A Little Change of Face (13 page)

I
n order to celebrate my new job—any excuse for a celebration—my girlfriends decided to take me out to dinner and then out partying.

“We'll go to that new Italian place,” T.B. had said. “Mama Rosa's? Mama Italia? I don't know. Mama
Something.
Whatever it's called, I'm sure it'll be good—it's Italian.”

Mama Something turned out to be a clichéd little Italian place with a menu—
prima
this,
seconda
that—that was trying a little too hard to be someplace other than Danbury.

“Well,
I
like it,” Delta insisted as the Andy Garcia-ish waiter seated us at a table for four, taking our drinks order: a bottle of—what else?—Italian red to be shared.

When it came time to order food, I ordered a large salad (I knew I'd be drinking more later and didn't want to fill up), Pam also ordered a salad (she looked like she'd already lost about ten pounds), T.B. ordered the fried calamari (she never worried about what she ate) and Delta ordered the
eggplant parmesan (on general principle, even though she claimed not to be hungry, because Delta was the original anti-dieter).

As often happens when a group of friends go out to dinner together, in the beginning we made general conversation that everyone could participate in: talk of my new job and how I was dealing with the very different personalities of Jane and Pat, not to mention Roland; talk of whatever latest thing Bush had done; talk of the weather, which had for once turned seasonably cool heading into October. For some reason, I chose not to say anything about Stephen—Steve?— Holt.

But, as the meal wore on, we broke off into smaller conversations, with Pam and T.B. talking about some high-profile case that was currently working its way through the Danbury court system, while Delta and I talked about…her kids.

“I wish I could go on with you all to Chalk Is Cheap afterward,” Delta sighed into her wineglass, picking up her fork to make a determined stab at her eggplant, “but the sitter would only agree to stay with Mush and Teenie for three hours, tops.”

I could understand the sitter's reasoning. Mostly, I was amazed that anyone would sit with Mush and Teenie at all. But of course I couldn't say that, so aloud I said, “Well, it is a school night. Maybe the sitter's got class in the morning?”

Delta ignored this, spearing more eggplant, apparently determined to eat her way through her apparent misery, whether she was hungry or not. “You-all don't know what it's like,” she said, “being single with two kids in the house.”

I was never completely sure of the distinction between her “y'alls” and her “you-alls,” but I thought I had the gist
of it this time: she was telling me that I couldn't possibly know what her life was like. Having already spent more time with Mush and Teenie than I'd want to in a lifetime—the bond of friendship does require certain things—I could certainly understand her fatigue.

“Men don't exactly flock to women with kids,” Delta said.

Now this I couldn't understand. Since I really did believe that people fell in love with each other for themselves, it seemed to me that if the emotions were real, nothing would get in the way. But I couldn't say that, either.

“A couple of weeks ago, I met a new guy,” Delta said, “and he asked me out. So, last weekend, we finally go out, we have a good time, he takes me to dinner, he's real nice, I can tell he's not an ax murderer, I ask him back to my place, I dismiss the babysitter, and then…”

“And then?”

“And then we're sitting on my living room couch, we're starting to get all snuggled up. My motor's purring like the engine on a '48 Packard—”

I had no way of knowing if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

“—and then Mush gets out of bed and comes on in.” Delta finally laid down her fork, dejection written all over her, leaving two pieces of eggplant on her plate.

“Well, but,” I said, “I'm sure you must have already told him that you had kids, right? Surely, they were no surprise.”

“Honey, Mush is
always
a surprise.”

She had me there.

“But that ain't it,” she said. “It was what Mush said.”

I wasn't really certain I wanted to—

“He said,” Delta continued, deciding for me that I did indeed want to know, “‘Excuse me, sir, but if you plan to be
hammerin' on my mama, do you happen to have an
extra
rubber on you?'”

I tried hard not to wince, failed. “Well,” I said, trying to bright-side it, “at least he said, ‘Excuse me, sir,' so the kid's got manners.”

