12 Bliss Street

by Martha Conway

  “I bet you can,” Nicola said.

  * * *

  But the idea disturbed her. When was the last time Robert was in her house? Discounting the visit last night with his so-called sister. Nicola was sure, relatively sure, that there could be no obscurely placed cameras in any of her rooms. On-the-spot surveillance; good God. She had once seen a Web site that monitored patients in a periodontist’s office as they were being worked on. She couldn’t understand it. Who wanted to watch that stuff? Nicola liked sitcoms because the actresses dressed so much better than anyone she knew and the kitchens were all very attractive.

  After the Daves left she let Scooter walk her to her muni stop, and as they climbed up to the paved jogging path above the beach Nicola remembered there was that one day when Robert came in to do some work on the kitchen sink. A Saturday. Had she stayed in the house the whole time? Beside her feet the ice plants were turning from red to brown and the sand dunes were a slightly lighter shade of brown leading down to the foamy water. It was cold out, and although it had stopped raining it seemed ready to start up again at any time. Nicola looked out to the ocean. Low, nickel-colored waves reared up one by one, then collapsed. The thought of going home was beginning to feel creepy.

  “Three nights,” she said. “That is absolutely the limit.”

  Scooter said, “You won’t be sorry.”

  “That means by Saturday you have to be gone.”

  “I can look around the place for you. Maybe take down a few things, check for cameras. You don’t want to be alone right now.”

  “Do you even know how a screwdriver works?”

  “I know what one looks like.” Scooter smiled.

  They were walking north, toward Marin, and the hills were covered with a layer of low dense fog moving inland. Nicola loved these hills; they seemed so soft and brown, and although they were fairly far away you could see every bend leading up to the top. Or were those shadows from clouds? In any case, there was nothing like them back in Cleveland. She thought about the trees there, and the wide suburban streets and the green front lawns and the spaces between houses. Her mother expected her to marry a Cleveland boy who was well-spoken and involved in local politics, who went to Amherst or Princeton, then came back home to settle. But instead Nicola moved to San Franciso and married a man who had dreams but no money or skills. At first Nicola was pleased with the strangeness of California, but later, after leaving Scooter, she was frustrated by her own inability to make happen whatever it was she came out here for. Because she did want something. She was definite about that.

  She stepped over a stray rope of kelp on the path. “Have you kept in touch with Bill Lopez?” she asked Scooter. “Is he still working at Mission Legal Aid?”

  “I think so. Why?”

  “I have a bunch of questions I want you to ask him. There was some recent legislation in the rent control laws; he should know what’s going on.”

  “What questions?”

  “I’ll give you a printout.” She looked at him pointedly. “As well as the itemized bill from Lou.”

  “Lou?”

  “The shark’s nephew, remember?”

  “You call him Lou?”

  “Well, what do you think I’d call him?”

  “But the way you say it.”

  “Scooter, I say it in the way of the guy I paid a lot of money to so you could postpone your life of crime.”

  “I know, I know, I know,” Scooter said. “Really, thank you for doing that. I mean it. Once again you’ve bailed me out.”

  “Well, remember you’re going to be helping me now,” she said.

  “Whatever I can do,” he said, gesturing with one hand. This was something he said when he meant to do nothing.

  “Call Bill for a start.”

  “I mean it, how many ex-wives would do this?”

  Nicola looked over at him. He had fixed his face into an earnest expression. The sand beside the bicycle path had become black with dirt and foam, and she thought she could smell an oily scent drifting inland.

  “It all makes me think maybe we’re not what you call ‘over,’” Scooter said.

  “We’re divorced,” she said. “Legally that means what you call over.”

  “My cousin Mark married the same woman three times.”

  “He and Bonnie are back together?”

  “They’re kind of trying out an open-marriage-type thing.”

  “Scooter,” Nicola said. “We haven’t seen each other in almost three years. I cannot believe you’ve thought much about us in all that time.”

  “No,” he admitted.

