Pearls for Jimmy (2 page)

Jimmy moved away from us; he walked around the restaurant and stopped at all the tables. He greeted regulars as dear friends and welcomed newcomers with warmth and class. My eyes followed him everywhere. He could work a crowd better than any politician, but what was most striking was how he was so genuine, so sincerely happy to meet people.

The restaurant became more crowded, the bouzouki music more frenzied, and the ubiquitous squeals of
“Opaah!”
more frequent – but nothing could drown out the sweet music that now played on continuous loop in my head, its lyrics clear and pleasing.

“Eet ees nize”
had become the most beautiful song in the world.

~ ~ ~

I honestly can’t recall much about my dinner other than it was delicious and when we were done we all reeked of garlic and wine, aromas which were incorporated into our individual bouquets. We marveled at how much we’d eaten; we consumed more food than we normally ate in an entire week.

Therese complained her husband was going to make her sleep on the couch. “He hates it when I stink of garlic,” she groaned. Sue said something similar about her husband and Doreen and Gail bitched they hadn’t slept with anyone, garlic lover or not, in way too damn long.

Me? I just smiled. I knew the way I smelled was going to be just fine… just fine.
Eet would be nize.

We were wild that night. We acted like teenagers; our laughter was punctuated with girlish squeals that belied our age and mature, respectable status in our families and communities. We were a lawyer, a nurse, an architect, and two successful business owners. We had collected nine husbands between us, two of whom were still around, one was deceased and six were filed away somewhere in the wreckage of our scarred hearts and the nation’s divorce statistics.

Collectively, we had eleven kids, six grandkids, an assortment of animals, three scares with breast cancer and one total hysterectomy. Over the years we’d laughed and cried together; been each other’s bridesmaids, bounced each other’s babies, and helped pick up the pieces after a death or a visit to Divorce Court. We moved from sharing our angst over troubled teenagers to being worried sick about aging parents.

Despite lives not always lived gently or sane, we were aging remarkably well. We were two real blondes, a redhead and two brunettes, and only one of us had given up the battle with gray hair, choosing to go
au natural
. We told her she was strikingly beautiful in silver hair and it was true; she looked fantastic.

We watched our weight, exercised moderately, and three of us were devotees of yoga. No one smoked, we all drank moderately, and one of us wanted to be a vegetarian but kept failing miserably; we assured her we admired her for her struggle anyway and it was true.

For the most part we had different complaints except for the one that we all shared – each of us griped about being sexually unsatisfied. This was especially true of my married friends, one of whom complained her second husband was “just as dead as the first” – and that jerk had been in the ground nine years.

When the guy who’s alive is just as cold as the guy who’s dead, well, you know you have problems. I understood her pain. My marriage was the loneliest, most emotionally barren, frustratingly sexless place I’d ever been; just thinking about it made me cold and depressed which made me return to my shocking idea that I wanted a life with a man I’d just met and certainly didn’t know.

Let me stress that I’d been saying for years that, although I craved male companionship, there was absolutely no way in hell I’d ever marry again.

In fact, I wasn’t even looking to be a couple. I’d been in quite a few relationships since my divorce and they all ultimately proved as thoroughly unsatisfying as my joyless marriage.

Yet there I was, not only fantasizing about sex with a complete stranger, but even more incredibly I was imagining a life with him.

Clearly, my emotions were playing tricks on me. I suspected I was getting a bit geezed and asked if I was slurring my words. My friends assured me I wasn’t and they wouldn’t lie to me.

Relying on the strength of their better judgment, I emptied the last wine bottle and joined in the discussion about dessert. Soon we were discussing the merits of every dessert on the menu with the same due diligence we’d use to choose a pediatrician for one of our kids.

Finally, we decided to order every damn dessert on the menu. We told the waiter we’d share and he graciously returned with a variety of desserts, new forks and plates, and several carafes of freshly brewed coffee.

Soon conversation double backed to sex which suited me just fine because I couldn’t get Jimmy off my mind and was beginning to wonder how the hell I was going to create an opportunity for something to happen between us when one of us started talking about her best orgasms.

