Cha-Ching! (14 page)

“Do you want to go to the city?” Marisol said.

“Now?”

“Yeah. I feel like I ought to show you the real New York since you just moved here.”

It had started to snow.

“Snow,” Theo said, smiling.

“Wait till you live here awhile. It won't be so exciting.”

Theo looped her arm through Marisol's and they walked to the subway with their heads bent down against the cold. On the train, Theo pulled out her copy of
Crime and Punishment.

“You ever read this?”

“How weird. That actually used to be my favorite book.”

“Why? I loved
The Gambler
and
Notes From the Underground
,
but I can't seem to get into this one.”

“I bet you loved
The Gambler
,” Marisol teased. “Do you always call girls you just met from Atlantic City at 2
am
?”

“Only if I really like them.”

Theo wanted to take Marisol's hand but she was cradling the flowers. Plus they were sharing the train with a boys' sports team, loudly shouting back and forth to each other.

By the time Marisol said, “This stop is ours” and grabbed her hand to get up, Theo was trying to figure out if she'd say yes or no if Marisol offered her a drink.

The subway station smelled like piss and wet wool coats. The combination of rush hour and the holidays made her feel like they were in a movie. When they emerged from the station onto the street, the air was filled with a sugary smell.

“What's that smell?” she asked Marisol.

“Nuts for nuts! Have you ever had them?”

“No.”

Marisol led Theo to a food cart where a man was selling hot nuts.

“I'm a nut,” Theo told him.

“What kind do you want?” Marisol asked.

“The peanuts,” she said because they were familiar.

Marisol started to pay, but Theo stopped her.

“No,” Theo said, retrieving the wad of cash from her pocket. “I won all this money.”

Marisol just looked at her.

“You can't just get the peanuts,” Marisol said.

“Can I try all of them?” Theo asked.

“I'm out of chestnuts,” the nuts man said.

“I would love a job like this,” Theo told Marisol. “Cary Grant could sleep on the ground next to me all day.”

“Who's Cary Grant?” Marisol asked.

“My dog.”

The man filled a waxed bag with warm candied cashews, peanuts and almonds, and handed it to her. Theo let the sugar coating on a single candied peanut dissolve on her tongue and then offered the bag to Marisol, who poured a few almonds into the palm of her hand and popped them in her mouth like they were pills.

“Do you like them?” Marisol asked.

Theo nodded happily. She felt like someone on the top of a holiday cookie tin, jovially trudging through snowdrifts, wearing a bright red winter hat and matching scarf, with perfect circles of red rouge on each of her cheeks. She took Marisol's hand and led her out of the crowd and up against the side of a building.

“Can I kiss you?” she asked.

But Marisol kissed her first, her mouth a mix of candied nuts and cigarettes. Theo pinned Marisol's body against the wall and they kissed a long time, until Theo felt drunk. She only worried fleetingly about getting bashed in the head with a crowbar for being gay. Finally, Marisol pulled away and led Theo back onto the crowded sidewalk. Everyone who passed them had arms filled with packages and bags preparing for Christmas. Theo offered Marisol more nuts.

“I've got a bad tooth,” she said. The confidence Marisol had diplayed until then, mostly in a certain pursing of her lips, was gone now. She looked ashamed.

“Me too,” Theo said. “I need my wisdom teeth pulled. My friend Big Vic told me Bellevue has a low-income dental clinic.”

“Ooh, we could have a public hospital date after we have a romantic getaway as participants in the depression study,” Marisol said. “Okay, stop here. You are about to witness some quintessential New York.”

Below them was a crowded ice-skating rink.

“What's this?” Theo asked.

“Rockefeller Center.”

Theo stared at Marisol. She wanted to kiss her again.

“You want to skate?” Marisol asked.

“Down there?”

The group of people gathered around the ice-skating rink suddenly let out a wild cheer.

“What just happened?” Theo asked.

“Someone fell. Everyone cheers when someone falls.”

“That's nice,” Theo said, smiling.

“Want to try it?”

“Okay.”

