Apart From Love (21 page)

I hear her coming over, wrapping her arms around his, and asking, like, What’s wrong, what’s wrong, Lenny; and him saying, No, dear, it’s nothing, I promise, nothing at all, really, and sobbing, sobbing with no tears and no sound.
 

I bet he knows that from that moment on, he would be alone, really alone, and that he must go on, and keep this thing under wraps, so that no one who’s known her before would ever think to put her name and that word—that horrific word—in the same sentence, or anywhere close to each other.
 

And before I can snap another picture of her, and place it there, in the back of my mind, I see her walking away. Her robe’s like, flapping behind her, letting the light shine through, and then—poof!—she’s gone, perhaps to turn off the bedside lamp. Still, I can’t get rid of the ghost of her image. It still kinda hangs there, like the end of a shadow, a long shadow left there, in the center of a picture, even after the body itself has crossed out of the frame, and has long vanished.
 

This, now, is the way I draw her in my head: coming back, like, to touch him softly, to ask what’s the matter, what has happened here. At times she’s like, clinging, at times hovering there, over his shoulders, a faint trace of a thing, turning fainter with time; one that can’t remind him no more of her, her whom he knew: The mother, the wife she was. The girl she used to be.
 

So I take a step closer to Lenny, and this time I don’t allow myself to be stopped—not by him, not by that shadow, and not by nothing else I’ve seen in my head, just now. And I brush my lips over his hair, and spread my arms real wide, hugging her hugging him.
 

I can’t see his face, ‘cause it’s hanging down, like it’s buried between his shoulders. “I must be going,” he mumbles from deep down. “I must be going. I cannot be late for work.”

And standing here, by his side, I let him lean on me, so he can rise, somehow, to his feet. Lenny turns his back on me and a minute later, the sound of his footfalls can be heard, one thump after another, shaking the stairs.
 

And after a while, it kinda blends away into the other noises, till you can’t tell it from the hum of traffic down there, in the street.

Now I close the door. At long last, this I know: I don’t need an answer no more for that question, the one that confused me so, the one I’ve been asking myself, with such pain, such agony, for the last ten years. And I won’t need to guess, not anymore, why he told me—that first time, when we danced—that I, I reminded him of a girl he used to know.

As Told by Anita

L
enny’s gone, but still, I’m thinking about him, about how he’s touched on that time, the lost time nearly five years ago, when I went out the door, swearing I ain’t gonna come back to him, not ever. What he hasn’t said—and what left such a bitter taste in my mouth—is how he told me, back then, “You are a nice kid, Anita. Go, go back to where you came from. Go back to your mama.”

And what he don’t know is that ma wasn’t all too happy to see me, “Because,” she said, “I told you so, didn’t I? Didn’t I say, he’s gonna grow tired of you, and dump you before you know it? He’s gonna go back to his wife, ‘cause it’s her that he wants—not you! And if not her, then—then, it must be something else with him, always something else, like, looking for other women. Maybe they remind him, somehow, of that thing, who knows what it is, which he found in her. Maybe what he’s really looking for is just, like, the
idea
of her.”
 

And when I mumbled, “Whatever,” ma said, “I knew it! She can twist him around her little finger, if she wants to.”

She didn’t tell me nothing else about this thing, this
idea of her
, which ma thought was fixed, somehow, in Lenny’s head, like some piece of music; and I, I didn’t ask. Instead, I bought a six-pack for her and a six-pack for me, and we sat down on her pillows, on the narrow iron bed, drinking beer; she talking, me weeping all night, after which ma wiped my face, and grabbed the palm of my hand—like she used to do in the old days—to read it.
 

And she told me to stay put, to wait for her, ‘cause she had something crucial, something real big to tell me, like, about the future. I reckon she saw
some
clue of what was coming—but didn’t quite grasp it, not in full, anyway, ‘cause the next thing you know, ma went out, came back a second later, picked the empty beer bottles, and took them with her. Along the way she gave me a peck, smack in the middle of my forehead, which surprised me.
 

Then, having kissed me goodbye, she went out again, and then... Then, on her way to work, right there on the corner of Euclid Street—Bang! I could hear the sound, out there—she was killed in a car accident.
 

I stayed in her place till the end of the month—but couldn’t stay longer, ‘cause me, I didn’t have no money to pay for the rent, on account of not having a job. So I started moving from one place to another, trying to hide behind someone’s garage, or in a little cove on the beach. Sometimes I shared a room with this friend, or the other. After a while, I lost count of all the places where I’d lived. Which is why I don’t want to ever think about finding a new place again.

A few months later—I can’t even say how many—I was walking, like, in a daze down the street, and raised my eyes from the ground. I found myself on the Pier, staring at the
swirly, painted letters of the
ice cream place. And then, in a flash, it hit me: this, this was the place, the very same place where we had met, Lenny and me, that first time.
 

I backed away, all shook up. Words started drifting in my head. I thought about him, and about how far away, even absurd the whole thing was, I mean, like, the idea of us together.
 

And I thought about the hunger, and them buckets inside, full of chopped nuts and cherries and coconut flakes. The air trembled, and in it I caught a sniff of cream, and a whiff of waffle cones, which at once awakened the pain, right here in my stomach. How strange it was to be back here again—only this time, on the outside, ‘cause that’s, like, a totally different place—even if most people don’t really care to know it.
 

