Naughty or Nice (8 page)

I speak to her as I pass. “Assaluym alakiam.”

She says nothing, just heads up the stairs.

I
was snowed in for two more days. For two days, I was online, chatting with the man who had created the cyber ad, the man who wanted to talk to a woman who had been betrayed.

We didn't exchange phone numbers, kept it online, and talked about hooking up.

That excited and scared me.

The airport in Philly opened at the crack of dawn, and I bundled up and rode a cold and crowded shuttle, then fought the madness at the ticket counter for three hours, only to get put on standby and waiting two more hours before finally getting on a cross-country flight to LAX. And of course I had to take what I could get, a three-hour layover. Seemed like the world was slipping back into the Ice Age. Flew over ice and snow for hours. Lots of turbulence, no sleep.

The anxiety of my real life started to dampen my palms over San Bernadino County, not long after the windmills, sand, and palm trees in Palm Springs. The number of snow-covered mountains lessened long before then, but that was where the smog started to welcome me home.

“You sure are reading a lot of comic books.” The man next to me said that.

I was crammed in the back row, the one right before the bathrooms, worst seats in the house because they didn't recline and there was nonstop traffic. I was sitting with two men who
looked like retired linebackers, both too big for their seats. The guy next to me had snored the first hour, then woke up and started reading his paper; the other guy played his Walkman too loud. I had a window seat, so for that final leg of my journey back to reality, I was a lioness in a cage, mentally pacing back and forth, wanting to break free.

I shifted and tried to stretch my back, said, “A few.
Spider-Man, Daredevil, Superman.
”

“Used to read 'em when I was a kid.”

“Me too. They've changed.”

“How so?”

“Profanity. Pregnancies. Real people problems.”

He went back to his paper.

I went back to
Daredevil
.

I wasn't really focused, my mind drifting back to my late-night and all-day cyber exchanges with that stranger. Carpe Diem 0707. That was his screen name. We sat up and swapped emotions for hours. It was good. He told me that he was thirty-seven, a combination of black, white, and Cuban. In my mind, I saw a mature man with an extraordinary face. Funny thing about the Internet, you could be in Iowa and he could be in Alaska, but you felt like you were on a beach in the Virgin Islands having tropical drinks. We talked, in general terms, about life. Love. Marriage. Betrayal. I didn't give him the specifics of what Tony had done, only let him know that it had fucked me up. We both had our televisions on CNN. We talked politics. Like reading a good book, it becomes real, you feel it, you see it, and the movie plays in your head. Close to sunrise, the conversation moved from politics to talking about sex in general, then about sex in specifics. It was so easy to type out your inner thoughts. It was nice. It was a new kind of freedom. I told Carpe Diem 0707 all the things I liked, how I loved being dominant, but at the same time I loved being in submissive positions, doggie style being at the top of the list. Guess I went with the flow and loved to mix it up, sometimes tender, sometimes rough. Loved for a man to take control, slap the ass and tell me what
to do. I loved the idea of being tied up with silk scarves, blindfolded, handcuffs, the whole nine. I'd been sucked into a zone and I told him things my best friends didn't know. I told him things my own husband didn't know. Anonymity made a person uninhibited and bold; brought the fantasies out in the open. He asked questions and I was excited to answer.

Couldn't believe I had that conversation. Didn't know I could feel that way with a stranger. I didn't know him, but I gave him a face, a body, and I imagined things.

Carpe Diem 0707. Seize the day.

And while we typed, I put my hand in my sweats, started touching myself.

Then Frankie popped in my screen while I was having a long-overdue orgasm. Scared the hell out of me and made me lose my momentum. Took me a while to get back to the edge.

It wasn't funny then, but I laughed now. It felt like Frankie had walked in on me. Reminded me of a time when I woke up in the middle of the night, heard soft whimpers, and walked in on Momma, spread eagle, her man on top of her, moving slow, creaking the bed. Momma had it going on in a major way. I was in elementary school then. Momma had her Saturday night ways, the ways of a woman who didn't have a steady man but had constant needs. I'd be lying if I said she didn't come in after getting her Friday night party on, smelling like she'd been swimming in a bottle of Bacardi, cigarette on the tip of her lips, giggling and holding hands with a late-night visitor, trying to tiptoe him into her bedroom, her cures for late night loneliness. I could see her right now. Always so sensual, so curvy and lady-like, brown skin that was always baby smooth, long black hair always pressed.

I was missing my momma. Wishing I could talk to her, ask her what to do with myself.

She'd light up a cigarette, blow smoke out the corner of her mouth while she put out the match and say, “Fuck 'im or leave 'im. Don't matter. Same problems you got with this one you gonna have with the next one. Only thing is since this one in the
doghouse, you got the upper hand. He know he done done wrong so he ain't gonna ride down that street no more.”

The flight attendant came by picking up the last of our trash.

I sighed.

Whenever this plane landed in Los Angeles, I could vanish from that cyber world by deleting my screen name, and just like that, the pseudonym
Bird
would no longer exist.

Or I could become Bird.

All night and most of the morning we sent messages, asking questions, giving answers. He told me he was an only child, born in Houston. I told him I was an L.A. girl, had two sisters.

“In preparation for our landing, the captain has turned on . . .”

It was eerie watching the air change color, become shades of brown and gray as the plane moved across the desert closer to the ocean, knowing I'd be breathing that carbon monoxide in less than an hour. I looked down at all the grids, but we were too high to tell who had Christmas lights up already. In the darkness, traffic looked like red and white ants moving back and forth. Even late on a Sunday night there were so many cars on the 605, 710, and 110.

