by John Inman
I wondered if the fucking orchid on the mantle would ever bloom again.
I wondered if I should clean before the maid came on Thursday. I’d hate for her to think I was a slob.
I wondered if I was nuts.
A beep from the computer dragged me back to the present. An incoming e-mail. Another ad for Viagra, maybe. Possibly an enticing discount on penis enlargement. Woo-hoo. Or FTD’s floral arrangement deal of the day. A note from a reader telling me they enjoyed my work, perhaps? Or maybe a note from a reader telling me I couldn’t write for shit and should go get a job at Walmart. You never know with readers. As a group they are remarkably schizophrenic. Picky, opinionated, cranky. Unless they love you; then you can do no wrong, God bless ’em.
I grinned at that thought and, tapping a couple of keys, dragged my reluctant ass to Yahoo Mail, where lo and behold…
…I found a note from my stalker.
Happy birthday. You should stop surrounding yourself with syncophants and homeless drug addicts. People will think you should be punished.
I stared at the e-mail for perhaps three minutes, trying to get a handle on what I was reading. This guy was really starting to annoy me.
What an asshole, I thought. Doesn’t he know he spelled sycophant wrong? Then a more disturbing thought struck me. Is this guy watching me? I mean physically watching me?
Always before, his messages had been remotely vague—the sort of stuff anyone with a few screws loose might think up in the course of writing a crazyass letter that basically made no sense at all.
This letter was different. It was the mention of the homeless drug addict that truly threw me.
Did he see me on the street last night with Bucky? Is he now stalking me for real? Up close and personal? Is he actually here in the city? In the Gaslamp? Is he trailing me every time I step outside my front door? And if he is, what the hell am I going to do about it? Or am I just being paranoid? Should I call the police, or would that make me look even more paranoid? Or even worse, like a coward? Or even worse than cowardly, a fucking drama queen?
And what the heck does he mean by “punished”?
I felt myself begin to flail. Internally, of course. I’m not completely insane.
This flailing mood was all too familiar to me. It inevitably came at times of stress. It especially showed its ugly face when I found myself between projects, when I had nothing to write. During days and weeks of flail, as I had learned to think of it, I found myself heading off in a hundred directions at once, doing things I never thought I would do. I had, on one such occasion, hopped a plane to Peru and hiked the Inca Trail. My legs still ached thinking about it. On another occasion I had spent a small fortune for a skin peel, which had removed the better part of my face and left my skull exposed to the elements for almost a month while I healed. Big mistake. I had bleached my hair blond, then immediately shaved it off because it looked so stupid. I had a tattoo of my publisher’s logo etched into my ankle, which I still sort of liked, so that was the result of one flail that wasn’t a total loss. I had also, lest I forget, taken Jason on a month-long tour of Europe, which was the fiduciary equivalent of pouring gasoline over a great big pile of money and setting it on fire.
In other words, I was known to make a few bad decisions while flailing. But this time my flail was brought on by more than being between writing projects. It was brought on by being indecisive about what I should do about my poison-letter writer. Still, indecision and I go way back. It’s not like waffling is a new sensation for me.
Rachmaninoff was beginning to grate, so I hit a button and muted his ass. No indecision there.
I squeezed my eyes shut and listened to the storm batter and rage against the windows. I opened my eyes and found myself once again staring at the e-mail from my crazed fan, or homicidal stalker, or whatever he was.
Since I was on a roll with the Delete button, I smacked it again and erased the message. Then I dug through Trash and deleted it again.
Twenty minutes later, I was dressed and standing on the street, listening to a torrent of happy raindrops splattering my umbrella. (Yes, in weather like this even I had gathered up enough sense to carry an umbrella.) The air was so fresh and rain sodden, I sucked in great globs of it before setting off down the street. I sloshed through puddles like a six-year-old, my annoying stalker all but forgotten. Am I bipolar, or what?