  They had stopped beside the path leading down to the muni stop. Nicola looked at Scooter. She could tell an idea was beginning to form in his mind.

  “But you know,” he was saying, “things have not been so great with me right now. I mean that’s obvious. That whole kidnapping thing, that whole stupid scheme. Well, you can kind of get an idea of where I was at to do something like that. I was definitely at the bottom there. But let me tell you, seeing you, when I walked into that room and I saw you tied up there, blindfolded and everything, a little saliva on your chin—did you know you had that?”

  “No,” Nicola said.

  “Yeah, there was a little strand of saliva there but it wasn’t gross at all; it was like, here was this woman I know so well, a woman I once thought I would have kids with, a woman I loved…” He hesitated.

  “Scooter, what?” Nicola said impatiently. “I’m already late.”

  “Well I’m fumbling around because I don’t know how to put it exactly, but something changed in me when I saw you.”

  “And my strand of saliva,” Nicola said.

  “You laugh, but I say this because it was the humanity of your appearance that did something to me. Your saliva, yes, which showed me your humanity. A woman tied up, blindfolded—this was no longer some abstract way of getting money, but it was you, a real person in discomfort and possibly pain, all because I made a bad bet or two and my credit went to pieces.”

  “Okay, well, you’re welcome.” She turned to go.

  “No, no; I mean yes, thank you, but what I’m also trying to say is that I’ve thought a lot about it and I want you to know I’m through with all that. That kind of living. Waiting for the monster deal, the monster payoff, whatever. I can see getting a real job and buying a house somewhere, like maybe Vallejo, where it’s much cheaper and you can get a yard.”

  “Scooter—”

  “That was definitely the bottom for me. The turning point. People evolve, Nicola.”

  “It’s called mutation.”

  “No, I mean it.”

  “So do I. Nature evolves in an effort to keep the status quo.”

  “That’s just what I’m saying,” Scooter said.

  She looked at him. His hair was being blown forward by the wind and he had a plaintive puppy look about him. She couldn’t believe he really wanted to get back together; it was only the idea of it he liked.

  “Plus I don’t want to live in Vallejo,” she said.

  “Or here’s an idea, we could move to Cleveland and I could work for your father. He always liked me.”

  “It was my mother who liked you.”

  “Well it only takes one,” Scooter said.

  He took her hand. Nicola looked up at him, surprised, and he bent forward, then kissed her on her mouth. His lips were very soft and warm and Nicola remembered the spot on the back of his neck she liked to touch when they embraced. It was unexpected and comfortable and for a moment she had the feeling she could fall right back into it again. It would be so easy; it would take no effort at all. The wind pulled at her jacket and blew foam along the beach and she could hear a not-so-distant muni train ringing its bell. A warning, or a sign of arrival? She pulled away.

  “We’ve already done this,” she said.

  “They say experience is everything.”

  “Scooter, I’m not kidding.”

  “Neither am I. Nicola,
we could have fun together. Didn’t we have fun together? At least part of the time?”

  He was using that voice again, that let’s-have-an-adventure-together voice. For years it had worked so well on her. Nicola looked at his pale green eyes, which turned up at the corners, giving him the appearance that he always was smiling, always having a good time. Well, he was still a charmer; she would give him that much.

  “I can’t do all that again,” she told him.

  Scooter smiled. “You might surprise yourself,” he said.

  Fourteen

  Chorizo drove down Geary Boulevard listening to the radio, Mama Cass singing “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” A woman with a large soul, a heart like a beating drum. He liked large women. His wife was a large woman. These women here, these women in California, they were small women, and he didn’t just mean their skinny shoulders and legs and their tiny little breasts. Their, what should he call it, their compassion? Their compassion was small. Their understanding. And it was sad, really, the way they starved their bodies.

  He parked on the street and began walking down the sidewalk thinking that his own body felt heavy and out of synch. It had been like this since Friday—a sense that the fluids inside him were moving in the wrong direction, the blood coursing rapidly out of his heart and away. A slight edge of sadness. His wife used to tell him he was too tender-hearted. Would she still think so?

