The Optimist

by Sophie Kipner

  Mary, who had presumably needed a costume change, ran out from the other room wearing a princess nightdress decorated with remnants of a sparkle party that had taken place earlier that morning. She stared at me, hands limp at her sides, and extended the line of her smile. Somehow her smile is always straight. It doesn’t curve up at the sides like other people’s smiles. When Mary smiles, it looks like she is about to hug you or kill you.

  Mary had forgotten her social graces because she charged towards me, looked at my belly and said, ‘You’re pregnant!’

  She always says things like this after her mom leaves.

  ‘What?’ I said. I looked down and saw what now appeared to be a bump from last night’s burrito truck indulgence. Goddammit, Mexican food problems again. I never learn!

  ‘I’m not pregnant!’ I screamed. ‘It’s a food baby!’

  ‘Are you sure?’ She was stirring me. Probing me. Insulting me for not being where I was already supposed to be.

  ‘Unless it happened in my sleep with Superman, I’m pretty sure I’m not having a baby.’

  ‘Yay!’ she whirled, completely ignoring me. ‘I love Superman! What if it’s a boy? Maybe he could be my boyfriend one day. When he’s older. Or I could be his big sister. We could tell everyone he’s my little brother. That’s so cute!’

  ‘You’re so weird,’ I said.

  ‘I want to play a game now,’ she announced, making it very clear that the day was going to be on her terms. I followed her reluctantly into her playroom where I was instructed to sit down, ‘Now!’ The problem in spending so much time with a five-year-old is that you can’t help but have an effect on them. Naturally, after hearing my stories about playing waitress, she wants to do it all the time. Of course it’s nice to be idolized but it’s not as much fun when you’re not in control.

  ‘Where?’ I asked. ‘The whole room’s covered in glitter.’

  But that wasn’t really a response she tolerated. ‘Sit down,’ she said.

  I sat down. At least I could sit down. With my legs bent in an Indian sitting position, I let my belly fold out. I do look pregnant. Holy cow, this little shitcake was right.

  ‘What are we playing then?’

  ‘Pizza Party,’ she instructed. Kids love fake pizza parlors. I can’t blame her though as I couldn’t get enough of them when I was young, either, but then again who could have known if it was the game or Ernesto that kept me coming back. ‘I’m going to take your order and when I ask you what you want, you’re going to tell me what you want on your pizza. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  I loved this game.

  Now, instead of my voice asking for the order, it was Mary’s. ‘Are you ready?’ she called out, making sure I was still paying attention.

  God, I really do look pregnant, I thought. ‘Of course,’ I said, wondering why she’d question me. She had left the room and closed the door with her pen and paper in hand, only to turn around and re-enter. A clean slate, I supposed. I can respect that. She put on her half smile and approached me with determined steps.

  ‘Hello. Welcome to my pizza restaurant.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Well . . . I’ll have a pepperoni pizza with olives, cheese and tomatoes.’

  ‘We’re sold out of pizzas,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We just sold our last pizza. We’re out.’

  ‘But this is a pizza restaurant. An imaginary pizza restaurant.’ She started to cry like a kid. ‘Stop crying!’

  ‘I’m only five!’ she said. ‘I’m allowed to cry!’

  ‘Okay, okay. Jesus, Mary. What else do you have then? I’ll take anything you suggest.’

  ‘Well, you’re too late now. The kitchen’s closed.’

  *

  Mary held my hand as we walked at a pace too quick for her little legs to keep up with, forcing her body to lean forward with such diagonal force she looked like she would face-plant at any moment if she wasn’t holding my hand. She kept telling me to stop laughing but I couldn’t. I shouldn’t laugh at children but sometimes I just can’t help it.

  Finally we arrived at the Tiny Horse, my favorite restaurant on Beverly Boulevard in Larchmont Village. Women in tight-fitting yoga outfits scurried past us, clutching on to their yoga mats and designer bags in an effort to not be late for Vinnie’s class, the yoga God.

  I peered into the cafe for a glimpse of Simon, the man with whom I’ve had a magical exchange for years. I was sticking my neck out so much it started to ache.

