Playing With Fuego

by K. G. MacGregor

  “I just love coming down here to people watch,” Edith said as the three of us shouldered through the Labor Day crowd on Lincoln Road Mall.

  There isn’t much you can’t see on South Beach, from a bare-chested bodybuilder walking a pair of Chihuahuas to a twenty-something woman in a bikini and sarong on the arm of a guy as old as Mordy. Or a toothless woman in an overcoat shouting profanities to no one in particular. Or a young African-American in a driving cap who had spray-painted himself bronze, standing perfectly still on an overturned box like a statue out of a civil rights museum. And lots of beautiful, olive-skinned Latin Americans.

  And us. A fashion-challenged dyke with a short Jewish guy and his red-haired Amazon of a wife. What I find fascinating is we don’t actually stick out, despite not looking like anyone else here. You have to be a lot more outlandish than us to get noticed on Miami Beach, and why would anyone look our way when there’s so much else to choose from?

  Not getting noticed suited all three of us until we’d stood five minutes waiting for acknowledgment by the maître d’ at the Van Dyke Café.

  “Hey, you see us standing here?” Mordy snapped. “What do you suppose we want?”

  The indignant man never uttered a sound nor made eye contact, but he nonetheless led us down the sidewalk and dropped three menus at a pretty decent table.

  As Edith and I tried to decide between pasta and Middle Eastern fare, Mordy craned his neck to follow the sight of an exotic woman in hot pants, thigh boots and a leather bustier, her surgically enhanced breasts motionless despite her steady gait.

  “She’s not interested in a dirty old man like you,” Edith said drily. “You’re stuck with me.”

  “For your information, you old biddy, I happen to know that woman. She’s married to a man I used to work with at the union office.”

  I didn’t believe that for a minute, but Mordy always had the ready answer when Edith caught his wandering eye. Had to be automatic after so many years together.

  “First I catch you ogling other women. Then you lie about it. You have no shame. What do you think Daphne thinks of you?”

  “Whoa! Leave me out of this. In fact, let’s leave all of us out of it. We’re here to celebrate the end of the summer and pay homage to working people. It’s a happy occasion.”

  He scoffed across the table at his wife. “I told you Daphne didn’t want to hear you bickering all the time.”

  “How can I bicker by myself?”

  “Enough, you two!”

  Tonight was our first outing in over a month while we waited for Edith’s summer sinus infection to clear up. We’d walked the three blocks from our condo building to the Omni Station and picked up the Metro bus for a quick ride across the historic Venetian Causeway to Miami Beach. Even when we carried our beach chairs, made of lightweight canvas, it was easier than driving over and finding a place to park.

  “Mojito, touch of bitters,” I told the waiter.

  Edith then ordered a scotch old-fashioned and we waited interminably for Mordy to determine which was their kosher wine. He settled on a sparkling rose, and when finally our drinks came, I proposed a toast.

  “To surviving another brutal Miami August!” I couldn’t say summer because the heat and humidity would be hanging over us for another two months at least, but there was something particularly vicious about August, especially Saturdays when I had to work on the jobsite.

  “And to your raise,” Mordy added, clinking his glass to mine again.

  “I’ll definitely drink to that.” July had marked my fourth year at the foundation, a period during which I’d gone from volunteer coordinator to Gisela’s right hand. She relied on me more than ever to represent us in the business and government community when she couldn’t be there herself, and had rewarded me with a generous raise. Not that generous is all that large in the nonprofit world, but I can’t complain about having a couple hundred extra dollars every month. I need to find a new car—or more likely, a reliable used one—preferably before Sally gives up the ghost on I-95 during rush hour.

  The notion of car shopping always made me think of Mari Tirado, who advised me to buy something new to drive and sign an apartment lease as a prelude to walking away from my mortgage. I’d found myself thinking about her a lot at first after her community service stint last May, imagining how nice it would be if she called and asked to get together. But then she hadn’t, and after three months I’d gotten the message I knew all along. Being lesbians was about the only thing we had in common, and it wasn’t nearly enough.

  “You’d never guess who called us the other day,” Edith said.

  Mordy grunted. “I thought we decided we weren’t going to tell her.”

  “We have to tell her. Daphne’s our friend.”

  This couldn’t possibly be good, especially since I put together immediately who it had to be. “If it’s who I think it is, I don’t even want to know.”

  “You were too good for her,” Mordy said, patting my hand.

  “Why on earth would Emily call you?”

  “She wanted to know how everyone was.”

  “I hope you told her I sold the place for half a million to a Peruvian billionaire and moved away.”

  “I did better than that. I told her you seemed happy.”

  Take that, Jenko. I hadn’t actually thought about her much over the summer, not since I’d decided to break my habit of taking her name in vain because it meant she was popping into my head all day every day. But I can’t honestly say I’m totally over Emily because the mention of her name still has the ability to stir something inside, even if it’s only irritation.

  “She’s coming to Miami next week and asked if Mordy and I wanted to join her for dinner…and anyone else who wanted to come along.”

  “Seriously? I’d rather eat with Rush Limbaugh.”

  Mordy snorted. “Maybe we can get him too. I think he has a house up in West Palm.”

