Changes (7 page)

I kept smiling; I could’ve whipped out my driver’s license, but that would’ve just been tacky.

Her smile faded a little.  "Are you?"

"Does it matter?" I said again.  It occurred to me then how unfair this was.  I should’ve told her immediately, before any feelings had developed.  Of course, I couldn’t speak for her, but my feelings developed the day she walked into my shop with her friend.  Maybe I should just start shouting out, "I’m forty-two," to everybody who came into the shop.  That’d fix ‘em.

She stared at me, searching.  I was certain, for a moment, that she was going to leave.  Instead, she came closer, stood up on her tiptoes, and kissed me.  She stopped, stared at me some more, and kissed me again, deeper.  Laying her head on my chest, she said, "This is weird."

"It is?" I said.

"No," she said, "not at all.  And that makes it weird."

Later, when the pizza arrived, I took a spare blanket from the hall closet and, at Tracy’s suggestion, spread it out on the living room floor so that we could have a ‘carpet picnic.’

While I got plates for us and another beer for her, she went down to her car and came back up with a massive, sticker-covered CD case.

"What’s that for?" I said.

"Culture." she said, unzipping the case and flipping through the clear plastic pages.  After much deliberation, she slipped a disc from its sleeve and put it in the stereo.

"This," she said with a flourish, "is Dead Can Dance.  Listen, learn, and love."

She closed her eyes with a smile and made a slow, swaying turn in time with the music, gliding up to me like a ghost, wrapping her arms around my neck and looking up with those eyes; she made my chest ache, though not unpleasantly.

My hands found her waist as if by magic and slid down over her hips.  Our lips found each other and reunited happily.  I bent my knees enough to clasp the backs of her thighs and lift her to me.  She kicked her shoes to the floor and wrapped her bare legs around my waist. 

Lightheaded as I was, I’m not sure how we ended up against the wall.  I was conscious only of the heat of her mouth, the swell of her breasts as her breathing came in shuddering sighs, the pressure of her hips arching against mine.

And then, at the unlikeliest of times, my brain kicked in.

You barely know this girl
, it said.

Technically, this was true. 

You’re practically old enough to be her father,
it said.

She doesn’t seem to mind, I retorted, and besides, you’re only as old as you feel, right? 

My brain, ever the smart-ass, said, S
o what are you, then, huh?  Ninety?  What about Miranda?  What about Grace?

I mentally told my brain to go right on off and fuck itself.

Luckily, Tracy brought me back to reality before I had to resort to the ole ‘I’m rubber and you’re glue’ defense.

She whispered, "What about the pizza?"

"It can wait, right?" I said.

"Mm-hm," she muttered.  "It can
watch
for all I care."

Take
that
, brain.

15

"Is it lame of me to ask what all of this means?" she asked, later.

Pizza in bed at three a.m. with a beautiful naked woman.  Does life get better?

I think not.

I’d figured that
I
knew what all of this meant, but I said, "Hm?"

Because I’m clever like that.

She drew her legs up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees.  A half-eaten slice of deep dish cheese with black olives dangled from her hand.

"This.  Us. 
Is
there even an
us
?  I mean, was this just for fun or…or what?"

I took a bite of pizza and wiped my mouth with a paper towel.

She said, "Shit.  I’m fucking it up, aren’t I?  I’m totally doing the girl thing.  I’m sorry, forget I said anything.  It is what it is."  She slumped and said, "I just… I don’t want you to think I go around doing this sort of thing…"

I leaned over, cupped her chin in my hand, and lifted her face enough to kiss her.

"I don’t." I said.  "And it wasn’t fun."

Her eyes widened.

I stammered, "No!  I mean it
was
fun… but I just meant… that it wasn’t
just
fun.  I like you.  A lot."

"You do?" 

She smiled.

"You couldn’t tell?" I said.

She shrugged and said, "Lots of guys want to fuck me.  That doesn’t necessarily mean they like me."

It wasn’t a boast.

"
I
like you."  I said.  When in doubt, repeat yourself.

"Well, I like you, too."  She said, tilting her chin up and blowing me a kiss.

