by John Vercher
Isabel hated lying to Bobby, especially because she was so bad at it, and he knew it. She heard the doubt in his voice as loudly as the door he had slammed on his way out when she said she’d pick up the double. She had only half lied. It would be no problem to send someone home on the breakfast shift, but there was no telling what time Robert might come back to pay his tab. He would. That much she knew. As long as they had known each other, he would never be anyone’s stereotype. There was no doubt he’d be back to pay that tab, and then some. Because she could count on him returning, she couldn’t chance missing him. There was only one hospital so close to Lou’s, but if she staked him out there, chances were she’d frighten him. No, this had to seem accidental, a chance encounter that felt unplanned, and on his terms.
Throughout her shift, she thought about what she might say. While taking an order, she wrote “eggs scrambled been a long time” on her pad. She forgot refills, dropped plates, and spilled hot coffee on herself. Pockets pulled her aside and asked if her she’d been drinking.
I wish, she thought. She wouldn’t have been so Goddamned nervous.
She assured him she hadn’t in a tone terser than she’d intended, and Pockets gave her that same doubtful look that Bobby had perfected over years of disappointment. Any other day, his condescension would have angered her. Not today. The excitement and anxiety and fear left no room for anger. At least not for him.
She pulled up to Lou’s just before six o’clock and turned off the car. The Fox coughed a death rattle, then quieted. Isabel pulled down the visor and checked her teeth for lipstick stains. Her white blouse had a plunging neckline with ruffles down the side that was tight around her middle but still fit if she left it untucked. She tucked it and untucked it again, hating how dated the shirt was and that it was the nicest one she owned. She untucked it one more time and told herself that Robert was no one she needed to impress. Then she laughed at herself.
“Yeah, right,” she said.
She refreshed her lipstick and reached for the door. She stopped. Cold fingers walked the back of her neck and slid their tips down her arms.
You’re right back where you promised you wouldn’t be, and in more ways than one. Did you forget why it’s been twenty years?
“No,” she said.
You told Bobby no more drinking. You told yourself no more Robert. Not after how he treated you.
“I’m not going to drink,” she said. “I’m going to sit there, sip club sodas like a good girl, and wait. This is happening for a reason. There has to be a reason.”
Who are you here for? Bobby? Or you?
“I’ll wait here,” she said. “I’ll keep my head down and wait until I see him go in. Then I’ll arrange for him to meet Bobby and I’ll leave.”
A knock on the passenger side window made her jump. One of the regulars waved and asked if she was coming in. She cursed to herself and waved back. There’s no way he’d go in without telling Nico he’d seen her. She gripped the steering wheel.
“Club sodas,” she said. “No sweat.”
Who are you here for?
“I don’t know.”
Nico had a vodka tonic waiting on the bar when she walked in.
“Two nights in a row? To what do we owe the pleasure?” Isabel pulled up her usual seat. The drink fizzed as an ice cube floated from the bottom and bobbed on the surface. It would calm her down, let her relax. She wrapped her fingers around the glass and pushed it towards Nico.
“Thanks, hon,” she said. “I’m still a little queasy from last night.”
“You sure? Might take the edge off that dog bite.”
“I’m good. Club soda.” She took off her jacket and hung it on the back of the stool. Nico whistled.
“Look at you,” he said. “You redd up good, huh? That for me?”
“Maybe.”
He placed a club soda in front of her. “Seriously, what’s got you here so early looking so jazzed up?”
She hadn’t thought that part through, what to tell Nico. “I felt bad how I ducked out of here last night. I didn’t want you to think it was you,” she said. Nico smiled. He bought it. “Speaking of which, that guy ever come back and pay his tab from last night?”
“No. Shocker, right? Prick.” Isabel breathed out and took a sip from her seltzer. She settled in and waited.
