Alvo said, “I wonder if they ever took a survey: How many Albanian guys and girls had their first sex in a bunker?”
Lula said, “Did you just read my mind, or what?”
“Really?” said Alvo. “That’s beautiful.” Without taking his hands off the wheel, he bumped his elbow against hers. “You know what? One of my cousins brought me this little vial of water from a spring somewhere in Bosnia. Male water, they call it. Supposed to be Balkan Viagra.”
“Do you need it?” Lula asked.
“Not the last time I checked,” Alvo said.
Lula saw searchlights raking the sky above an industrial wasteland, beacons to guide their smooth landing in front of a one-story building on which red and green and silver lights spelled out “Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.” Another string of bulbs outlined a double-headed eagle over the door.
“I’ve heard of this place,” said Lula.
“Who hasn’t?” Alvo said.
Two guys in bow ties lunged for the doors of the Lexus, but Alvo waved them off until he and Lula got out and he surrendered the keys.
“Valet parking sucks,” Alvo said. “Paying some stranger to screw with your seat adjustment and mirrors. But in this neighborhood you need somebody to kneecap the junkie before he smashes your window for the pocket change stuck in the seat.”
A squad of gigantic bouncers guarded the entrance, checking IDs and exuding random intimidation. One of them recognized Alvo and cleared a tunnel through which Alvo led Lula, a gauntlet of arm-punches and shoulder thumps that Alvo good-humoredly endured while Lula succumbed to the dizzying high of specialness and privilege. Which other girls had Alvo come here with? It almost spoiled her good mood to think about Alvo’s life before her.
Lula saw a security guard holding a girl at arm’s length, laughing as her flailing arms and fists bounced off his puffed-out chest.
“Spit on me?” he was saying. “What kind of way is that for a nice Albanian girl to behave?”
The coat check girl looked hard at Lula to see how she’d wound up with Alvo. Lula wanted to tell her: chemistry. For some reason she thought of Savitra asking if she’d had sex with Don Settebello. What did Lula know about Alvo’s past? She knew nothing about his present.
A blast of noise blew these reflections straight out of Lula’s head. As Alvo guided her into the crowd, Lula remembered why this feeling—too many people, too much sound, not enough oxygen, not enough room, a barrage of intense sensation bombarding your heart and belly—was something you might want. Sparks leaped from body to body, each body in a bubble yet paradoxically hyperaware of every other body nearby. It was a highly diluted but still arousing version of the wordless language two bodies speak when they are about to have sex.
As they moved away from the door, the space was less tightly packed, and indeed the dance floor had the forlorn air of a wedding before the party gets rocking. An invisible DJ shouted, “Let’s slow it down!” as if it weren’t slow enough already, and a soul singer crooned a ballad. A few couples, newlyweds or newly engaged, danced closely, half entranced and half convincing the world and themselves of their passionate future together.
“Let’s get a drink,” said Alvo, again reading Lula’s mind. He found an empty corner and told Lula to wait. He’d forgotten to ask what she wanted. Or maybe it was a guy thing, profoundly cave man and Bronx. You not only ordered for your date but you told her what she liked.
Alvo vanished into the strobe-swept darkness. What if he never came back? How long did Lula have to wait before she called a taxi? There were plenty of single guys here. She could dance, have fun, maybe even find another guy to take her home. But there was no one she wanted to meet. She wanted to be with Alvo. He wouldn’t do that to her on Christmas Eve. No one would stoop that low. No one, that is, but Ginger.
At last she spotted Alvo bobbing toward her with a shot glass in each hand. “Sorry it took me so long. I ran into this crazy dude who wanted to start a big fight. He claims we installed his air conditioner backward, and it blew dirt and soot and garbage all over his little baby. Now he wants us to reinstall it—”
“I thought you did commercial construction,” Lula said.
“We do,” he said. “Like I told you. The dude’s hallucinating. This one’s yours. G’zoor.”
