Suzanna hoped Harri would drop the subject, because she had, indeed, not only shaved her legs but had put in a new blade to do so and had wriggled into her really small red bikini panties with a bow on each hip that actually untied. Not the best circumstantial evidence, for sure.
But none of this is really for Andy. I need to get away from Carla and Eric . . . and there’s always a chance Rio might show up at the club.
“I just want you to be careful,” Harri said, “I mean . . .”
Suzanna stopped with the makeup and looked at her. She looked decidedly uncomfortable.
“What?”
“Well, I was thinking . . .” Harri said. “You and Andy don’t really know each other. Do you really want to spend your birthday with somebody you hardly know?”
“What is with you, Harri?” Suzanna asked. “First you think I’m out to seduce him and then you tell me I shouldn’t be going out with a stranger.”
“Well, they aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“Look, it’s my birthday and I just want to do something a little different, that’s all.”
The bedroom door opened and Carla stuck her head in. She looked surprised.
“There you are,” she said to Harri. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”
“I better get back to work,” Harri said. She turned to Carla. “Suzanna is going dancing tonight. With Andy.”
Carla was silent as Harri left the room. She waited for Harri to be out of earshot, then looked at Suzanna, who was trying on various heels.
“You told Harri about dancing?”
“No . . . not exactly,” Suzanna said. “Can’t a woman decide to go to a club on her birthday?”
“I guess,” Carla said. “But some people might want to spend their birthday with their best friends.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Why are you being so short-tempered about everything?” Carla said. “We just want to celebrate with you, that’s all.”
“Who does?”
“Fernando, Eric, and me—who do you think?”
Suzanna tried to focus on the evening’s potential. She was not about to get into a decades-old argument with Carla. Not on her birthday. Suzanna tried to control her thoughts so she could put together a coherent sentence, instead of just letting loose.
“I think you and Eric can celebrate without me.”
“Are we going to go over all this again? That’s ancient history!”
“Is it?”
“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.”
How convenient.
“Eric and I have always been friends,” Suzanna said. “And we always will. But I have to admit, having him around all the time has made me lazy. I always had a date for the movies if I needed one.”
Now he’s getting a degree and might be moving on.
Suzanna was as mad at herself as she was at Carla. But it was so much easier to be mad at her friend. She knew that if there had ever been a time when she could have been in a relationship with Eric, that time was long past. Suzanna tried to take comfort in the fact that she was too smart to mess with something as good as her friendship with him.
She thought back to an evening in Napa when she and Eric were watching Dick Tracy on HBO. They were seniors and the Carla-Eric thing was long past. Suzanna was thinking about hitting on him in a casual, friendly kind of way, when Madonna and Mandy Patinkin starting singing a torch song called “What Can You Lose?” As Suzanna inched closer to Eric’s shoulder, she heard Madonna’s warbling as she asked that age-old question: Should you spill your guts or hang on to the relationship you’ve got? Suzanna listened intently to every word . . . but Madonna just repeated the refrain, she didn’t come up with the answer.
If that wasn’t fate slapping some sense into her, then there was no such thing as fate. And she was a big believer in fate. Look at the whole thing with Rio! No, Eric was yesterday’s news, to be sure. Carla could have him.
“Tonight is not about Eric, I’ll tell you that much.”
“OK . . . but seriously, Suzanna. Andy is such a sweet guy.”
“This isn’t about Andy, either.”
“I know that. It’s about the dance teacher,” Carla said. “So it really isn’t fair to be using Andy.”
Hell!
“I just don’t want to see anybody get hurt,” Carla said.
Suzanna was flabbergasted. First and foremost, she loved the fact that Carla seemed to be viewing her as this siren who was tearing through Los Angeles with all these men at her heels. But was she using Andy?
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Suzanna said, summoning as much world-weary vixen-ness as she could muster.
“Come on, Suzanna,” Carla said. “Just stay home with us.”
“Not a chance,” she said. “I’m making some big changes and I’m starting now.”
