by Dan Lopez
The gamble seems to pay off. Her expression returns to its earlier softness. “Oh, I, um, I don’t know it.”
Her hand emerges from beneath the desk. She wasn’t reaching for a panic button, only grabbing a pen from a drawer. The rest will go well. Piece of cake.
“Before your time,” he says.
“You’re a funny one, aren’t you?” She points at a candy jar. “Have a chocolate.”
“I bet they’re not as sweet as you.” With the ice broken, he regains something of his usual bonhomie.
“Ooh, I like you.” She thrusts the jar at him. “Here, take a couple.”
He grabs a chocolate, but instead of keeping it, he offers it back to her. “Parlez-vouz,” he says. “That’s French. It means ‘for you.’”
She crinkles the corner of her lip. “I don’t think you got that right, hon.”
“C’est la vie. Either way you deserve a chocolate break.” He unwraps the bright paper and holds the candy out for her.
“Tell that to my jeans!” But she accepts the offering.
He can afford to take things slower now that he’s won her over, so he leans against the doorjamb and crosses his arms on his chest. “Don’t tempt me. I’m a married man.”
“You’re fresh. I like that. You know, most people who come in here—” She pauses to cast a furtive glance over her shoulder, then leans in and says in a husky whisper, “They can be real A-holes.”
He cozies up to the desk. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
She smiles. “But you seem nice.”
“I believe in karma.”
“I could tell that right away about you! You have a great aura.”
“Is it a purple haze?” he asks, miming a toke.
She giggles and her bosom swells. “Oh, you’re bad! You better watch out. You don’t want to corrupt the little ones.”
“We wouldn’t want that.”
They stare at each other for a while, unsure how to continue.
She finally breaks the silence by bringing the conversation back to the topic at hand. “So, what can I do for you?”
“That’s a good question.”
He can’t say exactly when he decided to take Gertie. Only that at some point after leaving the house and delving into the anonymous maze of streets that compose this vast metropolis, he knew he had to. He possessed only the purest intentions when he left the house this morning. He simply wanted to see her one time without Cheryl around to stage-manage the situation, just once so he could memorize every bit of her and build up a powerful visual reserve capable of sustaining him through the lonesome stretch ahead. He deserved that much at least after the last three years. But committing Gertie to a mental snapshot, even one that over time would surely aggregate every wish, every desire, every regret he’d ever had or felt into a sort of bittersweet alloy, would, in the end, serve only him. It would be a selfish action, and the more he thought about it the more he realized that Gertie, too, deserved at least one good memory of her grandfather, a pure memory that would stand in contrast to whatever stories Stevie would tell about him.
He beams at the receptionist. “I’m here to pick up my granddaughter.”
“Aww, aren’t you just the cutest thing?” She has a disarming manner, which, no doubt, suits her profession.
“Hey, now,” he says, holding up a hand. “Don’t go getting any ideas. Didn’t I tell you? I’m a married man.”
She laughs, and he melts. There’s something so pleasant and light about a young woman’s laughter. It rejuvenates him. On some level, he’s fallen in love with her.
“I’m sure she’s a lucky woman.”
“She saved my—”
But before he can finish, she interrupts him. “Are you on the list, hon?”
“What list?”
“The list of approved caregivers—the people who can pick up a child. It’s a legal thing,” she adds, frowning. “All our kids have one. Are you on the list?”
He hadn’t anticipated a list, but he doesn’t hesitate. “Yes,” he says.
“Perfect. Let me just look you up in the system. What’d you say your name was?”
“Uh, Steven Bloom. And I’m here for Gertie.”
She types quickly, her eyes scanning the monitor. “Gertie, you say. Let me just see...Yup, I got it. Steven Bloom. There you are.”
He grins and holds up his hands. “There I am.”
The flirtation has gone out of her voice, and she’s all business now. She gives him a cordial, professional smile. “Can I see your ID, Mr. Bloom?”
“My ID?”
“Sorry. It’s a legal thing again. Driver’s license, passport. Something like that.” She smiles, and he breaks out in a cold sweat.
