Until I Saw Your Smile (2 page)

He really didn't want to touch the nightstand.

He decided that if he did burn the bedding, he would add the nightstand to the fire.

He dropped to his hands and knees and looked under the bed.

He found the key.

He also found a pair of Victoria's Secret leopard-print ruffled panties he had bought Joy for Christmas.

That she had been
wearing
this morning
.

He warily tossed the panties into the hallway.

But if
they're
here and
she's
on an airplane . . .

No. They're flying
to
the Caribbean.

He stood and leaned lightly on the edge of the bed before easing toward the dresser.
I can't sleep in my own bed until I get a new mattress. It's a Kluft, and it's only two years old! I suppose I could flip it—

He closed his eyes.

He went into the bathroom, splashed water on his face, and washed his hands. He turned to dry them.

He braced himself on the sink, gripping its cold white edges as water dripped off his chin.

She took all the
towels
and left me a thin, almost see-through white washcloth. Don't they have towels in the Dominican Republic? I'm sure they do. Those towels weren't that special, and they weren't even a matched set!

Who takes the freaking
towels
after a breakup?

He looked at his reflection in the mirror, seeing familiar lines sneaking away from his eyes and creasing his forehead, his brown hair still thick though beginning to recede.
You're not getting any younger. In fact, at this moment, you look older than thirty-five. Maybe you
are
an
anciano
. Joy aged you. She's
still
aging you. You
are
older.

Matthew thought he was a good judge of character. He thought he knew Joy inside and out. He thought he had a lasting relationship with Joy. He thought that all dedicated teachers at P.S. 319 stayed in their classrooms until well after midnight to work on their lesson plans and grade papers, even on Saturdays and Sundays.

He also wondered how he could possibly dry himself without the benefit of a towel.

As these random thoughts collided in his head, he abruptly remembered what Joy had actually said this morning: “This isn't working out, Matthew. Where's my passport?”

And to think that I
told
her where she could find her passport this morning before she left for school.

He returned to the refrigerator, as if looking inside would magically make leftover
baleadas
and his condiments reappear.

They didn't reappear.

The red blobs hadn't moved. They even seemed to glisten more brightly.

Despite his anguish and tangled thoughts, Matthew had a sudden lucid moment.
How could Joy even afford the plane ticket? She barely paid one-third of our bills. Luckily, we had just paid all the bills . . . this . . . month . . .

He dropped his chin to his chest, whispering, “
I
will pay the rent this month,
mi quequito
. Do not worry about a thing. You give me the money, and
I
will take care of it.”

He checked his old-fashioned answering machine on the kitchen counter and saw two messages. One was from PS 319: “Miss Rios, you do not have any sick days left, and if you don't come tomorrow, you will be out of a job.” The other was from Matt's landlord: “You're late with your rent . . .”

He wondered how much he would have to dip into his IRA again to restock his refrigerator, get a new microwave and towels, and pay his rent.

He wondered if there were women in the world who were single, sane, and wouldn't run off on him to the Caribbean bare-assed, packing towels, and carrying salty snacks, condiments, and a bottle of champagne.

He also wondered if he should go ahead and defrost the refrigerator since it was already empty.

He shook these foolish thoughts from his head.

He sighed yet again.

No more sweaty,
caliente
nights. No more long, black hair. No more tan-as-sand skin.

I need to find a woman I can have fun with, a woman I can laugh with, a woman who has the proverbial heart of gold, a woman who doesn't smell like vanilla ice cream twenty-four hours a day, a woman who doesn't talk to herself in Spanish all day. I need a woman who doesn't listen to Garifuna music as “the only music worth listening to,” who only dances the
punta
while flapping—not snapping—her fingers
,
and who can't be bothered at all whenever she watches
Ugly Betty
because
her
girl America Ferrera, of Honduran descent, is her favorite actress. I also need to find a woman who doesn't say she's at the school grading papers when she's shacked up somewhere with an exchange teacher, who doesn't take raiding the refrigerator to the extreme, and who would have the decency to leave at least one usable towel behind!

