“Oh!” She said, awkwardly. “It’s you.”
“Doctor Mani!” the birthday boy called out. “Glad you could make it!” Then, to a group behind him, he continued, “Dexter? Bring Mani over here! Let’s get a family picture with the man who saved our little boy’s life!”
Vanessa felt tears spring to her eyes, so she rushed back to the bar. Paula handed her a paper napkin to dab her face.
“Did you meet their kid yet?” Paula asked. “He just came up here asking me ‘may I have some cherries in ginger ale, please miss?’ like he was out of a Victorian storybook. The biggest eyes I’ve ever seen on a boy, bigger than the breathing mask he has around his chin.”
“Stop it, Paula. You’re going to make me cry again.” Vanessa looked into the mirror behind the bar just as several people snapped photos of Javier, the dinner jacketed birthday honoree, a middle aged man with straw colored hair and a seersucker jacket, and the most adorable little chocolate milk colored boy Vanessa had ever seen. “My God, they are adorable. Is the child sick, too? I mean, like his dad?” Vanessa whispered while she set up the sampler.
“No. He has asthma. Debilitating, so no one else would adopt him. You ask me, those two men are saints, making up a sweet family with that precious boy.”
Vanessa served the sampler along with an extra bowl of sweetened cherries for the little boy, who was sitting on his frail father’s lap, leaning his head against his chest the way children do when they feel safe. The man kissed the top of his son’s head and smiled a thanks to Vanessa before returning to a conversation with a drag queen in a pink satin dress and a woman in a black linen suit accessorized with a gorgeous red silk scarf.
Back behind the bar, Vanessa and Paula kept busy smiling and serving the man’s well-wishers. The party was one of the happiest she had ever served, filled to the gills with love and a pervasive sense of respect and honor. Several children played with the little boy, and Vanessa saw him introduce them to Javier on one of the occasions when she had a chance to look up from her work. The sight of the tiny boy holding his Doctor Mani’s hand tugged her chest tight. The combination of beauty and sadness at the event pulled her in opposing directions. By the time they were closing up at ten, Vanessa was completely emotionally drained. She sighed deeply as she wiped down the draft pull handles.
“Vanessa?” a deep voice asked.
She looked up, right into Javier’s eyes. “I love you,” she stammered. “I mean, I love what you did for that family. They are so great.” Vanessa’s peaches and cream complexion did not lend itself well to blushing, but she could feel her face burning. She tried to correct course. “Javier, right?”
“Yes,” Javier smiled deeply, causing his eyes to look like a pair of glorious monstrances, much like those in Vanessa’s clerical history classes in high school. “They are a wonderful family. I am glad I was able to help their little boy. Forgive me, but how do you know Mary?”
“Mary?” Vanessa knit her brows and tilted her head, temporarily confused. An image of the woman in white linen in Costa Rica flashed in her mind, along with the phrase “me and Javier.” “Oh! ‘Illiterate Mary.’”
Javier chuckled with the slightest hint of a nod.
Vanessa sighed and looked at the ceiling. Why was she being so stupid? “I mean, Mary and I met at this event… thing. A few years ago. We’re just acquaintances, really. She showed me your picture. This really pretty one from Costa Rica…”
Javier watched her flounder a bit, amusement in his eyes. Then he came to her rescue. “I only asked because Mary is the only one here who ever calls me by my first name. She and I met when I did a residency down there, while I lived with my father’s extended family. They all call me Javier after him.”
Vanessa smiled, enraptured at his voice. It took her a couple of seconds to realize that she was just staring at him. “Oh! Do you prefer another name?”
“Most people call me Mani, or Doctor Mani.”
“Mani,” Vanessa repeated. It fell flat for her. Maybe she had too many dreams associated with his real name, but Vanessa did not like to give it up so easily. “Actually, I have a confession, Mani. I have been imagining you as Javier all this time. When you helped that mom the other night, and when you held that little boy’s hand, I thought, ‘that Javier is a great guy. I’d like to get to know him better.’”
