9A
“Linda,” said Roger, The Date, “that’s a very nice name. I had an aunty called Linda once.”
“What was she called the other times?” replied Linda crassly.
“I’m sorry? I don’t get you” mumbled Roger, The Date, his sweaty hands clasped around crackling pastry while his stubby tongue slipped through his crooked gnashing teeth to lick up the globs of crème, caught between the hairs on his chin.
In a small café, crowded with afternoon gossipers, all weaving their literary tapestry over lines of steaming coffee and wafts of freshly poured caramel, Linda, the eccentric and sometimes snooty lady from apartment 9A, sat in a fidgety stillness, unable to keep her feet crossed for more than a second and tearing into fine strips, with the stress of her boredom, the napkin on her plate of which she curled beneath her nails and flicked with her skeletal fingers like little balls of dried snot.
Before her sat a small man; nothing at all like his profile picture. His name was Roger and he was much balder than she had expected him to be. Not that she was in any way offended or put off by bald men, no, quite the contrary. It’s just that Roger’s kind was not at all attractive, not like an athlete or a learned academic. This was the kind of bald that one would find on poorly traveled tires; the kind of bald that hinted of negligence and inadequacy.
“In Portuguese, Linda means pretty,” she said. “I bet you didn’t know that. I have a Portuguese teacher. And he’s written a book.”
Roger, The Date smiled, his mouth stuffed with creamy dessert.
“I speak Portuguese too. Actually I speak four languages, five if you include English. If you want...” he said, pausing to pick a clump of pastry stuck between his teeth with his tongue scratching back and forth like an excavator. “We can speak Portuguese. Could be fun you know. Nobody knowing what we’re saying” he said, a sly smile hinting to the other patrons, all busy eating their small cakes, drinking their coffee and smiling genuinely at the people sitting across from them, probably pretending that they weren’t eavesdropping, but probably they were.
“I don’t want to,” Linda said sternly.
“Not even a word, por favor?”
“No. I don’t want to speak. I don’t have to speak. Not to you. I don’t even know you. I speak excellent Portuguese. My teacher tells me. I understand everything he says.”
“That’s great,” said Roger, The Date. “I’m really sorry if I offended you. I didn’t mean to. I don’t want to put you on the spot or anything. Let’s change the subject. So what do you do?”
Linda closed her eyes and fidgeted in her seat. She didn’t at all look comfortable. It might have been the shape of the chairs. They were curved awkwardly and most people said that this was one of the restaurants best features, their ergonomic chairs. Linda hated them, though. She much preferred to sit on a normal seat, one that didn’t force her to sit a certain way if she didn’t want to.
“I’m a dentist,” she said.
“Ok. There’s something. Dentist huh? That’s great. So…” he said pausing, skating on nervous worry. “Tell me more,” he said, licking the curdling crème from the grooves of his reddened and swollen gums and fighting furtively, to cover the rest of his poorly shaped and brightly stained teeth with his cracked lips and stubby fingers.
“What?” Linda said, sounding offended.
“About being a dentist, what’s it like?” asked Roger, The Date.
“I don’t understand what you asked me,” Linda said. “What do you want to know? What? I don’t understand.”
“Like, day to day, in your job, what do you do?”
“I’m a dentist,” she said, frustrated.
“I know that,” said Roger, The Date, now nervously patting at the beard on the side of his face. “I mean, you deal with people every day. Your job, it’s very important. I imagine it’s very difficult. Is it?” he said, unsure of his own question. “Difficult I mean, is it?”
“I don’t know,” said Linda.
“So what made you want to be a dentist?”
“I studied and I got a job. It’s not interesting for me to talk about this.”
“I think it is,” said Roger, The Date, his tone lightening now, as if he were trying to lightly coax a rabid animal back inside its cage.
“I don’t like this café,” she said.
“But you chose it.”
“Yes, I know, but I don’t like it now. The service is not very good. And the chairs” she said, squirming from side to side as if she were trying to relieve an itch on her bottom. “I don’t like them. The café near my apartment is much nicer. I prefer to eat there. They have nicer chairs and the waiters are more polite and the chocolate has more cocoa, it’s 80%.”
“If you want,” said Roger, The Date, sounding apologetic. “We can go to the other café. It’s fine by me. I have my car out front. If it’s not far, we can even walk. I have an umbrella.”
