by Harlow Hayes
Chapter 16
People were packed in like sardines at the pier, making it hot and stuffy, but the sun hadn’t quite set, so the sky was a painted dream of orange, purple, and red, making it one of the most beautiful I had ever seen. I hated Chicago winters, but the summers breathed new life into me. The warmth, the energy, it kept me excited, and so it did to Niko. We walked around for a few minutes, talking about the crowd and the weather until he stopped at a Chicago Dog stand. A man stood inside working frantically, his line long. I almost keeled over from hunger standing there, but we made it to the front just in time.
“Stan, how have you been?” Niko asked.
The man’s face lit up with excitement.
“Nikolas! I almost didn’t recognize you.” He came out from the inside and gave Niko a hug.
“I’m on break!” he yelled to the rest of the customers in line and they scattered away, I assumed to the next available food place.
“I’m doing well,” he said, patting Niko on the back. “What’s this?” the man asked as he gently yanked on Niko’s hair bun. “You trying something new?”
“I guess you could say that,” Niko said, smoothing his hair down with his hand. “How’s Sylvia, she doing okay?”
The man’s face lit up again.
“She’s perfect. My daughter Angela just had a baby so she’s helping her today,” Stan said.
I felt like I needed to say something.
“So this is it? A hot dog stand? This is meeting your standards of clean?” I said.
Niko laughed and slid his hand in his pocket to get out his wallet.
“This is not just a hot dog stand, this is a Chicago Dog stand, and it is run by Stan and his wife, and I’m telling you, theirs is the best.” Niko pulled the money out of his wallet and handed it to Stan, but he refused it. “Stan, this is my friend, Mara.” He reached out to shake my hand then kissed it, then said some words in another language that I didn’t understand. Niko laughed and his smile consumed his face.
Stan seemed to be a kindly older gentleman, but I was surprised by the act of old-world romance. People my age didn’t do that kind of stuff anymore, not with any sincerity, anyway.
“I’m sorry, what did he say? I hope it wasn’t anything bad,” I said nervously.
The man was short, but he looked up at me and smiled.
“No, no, nothing bad, I—”
“He said that you were beautiful and didn’t understand how someone so ravishing would be hanging out with an old scoundrel like myself,” Niko broke in. I felt the skin on my cheeks get warm.
Stan’s belly filled with laughter.
“Oh, I’m just messing with him, he’s one of the good guys. You remember that, my dear. And you, too, Nikolas. She’s good; I know you don’t keep bad company. She’s a smart girl, I can tell.” The man winked at me and I couldn’t do anything but smile. It was sweet of him to think so, because I certainly didn’t think that highly of myself, not enough to say I was good.
“Now, what can I get for you two?” Stan asked.
* * *
We strolled down the pier with our hot dogs, chowing down in between questions. I had seen some of my classmates in passing but I didn’t want to spend time with them. I wanted to get to know Niko a little better.
“Is that family? Is Stan your family?” I asked before I took another bite of my dog. Niko paused before speaking to swallow a bite of his food.
“Not blood family, but still family. We’ve been good friends for years.”
“Yeah. I can see that. He seems really nice. Do you know him from home? I mean, Brazil?”
“No.” He paused. “Actually, Ashley and I used to come here all the time and that’s how I met him.”
So that was her name. Ashley. Niko and I had only had one previous outing and I knew he was a widower, but I hadn’t heard him say her name. The name made me think of some petite, beautiful blonde with crystal blue eyes. I could see that being his type. The perfect match for tall, dark, and handsome. I wanted to know more about her but I didn’t want to pry too much. I knew how it felt. No one wants to keep reliving their grief, their pain.
“I’m sorry. Is it hard for you to be here? We can leave if you want,” I suggested. Niko looked ahead, shaking his head.
“No… We have good memories, and plus, I have good company,” he said. He looked at me and ate the last bite of his hot dog.
“What about you? Tell me about your family. Your mother and father, etcetera,” he said.
“Well, my mother, Pamela, is a fifth-grade teacher. She’s from Jamaica. I have two brothers, twins, Johnathan and James. They’re twenty and they both go to Florida State, and then my dad is Kenny, and he’s an asshole.”
Niko about choked.
“What? He’s an asshole?” he asked.
“Yes, he is an asshole.” I looked at him to solidify my statement.
“Well, what does he do? I mean for a living.”
“He’s a pastor.”
Niko about choked again.
“So your father is an asshole but he is a pastor?” Niko asked, confused.
I laughed. “Yes.”
“Why? Why is he that?”
“The easier question would be why isn’t he that?”
I felt a wince of pain in my chest.
“I don’t want you to keep going if it bothers you,” he said.
“Talking about Kenny doesn’t bother me. Talking to him does. My father is controlling, domineering, and a fat hypocrite.”
“How so?” Niko asked, appearing to be genuinely concerned.
“Well, where to start…” I walked forward with Niko and I tried to gather my thoughts. I would skip the part about him taking me to the abortion clinic, but I had plenty of other things to say about him.
