One Night (6 page)

He nodded. “I know. A man can know a woman for years and never really know her.”

“A woman can only know a man if he wants to be known, and how he wants her to know him.”

“We trick ourselves. A man can fall madly, deeply in love, marry a woman almost as soon as he meets her, with each breath feel as if she is his soul mate. But she breathes for someone else; someone else may be her soul mate. There is always someone in the shadows. Always someone on standby.”

“If you're not the one, why wouldn't she just marry her true soul mate?”

“No idea. Maybe because the other guy was already happily married.”

“Maybe she didn't want to marry him, just enjoyed the sex with him.”

“Could be.”

I said, “Maybe she doesn't want to see the lover every day, not like husband and wife. Some people are good company; others are good to have in your bed for a little while.”

He nodded.

I asked, “You okay over there?”

“The girl from Colorado, my first love . . . I had never seen her look so ecstatic. She left that guy's Mustang and danced her way to the porch. She danced until she found me waiting on her. As he drove away, when she saw me come from the shadows—I hadn't ever seen a girl look so remorseful. Didn't get it.”

“You never let that go, did you?”

“Not sure. But I moved on. I moved on, met someone new, and married.”

“How did you end up with your wife? Where did you meet the Republican?”

“Was on the third level at Barnes & Noble at The Grove. I was at the top of the escalator, flipping through a Harry Potter book, and saw her coming up. It was like she was an angel coming to meet me.”

“The Grove? Nice. Classy area. Wife was a sorority girl in tight jeans and high heels?”

“That first look, that first eye contact—bet it was that way the first time Adam saw Eve.”

“Adam had never seen a woman before.”

“That was how I felt. Like God had created a woman just for me. To be mine forever.”

“In the beginning there was lust, and lust was good.”

“It was love.”

“Keep it real. It was lust. She got your dick hard.”

“She stimulated my mind. Intelligence excites me. She impressed my friends. The day we met, we talked Harry Potter, law, business, physics, politics, family, college, everything. She is articulate, well-read, and very ambitious, and most of all, she told me that she was loyal. Jealous and loyal.”

“How jealous is this one? On a scale of one to ten?”

“She's a ten. Jealousy is her dark beast. She loves a good confrontation.”

“Jealousy for the preservation of the relationship, or a control freak?”

“If she thinks she has a sexual rival, if she feels an interpersonal boundary has been crossed, even a compliment from a woman left on Facebook, she can become a bit extreme.”

“She sounds like a loon. Still, jealousy comes from the fear of losing something of value to us.”

“Maybe I was just as jealous, and twice as loyal. She came from a good family. My family had the same structure. It was the right recipe. She was perfect. It was love. I know what it was for me. I know what I felt. We sat in the café and talked Harry Potter like we were middle school children. Of all the things in the world, we talked about Harry Potter the longest. We sipped tea and talked about wizards and fantasy. Didn't want the moment to end, so I invited her to come out on my boat the next day.”

“You popped the panties the next day.”

“We made love for the first time. We were on my boat. I docked us at Catalina for the night.”

“
Bow chica bow wow
. She broke out the lingerie and hooked you up.”

“It wasn't planned.”

“She planned it. Trust me. She shaved the cat and climbed on the boat ready to freak.”

“It was spontaneous. We were only going to meet for lunch. One thing led to the next.”

“She stepped on the boat, saw you were rich, and the doors to her church opened.”

“She told me I was the man of her dreams. I felt love when she touched me.”

“Lust is a master showman who disguises himself as love, and love is a mythical creature who keeps habitat with the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and other lies we have been fed.”

He shook his head, rubbed his hands together, said, “Funny.”

“What?”

“It started off that she was the only woman I wanted to look at. She was the only beautiful woman on the planet. When love goes in the other direction, every other woman on the planet is more attractive than a man's wife; more attractive because he does not judge his wife from the outside in, but from the inside out. In the end it will always be about character over beauty.”

“Marriage made you hard.”

“It's not marriage that makes us callous. Marriage, that spiritual union, will always be beautiful. It's the people who marry and don't take marriage seriously; it's other people who make us coldhearted.”

I asked, “How educated is she?”

“She went to University of Pennsylvania, graduated magna cum laude.”

“Her major?”

“International law. She modeled to pay her way through university.”

