And look where that had gotten him: trapped in the back seat of a cab driven by a cell phone ninny.
More sprawling stucco buildings. More mini-malls and traffic lights. Then the driver cruised onto a driveway that led into a complex of two-story buildings nestled among palm trees and palm shrubs and bushes with obscenely red blossoms erupting from their branches. “This is it,” the driver announced.
Josh paid the driver an outrageous sum, hauled his bag out of the vehicle and walked up to the door that bore Melanie’s address. He rang the bell, felt heat roasting his back, and glimpsed a skinny brown lizard skittering across the red tile walkway. He was used to mice, cockroaches and pigeons. Lizards gave him the creeps.
The door swung open to reveal a woman he recognized as Melanie. Not the Melanie who’d left New York three months ago, however. A different Melanie. An Opa-Locka Melanie.
She must have paid a visit to the local Salon de la Marines, because her fluffy blond chin-length hair had been shorn into a buzz cut. He’d never before realized how long her neck was, but now it was naked, exposed to the elements. So were her earlobes, which bore more holes than he’d remembered. Last year for Hanukkah, he’d given her diamond stud earrings. Given how much they’d cost, he was glad she’d only had two holes to fill back then.
Her eyes hadn’t changed much, but her eyebrows had been plucked and shaped so they arched thin and high, giving her a startled appearance. Her smile was the same, though. He used to love kissing those lips.
Now he watched them shape words: “Josh! Hi! Did you have any trouble finding the place? Come on in—get out of the heat.”
That sounded like a great idea. He stepped inside and she shut the door behind him. The cool interior air sent a chill down his sweat-damp back and he struggled not to shiver.
He continued to study Melanie. There was a lot to see, since she was dressed rather scantily in a filmy mini-dress with a halter top. She was still slim, but her skin was a bit darker. Not as dark as that of the models in the thong bikinis on the billboards, but getting there. Her feet were bare, and she’d painted her toenails green.
“Hello, hello!” she said so perkily, he suffered a fresh surge of guilt. She seemed pleased to see him. He ought to pretend he was pleased, too.
“You look great,” he said, not sure how much of a lie that was. Just so she’d believe him, he kissed her cheek and then presented her with a smile.
She smiled back. “You hate my hair.”
“There’s not much of it to hate.” He cautiously lifted one hand to touch her crew cut. It felt bristly, like indoor-outdoor carpeting. “No, really, you look good.”
“How was your flight?”
He shrugged and followed her into a living room decorated in a tropical motif—rattan furniture with floral-patterned cushions, potted plants, straw-like matting on the floor and a swirling white-bladed ceiling fan that might have been a leftover prop from the set of Casablanca. A stack of magazines sat on a corner table. Josh could only hope they wouldn’t come into play during his visit. He could just imagine her reading him some magazine article about two-timing SOB’s or about women’s castration fantasies as a way to facilitate their dialogue.
“My flight stank,” he said honestly. “And it’s so damned hot here—”
“I’ve been telling you,” Melanie reminded him. “You want something cold to drink?”
“I’ll take a Sam Adams.”
She cringed, then smiled sheepishly. “I haven’t got any, Josh. I forgot. Would you like a Michelob?”
Michelob? He never drank Michelob. How long had they been together? She knew Sam Adams was his drink, and he’d traveled all the way from New York City to see her, and she hadn’t even thought to pick up a couple of Sam Adams beers. If she’d traveled to New York City to see him, he would for damned sure have stocked up on Beringer’s Chardonnay for her.
Michelob. Well, if her haircut hadn’t proven that she’d changed beyond redemption, her failure to have a bottle of Sam Adams on hand did.
