by Lee Nichols
I take a deep breath, and count—$312.
I take a hit of port, and a faceful of chocolate raspberry truffle, and something goes gurgle, guzz, gurg from the vicinity of the toilet, and I realize it is a sign. I am flushing my money down the toilet. I am tossing my life in the shitter. I am circling the drain. Out of money. Fired from job. Evicted from trolley. Flung condoms at ginger freak-head. Lust for Ga-Ga Gorgeous grifter. Am generally pathetic, ridiculous and slightly drunk.
But now is the time. It is time to grow up. I open my fridge-type unit, seeking some nutritious, grown-up food. There is none. I shopped far healthier for Louis than I do for myself. Granted, I spent a small fortune every time I entered a gourmet food store. But still, if I did it for him, I can do it for me…and on the cheap, too. I should have nationalized booty from Super 9—there was no other store detective to stop me. Sure, and I could dress in outfits from the Li’l Dowdy department.
At least I still have my car. It may look like Halloween, but I love my orange freak-car. I slide behind the wheel and turn the key. The engine purrs.
First stop is Super Ralph’s, Santa Barbara’s solution to hacienda-style grocery shopping. I will buy sensible, nutritious, low-fat food in bulk.
But inside, temptation surrounds me. Truffle oil calls my name in Aisle 3. Pickled asparagus ambushes me in Aisle 12. I am on the verge of kicking my good intentions in the teeth when I spot a forty-pound bag of rice on a bottom shelf. Price? $11.95. I am overwhelmed by a surge of sheer economy. Twelve bucks for forty el-bees of rice. My cupboard will never be empty again. Nourishment is only a cup of water away, and I’m sure to lose weight.
I wrestle the bag into my arms. Economical, but ungainly. I drag it to a checkout line. I inspect magazines while I wait, the rice growing steadily heavier in my arms. Definitely room for another O-type magazine. Maybe L should have a Frugality column. First month? Rice.
I really should have grabbed a cart. My arms are going dead and my shoulder screams in agony. I finally heave the bag onto the conveyor belt, feeling quite superior to the woman in front of me, who is buying frozen pizza, two packs of American cheese and a head of iceberg.
I pay my twelve bits, and heft the bag over a shoulder. It prickles my neck. It’s made of that brittle plastic-burlap that cattle feed comes in, and as I heft it a few grains of rice trickle from a slight gash. Must be careful not to spill rice all over my beautiful car.
I stumble towards the exit, hoping to find a cart. No cart. Doesn’t matter—I’m parked right out front.
As if unwilling to leave home, the bag attempts to wiggle from my arms the moment I am in the parking lot. I claw frantically at it, but gravity is the enemy, and I feel it eeling from my grasp as I shuffle forward.
I clutch anew, and for a lovely moment think I’m going to make it.
I don’t. The bag slips and smashes to the asphalt like an overripe melon. The gash widens and rice flows like water from the hole. Fucking ducky. I tussle with the burlap, trying to force the hole upward to stanch the flow. In a flash, I rip a larger opening.
“Shit!” Rice surrounds me in a two foot radius. I’m tempted to flee, but goddamn it I’m an adult now, and I don’t abandon sacks of rice in parking lots. Plus, I’m hungry. I grab the sack in a death-grip and heave. It flops and emits a new rivulet of rice. “Fuck you!” I shove the bag, earning dirty looks from several passersby. “I’ll kick your burlap ass.”
“Here, let me,” a man says. “Before someone reports a rice-beater.”
Louis Merrick. Merrick of the Coffee Condom Catastrophe. Way to make a good second impression. Third impression. Whatever. I’m just lucky that I’m not on my hands and knees, picking up individual grains.
“Merrick,” I say.
He effortlessly lifts the sack and starts toward my car. The bundle in his arms looks like an injured child he’s rescued from a burning building. He’s no Ga-Ga Gorgeous, but he can really manhandle a bag of recalcitrant grain. I am far more giddily gratified than I should be about rescued rice.
I open the trunk, and he lays his salvaged armload gently down.
“Safe and sound,” he says.