  He came to a glass door with a simple gold and red sign: KABUKI BATHS. Come back to your body, said the voice on his yoga tape. He pushed open the door. Well, that was why he was here.

  Inside he showed the receptionist identification and paid with cash. “No massage today?” she asked. She had a small wire heart on the end of her nose ring. As he put his ID back in his wallet he saw the list he’d made of dentists and thought about that woman, Nicola, the dental hygienist.

  He thought, Everything follows a course.

  The lobby was warm and dark with a deep-red rug runner and wood-paneled walls. Chorizo looked at his watch. Robert was late. He began to examine the various articles for sale—chakra oils, straw bath slippers, a palmistry chart, a chart about dreams. He picked up the chart about dreams. What had he dreamed last night? He could never remember his dreams.

  The bell on the front door tinkled and Robert stepped inside, looking lost and uncomfortable.

  “This is…?” he began. Then he saw Chorizo.

  “I’ve paid for you already,” Chorizo said. “But she needs to see your ID.”

  “Why is that?” Robert asked, feeling for his wallet.

  “Too many whackos, I guess.”

  “What?”

  Chorizo smiled. “That is a joke.”

  Another man entered and two more left. Robert’s face took in everything. He was jittery; he was always jittery. He should really stop with the coffee, Chorizo thought.

  “Did you know that if you dream of cake that means you will get a pleasant surprise?” Chorizo asked him. He was still holding the laminated dream chart. Four dollars, it sold for. But Robert was looking at the shrine at the end of the hallway—a somber, cross-legged Buddha with items arranged in a semicircle around it: a candle, worn glass shards, two shells, a dime. Robert’s face was tight, defended. A Catholic, Chorizo remembered.

  “And if you dream about handcuffs you will find satisfaction,” he said.

  “Oh, ha,” Robert said.

  “That is not a joke.” Chorizo replaced the chart. “This way.”

  They went into the locker room where men were changing into loose white terry-cloth robes. Robert fidgeted with his watch while Chorizo found his locker and began to unbutton his shirt.

  “Maybe I’ll just meet you after,” Robert said.

  “Nonsense. This will be good for you,” Chorizo told him. “Water calms, it relaxes. Some say just washing your hands can help.”

  Chorizo took off his shirt but Robert didn’t move. “I don’t get this,” he said.

  “Get what?”

  “Why we’re doing this.”

  Chorizo hung his shirt in the locker. “The plan is you and I spend time together.”

  “Why would you want to spend time together?”

  “Spend time together, get to know each other better,” Chorizo continued. He stopped and looked at Robert. “What is it, don’t you trust me?”

  “Trust you, right,” Robert said.

  “I want to see you more involved in the business. But first I want to … to teach you a few things. No, teach is not the word. Introduce you to a few things.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I want us to be partners.”

  Robert snorted. “Partners, right.” But he seemed pleased. After a moment he looked around, then he turned slightly and began to unbutton his shirt. When they were both in their white robes, Robert followed Chorizo down the small hallway to the baths.

  Chorizo opened the door and allowed Robert to go first. Inside it was clean and bright with piped-in music—harp and flute. To the right were seven small foot baths, each with its own bar of soap and wooden stool and white enamel basin. To the left, at the end of the room, there were two doors: one to the dry sauna and one to the wet.

  The baths themselves were in the center of the room: a warm bath, a hot bath, and a cold plunge.

  “I don’t know,” Robert said.

  “I’ll take your robe.”

  “Maybe I’ll keep it on for a while.”

  “It will get very wet,” Chorizo said. He smiled. There were maybe twenty, twenty-five naked men in the room. He could tell Robert was trying not to look at anyone below the neck.

  “Right now the feet,” he said.

  He went to a stool and motioned for Robert. Then he tested the warm water, adjusted the temperature, and filled the basin.

