Richard Lange - Sweet Nothing

I passed a club I’d heard about, a place people went. Sometimes it hits you how long it’s been since you had that kind of fun. I wasn’t tired, nobody was waiting on me at home, so I turned around and parked. If there was a line or a cover charge — any kind of hassle at all — I was ready to leave, but I wound up breezing right in and even found a seat at the bar. It turned out to be next to this girl, Sophie, the one who’s saying to me now, “We need to talk. And not on the phone.”

THEY’RE SHOOTING SOMETHING around the corner, in one of the big houses in Hancock Park. Equipment trucks and portable dressing rooms line the street, and huge lights set up on the lawn stand in for the sun.

Julie and I are walking Eve, pushing her in her stroller. We go this way every Sunday morning, bring our coffee along. The kid waves at birds and has to pet all the friendly dogs we pass. Meanwhile, Julie plays games with her: Do you see a mailbox? Do you see a trash can? Sometimes I want to say, Jesus, leave her alone. She’ll be in school soon enough, and people will pick her brain all day long.

Some guy with a walkie-talkie steps onto the sidewalk and blocks our way.

“Could I get you to cross the street?” he says.

“Why?” Julie says,

“We’re filming here.”

“So?”

“So you have to cross the street.”

Julie’s jaw tightens. She beat up a girl in junior high. The girl called her a slut, and Julie broke her nose. She’s not proud of it, but she did it.

“We don’t have to cross,” she says. “You don’t have any authority.”

“Come on,” the guy says. “Please.”

Julie pushes the stroller toward him. He has to jump out of her way.

“Really?” he says as she rolls by.

I trail after her and give him a shrug and a smile.

We pass the cameras and craft services and a man holding a microphone on the end of a pole. A girl carrying a clipboard yells “Hey!” but Julie ignores her too. The rent-a-cop hired to stop traffic is lounging on his motorcycle. He gives us a sarcastic salute and chirps, “Thanks for your cooperation.”

Julie fumes all the way into Larchmont Village. Who do they think they are? We’ve got as much right to the sidewalk as they do. I quit listening when she starts talking about writing a letter to the newspaper. I haven’t slept in two days, and it feels like bugs are crawling on my eyeballs.

“Do you see a fire engine?” I say to Eve. It’s a test; there is no fire engine.

“There,” Eve says. She points at a car driving by. The sky is milky white, and nothing has a shadow. Julie goes into the bakery for bread, and I wait outside with Eve. We watch an old man cross against the signal and someone in a silver Mercedes give him hell.

I SPEND THE morning drafting an op-ed piece on the redistricting proposal. The councilman is against it because the new map will put more Latinos in his area, and he’s afraid they won’t vote for a gringo. He can’t come out and say that, of course, so he gave me a few useless notes and asked me to turn them into an acceptable counterargument.

Bob is breathing down my neck, but I can’t build up any steam. Something’s wrong with my chair. It’s not quite right, like maybe the cleaning crew bumped the height knob over the weekend. I get down on my hands and knees three times to fiddle with it but keep making things worse.

My excuse for taking a long lunch is a doctor’s appointment. Bob looks like he wants to squawk, but I tell him not to worry, I’ll be back this afternoon and stay until I finish the piece. I drive into Hollywood and find the Starbucks where I’m meeting Sophie. It’s in a shitty strip mall between a RadioShack and a Panda Express. I park in back, next to a padlocked dumpster.

I’m nervous walking in that I won’t remember her. She had dark hair and dark eyes that I said something stupid about that night, how a man could get lost in them and never find his way home.

“Wow,” she said. “The big guns already?”

That was the moment, me stammering and faking chagrin, her laughing and saying, “Just kidding.” That was the last exit, and I sped past it. Even though it had been a while since I’d been out and about, since I’d done any flirting, I knew right then where we were headed.

Turns out she’s easy to spot, the prettiest girl in the place. She’s smaller than I recall, maybe older. She’s wearing a white blouse and gray slacks, work clothes. She looks up from her phone as I approach, frowns, and I see the beauty mark on her upper lip, where I first kissed her.

“Should I sit?” I say.

“Sure,” she replies.

The chair scrapes loudly across the floor as I pull it out. Everybody stares at us, our awkwardness palpable. I sit and put my hands in my lap, then on the table, then back in my lap.

She’s pregnant.

Even if you’re prepared for something like that, the actual words can still lay you out. I tilt my head back, close my eyes, and exhale through pursed lips.

“Okay,” I say. “What do we do about it?”

“Don’t worry,” she scoffs. “I don’t plan on being a mommy right now, but the problem is, I don’t have insurance.”

This is one of the scenarios I’ve been playing out ever since I got her call, trying to be ready for anything.

“Whatever you need,” I say.

“I need money,” she says.

“How much?” I say.

She gazes past me, running numbers in her head. I find this charming. I would’ve already had a figure in mind.

“Fifteen hundred?” she says, as if asking if the amount is acceptable.

“All right,” I say. “Give me a week.”

My easy acquiescence seems to take her by surprise. Her eyes well up with tears, and I’m suddenly filled with tenderness toward her. I have to admit that for two seconds after we climbed out of the backseat of my car that night, after we kissed good-bye, I was in some kind of love with her. And in spite of all the guilt, remorse, and penitence that came later, the memory of her reaching up to pull me down on top of her is one I’ve often lingered over.

She shifts and sniffles and uses her napkin to wipe up a coffee spill on the table. Someone has etched a tag into the glass of the window behind her, and when the sun hits the scratches, they sparkle with a diamond’s soulless brilliance.

“I guess I should have been more careful,” she says. “But so should you.”

“Absolutely,” I say. “I totally blame myself.”

“You’re married?” she says, pointing at my ring.

“Yes,” I say.

“Why weren’t you wearing it that night?”

“I took it off.”

She draws back her head and squints down her nose at me.

“That’s fucked up,” she says.

“I know,” I say.

“It’s disgusting.”

I’m glad she’s saying this. It’s good for me. I need to hear what a rotten bastard I am because part of me still isn’t convinced.

I realize I’ve had my sunglasses on since I got here. I reach up and take them off.

“Are you okay for now?” I say. “Do you need anything?”

“Give me twenty dollars,” she says.

I reach for my wallet, slide the bill out.

“Wait,” she says. “Give me forty. No, sixty. I don’t even need it. I just want to take something from you.”

“I only have forty,” I say, and hand the money over.

A woman at the counter is trying to use a coupon to pay for her coffee. She gets loud when the cashier tells her it’s expired, keeps asking the girl if she speaks English. I have to get back to the office.

“So, I’ll text you,” I say as I stand.

“Okay,” Sophie says. She stands too.

“And I’ll see you in a week. Here?”

“Here’s good. I work close by.”