The downtown streets were considerably less crowded than they usually were. I envisioned hordes of Southern Californians cowering inside, afraid they would melt like the Wicked Witch of the West if they came into contact with a few raindrops. I kept my eyes peeled for Bucky, wondering how he was surviving the downpour. Poor guy. Since he was nowhere around, I found myself hoping he had ducked into one of the homeless shelters to wait out the storm, and maybe get a warm meal while he was at it. And a real bed.
I breathed in the smell of rain on asphalt and found myself smiling when a sudden burst of wind picked up a spray of raindrops and hurled them under my umbrella to splatter my face. Two seconds later, gale-force winds blasted between the high-rises and tore down the street, lifting skirts and tossing hats and eliciting screams of annoyance from the few adventurous souls still braving the elements. With a sickening crunch, my umbrella gave up the ghost and flipped inside out, exposing me to the rain completely. Before I could as much as gasp, my hair was soaked, and a laugh bubbled up.
I felt sorry for the people missing this. Was I the only one in the state who loved the rain?
While giggling my fool head off, I stood on the street corner wrestling with the umbrella, trying to invert it back to the way it was supposed to be but failing miserably. Three metal ribs tore through the fabric, and in a fit of disgust, I crammed the thing into a trash can and walked on, flipping my coat collar up instead. Without as much as my Padres baseball cap on my head to repel the downpour, I was drenched in seconds. A sodden curtain of hair hung over my eyes, tickling my nose with dribbling raindrops and making me smile all the wider.
I studied what few faces there were around, wondering if any of them belonged to my insane stalker.
Ducking into a liquor store, I stood in the middle of the joint, water puddling at my feet, staring at the array of cigarettes on display behind the counter. I had quit six months earlier after a decade-long battle with nicotine addiction. Even now when I saw a cigarette dangling from someone’s mouth, I wanted to snatch it from their lips and gleefully suck every ounce of carcinogen I could get out of it before they snatched it back.
The clerk watched me with a bored expression, waiting for me to make a decision, but instead I heaved a massive sigh, spun on my heel, and walked out the door. Once outside, I looked back and saw the clerk still watching me, shaking his head in disgust. Probably pissed about the puddle I’d left behind.
If anything, the rain was falling harder now, and the wind was threatening to rip street-side awnings off their brackets and send them tumbling down the road. I wondered if there was a sporting goods store open anywhere so I could buy a snorkel. I certainly wasn’t about to waste money on another umbrella.
I remembered the night before. Dinner with Chaz. The busboy with my novel in his back pocket. Signing my autograph to it beneath words I had not planned, but had written anyway. I hope I see you again, I had written before ostentatiously swirling my signature underneath. They were words that came at me out of nowhere. Before I knew what I was about, they had mysteriously appeared on the page beneath my pen.
Still, thinking back on it now, I was glad I had written them. I was glad because I still remembered the young man mouthing his own words back to me with a shy smile.
“I hope so too,” he had said. I hope so too.
What had I thought to accomplish by writing those six little words to the young man? I hope I see you again. And what had he meant by saying “I hope so too”? Was he simply being polite? I was at least a decade older than him, after all. Was he laughing at me but being too nice to show it, knowing I was maki
ng a pass? And had I been making a pass? Is that why I had written the words?
Feeling a familiar grumble of hunger beneath my belt buckle, I decided it was time to eat. And since my young fan Dario was in my brain already, it wasn’t difficult deciding where I’d like to go to appease my hunger. Would he be on duty? It was a little early. If he was on duty, would he even remember me? Would he recognize me soaking wet? Would he still have my book in his back pocket, or would he be reading something today from that fucker Stephen King?
Even I had to cluck my tongue at that thought. Could I be any more pathetically smitten? Not to mention jealous of a fellow writer’s success. King was a terrific writer. He deserved every ounce of success he’d enjoyed. The bastard.
