The Art of Forgetting

by Peter Palmieri

“Home.”

  She followed him. “You can’t ride your motorcycle in your condition.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  She jogged behind him and grabbed his forearm. “I won’t let you.” She stepped in his path and folded her arms.

  “Look, I’m fine.”

  “The hell you are. Your eyes look cherry Jell-o.”

  Lloyd looked away.

  “Let me take you home,” Erin said.

  Lloyd laughed. “You’re unbelievable!”

  “Give me your keys.”

  Lloyd looked at her. “And how am I supposed to get to work in the morning?”

  “I’ll come and pick you up.”

  His eyes were throbbing and it felt like tiny weights were attached to his lower lids.

  “Forget it,” he said.

  “I’ll buy you dinner,” she said. “It’s the least I can do.”

  “Dinner isn’t going to fix my life.”

  “Come on, let me treat you.”

  “I get to pick the restaurant?” he said.

  “Okay, sure.”

  “Whatever I want?”

  “Within reason.”

  Lloyd tried stepping around her but she put her hand on his chest.

  “Can I just get the keys from my bike?” he said.

  Café Madrid sat between a used-car lot and a furniture store on North Avenue in Melrose Park. Formerly Café Merida, a humdrum neighborhood Mexican Restaurant serving standard fare, it made the remarkable transformation in becoming a favorite Tapas bar among the distinguishing palates of the citizens of the adjoining upper crust towns of River Forest and Oak Park.

  “So you like Tapas,” Erin said as she scanned the menu.

  “You might say it’s my favorite food.”

  Erin smiled. “I guess that makes sense.”

  “What makes sense?”

  She looked up from the menu. “I had a college professor who claimed you could tell a lot about someone’s personality from their favorite foods.”

  “Oh yeah? And what did he say about Tapas?”

  “People who like Tapas avoid relationships. They’re unable to commit. They can’t even commit to an entrée.”

  “Did you sleep with him?” Lloyd asked.

  “What?”

  “This professor, did you sleep with him?”

  “Whatever, Lloyd.” She looked down at the menu.

  “Maybe he was onto something. What’s your favorite food?” Lloyd asked.

  Erin twisted her lips in a scowl. “It used to be French.”

  “Used to be?”

  “My ex- was French. He kind of ruined it for me. Now I find French food pretentious. A little too stuffy and much too rich.”

  “Hmm, is your ex- a little too stuffy and much too rich?”

  “Definitely not too rich,” Erin laughed. “But stuffy? God yes.”

  “Well you can hardly blame an entire nation’s cuisine for your poor life choices, can you?”

  “Lloyd, you are so endearing,” she said.

  “Funny, most of my dates don’t think so.”

  “I’m not one of your dates. I invited you to dinner only so you wouldn’t drive your motorcycle into a wall. I don’t want to have to live with the guilt of your death.”

  Lloyd smiled. “Yeah, whatever.” Erin puckered her lips and continued studying the menu. “So what did he say about French food?”

  “Who?”

  “Your psych professor.”

  Erin looked up from the menu. “People who like French food tend to be romantic to a fault. They’re loyal, cling to tradition and respect authority. They’re biggest faults are that they can chase an ideal to the point of irrationality, and they worry excessively about what people think of them.”

  “Good to know.”

  “I told you I don’t like French food anymore.”

  “People don’t change,” Lloyd said.

  The waiter stepped up to the table, introduced himself and asked for drink orders.

  “I’ll have an iced tea,” Erin said.

  “And you, sir?”

  “Ramon, deep-six the iced tea and bring us a pitcher of sangrìa,” Lloyd said. “We’ll start with the octopus with potatoes and the Jamon Serrano plate.”

  The waiter smiled and rubbed his hands together. “Pulpo con papas y Jamon Serrano. Excellente! Wonderful choices, señor.” He retreated with a slight bow.

  “How are we going to drink a whole pitcher of wine?”

  “Trying to keep your wits about me?”

  “I have to drive.”

  “Maybe I’m trying to get you drunk. You do have to take me home, tuck me in bed.”