Javier laughed again. The glissando of his voice spread warmth from Vanessa’s chest to her toes. She grew bolder, more like herself. She leaned toward him, smiling into his eyes.
“Might I get to know you better?”
“Javier it is,” he responded. “Listen, it’s too late tonight to buy you a drink because I have an early shift in the morning. Are you free Tuesday evening, around eight? There’s a new chocolate place I’d like to explore.”
Vanessa hesitated. Percy had arranged for them to collect cheese each Tuesday at six, followed by a round up of the loft dumpsters before they were emptied on Wednesday mornings. Javier took her pause as rejection.
“Of course, if you would rather meet for lunch or coffee first, I understand.”
“No,” she said, “I would love to meet you Tuesday night at eight. It’s just that I’m a freegan, and I have standing plans to forage on Tuesday nights. Plans that I rely on to eat.” She bit her lip and took a deep breath. “But I’m free all afternoon till around six.”
“As it happens, I am also free that afternoon, but I’m afraid we’ll have to save chocolate for another time. It’s too warm for chocolate when the sun is up.”
Vanessa’s spine zipped at the implication that they would have more than one date. She was preoccupied by the joy and did not hear his next sentence. “Sorry, could you repeat that?” she smiled sheepishly, taking in the gentle humor in Javier’s gaze. She wondered if he was used to women going distracted around him. She exerted herself to pay attention.
“I said, what was your favorite animal when you were a child?”
“Um,” Vanessa bit her lips together and squirmed at the unexpected question, “lemurs. I loved lemurs. That is, when I did not love dinosaurs. Every summer when I played with a shovel in my grandmother’s backyard, I would decide I was going to be a paleontologist. But usually, lemurs…” Say lemurs again, she thought, and stopped awkwardly.
“How about I pick you up at two?” Javier asked enigmatically.
“To go where?” Vanessa feigned caution, but she was excited rather than nervous.
“A surprise.”
“Okay, I’m in.” She was certain that he was safe enough to know where she lived, but she was not sure she could handle having him there yet. “Pick me up here?” He stirred up her soul like a wind moved trees. Better to meet in open spaces at first.
Javier nodded, “Two o’clock on Tuesday it is.” He picked up her hand from where Vanessa had rested it on top of a bar cloth on the counter. Looking into her eyes, he raised it and kissed her knuckles softly. “See you then.”
“Giiiirl!” Paula called out as soon as Javier left. “If that man gets any sexier, I am going to steal him from you. Kissing your hand like he was thinking about kissing something else.”
“You talk to old ladies with that mouth?” Vanessa smirked at Paula.
“It’s about time you found a man to look at you like that,” Paula said, giving Vanessa a squeeze. “Isn’t he exactly what you dreamed about when you were a little girl?”
“You mean, besides lemurs?” Vanessa grinned at the recollection and Javier’s interest, then sobered as a stream of painful memories rode the wave of attention into the present, filling her vision. “When I was a little girl, I would have settled for any male who was sober and not trying to make me look at his privates all the time.”
“Ew, girl. That is not right. Where did you grow up?” Paula had the southern habit of assuming that character defects correlated with geography.
“The bayou, with repressed Catholics, incestuous drunk uncles, neglectful mother. You can guess the rest. As much as I w
anted to get away from the hurricanes, I think I stayed here after college to experience the novelty of Southern gentlemen who didn’t think being a lech was a birthright. Not that I’ve done a very good job finding those guys lately.”
“Aw, honey. Come here,” Paula pulled Vanessa into a tight hug. She looked up into Vanessa’s face, a fierce and honest love written across her features. “You do not have to tell me that there are men who only want to use you in this world. But I am about to remind you that there are also good men like your doctor friend there. Or those men whose party we just served. That is the kind of love you deserve; the kind God plans for you.”
