Chapter Twelve
Twelve
“Roz! Hi! What’re you doing right now?”
“Who is this?”
“Lauro.”
“Oh. Hi! How’d you get my number?”
“Raff.”
“Right. What’s up?”
“A few of us from class are going to Daniel’s art opening tonight but I forgot to invite you yesterday.”
It’s the day after the housewarming party, Vin’s voice in my ear, his desire for me to live my own, big, special, one-and-only life.
(Is he there with me during all this life-living?
He didn’t elaborate, the tight-lipped jerk, so now I’m determined to keep up my half of the threat.
I shall have a sun-drenched existence. With fabulous people doing fabulous things.
I’ll draw and smoke cigs and quote famous artists with Em.
Mental note: Wikipedia famous artists and memorize some crap that they said.)
How are Vin and I, you might ask? Well, when I came out of the bedroom this morning, Vin was washing his cereal bowl. “Raff wants a ride to Morristown to pick up some Nintendo gear from some guy. I think we’ll have lunch at Mom’s on the way back. Do you want to come?”
His mother would sniff out our issues like a drug dog at the airport. She’d have me in handcuffs and a headlock, demanding answers about the state of our union. Vin would have been dispatched to change the oil in her car. He’d have no idea.
“I’m going to pass,” I’d said. Which landed like way more of a rejection than I’d planned. And he’d left and I’d thrown myself into work.
“Seriously?” I say to Lauro. I stop chopping sun-dried tomatoes. (Orange pesto. This week’s recipe is going to be fire.) “I didn’t know he was having an art show!”
“It’s his first in a few years. I don’t think he expects many people to be there. I think it’ll be me, Em, Reggie, Shan, and maybe Esther if she can get a babysitter. Wanna surprise him with us?”
“Yes! I’m in! Absolutely.”
When I hang up with Lauro, I send off the recipe to Cherise, complete with photos and extra-careful step-by-step instructions, and clean up the kitchen.
I zoom through a shower, blow-dry, makeup, and then for the outfit.
It’s a tall boots kind of night. And ooh!
Faux-leather shorts. And that one tank top that crosses against my neck.
When I survey myself in the mirror, I see I’ve put together an all-black ensemble.
Like a caricature of an art student. But I don’t care!
With the boots up to my knee and the short shorts I look tall and hot for once.
I speed out the door and pass Vin in the hall. “Hi,” he says, eyes glued to my thighs.
“Hi! How was your mother’s? I’m going out with art class friends. Pesto pasta in the fridge. Be back later. Bye!”
And I’m gone.
The venue is a converted church in Brooklyn. Daniel and two other artists. Their paintings are displayed grandly on the altar and after perusing them, Shan, Reggie, Lauro, and I drink wine in the pews.
Daniel’s paintings are enormous. He’d need a ladder to paint them. They’re of people, of course, crowded and luminous and painted with gradations of just one color each. Somehow, I’m equally reminded of landscapes and figures.
Daniel stands beside his paintings with his hands clasped behind his back. He’s in a bow tie.
“He hasn’t moved at all,” I observe, eyeing him over my wineglass.
“Yeah,” Shan agrees. “He must be super nervous?”
“He said he doesn’t want to be a distraction to the art,” Lauro says. He’s looking for something, glancing over one shoulder.
“Well, it’s very distracting!” I say. “Having the artist stare at you while you look at their art.”
“Go tell him, then,” Lauro says with a smirk, apparently giving up on what he was looking for and settling back into the pew.
Just then, Esther waddles through the crowd, green church dress on, Fabi tugged along in her wake.
She makes straight for Daniel. When she gets there, she says something to him and his pose relaxes for the first time.
He reaches down and high-fives Fabi. Esther straightens his bow tie. He laughs at something she’s whispered.
“Good job, Esther,” Lauro says with affection. “Come on. Now’s our chance. She defrosted him.”
We all get up and file over.
When we first got here, Daniel saw us, his eyes widened, and he bowed his head to us. But that was it.
Now that Esther is here and teasing him about his pocket square, when we approach, Daniel actually goes in for a light hug of each of us. “Thank you for coming.”
Daniel, Shan, and Lauro start talking about the exhibition, but I take a chance and sidle up next to Fabi and Esther. “Another gallstone?” I ask her.
She laughs. “No. This time I just wanted to take my grandson to see some art.”
“Where is the art, Abuela?” he asks, looking around at his own eye level.
I point up, to where Daniel’s paintings are suspended, ten feet in the air.
“Oh. Wow.”
While he’s looking up at the sky, I can’t help but do the old tap-the-shoulder trick. He looks to his opposite side and then to me. I shrug, innocent.