Reluctantly, he followed her into her efficiency kitchen. While she pulled a beer out of the refrigerator, he scanned the small room: Formica counters, the usual complement of appliances, a huge bowl of oranges, grapefruit and bananas beside the toaster, a tube of sun block on the window sill, a wall phone. Was that where she’d talked to him when he’d called her during her midweek party? How far would the phone’s cord stretch? Into the vestibule, maybe. All that rattan furniture had been filled with yakking guests, and the components of her small but apparently effective stereo system stood on a series of shelves in the living room, visible because a counter was the only barrier between the kitchen and living room, one section of which formed a dining nook. As soon as he had his beer, he ought to check out her CD collection, to see how many Iglesias CD’s she’d added in the past three months.
After prying open the cap on his beer, she fixed herself a rum and pineapple juice. Not Chardonnay. In New York…
Forget New York. She wasn’t in New York anymore. Josh had journeyed all this way to ascertain that, and now he knew.
“I came here to break up with you,” he blurted out.
She spun around to face him. Her bare feet squeaked on the tile floor and her eyes looked doubly large without any hair framing her face. “You did?”
He couldn’t tell if she was upset or simply surprised. Or maybe only surprised that he’d stated his mission so bluntly. Maybe the actual mission didn’t surprise her at all.
They went back into the living room. Melanie gravitated to the stereo, Josh to the window that overlooked the grassy courtyard around, which was surrounded by apartment buildings nearly identical to Melanie’s. The grass was the same color as her toenail polish. Would it blend in if she walked barefoot outside, creating the illusion that she had holes at the tips of her toes?
“I thought you were coming down to see me,” she said.
“I am. I did. I’m here.”
“So you think we should break up?”
He felt guilty for having stated his case without couching it in gentle terms and flattery. But if he’d resorted to soft touches and compliments, he’d have felt guilty for beating around the bush. It was clearly a no-win situation for him, guilt-wise.
She stared at him, looking neither thrilled nor despairing. In fact, she looked kind of pretty, her hair glinting like a gold velvet swimming cap. “Why the hell did you come all the way down here to tell me that? I mean, haven’t you ever heard of the telephone?”
“Well—”
“Or email? Or texting?”
“I thought of that, Melanie. But given our history, I thought the least I owed you was to do this in person.”
“And maybe—” she approached him, her footsteps making crunchy sounds on the straw rug “—you thought you should check me out one final time and see if there was anything left between us.”
Melanie wasn’t a social worker for nothing. She could read people’s motivations the way most people read the newspaper. She was probably right about his decision to travel to Florida. He had to see her one more time to be sure.
Her insight caused his resolution to falter slightly. Her intuition had been one of the things he’d admired about her. Her knowing smile—the smile she was wearing right now—was another. Her willingness to call it like she saw it was another. Her hair… Well, that would grow back.
But she was in Florida. She seemed to have embraced the place, if her home décor and that summery little dress were anything to judge by. “Are you planning to return to New York?” he asked.
“Of course. My folks live in Westchester.”
“I don’t mean for visits. I mean to live.”
She shrugged. “How should I know? I’ve only been here a few months, Josh. I’m just beginning to get used to it. Except the heat. I’ll never get used to that.”
“But you like it here? You must. You’ve made friends.”
“We
ll, duh. Was I supposed to not make friends?”
“You weren’t supposed to do anything. Or not do anything. All I’m saying is, your life is here now, and my life is still in New York.”
“And you wouldn’t be interested in moving down here?”
“To live around all those palm trees?” He made a face. “They’re disgusting.”
Melanie frowned. “What’s disgusting about palm trees?”
“I don’t know. They’re so—Mesozoic.”
“Mesozoic? Josh.” She laughed in disbelief. “Only you.”
“Only me what?”
“Only you would use Mesozoic in casual conversation like that. Okay, look.” She closed the distance between them, slung an arm around his waist and smiled up at him. “You’re a very sweet man, you know? Coming all the way down here on a flight that stank just to tell me you want me out of your life—”
“I never said—”
“—Which, as it happens, I already pretty much am.”
“That was never my choice.”
“It’s your choice now.”
“Because you dumped it on me. You took this job. You left.”