  ‘You look like an ostrich!’ Mary shouted. As I turned around, I lightly flicked her shoulder but then, just as she was about to scream, I put my fingers to my lips and shushed her. This made her understandably furious but sometimes you just have to do something drastic to make your point. When I turned back around, Simon was walking towards me.

  ‘Hi, Lola,’ he said, a notch too dimly, clearly a case of trying to cover up his excitement. I reminded myself that I was a catch. A ribbon-prize, a grouper, not your average trout or snapper. ‘Take a seat and I’ll come over in a minute.’

  ‘Who’s Lola?’ Mary said. She’s such a ball-buster.

  I laughed out loud, negating her comment to throw Simon off. Sometimes you have to pretend you’re someone else just for a little while to get a man’s attention. Like a hook, I used interesting names.

  There were two reasons why I frequented the aptly named Tiny Horse Cafe: 1. It was tiny, which meant the tables were fitted quite snugly against each other. Conversations were never more than half an arm’s length away. There were no horses, but Simon was a stallion so the name made perfect sense. If you saw him, you’d agree. He had short curly blond hair and looked South African. I had this instinct that he was from Johannesburg even though he said he was from Indiana.

  ‘I think Simon used to be a doctor,’ I told Mary.

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘We used to be lovers in a past life,’ I said. ‘I was doing some sort of Peace Corp work under the sweltering orange glow of the African sun, living in tents and feeling better about my life because I didn’t have AIDS like everyone else around me.’

  ‘What’s AIDS?’ she asked.

  ‘Mary, focus! It’s not an important part of the story. Can I go on?’

  She nodded.

  ‘So one day a South African doctor, ahem, Simon, dropped into camp to provide medical relief to the villagers. My memory of this past life is a little foggy so bear with me . . . He saw me feeding milk to some starving children and I knew that was the moment he fell for me. Their little stomachs were so empty. They were so helpless and gorgeous and their skin was so soft and mousse-like. At once I wanted to volunteer to save all the hungry children around the world. I could become the president of UNICEF (imagine all the doctors I’d meet there!). I had this primal urge to feed and nourish not just their bodies, but their self-esteem, and not just with milk but with love. I remember thinking it just wasn’t possible, because I was scared I didn’t have enough love to give – they needed so much and there were so many of them – but then one of the little kids looked at me with her huge, bulging eyes and said, “Of course it’s possible; you can’t run out of love.”’

  ‘Wow!’ Mary said, impressed.

  ‘Amazing, right?’ I wondered at that moment if that’s what parents of multiple children think: that after the first baby there couldn’t possibly be more love in them to go around and that at some point the second and third and fourth child would get less love, but that is totally a myth. There is always more love! Amen.

  ‘The story gets even better,’ I said. ‘One night Simon couldn’t sleep and saw my lamp still flickering in my tent so he wandered over and snuck in. He told me he could hear rhinos and was scared to sleep alone. Then he asked if he could sleep with me.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Was he a prince? Because you can sleep with princes.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Lucy from school.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘H
e wasn’t a prince. He was a talented doctor. Anyway, when he came in his clothes were dripping wet from sweat so he started to undress. I coaxed him to come closer, “Sit by me.” I was pretty hot and bothered too but it was so freeing just feeling like we were two people who let our bodies do what they wanted to do naturally and to accept it. He lay by my side and we turned to look at each other. All without muttering a single word, we exchanged vows and hopes and dreams and had the types of conversations you know only a priest has had.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Mary said.

  I was on a roll and didn’t want to stop so I just kept going. ‘And then we made passionate love for hours. It was so animalistic, so pure and true; we even made the lions jealous. Sometimes I felt embarrassed, I was sweating so profusely, but he said, “Women don’t sweat, they glow.” He was that romantic. I kept feeling little pinches on my skin throughout the night and remember thinking he was giving me love nips but when I awoke, I was covered in mosquito bites. Every time I itched them I thought of him instead of worrying about malaria.’

  I paused, touching my legs, remembering those bumps. ‘Do you want to know the craziest thing?’ I asked Mary.

