My Lost and Found Life (23 page)

“Not you,” he laughed. “You're a hard-hearted girl who already knows all about my misdeeds. Aren't we just having a friendly conversation?”

He continued to walk beside me, asking, “Where are we headed?”

“I don't know where you're headed, but I'm going home,” I answered. Truthfully, I wasn't ready to go back to the camper, but I didn't have a destination in mind yet.

“It's way too early to go home,” he said. “Let me buy you apint.”

“No, thanks, I don't drink,” I said. Realizing that sounded way too prudish and not wanting to admit that I wasn't old
enough, I hastily added, “I mean, I don't feel like having a drink tonight. Maybe a cup of coffee, I suppose.”

He steered me down Columbus Avenue to one of the sidewalk tables outside Caffé Greco and fetched us both cappuccinos.

“So, what did you think of the author?” he said. “Have you read his book?”

“Not yet,” I answered. “I'll probably have to wait until the library gets a copy.”

“You can borrow mine,” he said. “Have you read his other book, on the madman who helped write the
Oxford English Dictionary
?”

“No. A madman wrote that dictionary?”

“Yep, one of the contributors was a genuine murderer, from America no less. You Americans are a pretty violent lot.”

“Yeah, right. Ever heard of Jack the Ripper?”

“He was English.”

“What about all those Irishmen shooting and blowing each other up?”

“That's in the North,” he said. “I'm an Irishman from the Republic, where violence these days usually amounts to a pub brawl over a woman. We're all dreamers, liars, and poets—or fools.”

“And which are you?” I asked.

“All of the above, my girl, all of the above. So tell me about yourself.” He gazed at me with intense interest, and I noticed again what blue eyes he had. “Apart from the odd fact or two, I don't know anythin' about you except that you work at the Madhouse and you're a very pretty girl who likes to read.”

“There's not much to tell.”

“Come on, now. Tell your Uncle Pat all about it.”

“It's a sad story, Uncle Pat,” I said, imitating his Irish brogue. “I'm a penniless orphan working to earn my daily bread. All I have in the world is my little red Jetta and a cat named Stella.”

“I see,” he said. “ 'Tis a sad tale indeed. Both your parents passed recently?”

“My father died when I was fourteen, but we didn't get along anyway. My mother died a few months ago. So I'm all alone.”

“Except for the cat named Stella. Nice name, that.”

“It means star in Italian.”

“Are you Italian?”

“On my mother's side. My father was Irish, or so he always said. Mitchell is an Irish name, isn't it?”

“Yes, indeed it is. So we're compatriots. That means we have to stick together, you and I.”

The two of us chattered away for a couple of hours. I lied through my teeth whenever he asked me about my background but it was fun to talk with someone who actually read fiction. Scott and the boys I knew in high school never read anything that hadn't been assigned by a teacher except
Playboy
or
Sports Illustrated
.

I told Patrick I was planning to enroll in college soon.

“So what's holding you back, girl?” he asked.

“Money, Uncle Pat. No one works at the Madhouse because they're rich,” I answered. “I've been doing some research and I should be able to take a couple of night courses starting in January. Next fall I hope to get a student loan and go full-time.”

“At San Francisco State?”

“I'm not sure,” I said. “It all depends.”

“On what? A boyfriend? A pretty girl like you must have a fella or two.”

“Not exactly,” I said, and changed the subject. “Tell me about Ireland. Is it beautiful?”

“That it is! There's nowhere like it on earth. Of course, you have to get used to a wee bit of rain,” he said, turning his brogue up a notch.

“How much is a wee bit?”

“Nearly every day,” he said, and we both laughed.

“Are you from Dublin?”

“No, I'm from Wexford, a little town where the River Slaney flows into the Irish Sea. Like all of Ireland, Wexford has Norse roots and a dark, sad history at the hands of the English. Cromwell sacked the town more than three hundred and fifty years ago, but we've not forgotten.”

