“It's a long story,” he said.
“Yes. But you tell it to me. You tell me everything.” She poured a second glass for herself, and he could see her hand tremble at the neck of the bottle. “Because I swear, if you don't… You are ashamed of me? Why? Because of my accent? Ashamed of me so that I can meet only Sandman and not your own mother?”
“It's not that,” he said, and still he hadn't moved, the squid lying there on the counter neatly prepped, his flute empty, the pan simmering on the stove. “Okay, you're right,” he said, and he moved to cut the heat under the pan and pour himself another glass, “I guess it is time, because you're just acting crazy now-drugs? Me? Have you ever seen me do any kind of drug, even pot-even a single toke?”
“Cocaine.”
“That's nothing. A little toot now and again, just for fun. What, once a week-once every “two” weeks?” He spread his arms wide in expostulation. “You like it too.”
She gave him a tight smile. “Yes. Sometimes.”
“I'm no bad guy-you think I'm a bad guy? What happened to me is no different than what happened to you. I just hooked up with the wrong person, is all. My wife. My ex-wife. That was the beginning of it, just like you-just like you with what's his name, Madison's father?”
She took a seat at the table they'd just bought the day before-oak, 1890s, six matching chairs, two with hairline cracks that had been glued and varnished over-and they finished the bottle and opened another one and he told her as much as he could, because he wanted to be honest with her; he loved her, and really did believe that people in a relationship needed to be straight with each other. What he didn't tell her was that his real name was Peck-Bridger was good, Bridger was fine for now, though he'd run the creep's credit into the ground because he couldn't resist putting it to him and before long he'd have to be somebody else-or that it wasn't the investment business he was planning on running out of the big paneled aboveground basement or that he couldn't bring her to see his mother not only because his mother was irrelevant to him but because she might call him Peck or even William and he just needed to take things step by step right now.
At some point, he'd got up and started chopping cilantro, green beans, garlic and chiles, and he deveined the shrimp and put on a pot for the rice. She didn't have much to say. She sat there running the tip of her index finger round the rim of the glass, wearing her brooding look. He was feeling a little light-headed from the wine. The pleasure of the hour, of being alone with his thoughts while things sizzled in the pan, was lost to him and the taste of the Champagne had gone sour in the back of his throat, but at least, he thought, he'd laid the issue to rest. He'd opened up. Been as forthcoming and honest as he could be, under the circumstances. And she seemed satisfied, or at least placated.
For a long while neither of them said anything. There were the faint sounds of life in the country-birdsong, crickets, the wet rush of a lone car's tires on the road out front. And what else? The rhythmic squeak and release of Madison's swings, a sound as regular as breathing. Everything seemed to cohere round that rhythm, slow and sure and peaceful, even as he moved back to the stove, busy there suddenly. When the wok was good and hot he dumped in the garlic, ginger, green onions and chiles and the instant release of the flavor scented the air in a sudden burst that made his salivary glands clench. Behind him, at the table, Natalia cleared her throat, poured herself another glass of wine. Then, in her smallest voice, she said, “I still do not see why I cannot meet your mother.”
Two days later, he was in a place across the river, in Newburgh, buying a high-end color copier with a credit card in somebody else's name, after which he intended to check out an authentic old-country German butcher shop Sandman had turned him on to-he thought he might make Wiener schnitzel, with pickled red cabbage, spätzle and butter beans, just for a change, though on second thought it was probably too heavy in this heat and he might just go with potato salad and bratwurst on the grill-when he decided on a whim to stop in at a bar down by the waterfront. He had a couple of hours to kill and that was nice. It was calming. As was the feel of the sun on his back as he loaded the copier into the trunk of the car, the underarms of his shirt already damp with sweat, the heat and humidity sustaining him in a way the refrigerated air of the Bay Area never could have. He felt like a tourist on his own home turf. A dilettante. A man of leisure taking the air before ensconcing himself on a barstool and having a cold beer or two in a conical glass beaded with moisture while the TV overhead nattered on about nothing and he spread a copy of the newspaper across the bar and mused over the little comings and goings of the Yankees and Mets.
Natalia was shopping. He'd dropped her off at a mall the size of Connecticut and she said she'd call him around two for lunch. They'd found a day camp for Madison, though she hadn't wanted to go, of course, and she'd clung to her mother's legs and shrieked till the snot ran down her nose and generally caused a monumental pain in the ass for everyone concerned, but at least they didn't have to worry about her till five-or was it five-thirty? He thought about Sukie then, couldn't help himself-it hurt to be so close and not see her, but he didn't dare risk it, not yet, anyway. Her face was there, rising luminous in his mind, and then just as quickly it was gone. He checked his watch-quarter past twelve-and stepped into the bar.
Or it wasn't a bar, actually, in the strictest sense of the word-it was a bar/restaurant, looking to go upscale, part of the interconnected complex the city fathers had built along the riverfront to attract tourists and the locals who had a little money in their pockets and thought they were getting something special because the waiters wore starched white aprons over dress shirts and ties and the Hudson was right outside the window. And he wasn't complaining-he loved to drift into places like this, the Varathane still fresh on the pine wainscoting, the owners young and uninitiated and looking to score big. It was like a busman's holiday for him, studying the menu, the wine list, seeing what they were getting for what they were putting out, but it was strictly for comparison. He'd never own a restaurant again. Too much shit. Too much heartache.
It took a minute for his eyes to adjust, and then he nodded at the hostess (eighteen, natural blonde, with a butterfly tattooed on the wing of her left shoulder, and he hated that, hated tattoos on women, especially when they wore them in intimate places-it just suggested traffic to him, that was all), removed his shades, swept a hand over the crown of his head to settle his hair and pulled up a stool at the bar. The place was fairly well crowded and that surprised him. The bar was full of business types in lightweight summer suits, plus a couple of secretaries and three or four of the local lowlifes-you could pick them out at a glance, despite their bright-colored shirts and the watch-me-behave-myself looks on their faces-and maybe two-thirds of the tables were filled, mostly with women, mostly drinking iced tea and picking at the crab salad served on half an avocado. What was the word he was looking for? Déclassé. It wasn't Sausalito, that was for sure.
He'd just ordered his beer and half a dozen cherrystones, just spread out the paper on the bar and glanced up at the TV screen to see somebody somewhere hitting a home run on yesterday's highlight reel, when he felt a hand on his shoulder and swung round on the stool as if he'd been burned, jumpy-crazed, freaked-despite himself. For a moment he didn't know whose eyes he was staring into, some stranger's, some jerk who wanted to just have a glance at the sports page or politely ask if he might not mind shifting down a stool so he could- “Peck, man-don't you recognize me?”