“Thanks, Paula,” Vanessa hugged back. She was too tired and too full of hope to argue about the whole God thing. On paper, God had a mixed record at best. Vanessa had a degree from an elite university, a job and friends she loved, and a conscience that let her sleep at night. But the other side of the page was riddled with demerits. Her perverted uncle, babysitter, cousins, schoolmates, all of whom thought they were just boys being boys when they asked her to touch their penises or go down on them. How many times did she have to say “no”, to how many men and boys, before God got the freaking message and backed the hell off on sending self-obsessed perverts her way? Not to mention that she basically lived out of the trash in order to maintain a safe living place and pay back her student loans. But Paula was right about Javier. “I guess God gets a checkmark on his report card tonight,” she conceded.
When Vanessa got home, she poured herself half a cup of stout beer over dulce de leche ice cream and sat at the table to flip through the scrapbooks again. She found the photo of Javier dancing with the tiny woman and lay the book flat to have a good long look at it. Here was the Javier she had glimpsed with the birthday family. She finished her ice cream, enjoying the cold in her belly after biking home in the heat. After a few minutes of staring at the photo and thinking of her real life encounters with this beautiful man, Vanessa felt a warm rush through her person.
She went to bed, hugging the scrapbook to herself and sobbing. When the tears ebbed away, she tried to figure out what she was feeling. There was hope, and gratitude, and joy at seeing someone who clearly practiced being so good. But mostly, the flood that went through her was closer to the way she felt after a really long bike ride.
“Relief,” Vanessa whispered. “I think I’m relieved to finally find someone who is as good as he seems.” She laughed at herself, laying in the dark holding a scrapbook. “And his lips are soft,” she grinned. She fell asleep anticipating kisses.
Chapter Four
The Sanctusaurus and the Proper Snog
Tuesday arrived rather sooner than later. Vanessa arranged for Percy to meet her at the brewery for their evening rounds, so she stashed her bike in its usual place on the rack. The streets were strangely empty in the middle of the day while most downtown workers were indoors and before the nightlife businesses opened. She paced nervously for the few minutes before Javier arrived, billowing her shirt to keep cool in the midday sun. She had forgotten about the heat when she had the clever idea to meet at the tavern.
“Safety first!” she muttered, stilling her efforts swiftly as a dark luxury sedan made its way around the corner.
Javier pulled up in front of her and leapt out to open her door. “Vanessa!” He air kissed her cheek, and she flushed at his closeness. “I hope you have not been waiting long. Such heat today!”
Vanessa slid into the cool interior and pulled the door closed. “You can say that again,” she smiled appraisingly as Javier’s lithe form crossed in front of the car to his side. With relief, she pointed the air conditioning vents toward her face and chest.
“I’m glad to see you’re wearing comfortable shoes. Where we’re going, we’ll have to walk a bit,” Javier smiled slightly as he drove in comfortable silence. Vanessa suspected he enjoyed keeping her in suspense, so she did not press at first.
“Is it a place you go often?”
“Never been there, actually. But I’ve heard about it a lot at work, so I looked it up.”
Vanessa loved the sound of Javier’s voice. She saw him smile, and she realized she was gawking at him moonily again. She cleared her throat slightly. “Well, then we get to discover it together.”
“The first of many experiences, I hope,” Javier flirted.
“Is this on?” Vanessa indicated the air conditioning vent. “Because I’m feeling a little warm.”
Javier chuckled, a deep, throaty sound that made Vanessa actually grateful for the cool air, but he did not speak. Vanessa decided to pursue a safer topic.
“Do you always get off on Tuesdays?” Vanessa considered her words and bit her lip, hoping he took them in the innocent spirit in which they were consciously intended.
“My schedule changes every few weeks, but I have Tuesdays and half of Saturdays and Sundays off for now. Unfortunately, the heat and wind put my services in demand at this time of year.”
“Gabi said you cure little kids with asthma.”
“Well, I care for them. Only God cures. But I do my best. Asthma is my area of specialization,” Javier’s brow grew tense with concern so that Vanessa imagined he was remembering his small patients. He shook his head slightly and whispered under his breath. Vanessa thought he might have been praying. “And you? Do you have an area of specialization?”