I nodded, let that end right there. His wife had serious credentials. Had married smart. I imagined his intellectual trophy, nicely dressed, magnificent, with cascading blond hair; the kind of woman who can walk into Starbucks on Centinella and suddenly every black woman in the room feels invisible.

He said, “Eyes averted. Shoulders dropped. Biting lip. Your temperament has changed.”

“I'm like the people sitting here in Denny's. This is as close to Dubai as most will ever get. I'll never be mansion-smart. Best I can do now is pass by mansions and throw rocks.”

I pulled my lips in. The baby across the room cried like it was colicky. The man across from me saw me look at the kid, saw my discomfort, saw me adjust my body language. I had studied him and now he had turned the tables, and I didn't like being studied, didn't like being dissected.

I asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Answer a question for me. It's about your boyfriend.”

“What about him?”

“Tell me the truth. How does he treat you?”

I shrugged. “I'll be honest. Some days, like today, I feel ignored, like I need to be with someone worth being faithful to. Some days being faithful to him makes me feel like I ain't doing nothing but cheating myself of the next opportunity that could present itself to me. Kind of stuck where I am right now.”

“How many years have you and the chicken and waffles guy been together?”

“We might be at about six months now.”

“Might be? You're not sure?”

“Well, I'm confused about it most of the time. We've never really discussed the anniversary, or which anniversary should be the official anniversary. Women, we have first-time-we-talked anniversary, first-time-we-went-out anniversary, first-time-we-went-to-a-movie anniversary, first-time-we-kissed anniversary. Didn't write down the day I think we became an official couple. Actually, I wouldn't know how to figure out the day—if I should go by when he first liked my comments, or when we starting talking on Skype every day, or when we met face-to-face, or when we kissed, or when we did it the first time and woke up buck naked on the carpet with chicken and waffles on our breath and between our teeth. Women, we kinda go by the moment we first felt like we were officially chatting. We go by the moment we feel a connection.”

“Men go by penetration.”

“That's jacked-up.”

“That's reality.”

“Well, for a woman, or most women, the relationship starts before the sex.”

“You only had one good month? It lasted as long as the life of a few butterflies.”

“You've been married how many years and have had how many good marital months?”

“Good point. What changed? After your good month, how were things different?”

“Hmm. After penetration, there was less Roscoe's, fewer phone calls, less IMing, less checking on me by sending texts. Now it's cold, silence in between last-minute texts trying to hook up hot booty calls. We haven't broken up, so I guess he's still my man. He says he is. After the first month, he'd be over at my place by six, then gone by eleven. I stopped cooking elaborate dinners for him, since I knew he'd be leaving. I don't run a fuck-through restaurant.”

“Why does he leave by eleven?”

“Never asked. He'd look at his watch about ten thirty, then exit stage left by eleven.”

“Why are you tolerating the situation?”

“Guess I'm still basing everything on the energy from a month that went by, basing it on a few good nights on the carpet, the way we see an actor in a movie and that role hooks us in.”

“So the first month was like the original
Matrix
movie, the rest like the crappy sequels.”

“Well, it feels like it's been a lot longer. More like how the first season of
Lost
was the bomb, then the rest was torture, but you keep hoping for a good episode, for good moments, here and there.”

“And you're sitting here, waiting on him, looking like a lost puppy.”

I shrugged. “It was a good month. I'm hoping for more five-cups-of-coffee moments.”

“Five-cups-of-coffee moments?”

“You know. That serious high you get after you've had five cups of coffee.”

“You have to keep feeding love what it needs to keep it feeling like love. Drink a lot of coffee every day, and you'll need to drink more coffee to get the same effect.”

“Caffeine and love. Both are drugs. You become dependent. It starts to own you.”

“Your relationship with Chicken and Waffles sounds as miserable as my marriage.”

“I'm not hooked. We're just ships docked at the same port for now, that's all.”

“You're restless. Aggravated. Your expression says you're in pain and ready to jump.”

I frowned at my phone. “Hurts when he doesn't call or text me back.”

“The guy you're chasing . . . is Chicken and Waffles the type of man you'd want your son to be?”

“I'm not chasing him. I'm not chasing any man.”

“Play the game. What you have described to me is an abusive relationship.”

“I'm not in an abusive relationship.”

