by Aletto, Anna
“Oh. I didn’t realize he was with you,” the guy says, noticing me. He buys me another J&B and her an Absolut Vodka and cranberry. Afterward he stands there, hoping she will now talk to him.
She looks at him and says, “Will you leave now? We want to talk.”
Jen, her name she tells me, and I continue this game. I point out guys in the bar. She approaches each one and says, “You’re hot. Come buy me and my friend drinks.” Nearly all of them comply and I receive ten free J&Bs. One man even buys us a sushi appetizer.
By night’s end she and I are both smashed. She grabs my arm and says in a slurred, yet seductive tone, “I’m staying in this hotel.” We walk into the hotel lobby and onto the elevator. Inside I press her against the wall, my hands on her hips, and we make out. A couple in their fifties, also inside the elevator, tries to ignore us.
On her bed Jen straddles me. She leans down to kiss me, accidentally bumping her forehead into mine. Jen cracks up laughing and lies on her back. During sex she passes out and so do I, not waking up for the next several hours.
In the morning her roommate yells at us and Jen pushes me off her and bounds out of bed and gets dressed. “You need to go,” she tells me. “I have to go to work.”
I fumble to find my clothes and put them on. At the doorway I say goodbye.
Jen grabs a piece of hotel stationery and scrawls her phone number on it. She kisses me on the cheek and says, “I’m in town all this week. Call me.”
In the hallway I note her room number, 819. Outside the hotel I sit in my Toyota parked down the street. I crack the window and light a cigarette. About a half hour later a dark blue minivan parks in front of the hotel. Jen and her three model friends from the previous night walk outside and get in the van. I note the time on my clock-radio, then pull out and drive away.
Chapter Two
In the daytime each day Maya hands out résumés while I supposedly look at apartments. Late afternoons we eat lunch together downtown. Afterward we drive to South Beach and watch the sunset.
It’s Thursday morning following my third consecutive night sleeping at Maya’s. I roll out of bed. Today’s outfit consists of a Ralph Lauren oxford, pleated khaki shorts, and loafers. “Yacht club chic,” I say into the mirror.
Maya walks up behind me, kisses me on the neck. “You look nice.”
After breakfast Maya and I leave her condo together, then split off in our own directions.
I drive to Jen’s hotel and park down the street. I ride the elevator to the eighth floor and knock on her door.
“Hey.” She takes my hands and pulls me inside.
Her roommate Nikki is an All-American type with blue eyes and a blonde ponytail. On Nikki’s nightstand is an open bottle of Oxycodone. In her hand is a Piña Colada-flavored wine cooler.
“My nose itches,” she announces to no one in particular.
“I’m not so sure you’re supposed to mix those,” I mention to her.
Nikki looks up at me blankly.
“Don’t worry about it,” Jen interjects. “She does it all the time.” Jen sits on the twin bed next to Nikki’s and I join her.
Playing on the television is a soap opera. “So that guy is the father of the redheaded girl’s baby?” Nikki asks.
“No,” Jen says. “The redhead paid off a nurse to switch the paternity tests, that way she and that guy could be together. So now he’s leaving his wife and their baby for the redheaded girl and her baby … Also, the wife got caught driving in a snowstorm and might die.”
“Look at this.” Nikki points to an almost imperceptible freckle on the big toe of her right foot. “Do you think I should get that removed?”
“Why?” Jen asks.
“I think it’s stopping me from getting jobs. I mean, I’ve noticed a bunch of photographers look at it. I don’t think they like it.”
“Maybe.” Jen shrugs.
“Do you know any doctors in Miami who could remove it?” Nikki asks me.
I shake my head.
A door interconnects Jen’s room to the next. It bursts open and another model, Giselle, enters. “Can you believe she got away with switching the paternity tests?” she asks. “You think nurses and doctors are really open to being bribed like that?”
“I thought the guy didn’t want paternity tests done in the first place,” Nikki says.
