Ma clucks her tongue. “I always thought you and your sisters would open a restaurant someday.”
“Yeah, well, they went ahead and did that without me, but that’s all right. You’ve tried my cooking before.” I smirk, thinking about the time I made the family tacos but forgot the seasoning. For years they refused to let me live that down. I never stepped foot inside the kitchen again after that. “I brought you some dinner. You hungry?”
Rising, I head to the kitchen, grabbing the hearts of palm salad I ordered from her favorite Brazilian steakhouse down the street as well as a bottle of water, her evening meds, and a tin TV tray.
When I return to her room, she’s situated in her corner chair, flicking through TV stations on the thirty-inch TV perched on top of her hand-me-down dresser. After a minute, she settles on Jeopardy, and then her eyes flicker. Ma struggles to stay awake but she fights through it.
“Thank you, meu amor,” she says when I situate her dinner before her. Lifting her hand to my face once more, she smiles. “You’re so good to me, Isaiah. I don’t deserve you.”
“Ma, don’t say that. You deserve tudo. You deserve everything.”
Once upon a time she was a vibrant woman who couldn’t sit still for more than two minutes and taught her American-born children every Brazilian lullaby she could remember. With a contagious laugh, long dark hair down her back, and a wardrobe full of bright, happy colors, Alba Torres was the loudest person in the room, literally and figuratively. Her enthusiasm for life was nothing short of infectious and her five-foot two frame could barely contain her enormous personality.
And then she got sick.
But someone’s got to take care of her, and it sure as hell hasn’t been my siblings. They only do shit when they have to—which is when I’m gone.
I’ll admit my oldest sister, Calista, tends to carry the brunt of the load in my absence, but she’s also raising four kids while her husband works two jobs, so I tend to cut her some slack.
“What are you doing the rest of the week?” she asks. “Anything special?”
I shrug. I’ll mostly be biding my time. “A little of this. A little of that.”
Ma rolls her eyes, returning her sleepy gaze to Alex Trebek. “Always so secretive, my Isaiah.”
“No secrets here. Just trying to stay busy.”
“With women and booze?” she asks, lifting a dark brow.
“Is that what you think I do in my spare time?” I pretend to be offended, though we both know she isn’t wrong. I had every intention of hitting up the sports bar down the street tonight … tomorrow night … and the next.
Maybe even the night after that.
That’s the beauty of being a lone wolf. Your life is one-hundred percent yours and you can do whatever the hell you damn well please.
“I’d like to think you’re volunteering at a homeless shelter or cleaning up litter on the highway, but I know you.” She reaches for a fork before glancing at her salad. “Maybe one of these days you’ll meet someone nice and then you’ll finally stop playing around and wasting the best years of your life on strangers who don’t deserve you.”
“You worry too much.” I lean down, kissing the top of her head, which smells like stale, unwashed hair. I’ll have to call Calista over to help her shower soon. “I’m going to the grocery store. Your cupboards are empty.”
Her frail hand lifts to my cheek and her full mouth bends. “Don’t tell the others, but you’ve always been meu favorito.”
I smirk. “I know.”
My cart is overflowing, filled mostly with organic non-perishables. Unlike my siblings, I decided not to be a cheap ass. She deserves good quality food that’s not going to make her sicker than she already is, which is why I drove all the way to the Whole Foods in Brentwood instead of hitting up the discount grocer with the bars on the windows down the street from her apartment.
I count forty cans of soups and vegetables, twenty boxes of all-natural rice and pasta dinners, eight loaves of bread I intend to stick in the freezer, ten cartons of shelf-stable milk, and a few other necessities; mostly soaps and shampoos and paper products. Passing through the candy aisle, I grab a few bars of her favorite Mayan chocolate.
I didn’t earn the title of Alba Torres’ favorite child by accident.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m loaded up and headed back to her place, waiting at an infinite red light. Two green arrows light, allowing the left two lanes to go, but the rest of us are stuck waiting.
Checking my phone, I fire off a text to an old army friend who lives nearby, asking if he wants to get drinks later, but before I get a chance to press ‘send’ a metallic crunch fills my ears and my car lunges forward several feet, stopping the second it smashes into the back of a cherry red Mercedes Benz.
“Motherfucker.” I pound my hands on the steering wheel before stepping out, and by the time I head back to examine the damage, the driver who caused this mess is already there, crouched down with her hand grazing a section of her dented Prius bumper.
“The fuck is the matter with you?” A man in a gray suit is shouting at the two of us, his phone plastered against his face as his tawny complexion turns fifty shades of red.
“I’m so sorry, sir.” The girl rises, her hands cupping her face. “I saw the green light and I hit my gas. I didn’t realize it was only for the turn lanes. I wasn’t paying attention.”
I lift a finger to silence her. Clearly she’s never been in an accident before or she’d know not to accept the blame.
“Great. Now I’m going to miss my reservation.” He shakes his head, jaw clenched. “Hope you’re happy.”
“Man. Come on,” I say, tossing my hands in the air. “It was an accident. She apologized. Let’s do what we need to do here so we can all get on with our lives.”