Every time the door opened, her heart beat a little faster. The snow let up enough that more of the natives and regulars decided to come flatten their asses at the bar. Hours passed and no Robert. She talked with the locals, and the drunker they got, the closer they leaned. Over the odors of salted nuts and day-old pretzels on their breath wafted the sweet-sour smell of liquor and it pulled at her. The top shelf bottles were lit from underneath, as if on display just for her. Her head throbbed. She checked the clock again. Nico was right. Robert wasn’t coming. She hadn’t known him as well as she’d thought. How embarrassed she felt, how ridiculous this all was. She massaged her temples.
“You all right?” Nico asked. “You’re looking kind of green again.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I mean don’t get me wrong, you make it look good.”
“Think I’m going to pack it in, stud. This isn’t exactly the best place to stay on the wagon.”
“And I’m here offering you drinks. Now who’s the prick?”
“Forgiven, hon. I owe you for the soda?” Nico waved it off. She sucked the soda down to the bottom when someone sat down next to her. He smelled terrific. And familiar.a
“A little busier in here than last night,” he said to Isabel. He looked older up close. A little more tired than he did the night before. God damn if it wasn’t him and what the hell did she do now but go for it.
“I know you,” she said. Her voice cracked and he turned all the way on his stool to face her. He narrowed his eyelids and smiled that smile that said he to be polite and figure out how to get her to tell him her name without having to ask. Isabel knew he knew her from last night, yet he still didn’t know her. Before he could speak, Nico tapped the bar.
“You forgetting something?” Nico asked. Robert opened his wallet and brandished a credit card. He asked Nico to start a tab.
“He’ll take a Glen Fiddich, neat,” Isabel told Nico. Robert leaned back and gave her the once over. “I’ll take another club soda, too.” Nico snatched Robert’s credit card from the bar and fired seltzer into Isabel’s glass until it brimmed over. He set Robert’s drink on the bar hard and glared at them both as he made his way to the other end of the bar.
“I don’t think he likes me,” Robert said. Isabel raised her glass to him and took a quick sip because she was going to say something stupid like ‘I like you’ and mess up this whole thing and she told herself to slow down because her brain was off to the races again. “You look nice tonight,” he said.
“I didn’t last night?” she asked
“I guess I could have phrased that better,” he said.
“You look nice, too.”
“So how do you know my drink?”
This is why you got dressed up? For someone who has no idea who you are. Is it coming back to you now why you never told him?
“You really don’t remember me?” Isabel asked.
“Outside of last night?” She nodded. “I’m sorry, I’m embarrassed to say I don’t.”
“Not that embarrassed,” Isabel said, “not as easily as that came out.”
He smiled and cocked his head in agreement and went to take another sip. He looked at her when he lowered his glass and set it back down on the bar. She couldn’t take his pretending to try and remember anymore.
“Bobby, it’s Isabel,” she said.
“Wow,” he said. “Bobby. Nobody’s called me that in a long time.” He took another sip, then his eyes widened. “Wait, wait, wait,” he said. “Izzy Saraceno?”
She failed to hide her smile. “Nobody’s called me that in a long time.”
“Wow. Wow! God, I haven’t thought about that
name in ages. It’s been, what, twenty years?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Who’s counting, huh?” he asked. He shook his head again. “Still Saraceno?” She raised her left hand and wiggled her bare ring finger. “Surprising,” he said.
“Why?”
“Honestly?”
“No, I’ll take the bullshit, please.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m still kind of mortified about not recognizing you right away and it felt like the right thing to say.”
“I think I would have preferred the bullshit.”
They laughed. Robert shifted in his seat and looked down into his drink while Isabel stared. Their silence made the quiet din of the bar seem much louder. He glanced at Isabel out of the corner of his eye and back to the bar. She knew she gawked at him but she couldn’t stop. She had to sit on her hand to keep from reaching out and touching him to make sure he was real. She needed to know where he’d been all these years, why he was here now. More than that, she wanted to know why he looked so sad.
