I didn’t know much of anything about Luther’s life, whether he was married, or ever had been. After we broke up we pretty much ceased to communicate, although I heard a few snippets about him now and then from mutual friends. Gradually even those friends dropped off. I exchange an occasional e-mail with an old classmate, but I don’t really keep up on their lives. I was the only person in my class from Miami, so I didn’t socialize with anyone who could keep me posted on the latest gossip.
For the first time I wondered what Luther would look like. The years must have had some impact on his good looks. Luther could have had his picture in the dictionary under WASP. He always gave off an air of confidence that only sometimes verged on cockiness, and generally acted as though he belonged wherever he was, not surprisingly, since his ancestors had arrived in this country on the Mayflower. He moved with a natural athlete’s grace, smooth and fluid as though gliding to some internal rhythm. Luther was a couple inches over six feet, thin but muscular and strong, with light-brown almost-blond hair that was always in need of a trim. He had blue eyes and freckles, and usually sported a two-day-old beard years before it was fashionable. He wore tortoiseshell glasses that made him look intellectual, but in a sensual sort of smoldering-romantic way.
At Duke, Luther had always dressed casually, in jeans, T-shirts, and tennis shoes. Whenever he needed to upgrade his look, he pulled out a navy-blue blazer that had seen its prime in the early years of the Reagan administration. But somehow no matter what Luther wore, he gave the impression of being dressed appropriately while everyone else was either over- or underdressed. Now that he was working for a big New York firm he would have to wear a suit every day. Luther dreaded wearing suits. I wondered how he was taking the change.
I looked at my watch again. One thirty. I had been sitting at the table for a full half hour. The waiter had stopped refilling my water glass. At least I didn’t have to feel guilty about occupying one of the choice outdoor tables because the restaurant was almost empty. No surprise there: The locals knew to sit inside, in air-conditioned comfort. Tourists loved to sit outside, but there were few to be found in July. Maybe it had something to do with the heat, humidity, and hurricane season.
I made up my mind to order. The hell with it. If I was going to be stood up, I was at least going to eat before leaving. Then I felt a shiver run down my back. A man materialized out of nowhere and stood across the table from me. It took me a good ten seconds to realize that it was Luther.
“Daisy! Great to see you.” Luther came around and kissed me on the cheek. I could see his eyes on me, checking me out. He had once known every corner and curve of my body. By the way he was looking at me, I could see he was going over old notes in his mind.
“You, too, Luther.”
“So sorry I’m late,” he said. “I missed the exit on I-95 and had to double back. I hope you didn’t get too angry waiting for me.”
With the self-confidence that I remembered well, he pulled out the chair next to me and sat down. He knew I had never been able to get upset with him, and saw no reason for that to change.
“It’s all right,” I managed to say. I simply couldn’t get over the way Luther looked. This wasn’t what I had expected. Not at all.
Luther had definitely learned something from his colleagues at that big-shot, overpriced New York law firm. I guess if lawyers are going to charge clients five hundred dollars an hour or more, then they have to dress the part. And to look at Luther, he might have broken the thousand-an-hour mark.
In spite of the heat and humidity, not to mention an hour spent in Miami traffic, Luther looked fresh and clean. Well, he’d always been that way. At Duke he’d been able to emerge from the library after a marathon study session looking as though he’d just stepped out of the shower. This was in contrast to me; after a couple hours cracking the books I looked so beaten up that my friends asked me if I needed a ride to the hospital.
Gone were the glasses. Contacts, I guessed. The hair had finally gotten a trim, and the scruffy beard was gone. The blue jeans and sneakers had been replaced by a beautifully cut tan poplin suit with a blue shirt that brought out the tone of his eyes. This was also the first time I could recall seeing Luther in a tie. He looked…really good.
Seeing that I hadn’t been lying about expecting a guest, the waiter came over. Taking in Luther’s air of definite prosperity, the waiter became positively solicitous and handed Luther a menu plus the extensive wine list. I looked at Luther’s hand as he took them. No wedding ring.