Returning my attention to the bumper of my vintage Porsche 911T, I examine the deep scratches and blue paint remnants littering her once-pristine Carrara White bumper. As much as I, too, would like to berate this woman for forgetting how to fucking drive and denting up my most prized possession, I take a deep breath and gather myself. Last thing I want is to look like el douche bag over there in the Mercedes.
“Here you go.” The girl hands me her insurance card, and I grab my phone, taking a picture of the front and back before handing it over. Our hands graze in the process, and it’s only then that I finally get a good look at her.
Jesus Christ.
It’s the waitress.
From the pancake place.
The second our eyes lock, her expression suspends. She recognizes me too.
“You got your insurance card?” The huffy bastard interrupts us, practically yanking the little piece of paper from her hands. “You are insured, right?”
“Dude, calm the fuck down,” I tell him, head cocked.
“Don’t call me dude, you fucking prick, and don’t tell me to calm the fuck down,” he says, lips pulled into an ugly sneer. “Have you seen what your piece of shit did to my bumper?”
My “piece of shit” happens to be a 1969 Porsche 911T, of which there are only a few hundred left in the world. Actually, I found her in a junkyard years back and did the restore job myself in between deployments. She’s good as new, but if it makes him feel better to berate it, that’s on him.
“What an asshole,” the waitress whispers, hand cupping the side of her full mouth like we’re a couple of pals sharing a secret.
“You were texting and driving, weren’t you?” I ask. My hands rest at my hips and my brows furrow. Just because we’re both on the same page about this tool over here doesn’t mean we’re suddenly best friends.
She shakes her head, arms crossed. “I told you, I was looking at the wrong light.”
“My gas tank is in the front of my car,” I say. “You’re lucky you weren’t going any faster than you were.”
Dragging my palm along my jaw, I watch as the Mercedes asshat approaches a squad car pulling up to the scene. Cars that pass us honk, drivers r
olling down their windows and shouting profanities at us for holding up traffic. I don’t blame them. It’s five o’clock and people are trying to get home. It’s already bad enough without some stupid collision blocking the flow.
The officer talks to the disgruntled guy for a second before strutting our way, and I duck back into my car to grab my registration.
After statements are taken and information is exchanged, the Mercedes guy gets the fuck out of there and the waitress returns to her car and I to mine. Glancing into my rearview, I see she’s texting on her phone again.
Rolling my eyes, I reach toward the ignition and turn the keys.
Nothing.
I try again.
Still nothing.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” I press my head against the steering wheel. The second she hit me the first thing I thought about was the fact that my engine is just behind my rear axle, but when I examined the damage, it only appeared to be cosmetic.
The impact must’ve knocked something vital out of place.
Climbing out, I head back to the rear and pop the hood, hunching over the engine to see if anything looks amiss.
“Everything okay?” a female voice steals my attention. When I turn around, I find the waitress again.
“Obviously not.” I turn away. “Won’t start.”
“Oh, jeez. Let me call you a tow.” She grabs her phone and begins typing furiously into a search engine. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. You already said that. Earlier.”
I examine the distributor cap, then the fuel pump relay, which could easily trip on collision. No leaks on the ground yet and the coolant level looks good. I’m probably going to have to tear shit apart just to figure out what’s wrong—which is exactly how I wanted to spend the rest of my pre-deployment week …
“You need a ride home?” she asks.
Glancing at the mountain of grocery sacks taking up my passenger side, I know they’re all non-perishables, but I spent a pretty penny at Whole Foods and I’d like to get them to Mom’s as soon as possible on the off-chance I get hit by a bus … and judging by the way this day’s going, that’s not an unlikely possibility. I could call an Uber but I could be waiting here a while.
“Seriously, I’ll take you home,” she offers. “I feel awful about your car.” She leans closer. “I don’t feel bad about that other guy’s car though, just between us.”
The pretty waitress fights a smirk, but I don’t return one of my own. Nothing about this is funny.
“Okay, I take it back,” she says, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms. “Just trying to lighten the mood. And you have to admit that guy was a piece of work.”
A few minutes later, I close my rear hood and lean against my car. “You call a tow yet?”
She nods.
Forcing a hard breath through my nose, I shove my hands in my jeans pockets and wait. The waitress takes a seat on the hood of her Prius, her Lacoste-sneakered feet resting on the dented bumper while her chin sits in her hands. Her thick, dark hair is pulled back into a ponytail and her round, deep set eyes are an intense and distracting shade of mocha.
Despite the fact that she’s arguably drop dead gorgeous, she’s too perky for my taste, too chatty. Too effervescent.
And I’ve got more important things to worry about right now, like trying to figure out what the hell she did to my car.
“Tow will be here soon,” she calls out over a symphony of motors and horns. The weight of her stare is noticeable, but I couldn’t care less. Turning my attention to my phone, I waste the next twenty minutes on stupid internet sites and email before the tow truck arrives.
“The groceries in my front seat,” I say to her, pointing toward my car. “Grab them and put them in your trunk.”
She hops down, transferring brown paper bags to her Prius one-by-one as I eye the tow truck a few blocks away and hope to God it’s mine.