“He didn’t,” Giselle responds. “But then the redheaded girl got a friend of hers who is a psychic to tell him that his wife’s son wasn’t really his. So his curiosity got the best of him.”
Nikki nods, satisfied.
Giselle points to the Oxycodone on her nightstand. “Can I have a few of those?”
“Hey, look at what I got,” Nikki says, picking up one of her travel bags. She takes out a pair of earrings. Diamond dolphins leap through fourteen-carat white gold hoops.
“When did you get those?” Jen asks.
“Yesterday. That doctor who has taken me out a few times gave them to me.”
“That doctor who is, like, what? Eighty?” Jen says.
“Ew.” Giselle scrunches up her nose.
“What? He’s rich and I haven’t had to fuck him or anything!” Nikki laughs. “He just likes to have me on his arm or something. So whatever. You guys are just jealous.”
“Oh, please,” Jen says. She turns to me. “What do you do again?”
“Lawyer,” I say.
“Lawyer,” Jen says, turning to Nikki. “And he’s not so old I have to make sure he remembers his teeth if we go out.”
Nikki laughs and says, “Yeah, well, fuck you.” She takes out a bottle of nail polish, places cotton swabs between her toes, and begins painting her toenails.
“Hey,” Giselle says. “I met a movie producer last night who said he thought I could be an actress. I gave him my number.”
I squeeze Jen’s thigh, tickling her.
“But you don’t know how to act,” Nikki says.
Jen tries to grab my wrists to stop me from tickling her. She straddles me and tries to pin my arms down.
“So what?” Giselle says. “He said I have the look. And how hard can acting be anyway?”
Jen forces my arms down against the bed. With the force of my body I flip her over, turning Jen on her back with me atop her.
“I hear it can be challenging,” I say.
“Well, I can do it,” Giselle says. “You’ll see in a year or two when I’m winning an Oscar.”
“Ha,” Jen scoffs, pulling off my shirt. “Maybe they’ll let you be an extra, sitting in the background looking pretty, if you’re lucky.”
“Well, it looks like you’re busy now,” Giselle says watching me take off Jen’s blue jeans. “I’ll talk to you later.” She walks back into her room.
I glance over at Nikki who carefully paints the pinky toe on her right foot.
She glances back. “Oh, don’t let me bother you,” Nikki says. “I need to finish and then let them dry. Just pretend like I’m not here.”
While Jen and I have sex, Nikki finishes painting her toenails. She picks up the diamond dolphin earrings and stares at them absentmindedly. I glance over at the earrings a few times, distracted. Jen puts her palm on the side of my face, redirecting my attention toward her. “Why do you keep looking at her?” she asks annoyed.
“I’m not,” I say. “I mean, I didn’t mean to.”
“Nikki, go to Giselle’s room,” Jen says.
“What?” Nikki asks. “But my nails are drying. I don’t want to mess them up.”
“I don’t care,” Jen shouts. “I’m not going to have the guy I’m fucking stare at you while he’s fucking me. So get the fuck out!”
“Fine.” Nikki stands and cautiously walks on her heels to the next room.
“Do you think she’s prettier than me?” Jen asks, shifting from an angry to a vulnerable tone.
“You’re way prettier,” I say. “It’s not even close.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“You’re a
bsolutely gorgeous,” I continue.
She looks into my eyes, not yet convinced.
“She can’t touch you. There’s no comparison. You’re on a whole different level than her.”
Jen smiles and we continue.
Afterward we lay in bed together. Nikki returns to the room. Upset with Jen, she doesn’t speak. A maid knocks on the door.
Nikki answers it. “We don’t need the room cleaned. We’ll take some towels though.”
I glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand and note the time, thirty minutes past noon. I stay another fifteen minutes and then stand out of bed and dress myself.
Jen sits up in bed and asks, “Why do you always leave so fast?”
I look up at her.
“Is it a girlfriend or wife or something?”
I blink.
“I don’t care,” she says. “I travel all the time anyway. Just curious.”
“Yeah, it’s something like that.”