“Red still good with you, Daisy?” Luther asked, then ordered a bottle of the best Barolo on the wine list. I knew the wine prices at Nemo’s, and I was impressed with Luther’s choice. No iced tea for us.
Business was taken care of, and now we had no choice but to inspect each other. I tried not to wilt under his gaze, hoping that Luther would think I’d held up as well over the past decade as he obviously had.
“You look more beautiful than ever, Daisy,” Luther said fondly. “Life has been kind to you, hasn’t it?”
I felt my face and neck turn warm. Oh, no, I was blushing. Just then—thank God—the waiter showed up with the Barolo and two glasses. Luther waved away the silly ritual about inspecting the cork and tasting the wine and, with a dismissive gesture, let the waiter know that he would take charge of the situation. I could tell the waiter smelled a fat tip if he handled our table properly; he told us he would wait for our order, then withdrew.
“You look good, too, Luther,” I said.
We tipped our glasses and sipped the wine. Almost instantly I felt warmth coursing through my body. For a fleeting moment I saw myself sitting in a restaurant with an ex-lover, my old soul mate, drinking wine in the middle of the day. I would have to pace myself; drinking on an empty stomach during the hottest part of the day in the dead of summer was a sure way to get drunk.
“That’s nice of you to say, Daisy.” Luther seemed genuinely pleased by my compliment. “If you don’t mind my asking, why have you taken a leave of absence from your firm?”
I didn’t want to explain about Ariel and Marti and my reasons for taking a leave. I just didn’t. I didn’t want my real life to intrude upon sitting there next to Luther sipping wine. My first glass was almost gone. I knew I needed to stand up and get out of there. But I couldn’t. It simply felt natural to be there with him.
“I’ve just been working too hard,” I replied. “I needed to take some time off, get some breathing room.”
It was time to direct the conversation away from me. “And you,” I said, “what are you doing in Miami?”
“My firm’s working a huge commercial litigation case,” Luther said. “There are about a dozen corporations involved and one of them has a Miami connection. So here I am.”
“Here you are,” I said. I couldn’t read what he was thinking. I had always been able to before. Luther had gotten tougher somehow, his skin had thickened. It was an added aspect to his old self-assurance, more attractive than intimidating.
Luther looked me right in the eyes. No glasses like in
the old days, just his eyes and mine a couple of feet apart.
“Actually, any one of the other three attorneys on the case could have come down here,” he said. “But I insisted it be me.”
Now I knew for sure that I should be getting out of there. Something deeper than the red wine was hitting me.
Instead I picked up the menu. “Shall we order?” I asked sweetly.
[6]
“Chica, you’re playing with fire and you know it.” Vivian was so livid her words were coming out in sputters. “What the hell are you doing, meeting your ex like that? Are you loca?”
Before I had a chance to reply, Anabel raised a finger to interrupt me. “You didn’t tell Ariel, did you?” she asked, ever practical.
Vivian, Anabel, and I were huddled around a tiny table at Starbucks in Coconut Grove, right next to Cocowalk. It was eleven the next morning after my lunch with Luther. I had called b
oth of them and explained my need to meet with a single word: Luther. This wasn’t a conversation we could have on a speaker-phone conference call. I’m not sure which alarmed them more—the fact that I had seen Luther, or that I suggested we meet at Starbucks. They knew my strongly held opinion that no self-respecting Cuban would voluntarily drink the watered-down liquid Starbucks passes off as coffee and serves in cardboard cups.
We were sitting at one of the indoor tables, far away from the counter for as much privacy as possible. I chose Starbucks because it was doubtful we’d see anyone we knew there, but I certainly wanted to make sure no one overheard us just in case. Miami might be a city of three million people, but it was still a small town in many respects. The last thing I needed was for malicious ears to hear what I was saying.