“First, he makes a difference in his kids. When I decided that I wanted to go to a public college, he said that he wouldn’t pay for me to go because if it wasn’t a Christian school they weren’t getting his money, but Florida State definitely has his money now that James and Johnathan are there. Now don’t get me wrong, it is his money, but he had over one hundred thousand dollars just sitting there for me to go and for all I know it’s probably still sitting there, and yet now I’m in a shit ton of debt. He could have helped but he didn’t, and he still hasn’t.”
Niko looked at me.
“He didn’t pay for anything? Like no help at all?”
“Nope, the bastard has it out for me.”
“Wow,” Niko said. I knew he wasn’t sure how to respond, so I broke the tension with a laugh.
“I’m sorry I dampened the mood,” I said. “I don’t think we will hate each other forever, but right now we aren’t on good terms. I just wanted to be free of him, so maybe him not paying for my schooling is a good thing. At least it’s something that he can’t hang over my head now.”
“I understand the need to be free,” said Niko. “That’s why I cook, have my own restaurant. No one tells me how to run it, and that’s the way I like it.”
“That must be nice. I’ve spent my whole life trying to escape the restriction. When I was a kid I always felt that I was suffocating. Religion in large doses can be dangerous.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean I grew up in a strict home. Always some rhetoric being shoved down my throat. My whole life I’ve been trained to focus on what I shouldn’t be doing versus what I should be doing, which is being a good human being, a loving person. But I never felt as though my father was buying what he was selling. It looked good to the deacons and the congregation, but I saw the truth. My father messed around with women in the church, married women. I knew that the money wasn’t going to all the places he said it was. I’m not saying all preachers are bad, because they aren’t, but he ruined my faith in humanity, my faith in a lot of things. So even now, deep down, I am scared to do anything because it’s all wrong, but I do it anyway because every choice seems like it’s going to send me to He
ll anyway. So he’s nothing more to me than a pimp in sheep’s clothing. Whatever kindness that’s in me was given to me from my mother.”
“And your mother is still with him?” he asked, concerned.
“Yep, she’s quicker to forgive than I am.”
“Remind me not to cross you, then,” he said.
“I will.”
* * *
Niko didn’t scare easy, because our conversation about my dad didn’t seem to bother him at all. The air was warm and I didn’t know what was happening to me. I felt alive listening to Niko talk about his childhood in Brazil and how he ended up a chef. I talked about the trips to Jamaica I would take to see my nana and how much I missed her, the one woman who actually understood me. But unfortunately my past kept close and eventually sucked me dry like a gang of leeches. There wasn’t a day that went by when I didn’t think about what happened to me. Not a day I didn’t see someone on the street and ask myself if they were the one, the one that did it. I don’t know why, but I felt instant shame radiating from by body. Like I shouldn’t be feeling this happy because it all could be sucked away again in an instant. My thoughts had begun to go astray.
“Mara.” Niko tapped me on my arm. I had begun to stare off into the lights that lit up the Ferris wheel.
“Yeah, sorry, I was… I was thinking… Do you want to ride me? I mean ride with me? The Ferris wheel?”
“Sure, I would love to ride with you,” he said, grinning.
The request came out awkward, and I didn’t mean it to. The conversation had been easy, simple, and now I was letting my nerves get to me and turn me into a blubbering mess. I had only been to the pier once before with Frankie, but we didn’t get on the Ferris wheel because of his fear of heights, which I didn’t understand since he lived in one of the tallest apartment buildings in the city. According to him, he didn’t like the wheel because of the way it rocked. I guess he thought it would rock the wrong way and throw him out.
We walked over to the long line and I felt my phone vibrate in my purse. I answered it.
“Where are you?” Frankie asked.
“I’m at the pier,” I said.
“I know that, but where are you? I came to surprise you.”
I was shocked, Frankie never did anything like that. I scanned the crowd, looking for him.
“I’m getting on the Ferris wheel,” I said.
“By yourself?” he asked.
“No, I’m with Niko,” I said.
“Who’s Niko?”
“You remember the chef, the chef from the restaurant that came to our table about my food?”
Niko just looked off into the distance and pretended as if he wasn’t listening to our conversation. I was being so rude, and Frankie didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get off of the phone.
“What chef? Chef, chef… Oh, the chef.” He didn’t sound very enthused. “Are you on a date?”
“No, this is not a date,” I said, my voice direct.
“Whatever… I’ll meet you when you get off,” he said, and the call dropped.
“Everything okay?” Niko asked.
“Yeah, it’s fine. Frankie just decided to show up and surprise me, so we’ll see him when we get off,” I said.
Niko nodded, not looking too enthused himself.
The ride was slow as usual, stopping and starting to let people on and off. The view of the lake was pretty, as the lights of the city reflected off of the water. It wasn’t completely dark but it was close, and the sky slowly faded from deep orange and purple with soft clouds into black night with a sparkling moon.
“So, Niko, what do you do when you aren’t at the restaurant? I know you’ve said that you don’t get out much but you must do something. Hobbies, dating, friends, something.”