He slumped into his easy chair, certainly the oldest living easy chair in Brooklyn, its lumpy cushion comforting, its springs moaning, each coffee, pizza, and food-stain marking his progress from NYU undergrad to successful litigator to occasionally paid Internet lawyer. He had originally wanted a love seat, but even that wouldn't fit into his tiny apartment.

Matthew decided to take it one little step at a time.

Matthew posed a better question.
Whom
did
I know once who I
once
thought was fun?

He smiled.

He closed his eyes and saw the sculpted calves, thighs, and hips of one of the many paralegals carrying case files and rushing through Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation, his most recent “real” employer. Eventually he moved up her slender body to her face and found a smile and a pair of smoking-hot hazel eyes. As a matter of personal policy, Matthew didn't date anyone at Brooklyn Legal, but if he had, it would have been Monique. She had done her best to entice him with her long brown hair, her huge hazel eyes, and her too-silky long legs she never hid even if it were ten degrees and snowing outside.

Monique Delicia Freitas had been the Brooklyn Legal seductress, the paralegal every male lawyer and several female lawyers had wanted to work with.

I am
seriously
hungry. I can't think straight. Eyelashes do not reach out and tickle anything.

He looked through rain-streaked windows into the Williamsburg night and saw La Espanola Meat Market, the graffiti memorial for Lil Rich, the now closed and graffiti-splattered New China Restaurant, and garbage bags piled as high as the parking meters casting their shadows over cracked and festering concrete.

Matthew was sure there was a metaphor out there somewhere on that chilly night before National Freedom Day.

Since he seemed to think more logically whenever he sat in his easy chair, he took complete stock of his present situation.

I'm a free Willyburg man now. I'm free. I am single again. I am unattached to anything but this easy chair, where I will be sleeping until I can remedy the bed and bedding situation. I'm thirty-five, relatively handsome, currently healthy, and occasionally self-employed. I have a profession considered honest and ethical by a whopping eighteen percent of the American public in a city that once sued
itself
a few years ago, and I have no towels.

Matthew knew that it was necessary in this human condition to be miserable every now and then because misery made the rare good parts of life seem even better. He knew he should simply stay in his comfortable easy chair and listen to his stomach rumble while worrying if he had enough
paper
towels in the apartment to dry his body if he took a shower.

I also need to see if Monique's middle name is accurate. If my grasp of Spanish is correct,
delicia
means “pleasure or delight.”

Chapter 2

B
ut Matthew didn't have Monique's number.

He couldn't call a Trini Bushwick babe without her phone number.

There were eleven online listings for a “Freitas” but only one Monique.

To save his dwindling cell phone minutes, he used the apartment phone.

“Hello?” said a sexy voice.

“Hi, Monique. It's Matthew McConnell.”

“Who?”

The sexy voice sounds confused. What did she call me?
“
Matty
McConnell. I used to work at Brooklyn Legal about three years ago.”

“Okay.”

The sexy voice is still confused.
“You used to call me Matty McConaughey-hey.”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “I remember you. What's up? You coming back?”

“No. I have my own practice now.”
Not really. My Web site isn't even on the first five pages of Google or Bing if you type in “cheap lawyer.” I never should have named my Web site CheapBrooklyn Lawyer.com.
“Monique, are you doing anything tonight?”

“Are you asking me out?”

Wow. Her sexy voice can get even sexier.
“I guess I am. If you're not too busy.”

“I'm not busy at all, Matty.”

I like the way she says my name. Hate the name. Like the way she purrs it.
“We could get some dinner and then . . . see what happens. Does that sound good?”

“Yeah.”

Now where can I afford to take her? If I had a microwave, we'd share some popcorn.
“Can you meet me at Lovin' Cup Café on North Sixth?”

“Oh, I love their tortilla soup,” she said. “When?”

I'm hungry. I had no
baleadas
tonight.
“How soon can you get there?”

“In maybe an hour.”

“Great. See you soon.”

“Bye, Matty McConaughey-hey.”

 

Matthew used
the
washcloth and some Dial soap to freshen up, drying his arms, chest, and face with several paper towels. He didn't shave.

