A Postmodern Love

by Nick Totem

  “Your money doesn’t fly with me,” Thomas said and turned to the waitress. “Rum and Coke, please. Put mine on a separate bill.” He turned to Lana.

  “I don’t want anything.”

  “Be a dear and bring me a whiskey highball, won’t you?” Dominic shrugged.

  “A couple Tequila shots, and lime and salt,” Astrid said; with her youth, the chains around her clothes and the rings in her nose and earlobes, she appeared to be the only one who didn’t belong in this bar.

  Then they stood around, not knowing what to do, and moved out of the way as the billiards players resumed their game. There was another billiards table, unoccuppied for the moment, and Lloyd went up to it, picked up a ball, and tossed it. The ball hit the side and came back to him. His eyes bounced about warily, and his face assumed a dark red hue, as though blood had stopped flowing from it. With an unmoving face, Martin stood in the corner, holding the leather bag, and observed.

  Thomas navigated to the other side of the table. Suddenly, he said, “You know, Lana, we should go out again. I should take you to La Descarga. Rum and Tango, there is nothing like them.”

  “La Descarga. That’s a fabulous place. Partied there myself . . .” Dominic said but stopped abruptly as Lloyd turned to him.

  Lloyd spun a ball vigorously. His eyes were suddenly lost in something in front of him and then gleamed at Thomas; he said, “How about a game, Doctor? Just a friendly game.”

  “You’re on,” Thomas replied.

  “Stop this ridiculous machismo already,” Lana said. “Really, you must be joking.”

  “It’s just a friendly game, kiddo. It’s good for the doctor to have another outlet for his anger.” Lloyd picked up the balls from the side pocket of the table. “We’ll see if I still got it. Used to be the best in my dorm.” He racked the balls. “Let’s flip a coin and see who goes first. I call heads.”

  Martin stepped up to the table and threw a coin in the air. It landed on the billiards table, spinning, and then stopped. It was heads. Martin nodded to Lloyd.

  Lloyd’s face assumed a bemused smile. He struck hard, and the cue ball flew, breaking the stack with a bang. Two striped balls dropped in the pockets.

  “Two in already. Five to go,” Lloyd said as he walked around the table. He handled the stick with practiced ease and aimed for a striped ball in the far corner pocket. The stick moved straight and smooth, and the cue ball hit the corner ball, sending it into the corner pocket, and deflected against the side of table.

  “Three in. Four to go,” Lloyd said. He leaned down close to the surface of the table to examine the next shot. There was no straight shot, and Lloyd struck the cue ball against the side, aiming for a ball near the side pocket. The angle was off, and a striped ball merely bounced and rested tantalizingly near the edge of the pocket.

  “Your turn, Doctor. Let’s see what you got,” Lloyd taunted.

  Thomas chalked his stick, stepped up, and aimed for an obvious corner solid ball. The cue ball struck the solid ball into the corner pocket with a bang and then spun in place, setting itself up for the next shot. The next shot was easy enough; another solid ball dropped into the corner pocket. When he leaned close to the table and examined his position, he saw that the cue ball was in a tough spot; it was surrounded by the remaining striped balls and the eight ball.

  “Hmm. You got yourself in a tight spot, Doctor,” Lloyd said.

  Just then the waitress brought the drinks.

  “Let’s have a drink first, Doctor. What do you say?” Lloyd raised his hands into the air.

  The waitress passed out the drinks.

  When Thomas was a teenager, he had played billiards often, sometimes almost daily in the summer. And later, as he got to know Mike and hang out with him more, they had spent lazy summer days in the community recreational center, playing basketball, billiards, and foosball. He had become very good at billiards, but that was over twenty years ago. He struggled to remember the techniques he had once mastered—how to strike at the right spot on the cue ball, to deflect against the side of the table, to curve the cue ball as he shot it, and so on. Lost in remembering, he could only hear the waitress when she touched his arm.

  “Your drink. Rum and Coke,” the waitress said.

  Lloyd came to the waitress and put a hundred dollar bill on her tray, and said, “Here you go sweetie. And keep the change.” He looked to Thomas. “That should cover your drink, too, Doctor.”