“America didn't even exist then. As a country, I mean. My ancestors must have still been in Ireland, getting sacked along with yours.”
Oh, God, I'm beginning to babble.
I stopped myself by asking him another question. Guys always like to talk about themselves. “What did you do in Wexford?”

“Grew up, went to school, the usual. My family's still there. Like any reasonably bright, ambitious lad, I went to university in Dublin and stayed there, working as a busker and a bouncer and writing the odd piece. All Irishmen are half in love with America. I was lucky enough to get a visa when I wanted to visit America. So here I am.”

“I know what a bouncer is,” I said, “but what's a busker?”

“A street performer—I play the guitar and sing a little.”

“Wow, I'd love to hear you sometime. What sort of music do you sing?”

“All Irishman learn to sing Irish folk songs and ballads in our cradles. Do you know Irish music?”

“No. Everything I know about Ireland, I've learned from the movies.”

He smiled at that. “So you like movies?”

“I love them,” I said. “I go at least once or twice a week.”

“What's your favorite film?” he asked.

“Oh, there's so many.” I thought about it for a few seconds. “I really loved
Sliding Doors
with Gwyneth Paltrow, but I guess
Breakfast at Tiffany's
has to be my all-time favorite. I love Audrey Hepburn.”

“You like old movies?” he said. “Me too. You should watch
The Quiet Man
if you like films about Ireland.
The Dead
is another good one. What do you think of film noir?”

“Mmmm, that sounds like black-and-white movies, and I think they're boring.”

He shook his head at me in pity. “Oh, you ignorant girl. Some of the best movies ever made are black and white. You haven't lived until you've seen some of the film noir classics. I tell you what:
Out of the Past
and
A Lonely Place
are playing at the Roxie on Friday. Mitchum and Bogart, two of the best. I'll take you. You need educating.”

I agreed to go to the movies with him. Maybe it was reckless, but I was sick of being alone and going everywhere alone. Table for one, please. One ticket, please. I had been the loner, the loser, the ghost, and I was tired of feeling invisible.

• • •

I was very excited about my “date” with Patrick. At least, I hoped it was a date—it wasn't exactly clear. I had never actually “dated,” the way I understood the concept from the olden days. My high school crowd traveled in packs and went out in groups. Only toward the end of an evening did couples get together in corners and cars and other isolated spots. Scott and I had been a couple, but we had never gone on a date for a movie and a milk shake like those dopes on
Happy Days
.

For the last few months I had been too busy adjusting to my new circumstances to worry about hooking up. My experience with Webb would definitely be worth repeating with the right person, but I hadn't had the time to do any shopping. Not just anyone would do. My romantic fantasies revolved around a sophisticated and intelligent guy who knew about poetry, literature, and art, and looked good wearing a tuxedo.

While Scott had been way cute and his family had plenty of money, I had never considered him husband material. No way was I going to spend a lifetime watching basketball games and surfing tournaments. And I didn't plan on ending up with some boring banker or lawyer whose idea of a good read was the
Wall Street Journal
.

I pictured my future husband as an intellectual—a writer or poet or maybe a film director. He wouldn't care whether the 49ers or the Raiders won the Super Bowl, and he would never, ever think farting was funny.

I wasn't stupid enough to imagine that Patrick was “the one.” Sooner or later, he would be moving on. But in the meantime, he
was attractive, well read, and didn't say “dude” five times a minute.

At the Madhouse the next day I felt a little apprehensive about how he might behave toward me. He was as friendly and flirtatious as ever but didn't say a word about our chance meeting or our plans for Friday night at the movies. I was relieved. The last thing I wanted to do was become the center of any Madhouse gossip.

Hugging my secrets to myself had become a habit. I feared the disapproval or pity that exposure might bring. More than that, I was afraid of admitting that my mother wasn't coming back.

• • •

By the time Friday arrived, I was finding it hard to remain cool about my “date” with Patrick. We had agreed to meet outside the Roxie Theater at six thirty sharp. I didn't bother to change my clothes after work—that would have sent a signal that I wanted to impress him. But I did pull my hair out of the pony-tail I wore at the coffeehouse so that it hung loosely to my shoulders. Then I unbuttoned the top button of my shirt to show a little cleavage. As Tattie would say, I intended to use all my natural assets tonight.