He opened the bedroom closet expecting to see a row of empty hangers and the floor.

The hangers were full. Joy's shoes covered the floor, crowding his shoes into a corner.

He stepped over to the dresser and opened the drawers on her side.
She took all her Burberry and Longchamp purses, her underwear, and her bras. I hope the Dominican Republic has an epic cold snap for the next few months.

He returned to the closet and thumbed through a row of skinny jeans.
Why did I ever agree to wear these? They put my package in a bunch.
He found a pair of baggy Levi's and ironed them on the kitchen table. He rummaged through his dresser drawers until he found a heavy red wool sweater that only had a few pulls. Finally, he stared at his shoes.

Then he saw a pair of black and white high-top Chucks.
These will work. These say I have old-school style and I know how to have fun.

Donning an old, cracked, brown-leather bomber jacket, he left the apartment and stood among the garbage on Havemeyer—Greenpoint to the north, Bed-Stuy to the south, Bushwick to the east, the East River to the west.

As he walked north and somewhat west, he smiled at his increasingly multicultural neighborhood. On a four-block chunk of Havemeyer, he could eat Vietnamese at Nha Toi, Mexican at Buffalo Cantina, Venezuelan at Arepa Arepa, Japanese at Sumo Teriyaki and Sushi, and Italian at Mezza Luna Pizzeria. His neighborhood was an eclectic mix of Hispanics, Italians, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Catholics, hipster artists, and Dominicans.

Carlo would have felt right at home here.
He smiled.
We might have even become friends.

If Cornelius Vanderbilt could see his supposedly hip hometown now. Billyburg is hip, or at least that's what real estate agents are telling people thanks to the plague of artists around here. You can add just about anything to Williamsburg, and it will never truly be hip. All the indie rock in the world won't change this place for the better—or for the worse, for that matter. Williamsburg just
is,
take it or leave it, and some people can't handle that.

He looked west toward the area bordering the East River, where ten percent of the entire nation's wealthy people once built mansions and the plants that made them wealthy. The Domino Sugar, Esquire Shoe Polish, and Dutch Mustard warehouses were now overpriced factory condominiums ordinary Williamsburgers couldn't afford. When the Williamsburg Bridge opened in 1903 and let Manhattan's Lower East Side spill across the river, Williamsburg became the most densely populated city in the United States. It was so dense that when the novel
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
came out in 1943, Williamsburgers could pass around a single copy of that book hand-to-hand without moving more than a few steps in any direction.

Matthew crossed Driggs Avenue, where supercop Frank Serpico was shot before Matthew was born.
Yeah, this place can be dangerous. Some community development group called Billyburg “the most toxic place to live in America.” Red Auerbach, Joy Behar, Peter Criss, Zoe Kravitz, Barry Manilow, Henry Miller, Gene Simmons, and Barbra Streisand didn't seem to mind.

He looked toward the bridge, shaking his head, wondering why
Coming to America,
supposedly set in Queens, was primarily filmed on South 5th Street in Williamsburg.
It made me laugh to see Billyburg in that movie. Eddie Murphy is really trying to find his queen in Williamsburg, not Queens. Billyburg has always been cheaper, I guess.
He rolled his eyes.
We may be cheap, but we're not easy. That CBS TV show
2 Broke Girls
allegedly takes place here. Only
two
broke girls? CBS should have called it
170,000 Broke People Who Can't Afford the Trendy Condo Upgrades.
Try fitting that title in
TV Guide.
The only reason anyone in Williamsburg watches that show is to see how badly we're misrepresented.

When he saw Monique standing outside Lovin' Cup Café, his heart skipped several beats. Monique was brown as coffee with cream and two sugars. She was tall, with a pierced navel shining out from under a loose purple top, silver bracelets and necklaces glinting, and a pair of the tightest jeans allowed by law almost painted on above a pair of stiletto heels. She had long straight black hair, thin black eyebrows, red lips, and a smile that filled her somewhat wide mouth. When Matthew considered Monique from head to toe, he immediately thought of sandy beaches and skimpy bikinis.

