Stuart Kaminsky - Dancing in the Dark

I moved to the table near the window, pulled out one of my two wooden chairs, and turned it toward her. I sat and tried to place that look and voice.

“You don’t recognize me,” she said.

I shrugged. “It’s been a long day.”

“Mr. Dutz, Music. How do we know radio announcers have small hands?”

“Because,” I answered. “They say ‘wee paws now for station identification.’ ” Dutz told that same dumb joke every semester. Clue number one, she had gone to Glendale High a long time ago. Dutz had been dead for almost twenty years.

“Don’t have it yet?” she said, crossing her legs. They were good legs.

“You’re not?. .” I started.

“The flower was a purple orchid. You kissed me at my front door. You kept your mouth closed and your eyes open.”

“Anita?”

“I clean up pretty good, Tobias,” she said with a smile. “When you came to the diner the other day, I had put in twelve hours on my feet and had one hell of a Chinese headache. Not to mention that I wasn’t wearing any makeup and I hadn’t had my hair dyed and done in more than a month.”

It was hard to believe this was the same tired woman who had served me at Mack’s diner and reminded me that I had taken her to the prom.

“Anita, what the. . what are you doing here?”

She took Dash on her lap. Something the cat never allowed. Dash nuzzled against her breast. I was definitely waking up.

“You said you’d call. You didn’t. I called. You didn’t return my calls. I’m persistent. You want to hear a quick version of my life story since high school, the part I didn’t cover at the diner?”

“I. .”

“I think we should renew our acquaintance before we. . By the way, why don’t you have a bed?”

“Bad back,” I said. “Big guy gave me a bear hug right before the war. I was guarding Mickey Rooney. The big guy wanted to talk to him. I was in the way. Back’s had a tendency to go out ever since. I sleep on my back on a hard mattress.”

“See,” she said. “We’re getting to know each other. After Ozzie,” she said, nuzzling her nose against Dash’s, “I started college. One year at Scripps College for Women. Not easy when you’re raising a kid. I put in odd hours at a diner on the Coast Highway. Got a part in a play we were putting on at Scripps with. . you have coffee?”

“I’ll make some,” I said. “Keep talking.”

She talked. I made coffee.

“Anyway, we put the play on with men from Pomona College. Men, boys. The play was Mrs. Fowles’s Mistake: A Comedy in Three Acts. You know the kind of thing. Mistaken identities. Costumes. Women cheating on men who were cheating on women. I got bitten by the acting bug and a senior named Harold Sumner. We ran off, got married, found an apartment in Hollywood, and I tried to get into the movies. While I was ducking big-handed casting directors, Harold was. . dallying with a variety of ladies, young and not-so-young. Am I boring you?”

“No,” I said, setting out two cups and saucers while the coffee perked on my hot plate.

“Bear with me,” she said. “There’s a point. I threw Harold out when I caught him with my mother. They were necking in the front seat of her car half a block from our apartment. My mother was a good-looking woman. Bad judge of men. It runs in the family.”

“Want some toast with your coffee?” I asked.

She shrugged. I dropped two slices in the toaster and turned it on.

“Gave up on acting,” she said. “Tried office work. Great Pacific Insurance. Businessmen and salesmen have hands just as big as casting directors. I married a nice older guy who owned a diner where I had lunch with a few other girls. Nice guy, Mack Chirikides. I went to work with him in the diner. Customers have big hands. Mack died. Found out he’d spent all his money on horses. There was mortgage to pay on the diner. A kid to raise. I kept working. You came in there the other day.”

“Your kid?” I asked.

“One girl, with Ozzie,” she said. “Lonny. She’s married, lives in Sacramento. Husband’s in the army. They’ve got one kid, Mal.”

“You don’t look like a grandmother,” I said, gingerly pulling the toast out of the toaster and dropping it onto a plate.

“You?” she asked with a smile.

“Married Anne. Went to work for the Glendale Police force. Was asked to leave. Did security work for Warner Brothers. Got fired. Became a private detective. Lost Anne, wound up here.”

The coffee was ready.

“Sugar and milk?” I asked.

“Black,” she said. “I want to stay awake and I have to open the diner at seven.”

She put Dash gently down on the sofa. He curled up and went to sleep.

“I fed him,” she said, moving around the mattress and to the table. “Hope that’s okay.”

“Fine,” I said, pouring the coffee into two mugs. I pulled some orange marmalade from the small refrigerator and put it on the table.

“Well,” Anita said, taking a sip of coffee. “I’ve thought about you off and on over the years. You didn’t have big hands and you didn’t know how to kiss.”

“That was a lot of years ago,” I said. “I was a kid.”

She nodded and said, “So was I. Since Mack died twelve years ago, I’ve been to bed with three men: a cop, a bread salesman, and a sergeant in the army. They all reminded me of you.”

I didn’t know what to say. I look in the mirror every morning to shave-well, almost every morning. What I see there is a definitely middle-aged man whose hair is rapidly going gray. I see a brown-eyed mug with a mashed-in nose. I do not see anyone close to Preston Stewart. I do not even see Humphrey Bogart.

“So,” I said. “You tracked me down.”

“To end the fantasy or bring it to life,” she said.

“Nicely put,” I said.

“I do a lot of reading.”

She was looking at me over her cup. She held the cup in two hands. Her fingernails were short and very red. Her hands were rough. Her eyes were moist and perfect and when she put the cup down, her lips were red and full just like the girl I had kissed on prom night.

“Are you a little nuts?” I asked.

“Not usually,” she said with a sigh. “I’m usually a patient counter cleaner who knows how to keep her customers happy and her bottom from being pinched. I don’t think I’ve done a really wild thing in my life besides this. Are we going to keep talking?”

I got up and so did she. I moved to her. She pressed against me. The height was right. The feel of her breasts was right. I kissed her. Not like the kid at her door, like Gary Cooper. Long. Mouths open. She eased away and her hand went down between my legs. She smiled.

“Let’s end the fantasy,” I said.

“Let’s see if we can find a new and better one,” she answered.

Something woke me up. The first light of the sun was just glowing through the darkness. I blinked at the Beech-Nut clock on the wall. It was ten after six. I sat up. Anita came through the door.

“Wash room,” she said. “I’ve got to get to the diner.”

She leaned over and kissed me. I kissed back and tried to pull her gently back onto the mattress. She patted my hand and I let go.

“How’s your fantasy?” I asked.

“Alive and well,” she said with a smile.

“Movie Saturday?” I asked.

“Saturday night is busy,” she answered. “You can have me all day Sunday.”

I grinned and she left. I thought about Anne. I didn’t much care at the moment if she married Preston Stewart or Tojo. If it weren’t for the fact that someone had tried to kill me the night before, I would be in a damned good mood. My rear end didn’t even hurt, though there was a tenderness to it that I had done my best to keep Anita from finding out about.