More Muffia (The Muffia Book 2) (16 page)

I turned back to John, watching his head tilt back into listening position, and said,
“And
I like to dance. I’m not very good, but I like it.”

No need to tell him about the pole dancing
—
he’d only get ideas.

“Thass goood, Queen,” he said, righting his head and taking a big gulp from his drink. “De higing iss berry good por zee-
elth
, but de tancing is beery good por zee-soll.”

I nodded, still deciphering. “Oh
—
the
soul
, of course!” I said to the tilted head. “And health. Absolutely. Great for your health
and
your soul.”

A waiter finally appeared to take our order. Metrosexual and wearing all black, except for a red tie, he rattled off a couple of specials, while John tilted his head to listen to the elaborate descriptions, only righting it again once the waiter left.

John didn’t seem like a bad guy so, mixed assessment notwithstanding, I resolved, as part of the Quinn self-improvement campaign, to put all my criticisms aside. I was in a beautiful restaurant with an attractive—
who cares if he was a little short
?—man who seemed very interested in me. I
would
practice gratitude. Yes and thank you. There were, after all, so many truly horrible places I could be right now that it would be selfish of me not to be grateful. All that said, I decided to remain sober just to keep myself honest.

“
Jhyehhsss
,” John said. “Zzee-art and sol har soo eempohrtent. Ahm so appy daht dwee ahgree on daht.” As he spoke, he lowered his voice so it sounded like the low rumble of thunder on a sex-laden summer night. “An tehll me, Queen, abow djyour tanhce. Djyoo lie doo doo zee tengo?” His eyebrows lifted and tilt went his head.

“Tango?” He’d asked the question so suggestively, I suddenly felt exposed. They say tango is the closest thing to sex with your clothes on, not that I had any first-hand experience. Pole dancing comes close, I guess—except that you’re dancing with a pole, not a person.

“Si, si—tengo. Como los Ahrzhenteen. I ham tahncing de tengo pfor mehny, mehny jyeeehrs.”

“I didn’t realize people in Venezuala did Argentine tango,” I said, trying to make a joke.

“Oh jyheesss, off
corssse
dey doo. De Venezuelan peeepowl hahrr no so particulahr when ees a goohd tance weer eet come from. I weel teesh you to tengo eef you lie.”

What exactly did he mean by “If I lie?” Though I was game to tango in a general sense, it was becoming ever more clear that I wasn’t about to try it with John. And with his suddenly too-obvious wooing, I was beginning to think I didn’t even want to continue the conversation.

“Well, John,” I said. “You must be very good if you can teach.”

He gave me a seductive smile, his sparkling teeth catching some of the blue light. He was very smooth—too smooth. “Djyoo can call me Jojo. Eees whahd mohsse ahf deez people dey call me.”

“Okay...Jojo.”

The waiter returned and set down another drink in front of John. I hadn’t even seen him order it, but it gave me a chance to think about how to redirect the conversation.

“I also like to read,” I blurted out. “Not that I have a lot of time for it.”

“
Oh
,
jyyehsss
? Djyoo lie doo reedee boogz?” He sipped his drink and resumed his head tilt.

Reedeeboogz?
“Oh, books! Yes, very much I like to read dee books, I mean,
the
books. I’m even in a book club.”

“Jyyehsss?” This seemed to enchant him for some reason. I decided it was probably best to avoid telling him we’re called
The Muffia
. This would only give him ideas.

I just needed to keep him in his seat and the conversation away from topics that might get him riled because I’d be damned if I was going to leave before I got my dinner. I was hungry, and I’d already invested too much in this guy. Wow, Jelicka was right.

“I theenk hi haff eyrd of deez boogcluhbzz. Djyoo read a boog ahn djyoo gehdogehther doo deezcuss dees boog, jyehhss?”

“Mmmm, I think so, yes.”
Man, that accent was thick!
“Every six weeks we get together, have a great meal, and talk about a book—other stuff, too. Actually mostly, it’s the other stuff we talk about.”