“So it’s my fault?”
Insinuating that he blamed her was an effective way of stoking his guilt. “No, it’s not your fault,” he said quickly, fending off the rush of remorse. “It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just what happens when two people live twelve hundred miles apart.”
“Right. No argument.” She hugged him. She wore some exotic scent—he didn’t know enough about perfumes to identify it, but it was fresh and fruity. “So here we are. Breaking up.”
“I’ll always think of you as a friend,” he said, because he thought he should.
She laughed. “Don’t quote clichés to me. Give me a kiss for old time’s sake.”
He did. They’d been lovers, after all. They’d been in love, practically. One kiss—he owed her that much.
It turned into quite a kiss. He kept his eyes open, and they crossed slightly as he focused on her half-inch hair, but even without long tresses for him to twine his fingers through, she still kissed like a porn star. One thing that hadn’t changed was her tongue, which had been arguably his favorite of all her organs. Given the way she was kissing him, it remained at the top of his list.
God, it was hot in Florida.
“You have a problem?” she murmured, leaning back and peering up at him.
“Yeah,” he said. He probably shouldn’t have opted for honesty, but he hadn’t journeyed all this way to lie to her. His problem got worse when she leaned further back and angled her pelvis into his. “I don’t want to do this, Melanie.”
“Sure you do.”
“Sure I do,” he agreed, drawing as far back as he could. She still had her arms around his waist, and it would be rude to wrench himself out of her embrace. But they didn’t need all that groin contact. It wasn’t helping matters at all. “We already know what that’s about, Melanie. We were good together. But we’re not together anymore.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had sex in three months. And if you really think of me as a friend—”
At that moment, a friend was the last thing he thought of her as. Fresh guilt washed over him like a massive wave on one of those nearby beaches—the ones filled with sharks. Melanie hadn’t had sex in three months, but he had. Oh, yes, he most definitely had. And that was one of the reasons he was here right now.
Ah, the irony. This attractive—except for her haircut—woman whom he’d known for years and whom he’d at one time even considered in the context of marriage wanted to use him sexually, and he was feeling like a put-upon virgin desperate to protect his chastity. Yet he was the one who’d made love to someone else. She was the chaste one.
“Look, Melanie, let’s just…” Carefully, gradually, he extricated himself from her.
“Let’s just what?”
“Be friends. Talk. You can give me the grand tour of Opa-Locka. You can show me where you work. I’ll take you out for a very nice, expensive dinner. Whatever you want. But let’s not fall into bed, okay? I came here for a reason. Don’t derail me.”
“Is that what I was doing? Derailing you?” She seemed to think this was hilarious. Buoyant laughter spilled from her lips. “Okay, I’ll give you the grand tour, and you can spend a fortune wining and dining me. If we wind up in bed tonight, it won’t be because we fell. How does that sound?”
Not as definitive as he would have liked. But he didn’t want to argue with her, he didn’t want to defend his non-existent virtue to her, and he definitely didn’t want to get into a discussion of how he’d happened to have sex within the past three months, how he found himself, just minutes after kissing Melanie, wishing he were with Loretta.
“It sounds fine,” he mumbled, promising himself that during the grand tour, he would find a clean, safe-looking motel and book himself a room for the night.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Central Park felt like a carnival to Loretta—too many people, but they kept moving and they seemed friendly enough. The usual midway attractions abounded: jugglers, step-dancers, a blues guitarist, a semi-organized Ultimate Frisbee game, dogs wearing bandannas, men wearing do-rags, women sunbathing on blankets on the grass, skateboarders gliding by.
Loretta wondered how protective of Solly she should be. He was significantly older than most of the people enjoying the sunny Saturday afternoon, but he was light on his feet. Coming to Central Park had been his idea, and he didn’t flinch or cower as younger, stronger, faster people swarmed around him on the winding asphalt paths.