Theo had only skated a couple of times in her life but decided to adopt a fearless attitude. Plus, she could use it as an excuse to hold Marisol's hand. If they kept moving then they were still on a date, and if they were still on a date then Theo was still the dapper gentleman with the long red scarf on top of the holiday cookie tin, the world a perfect place full of ice-skating butter-cookie eaters. The rink was packed with teenagers and excited children shrieking in delight at each fall. Theo wished Cary Grant was there, in her own double pair of ice-skates. After stiff-legging her way around the perimeter of the rink a few times she mustered up the courage to let go of the wall. Marisol was a natural—not doing anything too advanced like backward skating or loops, but gliding easily. Every once in a while she'd look back at Theo and laugh sweetly. Theo pushed off hard and dug into the ice, passing Marisol, and tried to bow like an old movie star, one arm across her body. Her feet tangled underneath her and she went facedown into the ice. She tasted blood and heard the crowd cheer wildly.

Aside from a bloody lip, Theo was fine. On the subway ride home Marisol teased her about her skating skills and kissed the thin cut on her bottom lip. Theo felt as if all the happiness in the world were emanating from that cut. And while she kissed Marisol back, she didn't care that her lip hurt or that there might be a gaybasher lurking about.

“Do you want to get a drink?” Marisol asked as the train crossed from Manhattan into Brooklyn.

“Sure,” Theo said, not wanting her date to end.

“Do you mind if we run by my place first? It's right off the subway.”

“Is that a pickup line?” Marisol nodded, then pulled her off the N train at 59th Street and headed toward the door of Sammy's bar, The Looney Bin
.

Joey wasn't outside.

“Are you taking me to The Looney Bin?” Theo asked.

“How do you know about The Looney Bin
?
”

“My roommate bartends there.”

“Really?”

“I'm going to poke my head in and say hi to her,” Theo said.

“I'll meet you in there. I'm just going to run upstairs,” Marisol said.

It was slow inside The Looney Bin, and Joey was sitting at the end of the bar next to one of the dancers who was putting on makeup.

“Girl!” Sammy said, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm on a date with Marisol,” Theo whispered. “She lives upstairs.”

“Really?”

Theo nodded. Everyone in the bar was watching the news.

“Oh my God,” Theo said, seeing the woman who'd won the three-million-dollar lotto. “She finally came forward.”

“She's a high school teacher,” Sammy said.

Theo watched a heavyset woman navigate through a crowd of reporters.

“The ticket was in her coat pocket,” Sammy said.

Joey flipped through the channels with a remote, stopping at another news station. Sammy filled a glass with Coke, and Theo drank it while watching a story about an environmental group that had accused the Navy of dumping thousands of gallons of fuel into the ocean so their planes would be light enough to land on aircraft carriers.

“I can't wait till all this shit is done,” said Candy, who'd come and stood next to Theo.

The first time Theo met Candy she was flirting with Sammy while wearing nothing but what appeared to be a single shoelace wrapped around her entire body. Candy was the only out queer stripper at The Looney Bin, and each night she got dropped off in a red Mustang convertible by her butch. They were doppelbangers—both with short bleached Afros—Candy's Afro femme to her girlfriend's butch.

“Can't wait till what's done?” Theo said lighting a cigarette, offering Candy one.

“Till it's all fucking over. The whole fucking thing. The whole fucking human race.”

Sammy was pouring tequila shots for everyone sitting at the bar, sliding two toward Candy and Theo.

“You drinking, girl?” Sammy gestured to the tequila.

“I hate tequila,” Theo said.

“Hi,” Marisol came in and touched Theo on the arm.

“This is my friend Sammy,” said Theo, introducing Marisol.

“Hi,” Sammy said.

“Hello.” Marisol shook Sammy's hand.

“What are you guys up to?” Sammy asked.

“We might go to Atlantic City,” Theo said.

“Really? Two nights in a row? You should just move there.”

“I got laid off today,” Marisol said. “My schedule is pretty open.”

“That sucks.” Sammy poured a tequila shot for Marisol.

“Girl, you should work here. You could make mad money,” Candy told Marisol.

“I wouldn't have a commute,” Marisol said, clinking glasses with Candy before they both downed the shots.

“Joey,” Candy called, “come here.”

Joey kissed one of the strippers on the cheek, set down the remote and walked down to where Candy was.

“My girl here wants a little work, can you help her?”

Joey looked Marisol up and down.

“I know you, right?”

