C. Reiss - Beg

I scanned the lot for someone I knew, hoping I’d find someone to say hello to on one hand and wishing Jonathan and I could stay alone on the other.

“My Kogi truck is over there,” I said.

“I’m going to Korea next week. The last think I need is to fill up on Kogi. Have you had the Tipo’s Tacos?”

“Tacos? Really?

“Come on.” He took my hand and pulled me over to the taco truck. “You’re not a vegetarian or anything?”

“No.”

“ Hola, ” he said to the guy in the window, who looked to be about my age or younger with a wide smile and little moustache. “Che tal ?” he continued. That was about the extent of my Spanish, but not Jonathan’s. He started rattling off stuff, asking questions, and if the laughter between him and the guy with the little moustache was any indication, joking fluidly. If I’d closed my eyes, I’d have thought he was a different person.

“You speak Spanish?” I asked.

“You don’t?” Little Moustache asked.

“No.”

He said something to Jonathan, and there was more conversation, which made me feel left out. They were obviously talking about me.

“He wants to know if you’re as smart as you are beautiful,” Jonathan said.

“What did you tell him?”

“Prospects are good, but I need time to get to know you better.”

“Anywhere in that conversation, did you order me a pastor? ”

“Just one?”

“Yes. Just one.”

“They’re small.” He made a circle with his hands, smiling like an old grandma talking to her granddaughter about being too damn skinny.

I pinched his side, and there wasn’t much to grab. It was hard and tight. “One,” I said, trying to forget that I’d touched him.

We sat at a long table. A few trucks were breaking down for the night. There was a feeling of quiet and finality, the feeling he and I had outlasted the late nighters and deep partiers. I finished my taco in three bites and turned around, putting my back to the table and stretching my legs.

He took a swig of his water and touched my bicep with his thumb. “No tattoos?”

“No. Why?”

“I don’t know. Mid-twenties. Musician. Lives in Echo Park. You need tattoos and piercings to get into that club.”

I shook my head. “I went a few times, but couldn’t commit to anything. My best friend Gabby has a few. I went with her once, and I couldn’t decide what to get. And anyway, it would have been awkward.”

“Why?” He was working on his last taco, so I guess I felt like I should do the talking until he finished.

“She was getting something important. On the inside of her wrist, she got the words Never Again on the scars she made when she cut herself. I couldn’t diminish it by getting some stupid thing on me.”

He ate his last bite and balled up his napkin. “What happened that made her try to commit suicide?”

“We have no idea. She doesn’t even know. Just life.” I wanted to tell him I’d found her, and been with her in the hospital, and that I took care of her, but I thought I’d gotten heavy enough. “I have a piercing though,” I said. “Wanna see?”

“I can see your ears from here.”

I lifted my shirt to show him my navel ring with its little fake diamond. “Yes, it hurt.”

“Ah,” he said. “Lovely.”

He touched it, then spread his fingers over my stomach. His pinkie grazed the top of my waistband, and I took in a deep gasp. He put a little pressure toward him on my waist, and I followed it, kissing him deeply. His stubble scratched my lips and his tongue tasted of the water he’d just drunk. I put my hands on his cheeks, weaving my fingers in his hair.

It was sweet, and doomed, and pointless, but it was late, and he was handsome and funny. I may not have been interested in having a boyfriend, but I wasn’t made of stone.

When Little Moustache had to break down the table, we had to admit it was time to go. The sky had gone from navy to cyan, and the air warmed with the appearance of the first arc of the sun.

We got to his car before he had to feed the meter. We didn’t say anything as he pulled into the parking lot at the Stock and went down two stories to my lonely Honda, sitting in the employee section. I opened the door with a clack that echoed in the empty underground lot.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll probably see you at the hotel sometime.”

“We can pretend this never happened.”

“Up to you.” He touched my cheek with his fingertips, and I felt like an electrical cable to my nervous system went live. “I wouldn’t mind finishing the job.”

“Let’s not promise each other anything.”

“All right. No promises,” he said.

“No lies,” I replied.

“See you around.”

We parted without a good-bye kiss.

Gabby and I lived in the house I grew up in, which was on the second steepest hill in Los Angeles. When my parents moved, they let me live in the house for rent that equaled the property taxes plus utilities. I was sure I’d never need to move. I had two bedrooms and a little yard. The house had been a worthless piece of crap in a bad neighborhood when they bought it in the 1980s. Now it had a cardiologist to the west of it and a converted Montessori school that cost $1,800 a month to the east.

The night Jonathan Drazen took me up to Mulholland Drive, I returned to find Darren sleeping on my couch. We had agreed to not leave Gabby alone until we knew she was okay, and she’d gotten no better after a week on her meds. The first blue light of morning came through the drapes, so I could see well enough to step around the pizza box he’d left on the floor and get into the bathroom.

I looked at myself in the mirror. The convertible had wreaked havoc with my hair and my makeup was gone, probably all over Jonathan Drazen’s face.

I still felt his touch: his lips on my neck, his hands feeling my breasts through my shirt. My fingers traced where his had been, and my snatch felt like an overripe fruit. I stuck my hand in my jeans, one knee on the toilet bowl, and came so fast and hard under the ugly fluorescent lights that my back arched and I moaned at my own touch. It was a waste of time. I wanted him as much after I came as I did before.

My God, I thought, how did I do this to myself? What have I become?

I needed to never see him again. I didn’t need his lips or his firm hands. If I needed to take care of my body’s needs, I could find a man easily enough. I didn’t need one so pissed at his ex-wife he’d make me fall in love with him before apologizing for leading me on. He wanted to hurt women, and nothing froze my creative juices like heartache. No, I decided as I went back out to the kitchen, anyone but Jonathan.

Darren was already making coffee.

“Where were you?” he asked. “It’s six thirty already.”

“Driving all over the west side with I-won’t-say.”

“Mister Gorgeous?” He said it without jealousy or teasing.

“Yep.”

“He’s nice to you?”

“He wants to sleep with me, so it’s hard to say if he’s being nice or being manipulative,” I said. “How’s Gabby?”

“Same.” He got out two cups and a near-dead carton of half-and-half. “She’s volatile, then deadened. She started shaking because she wasn’t playing last night. Missed opportunity and all that. Then she rocked back and forth for half an hour.”

“Did you sit her at the piano?”

“Yeah, that worked. We need something to happen for her.”

“She’ll still be who she is,” I said. “She could play the Staples Center, and she’d be this way.”

“But she could afford to get care, the right meds, maybe therapy. Something.” I nodded. He was right. They were stymied by poverty. “And Vinny? I haven’t heard a damn thing from that guy. I tried calling him and his mailbox is full.” He was losing his shit, standing there with a coffee cup in his hand.