“He’s lapsed into a coma. It’s the only possible explanation,” Elizabeth said. “Have you checked the hospitals?”
The lawn chair creaked and I experienced a momentary stab of fright as I remembered how the last chair had snapped in two when Robert and I were lying on top of it together, five nights ago.
“So that’s why men say they’re going to call and don’t. You’ve finally given me the answer to one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. Thank you, Elizabeth.”
“Sarcasm does not become you,” said Elizabeth.
“I think I blew it with both of them.”
“Both of them? Are you talking about the hypothetical roofer too? What’s going on with him?”
“Well, during my last salsa lesson we made love. It was great, fantastic actually. But then I freaked out.”
“Why?” she demanded.
“I don’t know.” I told her. “The dancing can get pretty hot and it’s easy to mix things ... It’s hard to think when I’m with him. It might be one of those mini crushes that don’t even count.”
I had to admit this sounded plausible, but truthfully, even I didn’t believe what I’d just told her. Javier had also said he’d call me and hadn’t, which had upset me far more than I’d expected.
“But I thought you liked Robert?” asked Elizabeth.
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “Sometimes, Robert feels like the right guy for me. But I think I’m afraid to let myself fall for him. The whole thing reminds me too much of David,” I said. I stood up and started pacing the balcony.
“Have you slept with Robert?”
“No.
“So, you made love with the roofer and not with Robert. Doesn’t that tell you something about your true feelings?” said Elizabeth.
“I wish someone would just tell me what to do,” I said.
“Oh no,” she said in the tone of a surgeon unexpectedly finding cancer during a routine appendectomy.
“Oh no, what?” I asked.
“You’re going to do it again;” she said. “You’re going to agree to marry the wrong man.”
“What?” I cried, but I knew in my heart that I couldn’t laugh off whatever Elizabeth was about to tell me. Over the years, she had demonstrated time and again an uncanny, practically paranormal ability to give dead-on accurate advice. Even more disconcerting was her ability to figure out for me what I was thinking when I couldn’t do it for myself.
“Sam, I’m going to be brutally honest with you,” Elizabeth said. “I don’t think you ever really loved David. He wasn’t right for you and on some level you knew that. But you agreed to marry him anyway because it was easier to give in to the pressure your mother has put on you your whole life to marry the so-called perfect guy, than to go on being single and wait for the right person.”
“You’re wrong, I loved David,” I said defiantly.
But in that instant I realized that I had never before looked at my relationship with him from that angle. I’d always focused on the fact that he was the one who hadn’t loved me. Was it possible I hadn’t loved him either?
Time had done its usual trick of erasing the bad memories and replacing them with only the good. But there had been warning signs. We’d had a lot of arguments during our last few months together, and had stopped having the long talks we’d had when we’d first started going out. Suddenly he was busy all the time at work, even busier than usual. And there were certain things he refused to talk about, ever. Like his ex-fiancee who’d broken his heart two years before we’d met and something that had happened to him at summer camp when he was thirteen. But I’d thought it was just my own wedding jitters instead of admitting to myself what I knew in my heart of hearts, that he really hadn’t been the right man for me all along.
“Don’t you remember how you complained that he was a workaholic?” Elizabeth continued. “That he was too selfish with himself and his time? That he didn’t really listen to you or understand you?”
While I tended to take a forget-and-forget-again attitude toward the low points of my life, I could always depend on Elizabeth to remember all of them in excruciating detail, which she conveniently dredged up from her encyclopedic memory under the file: Samantha Jacobs’s Bloopers and Blunders.
“And you haven’t forgotten the pre-nup, have you?” asked Elizabeth.
When David had first sprung the big P on me a couple weeks after our engagement, I couldn’t believe it. I was hurt and insulted. He had tried to appease me by telling me that it was really his parents, from whom he stood to inherit millions, who wanted it, not him. But I had known it was really his mother who was behind the whole thing. She’d never liked me and thought I wasn’t good enough for him. I’d balked. We’d argued. I’d accused him of being a momma’s boy. But a month later, I had given in and signed it; feeling like our life together was over before it had even started.
“With David you took the easy way out, you settled,” Elizabeth said.
“Settled? You’re always saying I’m too picky.”
“You’re that too,” said Elizabeth.
“How can I be both?” I asked in a haughty tone as if to say, surely you must be discussing some other totally screwed-up human being.
“Okay, what’s wrong with the roofer?” she asked.
“His name is Javier Lora and there’s nothing wrong with him,” I said quickly. “He’s kind and gentle and smart and wonderful. Except he’s ... well my assignment ...”
“Fuck your assignment! What do you want?”
There was nothing quite as shocking as hearing someone you have never heard swear before, say, out of the multitude of choices available, the F-word in particular. More than anything, this told me quite clearly how upset Elizabeth was, and how much she cared about me.
What did I want? I had no idea what I wanted, but at least I was insightful enough to recognize that I didn’t know. I should get some credit from the universe for that, at least, shouldn’t I? Actually, what I wanted was for the higher being who ruled the universe to hand me a schedule of exactly what I should do with the rest of my life, every second of it mapped out, no room for choice, freedom, or any of that other crap that people fought wars and died for.