“I live in one of the apartments upstairs. I've passed you in the hallway before.”

“You ever dance before?”

“No.”

“What's your name?”

“She don't have a name yet, Joey,” Candy interrupted.

Theo watched Marisol.

“Well we got a big party tomorrow. If you want to come in early Candy can show you the ropes.”

“Thanks,” Marisol said to Joey, who nodded and walked away.

“Girl, you can make some money here,” Candy repeated before disappearing into the main room.

“Are you really going to work here?” Theo said.

“I don't know. I am unemployed. How hard could it be?”

“Well, I've gotta to get back to work. It was nice to meet you,” Sammy said.

“Nice to meet you too,” Marisol said.

“I'll see you later, Sammy,” Theo said.

“I want to take you to this great underground place on 5th Avenue. It looks like a thrift store but it's a bar,” Marisol said, grabbing Theo's hand.

Theo held onto Marisol's hand as they walked down the icy sidewalk back to the subway, telling herself she was only going to have a few drinks. They kept their heads down to shield their faces from the bitter cold. When they arrived at the “bar” Theo recognized it. She'd passed it the night she'd taken Sammy to lobster night and had been intrigued by the collection of clutter that filled the windows. You would never guess it was a bar from walking by. In the highest window Theo had seen a creepy cardboard box filled with blonde wigs and doll legs.

“This place is a bar?” she asked incredulously.

“Yeah, two feuding sisters own this place. And one operates it as a bar at night,” Marisol said.

There was a sandwich board out front that said
live
music
$2
beer
(cold)
. Theo guessed it was left over from summertime when cold beer would sound attractive. She held the door open for Marisol and they stepped inside, thankful to be out of the cold. The place looked like the warehouses that thrift stores use to sort through donations, a forest of disorganized clutter. Cabaret-style music played on a crackly record player set up in the corner. In the middle of the room four straight couples sat in children's chairs around a small makeshift stage where some musicians were setting up. “Want to grab us a seat? I'll get the first round,” Theo said.

Theo enjoyed the custom of buying rounds. It filled her with inexpressible warmth. She loved the civility of a drink simply appearing in front of her, and she felt like a good person when she was the one who bought the round. Marisol procured two red plastic chairs as Theo approached one of the elderly sisters. Her shrunken body stood behind a bar stacked high with several broken candelabras. A small chalkboard behind her listed beer as the only option.

“Two beers,” Theo said.

“You want two beers?” the woman asked, in a tone that sounded more like an accusation.

Theo nodded, and the old lady rummaged through a dingy yellow mop bucket filled with ice and finally came up empty-handed.

“I'm all out,” she said bitterly. “If you want the beer you gotta hang on a minute. Do you want the beer?”

Theo nodded again, tentatively this time, and the old lady crawled under the counter and disappeared out the front door. Theo looked over at Marisol, who was laughing. One of the young couples was making out in the corner.

“Where'd she go?” Marisol called to her.

“To the bodega next door to buy more beer,” Theo guessed.

The cold from the walk was thawing and the bar felt special, like a magic room that opened behind a trick bookcase. The old lady returned with a six-pack of Rheingold curled in each of her old paws. Theo watched her struggle to dig each beer a tiny home in the mop bucket's ice, leaving two on the bar in front of Theo.

“Four dollars,” she said.

Theo paid and sat down beside Marisol. She noticed a faint scar above her left eyebrow. She loved Marisol's looks: the perfect mix of pretty and tough. She smiled at her as Marisol fiddled with the colored disks inside a Connect Four game. Then she leaned forward and kissed the scar.

“Where'd you get that scar?” she asked.

“That's second date talk.”

“Technically, this is our second date. Right? If you count the paella party.”

“No,” Marisol said. “That doesn't count. What are your plans for Christmas?”

“I don't know. Sammy invited me to hang out with her aunt and her boyfriend. But that seems depressing. I was going to make Cary Grant a steak. What about you?”

Marisol shrugged, “Some of my friends invited me to P-town. I kind of hate the holidays.”

“Me too,” Theo said.

Marisol took a long swig from her beer and Theo surveyed the room. “I'll bet the landlords are dying to kick these women out,” she said.

“Oh, yeah. Probably won't be long before this place is a Starbucks.”