My feet carried me, somehow, till I stopped right there, under the
Santa Monica
signboard, which arched over the entrance to the pier. And no way, I swear, there’s no way you could even begin to guess my surprise when all of a sudden, I spotted Lenny up there, behind the large window of
The Lobster
. Sitting inside, there he was, holding a margarita glass, laughing his head off, and like, having a real good time.
 

I could see the slice of lime on the lip of his glass, and closed my eyes—but still, was blocked from smelling it.
 

I tried, in vain, to bring back the touch of salt around the rim, and the scent of butter on mashed potatoes, and the meaty flavor of wild mushrooms, and the pleasure you get with every gulp of hot, thick clam chowder. I could almost lick the spoon, and pinch the bread, and wipe the bowl with it, ‘cause I had known all that. Me, I had been there with him, like, a lifetime ago.
 

I leaned over the railing of the pier, and for a second hoped he would see me. How could he not, with my hair flaming red, and blowing, long and wild, in the winter wind, which swept across the divide?
 

Now I could see the girl sitting there, opposite him. She raised her glass and clinked it against his, then cuddled up to him, like, to whisper something up close, in his ear.
 

I don’t hardly know if there was something odd with the air, which stirred past me with cloud after cloud of salty mist; or the sheet of glass over there, which must have had some flows all over it; or the mirror image of sunset, which buckled out of shape, in and out of the flows; or else, was it the film of tears, which formed in my eyes; or the sorrow, which came in like a tide, to wash over me—but in a blink, everything blurred.
 

Everything started swimming in front of me: like, the shadow of her little black dress, the flash of her gold earring, even the blond streaks in her hair. All of them things, which lived on the other side of the layers—the layer of mist, and of glass, and flows, tears, wash—they all rippled a bit and then, settled into a haze.
 

I blinked again and at once, things went back to the way things should be—except that the girl was still there, by his side, where I should have been, had I not left him.
 

I had never met his wife before, but of one thing I was sure: this girl wasn’t her.
 

She was no Natasha. I don’t know how I could tell. Maybe it was the way she laughed, flinging her hair back, and batting her painted lashes, and opening her mouth real wide—but this I knew: this girl, she didn’t have no class—but then, unlike me, she was bending over backwards, just to fake it.
 

When they came out of the restaurant, I couldn’t help but follow them from a distance, like a stray kitten, holding back a purr, ready to roll over for the rub of a hand.
 

He hailed a cab and leaned into it, talking to the driver. For a minute I thought I caught Lenny glancing at me, over his shoulder, but no—maybe I only wished it. Then she kissed him. He opened the door for her. She climbed in, closed the door. He kinda waved, once. The cab merged into traffic, and away it went.
 

Meanwhile, I lost him in the crowd. A minute later I spotted him again. He was turning on his heels and oh, shoot! I couldn’t believe it: he started weaving his way between this shoulder and that, walking back closer and closer, directly here, to me.

And my heart pounded—oh God! How it pounded!—so, so hard inside me; after which I hung down my head, hoping he didn’t see me—or else, if he did, I was hoping that out of pity, he would turn away, ‘cause I was too thin and too dirty, and didn’t have nothing pretty to wear, all of which made people around me look away, or look right through me, like I wasn’t there, even.
 

Me, I made a quick move, trying to slip away—but already, it was too late.
 

“My God,” said Lenny, now facing me. “You look horrible.”
 

What he said next blew me away. I felt like, this moment wasn’t real, because in a softer voice he told me, “How I missed you.”

For a second I wanted to say, Really? It don’t look at all like you missed me, isn’t it so, Lenny? And don’t even think you can use me, and then like, walk all over me. I may look like shit right now. I reckon I do—but no, you ain’t gonna dump me, never, never again! And anyway, where is she, where is the dear wife, Natasha?
 

But instead, in a meek tone, I said, “How can you even say you missed me. You, you told me to go away.”
 

At that moment Lenny was lost for words, because he knew me, knew me well enough to get what I hadn’t said, too. So he took off his winter coat and hung it around my shoulders, very gently, like he was afraid I would break, somehow. And suddenly, it felt kinda good.
 

“You are shivering,” he said then.
 

“Me,” I denied, “shivering?”

And he offered, “Let me take you home.”

So I hid my face behind the collar of his coat, knowing it’s gonna smell awful bad by the time I’m gonna have to give it back. “Home?” I said, and now my voice was muffled. “Me, I don’t have a home.”

“I meant,” he corrected, “let us go home, together.”

Which brought up the anger in me. “You,” I raged, “I don’t need you! And don’t you think that I do—’cause I swear, I don’t! You told me to go back, back where I came from. So here I am, Lenny. I’m down in the muck, deeper than deep.”

He stretched out his hands to me, like he wanted to pull me in, to save me. And in spite of myself I flung the coat off, and shoved it, right there, into his open arms. “Take the stupid thing, and your pity, too! Stop acting so grand, and feeling so, so sorry for me! And you,” I pointed, “
you
go back! Go the hell back where you came from!”

People started looking at me now. They whispered to one another and pointed at me, like I was naked or something, which made me hot, crazed even. I blushed. It felt kinda strange, being visible again. The anger surged in me, it threatened to burst out, like, any moment now. And Lenny tried to say something—but me, I won’t let him.