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  ‘I’m only admitting this to you because we are family, and most people don’t understand matters of the heart, but I wouldn’t have minded if I got malaria because it would have been a great excuse for him to take care of me.’

  ‘What’s malaria?’ she said. She was so exhausting! I waved off her question.

  ‘The next day Simon had to go back to the hospital he worked at in Zimbabwe and I never saw him again. It was okay, though, because our love was about the moment and never needed to be more than that.’

  ‘Yeah, right!’ Mary said.

  ‘The problem, Mary, is that Simon doesn’t remember what happened anymore. I do, because I have a great memory, but he’s completely forgotten it.’

  ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘I thought you just said your memory was foggy?’

  ‘It’s fine. There’s a slight chance that he’s just pretending we don’t know each other from Africa because otherwise it would be too difficult to move on, but I really believe he’s just buried it deep inside. Once you have those kinds of experiences, everything else pales in comparison. Forgetting about it is easier because otherwise you’re trapped, as I am, knowing that it might be near impossible to find that again.’

  ‘But you just said love never runs out,’ Mary said. Shit, this kid was wise.

  ‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘What a relief!’

  It was perfect I had Mary with me. Simon was used to seeing me here alone. I like to spend many afternoons going to restaurants by myself, a table for one calling out. I sit there, pretending to read a book, usually one that may encourage conversation, like a grammar handbook or something light and airy, like The Bell Jar. But I didn’t have Sylvia Plath to help me; I only had Mary. So on this part­icularly textured day, one where speckles of the sun shone through the cafe’s fogged windows, I realized Mary might be a bit more helpful in my fight to jog Simon’s memory than I had originally thought.

  ‘What can I get you?’ Simon said, appearing out of nowhere.

  ‘Simon says!’ Mary exclaimed. ‘I love this game!’ She de­­finitely was my niece.

  ‘I’m so itchy!’ I said, hoping it would trigger something. ‘Insects love me. I must be too sweet!’ I giggled but Simon just sighed. He must have been sad about something else going on in his life because there’s no way in hell that wasn’t a cute pick-up line.

  ‘So, ladies, what would you like to eat?’

  ‘I’ll take the cock monsieur,’ I said, staring into his eyes as deeply and powerfully as I could.

  ‘One croque monsieur,’ he corrected. ‘And for you?’

  Mary was gazing forward, which made me worry she was going to say something she wasn’t supposed to.

  ‘Chicken nuggets!’ she said.

  Chicken nuggets made me think of McDonald’s, which made me think of fast food and obesity, which made me think of how many people die every minute. Simon was standing right in front of me and we were alive and thriving in that moment and I believed in rewarding expression, so I knew I needed to just get it out. You never hear anyone on his deathbed saying, ‘I wish I never made a move!’ Unless it was a bad move, which this wasn’t, and even bad moves are good moves in retrospect. Basically, I couldn’t go wrong by moving.

  ‘Sy-Sy,’ I said.

  ‘Excuse me?’ he said.

  ‘You don’t remember me calling you that?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said.

  ‘What’s malaria?’ Mary asked him.

  ‘Mary, not important.’

  ‘But you said he’s a doctor,’ she said.

  ‘I’m what?’ he said.

  ‘Look!’ Mary exclaimed, pointing to my belly again. ‘It’s your baby!’

  Simon was flabbergasted; bringing Mary was probably not a good idea.

  ‘For the second time, Mary, it’s a food baby!’ I said. I turned back to Simon. ‘A fortuneteller told me once I was very, very fertile and my hips are wide enough to have a lot of babies. I’m just not pregnant. What if I told you I was ready, though? What would you say?’

  No words dropped out of his gaping mouth, only a hand was lifted. He wiped the saliva that had started to dribble out of his mouth.

  ‘Here,’ I said, handing him a napkin. ‘I’ve never asked you, Simon. What do you do? Are you interested in saving people?’

  ‘I’m a voiceover actor,’ he said.

  Oh my lord, affirmations really do work.

  ‘Are voiceover actors doctors?’ Mary asked me.