The next thing I knew I was announcing in the loudest voice I’d ever used that there was absolutely nothing I enjoyed more than oral sex and it was suddenly excruciatingly obvious to all of us that the restaurant’s background noise had greatly dissipated. Most of the diners were now gone, there were far fewer shouts of
“Opaah!”
and the Zorba the Greek music was reduced in volume.

My emphatic
“I love oral sex!”
reverberated throughout the entire restaurant and for one godawful second we all froze in horror and then simultaneously burst into riotous laughter. Therese was in the process of throwing back a shot of Ouzo when I made my stunning admission and the damn Ouzo went up her nose and left her gasping for air.

“Goddamnit!” she snorted in pain, “You never want alcohol and licorice up your nose!” which is most certainly a statement no sane person could argue with and it made Gail cry out hysterically “Oh my God! I’m gonna’ pee…” as she bolted to the Ladies Room.

Doreen was insisting it was possible to laugh hard enough to crack a rib, which she insisted she had just done, when an ear shattering, thunderous noise ripped through the restaurant and reverberated off the walls and floor.

We looked at each other and the other diners and everyone asked “What the
hell
was
that?
”

The restaurant was immediately rocked by another massive “Kaboom!” and the lights dimmed and our wine and water glasses shook ominously.

More booms followed in rapid succession; each one seemed closer and more terrifying. We actually ruled out the possibility of thunder because no one had ever heard thunder sound that horribly loud. Perhaps they were gas explosions?

“My God,” Sue asked to no one in particular, “what the hell is happening?”

Several diners ran to the front of the restaurant and we watched Gail leave the Ladies Room and join them. We waited rather anxiously for her to return and tell us what the hell was happening.

She was back at our table in a few minutes.

“Guys, I just watched the news in the bar and we’re in the middle of one hellacious, deadly thunderstorm. It’s massive. All of northern Illinois is under a tornado watch and tornadoes have been sighted in Cook, DuPage, Lake, and Will counties. Also, a lot of Chicago’s streets and neighborhoods are flooding. It’s a very serious storm.”

We looked at each other and understood: The party was over.

Doreen slapped the bill on her credit card and said “let’s get out of here.” The rest of us tossed down piles of cash for our incredible waiters and we scrambled to the front of the restaurant where the remaining diners were waiting for the valet service to bring them their cars. We waited for our cars in silence and watched the rain flood the street in front of the restaurant. The wind screamed in such fury that the building groaned and we all wisely stood at a good distance from the windows.

I said it looked like a hurricane was slamming into Chicago. Everyone agreed. Lightning bounced around us; police and ambulance sirens wailed and the thunder continued to explode overhead. Someone muttered “Damn, it sounds like a war zone out there” and everyone agreed with that too.

Then the lights went out and restaurant employees scrambled to light candles.

I had a 60 mile drive home and Doreen wanted me to stay at her place, which was nearby. Sue, Gail and Therese offered their homes too; their drives were all considerably less than mine. I’m a fairly intrepid traveler and I’ve driven in all kinds of terrible Midwest weather so I decided to risk it.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll be fine” I was saying quite stupidly, “I really think I’ll be fine…” when all of a sudden Jimmy was next to me.

Without any shyness, hesitation or apology, he slipped a strong arm around my waist and announced “No, you will not be fine. You cannot drive in such a storm. It is impossible.”

He pulled me closer and looked down at me. “Pleeze,” he said, “I do not wish you to go into such a storm. Do you understand?”

My friends stared in utter astonishment – all the more so when I patted him on the chest and said, as if I’d known him all my life, “Thanks honey, but I can drive home just fine. Really, I can.”

He replied in a firm but kind voice, “No, it is not possible. You do not understand: I will not allow it.
I will not allow it.”

It’s true: he actually said
“I will not allow it.”

None of my friends had a clue what to say, not even Doreen. All eyes were on me.