Monique skipped over to him, her heels clicking on the sidewalk. She clung to his arm and whispered a single word: “Matty.”

Matthew decided at that moment that he didn't mind her calling him “Matty” at all.

“Hi,” he said.

“Are you hungry, Matty?”

He looked into her hazel eyes. “I'm ravenous.”

Monique batted her long eyelashes. “Not as ravenous as I am. Let's eat.”

Lovin' Cup Café had a long bar on one side, a collection of small tables with two chairs on the other. Matthew looked forward to their knees doing the cha-cha-cha in this crowded, intimate restaurant.

As soon as they sat looking over the menu, Monique's calves rubbed against his.

“Oh,” she said, “they have drunk brunch specials. Maybe we can come back tomorrow for brunch.”

Matthew thought this was a wonderful idea. “I haven't been here in quite a while. What's good?”

“Oh,” Monique gushed. “You have to try the tots.”

Tots. A grown woman has just said “tots” to me.
“I think I will.”

They ate Whole Lotta Lovin' Tots. They savored tortilla soup. They split an order of Jalapeño Mac ‘n' cheese.

And Monique drank.

A lot.

In less than half an hour, she knocked back two strawberry tequilas and a Parlourita, a spicy margarita with jalapeño tequila, Cointreau, and lime.

Matthew soon discovered that although Monique had absolutely nothing to say as she ate, her body never stopped talking and whispering, “Take me, Matty!”

As Monique sipped her second Parlourita and Matthew his original Sam Adams, Matthew tried to get a conversation going. “So, how's Brooklyn Legal?”

“The same. You know.”

I
don't
know. That's why I asked.
“Still busy?”

“Yeah.”

“Still crowded?”

“Yeah.”

“You obviously like working there if you're still there.”

“Yeah.”

“How long have you been there now?”

Monique groaned. “Five years.”

“Is Mitch still there?” Matthew asked.

“Yeah.”

“I remember when I started and Mitch was doing some Greenpoint rezoning case and fighting developers,” Matthew said. “That was a mess, wasn't it?”

Monique blinked at him, frowning.

Did her eyes just roll? They did.
“But that's past history.”

Monique's smile returned.

I talk, and she rolls her eyes. I stop talking, and she smiles. I will stop talking.
“The night is young. Do you want to go somewhere, maybe play some Brewskee-Ball at Full Circle Bar?”

Monique blinked.

Not her idea of fun.
“Or maybe we could catch a movie at the Nitehawk. I think they're doing a series of Kung Fu flicks with live music. Or is it
The Princess Bride
with waffles and chicken? Either way, it will be really . . .”
Monique is frowning. This is not good.

Monique sighed. “I'd rather go to The Cove.” She pointed out the window and across the street. “I love to dance.”

“It used to be called Hugs,” Matthew said.

“Yeah?”

Monique can also turn “yeah” into a question. She has an incredible vocabulary.
“Let's go dancing.” Matthew stood and threw three twenties on the table. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

They crossed 6th Street and passed people standing outside talking on cell phones and smoking. A strong whiff of urine washed over Matthew.
They still haven't solved their bathroom problems. If I have to, I will use the upstairs bathroom.

As they waited to be carded, Monique grabbed Matthew's driver's license from his hand. “Do you have a car?”

I would have picked you up if I had a car, right?
“Not anymore. I used to have a BMW when I worked for Schwartz, Yevgeny, and Ginsberg.”

“Who?”

You can't turn on the radio or TV without hearing their abrasive, in-your-face ads.
“The ‘Know Your Rights or You're Nowhere!' guys.”

Monique blinked.

She has no idea. And she's a paralegal? SYG is the scourge of the legal world from coast to coast.
“They're the lawyers who sue the known and unknown world, the living and even the dead, the law firm with all those loud ads on TV.”

Monique squinted then broke into a dazzling smile. “Oh,
those
guys. I didn't know you used to work for them.”

“Past history.”

Monique shrugged. “Matty, if you don't have a car, why do you still have a driver's license?”