Let Me Explain You (2 page)

She was smiling in a way that was compassionate and soft, so he thought he had gotten somewhere. She, the manager, would tell the employees to take care of the store, and she would get into his black used BMW and she would be his witness to these very important arrangements. They would eat together one final time. They would talk about where things went wrong and how, after all, he did work very hard in marriage and business and fatherhood, and she would start to understand things from his perspective, which was of a man with some certain troubles. Then he would drop her off at her white used Lexus, which he had bought for her, and they would end, if not as friends, as co-workers in a labor of life. But the soft smile was not for Stavros Stavros. She was talking into the headset and making apologies for him having car trouble. She was saying to the customers that Starbucks would have baristas come directly to car windows, if the customers could only be patient a few moments longer, and she was offering complimentaries to the angriest ones.

This is what a woman, his ex-wife, was like. He could see that to gain anything, he would need to get angry.

He cast the yellow flowers into the backseat, which he had been holding this whole time as if they were proof of his very good intentions. He said, “You want to come or no?”

She continued to talk, not to him. Always talk-talk, not to him. That was what was to blame for their marriage failings, not his mistress. For months, he had had to hear how he was not the man she wanted, that he would have to figure out exactly what she wanted and then become him. But to be that man, he would have had to become Starbucks. She was in love with Starbucks. Starbucks became more important than making him dinner or washing his clothes or having coffee together or going on cruises or listening to the problems of the diner or the daughters; it became a way for her to reinvent herself, which he did not see the point of. It gave her new friends, which he never trusted. It gave her purpose that had nothing at all to do with her children or Stavros. It gave her hope, which he did not understand or believe to be necessary in her case; it accused him as the reason for her hopelessness. He knew, before she had left him, that she would; he had seen the future of their divorce, just as he had seen the future truth that she would make top manager. Now, because of a dream and a goat, he saw the future again, one where he was dead and she making bigger and bigger boss, with all the hard work of their years together wasted!

He said, “You want pay? I pay you. That is nothing new to me.” Then, “Or you.”

Talk-talk.

Carol of twenty-five years ago would not recognize herself taking orders from strangers in this headset and man's black-collared shirt. She had stopped carrying her body for others and carried it now only for herself. This was admirable, in a way, but selfish, too, and hurtful, because for a long time she had dressed and carried herself as his wife. He put the car in drive and stared ahead. “It's always money with you.” This made her push the headset away from her mouth. She started to talk, this time to answer him, but he interrupted. “I am talking about a dying wish, I am asking only a few hours, but you are only, as usual, for yourself. As usual, you are a thief of a man's life.”

Carol shut her mouth. She changed what she was going to say. “Whatever you're planning, Steve, don't bother. I don't feel sorry for you.”

“You don't believe me because you don't understand. But we don't choose when we go, we just go.”

She went talk-talk about how she was trying to be friendly, she would have gotten food with him (food he would have to pay for!) but, as usual, he was only thinking about himself. She was moving her sow body away from him even as she spoke, her hands attentive to the drinks. She stirred someone else's coffee with more love than he had ever seen her stir his. She said, “Venti no-whip mocha.”

“You want me to leave, good luck. Now I will just sit here and take as much time from you as you took from me my whole life.”

Carol shoved something metallic and heavy, he could not see what. Her mouth was twisting, a sign of danger: you did not mess with her soul mate, Starbucks. He felt nervous, like he was about to receive a punishment he did not deserve, even though his anger was a reasonable thing: he would end up with a lap of something hot. He prepared to be scalded, even as he knew she was not that kind of woman. It took a man to punch holes into walls.

“You have final requests, Steve? Take them to your black bitch.”

“Yes, that is where I will go, exactly as you say, and you can go straight to your black-coffee-bitch Starbucks.”