“You want to talk about it?” she asked
He turned his drink in place on the counter and kept his eyes fixed on it. In him she saw her son, home from grade school, playing with his food at dinner, upset about a girl who didn’t circle “yes” on a note asking her to “go with him” and her anger and desire for Robert pendulumed.
“About what?” he asked.
“It’s been two decades,” she said. “Pick something”
“You’d have to charge me for the therapy.”
She smirked. “We can work something out.”
“I appreciate it, but I’m good.” He tilted his head back to finish his drink and asked Nico for the tab.
“You’re leaving?” Isabel asked.
“Yeah, it’s late and I’ve got an early day tomorrow.”
“It’s not that late,” she said. She heard the desperation in her voice and took a deep breath. “One more,” she said. “One more with me and I’ll let you live down not recognizing me.”
“That was bad, wasn’t it?” he asked. Isabel mock grimaced and nodded. Robert laughed. “One more,” he said.
Isabel stood, rocked on her heels, and grinned. “There’s a booth back there,” she said.
Robert ordered another scotch and Isabel asked for the vodka tonic. Nico brought it and shot Isabel a look that she pretended not to see it as she guided Robert towards the rear of the bar. The red vinyl squeaked as they slid into either side of the booth. Robert pulled out a pager from his front pocket and set it on the table. He hit a button and the small screen lit up a yellowish-green.
“Expecting a call?” she asked. The sadness returned to his face.
“No,” he said. “I’d like to be, but I don’t think I am.”
A loud crack echoed behind them from a break on the pool table. Isabel noted the gold band on Robert’s finger because he kept sliding it back and forth, almost off, never fully on. She wondered if the person who gave him that ring was the person who he was hoping would call.
“How long have you been married?” she asked.
“Depends.”
“On?”
He corkscrewed the ring up and down his finger and stared at the palm of his hand. “On who you ask,” he said.
Isabel took a pull on the straw in her vodka tonic, and that smooth burn hit her, a quick shot of comfort that helped contain her simultaneous anger at and longing for him.
“You sure you don’t want to talk about it?” she asked.
“I do,” he said. He lifted his head to look at her and he glanced at her cleavage before meeting her eyes. Isabel noticed and leaned in and put her elbows on the table, seeing if she could get him to do it again. He didn’t. “But I’m not going to.”
“Why not?”
“Look, I don’t want to be rude, but we haven’t seen each other for the better part of two decades. We were kids. I don’t know you like that now. I shouldn’t be sharing something like this with someone like you.”
A burning in her ears and cheeks consumed the soothing warmth the vodka produced just a moment ago.
“Excuse me? Someone like me?”
“That came out wrong. I meant talking about issues at home with a woman with whom I had a relationship. That’s not fair to my wife.”
Isabel laughed in disbelief. “When did you ever care about fair? And you call what we had a relationship?”
“Would you mind keeping your voice down?”
Robert’s eyes glanced around the bar and past Isabel. Isabel looked over her shoulder to see some patrons straining to listen without looking like they were.
“Wow, nothing changes, huh, Bobby? Still don’t want to be seen in public with me, after all this time. Any other girl, sure, but not me. Don’t you talk to me about fair.”
“What are you talking about?”
“How many nights, Bobby? How many did we spend in your apartment? Never going out, to a restaurant, dancing, any of it. Always pizza or Chinese, late at night, watching television until you got me into bed and left before dawn. And yet I stuck around, because I thought if I put my time in, you’d maybe like me enough to love me. To show me on your arm. I’d convinced myself until...”
Do not tell him in anger, she told herself. She breathed deep and closed her eyes, blinking a tear down her cheek.
“I came to find you on campus one afternoon. I needed to talk to you. I found you in the game room in the quad with some other bitch hanging all over you while you shot pool with your boys. I knew right then and there what I meant to you. You had no problem being seen with her. Hell, you two were practically making out on the table.” She jutted her jaw and shook her head. “I was convenient for you, Bobby, until I wasn’t. And I deserved better. So, I turned around and left and decided I’d never think about you again.” Her voice cracked with that last utterance and she hoped he didn’t realize that last part was only half true.
