I entered the IHOP wondering what my reception would be like from the woman who managed the place. When I had left there yesterday, she had definitely been as chilly as a penguin with frostbite. I didn’t have to worry; she wasn’t there. Neither was Mia. At least, I couldn’t spot her right away.
A short, chubby, black waitress named Janille ambled over to the checkout counter where I was standing doing my impression of a stork with its head out of the sand.
“How many?”
I quickly checked behind me. There was only me. I smiled—black humour—I get it. “Perhaps none—I’m looking for Mia.”
“She’s on her break—probably out back in the parking lot in that piece of trash she calls a car,” Janille said in her syrupy southern drawl. She turned her broad back on me and waddled off in the direction of the kitchen.
“Thanks,” I said to her retreating, swinging backside. She just waved a stubby hand over her thick shoulder and continued waddling.
I turned and left the restaurant heading for the parking lot. As I turned the corner at the back of the building, I spotted Mia in her white blouse, black slacks IHOP outfit walking slowly back from her car. She saw me at about the same time and flashed me a wide smile as she hurried over.
“Hi,” she said, “How are you doing after all the adventure of last night?”
“Just fine — and you?”
“I’m good. Did you get anywhere at the library this morning?”
“Yeah,” I replied uncertainly, “For the first little while, I got really hung up in the section on erotic lesbian literature of the Victorian Era—just for a few hours really—quite stimulating actually.”
“You what?” Mia asked as she came to a full stop and looked up at me. There was anger and surprise in her tone, but her blue eyes sparkled. We were playing. It was fun.
“Well, maybe not for hours, maybe just long enough to make me look at English cucumbers in an entirely different light.”
She laughed. “You may very well be the weirdest guy I’ve ever known.”
“Weird is good.” I love it when she laughs. “And then I read all the reports from a few of the newspapers that covered the story. A nice old lady—not a lesbian but maybe a Victorian—helped me out. I have a few ideas, but I think I have to tell you all over again—this may really be almost impossible. Don’t get your hopes up too high.”
Her lingering smile vanished and the light went out in her bright blue eyes. There was a bite when she said, “Now, are you saying that you won’t help me?” Her disappointment and anger were clear.
“Not at all,” I replied quickly. We had started to walk to the IHOP again and then we stopped. “I’m just saying—I don’t want you to get your hopes too high. When are you off? We should sit down together. I can go over some of the stuff with you that I think we might consider. There are also a lot of questions that we need to find answers for.”
Mia gave me another weak smile and then took a quick peek at the slim, gold digital watch that she wore on the inside of her left wrist. “I work another two hours. Why don’t you come in and eat, then go for a walk and come back for me. We can sit on the beach then and watch the sun set.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. I really wanted to just stand there and perhaps hold her, or hear her laugh again. Instead, I fell into step beside her. “What’s good on the menu today?”
“Same old, same old—knock yourself out Hon,” she replied slipping her slim hand into mine. Her touch was electric. It came as such a surprise to me that I looked down to do a quick reality check. She looked up at me, smiled and then gently squeezed my hand. “You don’t have to leave me a tip, but try to be cool in there. I don’t want you drooling all over the menus.”
“Drool—me? I think not. Drooling doesn’t run in my family. You wrong me.” My heart just pounded twice as fast when she took my hand. And I started babbling.
I followed our plan to the letter—some plan. I think I recall tasting the food, but I can’t recall what it was. I tried not to stare at Mia for any longer than thirty seconds at a stretch. That was difficult to do. I dropped a generous tip, paid my bill and left casually. Mr. Cool; No drool!
I walked at a leisurely pace along the beach towards Pier 60 where the buskers and artisans would be plying their trades for the tourists. The gulf waves were almost non-existent. I skipped a smooth shell eleven times across the water’s surface before it sank quietly. Not my personal best record, but not bad.
When I got up to the pier, I sat down on a vacant public bench overlooking the beach and the gulf. I wanted to clear my mind. Sometimes, by switching my focus away from a problem to something innocuous—like the number of times I can skip a stone or shell across a relatively flat surface—I can return to whatever the conundrum is puzzling me with a fresh perspective.
Near the pier on the north side, I watched a few little kids laughing and flying multi-coloured kites. On the south side, some teenagers were playing a loud game of pick up beach volleyball. There was lots of arguing, but they were having a good time. I wandered out onto the pier and watched as an oriental artist drew a caricature of a little girl in a pink bathing suit. He was quite good. For fifteen bucks, mom and dad had a memory. I checked Helen West’s work and chatted with her husband. We watched as Helen discussed technique with an art teacher from Michigan. I wanted to get another of her prints for my room, but I’d have to wait for a while. After a few minutes of quietly doing nothing, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and headed back down the surf line towards Mia.
At the parking lot, I sat carefully on the rusted trunk of Mia’s old Honda Civic. As I sat waiting for her to get off work, I thought about what I had gotten myself into. I realized that my life had changed in a matter of a little more than a day. And then I knew that I felt great. Better by far, at that moment, than I had in a very long time.