I consider saying, “My hero!” but ask him what he’s doing here instead. It comes out ungrateful.
“Uh—” he points to Ralph’s Super Hacienda. “Grocery shopping? I live down the street.”
“Oh, right. Right.” I look at him. His hair is still freaky, but it’s sort of mussed, and he looks a little tired, and I am definitely warm for him. “Thanks,” I say. “Really.”
“That’s a lot of rice.”
“I like rice. A lot.” Then I blurt the truth: “Plus it’s cheap. I lost my—I haven’t found a job.”
He looks politely embarrassed, before saying he’s glad he ran into me. “I wanted to apologize. About the other morning, with the, um…”
“The frolicking condoms.”
He laughs. “Somehow I feel responsible.”
I wave away his apology. “Nothing you could do. Turns out I’m the reincarnation of Calamity Jane. But thank you.”
“I did wonder, of course,” he says. “Why you carry enough rubbers to accommodate a regiment of sailors on shore leave.”
“They weren’t for accommodating sailors. Or anyone. Remember the crank calls? The kid was playing pranks on my apartment, too. Like tossing dead squirrels at me. So I got the condoms for water balloons, to peg the little juvie.”
His eyes widen in what could be amazement, amusement or abhorrence.
“What?” I say. I haven’t even told him the part about bombing Mr. Petrie.
He shakes his head.
“Well…Merrick…” It’s time to slink off with my rice. “It was nice—”
“Why do you call me Merrick?”
“I like it. Merrick. It’s a solid name.”
He doesn’t believe me, but I refuse to explain.
“What’s your last name?” he asks.
“Medina.”
“Should I call you that?”
“No, that would be weird.”
His eyes crinkle. “Then will you have dinner with me, Elle?”
I am not quite sure if he’s laughing at me. “When?” I ask suspiciously. “I’m sort of busy the next few weeks.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“Okay.”
He smiles. “Okay. I’ll pick you up at seven? Where do you live?”
“No!” Must not let him see where I live.
“No to seven?” he asks, “Or—”
“Why don’t we meet at the restaurant?”
“Because you’ll be late. How about we meet at Shika at six-thirty?”
I tell him okay.
“And is Italian good? I was thinking Bucatini’s, but they do more pasta than rice.”
Chapter 18
I don’t know why Merrick said I’d be late if we met at the restaurant. As it happens, I begin preparing at two-thirty, and arrive at Shika twenty minutes early.
“Hi, sweetie,” Maya says.
“I lost my job,” I say, sliding onto a stool. I tell the sad story, and she is appropriately sympathetic, though she goes hard on Ga-Ga. I try to explain that he cannot be judged by mortal standards, but she scoffs.
“So why are you all spiffed up?” she asks.
“A date,” I say.
“With the new Louis?”
I nod, although the reminder of his name takes a slice out of my joy.
“Well, you look beautiful.”
“Don’t I?” I say. “And guess who hasn’t eaten a bite since this morning!”
“Elle—you won’t look any skinnier from missing one meal.”
Actually, I would. But that’s not the point. “It’s not that. It’s economic strategy. I’m gonna overorder tonight, so I can take food home in doggie bags, and eat it for days. But I figured I should be hungry, too—so I can pack it in.”
“You get that from Cosmo?”
“No, that’s my own,” I say, proudly.
>
“And I suppose going Dutch is out of the question.”
“If I want Dutch, I’ll go to Denmark.”
“Holland.”
“Anyway, it’s not like I haven’t invested in this date. Think about it—my outfit costs $500, my makeup another $200. Hair is $150. I’m not counting accessories and hair products and diets and skincare and all that. It takes me three hours to achieve this level of perfection, not including the months and years spent in training and experimentation. And shopping. He’ll roll up wearing whatever he found crumpled on the floor of his closet this morning, with his weird hair and maybe ten minutes of worry, anticipation and deviant sexual fantasy invested in the date. I’ve put in eleven hours on him specifically, and like three weeks on men in general. I read four articles about cellulite and two about stalkers. I am bathed, shaved, scented, colored, curled, peeled, painted and sartorially fucking splendid. I ought to charge his architect ass by the hour.”