She’d spent the noon hour with Glenn at the Senior Center, filming. She’d write a voice-over for Becky to read later, a monologue about the importance of the center as a social nexus for older people, a place for them to congregate outside their homes. “Context,” she’d explained to Becky, who’d thought the extra filming would be fine as long as she didn’t have to be present. Glenn didn’t mind meeting Loretta at the center—he was union and got time-and-a-half for working on Saturday. They’d finished taping a half hour ago, and Loretta had sent him on his way. That was when Solly had suggested that she take a walk with him in the park.
Why not? She had nothing better to do that afternoon. If not for a walk in Central Park, she would be sitting at home, pigging out on Ben & Jerry’s—a habit she was really going to have to get under control—and feeling sorry for herself. She could feel just as sorry for herself here in the golden July afternoon, surrounded by humanity and in the company of one of humanity’s finest specimens, Solly Hirschbaum.
“Did I mention, your hair looks nice?” Solly asked. He wore a New York Fire Department cap, a short-sleeve cotton shirt, knee-length shorts and dark sunglasses. His legs were thin but not bony, his arms muscular. Loretta hoped she’d look as good in shorts when she reached his age—with less hair on her legs, of course.
“I got it cut this morning. My cousin Donna is a stylist.”
“I like it. Not too short,” Solly assessed. “But a little breezier, like it’s got more life in it. A pretty girl like you, you don’t want to hide behind all that hair, you know what I mean? There we go,” he said, nudging her toward an Italian ice vendor. “You’re an Italian girl, so this is the treat for you. What flavor do you like?”
“Oh, Solly…” She was about to decline but realized she was hungry. She hadn’t eaten since the bagel she’d wolfed down en route to Donna’s salon that morning. “Can I treat?”
“Don’t insult an old man. Besides, I got more money than you. What flavor?”
She conceded with a smile. “Lemon.”
He bought a lemon and a cherry Italian ice, grabbed a few napkins from the dispenser perched on the shelf above the freezer compartment, and pocketed his change. “There. A lemon for you. Eat. Enjoy.”
“Thanks.” They resumed their stroll, licking the sweet, tart mounds of flavored ice in their pleated cu
ps. “So, Solly, what do you think of show biz? Any regrets about letting us film your story?”
“It’s not my story. It’s Dora Lee and Phyllis’s story. I’m just the guy in the middle of it.”
“Did you enjoy the filming?”
“I don’t know. Frankly, I was a little surprised the center let you film there today. It’s not a religious place, but most of the members are Jewish, and today being Shabbat…”
“Shabbat?”
“What you call Sabbath. Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, nobody should be taking movies. Of course, if you’re not Jewish, I don’t suppose it matters much. Not like I’m a Hassid or anything. If I was, I couldn’t have paid that man for the ices. Money exchanges aren’t allowed on Shabbat.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You’ll have to learn these things if you’re going to wind up with Josh. Not that he’s a religious man, but it’s good to know each other’s culture, don’t you think?”
“I’m not going to wind up with Josh,” Loretta muttered, her mood descending like an elevator with a broken cable.
Solly halted so abruptly in the middle of the walkway, a teenage skateboarder nearly crashed into him. “Watch it, ya dumb asshole!” the kid shouted as he veered past Solly. His voice hadn’t even changed yet.
Loretta considered shouting back at the kid, but he vanished into the crowd. “Are you all right?” she asked Solly.
“Me? I’m fine. I wonder, though, he called me a dumb asshole. That seems redundant, doesn’t it? You ever hear of a smart asshole?”
Loretta laughed. She wasn’t in a laughing mood. She hadn’t been in one all day, not when Donna had restyled her hair, not when she’d led Glenn around the center like an arty Hollywood director, demanding that he shoot this and shoot that and linger for a minute on the table in the TV room which Solly had identified as the site of his chess games with Josh. She still wasn’t in the mood to smile, let alone laugh, but Solly had gotten to her. No wonder Josh counted him as a friend. She’d like to think he was her friend, too.
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