They step out of the building. Charlie tries not to show surprise when Mona hooks elbows with him. She says, “this way,” steering him to the right. He looks around at the late rush hour traffic and the stores and apartments along College Avenue. “Nice of you to show me the neighborhood. Have you always lived around here?”
She moves in closer, pressing her breast against his upper arm. “About six years. I came here from Seattle to go to college over there.” She’s pointing across the street at a wooded hillside behind a tall stone wall. Through branches of eucalyptus and pine, Charlie sees a large Victorian house at the top of a hill with a few modern concrete buildings scattered to either side. A brass plaque on the arch above the iron gate reads California College of Arts and Crafts.
“And what do you do now?”
“I’m a web designer.”
“And what do you do when you’re not doing that?”
“I paint. But not the way you do. Smaller brushes and no landlord white.”
“Yeah, I hate landlord white.”
“This is the place.” She nudges him to the door of Mama Lucia’s. They get a table near the window. The waitress gives them menus and asks if they want something from the bar. Mona orders a cosmopolitan. Charlie asks for beer. The waitress leaves. Mona says, “Okay, what about you? I detect an East Coast accent. New York?”
“No, Boston.”
“Oh, Baahston. Always wanted to go there.”
“Why does everybody think we call it Baahston? People from Boston call it Boston. The drawn-out vowel only happens when we’re dropping an R. There’s no R in Boston.”
“Oh.”
Charlie grins. “But we got Rs in hayacut, Haahvahd, and Haymahket Squaya.”
The waitress brings their drinks, takes their food order and leaves. Mona says, “Thanks for clearing that up. What do you do when you’re not painting apartments?”
“Drinking, gambling, carousing… you know, guy stuff.” He laughs at the smirk on her face. “I like music, play guitar… or, to be honest, I play with a guitar. I like graphic novels. What do you do for fun?”
“Like I said, I paint. And I like music, too. I don’t play, but I like to dance.” She lifts her glass by the stem and takes a sip. Looking over the rim of her glass, she asks, “Do you like to dance?”
“Someone once told me I dance like old people fuck.” He suddenly feels stupid.
She puts her glass down and glares across the table at him.
“Sorry, that was clumsy. I shouldn’t have said that.”
With her eyes locked on his, she drains her glass in one gulp. Then she grins and says, “Well… I suppose that’s better than fucking like old people dance.”
Their food arrives along with a bottle of Chianti. She’s having the cheese tortellini. He’s having penne carbonara. She spreads her napkin across her lap and says, “So… do you?”
“Do I what?” he asks around a mouthful of food.
“Fuck like old people dance.”
“Nobody ever accused me of that. Damn! this is a slammin’ carbonara!”
“Yeah. The tortellini’s good, too.”
E J Barron
E J Barron 