Um, if you have a phone you need to remember to USE it! Sometimes certain people in your life want to be in touch!
If you come over now, I promise I’ll let you eat all the dessert.
I’m laughing as I tap out I’m plus the emoji of a car plus the emoji of a house. I smile, proud of myself for this message in code that I know will make Finn laugh, too, when he receives it.
“Is he professing his undying love for you?” José asks.
“Maybe,” I say with a grin.
José grins back. “Well, he should if he isn’t.” He waves his hand absently toward the windshield. “Marlenita, vamos a la casa de Finn. I’ll be right here, evaluating your every move.”
“¡Sí, señor!” I pull forward across the parking lot, trying not to be nervous. Finn’s house isn’t far. I’ve never been to it, but I know where it is. There is a neighborhood of cottages right along the ocean, just past the seawall. Finn has been living so close all this time.
I turn left out of the lot and after I am safely on the road, I speak. “Thank you, José,” I say. “For teaching me. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome,” he says, simply. “Just doing my job.”
His words hit me like a slap. I force myself to concentrate on driving. “Your job? What do you mean?”
“It’s my job to do what you ask, Marlena. You asked me to teach you to drive, so I’m teaching you to drive.”
Luckily, it seems there are no other cars on the road. “But I thought you were doing this as a favor. Because I asked you to and you wanted to.”
“And I do want to, and I’m happy to, but this is not a favor,” José says, in his usual cheerful tone. “This is my job. Doing what you say. I’m on the clock right now. Did you think I wasn’t?”
I swallow, the gulp of it audible in the quiet car, my eyes still fixed on the road. “This isn’t in your job description. And I’m not in charge of you.”
“But you are, Marlena. You’re the boss,” he insists.
“I am not,” I protest with a shaky laugh. “My mother is.”
“You and your mother are both my bosses. The money you make pays for my job. I have to do what you ask.”
“But . . . but I thought . . . I . . . wait a minute.” I put on my turn signal and glide to a stop along the seawall, where in theory I should be practicing my parallel parking but the only other car is about a quarter of a mile away.
“Nicely done,” José is saying. Then, “Mirame.”
I don’t want to look at José right now. But I turn the ignition off and make myself do it.
“You thought that we were friends.” José shakes his head. “Cariño, I am not your friend. I am your employee. I always have been.”
I am speechless. My lips feel glued shut.
“But just because I work for you doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, niñita. I do. I always have. I don’t know exactly what is going on, but I can see you changing and it’s for the good. And because of that”—he gestures between us, the half-eaten Twix in his hand—“here we are, and I am teaching you to drive.”
I try to nod, but instead I just drop my head and stare into my lap, at my knobby knees, the pedals on the floor, the mat, which is spotless as always. José must vacuum it every night. That just makes me sigh. José is right. I hate that he is, but he is.
“Hey,” he says. “Did you hear the part about how I care about you, or did you tune out when I said that?”
I lift my eyes. “I heard it.”
“Marlena, I know you are experiencing a lot all at once. But relationships take time. Changing a relationship after it’s been one way for many years takes time. We’ll figure it out together, eh?”
I manage to nod.
“Don’t lose hope. All is not lost.”
“I’m not,” I say, but another great big sigh escapes me. “Fatima keeps telling me that things don’t have to be all one way or all the other. But mixing everything up is so complicated. And unclear. I’m used to all the lines being very clear. And I’m also used to being painfully aware about what happens if I cross those lines, and what I lose if I do.”
“I know,” he says. “And Fatima is a smart woman.”
“She is,” I agree.
“But letting things be complicated doesn’t have to mean loss. Do you also know that?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe? Maybe I’m getting there?”
He takes a long gulp of his limonada and swallows. “Marlena,” he says, “sometimes when you start crossing lines, this is what you get.” He gestures between us again, still with the Twix, which is melting between his fingers. “You get driving lessons. And I get my favorite chocolate, some soda, and a nice afternoon with my little Marlenita, who isn’t so little anymore. Okay?”
“Okay,” I agree.
“Patience.”
“I hate patience.”
José laughs. “Don’t we all.”
Then he taps the wheel. “Now, ten o’clock, two o’clock, cariño. Or that Finn is going to think you changed your mind about him.”
THIRTY
“You got sun today,” Finn says when he opens the door of his house.
“Show me around,” I say in response. “I want the grand tour. Oh, and you promised me culinary delights!” I push past him and start looking around. Poke my head into every room, every closet. Everything is simple and everything is mismatched. Couch, two comfy chairs, lots of shelves piled with books. Books stacked one on top of the other, some horizontal, with more books wedged on those, all the way to the next shelf. The wood actually sags in the middle from the weight of them. When I poke my head in the bedroom, it is small and things are neat. The bed is made, and instead of a closet there is a metal rack where Finn has hung his clothes. On the bedside stand are more books.
“You don’t need a tour, apparently.” Finn is laughing as he comes up behind me. He puts his arms around my waist, but I keep walking, Finn in tow, backing up from his bedroom and heading into the little kitchen, where there is a small metal-topped table and two old wooden chairs. Several paper bags sit on the counter, one of them greasy.
I turn to him. “Are those our culinary delights?”
He lets go of my waist. “As a matter of fact, yes.”
I open one of the bags and breathe deeply. “Oooh, what is it? It smells delicious.”
“I went to Annie’s. The shack at the end of the seawall?”
I know it, but I’ve never been. My mother would never eat there.
Finn grabs the bag with the grease stains. “We have clam cakes.” He places it under my nose and I see fat blobs of fried dough. He returns the bag to the counter and points to the others. “We have chowder to go with the clam cakes. Also, lobster rolls, cole slaw, and corn on the cob. Maybe I overdid it?”
“It’s perfect! I’m starving. Let’s eat all of it. I’ve never had any of it.”
“Well, that’s a crime against humanity. And your Portuguese heritage, if I might add.” Finn pulls things out and sets them onto paper plates. Then we sit and dig in.
I take a bite of clam cake and swallow it down. “Wow.”
“I know, right?” Finn pops one of the smaller ones into his mouth whole. “You’re supposed to dip them in the chowder,” he says, in between chewing, “but there isn’t a right way to do this. It tastes good no matter how you approach it.”