Then he was leaving, he was gone from that Venti Mocha Whipcream White Whore. He was like all those other Jersey nothing-no ones, trying to beat the traffic to the one place that would make him feel like a person that mattered, and that was far from his ex-wife the nothing-nobody Dick Hunter. Stavros parked his car. He adjusted his shirt, which had wrinkled out of anger. He used his palm to calm his hair and mouth. He reached into the back for flowers, still bright, only a petal or two damaged.

Stavros could hear Rhonda typing before he saw her. From the door, even sitting behind her desk, he could see how much space she took up. She was a big black lady. Her arms were the size of his thighs. Always, she had her hair arranged into shapes that told people—told him, the first time they met—that she was not weak. Her hair obeyed her, her hair was solid object. It made him want to touch it, and when he finally got to, it was all he could keep his hands on.
Ela
, except for her big breasts.

If the wife had continued to make herself up like this, he would not have gone looking for Rhonda. If the wife had looked less fat and more fatty, like steak, like ribs melting into honey, he would not be here; if she had just shut up sometimes and talked to him. He, himself, was getting fat, OK, but not too fat for a man of over fifty. The lines in his face like slits where you deposit pity. His eyes and his skin worn, maybe from smoking but more from stress, like maybe God had been rubbing an elbow over him too long. His hair, thinning and gray, like all of his brothers, some of whom were dead. His mustache, it was still impressive because it was not American, it was as Greek as democracy, it was the thing Rhonda first liked about him, but it was also graying. Now it is the tail of a powerful black ox, when once it was the tail of two powerful oxes! Yes, he was becoming old but, look, he could get a young business-professional mistress!

OK, not mistress, because he was nothing with his wife these days, but mistress because what he had with Rhonda still felt like something he had to keep from people.

Rhonda didn't look up until he slid a Styrofoam package onto the desk. “I come to bear gifts,” he said. He meant sandwich, which he had not eaten in his rush to get to Starbucks.

“I ate,
malaka
. It's four o'clock.”

“I know you. You're hungry.”

He stared down at her, waiting to be invited closer. He placed the yellow flowers with the red centers where she could see them. Soon enough she turned her knees. That made him feel good, that he could get her to turn like that. He came around the corner of her L-desk and sat on some papers. He watched her navigating a computer older than his own. He knew she was secretary to somebody, but the way she conducted business, it was as if she were the one to be answered to.

“I don't know how long you expect me to live on Styrofoam for,” she said.

The wrinkles in her skirt were deep, which meant she had been working all day. He liked that about Rhonda, that she worked as hard as he did, because if you worked hard it meant you loved hard. Carol only worked hard when her job replaced her husband; Carol had no love for him. Rhonda's problem was that she did not get enough love. She was tired of waiting. She did not want to live with her sister anymore just because some loser left her and their children behind. What she wanted was a big house together, what she wanted was a future for her sons. But the last thing he could give her, at fifty-three, was a marriage and a father. It smashed his heart, but she was not a wife he could take on his arm and walk through town, and the problem was she knew that now.

He pulled out the sandwich, which was soggy at one end. He tore it off for her, took a napkin out of his pocket.

“I deserve cloth napkins. And waiters. And wine.”

He put the sandwich down and rested his short, strong hands on her shoulders. He knew what she wanted: to go out. Always, they spent time alone—here, at his apartment, at her sister's house when her sons were at a sleepover. Or else, with strangers, on planes or boats or in hotels. He covered himself with the half-truth that he was still getting used to being on his own. The other truth was that this was new for him, being with such a dark woman. Every time he brought his face to hers, he was surprised by how brown she was. The people he knew, they would see them together, and they would call him the soft white bread of the roast beef special. And was that any way to be seen? For any of them?

She was showing him how good she was at multitasking—typing and ignoring, waiting for the talking parts that would be useful to her. She was pushing her big knees up to the desk.

“What do you want?” he whispered, his mouth speaking into the gold earrings he had purchased. “Do you want another cruise? I can cruise you.”