She finished dressing, adding a necklace and earrings. She rooted around in her jewelry box for another watch, but decided against it. The sight of her naked wrist always came as an erotic shock and she rather enjoyed it.
She promised Carla she would behave (HA!) and dashed out of the bedroom. She practically smashed into Eric on the stairs.
“Hey, rocket, slow down,” he said, holding her at arms’ length to look at her. “Wow, you look amazing!”
“Thanks,” she said, feeling a flush creeping up her well-moisturized cleavage. “I gotta go, Eric, I’m going to be late.”
She wriggled free of his grasp and headed down the stairs to the car. He followed her.
“I was hoping we could have dinner,” he said.
Even as distracted as she was, she was surprised and intrigued by this statement.
“Well, sure, Eric, I’d love to,” she said. “But not tonight.”
“Hey, that’s cool,” he said. “But let’s do it soon. I . . . I really miss you, Suzanna.”
“I don’t know how you could miss me,” she said. “I’m right here.”
“Are you?”
Stalling for time, she dug through her purse, got out her keys, released the lock with the remote, and then looked at him. He was such a wonderful, caring man; she could see that. And she realized that this was the first birthday in twenty years she hadn’t spent with him.
“Where are you going?” he asked, holding the car door open.
“I’m going dancing,” she said, inching toward the truth.
“Looking like that?”
Suzanna couldn’t help but be pleased by his reaction to her tight black dress and heels. She got into the car carefully, arching her feet seductively. Eric smiled and kissed her softly on the cheek. “Happy birthday.”
He closed the door and stood in the driveway until she pulled out into the street.
Suzanna’s mind was whirling, but she decided to focus on the evening ahead. After all, dancing was supposed to be her stress reliever, not her stress inducer!
CHAPTER 19
Suzanna had heard that Monsoon on the 3rd Street Promenade was a bit tamer than some of the salsa clubs she’d learned about at the studio, primarily in that the patrons at Monsoon weren’t hostile toward either full-fledged adults or beginning dancers. Monsoon was primarily an Asian-leaning restaurant that, for reasons known only to the whimsical restaurant gods, turned into a salsa club on Wednesday evenings. One of the reasons Suzanna wanted to hit the club early was because she knew that, as the evening progressed, they would be outnumbered by better dancers and would look like a couple of losers. This way, she’d be warmed up by the time Rio showed . . . if he showed.
She parked in one of the behemoth municipal parking garages that dotted Santa Monica’s downtown and said a silent prayer that she would remember where her poor car was languishing when the evening was through. She had, on more than one occasion, come to the wrong garage, insisting to the beleaguered parking attendant, as he drove her around each floor in his golf cart, that her car must have been stolen. He would reply, through gritted teeth, that he was pretty sure she just le
ft her car in another garage. It happened all the time, he would say. The parking garages all looked alike.
Suzanna opened the lighted mirror on her visor to do minor repair to her lipstick. She tried not to think about all the drama at the Bun. Was Carla right? Was there a possibility Suzanna and Eric might get together after all these years? Or, was Carla lying and secretly having fabulous make-out sessions with Eric behind her back? Were Andy and Fernando going to stage a coup? And what about Eric? He definitely noticed Suzanna’s brain had been otherwise occupied these last few weeks. Should she confess?
She put everything out of her mind. She was determined to have a good time tonight.
As she walked up the promenade toward the club, she passed several street performers, all of whom seemed to be confident in their abilities as entertainers. Some of them were really good: a youngish guitar player channeling Nat King Cole’s singing style and a little girl about eight years old who did an unnerving Michael Jackson impression. There was a woman who banged on an old plastic Sparkletts bottle and created really interesting percussion effects. There were also some odd acts to skirt: a very large man in an Elvis suit and white mime makeup who pretended he was a mannequin never failed to spook Suzanna.
Who does he think he’s kidding? Mannequins don’t sweat.