“Well, you see, that’s a problem—”
“Oh?” She leans forward, narrowing her eyes and folding her hands under her chin. She looks sincere but she could be faking. Maybe there is a panic button after all and she’s just stalling until the police arrive. He chooses to believe in her sincerity.
“See, I lost my wallet. It was robbed. I was mugged, actually. Right out there.” He points at the desolate parking lot beyond the tinted glass. “This isn’t a very safe neighborhood.”
“Oh my gosh, that’s awful.” She reaches for the phone. “Should I call the police?”
“No! I mean, no need. It happened yesterday. Not today. Today I’m fine. I just need my granddaughter. My wife, Cheryl, she sent me...”
The kind receptionist scrunches up her nose. Only she’s not so kind anymore. “I’d love to help you, but, see, I’m new here and don’t recognize you, so I’ll need to see some”—she stretches the word—“some kind of ID before I can release her into your care. Maybe I can find somebody else who might recognize you?”
“Notarized,” he blurts out. He’s thinking quickly on his feet, and it just comes out.
“Excuse me?”
“Notary. I mean, what if I had a signed paper saying I am who I say I am, signed by a notary? Would that work?”
Her eyes widen as her lips stretch into a pained smile. “Do you?”
He scratches his head. “No.”
“Well then.”
Every instinct compels him to flee before she calls the cops, but the momentum of his lie pushes him forward.
“Not on me, I mean. I have it in the car. Let me just go grab it.”
He’s out the door before she can respond.
With no time to think, he merely acts. He’ll never get another chance like this. If they won’t give her to him, then he’ll have to take her. It’s that simple. Gertie is too important for him to give up now. He’s come too far.
He heads for the Cutlass Supreme, but rather than open the door he scurries past it and ducks around the side of the building. He flattens his considerable bulk against the stucco as best he can and surveys the alley. The coast is clear. The adrenaline runs now as he makes his way to the rear of the building. Don’t these places always have backyards? He thinks they do. It’s not healthy for children to be cooped up inside a strip mall all day long. They need to play outside, and now he’s feeling fortunate that he got so lost earlier in the day. Because of that he didn’t arrive at the day care until lunchtime, and even though there are many things he’s forgotten about raising a child, he remembers that children always go on recess after lunch. He ducks around a dumpster. The back of the long building is shaped like a shoehorn with a notch cut out where the day care is located. A few more steps and he hears children’s voices.
Just past the dumpster he comes upon an overgrown yard. Empty cat-food tins litter the area, and growing wild around a rusted chain-link fence are banana leaves and elephant ear ferns. He manages to slither through surreptitiously. Beyond the fence, darting from one plastic playground contraption to another, is Gertie. Seeing her play with her little friends buoys his heart. She looks so innocent and happy, a little child without a single worry in the world. More than anything, that freewheeling innocence is exactly
what he needs in his life right now. And, dammit, he deserves it after so long. But Stevie will deny him because his son is hard on the inside in a way that’s foreign to Thaddeus. Anger, fury—those emotions he understands, but Stevie inherited his mother’s icy contempt, and while that kind of calculated disposition may inoculate one to the types of rage that have defined most of his life, it does so by poisoning the emotional reservoir with spite until sooner or later there’s no charitable feeling left.
All right, Stevie, he thinks, you want to play a game? No big deal.
There’s only one adult watching the kids. Getting to Gertie is just a matter of distracting her—that and overcoming the fence. The fence is cheap chain link, but it might as well be a ten-foot wall for all his ability to get past it. A terse, surprisingly upbeat jingle drifts through the air, and Thaddeus searches for the source of it. The lone adult. At first, he’s petrified, thinking she’s spotted him in the weeds and sounded an alarm, but then he notices that it’s something much better. The noise comes from her phone. Saved by the bell.