Maya applauds. She is joined by second pair of hands, which entered during my tirade. You get no points for guessing to whom the second pair belongs.
“I am early,” I tell him.
“You are sartorially splendid,” he says. “And from here, the cellulite is hardly noticeable.”
I giggle, because I know he is teasing, but I won’t be laughing if he ever catches me naked. I stand, afraid barstool has similar effect as beanbag chair, and stride towards him.
Oh, God, now what? What am I supposed to do? Shake his hand? I haven’t been on a real date since the summer after high school. My college dates, before moving in with Louis, weren’t even real dates—we wouldn’t go out, we’d hang out.
Merrick meets me halfway and busses me on the cheek. It’s very sweet, and my instinct is to gush, but I clamp down.
“Do you want to have a drink first?” he asks. “Or are you ready to eat?”
“I’m ready,” I say, quickly. Don’t want Maya monitoring my date. Plus, I am officially starving.
We walk down State to Bucatini’s. It’s a semi-outdoor Italian café, with white-cloth tables lining the brick patio, and a Santa Barbara-green awning above. When I was in high school, this was a greasy BBQ place, but no traces remain. A hostess lights the candles as Merrick and I sit, and I’m suddenly shy. This is a real date. It’s not a morning coffee meet. It’s the kind of romantic date that is supposed to end naked and sweaty, and I feel a pang of guilt about being disloyal to Louis. Like I’m cheating on him.
He didn’t even bother ending our engagement before marrying another woman, and I feel disloyal. Well, fuck Louis. Maybe I wasn’t the perfect wife-to-be, maybe I spent too much and maybe I was aimlessly coasting, but I was loyal and I was honest and I loved him as well as I could.
“Elle?” Merrick says.
“Sorry. I was thinking.”
He quietly waits.
“This used to be a barbecue place, when I was in high school,” I say.
He doesn’t say anything.
I glance at him over my menu. He’s in a linen shirt again—this one a soft blue that makes his gray eyes stand out. Despite the red hair, he’s handsome. He has a strong face. There’s nothing beautiful about it, but it’s masculine and really present. On the walk from Shika, I noticed he smells of lavender soap and shaving cream, and I touched his arm and then touched it again.
But I don’t know what to say. My dating skills haven’t just rusted, they’ve entirely disintegrated. And I’m worried about what he’s going to think when I order two meals. The waiter arrives with a bottle of Chianti, thank God. I have a reason to remain silent as he pours, Merrick tastes and we all approve.
I take a huge gulp of wine and ask about his day. I am already wearing sexy underwear. If I give him time “in his cave,” then he’ll know I’m really serious.
He tells me his day was pretty good. He’s amusing and light, and seems happy to carry the conversation. He asks about me, and despite my plan I tell the abbreviated Super 9 story.
He says, “Elle.” He says, “You got fired?” He says, “Couldn’t you talk to them?” He says, “I don’t understand how you could get fired.”
And I’m put off completely. He sounds so much like Louis—like my Louis—being the stern adult, that when the waiter returns to take our orders, I’m ready.
“I’ll have the Shrimp Renato,” I say. “And the Prosciutto and Melon to start.” I dare myself to order the penne as well, but lose my nerve. Instead, I say: “We could use more bread. And I’ll have a cup of the soup.”
Merrick orders, and asks: “How do you get fired?”
“It doesn’t take much,” I say, in an airy fashion. “Poor performance at job skills generally does the trick.”
“And that was the case with you? You performed poorly?”
I’m suddenly quite proud. Not just anyone, within two weeks at her first real job, could be responsible for the start of a lawsuit against a major corporation. I tell him the whole sordid tale, including being accused of shoplifting at Nordstrom and the suit against Spenser.
He is appalled. “Don’t you feel bad for the private detective?”
Of course I do. “His insurance will cover it,” I say, hopefully.