  “If you think that sleeping with me is going to change the decisions of the Institutional Review Board you’re sorely mistaken.”

  “You only say that because you’ve never slept with me.”

  Erin rolled her eyes. “Does this type of talk actually work with your floozies?”

  “Like a charm.” Lloyd glanced at an elderly couple holding hands seated across the dining hall and asked, “So how did you find out about the dead mouse?”

  “I’m sorry?” Erin said.

  “Who told you?”

  “I’m not going to talk to you about the proceedings of the IRB.”

  “It’s all over anyway, isn’t it? I just want to know how the board found out.”

  “Why does it matter?” Erin asked.

  “How did you find out?” Lloyd asked.

  “Dr. Lasko mentioned it in a meeting, before we met with you the first time.”

  “And how did he know about it?”

  “Look Lloyd, I really can’t talk to you about this. I wish I could help you somehow, I really do.” She tightened her lips. “Why don’t we talk about something else?” There was a pause. Erin picked up her cloth napkin, folded it and laid it back on her lap. “So,” she said, “what kind of music do you like?”

  “Haven’t I had this conversation already?” Lloyd asked. Erin tilted her head slightly. “Oh, not with you. That’s right, I think it was Junior High School.” Lloyd began speaking in a pre-pubescent falsetto. “What bands do you like, Lloyd? I like U2. Oh Lloyd, I like you too. Hee, hee, hee!”

  “Do you always have to be so snooty?”

  The waiter arrived and deposited two rather heavy, blue-hued glass goblets on paper doilies and filled them rapidly from a ceramic pitcher shaped like a crowing rooster, chunks of peaches and oranges occasionally breaching the rim of the spout along with the ruby wine. He then cleared a space near the center of the table, moving aside an unlit candle and a container filled with sugar substitute, placed the pitcher on the table, turned it slightly – apparently to achieve the most aesthetically pleasing angle – smiled and retreated without saying a word.

  “I just call it the way I see it, sister,” Lloyd said, restarting the conversation in mid-stride.

  “With a snarky, condescending attitude, completely oblivious to the feelings of others. Do you actually hear yourself speaking?”

  Lloyd lifted his glass with a gesture that invited Erin to do the same. “What should we toast to?”

  “To my snooty knight in not-so-shining armor.”

  “To women armed with pepper spray. May they all learn to aim better,” Lloyd retorted before taking a deep pull from the goblet. The chilled wine spread an initial soothing wave across the riled nerve endings of his throat but its tangy aftertaste re-ignited a soft throbbing behind his eyes. He squinted and dabbed his lips with his cloth napkin.

  “Alright, Erin, I know you’re dying to tell me. What music do you like?”

  “I don’t think I care to tell you now.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “Anyway, it’s not like you care.”

  “No, really, you’ve piqued my curiosity,” Lloyd said. He reached across the table and touched her fingers.

  She looked at her fingers where he touched her. “Well …” Erin started tentatively, “I like a lot of genres…”


  “Typical. That’s what people always say. It’s such a cliché.”

  “See, you don’t really want to know,” Erin said, her eyes downcast as she smoothed the napkin on her lap.”

  “Sorry, sorry, you’re right. So you like a lot of genres, but you wanted to tell me of a specific band, presumably to see how much we have in common.”

  “Okay, how about The Smiths?” Erin said, a whimsical defiance in her voice.

  “The Smiths…” Lloyd straightened his back, rubbed his neck and made a sucking sound with his lips. “The Smiths…”

  “What?”

  “Well that doesn’t really tell me much about your taste in music. It just tells me that you were a pubescent girl in the late ‘eighties. It’s a demographic more than a music preference.”

  “And what’s your opinion of The Smiths?” Erin asked.

  “Happy music, whiny lyrics, endless solipsism… gets old quick.”

  “Okay,” she said. “How about Simply Red?”

  Lloyd tapped his fingers on the table. “Captivating, soulful music sung by a pretentious prick who probably rehearses his lyrics in the back seat of his Bentley while his chauffeur drives him to manicure appointments,” Lloyd said with a blasé expression. “More artificial than Teflon.”

  Erin smiled and shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m saying this but I almost prefer talking to you about the IRB.”