“I have my own car. I don’t walk. I’m not poor you know. My office gives me a car and I don’t pay any taxes or anything.”
“What type of car?” said Roger, The Date relieved, finally finding something to talk about, something that didn’t make her shrivel in spiny defense; “I drive a sedan, six cylinders. Very comfortable. Very fast” he said, again with a sly wink.
“I have a simple car,” Linda said. “And I don’t have to pay for it. Are you paying for this?” she asked, pointing to her half eaten chocolate cake with her fork. “The café isn’t even very nice. I don’t think I should have to pay. If you are a good man you would pay for my dessert.”
“Of course,” said Roger, The Date, without contest, wondering why he had lent himself to the sly wink and the bit about cars. “A gentleman,” he said, “should always pay for dessert. Listen don’t worry about money ok? This is my treat.”
Linda smiled.
“Do you have a lot of money? I love money. I have a lot of money and I want a man who is good with his money. My boyfriend is very rich. He was very important and he owned his own business, he still does. His name is Graham and he owns a boat too.”
“You have a boyfriend? Ok, no, silly me. It’s ok, I thought that… Well, it’s ok” he said nervously tripping over his words and his wobbling red cheeks. “Friends... Or…”
“He owns a boat,” said Linda. “Do you?”
“Well I can’t say I have a boat,” said Roger, The Date, chuckling nervously. “But I do alright for myself. Money hasn’t really been too much of a worry you know. I thank my blessings for that.”
“Do you have a wife? I don’t like people who lie. Do you? Are you married? Do you have children? Do you still have to pay alimony?”
Roger, The Date spluttered some of dried pastry that had been caught in the back of his throat since the date began. It had been itching away whenever Linda spoke, making him grumble under his covering hand to try and clear it. He tried, though, the whole time, to pretend that it wasn’t there and that it wasn’t a nuisance, so as not to be rude or upsetting. The small flake of pastry flew from his mouth and landed on a gentleman’s shoulder sitting at the table beside them.
“Married? Me? No. I. No” he said, tripping over his words. “I, well, no, I’ve never been married actually.”
Roger, The Date turned his attention to his empty plate, scratching away at the tiny specks of crème that he hadn’t licked off, wishing to hell that there was something there, something to keep his shaking hands still and less obvious.
“I…,” he said, pausing, lowering his stare to his clenched yet twitching fingers and gulping heavily. “Well, I haven’t had much luck, you know, with dating and well, meeting people, in general, well girls really. Well not girls, women, you know what I mean. This is the first time I’ve done this kind of thing, online dating.”
“You looked taller in your photo,” said Linda. “And your face, it was rounder. I thought maybe you were a different person when you came in. Now I think you just used a wrong photo to trick me into thinking you were handsom
e.”
“You don’t think I’m handsome?” he asked.
It must have been a reflex. He knew the second he closed his mouth that he shouldn’t have opened it in the first place. What a stupid thing to say.
“You’re not ugly,” said Linda. “My boyfriend, he is very handsome. You should change your hair, that hair makes you look older than you are. And your teeth, they’re crooked. I don’t like crooked teeth.”
Roger, The Date covered his mouth. He tried to smile, to be polite and to not offend, but he didn’t know how to, not without showing his crooked teeth.
“So what do you do?” asked Linda, sounding bored.
“I have my own business,” said Roger, The Date.
“I have a friend who has his own business,” she said, almost sounding as if she were about to drift into blissful slumber. “And he has a lot of people working for him. And he travels all the time for his work.”
“Wow,” said Roger, The Date, trying to shield himself from her deflections. “What does he do? His business, what do they do?”
“He’s very important. I don’t want to talk about him anymore. What do you do? Are you important? Do you have lots of people working for you?”
“Well,” said Roger, The Date, composing himself. “I import products from a supplier in China and sell here on the local market. I’ve been in business now, for well, going on fifteen years. I have five people who work in my warehouse; three in admin and two in packing.”
“Five. That’s not many people. My friend has fifty. His business is probably much bigger than yours. But that’s ok too. What do you import?” Linda asked.
“We import glasses cases.”
“What’s that?”
Roger, The Date took from his jacket pocket a small black felt case and laid it proudly on the table, running his index fingers around its edges and lightly running his middle finger over the soft center.