  With a quick move, Thomas also put a hundred dollar bill on the waitress’s tray. “Thank you, miss. Please keep the change.” He kept his eyes on Lloyd.

  Lloyd bounced his head slightly and grinned.

  “Thank you so much, guys!” the waitress shrieked.

  Thomas took a sip. And then he saw Lana looking at him. Her gaze stopped him. Her eyes beamed with a strange clarity.

  “All right, Doctor. Let’s close the deal.”

  “Calm now, calm now,” Thomas said to himself. He put down the drink, and then cleaned his glasses. He shook his hands and imagined himself in the operating room, his hand holding a shining blade, and calmed himself. He chalked the stick and rubbed the chalk on his hands. Taking a step to the left and then to the right, he studied the shot, and at last knew that there was only one thing to do. He held the stick high and aimed down toward the cue ball. He struck hard and fast. The cue ball sped and jumped over a striped ball in its path. It then landed, raced across the table, and hit a solid ball; the solid ball dropped in the side pocket. Swoosh.

  A collective gasp came from Dominic, Astrid, and Lana.

  “Not bad, Doctor. We’re even,” Lloyd said.

  Yes, yes, Thomas told himself; he could actually win, not just this billiards game, but the other game as well, and Lloyd would have to go away.

  “Lloyd, I’d like to play if you don’t mind,” Lana said suddenly as she came up to Lloyd. There was an odd haughtiness on her face; Thomas couldn’t figure out what she was trying to do.

  “No, kiddo.” Loyd shook his head. “A man should finish what he starts.”

  “I would like to play please,” Lana insisted, smiling obliquely.

  “No, kiddo. This is no time for our game.” He looked at Thomas.

  Lloyd chalked his stick and ran his hand along it.

  Lana turned to Thomas and said calmly, “Will you let me play, Thomas?”

  “Of course, Lana.” He stepped back. Lana came to his side and took the stick.

  “Thank you, Thomas.”

  Thomas stepped aside and picked up his drink.

  “No, kiddo. Why do you persist? It always ends the same way.”

  “I’m ready. This is just another of our games, isn’t it, Lloyd? Let’s play.”

  Lloyd eyed Lana, and then shook his head and pressed his lips. “When will you stop, kiddo? Are you punishing me again? We made plans, didn’t we?”

  A sudden dejection overcame Thomas as he listened to Lloyd, and a sadness, too, as though he was overhearing a private conversation. Holding the drink, he turned to the door that led to the bar, and walked past Dominic, Astrid, and Martin.

  As Thomas entered the main area of the bar, he heard Lana’s voice but couldn’t make out what she was saying. Behind him the aura of wealth crushed any hint of love—this is how it is in real life: money wins, money always wins. He went to the bar and stood there. He took a sip, and instantly the rum burned his stomach. Even with an empty stomach, he had no appetite, and a fatigue abruptly came over him. In all his life he had never given up a fight before, but a sense of depletion enveloped him, and exhaustion dragged down his very face. From the loudspeakers overhead, “Historia De Un Amor” began to play, intensifying his hopelessness. Finally glancing at the exit, he wanted to leave, to just disappear. He had been wrong about her. So it appeared to him that he had coincidentally come into Lana’s life when she and Lloyd were going through a spat, probably a lover’s spat of some sort. He picked up the drink and gulped it down.

  He forced himself not to
look back. Closing his eyes tightly, he held his breath to bear down and to gather courage not just to leave, but to face facts. At last, he accepted. Opening his eyes, he turned to the exit and took a step but was startled. His vision blurred for an instant before he could see again. Lana was next to him. Her beautiful face was there. In his vision was the little mole on her left cheek that he wanted to reach out to touch.

  “Will you take me home, Thomas?”

  16

  In the midnight street, she kissed him. Tiptoeing, she lifted herself toward him. Her lips pulled at his, perhaps wanting to taste the very thing that had made him run after her. Then softly and with tenderness, she invited him to open, and she entered there and met him as if to let him know of their intimacy, that she had yielded.

