by Retha Powers
“You’re on my block a lot, aren’t you?”
I jumped, instinctively clutched my purse up under my breasts with one hand, and reached into my pocket for my open safety pin with the other.
“Man, why are you always trying to catch somebody off guard?”
“Truly, truly I am sorry. If there’d been any way to give you a warning, I would have.”
There it was again. And if it wasn’t a sneer, it was the best damn imitation of one I’d seen. I marched away from him, calling back, “If I’d had any warning, I’d have gone in the other direction.”
“Now you see how you are to me? And I was going to send you a valentine.”
Bastard. I’d gone to the meeting early and stayed late trying to ignore the fact that it was Valentine’s Day Eve. Egyptia Nelson, who’s got to be somewhere around the same age I am, claims she’s had her share of valentines and she’s content. She says Valentine’s Day is for the card companies to get rich on; it’s only one day on the calendar, and if you occupy your time wisely, you won’t notice. Well, I think Egyptia is beginning to sound older than I ever want to feel, ’cause when Valentine’s Day comes on the fourteenth of February, I notice.
There were lovers giggling in the A&P, nose to nose in the ATM line, holding on to each other in the Chinese laundry, slapping butts coming out of the YMCA, and the couple in front of me hadn’t even stopped kissing long enough to answer how many coffees they wanted at Starbucks. The man just held up his hand for two and paid for them with his mouth still glued to the little blonde’s he was with.
“I’m going to wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day, anyway.” Mr. Puerto Rico was right next to me. I thought he might be exaggerating his accent. He was probably used to revving it up, using it on women who were susceptible to having their ears opened a little wider by a foreign tongue.
“Don’t you have anything better to do on a Saturday night than run up and down the street harassing women?”
“As a matter of fact, I have a young lady waiting for me now. But when I saw you go by, I could not pass up the opportunity to come out and say, Hello. Buenas noches, señorita. Happy Valentine, beautiful lady.”
“And you left another woman to come out here to speak to me?” I suddenly realized that I had actually stopped to have a conversation with this man.
He shrugged and pointed behind him. “She won’t mind. She has at least another twenty minutes under the dryer.”
He was pointing to a small hairdresser’s shop that I’d never really noticed before. It had two oversize flowerpots with white birch trees in them on either side of the doorway. The name of the shop was written in turquoise-blue script that I couldn’t read from where I was standing.
“And she doesn’t know her man is out here in the street trying to hand a silly line to a woman he doesn’t even know. In Spanish.”
It wasn’t as though I hadn’t seen it before. But it had definitely been years and then some since I was the woman being run out to. Well, I’ve never been desperate enough to stand openmouthed while someone was feeding me a line. I turned to go. He hurried alongside me.
“It’s true we have never been introduced. But then you have never stopped long enough for an introduction.” He held out his hand. “I am Cortez Rojo Picasso Velasquez. And the woman under the dryer is not my lover. She is my seven-thirty appointment.”
“Excuse me?”
It wasn’t as though I hadn’t heard him. I’d heard him as if there’d been no other sound in the streets. Mr. Puerto Rico grinned so that the one part of his body I hadn’t paid much attention to, either live or in my dream, opened in front of me like a velvet drape before a wide white movie screen.
“I’m the lady’s hairdresser.”
And I was trying hard to take it all in. His announcement, his teeth, the full tan lips that framed them, and the mustache with hair thicker than most women’s I knew, dark with silver strands, smiling back at me. More silver at the temples and the nape of his neck. The same as me except he wasn’t dyeing his ’cause he must’ve known it was right on schedule and in exactly the right place. This was more information than I’d had to deal with in a very long time.
“You, you work there?”
“I do. She is my last appointment for the night. If you would consider giving me your number I could call you when I am finished here and maybe you would allow me to take you to dinner. That is, if I knew who to ask for when I dialed your number.”
Oh, he was smooth. Yes, indeed, he was. Like Wesson Oil in a hot iron skillet. And this is how I sounded.
“Rotina. Rotina Washington. But I can’t go. To dinner. Tonight.”