  “She also said she wasn’t with that woman anymore. They broke up and the woman moved to Seattle.”

  That hit me harder than I would have liked. While it was satisfying to hear the grass wasn’t greener with her co-worker after all, it also interested me to hear Emily was single again. The trouble with nostalgia, of course, is that it comes with blinders. Whereas my emotional side wanted to dwell on how we spent the first night in our new condo camping out on the bedroom floor, my rational side was yelling that she’s the Devil’s Spawn.

  “I hope she stuck Emily with a big fat mortgage.”

  “Anyway…Mordy and I said we’d meet her at the Wynwood Kitchen and Bar.” That was always Emily’s favorite spot, a trendy place with great food that doubled as an art gallery. I hadn’t been back since she left.

  “I hope you have a fine time, but count me out.” Even as I said it, I had an undeniable urge to be a fly on the wall for the evening. The thought of seeing Emily humbled and groveling actually made her more appealing than she’d been in a long time.

  We paid the check and continued our walk down the outdoor mall to Drexel Avenue, where we cut over to the grassy area in front of the magnificent home of the New World Symphony. Already, hundreds of concertgoers dotted the lawn across from the towering wall that would soon display a live feed of the performance inside the state-of-the-art concert hall. These regular free Wallcasts not only brought the symphony to the masses, but also created a sense of community for all of us who mingled on the lawn to strains of classical music. I have to admit it’s one of the coolest things about Miami.

  Mordy had us pick up our chairs and move twice because the groups around us were boisterous, and he worried they’d talk and play around throughout the concert. We finally found what felt like the perfect place off to the side, where the only people near us were four Hispanic women—two couples, I realized by the way they were leaning against one another. They were lounging on a blanket and talking softly over a bottle of red wine they kept hidden on account of the local law against open containers.
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  A couple of years ago that might have been Emily and me with friends. If we had worked together on it, I really think we could have navigated this crazy town and made it home, eventually adapting to its Latin culture. There were plenty of Anglos in the crowd tonight, so it wasn’t as if a pair of New Englanders could never fit in.

  The idea of seeing her again for dinner was more intriguing than my initial reaction might have suggested. There really was something to the old saying that living well is the best revenge, and while I wasn’t exactly dining every night on stone crab, I was a hell of a lot better off than she was, dumped on her butt in the Geriatric Capital of Florida. Proving to her in person she hadn’t destroyed me had some appeal.

  Who was I kidding? The fact that Emily was single again cast her in a whole new light, especially since she was the one reaching out. I hadn’t forgotten we used to love each other or that we’d planned a life together for better or worse. I never expected worse would include a couple of years of her living with another woman, but it wasn’t totally out of the question that I could get over it if she worked hard at regaining my trust. It was obvious she was still interested.

  What am I, crazy? More like desperate and pathetic. Emily wasn’t poking around back here in Miami because I’m her one true love. She was just looking for someone to break her fall and thought of me because I’ve been such a perfect patsy so far.

  Excitement rumbled through the crowd as the wall—seven stories tall—lit up with the image of the conductor taking his place at the podium. In honor of Labor Day, tonight’s performance kicked off with Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man before settling into the main program, an upbeat pairing of Haydn’s Surprise Symphony and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: Autumn. Thanks to my parents’ insistence on piping classical music throughout the house twelve hours a day for my entire life, I’m able to anticipate every note.

  “Sorry we’re late,” a woman whispered nearby. The lesbians began to chatter excitedly at the new arrivals, alternating between Spanish and English—Spanglish, we call it—as if it were their own special language.

  Mordy shushed them. “Zip it! We didn’t come all the way out here to hear you.”

  I was too embarrassed even to look their way, but I couldn’t argue with his results, since the group went stone quiet and stayed that way until the intermission.

  “Sorry if we bothered you. I promise we’ll be quiet through the second half.” The husky voice sent my stomach into a spin.

  “Mari?”

  “Oh, wow! Daphne.” She gave me the same look of trepidation as when I’d walked up on her with Carlos Moya at the cocktail party, and I realized she probably didn’t want her friends to know how she knew me.

  “I thought I’d run into you again at one of the Chamber of Commerce events. Business must be really good if you’re too busy to drum up more.”

  She looked amazing in black tights with a sleeveless tunic and chain belt. Her hair draped around her shoulders the way it had at the Four Seasons affair.

  “I’m staying busy enough. I guess you are too, at least that’s what I hear from Pepe. He likes being on your board, by the way.”

  By now, the other girls had lost interest in our conversation, as had Edith and Mordy, all apparently satisfied we were work associates of some sort. I followed Mari as she stepped out of earshot.

  “I got my record expunged, so I’m no longer a felon. Thanks for all that.”

  “I didn’t do anything but sign your paperwork, but I’m glad things worked out.”

  She looked around me at Edith and Mordy. “Your folks?”

  “My neighbors. They’re great entertainment on a budget, even without the music.” I returned her curiosity with a glance toward the person she had arrived with, a thin-faced woman wearing a midriff top that showed off a belly tattoo and navel ring. “Your girlfriend?”

  She winced before cracking a smile that showed off her adorable dimple. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “She’s very pretty.”