Five minutes later, I breathe a sigh of relief when he slows down and positions his truck in front of my baby.
By the time my 911T is loaded up and I hand off my key, the tension running through me is getting harder to ignore. It was easy to be cool about this shit an hour ago, when I assumed all I was dealing with were some scratches and paint. But now I’m fucking stranded in a city where everyone needs a car and my pride and joy wheels are going to sit in some oily mechanic’s parking lot overnight.
I tell the driver to haul it to my buddy’s shop in Pasadena, giving him the address, and I watch as my Porsche disappears into traffic on the back of a bright yellow truck with Tim’s Tow-n-Haul painted across the side.
“You ready?” the waitress asks, nodding toward her car.
Saying nothing, I climb into the passenger side, realizing I have no idea what her name is and fuck if I can remember what she said it was this morning at breakfast.
I had other things on my mind then.
I didn’t have time for niceties, small talk, or worrying about remembering the name of some woman I was never supposed to see again.
She flicks off her hazard lights and I retrieve my phone from my pocket, pulling up the image of her insurance card.
Maritza Claiborne.
“So where are we headed?” she asks, placing her phone in a cup holder. A palm tree air freshener hangs from her rearview and the fading scent of coconuts and pineapples fills the space.
“South-Central LA,” I say, my words dry, unapologetic.
She’s quiet at first, the silence palpable. Everyone around here knows you don’t go to South Central unless you have to. It isn’t the safest of places, but this time of day she should be fine as long as she’s in and out.
“Take a right at the next light,” I tell her.
It’s going to be a long hour, maybe longer depending on traffic, so I close my eyes and rest my head against the cool glass of the passenger window. Fortunately, being in the army my entire adult life has taught me how to sleep anywhere, any time with comfort being the least of my concerns.
“Thank you,” she says, her voice slicing through the quietude I was just beginning to enjoy, “for the tip earlier. It was really generous of you. I don’t always get a chance to thank people when they do that.”
I don’t open my eyes, instead I mumble a quick, “Yep.”
“Can I ask … why?” The car pulls to a sudden LA stop.
I open my eyes to make sure we’re not about to become minced meat. “Why what?”
“Why did you tip me a hundred dollars on a twenty-dollar tab?” she asks.
Shrugging, I sit up straight, accepting the fact that she’s probably one of those types who are going to want to talk the whole ride home. Some people just can’t handle silence. It’s like they don’t know what to do with it.
“Does it matter?” I ask.
Maritza turns to me, her dark eyes fanned with even darker lashes. “It’s just that you were so rude to me at first. I actually expected you to stiff me. So when you went in the complete opposite direction … it just caught me off guard.”
“I don’t know. Token of appreciation for bending the rules.”
“Not like I had a choice.” Her foot presses into the gas pedal and we start moving again. “You all but demanded I give you another pancake.”
“Turn left at the next light,” I tell her, changing the subject.
“For the record, I only caved because you were so damn persistent. And you’re military. I have a soft spot for you guys.”
People always mean well when they glorify you for serving in the military, for when they thank you for your service or offer you free things or discounts, but I’m not some saint and I don’t deserve any kind of special recognition.
I’ve only ever done what I had to do.
No credit is due.
I check the time. Forty more minutes to go.
A long forty more minutes.
“So are you still in the military?” she asks. “Active duty, I mean?”
“Yep. G
oing back to Afghanistan next week.”
“Do you ever get scared? Going there?” she asks. Her question feels way too personal to ask a complete stranger but I’m sort of stuck here, so …
“This is the wrong line of work if going over there scares you,” I say, releasing a hard breath. I’m not sure how this girl can crash into my Porsche and then act like we’re suddenly best friends having a heart-to-heart.
“How do you do it?” she asks, glancing my way for a second. “How do you not let it get to you?”
I’ll admit the first time was a little unnerving, not knowing what to expect, but a guy gets used to it, especially when he has no other choice.
“You block out the parts that make you feel the shit you don’t want to feel,” I say, shifting in my seat.
“Ah,” she says, hands gripping the steering wheel. “You’re one of those.”
“One of those?”
“Yeah. A macho-macho man,” she says, sinking her perfect teeth into her full lower lip as she fights a teasing smirk. “No emotion. No cares. Personality of steel.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is a bad thing. We owe it to ourselves to feel. To allow ourselves to be angry or sad or scared or whatever,” she says. “There’s beauty in feeling an entire spectrum of emotions in a world where everyone else is trying to numb themselves with drugs or alcohol or sorry excuses for love.”
If I allowed myself to feel everything all the time, it might send me on my own personal warpath and that wouldn’t be good for anyone. Been there, done that. Can’t do it again. I hurt way too many people—people that I cared about more than anything in this world.
“Take a left,” I say.
“I dated this one guy for, like, three years. Took me that long to realize he was always going to love his garage band more than me.” Maritza chuckles. It says a lot about a person who can laugh about wasting some of the best years of her life on some self-centered prick. She clicks on her turn signal and cuts off a BMW.
“I’m sorry—why are you telling me this?”
P.S. I Hate You Page 3