Suzanna took a deep breath and entered the restaurant. Walking into Monsoon, she tried to adjust to the confusing mood lighting . . . were they going for a combo English fog/Malaysian nights thing? The interior resembled an upscale Tiki Room with a dash of India thrown in. She couldn’t decide if the architect was being serious or playful. Monsoon was split into many mysterious rooms, with the bar being the first space you saw as you came in from the street.
Once she adjusted to the low light and could make out the features of the room, she noted that the bar, thankfully, was hospitable looking.
She sat, starting her nonchalant wait for her non-date. The bartender, tall and slim with rosy cheeks, barely looked old enough to be in a bar, let alone behind one serving drinks. He had jet-black hair that stood up in an alarming imitation of a tidal wave. He gave Suzanna a welcoming smile. She ordered a glass of shiraz, which seemed to pass for wine sophistication in Los Angeles, and he gave her a sly smile.
“No mojito for you?” he asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“You have the look of a lady who would drink a mojito.”
“Oh, well, I don’t know what that is . . . but I guess I’ll have one,” she said in her most friendly, flirtiest tone, which she hoped signaled, “Oh, yeah, I’m just a breezy kind of barfly.”
“It’s a Cuban drink . . . rum, sugar, club soda, and lots of fresh mint, we make a good one.”
She watched him pull components for her drink from every corner of the bar . . . glass from here, ice from there, rum from a top shelf, green stuff—which turned out to be mint—from a little mystery compartment near the cash register. She couldn’t help but notice how gracefully he moved. The energy of bartending must be so different from running a teashop, she thought. The bartender must have realized that he was being scrutinized, because he turned around and gave Suzanna a big smile as he finished preparing her drink.
She peeked around the bar, trying not to look toward the door. She wasn’t really sure if she wanted Andy to show up at this very moment or not. After all, she was in the midst of a mild flirtation with the bartender, was she not? This is one of those occasions when she knew Fernando would be egging her on and giving her great lines to toss around, but, she had to admit, it was exhilarating to be navigating these hormone-laced waters on her own.
The bartender put the Cuban concoction in front of her.
“It was Hemingway’s favorite drink when he lived in Cuba,” he said, still smiling.
Those choppers can’t be real. Porcelain or BriteSmile?
You had to love a bartender—especially in greater Los Angeles—who knew anything about Hemingway, including his drink and country of choice.
I sound like my sister! Again!
Suzanna concentrated. Erinn was the last person she wanted in her head right now.
“Besides,” he continued, history lesson closed, “most of the ladies who come in for salsa order a mojito.”
“Is it that obvious I’m here for salsa?” she asked, her voice registering somewhere in the vast expanse between flirtation and panic.
“Well, you’re dressed up, which is usually a sign,” he said as he cast a quick glance over the bar at her legs. “And you look like a dancer.”
Wow! This guy is good!
Suzanna casually shot a look at her legs and noticed that she did indeed have a good deal more muscle tone in her calves that she’d had a few months ago. Her confidence took a huge leap forward.
“It’s my birthday.”
“Well, then, it’s on the house,” he said, wiping his hands on a towel and offering his hand. “My name’s Big Daddy.”
She burst out laughing. His smile died. Suzanna tried to recover, but feared the damage was done.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You just seem awfully . . . uh . . . young to be calling yourself Big Daddy.”
“All the girls call me Big Daddy,” he said. The brilliant smile returned and Big Daddy leaned toward her. “I’m bigger than I look.”
He beamed and headed off to the other end of the bar to serve another customer.
Suzanna tried to remain casual and sipped her drink while she pondered this rather unashamed penis reference.
Maybe that’s the new bar talk.
Her analysis of the situation came to an abrupt end as Andy entered the bar. He blinked in the semidarkness, and Suzanna waited patiently for his eyes to adjust—no sense hailing a blind man—and then gave him a tiny wave.
Andy gave her a sheepish smile and settled into the chair next to her. He looked decidedly out of place in this trendy watering hole—he was dressed more for country line dancing than for a restaurant that was soon to unfold into a smoldering salsa club. Suzanna reminded herself that this was not a date and that she shouldn’t care how he looked.