“Hey,” she says, crawling to the edge of the bed. “We have a shoot tomorrow morning and then we’re flying out the next day. I’m going to be in Europe for a month or so. But I’ll be back in Miami off and on after that. Call or text me.”
“Definitely.”
She stands out of bed and kisses me.
I meet Maya for lunch at Fratelli Milano. We both order baked lasagna and sit outside at a small table to eat. Afterward we drive to South Beach and recline under a palm tree.
“You know what I want to do?” Maya says. “When I was shopping a few weeks ago I bought these cool sugar cookie cutouts. Nothing boring like stars or Christmas trees or anything. But sort of unique stuff like an angelfish, a roller-skate, vampires, stuff like that. So I want to bake some. And also, I want to get some icing and some food dye to color it with. And I want the colors to be really funky to match the cookies.”
I nod, look at her, and break a smile. “You sound like you really know how to have fun.”
She tilts her head. “Are you being sarcastic? Because if you think it sounds boring I won’t bother with it.”
“No, I’m not. It sounds great. I think you’re the girl I’ve been looking for all my life actually. Someone who can make anything fun. If this is boring, I like being bored. Go ahead. Bore the shit out of me.”
Maya giggles. “Okay, cool. Let’s stop by the grocery on the way to my apartment and pick some stuff up then. You can help me pick out some good colors.” Both of us are quiet awhile, just enjoying each other’s company. She stares downward at the white sand, then looks up at me and asks, “Did you find a place to live yet?”
I shake my head. “No, I haven’t found exactly what I’m looking for.”
“What are you going to do if you don’t find somewhere by Monday?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll probably just find a hotel and continue searching for a permanent place on the weekends.”
She nods and stares downward again at the sand.
We spend the night, as planned, at home baking and decorating sugar cookies. In the kitchen Maya slides a trey of cookies out of the oven and sets them on the countertop to cool. Neon green and purple-striped angelfish. Midnight blue roller-skates covered in silver sprinkles. Hot pink vampires.
“I’m actually sort of a homebody.” Maya hoists herself up and sits on the edge of the sink. “I mean, I like going out and everything. It’s fun but I really like hanging out and having fun at home too. Even though we met in a bar, that’s not really the type of girl I see myself as, you know?” She thinks a moment. “If anyone asks where we met, let’s lie.”
In bed, around three o’clock in the morning, I wake up. I look at Maya. She’s wide awake, staring at the ceiling. “Are you okay?” she asks, glancing over.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I readjust my body, finding a comfortable position. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
I close my eyes.
“Hey, I was thinking,” she says.
“Uh huh.”
“If you don’t find a place to live before Monday you could stay here a while longer.”
I open my eyes and look at her.
“I mean, if you want to.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That’d be great. I’ve really enjoyed being with you and spending time together.”
“Me too,” she says. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it and it’s like we were meant to find each other, you know? … To be honest I’ve had a hard time finding good guys in the past. And I’ve been hoping to meet someone like you. A guy who has his life together who can make me laugh and who I just have fun with.”
I pull her close to me. She kisses my forehead and we fall asleep.
Friday morning I wake up early. I throw on a black T-shirt and blue jeans. Maya, still in bed, wakes and sits up.
“I have a few appointments to see some apartments,” I tell her. “I’ll be back sometime late this afternoon, okay?”
“Yeah,” she says. “We’ll eat in tonight. I’ll cook something. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, that sounds great.” I walk over, give her a quick kiss. “I’ll see you later.”
I drive my Toyota to Jen’s hotel and park down the street along the sidewalk. It’s eight o’clock in the morning. I wait. I smoke some cigarettes. I flip on the radio.
At ten o’clock a dark blue minivan pulls up in front of the hotel. Jen, Nikki, Giselle, and Giselle’s roommate walk out the front of the hotel and enter the van. They drive off.
I listen to some radio advertisements. A personal injury attorney claiming, “I don’t look like an attorney. That helps me sneak up on them!” A 1-800 number you can call to “Talk to real live girls in your city any time of day!” A church you can attend to “Shake off the immoralities of today’s popular culture and be reborn and redeemed in Jesus Christ!”