  Lucidity in her eyes held still the air between them, the cold dew descending, the streetlights shining on them, and the susurration of a city asleep. It was she who put her palm on his cheek. The strain and the tightening of his face eased. He closed his eyes and kissed it. Her hand turned, and the back of her thin fingers caressed his cheek.

  Hold on to this, hold on to this forever Thomas, he told himself. He couldn’t believe that he was holding her, feeling her soft frame against his chest and smelling the perfume in her hair. He could not quite believe that he could at will touch that mole on her left cheek, smiling to himself as he did so. His mind struggled to seize it all, but time flowed on through.

  The sequence of events had transpired much too fast.

  They left the bar quietly as though fleeing from a crime scene. He put his jacket on her, and they walked to his car in the cold air. He drove aimlessly, and between them were probing gazes and tender smiles.

  “You did that for me,” Lana said at last.

  “Did what?”

  “I can’t believe you paid that man when you thought I owed him money.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You thought I was in trouble, so you were trying to save me?” She reached for his hand and held it.

  Thomas kept his eyes forward.

  “You’re a good man, Thomas,” she said softly.

  “Where are you living now? Where should I take you?”

  “Anywhere. Anywhere.”

  “I’m starving. Let’s eat.”

  Thomas stopped at the Standard Hotel. He saw the bemused smile on Lana’s face and could guess what she was thinking; he protested his innocence, “There’s an all night restaurant in this hotel.”

  “Oh, I would love to anyway,” she replied, shaking her head, still smiling.

  After he handed the car key to the sleepy-face attendant, he went to her side to open the door. And as they took a few steps, Lana turned to him and held him there under the streetlights, where she kissed him.

  Then they went into the lobby, leaning onto each other, drunken with midnight.

  The restaurant had a modern décor—straight edges and sleek curves, yellow leather seats and open ambiance. There were a few other people in the restaurant. They slipped into a booth. And the conversation lingered from the car and was resumed with a probing tentativeness.

  “Where did you disappear to?” Thomas said.

  “Lloyd had a business party in Belize. A company getaway. He flew everyone down there. Me, Astrid, Elizabeth, Dominic, and many others,” she answered. “Let’s not talk about that now. There’ll be time to tell you everything. Let’s enjoy the now, even right now when I’m so exhausted.”

  A young waitress with tired eyes interrupted them, and Thomas ordered a bowl of chicken soup and a hamburger and fries.

  “Nothing for me,” Lana said. “I’ll have a bite of your hamburger.”

  The waitress went off.

  “Oh God, it has been a long day . . . and quite a night. Hasn’t it?” Lana gazed at him.

  “Yes, it has. You have no idea. I haven’t eaten since lunch and . . .” He went on to tell her about how he had planned to go to San Francisco and how he had turned around at San Luis Obispo.

  “Hah,” Lana gasped. “Oh poor darling. You must be so tired . . . So it’s fate then. You know I wanted to call you to ask you to come. But I reasoned that calling you would make things worse. How it’d probably make you think that I was a part of this scam to defraud you. So I just waited and hoped. I was so happy when I saw you.”

  “I don’t think it really mattered.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t think I can keep away from you. You can tell me anything and I’d believe it. I know it’s such a cliché to say, but that’s the truth.”

  “Oh, darling. But you believe me, don’t you?” She took his hand and leaned toward him as if to force him to look into her eyes. “You have to believe me. I didn’t even know about that man. I never conceived that Lloyd hired him.”

  “I do. I do.”

  “I will make you whole. I have some jewelry I can sell. Twenty thousand dollars is quite a lot.”

  “Don’t be silly.” He paused for a moment. “That money is not your responsibility. It never was. The way I see it, I was stupid enough to be tricked. And I gave it up when Lloyd offered me the money. It was my decision. That’s the end of it.”

  “Okay, darling. But you can understand how I feel responsible.”

  “Well, if any good came out of it, at least you were kept safe. That apartment was in a tricky neighborhood. At least Chau the Dog kept an eye on you.”

  “What a name. How awful . . . well, I suppose so. So I was right all along. I wasn’t paranoid when I thought someone was following me. Remember the night when we went out and I thought a truck was following us?”

