An Experiment.
Dora knows she has all night to think about her answer to Rudo’s question, and no time more. A quick glance behind her reveals Rudo slouched against a window by the restaurant entrance.
smoking again, he said he quit, she knew better, knew he was a liar,
but of course she ignored her better judgment, the advice of her girlfriends
and her best friend Skylar, and now she’s paying for it with a front-row seat,
at a restaurant she hates, to witness her Rudo’s true intentions, infidelities
and insinuations
She could easily answer by stepping off the sidewalk, hailing a taxi, and disappearing back into the insular world of her parents’ apartment and cottage.
She could also answer by drawing out the small gun in her purse, taking aim, and then taking full responsibility before a court of law for premeditated murder, because hadn’t she been planning this perfect, public moment of revenge for so many months?
No, she is fully aware of her answer, and espying Rudo’s olive eyes glaring her way, hazy, rejecting, she smiles back and turns to re-enter the restaurant, the four-diamond restaurant she hates for its chintzy décor and miniscule portions, but not before reaching into her purse and carefully, discretely, pressing the button to a pager.
Six miles away from the Fransi, River City’s glory of the bourgesie, Caroline is sitting at the dining-room table of her apartment, fingering a rosary and flipping through a two year-old edition of a housekeeping journal. She glances at the clock above the telephone: eleven-twenty at night, and no call. She begins to suspect trouble, but she also suspects that maybe, just maybe, her best friend finally walk-
A buzz. A-buzz-buz-buzzzzz. The pager, which has been sitting on the table in front of her for three hours, silent, vibrates hard enough to spill a nearby glass of water. Caroline barely attempts to clean the mess: she rushes to the phone and dials a number, a number she’s been ready to call all night. A small comfort emerges: her phone is the last land line on the black, her grandmother’s number from 1951.
He never knew this particular street existed in River City.
He never knew there were four expensive, slightly-under-quality restaurants scrunched in between bars, law offices, and a series of trendy condominiums, on this particular street in River City.
He never knew that the particular restaurant he was sitting in - The Levinia, a “vegan-sushi-fusion concept establishment” - occupies the former home of River City’s most infamous gay bar (now closed), and was directly across the street from the city’s claim to upper-crust fame: Fransi, a four-diamond, AAA-certified nod to the rotted core of the Big Apple and Co., and also occupying the former home of a gay bar (now relocated on the next block to the east).
He never knew a bartender could look as hot as the one delivering to him, at that moment, the most perfect Myers-and-coke cocktail - or be as knowledgeable about Levinia’s historic locale
he told him his name: Nico
he told him his line: I’ll be your bartender tonight
he told him his two signature cocktails: a martini involving
muddling, twisting, clipping, infusing, and chanting curses of
Chthulu over sixteen local ingredients; and a perfectly-balanced
Myers-and-coke
he told him the price: six-fifty, which was about market rate
downtown for a good rum
he smelled like Hugo Boss
he tensed in his arms like a wide receiver, and he’d make him
receive all his width
he smiled like Orion’s Belt
he looked the dream of an Italian stallion come true
and the historic locale of the Fransi - and could talk with the titillating blend of no-nonsense business and all-nonsense come-on that he was laying, slowly, above the rim of the Collins glass.
Skylar realizes he reminds him of an actor in a film he saw at the CAG down the block, an actor that stands out solely for his nose and the way it curves up to his squinting eyes when facing either the sun or an uncomfortable situation.
His thoughts are interrupted by the vibration of his phone.
Tomas and Anita watch a woman return to her seat four tables away.
she is beautiful
yes she is
would you go down on her
we would go down and then up together
just like heaven
paradise by the tea candle lights darling
that man
yes
husband boyfriend trick date cousin
i suspect a bad date
he doesn’t love her
i see that
he looks at her with eyes of commodity
he looks at her with the eyes of a wolf
he’s hungry like the wolf
in that dress so red
that bread
that wine
did he eat her dear grandmother to leave her so tear-stained
i should talk to her before he comes back
no darling don’t
but why
it's evident this is her battle
battle
yes a battle
what kind
a battle of wits
and who shall win
we shall wait and see
but should it go badly
then my darling we shall intervene
we shall swoop and rescue
our darling edible red-wearing
look
Tomas and Anita watch a young man - not the man who had been drinking wine with the woman before - approach the table and begin talking, frantically, with the woman in the red dress. The conversation is whispered, but Tomas and Anita can tell, it is serious and fraught with the tension of a potential wrong move.
She lives only six miles away from River City's downtown, but the drive there feels twenty, fifty, a lifetime. Caroline's car cannot go fast enough: an accident involving five cars blocks one street, while another is under construction and closed to thru traffic, and the lights are conspiring at each intersection to make her lose her patience and frett for Dora's life.