I smoke more cigarettes.
At fifteen minutes past noon I turn off the radio. I get out of my car and walk down the street and into Jen’s hotel. I bypass the lobby’s front desk and take the elevator to the eighth floor. I find room 819. The door is propped open, a maid’s cart outside in the hallway. I rap my knuckles lightly against the door. The maid peaks her head out from the bathroom. She’s a young Spanish girl with a long black ponytail wearing a gray striped uniform.
I step inside the room, as if it’s mine. “Are you almost finished?”
She nods timidly and mumbles, “Yo casi soy terminado.” After she cleans the bathroom, she exits and closes the door behind her, leaving me in the room alone.
I locate Jen’s and Nikki’s travel bags. I place them on each of their beds and quickly sift through them. Both girls have several pieces of jewelry which I immediately pocket. Among these are Nikki’s earrings, the diamond dolphins leaping through fourteen-carat white gold hoops. I also find some cash. I zip the bags back up and return them to their original positions in the room.
I try the door connecting to Giselle’s room and find it unlocked. I enter Giselle’s room and repeat the same routine with her and her roommate’s bags. After extracting all the jewelry and cash I return everything and exit both rooms and the hotel.
I pawn all the jewelry, excluding Nikki’s earrings which I decide to save.
Loud knocking on the bedroom door wakes me. “Maya, are you in there? Are you alright?”
Maya’s body jolts and she turns to me. “That’s my dad,” she whispers. She jumps out of bed and through the closed door says, “I’m getting dressed, Dad. I’ll be out in just a sec.” Maya scrambles to put on a white T-shirt and blue jeans. “Just stay in here, okay?” she says to me in a hushed tone. “I don’t want him to know you’re here.”
Dressed, Maya exits the bedroom, closing the door behind her, and meets her father in the living room.
“I’m sorry,” I hear her say. “I was in the bathroom and then I was getting dressed. Were you waiting long?”
“Well, I knocked on the front door,” her father says. “And when I got no answer I let myself in. I was afra
id something was wrong.”
“No, I’m fine.”
I look at the clock on the nightstand by Maya’s bed. It’s Monday morning, a few minutes past eight o’clock. I cradle the pillow under my head, trying to get some more rest while continuing to eavesdrop on Maya’s conversation.
“Still no luck finding a job yet?” her father asks her.
“No,” she says. “I’ve been looking pretty much every day though.”
“Have you thought about going back to college?”
“A little, but I don’t know. I just really don’t feel like going back. I mean, if I did, I have no idea what I’d even want to study.”
“You could go back undeclared, take some classes, maybe stumble upon something that interests you.”
Silence.
“How’s the condo?”
“It’s great. I love it.”
“Anything else going on in your life?”
“I met a guy.”
“What does he do?”
“He moved here recently. He’s a lawyer.”
“Really?” he asks, interested. “Well, if he makes good money, get him to marry you.” His tone is half-joking, half-serious. “So will I get to meet him soon?”
“Yeah, we met not that long ago, but we’ve been seeing each other a lot and I really like him. Maybe we can arrange to have dinner or something with you and Mom.”
“Speaking of your mother, she hasn’t heard from you in a while. Can you call her?”
“Sure.”
“I have to get to work. I just wanted to check up on you. Call more often. Your mother and I like to hear from you – to know you’re still alive.”
“I will.” I hear the front door close and Maya returns to the bedroom. “I had no idea he was stopping by.”
“How’d he get in?” I ask.
“He pays for this condo. So technically it’s his and he has a key. He usually doesn’t just barge in, but I guess he got worried when I wasn’t answering the front door. Anyway, thanks for staying in here and being quiet. My dad wouldn’t have been very happy to know you’ve been sleeping over. I know it’s kind of silly. But he has traditional values. Really conservative. And plus he has this idea of me in his head as being perfectly pure.”
