I have a confession

12

Bistro Indigenes was packed with the dinner crowd. Male and female servers scurried about in neat black aprons and matching bandannas. By the time I got there, Amber was already waiting. She was in a dress — fancy casual. And she was wearing more makeup than I’d seen on her before. She looked really nice. But she was nervous. She kept looking around like it wasn’t her kind of place.

I apologized profusely. I repeated how I hadn’t showered and I wasn’t dressed nearly as nice as her and I still had my work bag slung over my shoulder. She told me to stop. That it wasn’t a big deal. That she wasn’t sure if I’d made reservations, so she put our name down, but the hostess told her there was no guarantee we’d even get in before closing time. The place was hopping.

“Shit.” I’d been so preoccupied, that possibility hadn’t even occurred to me.

“Should we go somewhere else?” she asked. It was pretty clear she wanted to.

Someone touched my shoulder lightly and I turned. It was the chef’s assistant, or whatever she was. Milan. She was all class, just like before, in khaki pants and a white-and-rainbow wrap. She looked like an Eastern European model. The cut jewel still dangled from the long chain around her neck. It reflected the light in an odd way. Half of it was tiny rainbows. The other half was dim.

“Dr. Alexander,” she said. “How nice to see you again. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize this was your party.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I didn’t think we’d — ”

“Your table is almost ready. Please have a seat and it will be just a moment.”

The waiting booth in the foyer was full of hungry hipsters, but two servers appeared carrying chairs. They set them down for us and left. The people waiting nearby, the ones who’d been standing forever, eyed them — and us — resentfully.

Dr. Massey turned to me, flushed and wearing a bemused smile. “Well, well, Dr. Alexander.”

I shrugged and made bug eyes.

Milan spoke to the host, a thickly mustachioed Salvadoran man with pomaded hair who glanced at us and nodded. A few minutes later, he led us to a table with a good view of the open kitchen. In the center was a large stone-block hearth. A fire raged. It seemed much bigger than it needed to be. Like someone had trapped a devil inside.

We ordered wine, and when the waiter left, there was another awkward silence.

“So . . .” She leaned over the table. “I have a confession. I’m so embarrassed.”

I swallowed. I scanned her hand for a wedding ring. Just as empty as before. I still wore mine.

“I don’t even know your first name,” she said, red-faced. “Your real one.”

I laughed. Three times we’d met, plus a bunch of text conversations between. I guess it never came up. “Uchewe.” I spelled it for her and explained how white folks down south always wanted to call me ‘You-Chew.’

“It’s beautiful.”

“My brother called me Che, but it never stuck.”

“Did something happen with him?” she asked. “Sorry.” She caught herself again. “Is that okay to ask? It’s just, you mentioned him once before, and both times you looked . . . I dunno. Away, I guess.”

I hadn’t realized. “No, it’s okay. He died. That’s all. When I was young.”

“I’m so sorry. How old were you?”

“Fourteen. It’s funny you bring it up. I’ve actually been thinking about him. Don’t know if you heard. The little boy died today. The tenth case.”

“Are you kidding?” Her eyes got big. “Practically the whole city knows. It’s all over the news. They’ve been flashing those dimples at every commercial break. ‘Unknown killer claims the life of a seven-year-old boy. Latest at 11.’ I’m surprised no one’s tried to interview you.”

“I’m sure they would if they thought I was anybody. The police have the case now. I only met him once, but it hit me harder than — Well, I guess I really thought that . . . I dunno.”

“That you could save him?”

I’d been thinking he was Alvin.

“You can’t save people. Believe me.” She made a face, like I had no idea. She took a drink from her wine glass. “They’ll take everything from you if you let them. If that’s why you do it, you’re gonna get burned out. Really fast.”

There was an edge to her then that I hadn’t noticed before. Almost cynical. “So why do you do it?” I asked.