And it’s not that I could tell you Mr. Velasquez wasn’t real easy to look at, because even if my tongue wanted to start, some other part of me would be whispering, Rotina, you’re lyin’, lyin’, lyin’.
“Of course. It’s the short notice. I’m sorry, Miss Washington. But you inspire the impulsive in me. Whenever you say. You give me the night. I’ll make the reservation.”
I looked down at the cranberry cowboy boots with the gold tips, trying to figure out how I could buy some time to think about this without making any commitment—but without turning him down flat either.
“Why don’t you give me your number? I’ll go home and check my datebook and give you a call.”
“Ah! Fantastico!” This Mr. Velasquez shouted, like a ten-year-old at Christmas. “Come to the shop and I’ll give you my card.”
“I’ll wait outside.” What would it look like with me coming in there like some gullible schoolgirl waiting for the man to give me his autograph?
He ran ahead. I walked slowly behind. Before I even got to the door, he was back outside already waiting for me. I tried not to go right up to the window where I could be seen, but he wouldn’t move from the doorway, holding the card out to me and flashing those white Mercedes teeth. I took the card as quickly as I could and mumbled, “Yes, well, you take care,” trying to sound as if I was used to doing something I’d never done before in my life.
He called out, “Hasta muy pronto!” which could have been something disrespectful except for the way he bowed when he said it. I hurried across the street determined not to look back, which I didn’t until I had prayed, Please God, if you love me, please don’t let him still be there. And even though I always tell myself God’s gonna get tired of me testing Him like that one day, He’s never failed me yet. Mr. Velasquez had gone back in to his seven-thirty and I was able to stop long enough to get a good look at where he worked. It was small but clean looking, up to date, I suppose. But nothing could have prepared me for what was over the door. In big, turquoise script it said, PICASSO’S SALON DE BELLEZA and next to that was a neon mustache curling over a pair of full lips. I looked at the card and there it was again. Mr. Velasquez was Picasso! And even though I knew he wasn’t the real one, I didn’t even think Picasso was Puerto Rican! Well, even if it was just Mr. Velasquez being extravagantly ambitious by calling himself Picasso, I thought it was kind of admirable. It meant he had vision. In those cranberry-red cowboy boots with the gold tips. Picasso. I’d dreamed about Picasso. Imagine.
I carried his card around with me for almost a week before I decided what to do. On Friday I called him at his shop.
“I would say to you that I was beginning to give up hope,” he told me, “but number one, it sounds like a line from a bad movie, and number two, I wasn’t giving up hope because that is not who I am. I can be disappointed, yes, but I was taught by a very determined woman to never give up hope.”
I was impressed, but I refused to sound like it. When he asked me to pick a restaurant, though, I was stumped. “Oh, I’m open,” I told him and immediately regretted my choice of words.
“Well, Rotina, I will have to think of a place with enough light for the rest of the room to see how lovely you are, but romantic enough for me to begin to say the things I’ve been thinking these past five days.”
On one hand I thought
Mr. Cortez Rojo Picasso Velasquez was coming on like a local train makin’ express stops only, but it was also true I had pretty much given up ever hearing anything that even resembled a seductive routine. Turtle’s idea of seducing me was calling to say he was gettin’ off his shift early and that I should wait up ’cause he wasn’t a bit tired.
Mr. Picasso told me he knew the perfect French restaurant, Les Deux Fleurs, and we agreed to meet there at eight-thirty. He wanted to make it earlier, but I decided to go to my L.H.A.L. meeting, if not to share my news, to at least center myself for the evening ahead.
One of the reasons I didn’t feel comfortable telling my Sisters about Mr. Picasso was that there was a not-so-unspoken code among the members that part of sexual sanity as an African American woman means restricting your dating to African American men. Egyptia even went so far as to say, “Stick to men who look like you. Don’t no man make you crazier than a man who’s got it in his mind that every time he enters a black woman, he’s conquering Africa.” And she got an enthusiastic chorus of “amens” on that one.