After a short wait, Mia emerged from the back entrance to IHOP and started walking slowly towards her car. Her head was down as she was desperately probing the innards of her large straw bag. She was looking for something hidden in there—a full-grown German shepherd perhaps. She had changed from her standard IHOP get-up into a casual outfit consisting of faded, form fitting, hip hugger blue jeans, a loose white cotton peasant blouse and white and baby blue thong flip flops. She was a Florida native. No way would she be caught wearing an I Love Clearwater Beach logo T-shirt. There was a delicious gap between the bottom of her blouse and the top of her low-slung jeans. At a distance, she looked like a kid. Hell, she was a kid. Her tight tanned midriff was punctuated with a diamond butterfly inserted in her belly button. When the sun hit the diamond just right, her stomach was a blinding sight to behold. I guessed that the piercing was a hangover from when she was working the strip clubs. Mia and I were very definitely of different generations and life styles.
With her shoulder length blonde hair done up in a ponytail, secured by a soft pink cotton band, her soft even tan and her trim athletic build, she looked like the petite version of the all American dream girl. Well, maybe without the piercing. I guess the only thing missing in that picture was the All American Dream life that she had most certainly not enjoyed.
I had started walking towards her when I saw her leave the restaurant. When she finally found what she was looking for in her bag—her keys—she looked up and spotted me. We met about half way across the parking lot.
“Hi,” I said. “You look pretty spiffy this evening even though you are really quite fetching in your knock out IHOP outfit.”
“Oh yeah?” she said.
“That black and white IHOP get up is quite a sensual turn on for me if you want to know the truth,” I whispered as I bent towards her ear.
“You really are nuts Joe,” she laughed. “Even Angelina Jolie would look like crap in one of those IHOP costumes. But thank you for saying so. Now, are we going to walk along the beach or do you want me to drive us somewhere? Where do you want to go? I really want to hear what you found out today.”
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p; “The beach sounds good. We can find a quiet place to sit with no people close by. I need maybe about a half hour to go through what I’ve been able to come up with.”
We started north back up Gulfview Boulevard to the public parking lot adjacent to the beach. I left my hand unmoving at my side. She didn’t take it. She was telling me about some customer who had sent back a waffle twice saying it wasn’t done right—a waffle. Can you believe it?
“Talk about being a jerk eh?” she said huffily as she finished her story.
“Yeah, as my grandmother used to say though—it takes all kinds. I could understand it if it was a pancake, but a waffle—geez, that’s pretty hard to comprehend. Oh, by the way, do you only interdigitate once a day?”
She stopped and looked up at me. She was mentally replaying what I had just said to her. “What did you say?” she said indignantly —wondering if I just had been incredibly rude to her. She was getting ready to be really ticked off. Short fuse was a side to Mia I had only guessed at.
“I asked you if you only interdigitate once a day?” I replied innocently working hard to keep the grin off my face. She obviously did not know what the hell I was talking about, but she was not ready to let me know it. I started walking again. She stood still for a moment and then scurried up beside me. We walked for another few yards before I asked again.
She hesitated and then grudgingly—as if she had committed some major sin—quietly replied, “No, I’ve not set any limit on that. Should I?”
“Oh no,” I replied, “I kind of enjoyed holding your hand earlier, but when you didn’t take mine a minute or so ago, I wasn’t sure if you had set some sort of personal daily limit.”
She started to giggle and then punched my shoulder—hard. “You are truly nuts—one of your oars is clearly out of the water—and that’s a fact.” And she took my hand. “Where did you get that word? What was it?”
“Interdigitate,” I replied. “The first time I heard the word was when a kid in my Sex-Ed class—his name was Jerry Piels, I think—asked our female Sex-Ed teacher if she thought interdigitation before marriage was morally wrong. The teacher, Mrs. Smedley,—an older British woman who talked as if she had about twelve plums in her mouth, and truly did believe sex was only for procreation – was shocked. None of us knew what the hell Piels was talking about but guessed that it probably had to do with some form of deviant sex act. The entire class went silent. I mean—you really could have heard a pin drop. Like the rest of us, and you just now, old Mrs. Smedley didn’t have a clue what the hell the word meant. She hemmed and hawed. She talked about the Latin derivation of the words “inter” and “digit” and then did a rationalization quick step about the sanctity of marriage and the consensual nature of adult couples. Finally, after a lot of verbiage, she admitted that she had never heard of the word. She asked Piels what it meant. When he told her it meant holding hands, the whole class broke out laughing. And she gave him a detention. It was one of the highlights of my grade ten year.”
By the time I finished my explanation, we were walking along the beach beside the incoming waves in full interdigitation mode. I was happier than I could remember for years.
“Did I say that you had one oar out of the water?” Mia said holding my hand tightly, “Joe, your whole friggin’ boat is out of the water.”
“It’s nice of you to say so. I’m curious; what did you think interdigitate meant when I asked?”
Mia went silent. I looked down at her as we walked. I imagined that she was trying to figure out how to answer my question without being crude.
“As you say—some deviant sex act.” And Mia actually blushed. It was nice to see that her earlier life had not totally robbed her of modesty or some kind of innocence.
I laughed too. “Here’s a good place. Let’s sit here.”
Although the beach had been pretty crowded earlier, most of the sun worshippers had headed home. There were still some last minute tourists walking and waiting for another incredible Clearwater Beach sunset. Also, there were the regular fitness freaks running along the beach, but there was no one sitting within twenty or thirty feet of where we flopped to the ground. The sun had tightened into a hazy orange ball as it prepared for its descent below the gulf’s western horizon. Its fingers of heat and light slid over us as we settled onto the warm white sand. There would be some gradually fading light for the next half hour or so. We sat still beside each other and took in the view. I experienced an overall sensation of complete happiness. I was catching yet another glimpse of paradise.
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