  “First soak, then spray,” Chorizo said. “The spray feels wonderful.”

  “Just my feet?”

  “It opens the pores.”

  Afterwards they moved to the warm bath, which was circular and covered in small blue tiles. Chorizo sat on the built-in bench. He was aware of every part of himself, the wetness on his skin, the small strands of black hair. Hips, thighs, calves, feet. Beside him, Robert, also naked, sat down more cautiously. He was more square shaped, Chorizo noticed, like a child’s wooden block. Robert moved his hands under the water, but his jerky, jittery motions were beginning to subside. Water calms, water relaxes. After a few minutes Robert allowed himself to look up, to look around the room. Chorizo sank his hands in the water. A feeling of power washed over him.

  “Is it me, or is this not that hot?” someone asked—a young man, maybe twenty, who was just stepping into the tub. His head was shaved and he had a tattoo on his scalp.

  “It’s preparation,” Chorizo explained. “The large tub there is hotter.”

  White towels hung neatly on hooks around the room. In the center stood a wide wooden table with a stack of waxed paper cups and two pitchers of water. There was also a basin filled with ice cubes and another one with coarse white salt.

  “This isn’t bad,” Robert said. Near them a Filipino man was brushing his stomach with a hard plastic brush.

  Chorizo smiled. “Let’s do the next level.”

  He was beginning to feel himself again, his body, his mind, though the feeling of sadness persisted. It was always this way after one of those nights: first his body returned, then his heart. Sometimes it took as long as a week. He walked across the room to the hotter tub, which was large and square with multiple levels of benches. Yes, this was good. His pores were pinpoints of heat. His arms and legs no longer felt like part of a costume.

  “Whew,” Robert said, stepping in. He paused midway. “I’m just getting used to it,” he said.

  A few men on the other end of the tub talked quietly, but other than this the room was quiet. Peaceful. Some sat in tubs, some relaxed on chairs which were arranged in small clusters around the room. A large, red-headed man sat in an Adirondack chair, naked, reading the newspaper
. Next to him was a small fountain, the water trickling over shiny black rocks.

  “You were right about this,” Robert said. He frowned. “I’m thinking I maybe misjudged you a little.”

  “That’s easy to do.”

  “Maybe you’re not so bad.”

  Chorizo smiled. “Maybe not.”

  Robert swirled at the water with his hand.

  “So you’re thinking along the line of partners, you and me?”

  “I’d like to move in that direction,” Chorizo said. “If you can see yourself that way.”

  “I can see it.” Robert hesitated. “But I’m wondering,” he said, “what this means for my sister.”

  Chorizo smiled. “Yes, we can talk about that.”

  The floor and walls were white. Robert sank into the tub until the water reached his chest. He was beginning to go gray there, Chorizo noticed.

  “So. Is it always just men here?” Robert asked.

  “Men on Tuesdays and Thursdays, women on Wednesdays and Fridays. On Mondays it’s coed.”

  “There’s a coed day?”

  “You have to wear a bathing suit.”

  “You ever come on a coed day?”

  “On occasion,” Chorizo said. “But I prefer to be naked.”

  “You meet any women here?”

  “A few.”

  “I’d like to come on a coed day.”

  “I did meet a woman here recently.”

  “The one from Friday night?”

  Chorizo shifted in the tub. “What was that?”

  “The woman you were with last Friday night. Did you meet her here?”

  Chorizo paused and looked at his hands. Then he stood and waded over to Robert’s bench and sat down next to him. Here the water came only to Chorizo’s hips. He settled himself and looked at his hands and pulled a few hairs away from the links on his bracelet. He did not look at Robert.

  “Did I see you on Friday night?” he asked casually.

  “I don’t know,” Robert said. “I don’t think so. I was in the office, I forgot my wallet and I had to go back. You were just going upstairs with a woman.”

  Chorizo lowered his hands in the water. How much had Robert seen?

  “You mean the blonde,” Chorizo said.