But she did.
Big Daddy returned before she and Andy had even said a word.
“Hey there, buddy,” Big Daddy said, “What can I get ya?”
“This is really good,” Suzanna said, offering her drink to him. “It’s a mojito. Try it.”
Andy took a small sip, but shook his head.
“Uhmmm . . . I’ll have a beer. What have you got on tap?”
The ubiquitous beer-on-tap conversation ensued, with Andy settling on a Portuguese import recommended by Big Daddy. Again, Suzanna was struck by the uncommon grace of the bartender . . . maybe it was because she had dancing on the brain, but every move he made seemed choreographed.
All was revealed when the restaurant turned into the dance club. Before the dance floor opened, there was an introductory salsa lesson—and Big Daddy was the instructor. There were maybe fifteen people in the class—young, not so young, gorgeous, and not so gorgeous. Suzanna felt that she and Andy fit in just fine. They started with the basic footwork and Andy smiled at her in obvious relief—they actually knew what they were doing!
Big Daddy grabbed Suzanna’s hand and pulled her to the front of the class.
“Come here, birthday girl,” he said, twirling her around. “I see we have an expert here.”
Suzanna could tell she was blushing. She didn’t know if he was making fun of her or not. But it appeared he was serious, as he demonstrated some couples’ steps to the class. Miraculously, she didn’t screw up and she was pretty sure it really did look as if she had been on a dance floor more than once.
Everyone was watching them as Big Daddy said, “When you put the steps together . . . it looks like this.”
He spun Suzanna around and she executed a perfect double turn. She snuck a peek at Andy and he was grinning from ear to ear. Big Daddy released her and the class gave her a round of applause. Big Daddy announced that class was over an
d that the band would be starting in a few minutes. He thanked her for dancing with him and said he hoped he’d get a chance to dance with her during the evening. The fact that he did this in an incredibly theatrical manner for all the class to enjoy and not in an intimate whisper did not dilute the absolute thrill she was feeling.
This was the stuff of salsa dreams!
I wish Fernando and Eric could have seen that!
Suzanna was surprised by her thoughts. Wasn’t the whole point of salsa to get away from Eric and Fernando?
Uh, no . . . Rio was the whole point of salsa.
Andy noticed a small table that was open. He took Suzanna’s hand and they grabbed it while the band set up. They ordered another round of drinks and the uncomfortable silence of first non-dates set in.
“The renovation is sure going well,” he said.
Suzanna was about to say she didn’t want to talk about business tonight, but then she realized that she really didn’t have much else to say.
“Yeah . . . I love what you’re doing with the place,” she said.
Suzanna looked around the room, as much to avoid stilted conversation as to see what action was taking place. She knew it was too early to start hoping Rio would show—the great dancers didn’t arrive until late in the evening. She was relieved to see that the eclectic mix of people who took the dance class had not miraculously been replaced by amazing-looking dancers, although there were some of those, too. Basically, Andy and she could still fit right in—if they decided to actually dance.
Big Daddy was tearing up the dance floor, spinning and twirling a woman in a filmy 1940s style dress. She had updated her look with a really tiny pair of thong underwear, which was on full display every time she spun. One would have to assume this was for effect—and God knows, it was effective! Every man in the room had his eyes glued to her skirt.
“Aren’t those girls in our class?” Andy yelled over the music. He indicated Sandy and Alexia, the La Femme Nikita sisters.
Suzanna nodded affirmatively, and she was suddenly aware at how out of place she was. She stared at Sandy and Alexia as they effortlessly fit into the scene. While she was worrying about every move she might make, Sandy and Alexia were drinking mojitos with casual abandon. They were in conversation with two guys and the sisters laughed coyly, their impossibly Los-Angeles-white teeth glowing as they tossed their perfect manes of hair over their shoulders to indicate their pleasure.
The Merchant of Venice Beach Page 17