When I had telephoned my friends Vivian told me she had a one o’clock court hearing downtown; Anabel said she had to pick up her triplets from playschool a few blocks away at twelve thirty. Starbucks might have been the heart of enemy territory but it was geographically central to all our needs. Also, there was parking nearby. There is no way to overemphasize the importance of parking in daily life in Miami. I knew individuals, especially on Miami Beach, who wouldn’t date anyone who didn’t have a parking space allotted to them by City Hall. It was too much trouble otherwise, with all the parking tickets and towing charges.
Anabel had heard me out so far, but now she put on her glasses. This meant she was serious. Anabel only put on her glasses in public when it was a matter of life and death.
“Margarita, have you thought through the implications of your meeting Luther?” Anabel asked in a gentle voice. I could tell from her tone that she was trying to give me the benefit of the doubt.
“He caught me by surprise,” I explained. “But when he asked to meet for lunch, it just seemed natural to accept.”
I looked at my two friends and felt a sudden rush of misery, knowing I was opening myself up to insult and criticism, both of which I deserved. I knew Vivian and Anabel would spare my feelings only to a point. One of the reasons our friendship had survived so long was because we were capable of brutal honesty with one another.
“It was almost as if I was waiting for him to call, actually,” I added.
This was too much for Vivian; she sighed in disgust.
“You’re so weak, Margarita,” she said. “You have a great life, a husband and a child. And now this gringo you haven’t heard from in about ten years picks up the phone and calls, and you go running to him. One call and you drop your drawers.”
“You’re such a slut, Margarita,” Anabel flatly concurred.
“I have not been to bed with him,” I sternly reminded them. I wasn’t about to be crucified for crimes I hadn’t committed.
“Not yet,” Vivian and Anabel said at the same time.
The three of us looked at each other and, despite the seriousness of the situation, howled with laughter. We knew each other too well, that’s for sure. I believed the reason none of us had ever been to therapy was because we had each other. Well, that and our innate Cuban distrust of going to a stranger for help when we were too arrogant to acknowledge we had any kind of flaw. God knows we probably could have used some help somewhere along the line.
Laughing like this broke the tension, and I felt less defensive.
“Really, chicas, help me out with this,” I said. “I need to talk about it and figure it out.”
Vivian leaped to cross-examination. “So you had lunch and nothing happened. Is that right?”
“It was all pretty innocent,” I answered. “He told me about the case he’s working. It’s a commercial litigation with—”
“Just the facts, ma’am,” Anabel interrupted. Neither Vivian nor I pointed out that her Joe Friday impression was pretty pathetic. She sounded like Ricky Ricardo tripping on acid. We would tell her, though, if she kept it up. “What about personal stuff? What did you talk about?”
“We really didn’t get into personal matters,” I said.
My answer didn’t convince them. Vivian and Anabel both frowned and inched their chairs closer to mine so they could watch my reactions in order to gauge the truthfulness of my replies.
“I promise,” I insisted. “We really didn’t talk about anything personal. I would tell you if we had.”
Vivian paused, reconsidering her approach. “How did you feel about him? Any vibes?”
It was a few seconds before I could speak.
“Yes, I did find him attractive,” I said. “Remember, I was thinking about marrying him at one point in my life.”
I took a sip of my lukewarm coffee and nearly gagged. Steaming hot it was barely tolerable, but tepid it was atrocious.
“To tell you the truth, he looks better than ever.” I then went on to describe Luther as best I could. I guess I went overboard because Vivian started to nod knowingly and make a clucking sound.
“You’re in heat, chica,” she said. “That gringo is in your system.”
“Well, he can’t be all bad,” Anabel said, “if he’s still willing to talk to you after the Elian fiasco.”