I chuckled and took off for the neon sign I could see shimmering through the rain up ahead. It was unlit, but even as I stared at it, someone flipped a switch somewhere in the bowels of the building, and the little Mexican boy in the serape with his sombrero in his hand, sitting astride the smiling burro, came to life. The gaudy colors of the sign sparkled through the downpour. The sombrero began to wave back and forth against the gunmetal sky, as if signaling for me to hurry. A crackling streak of lightning shooting across the heavens made me hasten my pace before God decided to electrocute my sorry ass for being such a putz.
So I hurried, jogging between shoppers, hopping puddles, ignoring everything but the rain slapping me in the face. Squinting into it. Tasting it on my lips. Trying to keep my feet. Trying to duck out of the storm before I got any wetter, which even I knew was an impossibility. I was about as wet as I could get already. If Dario really was on duty, he would have to take me as I was. Dripping wet and all but incoherent in my desire to see him again. Or should I be aloof this time? Oblivious? Act like I didn’t care if I saw him again or not.
Yeah, like I’d be really good at that.
Looking at it from a sensible standpoint, I should play the scene like I was hungry and had to eat somewhere. A passing writer, suffering from writer’s block, hoping for a meal in his favorite restaurant. It didn’t matter that the busboy there was gorgeous. And young. Too young, actually. With dimples. Uh-uh. Didn’t matter at all.
Jesus, I’d never be able to play the scene that way. For one thing, it was a bald-faced lie. All except the part about writer’s block. I wasn’t going for the food; I was going for the busboy. And Dario would know it in a heartbeat.
I stood in the rain, shaking my head. I really was pathetic. Then I stepped through the restaurant door.
Thanks to the storm, Sombreros was all but deserted. Still, I stopped in the bar and ordered a margarita to steady my nerves. I sat at the bar, dripping, sipping my drink, licking at the salt around the edge of the glass like a cow at a salt block, listening to Mexican music play softly through the sound system. Apparently the mariachi band didn’t stroll through the establishment annoying people until later.
I was halfway through my drink when a familiar face appeared behind the bar. Holy Mother of God, it was Dario, looking as handsome as he had the night before, all decked out in his busboy drag with his white shirt, black vest, and little red bow tie. He was gathering up a tray of dirty glasses and soiled linens, and as he was about to head back to the kitchen with his load, he glanced up and saw me sitting there watching him.
I smiled, and he smiled back. He cast a look around—to see where his boss was, maybe—then propped the tray of dirty glasses on the edge of the sink below the bar and leaned in to say hello. He reached out a hand, and I shook it.
“Whatcha reading?” I asked with a grin.
“What else?” he asked, and spinning around, he showed me his ass. Lifting the tail of his work vest, I saw the top half of my ugly puss still peering out at the world from the swell of that perfectly scrumptious heinie.
While my heart did a teeny soft-shoe patter of gratitude inside my chest, Dario asked, “Are you here for dinner?”
I nodded and proceeded to make a complete ass of myself. “I like the way you tidy up my flotsam and jetsam, so if you tell me which section you’re working, I’ll make sure they seat me there.”
Even Dario seemed vaguely astounded I would say such a thing, but he didn’t let it prevent another smile from showing his dimples to full effect.
“It’s slow tonight. I’m the only one bussing. You can sit anywhere you want, and you’ll still be stuck with me.”
“Good.”
He studied me, sweeping a hand through his coal-black hair to push it back from his forehead. A mischievous glint shone in his dark eyes. He leaned closer and whispered so the bartender at the other end of the bar wouldn’t overhear.
“When you hit forty, all this Mexican food will go to your ass. You know that, right?”
I laughed. “Then I have ten years to enjoy it. By the time I’m forty, no one will be looking at my ass anyway.”
He considered that while nipping at his lower lip. His smile had broadened, his dimples deepened. Somewhere in the distance I heard a rumbling boom of thunder. The storm was still raging outside.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that if I were you,” he finally said. “A nice butt never goes out of style.”
Before I could faint at what I perceived to be an implied compliment to my ass, he grabbed a clean hand towel from somewhere beneath the bar. He shook it out and with a cluck of sympathy, handed it to me.
“You might want to dry yourself off before you sit down to dinner.”
