Bruce DeSilva - A Scourge of Vipers

“So where shall we eat?”

At first, she didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure if she was sorting through a mental checklist of restaurants or deciding on the best way to let me down.

“I do want to see you again,” she finally said, “but I’m not sure I’m ready yet. How about a rain check?”

“It’s not raining, Yolanda. It’s a beautiful spring day. But it would be more beautiful if I could spend some of it with you. Besides, if we wait, I probably won’t be in a celebratory mood.”

“Why not?”

“Because once the story hits the streets, I’m probably going to get fired.”

“What? Why would they fire you for writing a page-one story?”

“I’ll explain over dessert.”

The maître d’ at Andino’s seated us at a table for two with a view of Atwells Avenue, the main thoroughfare in the city’s Italian district. Beside us was a pastel mural depicting the great little restaurant in a row of other eateries. I’d spruced up for the occasion, dragging a comb through my hair and donning a blue blazer over my Dustin Pedroia Red Sox T-shirt. Yolanda was sheathed in a low-cut, yellow silk dress designed by someone who knew how to make me lose my mind. She was still wearing the scales-of-justice pendant I’d given her. It fell in the valley between her breasts, as if I needed another reason to look there.

“I’ve missed you,” I said.

“It’s been less than a week.”

“The state I’m in, that feels like a long, long time.”

“Don’t,” she said.

“I shouldn’t tell you how I feel?”

She dropped her eyes to the table and drew a breath.

“At least wait till we have some wine.”

She ordered a bottle of something white and expensive to go with our meal, a snail salad appetizer and linguini in clam sauce for her, clams Giovanni and shrimp fra diavolo for me. When the first course arrived, she helped herself, as usual, to a morsel from my plate.

Yolanda steered the conversation to safer territory, her work and mine, so I filled her in on why my story was sure to cause trouble at the paper. One bottle of wine led to another, and by the time the waiter cleared our plates away, both of us were a little drunk.

As we sipped our after-dinner cappuccinos, she finally got around to talking about us. But not in the way I hoped.

“People are staring,” she said.

“At you?”

“At the two of us.”

“I haven’t noticed. I’ve been concentrating on you.”

“I hate it,” she said.

“Hard to blame them, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“If we were in Miami or New York City, nobody would look at us twice,” I said, “but in Providence, you and I are a sight.”

“I know why it happens,” she said. “But that doesn’t make me comfortable with it.”

I tore my eyes away from her and took a look around. A couple of tables away, an elderly gentleman, dressed for dinner in a tailored black suit, was eating alone. He glanced at us, saw that I’d caught him looking, smiled warmly, and turned back to his pasta. To his right, two young people on a date were stealing furtive looks at us and whispering to each other. A few yards to our left, three men in suits, probably here for a business meeting, couldn’t keep their eyes off Yolanda. Halfway across the room, a middle-aged couple dining with their three preteen children were staring with open hostility. Nobody else seemed to be paying us any attention.

“The old guy over there approves of us,” I said. “The young couple, the ones giggling now, are just curious. And the three businessmen to our right aren’t looking at us. They’re looking at you because you’re beautiful.”

“What about the couple with the three kids?”

“They think we’re an abomination.”

Yolanda turned in her seat and locked eyes with them. The woman averted her gaze, but her husband didn’t look away. I pushed my chair back from the table, strolled over to where they were sitting, and loomed over them.

“Got a problem?”

“What? No,” the husband said.

“Because if you do, I’ll be happy to drag you outside and teach you some manners.”

His face reddened, and his hands curled into fists. I’d embarrassed him in front of his family. Now he was trying to decide whether he had the stones to do something about it.

“Honey, don’t,” his wife said.

He started to get up anyway, then thought better of it and settled back into his seat.

“Wise move,” I said. I stood over them for another ten seconds. Then I turned my back and returned to our table.

“What did you say to him?” Yolanda asked.

“I asked him if he had a problem. He assured me he didn’t.”

“They’re not looking at us anymore.”

“I’ll bet.”

“If we keep seeing each other, this is going to keep happening.”

“It’s just two assholes in a restaurant full of people, Yolanda. Don’t let them get to you.”

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“I’m having dinner with the most beautiful woman in New England,” I said. “I couldn’t care less about what a couple of morons think.”

“That’s because it only happens to you when you’re with me. You’ve never felt the whole attitude of a room change just because you walked into it. Store detectives follow me around when I shop. Cashiers call my bank to check on my credit card because they think I probably stole it. People look astonished when I open my mouth and actually speak the King’s English. They expect me to sound like Prissy from Gone with the Wind .”

I didn’t know what to say about any of that. I just reached across the table, took her hand, and caressed her palm with my thumb. She took another sip of her cappuccino. Then she looked at me over the rim of her cup, and something inside of me melted.

“You’re getting to me, Mulligan. I think about you all the time now.”

“And you’re stuck in my head like a wrong song.” I stroked her palm again. “So what are we waiting for?”

“You know.”

“Didn’t I tell you? I’m black Irish.”

“Not the same thing.”

“Then maybe you could just close your eyes.”

“Stop with the jokes.”

“I’m not joking. Close them, Yolanda. Do it right now.”

She looked at me curiously, then did as I asked.

I rose from the table, went to her, and kissed her mouth. Her eyes flew open, and she pulled away. Then she put her hands behind my neck, closed her eyes again, and tugged me back down. Our lips met, and this time they parted. I’m not sure how long the kiss lasted, but I didn’t stop until she pulled away again. Everyone was staring now, and this time we’d given them a reason. I think I was actually blushing as I sat back down across from her.

“Damn,” she whispered.

“Was that a good damn or a bad damn?”

“Good,” she said, her voice slurring a little.

“I could kiss you like that every day.”

She picked up her cup, stared out the window, and finished her cappuccino. Then she leaned forward and gave me that look again.

“Mulligan?”

“Um.”

“Finish your coffee and take me home.”

“Then what?”

“Then you can help me out of this dress.”

Johnny Arujo had been a newspaper security guard for a dozen years. Each morning, he’d always greeted me by name when I entered the lobby. But Monday morning, he rose from behind his desk to give me a high five.

“Hell of a story yesterday,” he said. “I didn’t think The Dispatch did that kind of thing anymore.”

“Neither did I.”

“Gonna be more where this one came from?”