“Scarlett, my eight-year-old
son
asked my
date
about rubbers!”

Mush was eight? How old was Teenie?

“So he's health-conscious,” I tried.

“My date didn't see it that way.”

“No?”

“No. He left, said he had an early day, would call the next morning. Never called again.”

“Aw, I'm sorry,” I said, covering her hand with my own. “Was he nice?”

“Of course he was nice,” she huffed. “He was nice right up until Mush—”

“I know, I know,” I soothed, reluctant to hear the words “Mush” and “rubbers” in the same sentence again.

“I just don't know how I'm ever going to attract another man to stay longer than dinner. The older Mush and Teenie get, the harder it is to convince people that they're really cute.”

As Andy Garcia made his way over to the table with our check, Delta perked up a bit.

“Oh, but
he's
cute,” she said, still checking out our waiter. “I would definitely risk the embarrassment of Mush if I thought I could get him to come home with me. I do love a man in a tight black uniform. And have you noticed how much extra attention he's shown our table?”

Now that she mentioned it, I realized that Andy had been very attentive.

As he set the check down, he reddened a trifle, looking embarrassed.

Had he heard Delta? I wondered.

“What's up?” Pam gave him a sly smile, having retouched her ice-pink lipstick for the occasion.

“It's just,” he said, blushing furiously and then looking straight at me, “I have this big
thing
for women in large dresses. Maybe it's the Italian in me?”

“Oh, crap.” Pam threw down her napkin, sought assistance from the others. “Do you see what she's doing? Can anyone else figure out how she does this? How does she do this to me every time?”

 

Having dropped off Delta to the sound of Teenie's greeting—“Mama! You didn't have to come home from getting drunk so early! We weren't doin'
nuthin'
to the babysitter”—we headed over to Chalk Is Cheap, and walked in.

“Don't you people ever think about going anywhere with any color?” T.B. asked, surveying the, um, whiteness of the joint.

“Not really,” I replied. “That is to say, I don't purposely avoid…”

“It's just that we never thought to actively look…” tried Pam.

“Don't worry about it,” T.B. laughed, “I got Ex-Al. Just get me a Scotch,” she added, taking a tall seat at one of the high bar tables.

Pam and I sidled up to the bar, ordering T.B.'s Scotch plus another wine for me and club soda this time for her since she was driving.

“You ever notice,” I asked, “how hard it is to be politically correct at every given moment?”

“You ever notice,” she said, “how easy it is to fuck up?”

“You ever notice how everyone else notices it whenever you do fuck up?”

“You ever notice how no one ever notices the other twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes a day when you don't fuck up?”

I laughed. Funny: I almost never remembered the things I liked about Pam.

Our drinks came.

“Cheers,” Pam said. “I'm glad I got the club soda. Not only am I driving, I've also got to watch my girlish figure. Oops,” she added, giving me a once-over, “I almost forgot. No one can see yours anymore.”

Pam.

She left me to pay for all our drinks, moving off to join T.B. at the table.

As I turned to pay, He walked in. Note that capital H there? Not too many men rate one, but some do and He was one of them.

I'll stop now.

As he stepped up to the bar, I immediately saw that he was blessed with that rare stop-you-in-your-tracks quality of looks, the kind that are just as startling out in the real world and not just startling in a library setting. He had almost-black hair, dark brown eyes and a set to his jaw as if he'd never heard the word
no
directed at him: certainly not from any woman and probably not from life, either. He also had the kind of body, underneath a black turtleneck and jeans, that was just begging for someone to rip his clothes off. With teeth if necessary.

But, really, it was the strong jaw that got to me. Really.

As I stood there, half a bar away from him and painfully
aware of the fact that he had yet to notice me breathing him in there, I decided to just go for it.

