17. Beck
— ? —
Beck
I’m staring at the bill like it’s written in a foreign language, which is ridiculous, because I went to business school and I’ve closed deals worth more than some countries’ GDP.
But right now, standing at the counter of a taqueria with six tables and a hand-painted CASH ONLY sign, I cannot for the life of me figure out what to hand this woman.
I definitely know how to do simple math but it feels so wrong to count it out by hand.
I’ve got a twenty. I’ve got three ones. I’ve got some coins in my pocket that might be quarters or might be those arcade tokens Josie likes to collect.
I haven’t paid cash for anything since… I genuinely can’t remember.
Grade school, maybe, when I tried to buy Tim’s lemonade.
Before the money got big enough that everything just went on a card and disappeared into the machinery of being Beck Cooper.
“Fourteen thirty-seven,” the woman behind the counter says again. She’s patient, but there’s a line forming behind me.
“I could buy ten of these,” I mutter, reaching for the twenty. “The whole building.”
“That’s a man showing a woman he can buy ten plates of enchiladas to impress,” Scarlett says from beside me. “Not a man who knows how to make one plate of enchilada feel special.”
I hand over the twenty. The woman gives me change. I stare at the coins in my palm like they’re foreign currency.
“Tip jar’s by the napkins,” Scarlett says.
I put everything in the jar. All of it. The woman’s eyebrows rise, but she doesn’t say anything.
We take our red plastic baskets to a table by the window.
The chairs are plastic, the table wobbles, and there’s a TV in the corner playing a telenovela with the sound off.
I look around at the chipped paint and the Christmas lights that have been up so long they’re dusty and the jukebox in the corner that only takes quarters.
This is what normal looks like. This is what I’ve been missing from behind the tinted windows of town cars and private helicopters.
I take a bite of my taco. It’s incredible. Tender pork, bright pineapple, cilantro, some sauce that makes my eyes water in a good way.
“This is really good,” I say, and I hear the surprise in my own voice.
“Seven dollars. Welcome to how the rest of the world eats.”
We eat in silence for a minute. I’m trying to figure out how to do this, how to be present instead of performing. Dr. Kramer’s voice is in my head: Stop trying to win. Start trying to see.
“You had coffee with Prue at six this morning,” I say.
“You went over the October schedule. Then you checked on the butterfly mare, the one who spooked at a monarch last week, and she was calm until a white one landed on the fence. Then you drove to the feed store, but they were out of the senior grain, so you had to go to the one on Route 12.”
Scarlett sets down her taco and stares at me.
“Deborah called around eleven,” I continue. “About the registry paperwork. Whether you’re using your married name or…” I stop. The words feel like glass in my throat. “Or your maiden name going forward.”
“How do you know all that?”
“I asked. Prue. Deborah.” I look at my hands. “I’ve been paying attention. Trying to learn your days.”
“That’s not the same as knowing me.”
I push the rice around in my basket. “That’s why I’m here.”
She’s quiet for a moment. The telenovela plays silently behind her, some man in a suit crying while a woman walks away. I know how he feels.
“What did Deborah say?” she asks finally. “About the name?”
“She said you told her you’d think about it.”
“I did.” Scarlett picks up her taco again. “I’m still thinking.”
I don’t ask what she’s leaning toward. I don’t have the right to ask.
“Name one thing I’m afraid of,” she says.
“What?”
“You know my schedule. You know what I had for breakfast. But you don’t know what keeps me up at night.” She looks at me steadily. “So name one thing I’m afraid of.”
I search. I dig through two years of marriage, every conversation, every time she turned away from me in bed. I try to remember if she ever told me, if I ever asked, if I ever did anything but assume I already knew everything that mattered.
Nothing.
“I don’t know,” I admit.
“No.” She wipes her hands on a paper napkin. “You don’t.”
“Scarlett-”
“I’m not angry. I know that you don’t know anything about it. I’m just telling you where we are.” She stands up and gathers her trash. “You’ve done the homework on my schedule. But you haven’t done the homework on me.”
I follow her outside. The streetlights are coming on, and the air is still warm from the day. She walks toward her building and I keep pace beside her, not reaching for her hand even though I want to.
At the bottom of her stairs, she stops.
“You want to know something real?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“I called Deborah back this afternoon. Told her to use Velasquez on the paperwork.” She watches my face. “I haven’t decided anything. I just wanted to see how it felt.”
“How did it feel?”
“Like mine.” She starts up the stairs. “Goodnight, Beck.”
“Same time next week?”
She pauses on the third step and looks back at me.
“Ask me Saturday.”
She disappears through her door. I stand at the bottom of the stairs for a long time, looking up at where she was.
Velasquez. Her name before me. Her name after me, maybe.
I walk back to Tripp’s truck and sit in the driver’s seat and think about all the things I don’t know about my own wife.
What is she afraid of?
I’m going to find out. I have to.