  ‘I’m gonna go put your order in,’ Simon said.

  As he walked away I looked over at Mary who was smiling. Not the I’m-going-to-kill-you smile but the kind of smile someone smiles when they first figure out how life works.

  ‘A doctor of the heart is more like it,’ I said.

  For the rest of the meal, he’d catch me staring at him, but he’d look away quickly so as to play shy or something. He was going to be a hard nut to crack. Maybe he had moved on and had a family of his own because he knew he had to do whatever he could to forget our past. Maybe I needed to know he was a voiceover actor so I’d have faith in affirmations again. Before we left the restaurant, I took a notepad out of my bag and tore out a single sheet and wrote the following:

  Dearest Sy-Sy,

  If you ever want to come over and read Lolita to me, that would be okay. If not, I understand. You might even be married and have a wife you need to read to. Thanks for the delicious cock monsieur.

  Love always, Lola

  P.S. I will always remember our night in the African desert together. Don’t be afraid to let the memories resurface. If that wasn’t you, please let me know.

  Leaving the note for Simon instilled in me this calmness, this serenity I’d never experienced before. I was so proud of myself for being alive and moving. I also learned three very valuable lessons from this experience:

  1) You can’t make someone remember something he has repressed out of fear.

  2) Affirmation note-making really does work.

  3) You don’t actually need a voiceover actor when you already have Jeremy Irons.

  When I went home, I wrote a list of all the things I wanted to come true. The list was long and imaginative, and my heart was open and ready for a surgeon to piece it together. Or if a doctor wasn’t available, maybe Vinnie the yoga God could do it. Surely he’d be able to stretch and open anything else in me that needed realignment.

  One should always remain quite flexible.

  The Boss Man

  Many intoxicating yoga sessions with Vinnie later, I find myself wired, excited, optimistic and extremely loose. And on this beautiful day, I happen to have some time to kill before I pick up Mary so I follow Al Pacino into a Russian bathhouse.

  His virility tinges the air before me so
palpably I am left with no choice but to trace his footsteps. The opportunity is so enticing, so entrancing and spiritual, so seemingly fated, it would be a sin not to be, well, opportunistic. His scent is driving me wild like a bitch in heat so I stick to his heels, fixated, nostrils flaring. I know he wants me to follow him because a man like that doesn’t emit pheromones unless he wants a hound dog sniffing his trail. Looking at his head as his shiny, well-coiffed hair glistens in the sunlight, I can’t help but mimic his pacing and the rhythm by which his hands slap the pockets of air around him.

  Al’s movements begin to change slightly. Suddenly he stops and turns around.

  ‘Are you following me?’ he asks.

  ‘Following you?’ I say, as if shocked, appalled at the thought. I feel like we are acting in a movie together, only this time the title is Scent of a Man and I’ve forgotten my lines. ‘Of course not! I have been planning to go to the sauna anyway.’ This is a lie – a white lie – but my mom has always said white lies are perfectly acceptable if it’s for a good reason. Getting Al Pacino to fall in love with me is the best reason I can think of.

  ‘Okay,’ he says, turning around. Then he stops again.

  ‘How do you know I was going to the sauna?’ he asks.

  I just start laughing to buy time because I don’t want to tell him that I’d seen him go into the bathhouse before and had thus assumed, being only a block away, he was on his way there now. That would have made me look like a creep.

  I send him a shrug.

  We approach the door of the bathhouse. It is an extra­ordinarily ugly building, hinged on the corner of a busy intersection in a part of the city you would never see on a postcard. The door is heavy and I struggle to keep it open. Two big ­Russians at the front nod to Al as they let him through. I try to sneak in behind him like I am his bodyguard, but they stop me.

  ‘Ten dollars,’ Moscow says. He has a few exciting tattoos on his neck that make me feel like I am in Eastern Promises. I hand him a crinkled ten like it’s drug money, letting the sweat from our hands fuse together in a swift but solid grip. I feel like we’re tight now, the guard and I, but when I look up to lock eyes he’s already turned around, asking Al if he wants to get Platza.