“G’zoor.” Lula took a sip. Raki, the drink of good-bye and hello, of congratulation and consolation. Lula didn’t think of herself as a nationalistic person. Mostly, in her experience, country was like religion, an excuse to hate other people and feel righteous about it. But then there was raki. Raki was Albania, it had that special taste. Even Albanians with no sentimental attachment to their home country brightened and got teary-eyed when the talk turned to raki. They got high just hearing the word.
“Mother’s milk,” said Alvo.
“Delirium in a glass,” Lula said.
“Hell, yeah. Whoever said money can’t buy happiness never got into the top-of-the-line mulberry raki.”
“I like the walnut,” Lula said.
“That works too,” said Alvo. “Expensive.”
Lula was trying to figure out what else to say about raki when a blare of static rattled the loudspeakers, and the music turned Albanian. A man sang about a woman he couldn’t forget, while behind him the clarinets tried to cheer him up. The volume climbed, while the sinuous thumping of the electronic drum cast a spell on the crowd and dragged the enchanted ones toward the dance floor.
“Another drink?” Alvo asked.
“I’ve still got some.” But oddly, Lula’s glass appeared to have emptied itself. “Sure, why not?” She smiled.
“That’s my girl.” Alvo plunged off toward the bar against the incoming tide of merrymakers.
His girl? Had Lula heard right? It meant nothing besides approval of the pace at which she was drinking. He could have said, My man. Yet she no longer worried that he wouldn’t return. She leaned against a wall that seemed to be keeping time with the drum and watched people approach the dance floor as if it were a pool into which they were either about to dive or venture one big toe.
It had been so long since she’d seen Albanian dancing. She’d forgotten how it made you want to join the line even if you were cool and modern and over Albanian dancing. So much individual soul was poured into the simple steps, men and women, young and old, married, single, fat, thin. No one wore the stiff mask of vacancy or anxiety that Lula had so often seen on the faces of Americans inventing their own dances, trying to seem unself-conscious even as they labored to telegraph a message about confidence, sexuality, and whether they were available or taken. How stressful it was when Americans paired off in Noah’s ark couples, performing rhythmic preludes or aftermaths to sex, or danced in groups of girls, never groups of guys, writhing, distanced from the bodies they were showing off. Albanians just grabbed the last hand in line and let the music take charge.
Lula was dancing in place when Alvo returned with more raki. As they toasted each other, Alvo smiled so widely that his gold tooth sparkled at her, only at her. Alvo eased in beside her and bumped ever so slightly to the music. When his hip brushed hers she longed to rub against him like a cat.
Luckily, they had double rakis to finish before they had to decide whether to join the dancing, which, as luck would have it, stopped, giving them more time to figure out what to do next. A set of curtains opened, and a guy in a white suit bounded onto a low stage. His first “Good evening” in English and Albanian elicited manic applause. He slipped between languages, playing to both sides, the older people who clung to their native tongue and the kids who’d never learned it. But everyone understood and loved his patter about old friends and new friends, brothers and sisters, all family here tonight. More applause for the names of the stars who’d be entertaining them this evening, and for each of the beautiful cities in which the talent had performed. The applause built as two men, also in white suits, tried out the keyboards, one of which sounded like a clarinet and the other like a drum. The host
whipped the audience into a frenzy of welcome for the singer, who strutted out nonchalantly, as if frantic clapping was the background noise of her everyday existence. Then her bright red mouth exploded in smiles, and she bowed from the waist and blew kisses.
Black as Zeke’s, but varnished to a high gloss, the singer’s hair framed her face in question marks. Curls spilled over the shoulders of her white dress, which had gauzy sleeves and pearl flowers like a wedding gown, only with a miniskirt stretched tightly across her belly. White boots rose up to meet it, exposing a long expanse of thigh, fit and tan in the dead of winter, though her face and hands were pale.
“Miss Ada Culpi!” yelled the MC, and the singer curled her arms, palms up, asking, asking. She sang to each person in the crowd, begging each kind soul to advise her, to tell her what to do about the man she loved but who didn’t love her. No one believed this guy didn’t love her, but her voice reminded them of every time they’d felt what she was pretending to feel. Lula had never felt that way. Then she remembered Alvo and thought she might be about to start now. She glanced at Alvo, steeling herself for the sight of entranced, hormonal male rapture. Instead he shook his head and shrugged, eloquently conveying his adorable opinion that Miss Ada Culpi was a little much. His shrug said he preferred more normal, less outrageous women like . . . well, like Lula!