When his luck runs, it races. At the same moment that the woman’s phone rings, he spots a gap in the fence where it joins the back wall. It’s a small opening, the result of rust and most likely more than one raccoon or feral cat in search of a meal. Probably nobody’s noticed it because it’s visible only from out here. From inside the yard it’s covered by dense foliage, and, anyway, it’s all the way on this side of the yard, and all the playground equipment is on the far side.
The woman cradles the phone with her neck and settles into the conversation.
Good, now he just has to get Gertie’s attention. It doesn’t require much. Apparently tired of the other kids, Gertie grabs an oversized ball and wanders away to play quietly alone. Every now and then she drops the ball and says “poop,” but then she grabs it again and continues walking toward the fence.
“Psst.” He calls her over. “Hey, Gertie. Hey, beautiful, look over here.”
At first she seems confused to hear the plants speak, wary even, but as soon as she spots him through a break in the ferns she shrieks with joy. The day care worker presses the phone to her chest and glances over, but he’s well camouflaged and she doesn’t notice him. Once she’s satisfied that Gertie hasn’t fallen or hurt herself, she returns to her phone conversation.
“Hey, beautiful, come over here,” he whispers. “Grandpa has a treat for you.”
Without much persuading, Gertie approaches the fence, abandoning the oversized ball and lacing her fingers into the chain link.
“Over here,” he says, pointing to the gap.
Gertie sees it right away. Such a smart kid! For the first time he’s glad that Stevie and Peter chose such a run-down day care. She squirms through and leaps at Thaddeus’s leg. And though he could stay like that forever, just soaking up her love, he’s now officially racing against the clock.
“Let’s get out of here, Hurdy-Gertie. What do you say? Grandpa’s got a big adventure planned.”
She nods vigorously.
“That’s what I like to hear. Now, come on. How do you feel about mice and ducks?” Pulling her by the arm, he doesn’t give her an opportunity to answer. “You’ll love them! Now, come on, give Grandpa a big kiss. Atta girl!”
HIS EXCEPTIONAL DIGITS ECLIPSE THE SWAROVSKI stemware on display in the mall’s atrium galleria. Despite such large hands he manages to avoid looking clumsy or silly while handling the delicate crystal, yet for all his deftness he retains a measure of irreverence in the way he flips the champagne flutes as if they were pistols up for inspection.
“Yup,” he says, affecting a drawl. “Gen-u-ine crystal. Woo-wee.”
You grin.
“Them’s fancy fixin’ for vittles.” He twirls them in figure eights through his fingers.
“You’re going to break something,” you warn, marveling at his quarter-sized thumbnails and the robust tendons radiating across the smooth backs of his olive hands, the Virgin on his forearm dancing.
He shoots you the finger.
“It’s coming out of your allowance if you do.”
He laughs and moves away. “You funny, papi, you know that?”
“Sure,” you say.
He buries his hands in his hair. Since that first night at Independent Bar he’s allowed the close crop to grow a bit, so now his hair resembles the thick coat of a short-haired cat. He looks better shaggy, more at ease, and you tell him so. He accepts this in his customary languid way, then he moves on, elbows akimbo, slouching beneath the fenestrated rotunda.
“So,” he says, bending a toothy smile, “whatcha buying me?” A hint of the drawl clings to his words.
“Something respectable. I’m tired of seeing you wear the same ratty T-shirts.”
Arching an eyebrow, he asks if you’d prefer him to go around topless. Then he peels back the hem of his shirt, exposing his flat stomach.
“And wearing a collar,” you say. “Then we can burn this whole fucking place down.”
He grins. “Aren’t I a lucky girl?”
“That all depends. Do lucky girls get spanked?”
“Hmm.” Meandering deeper into the atrium, he nods in a way that either demonstrates his appreciation or signals the opening salvo to a deep offense. You have trouble telling the difference with him.
“I could use some new kicks,” he suggests. “That is, if I get a say.”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t you?”
“Just checking, sir.”
He bends down before a narrow infinity pool to study its ripple-free sheen. From his back pocket, he produces a Moleskine notebook that you bought for him. He jots down a few words, then stashes it away again.
“Let me get a quarter,” he says.