This was not a real offer, of course, but at one time it would have been. In the last year, he had spent much money on her: $10/month for the interracial dating site where they met. $300 here for a necklace, $300 there for shoes and clothes, $400 so she could fly down to her family reunion in Atlanta, $500 to fix her car. How much hundreds on meals together, how much monies for the twins, Henry and Miles, to play Little Leagues and Boy Scout. He didn't mind, because he had always wanted sons, he had always wanted to seem kind to children. He had wanted to like Henry and Miles; he had wanted Henry and Miles to like him. He was a good inspirational man to look up to, for two twin boys. And Rhonda returned what she cost, just like a woman, just like a partner should, not like his wife had been. He would never admit it, he knew it was not the way to think of someone you cared about, but he couldn't help himself: it was a way to see her as his equal. She was proud to be with a smart, successful Greek man, just like he was excited—so excited, he sometimes felt reduced to jiggling, jangling change—to be with a smart, achieving black woman.

He liked wooing her, liked realizing that even when he did not choose big women, he chose big women. Their fourth date, he felt all of her weight on him, letting him know just how gravity worked, reminding him that this way of being pressed down was another way of being held. What he felt with Carol, in the beginning, until it just felt like being pressed down.

He was still kneading Rhonda's shoulders, hoping this squeezy would lead to other squeezy. He was only a man. They had not seen each other in many days; this could be the last time, of his life, that he has sex. He did not like the idea of his organ softening in moist soil, and he was desperate that she should bring it to life. She should treat it like a waterless plant that is arching its stem toward moisture. Thinking about a coffin, which to his mind looked like a wooden crate for produce, and seeing himself lying naked in it, his dandelion losing color and shape after being left in the cold—it made him want everything at once: to be held, to penetrate her, to sob, to feel life dripping out of him, to feel life dripping into him, to climax and die, to confess the dream, to let her in and shut her out.

Rhonda pulled away to reach into the filing cabinet. She said, “You don't want a cruise. You want something cheaper than that.” After two weeks, she was still mad with him.

He had taken her to Philadelphia—because all the people who would recognize him were in New Jersey, except for his daughter who was workaholic like him and, no question, at her restaurant—when they ran into someone he knew. It was in the old, cobbled streets of the city, on a road that had purported to be deserted. They were coming out of a cigar shop and the businessman was going in. Rhonda was standing so close to Stavros he could not get away. He could smell her fruity breath and felt the fabric of her coat brushing against his waist. “We work too hard,” Stavros told the businessman. “A man should have fun sometimes.” As if Rhonda were fun, takeout. As if she were not the woman of his life.

The man, a regular at the diner, gave a chuckle. “I hear you,” he said. Then he looked at Rhonda as if she were leftovers, and Stavros did nothing about it.

Rhonda watched the man leave, then she stepped onto the curb. Stavros, still in the street, was made to look up even higher at her and at the power lines swooping above. “You're about to work a lot harder,” she said. She took a cab, would not return his calls.

The businessman idiot, he couldn't keep his mouth to himself.

Stavros was lonely, he missed her; she had a way of walking with him through the world that made him feel as if he had just gotten here; she made him feel like a child, and she was going to teach him how to hold a fork and look at trees. It should have been enough to beg her to come back. But Stavros was not familiar with begging. The businessman, he returned to the diner. Everything between them was the same except for one small order of business. He had always paid his checks, even if it was a sandwich, with fifties; now he had a funny way of paying with only small bills. This is how Stavros knew it was over with Rhonda. Even this late in his life, Death coming, he could not bring himself to be with such a woman. He could not walk with her on his arm or have her at his funeral.

Did that mean he was coward? No. Maybe. No.

He was a man who did not know how to be any other way in the world, even at the end.

Rhonda rolled her chair back. “You know I don't keep my boys waiting.”

He had forgotten all about Henry and Miles and baseball practices. “Give them until five.”