“Anything by The Stones there?” Sandy asked David.
“I don’t see anything,” David said. “Here’s a new Blues Project, though.”
“Oh, good, play it,” she said. “Do you mind, Annabelle?”
“No, not at all,” he answered, “but it is Aníbal. The accent is on the second syllable, Ah-nee-bal, do you see? not Annabelle. Annabelle is a girl’s name, no?”
Well, he went on to say, he was still living in Spanish Harlem, where he had managed to avoid the evil of narcotics addiction (those were his exact words) and where he worked during the day at a liquor store that had been at the same location for twenty-three years, while meantime studying accounting (we knew it!) at Columbia University three nights a week.
“You want to be an accountant, is that it?” Sandy said.
“Yes, of course,” Aníbal said, and smiled.
“Why don’t you have another drink, Annabelle?” David said.
“If no one minds.”
“No, go right ahead.”
“But it is Aníbal,” he said, and again smiled.
“Ah-nee-bal,” Sandy said, misplacing the accent.
“No, no,” Aníbal said, laughing, “you make it sound like ‘animal.’ No, no, it is Ah-nee-bal.”
“Well,” Sandy said, and shrugged, and smiled.
“It is difficult, I know,” Aníbal said, and then ordered another scotch and water.
He then asked Rhoda about the masters degree Sandy had concocted for the questionnaire. Rhoda was supposed to be twenty years old, of course, which made a masters virtually impossible unless she had graduated from college at the age of eighteen or thereabouts, which age she wasn’t about to reach for another three years. Trapped in Sandy’s original lie, Rhoda blushed and said, “Oh, yes, that,” and glanced at Sandy, who immediately said, “She’s very shy. Her masters is in sociology.”
“Ahh, yes?” Aníbal said, and it was my guess he didn’t know what sociology meant. His fresh drink arrived. He raised the glass, again said “Salud” to Rhoda, including us in a retrospective nod, and drank. It was then, I think, that we decided to get him drunk.
I don’t know whose idea it actually was. I only know that the notion was suddenly there, flashing between Sandy and David and me with the same electrical intimacy we had generated that night of the firehouse dance. Our eyes met. There was no need to nod, or smile, or offer acknowledgment of the idea in any way. It was simply there, we felt it taking shape and gaining power, it surged around and over the table, it was as if we had our arms around each other and could feel each other’s pulse beats: we would get Aníbal Gomez drunk.
We did not, however, reckon with Rhoda, who seemed to sense our scheme the moment it was hatched. When Aníbal finished his second scotch, Rhoda immediately suggested that we order, but David said, “Perhaps Annabelle would like another drink.”
“I’m starved,” Rhoda said, and shot a pointed glance at me.
“Well, we have loads of time,” Sandy said, “there’s really not much to do here in town.”
“Except eat the big dinner,” I said, referring of course to the Hemingway story and pleased when David got the allusion and nodded.
“Sure,” Sandy said, “have another one.”
“Only if you join me,” Aníbal said.
“We’re ahead of you already,” David said.
“If Rhoda is hungry...”
“I’m starved,” Rhoda said again, and again glanced meaningfully at me.
“Then...”
“Miss,” David said, calling the waitress, “another scotch and water here, please.”
“No, truly...”
“Make it a double,” Sandy said, and then smiled at Aníbal and whispered, “Save us the trouble of ordering another one later.”
“Sure, live it up a little,” David said. “What the hell, you came all the way out from the city.”
“But if Rhoda feels...”
“How was the traffic coming out?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Pués, ni malo, ni bueno,” Aníbal said. “So-so.”
“Where’d you leave the car?”
“In the lot. Near the ferry.”
“Here’s your drink,” Sandy said. “Salud.”
“Salud,” Aníbal answered, and drank. He shrugged at Rhoda, who now had a pained expression on her face.
“I’d like to see a menu,” she said. “Peter, would you ask the waitress for a menu?”
“Well, there’s no hurry,” I said. “Annabelle’s still drinking.”
“Peter...”
“Rhoda, there’s no hurry,” I said, and looked her straight in the eye.
“You promised,” Rhoda said, meeting my gaze.
“Eh?” Aníbal said, and smiled.
“Don’t blow it, Rhoda,” David warned.
“Eh?” Aníbal said again.
“Rhoda’s on a diet,” Sandy explained hastily.
“Why do you need a diet?” Aníbal asked gallantly. “You are very slim and nice.”
“Thank you,” Rhoda said.
“You are all very nice,” Aníbal said, and drank again. “Are you sure you will not join me?”
“No, but go ahead,” David said.
“Miss, another double,” Sandy said.
“No, please...”
“Drink up, drink up,” David said.
Aníbal drained the glass. Rhoda, fully aware of what was happening now, raised her eyes plaintively to mine, and I read in them for only an instant a sure accusation of betrayal, which I chose to ignore. If Aníbal felt like drinking, how were we doing anything so terribly wrong? I looked at Rhoda one last time, and turned away. On the seat of the red leatherette booth, Sandy took my hand in hers.
There were some swift currents swirling around that booth for the next ten minutes, and I began to get a little dizzy trying to cope with them all. Aníbal had completely entered into the spirit of the bacchanal now, recalling whatever annual feast it was the natives celebrated in the streets of Las Croabas on Holy Saturday, voluntarily ordering another double scotch, and swilling the stuff like water. His eyes were bright behind their spectacles, and I had seen that same brightness often enough in my father’s eyes to know that complete stupor was only a hairsbreadth away. I began to feel guilty about my role in getting him drunk. That was one of the currents, and it had nothing to do with anything Rhoda had said, nor anything to do with the signals her eyes had flashed. It had only to do with my father. It had only to do with this Puerto Rican connoisseur of good scotch who, like my father, might come to me in a predawn nightmare, and awaken me, and sit by my bed, and moan in inebriated cadence, “Oh, Peter, oh, Peter.” I suddenly remembered that day in the forest when Rhoda and I had listened to the sounds everywhere around us, and where I had lifted her lips to mine and kissed her without feeling even a suggestion of the metal bands. I thought of Spotswood, New Jersey, and of a clearing in bright sunshine, and a small boy in a striped beach chair, bare legs crossed, had my father been a drunk even then? it did not seem possible. Sandy’s hand over mine was warm and restless. I knew she was also holding David’s hand, and I remembered that night in the movie theater, and I thought of what she had admitted on the walk to the ferry, and of the townies wanting to get at her, and of David’s plans for her, and I suddenly got very excited and squeezed her hand tightly, and looked into Rhoda’s eyes, and for some reason had the strangest feeling I was watching Rhoda on film, as if the reality of Rhoda was rapidly fading, the reality was only Sandy’s hand and the promise beneath the cotton shift, the reality was here on this side of the table while the film, the illusion, was there across from us, Aníbal putting his hand over Rhoda’s on the tabletop and whispering, “Rosa, you a pretty muchacha, you know what that means? It means a pretty girl, Rosa.”