Spanish Disco (10 page)

With that the multifaceted Mister Riggs entered the kitchen.

“No lunch for us today, Maria. We’re off to work.”

She smiled. “Dinner at 6:30. Your favorite.”

Roland Riggs stared at her blankly, as if he could not recall what his favorite was.

“The taco casserole I make.”

His reaction was perfectly timed, with a broad smile. “Of course! Splendid.”

He took me by the arm and escorted me out the door and into the garden.

“A throat-burner of the highest order. Make sure you’re ready tonight.”

He walked ahead of me in long strides. Today he wore a T-shirt with Garfield on the front and a pair of Levi’s. He stepped over to a garage and lifted the door. Inside sat a Cadillac convertible.

“She’s a 1966 beauty. Look at all that chrome.”

“She” was painted a deep black-purple and gleamed from end to end. I found out her name was Ethel, and she had once belonged to his late wife.

“Ethel and I go way back. See these fuzzy dice? Maxine won them at a state fair.”

I climbed in the front seat. Roland Riggs slowly backed her out into the brilliant Florida sun.

“Ethel…it’s time for a bender.”

And so Roland Riggs, Ethel, and I headed down Periwinkle Way, in search of beer and Twinkies.

10

“R
ollie!” The Tiki bar’s bartender, an enormous man in a Hawaiian shirt and Ray-Bans, greeted America’s most famous living literary legend with a gleaming smile set against his dark skin.

“Rollie?” I raised an eyebrow as we sat down at a worn picnic table and stared at the waves.

“Pathetic, isn’t it? Sounds like a child’s toy or something. A Rollie Ball. A Rollie Bear. Doesn’t suit me.”

“So tell him to call you Roland.”

“I thought of that,” Roland stared off into the distance, “but he’s a man in obvious denial. Perhaps even pathological derangement. He frightens me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Men who weigh 350 pounds should not wear shirts
with large orchids on them in shades of pink so blinding you need sunglasses to take it all in.”

I laughed out loud. A waitress in Daisy Duke shorts and a tight T-shirt brought us a bucket of Coronas.

“My usual,” Roland explained. “Would you rather have something else? A piña colada or something?”

“Do I seem like the tropical drink type?” I asked, opening a Corona with the accompanying bottle opener. I raised my bottle with a nod at Roland, and took a swig.

“No. But what do you usually drink? Besides the coffee I smell at all hours?”

“Bourbon. Tequila shots.”

“My kind of gal. Maxine didn’t drink much. But when she did, she always had a whiskey sour. Yes…and we…we always asked for an extra spear of fruit. Then we used to take the little plastic swords and have a sword fight.”

I stared at him, aware of the crow’s feet and the deep crags that ran down his face. He was still quite handsome, and his eyes were as vivid as a teenager’s. But they had the startling intensity that comes from a man who has seen too much in his lifetime. Being old before his time. Yet when he mentioned the sword fight, I saw a young man for a moment. Before all he had seen.

“My father used to drink Manhattans.”

“I used to hear about your father. Back when
Simple Simon
came out. They trotted me off to one literary function after another until I finally decided. My rules. No press. No interviews. No signings. The book stands on its
own. But your father…I think I could have had a pissing contest with him.” He hoisted his beer.

“Sounds like you and Lou had quite a pissing contest in Key West.”

“Yup. It’s the piss I miss.”

“Poetic.”

“Thought it would grab ya.”

“So tell me about the new book.”

“It’s a love story.”

“Okay.”

“Spanning twenty-five years. And two women. And one man.”

“A triangle. I like that.”

“And it’s a poem.”

The Corona started giving me heartburn.

“A poem?”

“Yes. A love poem.”

“One poem?”

“Sort of in the tradition of Chaucer. Or
Beowulf.
An epic poem.”

“I see. Just how
long
is this epic poem?” I asked, as my brain imagined the fiasco of printing a book no one would read but the most die-hard critics and
Simple Simon
fans.

“I think you’ll need another beer,” he handed me a fresh Corona from our bucket and waited until I opened it. “It’s 792 pages.”

Full-fledged heartburn burst through my chest like a flame-thrower’s torch.

“Do you have any of those Tums?”

“Now don’t judge it before you even read it. Drink more.”

He handed me the Tums.

“I’m trying to remain calm,” I said as I crunched down on the now-familiar fruity chalk. “You know, Roland, I’m developing a major ulcer. When are you going to tell Maria that she’s killing us? I can’t go back and eat her tamale pie or whatever she’s making after a bucket of Coronas and the news that I have just inherited a 792-page poem.”

“She makes me vast quantities of food I can’t eat, and I feed it to her cats. But it’s the…gift of it. How she grows fresh jalapeños and cilantro. I can’t tell her that I don’t like her gift. It’s like…well…do you ever fake it?”

I downed the last of my Corona and reached quickly into the icy bucket for another.

“As in sex? Faking it?”

“Yeah.”

I signalled the waitress and called out “Two tequila shots, please.” I turned to Roland. “No. Though I gotta tell you, Roland, the last time I had sex with any regularity, I still lived in New York City. Unless you count phone sex.”

“Doesn’t count, though I’m interested if you tell tales. But my point is, why do women fake it?”

“Laziness. Or the guy is lousy in bed. Or they don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

His blue eyes narrowed. “Precisely. Give the woman a door prize.” He handed me a Corona and suddenly I was a two-fisted beer drinker. My head was starting to have that pounding, underwater feeling.

“It’s a gift!”

“Sorry. I’m lost.”

“The faked orgasm. A gift. A gift she gives the man. He’s tried so she feels she must not reject his gift, so she gives him a gift in return. My eating tamale pies is a giant gastronomical faked orgasm.”