“Insurance? He wouldn’t need insurance if you’d been doing your job. Elle, your whole reason for being there—the reason he was paying you to leaf through magazines in the changing room—was to prevent theft. Did you ever think—”
I finish my soup and third glass of wine before Merrick finally winds down. I feel like shit.
“That’s a nice shirt,” I say, to change the subject.
“What?”
“Your shirt. It matches your eyes.”
“And you’ve never had a job before?”
That worked well. “Not exactly. I mean, I have. But not exactly.”
“Do you have any skills?”
“I have skills,” I say, too loud. “I just don’t have job skills, that’s all. Do I wish I could type? Do I wish I could run spreadsheets? Yeah, especially when I have to pay the rent. But people waste their lives working—I’ve wasted enough time. I wasted six years.” I stop to swig more wine. “You remind me of him.”
“Who?”
“My fiancé. My ex-fiancé.” I pour myself another glass. “He was always lecturing me, too.”
“Is that why you left him?”
“No, that’s why he left me.”
He gently unclasps my hand from the wine bottle and pours himself another glass. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lecture.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Now that he’s sorry, I feel like crying. “Maya does it, too. But she’s shorter than me, so I can slap her around.”
“You can slap me around later,” he says, and asks how long Maya and I have been friends.
We drink and talk, and the rest of the food comes. I nibble a shrimp. The bread basket is empty. Nuts. I’m still hungry, but if I stop now I’ll have a complete meal to take home.
“Is it not good?” Merrick asks, watching my birdlike pecking.
“It’s delicious. I’m just…resting.”
“You’re resting.”
“Uh-huh.” I take another sip of wine. “Can I have a bite of yours?”
He pushes his plate toward me, and I forklift a massive bite of linguini and a plump olive. Delicious. I spear and spin with my fork, and he asks if he can have a bite of mine.
I grudgingly fork the smallest shrimp and pass it over.
“When I was a kid,” he says, “I thought shrimp tasted like baby fingers.”
“Which explains why your little brother is called Lefty,” I say.
We both think this is funny and the tension between us eases. I ask about his family, and he tells me as we eat—both of us from his plate. I tell him about mine while trying to defend tomorrow’s meal from his forking incursions.
The waiter eventually comes to clear the table, and I ask to have my still heaping plates put into a doggie bag. If he asks, I’ll pretend to have the
perfect purebred Chesapeake Bay retriever. He doesn’t ask. So I tell him to throw in a little bread for my Shih Tzu and to bring the dessert menu.
“You hardly ate,” Merrick says. “How can you want dessert?”
“My dessert compartment is free,” I say. “I’ll have the tiramisu.”
“Just a decaf for me,” Merrick says.
“And he’ll have the crème brûlée.”
Merrick pays the bill and we stand awkwardly outside the restaurant. Not sure what happens now. It’s been too long since I dated. I’m a little drunk and ready to go home.
“That was lovely.” I transfer my bulging doggie bag to my left hand, and stick out my right to shake. “Thanks so much.”
Instead of shaking, he takes my hand and holds it. “Is your drink compartment full?”
“Umm…”
“Come and have a drink,” he says. “I’m even willing to go back to Maya’s.”
“Shika’s not that bad,” I say, and to back up this outrageous lie I agree to join him.
As we enter the gloom of Shika, Merrick heads for the privacy of a booth. I head for the safety of the bar. In a moment, he joins me.
“Maya, you know Merrick,” I say, as if we weren’t here two hours ago.
“I know him well enough to call him Louis,” she says. She looks like a fresh-faced and beautiful sprite. I haven’t checked my makeup in hours. I am a bloated manatee.
“Elle insists on calling me by my last name,” Merrick says, clearly hoping Maya will tell him why.
“Does she?” Maya says. “That’s curious.”
“What are you going to have to drink?” I ask, to change the subject. “I’m thinking maybe schome schnapps.” I eye the selection behind the bar.
“Sounds like you’ve had enough already,” Maya says.
“I ate dinner,” I protest.
Merrick snorts and Maya moves down the bar to pour us beers. Monty’s stool is vacant, for once.
“How do you know Monty?” I ask Merrick. Because I live in terror that conversation will peter out.