The four of us had dressed for the occasion, too, though certainly not as elegantly as Gomez. Sandy had put on her mother’s red wig, not in any attempt to further baffle her Selecta-Date suitor, but only as defense against possible recognition by any of the townies who had chased us in July. She and Rhoda were both wearing thonged sandals and crisp cotton shifts, hers yellow, Rhoda’s blue; they both looked very pretty. David and I were wearing pressed khakis, sports shirts and jackets. The jackets had been put on under duress. Sandy had suggested that we wear ties, too, but we’d absolutely refused and threatened to blow the whole evening if she insisted, which she did not. As we came off the ferry and onto the dock, David whispered, “There he is.”
“Is everybody ready?” Sandy asked.
“I’m terrified,” Rhoda said.
“Let me handle it,” Sandy said.
“I feel like a hitchhiker with three friends hiding in the bushes.”
At the far end of the dock, Gomez stood watching the passengers as they unloaded, waiting for his date.
“Here goes,” Sandy said, and walked to him with her hand outstretched. Clearly expecting a brunette (On the phone, he had specifically asked about the color of her hair), Gomez was startled to see a redhead approaching him and offering her hand. He was a short person, coming eye to eye with Sandy, who, in the wig, looked easily as old as he did. His face was smooth and very white, his eyes brown. A gold tooth showed at the side of his mouth when he opened it in surprise. Tentatively, he took her hand.
“I’m Sandy,” she said, shaking his hand vigorously, and then dropping it. His eyes widened behind their glasses when he saw Rhoda and David and me walking over, and he seemed utterly baffled for an instant, seemed in fact as if he were about to run clear off the dock and all the way back to Manhattan. “Let me explain,” Sandy said quickly. “This is my friend Rhoda, she’s your date for tonight, she’s the girl who filled out the questionnaire.”
“But...” Gomez said.
“She’s very shy,” Sandy said, “which is why she used my name.”
“Ah, sí, lo entiendo,” Gomez said. He turned to Rhoda. “How do you do?” he said. “I am Aníbal Gomez.”
“How do you do?” Rhoda said shyly.
“But your eyes are not blue,” he said.
“She used my eyes,” Sandy said quickly.
“Oh.”
“Yes, I’m sorry,” Rhoda said.
“That is all right,” Gomez said. He looked her over carefully. He still seemed on the edge of panic. Every thought flashing through his mind appeared instantly on his face, as though he were incapable of the slightest subterfuge. His eyes behind their magnifying lenses, his sensitive mouth, even his nostrils expressed doubt, and then suspicion, and then further confusion, and finally resignation. He had come all the way from Manhattan, his look clearly stated (he would have made a terrible spy), and for better or worse he would see this thing through, not with Sandy, it seemed, but with Rhoda instead, who claimed to have filled out the questionnaire, and who certainly appeared to be somewhere between nineteen and twenty with dark black hair, as she had claimed, but not with blue eyes, well, he would have to forego the blue eyes (all of this appearing in sequence on his face, he was about as inscrutable as a sparrow), and certainly of ample build, as she had promised, with very large tetas like Puerto Rican girls, and truly about five feet four inches tall, though she did not appear at all Oriental, but perhaps the Jewish part of her ancestry had dominated the Eastern influence, well, he would have to make the best of it. And then his transparent system of telegraphy flashed fresh puzzlement into his eyes and onto his mouth and caused his nostrils to twitch again, and we could clearly read his new concern: Who Are These Two Boys With Her?
“These are friends of yours?” he asked.
“Yes. They’re with Sandy,” Rhoda said.
“They’re with me,” Sandy said.
“Ahh,” Gomez said. They seem very young for her, his face telegraphed, but perhaps there is a shortage of available men on the island. “Well,” he said, “are we to be together?”
“I thought it might be nice,” Rhoda said.
“Ahhh,” he said, and his mouth turned slightly downward, and his eyes grew sad behind their spectacles, and he sniffed. “Ahh, well, if you wish,” he said.
The first thing David and I did was go to the drugstore. It was painless. David asked for a tube of hair cream and a dozen prophylactics (which I thought excessively ambitious), and then we went outside to where Gomez was waiting with the girls, and David made a joke about greasy kid stuff, which Gomez didn’t get. I was finding it more and more difficult to keep from putting him on, even though we’d promised Rhoda. He had no sense of humor, not the tiniest shred. His initial surprise and confusion had given way to an amiable submissiveness; he was willing to let us call the shots, and meekly followed us through the town, waiting outside the drugstore at our suggestion, accepting the idea of window-shopping before dinner, approving our choice of a restaurant and even, once we were seated, supplying coins for the juke box selections we made.
The restaurant, one of the least objectionable in town, was on a side street across the way from Wool-worth’s, its decor consisting largely of red leatherette booths and checked tablecloths. But it was clean and American, meaning it served a bland cuisine designed to offend no one. Gomez suggested we have a cocktail before dinner, but since we were all underage and didn’t need the embarrassment of being asked for identification, we all came up with various excuses which he accepted without question. Rhoda said she didn’t drink, which was the truth. Sandy said she didn’t feel like one right now, perhaps a brandy after the meal. David and I said we had each had two doubles before leaving the island, and didn’t want to chance another. But we all urged Gomez to have one if he wished, and he ordered a scotch and water, and then lifted the drink when it came and said, “Salud, Rosa.”
“It’s Rhoda,” she said.
“Rhoda? Ahhh, Rhoda. Ahhh, ahhh,” Gomez said and drank.
There was something terribly old-world about Gomez, something that spoke gently of haciendas and guitars, mantillas and black lace fans, soft Mediterranean breezes. The truth of the matter, however, (as he revealed it in an autobiographical monologue directed chiefly at Rhoda, catching us only tangentially as it were, but almost putting us to sleep nonetheless) was that he was born and raised in a Puerto Rican village named Las Croabas, thirty-six miles from San Juan, where his father was a poor-but-honest (ho-hum) fisherman except during the cane season when he took to the fields. Aníbal (it was a difficult name to pronounce, so we immediately bastardized it to Anna-belle) had lived in a wooden shack near the beach, and his only American contact had been with adventurous tourists who drove up from San Juan and rented his father’s boat for snorkeling expeditions. He had usually accompanied his father on these trips, taking the divers out to Cayo Lobos some three and a half miles offshore, and then watching the tall, elegant, rich people frolic in the water while the boat drifted and he ate his noonday meal of cheese and bread. Seven years ago, he had come from Puerto Rico to live with an aunt in Spanish Harlem. His father had by that time taken a job as a beachboy at the Caribe, and was earning more money than he’d ever earned from his combined fishing and cane cutting activities.