“The big O.”

“Yes.” He surveyed the beach smugly, apparently self-satisfied with his bizarre explanation for his culinary masochistic relationship.

The Tiki bar began playing some cheesy remake of the classic disco hit, “Knock on Wood.”

“Let’s dance.”

“I don’t dance. Not really. I mean, I did,” I stammered as the beer and the heat conspired to make me feel very sluggish.

“Come on!”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. We began swaying in a version of prom dancing—two drunken revelers leaning against each other and stepping from foot to foot. Sort of a shuffle, step, lean two-step.

“Could you teach me to dance? Really dance? Disco style.”

“Not now. Not in the heat. And I’d have to down some serious tequila shots. Even then, God, it’s been so long since I went clubbing. I’m not sure, Roland.”

“You must. Promise me. Tomorrow night. Promise.”

“Promise what? That I’ll teach you to disco?”

“Precisely.”

“Okay. I promise. Now can we sit down?”

We sat and talked and sometimes didn’t talk—just fell into a companionable silence. We did shots of tequila, slamming them down with salt and lemon on our hands. We went through another bucket of Coronas until I was blinding drunk. At some point, we got on the subject of Michael Pearton.

“He’s very talented,” Roland said, between swigs of beer. “Not as good as me in my youth, but fine. Damn fine.”

I pulled ice out of the bucket of Coronas and held cubes to my temples. It’s not a good sign to be developing a hangover while you are still drinking.

“He thinks he loves me.”

“And?”

“Love is…too complicated for me right now.”

“When will it be less complicated?”

“Never.”

“Precisely. So perhaps…how do you feel about him?”

“We’ve never met. We talk on the phone. The phone sex is perfect. Uncomplicated.”

“Apparently he finds it complicated.”

“He finds it impossible, really. But it’s over the phone. It’s without body fluids and wet spots on the bed, Roland. It’s simple. It’s perfect.”

“Nothing is perfect. And nothing is forever. The two truths of existence.”

I pondered Roland’s truths. The afternoon seemed to disappear into a haze of alcohol, like the sun lost in the sky
behind hot steamy clouds. We staggered into standing positions around 5:30. The 350-pound bartender looked even larger through droopy eyelids.

“I’ll call you a cab, Rollie. Leave Ethel here. We’ll get her home.”

Roland tossed him the keys, and I fell asleep on a barstool until the cab came. Roland tapped me on the shoulder.

“It’s the heat,” I mumbled. “I need coffee. I can’t drink this much without coffee. It’s yin and yang.”

“Smoking and alcohol, perhaps, but coffee?”

“Don’t ask. Just get me some.”

“Cab’s here. If you still want that cup, we’ll make some at home.”

We rode back to Roland’s house in a beer-bliss state of inertia.

“You realize I can’t eat,” I told him.

“You must. You must at least eat a little something or she’ll be angry.”

“Who runs that house anyway?”

“Any man who thinks he can live with a woman and not have his life overrun by her is a damn fool.”

Maria was waiting at the door with glasses of some concoction guaranteed to keep a hangover at bay. It tasted like a combination of garlic, lemon, and strained cabbage juice. I nearly vomited.

“Dinner’s ready.”

At the sight and smells of flaming taco pie, I knew I was entering into a potentially fatal morning after. I ate as
sparingly as I could, while Roland chatted with Maria about what they should try growing next in the garden. They grew kitchen herbs and studied botanical books, they said. Roland was seemingly unfazed by our three buckets of beer. And I couldn’t recall him getting up to piss the entire time we were at the Tiki bar. I didn’t know whether to be impressed or frightened.

After dinner, I knew I needed to go to my room.

“I’m sorry, gang, but I’ll have to pass on
The Wheel
tonight.”

“Oh…are you sure, Miss Cassie?” Maria asked, smiling, but her eyes were hostile. Maybe I hadn’t noticed during dinner.

“Posh-i-tive.” My tongue was thick.

“Well, then, you need my book for bedtime reading.” Roland leapt up from the table. He ran upstairs as I trudged up them. At the top landing, he handed me an enormous manuscript.

“Remember, it probably will be easier to take now than in the morning.”

“A poem. Lou’s gonna have an aneurysm. He’ll give birth to a cow on his desk.”

“He might like it.”

“He might. Then again, Anne Rice might suddenly write about happy gnomes in Denmark. Danielle Steel may suddenly write a treatise about the Cold War. John Grisham may suddenly—”

“I get the picture. Good night, Cassie. I hope you decide that not perfect is okay.”

“Hmm?”

“Not perfect. Love is never perfect. But that’s what makes it love.”

I took the epic poem in my hands and, with a sense of dread coupled with an urge to throw up, I headed for my room. There, I opened the manuscript box and read the first page. With a sudden heave I ran to the bathroom and flung myself at the porcelain goddess. Feeling better, I laid my head down on the cool white tile and tried to think. Thump. Thump. Thump. My brain throbbed. What the hell was I going to tell Lou?

11

“H
ello, Ms. Hayes. This is Donald Seale from
Conversations
magazine. You haven’t returned any of my phone calls, but I know you’re staying with Roland Riggs. I suggest you call me at my hotel. The story I am writing on Riggs could blow the lid off anything you’re planning on doing. Perhaps you’ll want to comment.”

I scribbled down his hotel phone number as I listened to my voice mail. I had a wicked hangover. So wicked, in fact, I probably would have imbibed one of Maria’s anti-hangover potions in desperation, but I knew whatever was in it wouldn’t stay down. Perhaps that was the idea. Get you to puke up your poisons.