Ada Culpi reached for the audience, grabbing them, pulling them in, signaling that the only way they could soothe her broken heart was by dancing. A few people, then a few more, formed a line, and the line of dancers grew long enough to coil once and then again. By now there were two rows, a men’s line and a women’s line facing one another.
Lula took Alvo’s empty raki glass, set both glasses on a ledge, then led him onto the dance floor. The women’s line grabbed Lula just as the men’s line, led by a guy twirling a red scarf embroidered with a double-headed eagle, yanked Alvo the opposite way. Lula had drunk precisely enough to feel loose but not too loose as the steps came back to her, as natural as walking but less isolated and boring. Why should this seem so pleasant to a person like herself, a person who hated chorus lines, military parades, anything in lockstep? She liked the music, and she liked knowing what to do with her body in response to the drum beat and the hysterical clarinet.
A girl with purple eyelids held one hand, a middle-aged woman the other. The woman smiled, but not the girl. Lula trusted them both enough to briefly close her eyes. Alvo was out there somewhere. No need to fear he’d left the club or found a prettier girl to dance with. They were all dancing together, Lula and Alvo among them. As the lines spooled and twisted, Lula caught sight of Alvo, taller than most of the men. Alvo could dance, it turned out. Confidently, but not arrogantly, his back straight, his head held high. How handsome he was, and how glad she was to be here with him. Why should she care about a gun, some moody weirdness, a certain lack of clarity about what he did for a living? And okay, some low-level stalking.
Did Alvo see her? She couldn’t tell. She watched his line snake closer until he was opposite her. He saw her. They looked at each other. That was that. Nothing needed to be discussed, not even inside her own head. Lula loved how the voice of sex drowned out all the other voices, the naggings of reason and common sense, shyness and hesitation. Desire and inevitability were the only voices left, and their interesting questions were the only questions: How and when? When and where? Would it be easy or awkward?
Alvo and Lula danced past one another and looked back, not caring who was watching. Alvo’s line turned a corner, so that his back was to Lula, who peered around the dancers between them. There was nothing to do but keep dancing.
At last the music ended. The singer said, “Falemenderit. Thank you thank you thank you,” and a storm of blown kisses rained down on the dancers, who regretfully dropped each other’s hands so they could applaud.
Alvo found Lula and put his arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the exit. He produced a bill and a claim check and gave them to the coat girl, who sensed that this was not the moment for another competitive whole-body appraisal of Lula. They headed out into the cold night, which warmed up when Alvo grabbed Lula and kissed her right in front of the door. The bouncers whistled and cheered. Alvo handed over the parking ticket, then drew Lula into the shadows and kissed her with such force that it took several horn blasts from the valet to detach them long enough to get into the SUV.
Before leaning over to kiss her again, Alvo considerately pushed the buttons that heated the seats, and the warmth beneath Lula flowed into the warmth inside her. It must have started snowing, because Lula was dimly aware of the sigh of the windshield wipers.
“Merry white Christmas,” Alvo said.
“Merry white Christmas to you,” said Lula.
Alvo shook himself like a wet dog as he separated from Lula. As he drove, he yanked at his clothing with a shy embarrassed smile at some secret he had with himself, a secret that, Lula concluded happily, must be a massive hard-on. After a few blocks, he pulled over and parked on the formerly scary industrial street that now seemed private and romantic.
They kissed and pressed against each other as closely as the console between them allowed. Pausing for breath, Lula watched, from a momentary remove, passion locked in a heated argument with her sensible reluctance to have sex for the first time with Alvo in a vehicle, even one as roomy as this. It was awkward enough in bed, with every creature comfort helping you over the various hurdles, zippers and bra hooks and first seeing the other person naked.
“Not here,” her sweet Lancelot murmured.
“No, not here,” agreed Lula.