“Why?”
“Yo, don’t be a cheap ass.”
You stare at him, unflinching.
“Come on, I wanna make a wish. You want it to come true, don’t you?”
“Sure.”
“Well, then give me a quarter and quit being a bitch.”
You dig in your pocket and extract a grimy coin. “It’s the only one I got, so make it count.” As you press it into his warm palm, you ask what he’ll wish for.
He makes a quick sign of the cross with it, then tosses the coin into the water. “Can’t say.”
“That’s a raw deal.”
He shrugs. “Hey, man, I don’t make the rules.”
“What about a hint?”
He thinks about this for a minute, figuring his spiritual calculus, then says, “Yeah, all right. I think that’s allowed.”
In a flash, he’s down on his knees barking and sniffing your crotch. The acoustics are such that the crystal across the way rings out. You peel his hands off your pants.
“All right, I think I have an idea. I think everybody has an idea. Get up already.”
He quits barking, but he remains on the ground. Laughing, he reclines along the parti-colored tile. It’s a testament to the lobotomizing effect of shopping malls that almost nobody notices.
“I like the way the beams look up there,” he says, reaching for his notebook again.
“Of all the possible things to wish for.”
“A puppy would be nice.”
“So would winning the lottery.” You help him to his feet.
“Nah, man, I’m serious.” He ambles back toward the crystal. You follow a few paces behind. “See, my boy Jose found this bitch on the street. She looked real fucked up, but when he tried bringing her back to the shelter they told him he couldn’t have no pets. Ain’t that fucked up? I mean, it’s supposed to be a place of compassion and shit.”
“For people.”
He ignores you and examines a picture frame made of Venetian glass, holding it up to the light and bending a few faces into the mirrored edges before continuing.
“So he left the dog at his moms’, but she’s crazier than Jose, and what that dog needs is a real family.” He pauses to look at you doe-eyed. “Someone who ca
n really love her.”
“I see.”
“And I got to thinking that since I don’t live at the shelter no more—and since it’s my birthday—maybe that could be me. She’s a sweet dog.”
“Absolutely not,” you say.
“Come on. Why not?”
“Because you don’t even have a home.”
“Yes. I do.” His eyes narrow into slits, and when you don’t debate him, he draws his shoulders back and grins. “And, in the meantime, I’m staying with you.”
“It’s a big risk sneaking you in there every night.”
“Well, if I’m such a hassle maybe I should just go.”
“Don’t get melodramatic,” you say.
“Then don’t be an asshole.”
“I’m being realistic. It won’t work.”
“You don’t know that,” he says.
“Yes, I do. Dogs need constant attention, especially abused strays. They need routine and a solid place to live. Considering the circumstances, it’s impossible. It just won’t work. I’m sorry.”
“I thought about all that,” he says. “She can come with me during the day and then I’ll bring her by late at night when nobody’ll see us.”
“What about when you go out?”
He bites a cuticle. “I’ll figure something out.”
“And what if she barks?”
“She won’t bark.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Look,” he says. “She’s a great dog. She just needs some love. I can do that. I wanna do that.” He reaches for your hand. “We can do that, papi.”
You pull your hand back and crack your knuckles. Suddenly you feel very constrained.
“We could,” you say. “But I don’t want to. I don’t need anything new in my life to love.”
He flinches. Even as you say the words you know that eventually you’ll give in. You always give in. This, more than anything, makes acute your failure. You’ll end up a dog owner like you wound up a husband and a father—by inertia.
The argument attracts the attention of a clerk dressed in a navy blazer, pink oxford, and gauche red leather topsiders with tassels. A pained smile creases his smooth face. With Alex’s temper running high, the clerk’s approach threatens to spark an uncomfortable scene. While you appreciate the purity of your lover’s rage and indignation (even when it’s directed at you—perhaps especially when it’s directed at you), you won’t allow his petulance to ruin the day. You’ve worked too hard reconciling conflicting demands on your time so that you could be here with him to let a temper tantrum derail everything.