Anabel lowered her voice for that comment. Cuban exiles still felt like we were viewed as pariahs by most Americans. We were right-wing zealots and nut cases who went to extraordinary lengths to keep that boy from being reunited with his father. The whole thing had been incredibly painful and heartwrenching. The six-year-old boy had seen his mother drowned and eaten by sharks in the Florida Straits three days after the rickety motorboat they’d used to flee Cuba had capsized. Before she died she had placed the boy in an inner tube in a desperate hope that he might survive. On Thanksgiving Day he’d been picked up by a couple of fishermen and brought to the United States. The symbolism of his rescue wasn’t lost on anyone, especially Fidel Castro—after the seemingly miraculous rescue, Fidel demanded instantly that the boy be returned to Cuba. The whole thing erupted in a firestorm of publicity.
Elian had relatives in the U.S.—his great-uncle and the uncle’s wife and daughter. They took the boy in and gave him a home. Once press interest waned, Elian’s story would have been just another one of thousands had it not been for Castro’s personal involvement. Soon the whole thing was front-page news and then started the lawsuits, the allegations, the court orders.
Even before Elian, Cuban exiles had been perceived differently from other immigrants to America; rightly or wrongly, we enjoyed special immigration status and were able to bypass a lot of restrictions other groups faced in establishing residency. As a result, there was always resentment. During and after Elian, public opinion vilified and attacked Cubans in a way that truly shocked us. Not all Cuban exiles believed the boy should be kept in America, away from his father, but it was definitely a minority opinion. It didn’t matter what an individual thought, though—we were all tarred with the same brush.
The fact is, Americans never really understood the Cuban exiles’ side of the story. They didn’t want to hear about the fact that one and a half million Cubans had left the island, abandoning everything they knew and loved because of political persecution. For most exiles, it was unthinkable that a boy who succeeded in escaping should be ordered to return. Few in America wanted to consider what awaited Elian after he got back to Cuba. His life would change in very real ways—and not simply because he would no longer have access to Disney World and Toys “R” Us, as was portrayed in the press.
Under Cuban law, a child didn’t belong to his family. He belonged to the patria, and the government made final decisions concerning his welfare. Parents’ wishes were secondary. As a teenager, he would be removed from his home and sent to work in the countryside. He would live in camps and coed dormitories, where sexually transmitted diseases were common and the rate of pregnancy was sky high. At age seven his rationed provisions would start limiting his diet—he wouldn’t be eligible for the milk, beef, and proteins that he’d gotten used to. And, of course, the first order of business upon his return would be to openly denounce his
mother as a traitor. That was required of everyone who came back. However, these realities were not portrayed in the press, which saw it simply as a father being kept from his son.
Elian’s great-uncle was a mechanic, his wife worked in a factory sewing garments, and the daughter was a bank clerk. They were unsophisticated people and had absolutely no media savvy. They made a big mistake when they picked as their spokesman a political operative, a slickster who did them a disservice with the decisions he made on their behalf. There were no winners in the Elian Gonzalez family. The little boy had to return to live under Castro’s regime, and the Cuban exiles were cast in a harsh, negative light. Miami was incredibly polarized. Americans and Cubans who had been friends, neighbors, and business partners broke off relations. Some thought that the divisions had always been there, and that the Elian disaster simply brought them to the forefront.
Cubans used to enjoy an image as industrious good citizens and, believe me, it was an impression that we worked hard to project. It had evaporated in the space of a few months, and it was devastating. I knew of deep personal relationships that had been permanently and completely severed because of rancorous arguments about Elian.
“What would Ariel do if he found out you met with Luther?” Vivian asked me.
“He wouldn’t like it,” I admitted. “But Ariel has always let me do pretty much whatever I want.”
“Margarita, Ariel might be liberated and all that, but chica, he’s still a Cuban man,” Anabel pointed out. “He might have trained himself to be open-minded about women—or you might have trained him, I don’t know—but you can’t change what’s in the genes.”
“You know, I think what’s troubling me is that I don’t feel like I’m being unfaithful to Ariel.” To make sure my friends didn’t get the wrong idea, I hastened to add, “I mean, I’ve done nothing wrong and I have nothing to hide. I’ve been to lunch with plenty of men in my life without anything happening.”
one hot summer Page 5