The Roxie turned out to be a run-down movie house in the rougher section of the Mission. It was surrounded by ethnic restaurants, secondhand stores, and other graffiti-covered buildings. As I walked toward the theater, a black man with a bandana on his head went past me, spinning and hip-hopping to his own music.

Outside the theater I saw Patrick waiting with a cigarette in one hand. He was wearing jeans, a black turtleneck, a black leather jacket, and boots—in other words, he looked dangerous and totally yummy. Even the cigarette didn't put me off, although I had always sworn I wouldn't hook up with a smoker.

Once inside, I discovered that the interior of the movie house was not so bad. The movies were good, too, even if they were in black and white.

As we walked out, Patrick said, “Let's get a bite to eat, shall we?”

I nodded agreement.

We walked to a tapas restaurant called Andalu. After we settled into a corner table and ordered, Patrick stretched out his legs and asked, “So what did you think of the films?”

“I liked them,” I admitted. “Especially the Mitchum guy. The other movie was pretty dark and had an interesting twist to it, but I just don't get Bogart as a screen idol. And the women were annoying. You had to sort of admire Kathie. She played helpless, but underneath she was ruthless and determined not to be controlled by anyone. But the other chick didn't
do
anything, just looked beautiful and got a lot of massages. Suddenly she's in love and starts cooking and taking care of her man. Then—hello!—she starts to think that he's a murderer. Maybe all that housecleaning stuff made her flip out.”

“Spoken like a true woman of the twenty-first century,” he tweaked me. “Are you saying you don't want to cook and be some bloke's little woman?”

“Not like that. I don't want anyone bossing me around and
expecting me to mother him. Is that what you're looking for in a woman?”

“Like most men, I want it all. A woman to take care of me who's beautiful, intelligent, and passionate.”

“Sounds like two women to me.”

He grinned and drawled, “So, tell me all about this boyfriend of yours in San Diego.”

For a second, my mind went blank until I remembered the lie I had told about Webb. Maybe this was a good time to unravel that particular part of my tangled web.

“Oh, him,” I said carelessly. “There's not much to tell. He's a great guy, but it's so hard to maintain a long-distance relationship. We didn't pledge undying love or eternal fidelity to each other.”

“That's good,” Patrick said, leaning back in his chair. “You're a bit young for pledging undying anything.”

“I'll be a year older very soon,” I said mysteriously.

“Me as well,” he said, then added with a mock leer, “What's your sign, darlin'? I'm a Scorpio. We're supposed to be very sexy devils, if you believe all that malarkey.”

“I'm a Scorpio too.”

“Now what are the odds of that? I'll be precisely a quarter of a century old on November nineteenth.”

“My birthday is the twenty-second,” I said. He raised his brows at me as if in a question, and I added, “And ‘old enough' is all I'm saying.”

“I thought women didn't start hiding their age until at least thirty,” he protested.

“I'm getting an early start.”

“We'll have to celebrate our birthdays together,” he announced. Just then, the waitress plopped our plates down in front of us, so nothing more was said about age or birthdays.

It was nearly one when he walked me to my car. I was parked in an alley—not dark exactly but not floodlit either. After I unlocked the door, I turned around to say good night and hopefully get kissed. But he gently pulled me against him, one hand in the small of my back and the other resting slightly on my shoulder. We stood there, inhaling each other. He felt great and smelled wonderful, like soap and leather.

All my nerve endings were tingling, and I realized that somehow he had gotten control of the situation. That wasn't what I was used to at all.

“You're so lovely,” he whispered with his cheek lightly touching my hair. “You know I fancy you, don't you?”

Then just as quickly, he released me, and called, “Drive safely” as he walked away.

Unkissed and off balance, I got into my car and drove back to the camper, to enjoy a night of pleasant dreams for once.