  “Just admit that someone in the committee is out to get me,” Lloyd said.

  “The committee is not out to get you.”

  “And what’s the deal with Cruella Deville? Why is she even there?”

  “She’s a board member of a respected Alzheimer support group and you’d be smart to treat her a little more graciously. And her name is Devine, not Deville.”

  “All I know is Dalmatian puppies run the other way when they see her,” Lloyd said.

  Erin laughed and shook her head. “Okay, back to music. Why don’t you tell me who you like?”

  Lloyd shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t mind David Bowie,” he said flatly.

  “Ha! David Bowie,” Erin said in a scoffing tone. She frowned and shook her head. Her expression softened and she took a sip of sangrìa. Lloyd in turn drank from his heavy goblet. “I actually like David Bowie,” Erin murmured, an irresistibly comical crestfallen look on her face.

  Lloyd was hit with a sudden urge to laugh but his mouth was filled with wine. Unable to swallow, he squeezed his lips together and tried to exhale through his nose, but a jolt of his diaphragm sent a spurt of sangrìa to the back of his nasal passages, arousing the ire of the pepper-sprayed nerve endings. He sputtered and coughed, tore the napkin off his lap, held it up by his mouth, still trying to swallow as his chest heaved. Unable to stifle his laughter, he sprayed a plume of wine in his napkin and managed to swallow the rest.

  “Are you alright?” Erin said. A grin stretched across her face.

  Lloyd leaned an elbow on the table, pinched the bridge of his nose. Tears filled his eyes as he fought to muffle his laugh. He opened his mouth to talk, but couldn’t. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through pursed lips, wiping the tears from his eyes.

  “You should have seen your expression,” he said. “I actually like David Bow…” Lloyd snorted and bawled with laughter. His chest jerked with deep sobs as he whimpered, tears flowing from his burning eyes. By now Erin was laughing too. “You should have seen your face…” Lloyd made a pouting expression then started laughing again.

  “Geez, Lloyd. I can’t take you anywhere.”

  “I’m okay now. I’m okay.” Lloyd took yet another deep breath, wiped tears from the wings of his nose. “Boy, that was cute.”

  He crumpled his soiled napkin as the waiter approached the table with a tray of dishes. “Pulpo con papas y Jamon Serrano,” the server said as he plopped the plates on the table rather unceremoniously. Lloyd straightened his spine and looked at Erin who kept her gaze down, grinning and shaking her head. “Anything else for now?” the waiter asked.

  “Thank you, Ramon, we’re fine,” Lloyd said.

  “Señor?” The waiter remained at the table.

  “Yes?” Lloyd looked at him, puzzled.

  “Your napkin, señor. Allow me to get you a fresh one.” Lloyd held up the wet, crumpled mass tentatively and Ramon promptly pinched a dry corner between thumb and forefinger and heaved it onto his tray as if he were bagging a venomous snake. “Thank you, señor.” The waiter turned on his heels and departed.

  “I swear I can’t take you anywhere, Lloyd.”

  Erin parked the car in front of a red brick warehouse flanked by a four-story tower with serious rectangular windows. “You live here?” she asked.

  “I know, it doesn’t look like much from the outside…” Lloyd said.

  “It’s not that. We’re practically neighbors. I could walk home from here. I live just on the other side of Harlem Avenue.” Erin was studying the building.

  “You want to come in for a nightcap?”

  “More alcohol? Are you kidding?”

  “You said you could walk home. Or you could just stay the night…”

  Erin locked eyes with Lloyd. “So Lloyd, do you like me?”

  Lloyd felt like he was walking on a beach and a coconut dropped out of the clear blue sky and bounced off his skull. He shifted his eyes to the insignia at the center of the steering wheel.

  “Erin, look…”

  “Wait, don’t say anything yet.” Erin rummaged through her purse.

  “You’re not getting the pepper spray again.”

  Erin looked up and smiled. She pulled out an amber medicine dropper with a black bulb. “Open your mouth and stick out your tongue,” she said as she squeezed the bulb to fill the dropper.

  “What?”