I dropped my slice of pizza into the box, tossed the box to the floor, and slid closer.  She bit her lip and raised an eyebrow. 

"Again?" she said.

I bit her neck in response.

She wrapped her arms around me, tossed her pizza at the box on the floor, and giggled, "I guess you really
do
like me."

In the early morning hours a pale sunrise filtered in through the window painting her sleeping body in shades of peach and pink, casting shadows that shifted with the slow rise and fall of her breath.  I sat and watched her.  I wanted a cigarette and a strong drink, but I refrained.

Instead, I thought about the mechanics of ‘like,’ and about the way it becomes…more than ‘like’.

After much careful thought, I decided that what we had, whatever it was, was really something.  Two adults pouncing on each other like a couple of teenagers in the middle of the night, with pizza-breath, no less, felt like something more than just casual.  But then, what did I know? 

I thought about Miranda.

And Grace.

And promptly began to really feel like a piece of shit.

I got up, found an old, stale pack of Marlboros in a desk drawer, and went out on the balcony for a cigarette.

I didn’t get much sleep that night.

That, in itself, wasn’t anything new.

I wasn’t sure about Tracy’s sleeping schedule, though, and I didn’t want to wake her.  I got up around seven, ran through a little practice quickly, and showered.  I scribbled a note for Tracy and walked down to the market.  On the way, I passed HK Trading and barely restrained the urge to stick out my tongue.

I hit a different market, and realized that I didn’t know what she would want for breakfast.  We’d gotten a meatless pizza; did that mean she was a vegetarian?  I tried to think of our previous meals together, but I’d never paid very much attention to the food.

And here I thought I was observant.

This girl had knocked me for a loop.  Boy, had she.

"Lee
Laoshi
, you’re smiling… I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile before."

I looked up at Mrs. Yip, the owner of the store, and felt color rush to my face. 
Great
, I thought,
I’m walking around like a dopey kid with a crush
.

 I asked Mrs. Yip how she and her family were doing and continued shopping while she ranted about her husband.  We’d been through this many times before.  I knew just when to throw in an ‘uh-huh’ or a ‘you’re kidding’.  She never seemed to mind.  Part of it was that she just wanted to practice her English.

I half-listened and decided to just get a little of everything and hope for the best.

I took my groceries to the counter and waited for Mrs. Yip to give me a total.  She looked at the food and looked up at me.  Her eyes looked huge behind her thick glasses.  Mrs. Yip was used to me only buying a six pack and a packet of chow mein noodles at any given time.  I think she was in shock.  As she added up the items, I went to the small flower stand by the front window and picked a couple of nice long-stem pink roses.  When I laid them upon the counter Mrs. Yip’s eyes lit up.

"Oh…  Very good, Lee
Laoshi
.  Very, very good!  No wonder you smile, eh?"

She winked at me as if we shared a secret and finally told me the total.  I handed her the money and she said, "You do know what pink rose mean, right?"

"I’m sorry?"  I said.

"All flowers have meaning.  Pink rose mean perfect happiness."

"Oh.  Well, that’s nice."  I said, helping her bag the groceries.  "Thank you."

Again with the
nice.

I took my bags and told her to have a nice day.  She said, "You too, Lee
Laoshi
, and good luck.  It is a horrible thing, to have to be alone."

I stopped and turned.  "Yes.  It is," I said, and left.

I got back to the apartment, set the groceries on the counter, and went to check on Tracy.  The bed was empty.  The shower was running.  Clothes, sheets, mozzarella cheese, and black olives were strewn across the room.  So much for the cleaning.

I went to the kitchen and got to work.  I had just finished with the pancakes when I heard the bathroom door open.  I took a bowl from the cupboard and cracked six eggs into it.  I added milk, some grated cheese, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and a few super secret ingredients.  With a whisk from the drawer, I proceeded to beat the shit out of the mixture.  I melted some butter in a pan and poured in the egg mixture.  These were the world’s best scrambled eggs, and this was the first time I’d made them in years.  If nothing else had impressed her, I knew the eggs would make her swoon.

Assuming that she actually ate eggs…

I would’ve panicked, but she came up behind me then, slid her arms around my waist, and held me tight.  I scooped the finished eggs onto a plate and turned off the stove.

