Erica Orloff - Spanish Disco

“Come here, Sophie. I have to tell you the funniest story.”

I listened to his tales of authors and editors in New York’s 1940s literary circles. My father had worked for Simon & Schuster. I laughed where I was supposed to laugh and feigned shock where I was supposed to feign shock. I had heard all these stories many times before. “Sophie” patted his bony hand and smiled and went along with the whole charade. I waited patiently for a moment when lucidity would peek through like a ray of sunshine streaming down from behind a cumulus cloud. Sometimes I was rewarded, feeling like some people do when they see a magnificent beam filtering down—that perhaps there is a God in heaven after all. Other times, the clouds stubbornly shut out the sun, leaving both Dad and me in dreary grayness.

“Well, Jack, I really must be going.”

“So soon, Sophie? So soon? Our time together is always so brief. I wish your divorce was final.”

“It will be soon, Jack. Then we can be together always.”

The doctors tell me not to go along with his fantasies. “Bring him back to the present,” they say. But I refuse to deny him these afternoons of happiness. He always remembers the same years. My mother and he were dating. It was before I came along. Before she abandoned us both. Before all the heartache.

“I love you, Sophie.”

“I love you, too, Jack.”

The clouds parted.

“For heaven’s sake, Cassie, how long have you been standing there?”

“Only a minute or two, Daddy.”

“Come give your Dad a big old hug.”

I grabbed him tightly, smelling his Royal Copenhagen cologne, rubbing my face against the soft terry-cloth of his blue robe.

“How’s my genius daughter?”

“Just fine, Dad. Guess what?” I said, sitting down on the hassock by his slippered feet.

“What?”

“I’m going to work with Roland Riggs.”

He leaned back in his chintz chair and smiled.

“As if you hadn’t before…but, my God, Cassie, you’ve hit the big time.”

“I know. And I’m going away for a few weeks. To stay with him while we work on his new novel. He lives on Sanibel Island.”

“Bring me back a conch shell.”

I laughed. “I will. Can you believe it? Roland Riggs!”

We talked for about a half hour. I held on to every clear word. Then I could see him growing tired.

“I really need to get going, Dad.”

I leaned over and hugged him again.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too. And I’m very proud of you.”

“I know, Dad. I know.”

I fought to keep the tears from coming and stood.

“Tell me everything when you return.”

“I will.”

“Don’t forget a thing.”

“I won’t, Dad.” I smoothed the hand-knitted afghan over his legs and held onto his hand one last time.

Then I walked down the linoleum floors of the hallway. Royal Copenhagen was replaced by antiseptic hospitalish clean. “I won’t forget a thing, Daddy,” I whispered. I wished he wouldn’t either.

“L aptop?”

“Check.”

“Bathing suit?”

“Lou, this really isn’t necessary.”

“Bathing suit?” he said, his voice a little more insistent.

“Check.” Lou was going to send me off with the precision of a military operation. We stood in the parking garage of my building, his black Jaguar next to my yellow monstrosity. Looking like we’d just completed a mob hit, we stared into my trunk.

“Pajamas?”

“I brought a kimono.”

“No can do. Pajamas, Cassie. You cannot sleep naked in Roland Riggs’s house. What if there’s a fire?”

“You’ve become a freakish version of a Jewish grandmother.”

“Pajamas?”

“Robe.”

“Well, I knew this would happen. So hold on…” He went to his car and fumbled in the front seat. “Here.” He smiled, shoving a Victoria’s Secret pink-and-white shopping bag at me. Inside was a very tasteful and elegant set of lounging pajamas.

“What? No oversize South Park sleepshirt?”

Ignoring me, he continued. “Cell phone?”

“Check.”

“Daytimer?”

“Check.”

“Coffeemaker?”

“Check.” We had decided I should have my own coffeemaker in my room so I wouldn’t have to greet Roland Riggs in the mornings pre-caffeine.

“Coffee beans.”

“Check.”

“Grinder.”

“Check.”

“Double latte with two sugars for the road?”

“No…I figured I’d stop on the way.”

“If you stop, you’ll be late. Can you this once be punctual? Hold on.” Again he bent into the Jag and emerged with a tall double latte from my favorite coffee bar.

“You happen to have a tall, dark, and handsome guy in there who also cooks?” I took the latte and set it on the roof of my Caddy.

“No. But I thought of everything else. That’s why we’re a good team.”

He smiled at me, and we had another one of our awkward moments. I knew he thought of me as a daughter. He and Helen never had children. But she had always been the one with the easy, affectionate gestures. A tall, graceful blonde, with the aura of Grace Kelly, she was the one who bought my Christmas gifts—always something truly personal and perfect. A first-edition copy of The Sun Also Rises. An antique cameo pin for my blazer lapel. A tortoiseshell-and-silver brush-and-comb set engraved with my monogram. Helen gave sentimental gifts chosen to show how much she and Lou loved me. Without Helen, Lou faced the daunting prospect of conveying his emotions without her. Since her death, he hugged me clumsily. Mumbled when it felt right. Nursed me through self-pitying moments with visits to our favorite dive bar. But Helen had humanized Lou; they were a perfect pair, and without her he was totally adrift.

“The best team in publishing.” I hugged him. We were about the same height. He patted my back.

“Call me.”

“I will. You’re going to miss me.” I pulled away.

“Oh sure. You after two pots of coffee barking at me over the schedules and covers. Hell, I might actually get some work done with you gone.” He cleared his throat. “You better get going.”

I threw my pajamas in the trunk, donned my Ray-Bans, and took my latte.

“Admit it.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll miss you. Now get going.”

I eased my car out of its tight parking space, waved and was on my way, trying not to think of Michael Pearton. But the mind, even my caffeine-hyped mind, doesn’t work that way. I drove across the Florida Everglades, heading to ward Sanibel Island, and tried—hard—not to think of his voice. But the harder I tried, the more vividly his face and disembodied voice drifted toward me, like a phantom passenger on my soft leather front seat.

I forced myself to think of Lou and Simple Simon, which he made me re-read three times. Lou had been impossible since Roland Riggs’s call. Every day he had new instructions. “Hook up your e-mail if you can. Right away. Call me the second you finish reading the manuscript. Tell me what he looks like. See if you can find out if he’ll do publicity for the book. Is he willing to do interviews?” I hadn’t seen him so hyped up by the possibility of a book since he courted movie legend Joan Fontaine to write her memoirs. (She declined.)

“Lou, shut up,” I had said. “You’re making me nervous. He’s just a guy. He pisses standing up like all the rest of you.”

“Sometimes I piss sitting down.”

“You know, Lou, that’s a little more information than I need to know.”

“Christ, I get to hear about every time you have your period. We brace for your PMS like it’s a hurricane crossing the Caribbean and heading dead-on towards Boca. You can hear about how I sit.”