  He nodded as the waitress came with a tray of food.

  Thomas started with the soup, and Lana took a bite of the hamburger.

  “Hmm, so good. You’d love this. Here take a bite.”

  They ate together. At times she fed him and wiped the smear of ketchup off his lips as naturally, as if they’d been intimate all their lives. The food calmed his stomach. Seeing Lana in front of him, her smile accentuated by the familiar aristocratic air, not only erased any doubt he had had about her, but now made him ashamed of having had such thoughts.

  “Darling, you must be really tired. You shouldn’t drive anymore tonight,” she said when they finished. “Let’s just stay here tonight.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course, darling. Let’s.”

  When Thomas finally laid his head on the pillow, it was as if he’d traveled a thousand miles and been through an immeasurable span of time. They lay in bed silently, looking at each other before turning down the light. In the darkness, her hand touched his face. “Sweet dreams, darling,” she whispered.

  17

  The next day, having awakened very late in the morning, they hurriedly got ready and decided to have lunch. The restaurant was packed with tourists. Amid the noise of conversations all around them, Thomas thought of only two things—Lloyd and Cristiano.

  “So how did you get to know Lloyd?” Thomas said casually.

  She studied him with tentative look and said, “I met him at Stanford during my third year. I was majoring in philosophy, which everyone said would cause me to starve. Anyhow, we were a natural mismatch from the beginning. He was working for an investment company based in San Francisco and had to come to Stanford for meetings. What else about him? Hmm. He grew up in Manhattan with a life of privilege. He had a habit of dropping names of celebrities, and casually mentioning Wall Street connections, Martha’s Vineyard, super yachts, and private jets. I had a lot of fun deconstructing him with a Jungian analysis; even at that time he couldn’t contain his ego. Haha.”

  “Sounds like a charmer.”

  “He was quite persistent, and at least once a week he would drive down from San Francisco and show up at my apartment unannounced. If I wasn’t home, he would loiter, waiting stubbornly. Then there were the flowers—the bouquets of roses, daisies, Peruvian lilies, and pots of orchids. I still remember how beautiful they were, and the frag
rance . . . He gave me gifts—a Hermès scarf, a Gucci handbag, a Celine leather jacket—and gifts to my roommates, the apartment manager, and even the groundskeeper. He took me to a three-star Michelin restaurant in San Francisco, the first time I’ve ever been to one. Why did he go through such trouble, when it was obvious that he could, with his money, get other beautiful women? Perhaps he deemed that I was pretty enough, or that I was majoring in a subject he found esoteric; to this day, I don’t know what drove him.”

  “Did you become his girlfriend?”

  “I wouldn’t call it ‘girlfriend’, Thomas,” she protested and gave out a little laugh. “Well, at least not in the typical sense. I went out with him a few times. Then that was it. Not until recently, when he came to Dominic’s gallery. And I introduced him to Astrid and Dominic, hoping that he could buy some of their work to help them out. That was right after the art exhibit that I took you to. So he invited us to Belize for a couple of weeks. That’s all.”

  “Why did he have Chau the Dog watch you?”

  “I was renting a room from Dominic. And don’t worry, he’s gay, as you can tell. Anyhow, Lloyd became very obsessive. He came at all hours. He proposed but I said no. We were playing a kind of game, you see. It was all so overwhelming, so I decided to go out and rent a place in Torrance. I guess that was where he had that man watch me. Dominic must have given him the address.”

  But it wouldn’t matter if she had been married to Lloyd or had his children. That she was here with him and bliss once again filled him so fully was all that mattered to him now. In all likelihood, she would tell him more and as much as he cared to know, but he was afraid, too, that there might be something in her past that could undo all this. So he leaned toward her and kissed her.

  “That reminds me,” he said, trying not to sound disingenuous. “Lloyd kept mentioning Cristiano. Who’s that?”

  She wrinkled her forehead and blinked rapidly.

  “He kept saying that I won’t measure up. What did he mean?” he persisted.

  “He was my ex-fiancé, but really, darling . . . I would rather not speak about that for now.”