"Hey," I said.  "Sleep well?"

"Like the dead," she said.  "I hope you don’t mind that I helped myself to your shower…"

"Not at all."  I said.

"I borrowed a t-shirt too."

I turned around to face her.  Her hair was damp and brushed back, tucked behind her ears.  The black t-shirt looked huge on her, but it was only long enough to cover the tops of her thighs.  It was obvious that the shirt was the only thing she was wearing.

Gulp.

"That’s fine.  It…looks good on you."

She grinned and said, "Thanks."

I gave her a quick kiss.  Anything else would’ve led places I wasn’t sure I had the energy for.  At least not until after breakfast.

She said, "Ooh, what are we having?"

"Well, what do you like?  I’ve got pancakes, eggs," my heart skipped a beat, "we can make bacon, sausage, toast… I could make French toast…"

"Oh, gosh, I’ll eat anything," she said.

Phew.

"Do you need any help?" she said.

"Um…you could put the bread in the toaster," I said.

She went into the living room and put on some bouncy, punky music.  She came back, bebopping to the beat, and started making toast.

While she was occupied, I took a knife from the drawer, cut the thorns from the roses, and laid them on the table, beside her plate.

"Coffee, tea, juice, milk?"  I said.

"I’d kill a drifter for some coffee." she said.

I paused.  "…Alrighty, then."

I made coffee.  I wasn’t sure if I was any good at making coffee or not.  As far as I’m concerned, the nasty burnt bean water always tasted like shit, so I had no real frame of reference.  I only ever drank the stuff when exhaustion loomed.

While making the coffee, I heard her gasp.  I turned and saw that she’d found the roses.

A few moments later, she tackled me, and we ended up on the kitchen floor.  Luckily, I’d cut out the thorns.  It turned out that I
did
have some energy. 

And the food wasn’t too bad reheated, though if this trend kept up, I was going to need to buy a new microwave.  Once we were capable of sitting at the table and keeping our hands to ourselves, Tracy said, "So, do you have to stab anybody today?"

"Are you referring to my clients?"  I said, after swallowing a bit of bacon.

"Yeah."

"No.  I’m free today."

"Sweet.  You wanna hang out?"

I almost choked on a bite of pancake. 
Hang out?
 

"Um…sure." I said.

"If you don’t want to, that’s okay," she said, though it clearly wasn’t okay.

"No, I do.  I’d love to."

She beamed.  "Excellent."

"So…" I said, "Do you like the eggs?"

She set her fork down on her plate and leveled her gaze at me.  She said, "Randall, I have told you at least five times that they are the best scrambled eggs I’ve ever had.  Do not ask me again."

"Okay," I said sheepishly.

We talked for a bit about what we were going to do while we ‘hung out.’  She asked if I would take her to the movies. 

"Like a real date," she said.  "Dinner and a movie.  No mysterious phone calls that pull you away… no beating up poor, clueless Tai Chi teachers…"

"Yeah, I’ve been meaning to explain about that," I said.

"Do you have a computer?" she said.

"Yeah, in the office.  Why?"

"Then you can explain while I look up movie times."

I led her back to the office and gave her the short version of the story.  Though I meant to make myself sound like some cool, exotic expert, it clearly didn’t work.

She sat at the computer desk, started typing, and said, "So why do the cops need
your
help with a murder investigation?"

"Well, I told you… it started out that they needed a translator, but then, with the girl who was killed…"

 "What’s this?" she said, cutting me off.  She held up the crime scene photo of Mei Ling that Knox had given me.

"Oh." I said.  "That’s her…that’s the girl."

"What girl?"

"The one who was killed.  We’ve been trying to find out who she is."

Tracy stared at the picture for a long time.  "She’s dead?" she said.

"Yeah, and she had no identification.  The cops ran her prints and couldn’t come up with anything.  The detective I told you about gave me that photo.  I was going to take it around the neighborhood, see if anybody knew her."

Tracy looked up at me, eyes wide, and said, "I know her."

16

Nothing cool or funny or clever to say came to mind, so I stuck with the time-honored, "…What?"