“Cases for glasses. This is one type. We also import hard cases and soft leather pouches. I prefer the felt covers personally. I like the feel. And it’s also handy to give the lenses a good wipe” he said, doing just that to his glasses.
“My eyes are perfect. 20/20.”
“I do travel sometimes for work as well. We have conventions around the country twice a year. I travel a lot for my customers too. I try to visit each store at least once a year. I have a lot of resellers though so it’s hard to get to see everyone.”
“My boyfriend, he travels to France and Germany and New York, all the time. He takes his sons and his wife, but he doesn’t take me. I’d love to go to New York. But I got a scarf, from when he was in Nice. That’s in France. And it says Nice on one side and France on the other” she said, stroking an imaginary scarf around her now delicate and bashful neck.
“Are you together? If you don’t mind my asking. I assumed that we were on a date, but if not, that’s ok, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea or for us to start on the wrong foot, you know… as friends”
“Do you like The Matrix?” said, Linda.
“Sorry?” said Roger, The Date.
“The kung fu movie. I want to see it” she said bluntly.
“I don’t really watch movies. Not so much anymore. I’m not really big on television. I much prefer radio. I love talk back. I listen in my car and I listen on my radio at home. There’s nothing better, at the end of a long day, winding down with a nice glass of whiskey. Sinking into the armchair and listening to the radio. Do you listen to the radio at all?”
“I have an iPod. Your job sounds very boring” she said, having heard not one word of what he said. “Do you think my name is pretty?” she asked.
“I do,” said Roger, The Date, feeling awkward again. “I think it’s very pretty.”
“You think or you know? I don’t say I think or I believe because I know it is pretty, so I just say, it’s pretty.”
“It is,” he said. “It’s very pretty.”
“But I don’t like your name,” she said. “It’s not very interesting. It’s an ugly name. A stupid name. A donkey name.”
“I….”
“I have to go home and feed my fish. His name is Bill Clinton” said Linda, excusing herself from the table and walking back to her car.
Roger, The Date looked shocked, as if he had just dodged a bullet. It was hard to tell, though, on what side of the bullet he’d have rather been.
“You can call me,” said Linda, shouting out from her half opened window.
Roger, The Date smiled, from behind his burly knuckles.
As Linda drove, the rain started to fall heavy and thumped upon her roof, cursing at her to let it inside. This made her a little on edge, more so than normal, so she turned down the radio and instantly it made her feel like she was in control.
Normally she loved to listen to the radio, and as loud as possible too - usually on the fourth notch. Anything louder was dangerous for her ears and besides, if it was too loud, she wouldn’t be able to hear the sound of her voice as she sang along.
Tonight, as she drove home from her date, her thoughts splotched, like the rain splashing upon her windscreen, with the thought of Roger’s crooked teeth and the way he filled his mouth greedily with dessert. He ate like a pig, dressed like a warthog and spoke like a donkey. And he lied about the way that he looked.
That made her mad.
As she turned to pull into her building, she had to stop for a car that was leaving, and taking its damn time at that. There was only one entry and exit to the building, not like her last building, before she met Graham. There, there were two; one gate for cars arriving and one for cars leaving. They even a gate just for the garbage truck that pulled up the side of the building on Tuesday mornings.
This building, though, it only had one gate. It didn’t really bother Linda too much, only when she was either coming or going.
And then, it made her mad.
“Hurry up” she shouted through her fogged up windows.
The other car was stopped halfway through the gate and the driver had part of his ear out his partly opened window, partly listening to the joking banter of The Porter who was dangling from his high perch, his fat stomach pressed against the metal railings of the window while the soaking rain swished about his curly fringe.
“Oh come on,” said Linda to herself, her patience, like a faint print in the sand, eroding with every second passing by. “There’s other people waiting, you rude donkey” she shouted, slapping her hand on the horn, cursing expletively and waving her hands maddeningly as if she had just spotted an old friend she hadn’t seen in some time, in the thick of a bustling crowd.
The Porter looked in her direction. He squinted to see who it was and then waved genuinely and smiled as if nothing at all were amiss.
Stupid donkey.
Linda wanted to shout abrasively at the car as it passed by. She wanted to shake her fist like her father used to, whenever a stray dog wandered onto his well-manicured lawn. When she saw who it was, though, she waved nervously and offered an awkward looking smile, bowing her head royally.
She didn’t know it was their car.
If she did, probably she wouldn’t have honked.