusual. Other girls had sighed over her brother, taken with his flashing white smile, beautiful face, and effortless charm. In the picture, he was wearing one of his typical outfits, thrift store jeans, gray Jimi Hendrix T-shirt that showed off muscled arms. It had been gusty that day, and the wind blew fiercely against him, pressing the cotton against his skin and showing off his flat belly. His head was a tangled disorder of mushrooming hair, thick, wild, and blowing back in the breeze.
“Yeah. I’m sure he never had any complaints.”
Although she liked her new roommate, Sara pointedly looked down at her philosophy notebook. She had a test tomorrow and didn’t feel like talking about Syrus.
But that didn’t prevent her mind from dwelling on him.
The day before Syrus left for the last time, he came by Sara’s room.
“Sarita.” His light voice woke her from a dream of sand and dolphins. “I’m going to Nicaragua in the morning.”
She rubbed her eyes. “What time is it?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
But Sara could see the shades of gray beyond her curtain. It was already morning.
“I thought you were going to stay for a little bit and at least come with me down to school.” It was still early in the summer break, and she would be moving into her new dorm in less than two months.
“I was going to,” he shook his head. “But the guy who’s supposed to rent the house to Keisha, Max, and me is leaving earlier than planned. He wants somebody to be there before he takes off.”
In the dark, Syrus was like a ghost, an already disappearing specter of pale shirt and dark pants and slow smile. The necklace that Sara had given him for his twenty-first birthday shone a dull silver.
“Okay.” She didn’t try to hide her disappointment. “When are you coming back?”
“Christmas.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She lay back in bed, content at least about that. Syrus had come back for her high school graduation, leaving behind some pretty girl in Granada he said, just to rush back and give her his congratulations and a bag full of presents.
“Okay,” she said again. “Be careful. Call us.”
Their parents were already up. She could hear them in the kitchen making early morning noises. Papa getting ready for a day at the seafood plant. Mama making breakfast and talking about their latest phone call from Jamaica. Comforting, familiar sounds. Sara pulled the sheets up to her chin.
“You be careful at school, Sarita. Watch out for those boys, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” His teeth flashed in the dark.
The door closed behind him and, after a time, she drifted back to sleep.
In her dorm room, Sara’s eyelashes flickered over her book. Tears blinded her, but she blinked them away before any could fall.
Gorgeous
Stephen/2004
The sidewalk outside the glass was awash in light and color. Chalk graffiti and well-intentioned obscenities passed under designer stilettos and worn Converse alike. Sunday afternoon. Everyone’s playground—the rich, the homeless, the clueless. Beyond the wide windows of Different Spokes, the mostly transient world of the Little Five Points neighborhood wandered by. Stephen imagined the day smelled like freedom, while in the store, air-conditioning trapped the scent of rubber and bikes and the incense clinging to Manny from his mid afternoon smoke.
“Fuck!” Manny almost dropped the bike he was trying to hang on the display with the others. “The damn pedal almost took off my dick.”
Stephen didn’t have to look across the brightly lit store to know that Manny’s round face was almost comical in its anger, brow furrowed, gelled black hair frozen in place, meaty hands clenched around the frame of the Iron Horse mountain bike he knew better than to drop.
“You should pay attention to what you’re doing then,” Stephen said, ringing up a customer.
But it was hypocritical of him. Wasn’t he the one staring out the window between customers at the passing beauties, wishing he could be outside instead of caught in the prison he’d made for himself? Not that he didn’t like the bike shop. He did. It was his business, after all, and a place where he’d rather work than at some corporate sweatshop pouring out his ideas to thieving peers and unappreciative bosses.
The people he met at Different Spokes were a mixed enough variety to keep him interested. Environmentally conscious vegans, poor students, professional cyclists, terminally hip progressives who just wanted a little bit more padding between their current mode of transport and their flat asses, even lesbian moms with the child seats attached like mini bunkers to the backs of their bikes. Was carrying a baby on a bike even safe in this town of kamikaze motorists and SUV-driving speed junkies?
“Thanks. Have a great day.”
The slender teenager in front of Stephen’s register barely paid him any attention. Instead, he nodded spastically along to whatever was playing on his iPod, mumbling what sounded like “same to you” after Stephen handed him his change. The boy walked out the door, his bag of bike pedals swinging at his side.
The next customer in a line three deep clutched her air pump in one hand and slid the money across the counter, eying Stephen with a familiar, covetous stare. He rang up her purchase, feeling like she was burning the image of him—Skunk Anansie T-shirt, baggy cargo shorts, and all—onto her retina. His body warmed with equal parts flattery and discomfort.
“Thank you,” the frizzy-haired blonde sighed with her change in hand and mov
ed down the counter so the next person in line could get a turn.
Two pairs of bike shorts and a helmet later, she was still there. Stephen closed the register with a quick movement of his hand. “Can I help you with anything else?”
“No, um…well, yes.” She fiddled with the handle of the pump poking out from her hemp woven shopping bag. “Can you recommend a good coffee shop around here?”
He knew what she wanted. Even Manny looked over from arranging the bike finally on its display, snickering.
“Yeah. There’s one right across the street. On the corner next to the pizza place. The ladies in there make a great mango smoothie too.”
She smiled at him, eyes blinking. “Do you want to check it out with me sometime? I’m kinda new in town.”
She’d been “new in town” and stalking his shop now for at least eight months. When the girl came in, Stephen usually went out of his way to make her feel welcome, no matter what she bought or how long she stayed. But this was getting a little sad.
“Sorry, Shelly.” He knew her name from the credit card she’d given in payment minutes before. “But, no. I’m working here all day. Thanks for the offer. That’s nice of you to ask.”
From the corner of his eye, a flash of white and gold caught his attention. Stephen looked briefly out the window. Her. He looked back at his customer, at her nervous and blinking softness.
She smiled again, a blush climbing in her freckled cheeks. “Maybe another time.” And she left the store with the light tinkle of the bell over the door.
“Steve, don’t blame her for stalking when you’re the one who comes into work looking so pretty,” Manny called out, paying no attention to the half dozen customers still browsing around the shop. “But she’ll see in about five minutes just how many other skinny guys with big nappy hair and bright teeth live in Atlanta. After that, you won’t even see her in here again.” Manny laughed. “Do you think she even owns a bike?”
Stephen didn’t respond. Instead, he watched the floating vision beyond the glass in white slacks and a coffee-colored blouse that matched her skin. She’d been coming to their neighborhood for months now, each week with a different person by her side. Today it was a boy, pretty and obviously too young to know better than to put himself in the path of a woman like this. The boy wore a worshipful look, his hands gesturing nervously as he spoke. The woman was attentive, not taking her eyes from him even when the wind whipped her wild curls forward, obscuring her vision.