“My place,” Alvo said. Then he slapped himself on the forehead and said, “Look how you’ve messed with my head. I forgot the Vlorë cousins.”
Lula had messed with his head. His desire for her—for her!—had erased three entire cousins. Lula waited for Alvo to suggest a hotel. It couldn’t seem like her idea, even if it was. She didn’t want to look like a degenerate slut who did this all the time.
Typing into the GPS, Alvo said, “She’ll tell us a hotel.” Then he said, “Motherfucker. I don’t have a credit card. This friend of mine got his wallet boosted at a club. Five round-trip tickets to the DR charged before he called it in. So now I only bring cash and my driver’s license. I could pay you back—”
“I don’t have a credit card,” Lula said. “I don’t even have cash.”
“Big problem,” said Alvo, then kissed her again, as if that might solve the problem. After a while Lula heard herself say, “We could go to Mister Stanley’s.”
“And what?” Alvo said. “Introduce myself? Hi, I’m a friend of your nanny’s?”
Lula said, “They’ll be asleep. But we’ll have to be very quiet.”
“Silent as death,” Alvo said. Lula wondered if it was possible to literally faint from desire. Probably not if you were sitting down. As Alvo started the motor again, Lula rested one hand on his thigh. Brushing against his groin, the backs of her knuckles confirmed her pleasant suspicions. She would have to make sure that Alvo left before Mister Stanley woke up.
Alvo groaned softly. “Wait. Slippery weather. I need to concentrate on the road.”
Lula sat back and closed her eyes. That last double shot of raki had affected her more than she’d realized. Probably it would sober her up to focus on the challenge ahead: finding the quietest route to her room and figuring out what she would say if by some chance Mister Stanley or Zeke was still awake, waiting to catch Santa Claus squeezing down the chimney.
Alvo said, “Tonight is why God invented four-wheel drive.”
The alcohol almost persuaded Lula that this might be the time to broach the subject of Alvo breaking into Mister Stanley’s when she wasn’t there. This time we’ll sneak in together, she’d say.
Only at the last minute did better judgment prevail. Suppose it hadn’t been Alvo? He might change his mind about getting naked and defenseless in a house where stalkers wrote Balkan stories on computers and showe
red, uninvited. As Alvo sped down the icy highway, Lula reminded herself to observe how he acted at Mister Stanley’s, to see if he gave any sign of having been there before and knowing how to get to her room without her having to show him.
Alvo took the Baywater exit, then parked, and they kissed some more. By the time he started the car again, Lula’s hesitations had vanished.
Mister Stanley’s windows were dark, except for the outside light he’d left on for Lula. She told Alvo to wait behind the tree and crept around to the window to make sure that no one was sipping delicious cold water at the fridge.
All clear! She gave Alvo the thumbs-up sign, unlocked the door, and pushed him away so he wouldn’t be groping her till they were safe in her room. Stealth came easily to Alvo. For such a forceful guy, he could be quiet as a kitten. Lula forgot to watch and see whether he knew the way.
She opened the door to her room. What was that smell? Musty, yeasty, with an edge of organic rot. Mice died in the walls in Tirana. Did that happen in New Jersey? Of course. But why now, why here, why on this night of all nights when she had found a guy she liked and was bringing him home? What would Alvo think of her? Maybe he wouldn’t notice. She pulled him inside and shut the door. Light shone in from the street. Lula lowered the shade and switched her night lamp on low. She knew men liked to see. In the dark, the costly underwear would have been for nothing.
“What’s that smell?” asked Alvo.
Lula said, “The kid’s pet rabbit escaped and had babies inside the wall.”
Alvo said, “I always wondered how bunnies have so many babies.”
“Let’s find out,” said Lula.
“Not the baby part,” Alvo said warily.
“Of course not,” Lula said.
Alvo sat on the edge of the bed, spread his knees, and eased her toward him. The sweetness and the expertise Alvo put into his kisses made Lula feel hopeful about the immediate future. Of course there was fear and nervousness, that was part of the high. The silk panties were a brilliant touch. A nice surprise for Alvo.
My New American Life Page 18