“I want more time to think,” I told her. “I’ve got Elaine breathing down my neck. I’ve got my mother calling me every other day and asking me questions like should we go with chocolate cosmos or calla lilies for the guys’ boutonnieres. Am I the only one who sees that there is no guy?”
“Sam, calm down. You have all the time in the world,” said Elizabeth serenely.
“All the time in the world?” I exploded. “What are you talking about? It’s only six weeks until Labor Day.”
“That’s an artificial deadline,” she said.
Just then my Call Waiting beeped.
“Sam, stop letting other people and events decide your life for you. Please don’t do anything that you don’t want to do. Promise?”
“I promise,” I told her, and then switched to the other call. “Hello?”
“I want to know what’s going on with your widower from the video dating service, what’s his name, Richard? Ralph?”
“Robert. Robert Mack,” I said to Elaine, who was apparently unfamiliar with customary telephone greetings.
“Yes, Robert. How are things going with him?”
“Fabulous. Things couldn’t be better.”
I was getting really good at lying—too good. Of course I was doing it over the phone. Lying was nothing I’d ever had any success at before this summer. I’ve been told my entire life that I have one of those faces that is so expressive and easy to read that I might as well have digital tickertape affixed to my forehead giving a running readout of my every thought and emotion.
“Why hasn’t he proposed yet?” she snapped, and then without waiting for an answer asked another question. “How many dates do you have lined up for the next week?” she asked.
“A few,” I said. “At least two. I�
��d have to check my calendar. But I also have the singles cooking class and Three-Minute Dating.”
“What happened to the guy you met playing volleyball?” asked Elaine.
Joe, the M&M engineer/sports/music fanatic, was probably in the hospital bed next to Robert, another tragic coma victim.
“He never called.”
It felt good to tell the truth, even about something trivial.
“My dear, why is this so difficult for you?” she asked, her voice dripping with saintly understanding and concern, as if to say, tell me about your troubles, bare your soul to me, trust me. And in that moment I wanted to believe I was seeing a new side of Elaine. I wanted to break down and tell her everything, that I didn’t know if I’d ever see Robert again, and that I thought Javier could be the right guy for me, and mostly that I felt lost and alone and confused. But of course, I couldn’t trust her. “Could your problem, my dear, be ...” she paused, “men?”
“I don’t have a problem with men,” I said with a carefree chuckle, knowing that this was precisely the single most troublesome area of my life.
“I’m afraid you do, my dear,” Elaine said, “and if I’d known that, I would’ve found someone else for this assignment.”
A chill ran down my spine. She’d said it casually, as if we were discussing something insignificant like a three-cent postage stamp price hike, instead of something very near and dear to my heart, the continuation of a steady paycheck and finally getting my column, “La Vie.”
“But there was no one else,” I protested. “I’m the only single woman over ...”
Elaine cut off my words with a snort. Of course there were other never-married women over forty. Not at Tres Chic. But there were freelance writers, hundreds, maybe even thousands across the country who fit the over-forty, reasonably attractive, and never-married status needed for this assignment. And at that moment, a cold fear gripped me, as I realized just how precarious my situation was. Maybe it wasn’t too late to get a freelancer to take over this assignment? No one knew that the Mystery Woman was I. Elaine wouldn’t stoop that low, would she? Of course she would. She’d sell her own mother for a buck.
“You’re not going to pull this off, are you?” she said in a hyper calm tone that instantly turned my bowels to jelly. “I want results, Samantha, and I want them yesterday or don’t bother coming back to clean out your desk.”
Click!
I’d completely forgotten about Joe the M&M engineer until Elaine had asked about him. That made three men who’d told me they were going to call and hadn’t.
It seemed about the only absolute positive in my life was salsa. While dancing, my worries, my fears, and all of my thoughts—except trying to follow the man I was dancing with and doing the proper footwork—just fell away. Salsa was keeping me sane, but was so much more than that. Nothing I’d ever experienced before had made me feel so shockingly alive and utterly joyful.
Javier and Robert hadn’t called, and I could be on the verge of losing my job. I needed a heavy dose of the best antidepressant on the market. I jumped up and got ready to go out. An hour later I walked into Club Cubana.
I didn’t see Javier when I walked in, but didn’t have time to look for him since an older man in his late fifties immediately took my hand and led me to the dance floor. Although the tempo of the salsa song was fast, we were moving much slower than the other couples on the dance floor. His style was fluid arid so smooth it felt more like ice-skating than dancing. Although I preferred a faster pace, I was thrilled that I’d been able to follow his lead.
After we’d finished dancing, I saw Javier coming toward me. My heart leapt at the sight of him.
“Sam, I’m sorry I didn’t call you,” he said, taking hold of my hands. “I want to talk to you. Let’s go out to the balcony.”
The air was chilled and the balcony was empty. We leaned against the railing, facing each other. It felt so good to be with him.
