He had gotten on my nerves at the beginning, but if you didn’t listen too much to what he said, it was all right-he’d just wander into the house talking out loud to no one in particular. Once in a while I’d give him a smile. He’d sleep late, and come home around midnight, when the pizzeria closed. He always brought food and something to drink, and we’d have dinner together. Money being what it was, these meals were heaven-sent. Eddie was not completely oblivious to the fact-he would sometimes allude to it:
“Hey, you know, I’ve forgotten… What are your books about again?”
“Science fiction.”
“Oh yeah. That stuff sells pretty well, doesn’t it? There’s money in it…”
“Yeah, but it takes a long time before you see the royalties. Sometimes they even forget to send the check. I can’t complain, though…”
“No… I’m just saying… if you need a little…”
“Thanks, but I’m fine. I’m planning a new one now. Writing doesn’t cost much…”
Another time we were sitting in the car with the air-conditioning on, watching the girls walk on the beach in the wind.
“Maybe you should change your subject matter,” he said. “Some things sell better than others…”
“No, I think it’s just a matter of time.”
“Hold on a second… I forgot again…”
“Detective novels.”
“Oh yeah. Gee, there must be books that make thousands.”
“Oh yeah. Hundreds of thousands.”
“Millions even.”
“Yeah. There are. But I’m really into my new one now, no time to think about things like that…”
In truth, I thought of nothing else. All the money I had was what was in my pocket-a few bills and two or three jobs already booked. God forbid something should happen, or if we ever wanted to take off for a weekend… It was a pain in the ass. Betty had finished typing my manuscript over a week ago and now she was just hanging around the house, doing her nails once or twice a day. There was nothing new to see in the neighborhood. We would go out for a walk in the afternoon anyway, just to break up the day-taking old Bongo along through the maze of streets. We didn’t talk much. Betty always seemed to be thinking about something. She walked with her hands in her pockets. We would just wander around under a gentle, shy sun, collars turned up. The weather had been lousy for a few days now, but we didn’t notice. We were getting ready to give birth to something. Bongo and I would come back panting, but one look at Betty told you she could do the whole course over again sprinting, no problem. Life was putting me to sleep, but for her it was the opposite. A marriage of water and fire-the perfect combination to make everything go up in smoke.
One evening I ran up the stairs ahead of her and blocked the way, suddenly seized with passion. I slid a couple of fingers into her skirt, getting ready to make my way down to the fire and brimstone, when she just asked me point-blank:
“What do you think of Eddie’s offer?”
“Hmmm?”
“NO REALLY, what do you think?”
We’d done in a couple of bottles of Chianti downstairs, and on our way up the stairs her legs had been sending messages directly into my brain. We went into the bedroom. I closed the door and pinned her to the wall. I was going to set her free-rip her panties off in the icy moonlight. I stuck my tongue in her ear. “I want your honest opinion,” she said. “We have to agree on this completely.”
I pushed my knee up between her legs, stroking her hips and sucking her breasts.
“No, wait a minute… I have to know what you…”
“Yes. Yes… what is it again?”
“I mean in the end, maybe Eddie’s thing is not such a bad idea. What do you think?”
I had no idea what she was talking about. I pulled her skirt up over her hips. I noticed that she wasn’t wearing any panties-just panty hose. I had trouble thinking of anything else.
“Stop thinking,” I said.
I buttoned her lip with a wild kiss. Then she said, “We could do it while we’re waiting to hear on your book. It isn’t forever…”
“Yeah, fine,” I said. “Wait, look, let’s sit down on the bed…” We fell down onto the bed and I went crazy, sliding my hands over her nylons. Her thighs were as hot and smooth as a V-1.
“And also that way we can put a little money aside, don’t you think?… It’ll give us time to get ourselves together, buy some things-we don’t have anything to wear.”
I was writhing all over the bed, trying to get my pants off. I felt her soul drifting away from me.
“Don’t you think, don’t you think?” I said.
“I’m sure of it,” she said. “It’s an easy job, especially with pizzas…”
I jumped on top of her with 110 volts AC going through my veins. She grabbed me by the hair.
“I hope you trust me,” she said.
“Of course,” I said.
She shoved my face between her legs and I fell overboard.
9
I slid open the little serving window that went into the kitchen and stuck my head through it, plunging myself for the thousandth time into the overwhelming food odors that reigned inside. It was quieter than the dining room, though. It was Friday night and everyone was out. We’d had to add tables. I looked at Mario bent over the ovens, his face aglow and his eyes half closed.
“Make me another one with mushrooms, and one plain!” I called out.
Though he never answered, you knew he heard you. It was something engraved in his brain. I leaned in a little farther to get one of those tiny bottles of San Pellegrino and downed it in one swallow. I’d taken to doing that lately. I put away about thirty or forty a night-it made me feel just a little bloated by closing time. Eddie looked the other way.
Eddie manned the register. Betty and I worked the dining room. If you ask me, you needed at least four waiters for that dining room, but there were just the two of us. We ran like chickens with our heads cut off, carrying trays where our heads should have been. By eleven o’clock I was dead on my feet, but the San Pellegrino was free and we were getting good money, so I couldn’t complain.
I grabbed my steaming pizzas and headed for the two little blondes who’d ordered them. They weren’t too bad, but I wasn’t up to making snappy chatter-I wasn’t there to have fun. People were shouting at me from all sides. It hadn’t been that long ago that I had to strain my ears to pierce through the silence of the night-walked out on the porch and felt myself surrounded by space. It seemed only natural. Now here I was squeezing my ass to steer through the noise of clattering plates and bursting voices.
Betty took it better than I did-she knew how to deal with it. Sometimes we’d cross paths, and she’d give me a wink. It gave me my strength back. I tried not to notice her bangs soaked in sweat-I didn’t let myself look. Every once in a while I’d light a cigarette for her and leave it in the ashtray by the kitchen window, hoping that she’d find the time to take a few drags and think of me. I don’t suppose she always did.
We’d been working there about three weeks, and they’d never been busier. We didn’t know which way to turn. I’d been out of it for a while. We were all sort of numb. The only thing I saw clearly were my tips. What really got me was to see all the people standing outside waiting. It was getting on toward midnight, and we apparently wouldn’t be closing for a while. The smell of anchovies was starting to make my stomach tum. I was sticking biscuits in a peach melba when Betty came up to me. In spite of the brouhaha and the circus going on all around us, she managed to whisper a few words in my ear.
“Shit,” she said. “You better take over number five or I’m going to wind up pushing that cunt right through the window.”