Robert folded his hands in front of him and dropped his head. Damn right, you can’t look at me. Her breathing quickened. She’d waited so long to say those things, thought she’d never get the chance to say them, and there was an intense yet momentary relief at having said them. Momentary because she still had the most important thing yet left to say.
Roberts shoulders lifted and then dropped quickly with a heavy whoosh of his breath. When he looked up, he wasn’t contrite. He seethed.
“You’ve got your nerve. You been holding on to that, excuse me, that bullshit, all this time?”
“Bullshit?”
“You heard me. That’s one hell of a selective memory you have. How convenient for you that it allowed you to script me as the bad guy in whatever drama you built in your head.”
“Hold on—”
“No, you hold on, Izzy. I liked you.” He paused. “More than you knew. But I could never tell you that. Because I couldn’t…no, I wouldn’t, let myself get too close to you.”
“Let me guess. Because you were scared, right? The idea of it was all just too terrifying? God, I’m so sick of men using that nonsense.”
“You’re Goddamned right I was scared, Izzy. You know why?”
Isabel leaned in and scrunched up her face. “Commitment? Giving up all the other tail?”
“Your father.”
Isabel sat back.
“Those nights in my apartment that you disdain so much now? Clearly, and conveniently I might add, you’re forgetting why we spent so much time there. You were living at home at the time. Are you forgetting what you told me about your father?”
Isabel’s cheeks went prickly. She tucked a stray ringlet of hair behind her ear. “No, I remember.”
“When we were seeing more of each other. When things got serious. Jesus, you laughed about it, Izzy. ‘My Dad would answer the door with a gun if I came home with a black guy.’ Like it was a game to you. Asked me if it wasn’t more exciting knowing it was kind of dangerous. As if it wouldn’t actually happen. You remember that part? Or
is that too inconvenient?”
Isabel pressed her lips together and nodded.
“For Christ’s sake, Izzy, the man was a retired cop. I didn’t go out in public with you because, yes, I was terrified. I didn’t know who you knew, and I damn sure didn’t know who your father knew. But for you, it was like some adventure. Like I was some kind of forbidden fruit. Sure, you might catch hell if he found out, but that was the worst you had to fear. Not me. I had a hell of a lot more to be afraid of.
“I tried, Izzy, I tried really hard. All the nights we spent together might have been at my place, but if you remember, there were a lot of nights. Because despite how afraid I was, I honestly wanted to see if there was a way. But every minute I spent with you, I couldn’t think about anything else but the consequences. Eventually, that got to be too much. I knew there was no future for us. I couldn’t commit to that. So, I didn’t.”
He sipped his drink and looked off to the side. Isabel twirled her glass in the puddle of condensation beneath it, looking up only long enough to see if he was looking at her. When he turned back towards her, she dropped her chin again.
“Maybe I should have told you,” he continued, “but a big part of me was so embarrassed. How could I be a man and tell you I was afraid? It was easier not to face it. I didn’t want to be scared, to have who I loved be dictated by fear. Another part of me, though, wished that you’d realize what that fear must have been like for me. And yeah, I guess I was angry that you didn’t, and so maybe being with the other girls was because I wanted you to feel some of that same hurt. It wasn’t right, I know that, and for that I’m sorry. But only for that.”
Robert blew out another rush of air. Isabel sat hands by her side, blinking back tears, looking off into nothingness in a post-concussive daze, rocked by the revelation.
He was right. About all of it.
She’d been selfish, unable to look past her own ability to not to have to think about the things he had no choice to, and in doing so, she made him the villain. A conscienceless lothario who didn’t deserve to know about his child. She opened her mouth reflexively to apologize but no words seemed adequate. Robert looked at her expectantly, but she said nothing, only closed her mouth again.