“I’m so happy you’re here tonight,” Javier said. “I was worried you might have regretted what happened when we were together the other day.”
“Javier, I ...”
“I know I’m not the kind of guy you usually date, Sam,” he continued. “But to tell you the truth, you’re not the kind of woman I’ve ever been with before. But when I’m with you everything seems right. I feel like we were ...”
“Javier ...”
“Sam, please let me finish.” Javier moved closer and clasped my hand to his chest. “Well, I guess I’ll just say it. I love you, Sam.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I do,” he said, and then he broke out into a huge grin, flashing his dimple.
As Javier brought my hand up to his lips, I sensed someone watching us, and turning, saw Sebastian Diaz staring at us. But I felt an unmistakable, intense gaze coming from the person behind him, whom I couldn’t quite see because Sebastian’s massive body partially blocked him. Then he stepped out of the shadows.
I felt faint, although I’ve never fainted before so I’m just guessing this was how it felt, like someone had drilled a hole in my head and filled it with formaldehyde. In slow motion my brain processed what my eyes were claiming they saw. But it didn’t seem possible. I’d never told Robert about Cubana, and what were the chances that the very man I’d been thinking about for five days would magically appear? Had he followed me here?
My heart dropped to my stomach, did several back flips, and then ended up in two different places, half of it on the northern side of the balcony with Javier, the other half on the southern side with Robert. I had never before felt so torn between two men. There was every logical reason in the world for me to join Robert. He was everything Elaine and my mother had in mind for me. But...
“Let’s dance, Sam. We haven’t danced all night,” Javier said, grabbing my hand and leading me out to the dance floor. When I looked back over my shoulder, Robert hadn’t moved.
I heard the music playing, and oh shit! It was the dance that dare not speak its name—bachata.
Javier pulled me close, much closer than he’d ever danced with me before in public. Maybe he was caught up in the emotions of what he’d just told me and didn’t care that he’d temporarily abandoned his usual professionalism. He moved his hands up to my head, cradling it as if he were holding an expensive piece of crystal. Then he bent me back in a dip that induced temporary amnesia.
I felt my leg slipping between Javier’s as he squeezed it tight between his thighs. Of course I was upset about Robert, but weirdly, all I could think about as our cheeks pressed together was how good it felt to be with Javier. And normally he didn’t wear cologne, but tonight he was wearing a scent that was musky and animal sexy.
At the exact moment the middle of my naked right thigh was pressed up against Javier’s nether regions and we moved up and down in rhythm to the music, I glimpsed Robert and Sebastian skirting along the edge of the dance floor. At least a half dozen dancing couples blocked a solid view of them. I caught them only in pieces—a shoulder, a strong chin, a set of distressed eyes. But then the sea parted long enough for me to catch a full view of Robert, who stared at me, looking more shocked than anything else. Then the two of them disappeared down the stairs.
Easing my way back into a semi-lucid state, I told Javier I had to run to the bathroom. I darted downstairs to catch Robert. I had to explain. But he was gone.
I walked back inside Cubana, standing at the door for a moment wondering what I should do.
“Looking for someone?” asked a voice suddenly at my side, and I saw Sebastian towering over me.
“Yes, a friend of mine,” I said.
“Who? Maybe I can help.”
“Robert, Robert Mack.”
“Who?” Sebastian asked again, in a silky-smooth voice.
“The man you were talking to on the balcony. The one you just walked downstairs with,” I said. Why did I always feel, while talking to Sebastian, like a trout that was trying valiantly to paddle upstream to spawn, but
kept swimming into the rocks?
“Oh, he’s just somebody I bumped into at the bar. Actually, he asked me a few questions about you and Javier, and seemed to get quite edgy. Is he a close friend of yours?”
“How would that be any of your business?” I said a little too sharply.
“I didn’t mean to pry,” he said, and then, with an almost imperceptible nod, like an obsequious butler, he walked away, leaving me feeling guilty for being rude to him, which was all the more infuriating since I had never liked the man to begin with.
I walked back upstairs. Javier was dancing, but stopped in mid-dance, something he’d never done before, and came directly over to me. He pulled me back out to the balcony, which was once again empty.
“Sam, is everything okay?” He slipped his arms around my waist.
“Well, I need to tell you something, Javier, something I should’ve told you before the other day happened,” I said. What I had to say was hard enough, but was made all the more difficult by our close physical proximity. I didn’t want to do this but I had no choice.
“Javier, I’ve been dating quite a bit this summer and there is ... there’s a man that I started seeing before you, and I got involved and I need, I mean I want to see where things go with him.”
Javier stepped back from me. He looked upset and surprised. I felt terrible. I shouldn’t have let things go so far with him. The last thing I wanted to do was to hurt him.
He just stood there. I wished he would say something, anything.
“I need to get back to work,” he said finally, and then walked back inside.
I knew that this was the right thing to do. I liked Robert and wanted to see where things could go with him. So why did I feel like I’d just made one of the biggest mistakes of my life?
Fourteen
Cheer Up, Listen to the Blues
—If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all,
Adventures of a Salsa Goddess Page 19