Michael Rizza - Cartilage and Skin

“Promise me this,” he said. “As soon as you finish all this schooling and you start raking in the cash, if you’re still looking for a husband, well—” He broke off with a smile.

“You’ll be the first guy I call.”

“It’s a deal.”

He held up his glass of beer, and they toasted.

By now, my own beer, as well as the fries, was finished. I looked around for the waiter, and seeing him going from table to table, I wondered if he was intentionally avoiding me. At the same moment that I was trying to get the waiter’s attention, the young man held up his hand, as though hailing a taxi, and called to the waiter as he skirted past our tables.

“Another round,” the young man said.

The waiter nodded once and continued walking. His little black eyes met mine, but he kept going without a word.

My interest in the prospective lawyer and her suitor was momentarily diverted because two young women sitting across the aisle had just rejected their first round of libidinal advances. They were both pretty blonde-haired girls dressed in black. When the set of guys approached them, sat down at the table, and exuded a profusion of arrogance and idiocy, I at first assumed that they were the girls’ dates, boyfriends, or lovers. Defeated, they eventually got up and headed back to the bar. The girls set their empty martini glasses at the edge of the table, and the wiry waiter exchanged them for fresh drinks. Shortly afterwards, a second round of rutting young men advanced. They stood above the table, drinks in hand, and talked to the girls, who gazed up thoughtfully. This pair of young men was less bold, or perhaps more sensible, than the first one because they didn’t plop themselves down uninvited. The girls nodded and responded, apparently willing to give the rutting boys a chance to make their appeal, put on their show, or do whatever kind of trick needed to woo the girls. Because of the music, I could only discern random fragments of their conversation. These two weren’t actually rejected because the spokesman had the foresight to take his leave before he ran out of things to say or was unequivocally dismissed.

“I tell you what,” he said. “I’m going to have your waiter bring you your next drinks on me, and while you are—”

“Don’t bother,” one of the girls said and slid two empty, turned-over shot glasses to the edge of the table.

“Better yet,” he said, smiling.

“I think they’re from that guy.” The girl pointed toward the crowded bar area.

“Better yet. While you’re drinking that guy’s drinks, let us know if we can join you, just for the drink.”

“We’ll let you know,” the girl said.

His eyes lingered on her face as he first turned his body and then his gaze, in slow motion, away from her. Suavely, he started away, his sidekick following.

The waiter dropped off the drinks that the young man with the beard had ordered, and although I held up my hand and said, “Excuse me,” the waiter turned his back to me and faced the blonde-haired girls. He said something that made them laugh.

“Excuse me,” I repeated, but to no avail. He was gone.

The bearded boy was watching me, but I looked down at the empty plastic basket and then pushed it and the glass to the edge of the table, as I’d seen the girls do. The waiter was so obviously snubbing me that I wondered what I had done to him, if not recently, then perhaps long ago — but I couldn’t recall ever seeing him before; I’d have remembered his tattoo, let alone his effeminate cheekbones and his fierce little eyes. I absently scanned the room, which was decorated with pictures of lighthouses and seascapes and craggy shores, as though I couldn’t hear the bearded boy softly explaining to the girl that the “waiter was being a prick.” Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the girl with the lovely smooth shoulders turned in her chair to steal a glance at me. She then said something in a hushed tone, at which her cherubic companion chuckled, saying, “Poor bastard.” If the girl returned his laugh, I would have felt wounded and pathetic. Instead, the girl got up from her seat and walked past me toward the bar. I followed her with my eyes and, from behind, saw that the lower part of her was also sweetly shaped. When I turned back around, her date had his eyes fixed on me. He apparently didn’t notice or care that I had just been ogling her.

“What’d you do to him?” he asked.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Well, Miriam, that girl, went to get you a drink.” The slight smirk on his face suggested that he found the situation entertaining.

“I’m okay,” I said quickly.

“Well, she’s got it in her head now. No stopping her.”

“I wish she didn’t.”

He shrugged, and I shifted my attention back to the waves crashing against jagged rocks in the picture above my table.

When the waiter returned, he wordlessly set down a fresh glass of the thick, black brew and cleared away the things I’d dirtied. Of course, I had planned on ordering a different kind of beer, but I didn’t say anything. I was curious on whose tab was this drink and thus to what extent I was obligated to thank Miriam. I started to lower my mouth down to the glass, but then suddenly conscious that this movement lacked elegance, I sat back, lifted the glass in my hand, and took a sip. Watching me, the bearded boy grinned.

Miriam came back and slipped herself onto the chair. Looking over the rim of my glass, I watched her as she began to turn around in her seat, my eyes lighting first upon the gentle curve of her breast and then briefly upon her forearm that was placed on my table, before moving up to her smile and beholding the face that belonged to that tantalizing figure. Her shrunken chin sloped radically toward her neck, and her raised upper lip revealed an expanse of pink gum, and her eyes, unfortunately, were set too close to the bridge of her nose, which, by the way, was dimpled at the tip. All the desire she had aroused in me an instant ago was abruptly shocked by her ugliness. As I felt my blasted passion begin to shrivel beneath the radiance of her beaming countenance, I returned her good humor the best I could; I imagined that I smiled back at her or at least did something semi-civil with the corners of my mouth. She apparently didn’t notice my disgust because she said, “Don’t mind that bastard,” then held out her glass to me, and added, “Cheers.”

I clinked my glass against hers. Slowly sipping my drink, I vaguely listened to her speak, transfixed by her mouth shaping the words. Evidently, her upper gums were always exposed, even when she wasn’t smiling. My beer, she said, was on Stephen’s bill.

“Wait a second.” The bearded boy laughed. “It’s nice of you to be generous with someone else’s money.”

“You don’t have to—” I started to say.

“I didn’t—”

“Don’t you be a bastard now too.” Miriam cut him off.

They both seemed very happy.

“Really,” I said, looking at him now because it was easier. “I’ll pay for my own drink.”

“No, no.” He waved his hand. “It’s my one act of charity in this life. Don’t take that from me.”

“Thanks then,” I said.

“Besides, now I won’t have to spend so much time in purgatory.”

The girl began to turn around and settle back in her seat.

“Let me treat you two next then,” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I would like my drink today, if you know what I mean. By the time you get service—” He ended this sentence with a chuckle.

“I have no idea why he’s snubbing me.”

“Oh, I know,” the girl said, with her back to me again. “I asked him.” She fell silent, as if to tease me.

I waited a moment and then asked, “Why? What’d he say?”