  “Open your mouth. Stick out your tongue.”

  “What is that stuff?”

  “Chlorophyll drops.”

  “It’s dark already, I don’t think I can photosynthesize,” Lloyd said.

  Erin ignored him. “Your tongue.”

  Lloyd opened his mouth and Erin squeezed three drops on his tongue before self-administering the same dose. “Now, isn’t that nice?” she asked

  “Minty,” Lloyd said. “Is this when we make out or where you whack me with that rolled up newspaper again?”

  She stared in his eyes. “So Lloyd, do you like me?”

  Lloyd held her gaze. “Look Erin, I told you the first time we met that I don’t do relationships.”

  “That’s your answer?”

  “And I thought you weren’t –”

  “You know what I see when I look at you?”

  “Oh, Christ…” Lloyd looked out the windshield at the deserted street.

  “I see a scared little boy,” Erin said. Lloyd chuckled and shook his head. “What are you scared of Lloyd?”

  “Do you want to come upstairs?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “What are you scared of?”

  Erin twisted the dropper back on the vial and dropped it in her purse. “At what time do you want me to pick you up in the morning?”

  Lloyd had momentarily forgotten he’d need a ride back to work. “How about eight?”

  “I’ll be here at seven-fifteen – with bagels. You like bagels?”

  “I’ll have coffee ready.”

  He stepped out of the car and watched as its taillights trailed down the street. He began to feel uneasy, as if he were sleeping with the enemy. Except he hadn’t slept with Erin, and maybe things should stay that way.

  Chapter 11

  The next morning, Lloyd found himself clearing stacks of half-read medical journals from the heavy driftwood table that dominated the relatively bare living area of his loft apartment. He emptied his refrigerator of boxes of leftovers and stepped out into the alley behind his building to toss out the tall kitchen trash bag which was starting to smell. Finally, he changed his shirt three times before settling on an elegant, but not pretentious, light
gray Oxford that worked well with the black silk tie he unwrapped from an elegant box, its price tag still attached. Gazing at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, he inspected the full Windsor he had just tied, adjusted the knot just slightly under the shirt collar before turning his attention to his eyes. A few blood vessels on the whites of his eyes were still swollen in protest but not too bad over all.

  The door-bell rang. He straightened and looked at his reflection one last time. “What the hell are you smiling at?” he asked himself out loud.

  He hurried downstairs, opened the door and gazed at the sight of Erin. Her hair spilled in disciplined sheer waves over the side of her forehead as if she had just stepped out of a styling salon. She was wearing a smart, dark-blue pantsuit, a yellow silk scarf around her neck, with a topaz brooch of a scarab on her lapel. Lloyd’s mind went blank as he stood in the doorway holding onto the jamb. He wished he had invested some thought on how he should greet her. Other cultures had well practiced rituals, a hug, a kiss on the cheek, or a peck on both cheeks, which betrayed no particular meaning – simple customs from which no ulterior motive could be deduced. But American etiquette was so much more ambiguous and as a result (Lloyd was convinced) every act weighed heavily with the peril of communicating something that could be understood to carry a deeper meaning.

  Erin placed a hand on her hip, cocked her head just slightly and said, “Good morning?”

  “Oh, hi.”

  “Were you expecting someone else?”

  “Oh, no. I… you just look different.”

  Erin held out a paper bag stamped with a curious logo of an elephant riding a unicycle with the inscription, Feldman’s Famous Bagels. Lloyd took the bag and studied it as if he was being asked to provide an explanation.

  “So, can I come in?” Erin asked.

  “Yeah, yeah, of course.” Lloyd stepped back and secured the door shut with the deadbolt once Erin crossed the threshold.

  Erin laughed and stretched out her arms. “So this is your famous bachelor pad?” Lloyd winced at the words echoing off the bare walls. “It’s just a big garage,” she said.

  “The living area is upstairs.”

  She glanced at the car parked on the opposite end of the concrete slab. “A Subaru? I imagined you in a Beemer.”

  “Just shows how little you know about me.” As he uttered the words, Lloyd felt a hollow vulnerability, as if he had just realized he had forgotten to zip up his fly.