I sighed and closed my eyes for a moment. Almost home.

Then we were descending over Inglewood, passing the Great Western Forum, Hollywood Park, and the 4-oh-my-God-why-is-there-always-so-much-damn-traffic-5, the last jam-packed freeway we crossed before touching ground. Just looking at it made my head hurt.

 

As soon as we rolled to the gate, from first class to coach, damn near everybody turned on their cellular phones and started making calls. Impatient people were cramming the aisles, getting luggage from overhead, and leaving the plane, the flight attendants telling everybody to have a happy holiday, while I stared out the window at the tarmac and thought about what was waiting for me here in L.A. I called my job and left a message, told them the plane had landed without incident, then let them know that I was tired, and asked if they could get
someone else to cover San Diego. I had a lot of comp time on the books and I needed to stay home, put in some quality time with my family, and deal with some personal issues.

I hung up.

My row finally started to move. The big guy on the end got out, stood there, waiting for people to get out of his way so he could get his luggage.

The big guy next to me took forever to get up, kept me captive until damn near everybody was gone. He grabbed his lap-top from under the seat, pulled his other bag from the overhead storage, then got up. I put my bulky laptop case on the seat, then reached in the overhead for my bag and coat. No problem getting my coat, but my luggage was so tight that I couldn't yank it out. My headache escalated and I thought I was about to explode. I took a hard breath, rubbed my temples again, closed my eyes, and said something indecipherable. Simple things were going wrong. Simple things like that made me want to scream.

“You look like you need a hand.”

I looked up and it was the big guy who had been sitting next to me. He'd seen me struggling, came back and helped me get my overpacked luggage.

I said, “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

There was an awkward moment when we made eye contact.

He looked at me, smiled. “Whatever it is, it'll get better.”

My dominant mood had been written all over my face. Didn't realize that until now. I pulled my lips in, then made myself smile. “Have a merry Christmas.”

He raised a brow. “I'm Jewish.”

Then we both laughed and headed down the aisle.

I told him, “Happy holidays, happy Hanukkah . . . okay, you got me.”

“That's better. You're smiling. Happy holidays to you too.”

 

I caught a taxi and blended in with the madness of airport traffic that spilled out into the City of Fallen Angels. I closed my
eyes to the madness. Ten minutes later the driver turned off Slauson and drove into Ladera Heights. A few of the houses had their curtains open, lights on Christmas trees creating a colorful night. One block had decorations up outside. One home had a nativity scene; another had a waving snowman, a sleigh and reindeer on top of the house, and elves throughout the front yard, the whole nine. My hands became fists. Breath was getting short, like all the air had been sucked out of the car.

I leaned forward and said, “Driver . . .”

“Yes?”

I was ready to tell him to turn around, that there had been a change of plans.

Then I heard Tommie's firm voice telling me to
stop running.

“Nothing . . . just . . . just slow down.”

He cruised by the triplexes and ranch-style homes at the foot of Ladera. As we went up the hill, single-level homes built between the forties and the seventies gave way to a tract of new millennium two-story homes built on small lots with modern floor plans, all made of beige stucco and reddish tile roofs, the kind that keep fires from spreading.

When we were growing up, we'd look at homes like these and get so jealous. We had some rough times. Momma would be up all night cursing at those damn bills, trying to figure out how to stretch every dollar, knowing there wasn't enough money to eat and pay them all, so Momma would put them in a hat, close her eyes, and pull them out one at time until she was out of bill money. If it was a really bad month, she'd throw them in the air and say whatever bill doesn't come down gets paid. Momma would curse the bills, grab her cigarettes, and tell her girls to get dressed.

“Where we going?”

“We're running away to Disneyland.”

“The one in the backyard?”

“No, the one down the 5. Get your shit. We're outta here.”

That's what I wanted to do, throw my problems in the air and run away to Disneyland.

 

The taxi pulled away and I stood on my front porch for another five minutes, as motionless as the palm trees, before I opened the door. The television was on. Down the hallway, I heard another noise. Roomba was humming back and forth across the hardwood floor. Roomba was one of Tony's robotic toys, an automated vacuum cleaner for lazy people. Our house was filled with his gadgets from every Sharper Image and Brookstone in L.A.

I called out, “Tony?”

No answer.

I rolled my luggage into the foyer, then went into the family room. Nothing in there but white walls and African artifacts bought at Ross and made in Mexico. Our furniture was soft and earth tone. Lots of decorative mirrors and plants throughout the house.

A glass was on the island in the kitchen. Two plates and silverware in the sink.

Tony wasn't down here.

I called his name again. No answer.

I stepped around Roomba and went upstairs.

He wasn't in the bedroom or the office either. I went back downstairs, lowered the volume on the television and went to the refrigerator. That was where we posted our work schedules. Tony's work schedule said he had had a long day yesterday and was back at the hospital tonight. He'd left the television on so there would be noises in the house.

I picked up the home phone, dialed his cell phone, let it ring once, enough for the home number to show on his caller ID. Again, communicating without talking.
I'm home.

Then I went outside to the mailbox. Tony never brought the mail in. That never used to bother me. Tonight it added to my irritation. There were the usual bills and bulk mail.

A large white envelope was crammed inside, turned sideways and pushed all the way to the back. It was stiff, made of cardboard, had the words
PHOTO MAILER
and
DO NOT BEND
in
large block letters along each side. It had a Marina Del Rey postmark. No return address.

I went back inside, opened a drawer looking for scissors. The knob came off the drawer. I stood there, holding it, eyes wide open, my hand shaking. They had advertised these homes as the Black Beverly Hills. Outside, they were eye-catching, but inside they were falling apart.