Jimmy’s arm never slackened; he continued to hold me tight. He looked at my friends and his gaze was steady and determined. He repeated to them exactly what he’d already said to me:
“I will not allow it.”

He said it with such leadership and finality that it left my friends flabbergasted. We’re not the kind of women who take kindly to being issued orders – especially by men we don’t even know.

Not knowing if they should be outraged, fearful or compliant, my friends searched my face for direction. A sense that something was happening that was possibly larger than life, mysterious, and remarkably romantic prevailed so they bit their tongues, kept their claws retracted and waited. The call was mine, and mine alone, but I knew they would back me up with a vengeance if they heard me tell this guy to go to hell.

So, there we stood for a suspended few moments in time, faces illuminated by candlelight and sporadic flashes of lightning: the five of us who’d known each other for forty-plus years and one foreign-born man none of us knew from Jack… but who had just firmly and resolutely announced he would
not allow
me to leave his restaurant in the storm.

I slipped an arm around Jimmy’s waist and, now intertwined, rested my head on his chest and looked at my friends and smiled.

They understood and so did he.

Jimmy repositioned his arm from my waist and placed it protectively over my shoulder; then he tucked me under his strong arm like a big bird would tuck a chick under its wing.

Naturally, my friends wouldn’t leave without having the last word.

Sue spoke for everyone when she glared at Jimmy like a cold-blooded sociopath and said in no uncertain terms, “We know who you are. We know where to find you. If anything happens to our friend we will hunt you down like a rat in the street.”

It made perfect sense to Jimmy; he would have expected nothing less.

~ ~ ~

Jimmy walked me through the dark, empty restaurant to a table against a wall. He lit several more candles and poured wine.

I learned his baptismal name is Dimitri, which is James in Greek; he learned I am Catherine.

“Catherine…ah, Catherine” he repeated my name several times. “I like Catherine very much.” Jimmy explained my patron saint was St. Catherine of Alexandria and
Ekaterini
is Catherine in Greek.

“It means
pure”
he said as he picked up my hands and brought them to his lips. “But some say
Ekaterini
could also derive from Hecate, the mythical Greek goddess of magic.”

He overturned my hands and blew on my palms. “I think,
Ekaterini,
” he said confidently, “your magic is pure and sweet.”

Under the circumstance, being compared to a saint known for her purity seemed a bit of a stretch so I suggested I might have more in common with Hecate and teasingly whispered, “I’d like to show you some of my magic.”

“If you could turn me into anything you want with your magic,
Ekaterini,
who or what would you change me into?”

It was such an odd question. “I don’t want you to be anyone but you.”

“How can I please you then?” he asked. “Right now. Right here. What can I do to make you happy?”

“Where do you live? Can you take me there?”

“But of course.”

~ ~ ~

Jimmy owned the entire building housing his restaurant. He turned half of the living space into rental units and the entire top floor into his own luxury apartment. His apartment was huge; a modest suburban home could fit in it nicely. The electricity was still out so he gave me a tour by candle light. He had created a sanctuary for himself filled with fine art, a vast collection of books, and tasteful furniture; it was truly a sophisticated and cultured home.

He lit more candles and we stood together in front of a large picture window overlooking Chicago. Powerful, jagged arcs of lightning tore through the dark stormy sky and the sharp crackling noises of lightning continued to compete with the deep reverberating booms of thunder.

Jimmy wrapped himself around me like a cozy blanket.

“I’ve hated thunderstorms for a very long time now,” he whispered.

His voice trailed off and we stood in silence for several minutes.

“When I first saw you,
Ekaterini
,” he continued, “I wanted you. I felt you sexually. You are a very sexy woman. We shared lightning between us. Do you understand?”

I understood completely.

“Then came this storm and very real lightning. It made me want you in another way too. Does that sound strange?”

It was hard to know what was
strange
and what wasn’t anymore.

“The storm changed everything,” he said. “Tomorrow might have changed everything in its own time for us but tonight the storm changed everything immediately. Do you understand?”