They clinked bottles and each took a long pull of beer.

“They live upstairs. They rent the whole building,” Marisol said.

“How do you know all this?”

“Oh, if you live in Brooklyn your whole life you know things.”

Theo tried to imagine if their apartment was as cluttered as the bar. She pictured the sisters sleeping side by side in two twin beds with some mangy cats walking over their faces in the night.

“How's your lip?” Marisol reached out to touch Theo's lip.

“This is the second time this year I've split it.”

“Really?”

Theo nodded. “Last time was at a bar the night before I moved to New York.”

She moved her legs under the tiny table until she felt her knees touch Marisol's. The band began to play. A folky-
looking woman started crooning and plucking a banjo. It sounded nice, the way city kids pretending to know about country is nice. Theo moved her tiny red chair next to Marisol's. She was inspired by the straight couple in the corner.

“Can I kiss you with my fat lip?” she asked.

“Only if you stop asking permission.”

She kissed Marisol, both of their tongues cold from the beer. Marisol pulled away and bit Theo's neck hard.

“Your hair smells good,” Theo said.

The guitarist started to pluck a few chords checking to see if he was in tune, and the lead singer set down the banjo and picked up an accordion. Theo noticed they all had a piece of wheat hanging out of the corner of their mouths, and it made her hate them like she'd hated trust-fund kids she'd known in San Francisco, wearing mechanic jackets and trucker caps to look working-class. They even let their own WASPy names flit away while taking on country-bumpkin names like Shovel and Buck.

She picked up her beer to take another swig, but it was empty.

“Want another round?” she turned to Marisol.

“I still have half.”

“Catch up,” she said, getting up and walking back to the bar.

Theo noticed someone smoking in the corner and pulled a cigarette out of her pack. She patted her pockets for a lighter but they were empty.

“Can I get two beers?” she asked the old lady.

The woman paused, lighting a match with her trembling hands and reaching her long paw toward Theo to light her cigarette for her. Then she dug two more beers out of the mop bucket and set them on the bar.

“Four dollars.”

Theo left a ten-dollar bill on the counter. She carried the beer back to their kiddy chairs and felt a surge of adrenaline when she looked at Marisol. She was done pathologizing everything. Life's pleasures were simple if you let them be: smoking, drinking, and falling in love.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” Marisol asked.

“Yes.”

“What's your dog's name again?”

“Cary Grant.”

“That's cute.”

She told Marisol the story of how she came to have Cary Grant.

“Oh my God,” Marisol said. And then, “I've always wanted a dog.”

The heat was cranked up high in the bar.

“Let's get out of here,” Marisol said. “It's like a sauna.”

When Theo stood up she felt a little dizzy and was afraid their date was coming to an end.

“Do you eat meat?” Marisol asked.

“If given the chance, I only eat meat,” Theo smiled.

“Let's go pick up your dog and go to my house and I'll bake us a chicken.”

Theo wondered if Marisol was too drunk to make a chicken.

“I love chicken,” she said.

They hailed a taxi to Theo's place and the apartment was dark. Sammy was still at The Looney Bin
.
Cary Grant greeted Theo at the door, wagging wildly.

“Oh my God,” Marisol said, kneeling to pet Cary Grant, but the dog shied away.

“It's okay,” Theo said. “Come say hello.”

But Cary Grant scurried away, peeking out from behind the door. They followed her into the kitchen.

“Oh my God, you have a bar in your house!” Marisol exclaimed, picking up the martini shaker.

“It's Sammy's,” Theo explained.

“Make me a dirty martini,” Marisol sat down on a stool.

Theo wondered if this meant she wasn't cooking them dinner.“Gin or vodka?” she said.

“Gin.”

Theo poured the alcohol into the shaker with some ice and pulled a jar of olives from the fridge.

“Do you have any food?” Marisol asked.

“Only olives,” Theo said, “and peanut butter.”

She shook the martini and poured the alcohol into two glasses, handing one to Marisol, who ate the olive hungrily and took a sip.

“That shit's strong,” she said.

Theo found herself scanning the corners of the room for mice.

“Let's go into the other room,” she said, “the lighting in here kills me.”

“Smooth,” Marisol said sitting down on the edge of the bed.