“People who are in bad relationships, abusive relationships, know that they aren't good, yet they stay. I could be wrong. Tell me the good things about this chicken and waffles guy.”

“Maybe instead of trying to analyze my life, you should ask why your wife is with you. Sounds like she's done. Did she do the math and decide to stay married because she's found the cash cow of all cash cows? Go to hell. Yours is the abusive relationship you need to worry about.”

“The question is if I have reached my goddamn limit.”

“And she, the one you picked: Is she the type of woman you'd want your daughter to be?”

“I would hate to have a daughter like her.”

“Then abort your relationship. Pay the piper and move on.”

“Don't judge me.”

“If anyone at this table is in an abusive relationship, it's you, not me. I don't go home to that kind of craziness every night. Mine is jacked-up, yeah, but this is my choice. Maybe this is where I am the most comfortable right now, in a comfortable state of discomfort. I'm not married and miserable, not like you.”

He slapped his keys down and gave me hard eye contact.

I reciprocated.

He asked, “Want coffee?”

“Thought you were ready to get rid of me so you could get to your wrecked car.”

“Coffee or no?”

“Phone hasn't rung, traffic is still horrible, so I can blow time and have coffee.”

“You're not chasing him.”

He flagged down the waitress.

We looked away from each other, having nothing to say at the moment.

Truth is a burden.

I didn't like him. I didn't like the things he said, hated the way he made me feel.

I hoped my words gave him ten times the grief.

His cell blew up and he checked his text messages.

Then, suddenly, my attention was somewhere else. The man with the little girl was leaving. The little girl waved at me. I wanted to go meet her, hug her to my chest, wanted to give her a Barbie doll. I should've given her hugs, kisses, two Barbie dolls, and my bag of colorful balloons. I wanted to run after them and give her presents—might even have given her the balloons and walked out of Denny's and left the man from Orange County sitting alone—but they arrived at that moment. Red and blue lights fired up the parking lot. Four police cars pulled in from Carson Boulevard, sirens on. Everyone looked outside. The police went to the end of the lot. I saw their lights brightening up my car. Fear crawled up my back. I was trapped inside my head, replaying when I dumped the stolen truck. I was sure I had wiped it down. Was sure that my prints were gone. I became antsy, my leg bouncing, wanting to run to the door and see if the cops had gone to my car.

I asked, “Did you set me up? Is that what the text messages are about?”

“Shut up.”

“Did you contact the cops, then come here and have this long talk to delay me and set me up?”

“Yeah. I'm angry and today the world is my enemy.”

“I will give you the money back.”

The man from Orange County reached across the table, grabbed my hand.

His grip was strong, like manacles. Shaking, eyes wide, I looked at him. I tried to pull away from him. He held on to my hand. Held it firmly. The sirens stopped singing, but the lights kept on flashing.

He said, “Shut up.”

“Answer me. Is that why you came back here? To have me arrested?”

He said, “What other crimes have you committed?”

“Are you a peach?”

“What's a peach?”

“A snitch. An informant. I've never committed a crime a day in my goddamn life.”

“That's a lie.”

“If the police come, after I throw coffee in your face, that will be my story until I get an attorney.”

“You sure? Never committed a crime? Not one?”

“Cheated on a boyfriend when I was in high school, but he can't prove it, and neither can you.”

“That's it?”

“He deserved it.”

“You said you stole the truck tonight.”

“What truck? I don't see any truck. Do you see a truck?”

“You were talking in code. You stole it.”

“Bloody hell. You took the rocks in a box. It has my fingerprints all over it. You can't prove that, either. I won't admit to anything, you hear me? Wait. Have you had your phone on the table so you can record this conversation? You can't record me without my permission. It won't be admissible in court.”

His fingers rapped against the table. “The cops are coming inside.”

I twisted my body so I could see behind me. Six police officers came into the diner, guns holstered. Orange County focused on the officers. Sweat appeared on his nose. His breathing slowed. His brow furrowed. He reacted the way I had felt when I heard sirens while I was doing my rocks-in-a-box con. The police marched toward us, all muscles and badges, handcuffs, stun guns, and real guns.

I opened my mouth to scream. Again he reached across the table, grabbed my shaking hand.

He said, “They're coming for me, not for you.”