  “So are leopards, but never turn your back on one.”

  I snarled and hissed like an angry cat, which made us both crack up.

  “You’re letting your hair grow,” she said. “Looks nice.”

  “Thanks, just thought I’d try something different.” That, and I’d moved professional hair care over into the Not Absolutely Necessary column until I resolved my car issue. A good cut was expensive, and a cheap one left me at the mercy of a mall salon where a novice stylist would smile and nod at whatever I said I wanted, and then proceed to cut my hair the only way he or she knew how.

  “You come to these Wallcasts a lot?” she asked.

  “Whenever I can. I’m sort of a classical music geek. How about you?” I hoped she was into it too, not just so we’d have something in common but because I had it fixed in my head from her ringtone that she liked the salsa music. Please let me be wrong.

  “Not really. I like this though.” She gestured to the crowd around us. “Any kind of music is better when I can just sit and relax with friends, especially if I don’t have to get dressed up.”

  If she considered herself “not dressed up,” I didn’t even want to think what she thought of my baggy cotton fare. It’s always been my view that one can never have too many pockets.

  “It’s nice inside too, though,” she added. “The acoustics are out of this world.”

  “I’ve never been inside. I take that back. I went on a tour when they first opened, but I’ve never gone to a concert. It’s on my list.” My list of other things that were Not Absolutely Necessary, unfortunately. “Look, Mari. I know you were freaked out last May about people finding out you were doing community service. You don’t have to worry about me telling anyone. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all over and done with.”

  Translation: You don’t have to avoid me if you’d ever like to use that cell phone number I gave you.

  She looked back at the group of women and casually waved at Not Exactly Calling Her a Girlfriend. “I appreciate that, Daphne. At least the threat of losing my investor license isn’t still hanging over my head, but I get embarrassed over losing my temper that way. My clients would think it was pretty reckless.”

  “And reckless isn’t how anyone wants to describe their money manager.”

  “Exactly.”

  I told her about our current project in Liberty City, a renovation of a small Section 8 apartment complex. “That invitation’s still open any time you want to join us. I could probably find some blocks for you to haul.”

  “And what about you? Are you keeping your feet on the ground, or are you still falling off and over things?”

  “Oh, you’re very funny. I bet you’ve been waiting to work that in for ten minutes.”

  “No, what’s funny is how they still let you do the safety demonstrations. That would be like asking me to give driving lessons to fifteen-year-olds.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re one of those crazy Miami drivers.” Of course she is. She’s practically everything about this place that drives me nuts.

  The crowd hummed as the conductor’s image once again appeared on the wall.

  “Guess I should get back to my friends. It was good to see you again.”

  The pleasure was mine. I wanted to ask her out. I wanted to kiss her, and then fly up to Boston together for a sunset wedding on the beach at Provincetown. Instead, I reminded her I had already tossed the ball into her court.

  “I meant what I said, Mari. You’re welcome to come around anytime. Or just give me a call. You still have my card, right?”

  “I think it’s with my court papers,” she said, smirking. But then she kissed me on the cheek.

  I barely heard a note after intermission, not even after Mari and her Not a Girlfriend quietly left, probably to go have sex.

  Chapter Eight

  To some Miamians, Liberty City is urban blight at its worst, a veritable Petri dish of crime and drugs, where hordes of dark people becom
e riotous whenever the police shoot and kill one of their children. This was my eleventh project in Liberty City and I saw a different side, one in which neighbors step up for neighbors and people rejoice at having something shiny and new in the form of a safe and modernized home.

  With over a hundred churches inside six square miles, this predominantly African-American community is easy pickings for volunteers. In fact, I have a waiting list of local groups that want to schedule a workday with us on our Section 8 project, but I have to balance their desire to help with our foundation’s mission to give everyone in Miami’s diverse community a stake in seeing all of our neighborhoods turned around. It’s a good problem to have.

  “How come you’re still here?”

  I nearly jumped out of my chair at Gisela’s question, since I thought everyone had gone home already. I should have known better. She’s always the first one in the office and the last to leave.

  “Just trying to figure out how I can schedule a volunteer crew from the Miami-Dade Police Department onto our jobsite without alienating the whole community.”

  “If there’s ever a group that needs to make a good showing in Liberty City, it’s the police.”

  “I know, but we didn’t cause their public relations problems, and I don’t want to bring them in just to see the local kids go behind them and tear everything up. It’s not like I’m up for a Nobel Peace Prize.”

  “Doesn’t mean you won’t get nominated, though.”

  She patted me on the shoulder and said goodnight.

  I stuck around a few minutes longer watching the clock. I’d decided after all to meet Emily for dinner with Edith and Mordy at six, but my goal was to be a few minutes late to the WKB restaurant. I wanted her to sit there wondering if I’d changed my mind so she’d understand how the power had shifted between us. I now held all the cards.

  While I’d managed to convince myself tonight was about getting that elusive thing called Closure, I also had a primal curiosity to see if she had any interest in groveling her way back, even if I ultimately decide it’s not what I want. I’m not above forgiveness if something is still smoldering in the ruins of our relationship, but this time it has to be on my terms.