At our dinner at Les Deux Fleurs, Mr. Picasso told me ever so patiently that I was a little hasty in deciding he was Puerto Rican. He told me his father was from a small village in Spain and his mother was Haitian. I was feeling too ashamed of my ignorance to say anything but, “Well, that certainly must mean you’re good at languages,” which I knew was ridiculous as soon as I’d said it. I told him about Turtle as though he was the only family I’d ever had, and maybe for the moment he was the only family I felt it was important to mention.
The romance that Mr. Picasso had promised for the evening was as potent as the wine he ordered, and when common sense told me to choose one over the other, I put my glass down and concentrated on that mouth. I remained sober enough to stop at my apartment door and say, “It was muy bien, gracias,” which I learned from the Berlitz paperback I’d picked up at the ShopRite on my corner. Then I reached into my bag and presented him with my business card. I’d sprayed it with White Diamonds and made sure I’d included my home phone in lilac ink, but I’d printed it out so he could definitely read it, which wasn’t always the case with my script.
Mr. Picasso called me on Sunday afternoon to say how much he’d enjoyed Saturday night and even slipped in that he’d gotten a good night’s sleep, but not before taking a very cold shower. I pictured what I’d only dreamed about standing at half-mast in his shower and giggled after I’d hung up. I’d agreed to meet him Wednesday night for an early supper. He said, “I’ve got a late appointment at seven-thirty again, but if we met in the neighborhood at, say, five-thirty, I could get back in time. Would you mind? I do so want to see you sooner rather than later.”
Of course I didn’t mind. Mr. Picasso suggested an Indian restaurant called the Taj Mahal on First Avenue. He brought me a single sunflower with another business card that said, “Picasso would love to run his fingers through your hair. Join me for champagne and a hot-oil massage. Anytime. After business hours.” I smiled slyly as he watched me read it. “I’ll let you know,” I told him, munching poori.
On Saturday night I insisted that we meet a little later so that I could go to L.H.A.L. I still hadn’t gotten up the nerve to tell the girls, but I’d made a decision concerning Picasso and I wanted their blessing, even if they didn’t know they were giving it to me. Picasso wanted to take me to Harlem to Sylvia’s Soul Food. Sylvia’s is a little touristy for my taste right about now, but the corn bread was still good enough for me to ask for another basket, and I did lick my fingers once or twice, wishing there was one more chop hidden under my fried onions.
Once we got back downtown to my apartment, I barely made it out of Picasso’s arms. When I’d locked my door behind me, I ran to the window, watching him cross the street and stroll slowly down my block with his hands in his pants pockets, under his coat. I smiled to myself. Maybe he’s playing with his change.
I closed the blinds and took off all my clothes. I sat on my couch in just my heels with my legs spread wide. I pretended the couch was the cab we rode down to the village in and Picasso and I were in the backseat. Picasso was on his knees in front of me; I could see his smooth back and his shoulders in the streetlight. But nobody including the driver could see what Picasso was doing to me or see me holding on to his hair with both hands as his head pressed between my thighs on the leather seat, trying to open me wider, wider. And my heels dug in to the floor of the cab and because I wanted to open them even more for him, for me, because we were both so greedy, I lifted my legs onto the top of the front seat and I held on to Picasso’s silver curls, telling him, “Yes. Deeper. Deeper.” And he’s on his knees, hungry, and there’s more—yes—more where that came from. Yesss. And my legs are moving—uh—up the partition toward the ceiling of the—oh—cab. Yes—ahh—yes-ye-ye-ye-ye-yesssss.
During the next week I told every member of L.H.A.L. I’m close to about Picasso, except I didn’t go into the Haitian-Spanish part. I considered those details saved for a later date or debate, as I realized it might turn out. All the girls acted surprised and pleased for me, which is the only way you can act unless you want people to suspect you’re jealous that one of your sisters might be rediscovering parts of her body and mind she’s numbed like a dentist so that the cavities can be filled. Now, everybody knows you don’t want to go around Novocained all the time. Tongue, teeth, and gums all got their purpose. It’s only when you’re trying to fix them that you might want to desensitize ’em for a while.