Fabi looks up at the art again and I go to tap his opposite shoulder but this time, his little hand snakes up and catches me, pinching my fingers.
“You’re fast!” I crow.
He eyes me critically and unhands me. “I know kung fu.”
I love this answer. “Oh, me too.”
He steps back and eyes me. “Really?”
“Yeah. I can break a cinder block with my face.”
He senses the game immediately. “Well, I can break one with my pinky.”
“I can catch a hummingbird with one hand.”
“I can juggle twenty-five grapes at once.”
“Oh, well, I definitely can’t do that. You must be better at kung fu than me.”
He’s very pleased with this exchange. “I actually can do five roundhouse kicks in a row.”
“That sounds really hard.”
“It is. Abuela gets mad when I do it in the house.”
“But where else are you supposed to do it? The grocery store?”
His eyes grow round, he’s seen me anew. “That is a very good point.”
“Quit making trouble,” Esther says to me with a scowl. “Fabi baby, go get Abuela a cup of water over there. And be good.”
He follows her directions immediately. Roundhouse kicks or not, they’ve got a good thing going. She’s eyeing me quizzically.
“You have kids, Roz?”
“Oh. Nope.” I honestly don’t know why I volunteer this next bit, other than the fact that Esther is a little bit magic, of course. “My husband and I thought we’d try, but then…” Then we got into a life-altering accident. I shrug instead of saying anything.
“There’s time. I didn’t have Fabi’s father until I was forty. And then, if you think about it, there’s even more time. You never know what the world is gonna give you. Because I didn’t think I’d be raising another baby at sixty.”
“He’s been with you since he was a baby?”
“Yup. His father is overseas. Back a few times a year. Gracias, chico.” She takes the dangerously full cup from Fabi as he returns, his knuckles wet.
“Shan knows a place around the corner,” Lauro says as he returns to us, putting his arm around Esther’s shoulders and kissing her temple. “She says kids can come.”
“Nah, nah.” Esther waves a hand. “Fabi and I have a date with a couple milkshakes at home.”
He straightens up like she’s electrocuted him. “Really?”
“Let’s go look at the art first,” she says, mock sternly, leading him away and waving to us. “See you on Friday.”
“Bye, Fabi!”
Lauro is looking at his phone. “Daniel said he’d meet us at the restaurant in a bit, if you’re interested.”
Shan and Reggie are already sidling toward the door. “Sure.”
We go to a taco joint for a late bite and I get the shock of my life when I hear Reggie speak for the first time and hear his New Zealand accent. He peels off after tacos but Daniel still hasn’t joined us and Shan knows another joint around the corner.
“I know all the joints around all the corners,” Shan tells us.
“You must have a very rewarding nightlife,” I say.
“No.” She shakes her head sadly. “I work for a food and drink distributor.”
The three of us get to the next bar and it’s a real sexy beast. The drinks take eight minutes to make and the clientele all look like they’re extras in Eyes Wide Shut.
Before the drinks even come, Shan is checking her phone. “Oh, Em just texted.”
Lauro is scrambling out his phone, sees no notifications, and frowns. “What did she say?” he asks Shan.
“She’s taking a cab home from the venue. We live in the same building.” She says that last bit to me, by way of explanation. “I’m not gonna miss a ride home!”
Shan leaves some cash for her drink and sweeps out of the bar.
Leaving me and Lauro.
Alone.
I turn, expecting him to be grinning like a tiger.
But instead, he’s frowning down at his phone, sliding it away, catching my eye, and then grinning like a tiger.
“Guess we’ll have to finish Shan’s drink too,” he says on a sigh, as the bartender delivers three gorgeous tumblers, all in various shades of glowing amber.
What am I supposed to do? Run out the door? I lift my drink. “To life.” (The one that Vin wants me to live.)
Lauro lifts his drink and clinks mine. “To tonight,” he says. “With you.”
Shit.
Two hours later, I literally fall into my own home. My purse is caught on the doorknob and the floor has risen to greet my hands and knees.
“Whoa. Jesus.” That’s Vin.
Oh, good. He’s here to see this.
I’m up and trying to hop out of my ridiculous boots but I accidentally upend the umbrella stand.
“I hate the umbrella stand! Why are we constantly preparing for rain! It should be a sunscreen stand! Of course we were always gonna fall apart!”
Suddenly he’s next to me, one hand on my elbow. I jolt at the strength of it. He stands there like a pillar of cement, his eyes on my face, his hand steadying me.
I’m seized with the need to knock him off-kilter. I take two hands and plant them on his chest. Give my best attempt to push him over. The only thing that happens is all my breath comes out at once. Unfortunately in a gasp.
“Hey.” He’s very concerned.