“I’m one of the head bartenders at the tavern. I enjoy the work and the conversations, seeing life unfold around me while I see to the people living it. I usually don’t have incidents like the other night,” a hint of worry crept into her voice. She hoped he did not think less of her for missing the drugging.
“I thought as much. You were right there in front of us before I had even spoken three sentences. I could tell you care about people, too.”
Vanessa shrank inwardly from the compliment. “Then, there’s my other job. I suppose Gabi told you that I’m a freegan?”
“She said you have a dirty habit of digging in the trash, but if I could look past it, we would be perfect for each other,” he smiled. “Her words. I have lived in enough places to know that American trash is luxurious by world standards.”
“Well, I don’t only dumpster dig. That’s just the part that creeps Gabi out the most. My fellow freegans and I try to have the lowest environmental impact we can. That means we’ll accept castoffs with discretion, or barter when we can. It’s not that different from the way my grandmother used to talk about the Depression and war years, really.” Vanessa felt exposed at her mention of Granny. The pain of Granny’s loss was still too close to mention casually. She grasped for a turn in the conversation. “You said you’ve lived in a lot of places. Travel?”
“School and training, mostly. I was a foreign exchange student to India in high school. Then I spent a year in Rwanda before college, touring with a church group in the aftermath of the genocide. My father is also a doctor, and my family went with him while he worked. I got my first clinical training that year. And of course, you know about my medical residency in Costa Rica.”
Vanessa stared blankly for a moment, the images from the scrapbooks filling her imagination. “Oh! Right. From Mary. But you said you have family there, yes?”
“My auntie and her family, and, of course several dozen cousins of varying degree. It was a lovely time, getting to be part of a tribe.”
“I think I know what you mean, a little. My women’s group is like a tribe. A small one, but they’re fierce.”
“Do you have family in the area?”
“No. My dad passed when I was a teenager, and my mom lives in Louisiana. She rarely calls or answers when I call. But my Aunt Clotilde is a ball! Talk about a tribe, that lady is a force unto herself. When I was in college, I happened to complain to her that I was hungry, what with the two-meal plan and no funds. The next week, I got thirty-four care packages in the mail from Aunt Clotilde, all of my scattered relatives, and her entire women’s circle at church. One of them was entirely composed of Nec
co wafers, because a lady saw me playing Communion with them when I was little and mistakenly thought I enjoyed eating them,” Vanessa grinned at the memory.
“Thirty-four! What must your roommate have thought of that?” Javier’s smile mirrored hers.
“Well, you’ve met her. Gabi made sure not a bit of the food went to waste. She took the stuff we didn’t like and used it as our contribution to a dorm party in our room. It was the beginning of the best study group a first year student could have.”
“Were they all smart?”
“Hardly. But I made A’s on my own. No, they were hilarious. They got sugar highs from all those Necco wafers, and we started a pretend cult based on the principles of our first year historiography lectures. I have a few letters from the personas they adopted. One of them was Concerned Citizen, the pre-dental student was Oral Historian, another was Illegible Diarist, and my favorite, of course, Communal Memory. That was Gabi. She would write us each letters claiming our actions as hers, but with corny twists.”
“And who were you?” Javier turned his car down a wooded neighborhood street, the sort that was too specific not to be near their destination.
“Investigative Brothel Owner, or the Brothel Spy, for short. I represented the history made and recorded through pillow talk and its machinations. Gabi came up with the name to punish me for talking in my sleep—which, I don’t, by the way.”
“So you say,” Javier smiled. “I’m pretty sure others have to be the judge as to whether one has that particular habit. My brother snores, and he would swear under oath that he sleeps like an angel.”
They pulled into a parking lot.
“The Museum of Life and Science? Okay, now I’m curious.”
“You weren’t before?” Javier raised an eyebrow, causing Vanessa’s heart to race. Why was this man’s every gesture so appealing?
Javier parked. Vanessa was halfway out of the car when she noticed that he had come to her side to open the door for her again. He waited for her to exit with his hand on the door, and he closed it behind her.
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