Historically speaking, I'd never been shy about approaching guys. From a very young age, I figured that if I saw something I liked, I should make my liking known rather than sitting back and hoping it would come to me. It might not be an approach all women would be comfortable taking, and I was sure that there were men out there who would be put off by a woman making the first move, but I'd also always figured that any man who was put off by my forwardness was, by definition, not a man I'd want to waste time on, anyway.

Wineglass in hand, I approached my goal with my usual boldness. But, as I did so, a curious thing happened. Looking down at my feet, catching sight of my sensible shoes, I felt different all of a sudden, hesitant, like I was someone other than the person I'd always been.

I tried to brush the feeling off, climbed up on the stool next to…Him.

“Um,” I said, feeling more Lettie than Scarlett, “so, you like beer, huh?”

Shit,
my inner voice hit my inner self on the head.
That was smart.

He raised his glass to his lips—oh, those lips!—and sipped. Then he licked the foam from his upper lip—oh, that tongue!—and smiled. But it was the kind of smile you dish out with a fair regularity to marginally cute little puppies, not the kind of smile you reserve for the one woman you desperately hope will become the love of your life.

“Um, yeah,” he said, still smiling.

Um, was he mocking me?

“Um, you ever come here before?”

“Um, no. Is there a reason I, um, shouldn't?”

“Um, well,” I said, “if you make a habit of mocking the regulars, um, I might have to kick your butt.”

There was the old Scarlett charm!

A good way to judge the character of any man is to find out if he can laugh at the absurdity of a situation.

Apparently, from the size and generosity of his laugh—oh, those teeth!—this man had character.

I began to feel more like myself immediately, like maybe I could even speak a whole sentence without using the interjection “um” even once.

But as I asked my next question—“So, what kind of work do you do?”—I realized I wasn't myself at all. I was still some paler version of me. It was as though someone had taken the more vibrant version of Scarlett—the one who was capable of approaching any man with confidence—and what had been left in her place was now a watercolor version, all verbal cautiousness plus sensible shoes with only the occasional glimpse of a fighting spirit.

“I'm an investment adviser,” he said.

“Tough market these days,” I sympathized.

He shrugged. “All the more reason for people to need my advice.”

“Do you like what you do?” I asked.

It occurred to me I was asking all the questions here. Who did I think I was, the quizmaster?

“I wouldn't do it if I didn't,” he said.

I liked that answer.

“Plus,” he added, “the pay is good.”

And I understood that answer.

“How about you?” he asked.

Omigod,
I thought,
he's finally asking me a question! He—of the lips, tongue and teeth—was curious about me!

“How about me, um, what?” I asked.

“What sort of work do you do?”

“I'm a librarian.”

“Ah,” he said in what sounded to me suspiciously like an “ah, I should have guessed” kind of tone.

“I like it,” I said, not waiting for him to ask. “You could say it suits me.”

“Yeah, you could.”

Over his shoulder, I caught sight of my friends. T.B. was holding up a napkin on which she'd lipsticked something in Certainly Red. I squinted: “YOU GO, GIRL!” Beside her, Pam appeared less happy as she looked at her watch and then looked pointedly at Him—I still didn't know what his name was—and me. I got the odd feeling if I didn't do something that would prove successful soon, Pam would make a move to move us all on out the door.

“What's your name?” I blurted.

“Saul,” he said, taken aback. I wasn't sure what was causing that effect: the suddenness of my blurt or his realization that I hadn't asked this earlier. “Saul Waters.”

“Lettie,” I said, extending my hand, feeling not unlike the young girl whose pa has been killed shaking hands with John Wayne in
True Grit.
“Lettie Shaw.”

“Ah,” he said again.

“Now, what's that supposed to mean?” I demanded, Scarlett taking over. “I can understand your ah-ing my job, sort of, but my name? What's so
ah
about my name?”

“Oh, I don't know.” He looked kind of ashamed. “It just suits you somehow.”

While one party being ashamed hardly seemed the basis
from which to springboard to a lifelong romantic entanglement of cinematic proportions, I was forced to go with what I had.