I told my sisters that I’d decided to cook for Cortez Rojo Picasso Velasquez, which they all decided was genius on my part. Cooking is one of my God-given gifts. I’m not too experienced with international cuisine, but a good cook is a good cook in any language, and it occurred to me that if I could pull off a couple of tasty Spanish dishes, I would not only be very proud of my courageous, adventurous self, but it would be the perfect aphrodisiac for an evening at Rotina Washington’s with Mr. Cortez Rojo Picasso Velasquez.
There were Spanish markets in my neighborhood, but I decided that putting together a menu on my own was too risky. I tried to think of who might help me, but I’m embarrassed to say that my circle of friends is fairly small and extremely conservative in their eating habits. For most of them, going to a restaurant like the Temple of Thai after a Saturday-night meeting is a walk on the wild side.
I came up with the idea of going to Pacquito’s, my local neighborhood Mexican restaurant. I wasn’t sure if Mexican was the same as Spanish, but I’d ask, and if I was showing my cultural ignorance, I’d start again at the beginning. I took it as a sign of good luck that Pacquito himself was there, in his white shirt and pants, standing over the stove.
“Hola!” I called to him, a word Picasso taught me. Pacquito smiled and nodded. If he remembered me at all, he remembered I’d never been that friendly before. “Mr. Pacquito, could I speak to you for a moment, please? I’m having a small dinner party and I need your advice.”
After the first twenty minutes trying to convince me to hire him to cater the evening, complete with homemade flan for dessert, Pacquito finally admitted there was a difference between Spanish dishes and Mexican take-out. But he convinced me they had enough in common that if I listened carefully to him and followed his instructions, I could prepare a relatively simple meal with a Spanish flair that he guaranteed was the place to begin, but would not be where my evening with Picasso would end.
“The secret”—he paused for a moment, I’m sure to give me some drama—“is jalapeños.” He smiled very slowly and raised one eyebrow. “You want your evening a little hot? You let him know.”
“Well, I’m not sure that’s what I had in mind,” I lied, “but I’ll definitely pick a few up.”
Pacquito’s advice was to keep my dinner simple. Quesadillas, beans (not too many) and rice topped with guacamole, sour cream, salsa, and finely chopped jalapeños. A small salad on the side with healthy lettuce, avocado, tomatillo sauce, and, again, finely chopped jalapeños.
A bottle of Spanish rosé, and I took the easy way out with dessert. Homemade flan from Pacquito’s.
I bought a CD of Spanish guitar music called From Madrid with Love. It had a photograph of a bullfighter’s hat on the floor next to a pair of backless pumps at the foot of a bed, and I knew somebody thought it was a sexy picture, but I swear to you the first thing I thought of was that this bullfighter was wearing some woman’s shoes before he’d gone to bed. But I went ahead and bought From Madrid with Love. It was the only thing I could be reasonably sure was Spanish for real, besides Picasso.
When I heard the buzzer, I was putting a few more chopped jalapeños in the salsa to liven it up a bit. They were hot enough to make my makeup run, but I knew Picasso was probably used to them. I threw the last few bits into my mouth. My tongue felt like I’d put it over an open flame. What the hell did I do that for?
Not only was I proud of my dinner, I knew I’d created an atmosphere where I could feel comfortable. In L.H.A.L. a woman learns that it’s fine to be the seducer, especially if you feel you can be safe should you change your mind. I watched Picasso’s butt as he strode across my living room to study my bookcase and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be changing my mind.
We ate dinner practically in silence. Picasso communicated by putting his hand across the table over mine and squeezing it gently, like a promise. Or tucking a bit of jalapeño back into my mouth and leaving his finger between my teeth for a moment as I bit it, gently.
He said he was surprised at my menu, but that he was flattered and it didn’t matter whether it was authentic Spanish or not. “The point is,” he told me, “you have a generous soul, and that is a gift.” I was preparing to be even more generous and hoped that he had a gift.
We were up and dancing to a ballad called “My Spanish Guitar,” which Picasso said was one of his favorites. My fingers ran down his spine; then I used both hands to feel the meat of his back on either side. He held on to me, clasping just above my hips. I leaned back so that he had to get a firmer grip. Turning in his arms, I felt Picasso’s guitar against my behind.