“Thanks.” I grabbed the towel and blotted my face. Then I dragged it over my hair, letting it suck up the rainwater. When I was finished, I handed the towel back to him.
He laughed. “Now pat the top of your head and make your hair lie down. You look like a sea urchin.”
I blushed and did as he asked.
Then he said, “Now you can eat.”
With a wink he hoisted the tray of glasses and headed along the back of the bar toward the kitchen. I watched him go. I was smiling like a moron, still not quite sure if he was flirting with me or simply being polite.
I decided I’d better order dinner and stop worrying about it. I really was hungry. Nor was I unaware that I had body parts thrumming that had been running on idle ever since Jason dumped me. Something about this busboy worked on me like a pair of jumper cables. Even my pecker was beginning to take notice. I could feel it stirring around inside my trousers, getting all hopeful, not quite swelling up with enthusiasm yet, but clearing the veins and capillaries just in case swellage became necessary. Sort of like a ship blowing the soot out of its stacks in preparation for heading out to sea.
Maybe I really was a pervert, as Chaz had suggested. I found myself wishing it would storm in San Diego more often.
The dining room was almost empty. The hostess told me to sit wherever I pleased, so I took a table by the window, where I could look out on the pedestrians slopping through puddles and getting soaked as they hurried past on their way to wherever they were going in this miserable weather.
Dario, much to my surprise, showed up with a menu and placed a platter of chips in front of me. He also tucked a big bowl of Sombreros’ famous guacamole in among my place setting.
“I know you’re a freak for guacamole. Thought I’d beat you to the punch.”
“Cool,” I said, tucking a chip into the green mess and stirring it around. “Where’s the waiter? Not that I give a shit.”
Dario barked out a laugh. “He called and said he’d be late. I’m filling in.”
“Another Californian who’s afraid he’ll melt in the rain.” Then my mouth revved up and took off without me. “It’s all for the best anyway. This way I’ve got you all to myself.” And just to show him I was kidding (although I wasn’t), I waggled my eyebrows like Groucho Marx.
Dario had the good grace to blush, and when he did, his cheeks plumped up all chubby and rosy in color like a couple of red-hot potbelly stoves. God they were cute.
He gave me a wicked leer. “Keep it up and you’ll get another bowl of guac
amole.”
“Anything you want to offer, I’m more than willing to accept.”
Dario looked shocked for about a third of a second. He opened his mouth to say something, then clapped it shut and hustled off to attend to the only other diner on the premises—a rain-soaked woman three tables over. I took the opportunity to take a deep breath and try to calm myself down. Dario the busboy was the most enticing creature I had run across since puberty slapped me upside the head and showed me what was what—as far as my libido was concerned—in relation to male bodies compared to female bodies.
And Dario’s male body was just what the doctor ordered.
I sat there scarfing up chips and guacamole, fully aware I was making a complete fool of myself. Aside from that, I didn’t even know if he was gay, although he certainly seemed to know his way around gay innuendo.
There was still the age difference to consider. If I ever acquired a smidgeon of common sense, I might actually consider it.
I was dragged from my reveries by Dario appearing at my elbow and asking, “Mind if I sit?”
Before I could answer, he pulled up a chair opposite me and plopped himself down.
I smiled, impossibly flattered. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but are you allowed to do that? You know. Canoodle with the diners.”
He spread his arms wide to show the empty restaurant. “Canoodling is protected in the Constitution. I’m almost sure it is. Besides, there’s no one here but two wet customers. You and the dripping lady over there. I’m the waiter today. I’m waiting.”
“Oh,” I grinned. “So okay, then.”
A comfortable silence settled over us until I killed it by asking, “Have you really read my book a dozen times?”
He gave me a knowing look as if wondering if that was really what I wanted to know, or was I simply making conversation. Then he seemed to decide I really wanted to know.
“It’s a wonderful book. I don’t actually know how many times I’ve read it, but it’s a lot. It really was an honor to meet you last night. I’d seen you here before. Last night was the first time you were seated in my section.”