Before she could answer, menus came. A pair of well-dressed servers placed them gently in front of us. They were fancy. Really fancy. Like, leather-bound and heavy. I’ve found that the quality of the menu is usually a good proxy for price. I only mention it because there were none printed. Prices, I mean.

I leaned over the table. “You really don’t have to pay, you know.”

She held up her menu so it covered all but her eyes and whispered. “So nice, right?”

We were both flummoxed by the selection. I don’t know what I expected, but I’ve never seen anything like it. It wasn’t prix fixe, but it wasn’t quite a la carte either. It was whatever Étranger wanted it to be, and it changed with his mind. That night we had our choice of four set meals, one for each of the seasons, with or without wine and dessert. I ordered Spring and was brought an appetizer of “cud-grass soup with boiled tripe.” I ordered it because it sounded intriguingly distasteful, but the tripe was thinly stripped and tender, almost like the noodles in my grandma’s chicken noodle soup, and the vegetable stock was salty and clear and pleasantly bitter with an aftertaste of jasmine and wild herbs. It actually tasted like I was lazing about in a sun-lit field watching the clouds roll by. The accompanying entree was roast hummingbird with a glaze of sweet nectar served on a bed of stuffed zucchini flowers. It was delicious.

Amber ordered Summer. Her appetizer was a shaved-ice curry that tasted way better than it had any reason to, with a texture sort of like iced coffee. It was creamy and cold and earthy and a little bit sweet, and the spice clung to our lips, which both of us licked two or three times after each bite.

“Wow,” she said.

We shared each other’s dishes and mostly talked about the food. It was easy conversation. Every single dish was a novelty, unlike anything either of us had had before.

When the waiter came after dessert, I could see Amber jumping ahead of me to pay. I thought I might have to arm wrestle her even to see the check. I wanted at least to know how much I was in her debt. But the man explained politely that there was no bill. He had been told that our meal was on the house.

She looked to me for an explanation, but I had none. She said something about me really knowing how to impress a girl, and we got up to go. She’d had a glass or two more than me — it seemed like maybe she had nerves that needed calming — and she touched my arm to steady herself. I held on as we walked to the front. It was nice. We stepped outside, and I turned my head almost incidentally to the side door, the one Milan had led Oliver and me through the other day.

It was open.

Wide open, in fact.

But dark.

“So. Um. Do you want to share a cab? Or something?” she asked.

I turned to her. I could feel the open door behind me. Like a shove from a hard breeze.

I must have waited too long, or maybe it was the look on my face, because she said “Oh my God” and put her face in her hands. “Oh my God,” she repeated. Even her ears were red. “I just thought . . .”

She walked to the curb. “Oh wow. It’s been a while since I made this big an ass of myself.”

I wanted to object, but she didn’t give me the opportunity. “It’s just, you know, I met you. And you cared. You really cared. And you seemed lonely, too. And I thought, here we are, two lonely people who care.”

I glanced back to the open door. No movement. No nothing. It had been shut and locked before. It wasn’t exactly a bad neighborhood, but there aren’t many places in New York where people leave their front doors open, especially at night.

Dr. Massey stood on the curb and waited for a taxi to pass.

I walked over and put my hand on her shoulder. Not intimate. But not distant either. Friendly. I squeezed. “I like you, Amber.”

“Me too,” she said. “Maybe a little too much.” A taxi stopped and she turned for it without making eye contact. “Your wife is very lucky.”

She climbed in the back. She didn’t even look at me or say goodbye. The taxi pulled away. I raised my hand, but it was dark and I couldn’t tell if she saw or not.

When the car was no longer in sight, I turned to the open door.

 

I’m posting the chapters of my forthcoming hardboiled occult mystery in order until the book is released in early 2018. You can start here: I saw my first dead body the summer we moved to Atlanta.

Sign up here to be notified when the book is released. Or just leave a tip!

The next chapter is: (not yet posted)

cover image by Joel Rea

[image error]