“I don’t do much.” He ran his fingers down his beard. “I work hard, so I go to my friend’s club sometimes to have a drink with him. And then I go on non-dates with people I meet at the counseling center,” he said, extending his hand toward me. “I like music, but see, most of my friends are still in New York. The ones I have here are busy with their own lives, their own families. As far as dating goes, I haven’t seriously dated anyone since Ashley. I’ve had some friends try to set me up on dates but there wasn’t anybody I was really into. Plus, I’ve been out of the dating world for a minute.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe I’m just picky. I guess what I’ve noticed is that everyone I’ve dealt with is just so… blah.”
“Basic?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s it,” he said.
I didn’t want to ask, but I had to know.
“How long were you and Ashley married?”
He leaned forward in his seat.
“Married for two, together for eight,” he said. I could see the sadness in his eyes. “But what about you, Mara? What do you do with your life? What made you want to be a therapist?”
“Well, as you already know, I’m still in school, but I always wanted to do something that I liked a lot, and I like figuring out how people think. I want to do clinical psychology and I’ll start that program in the spring, so I have one more step, but I’m getting close. Then my life can finally start. I wouldn’t say I have a lot of friends, but I do hang out with my roommates occasionally, and dating just isn’t a priority right now because it sucks. I get so tired of the dishonesty in it.”
“Dishonesty? That never happens,” Niko said. I could hear the sarcasm in his voice.
I laughed.
“I mean, it’s the deceit; the illusion that is presented. You can go out on a date but you’re not getting the real person most of the time. They’re trying to sell you on something. They bring out all the stops hoping that the other person will like what they’re selling and buy into it, but the real them stays hidden. By the time the other person realizes the truth, they have already committed, bought the illusion, and then it’s too late for a refund. Emotions are involved and someone will end up hurt. And what’s worse is when we do it to ourselves, trying to sell ourselves on the other person. For example, so many women are constantly looking at the men we encounter in everyday life, and we create this illusion. We’ll sit up and dream about the guy meeting our parents, wedding days, and baby showers, and this is all dreamed up in the mind before anything happens. Usually the guy is a complete asshole, but we’ve already made the commitment in our minds, making us mentally and emotionally connected to someone we hardly know.”
Niko sat quiet for a moment then finally said, “You really like that word asshole.”
I erupted into laughter. “I like many bad words. That’s just the one I have found to be most useful this evening.”
He smiled, then he spoke.
“I don’t think that holds true for everybody. I think that a conscious individual will be aware of that when dating and an older individual like myself with experience may exhibit a stronger sense of clarity.”
“True, the idea doesn’t hold true for everyone, it’s just a generalization, but it is partially true. The same can be said for men. Men rely on illusion as well to fuel their desires and to pursue relationships.” Niko looked at me, fascinated.
“Oh, really? Do tell.”
“Now, again, it depends on the man, but most men in the early stages of dating, unless they are consciously looking for a wife, are not dreaming about wedding days and baby showers. When dating, all they see is what the woman is presenting to them, and this chick could be bat shit crazy for all we know. But if the illusion presented is enticing, the man will begin to create one of his own. He’ll look at the curl of her lips, the way she flips her hair, the inflection in her voice, and wonder what it would be like to make love to this woman. And he’ll run the scenario through his head until the illusion is shattered either by bat shit crazy behavior, or actual sex that doesn’t live up to the illusion already created in his mind.”
“I can see where that makes sense,” he said, “but that type of thinking is limiting because it creates false expectations
and ultimately people are going to be pissed when the expectations aren’t met.”
“Exactly, but no one wants to set real expectations, the fantasy world is much more fun because it involves risk. Stepping off into the unknown, not knowing whether or not you will win or lose it all.”
“Isn’t that ultimately what you do as a therapist? Encourage risk taking to break behavior patterns? Isn’t love worth the risk?”
“I mean, in the end the possibility of a different and better life than what we have is what seduces us, but is it worth the risk? I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you know?” he asked.
“It’s all about the wording. I will never risk or put myself at risk for the sake of love; risk means loss, damage, but at the same time, I’m not opposed to giving it a chance. When I encourage risk in my clients it’s because they do need to lose something, and that’s usually some aspect of the self that needs to die, to be killed in order for them to move forward. Usually it’s some false identity that they’re holding onto. We can go deeper and it gets even more complicated, but to finally answer your question, if I were going to risk it, risk being changed by love, it would have to be the right kind of love, I guess.”
“And what kind is that?” he asked.
“The real kind, free of illusion.”
* * *
When I stepped off the ride I saw Frankie leaning against the line dividers. He still had on his work clothes and his hair was freshly cut.
“There you are. I missed your face,” he said as we approached. He reached out to pull me in for a hug and then he kissed me on my forehead. He had been drinking, I was sure of it. Niko stood there and watched the superfluous display of affection play out.
“I’m sorry, how rude of me.” Frankie reached his hand out towards Niko to initiate a handshake. “Frank,” he said.
I had never heard him say it with such power. Frank, I thought to myself. He was Franklin legally, but to me he was Frankie, always was, always will be.
Niko, slow to respond, reached his hand out. “Niko.” They interacted with each other as if they were opponents about to face off in a cage fight. I knew they didn’t know each other but the vibes between them were electric, and not in a good way. You would have thought that one had shanked the other in a past life.