His head remained in the tilted position for a beat too long. Straightening, he downed his drink and scooted his chair closer. Apparently, John thought talking about books was an aphrodisiac.

“Tayhll mhe,
Queeen,
abhow dees boog cluhb.”

Didn’t I just do that?
How many drinks had he consumed? He probably had one or two before I even arrived, which meant he was on his fourth. He seemed to be grinning bigger, making larger gestures, and raising his voice, and people were noticing.

I decided that maybe if I talked more—even if it meant repeating myself—he’d talk less. That way, I wouldn’t have so much trouble understanding what he said, thereby conserving energy in case I needed to run, which hopefully wouldn’t happen until
after
I ate my steak.

“Well,” I began, “There are nine of us in the club—all women and…”

“Hall weemens? Oh, thees hi theenk ees bfeery eenteresding, jyhess?” He slapped the table, startling the young hippieish couple at the table a few feet away.

OK, it really wasn’t
that
interesting. There are some 300,000 book clubs in the U.S., supposedly, and most are made up of women. In any event, he certainly didn’t need to slap the table for emphasis.

“It
is
interesting.” I tried to keep my tone dry and clinical, as if I were being interviewed for the job of librarian. “We’ve read thirty or forty books so far. Of course, I’ve always enjoyed reading, but being able to talk about a particular book with a group of smart friends has taken it to a whole new level.”

“And theess weemens are lyga-djyoo, Queen? Sehxsy and phowerfool?”

It
was
kind of cool he thought this; that is,
if
he thought this. But the motivation for these questions was so obviously not about books, that anything he said on the topic was suspect.

“Well, you know, we’re just reading books.” I tried laughing it off.

“Whahd boogs haff you rhaid een djyoor booog cluhb?” His head really tilted this time.
Where was my steak, already?

“Let’s see… We just read a book called
The Glass Castle
.”

“
Mmmmm
...Dee
Glahss Cassell
.” He seemed to savor the title as he sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. The alcohol was clearly getting to him because his head remained tilted. He was less and less attractive, and I was about to tell him I had a client emergency with Jennifer Aniston, steak be damned, when his eyes popped open and he attempted to focus, his head now swaying.

“Ees a nyhss image, doan djyoo theenk,
Queen
? Zee cassell mayde ahf glahss.”

“Yes, I guess it
is
a nice image.”
Help!
“Anyway, it’s a memoir and goes back to when the author was four and her pink tutu caught on fire. Then there was how she fell out of the family car on the freeway, how she shot her neighbor—he was this freaky twelve-year-old white trash rapist—and how her mother would send her to the bars to search for her father, who was certifiable, and how he pimped her and her siblings to get money out of people—
Dammit, I should have avoided using the word ‘pimp’
—but mostly, the book is a non-stop road trip with the insane parents dragging the author and her three brothers and sisters from one poor white trash town to another, whenever the bill collectors were about to find them or when Dad got another cockamamie idea to go somewhere and mine for gold or whatever; and well, suffice it to say, we all decided that the ‘glass castle’ represented a sort of holographic, no there-there, yearning of Jeannette’s failed father that he hangs over the family convincing them to buy into his crazy dream, which somehow they do.”

I looked at John. My overwhelming amount of words, delivered speedily as they had been, was having the desired effect. He looked as though he might keel over. So I pressed on, hoping I might actually make it happen.

“And you want to know the really amazing thing? She survived! Jeannette is now a very successful writer living on Park Avenue with a weekend house in the country. Meanwhile, her mother is homeless on the streets of New York! That’s right, mmm hmmm. And she
wants
to be; can you believe it? Her mother is a professional dumpster diver who’s made it her mission to rescue stuff from landfills. So in the book, Jeanette asks her mother what she can do to help—you know, because what daughter wants to see her mom dumpster diving?—and you know what her mother says? ‘An electrolysis treatment would be nice.’ That’s what she says, an electrolysis treatment! So that just tells you her mom really was crazy, or maybe she just never lost her sense of humor. Anyway, it’s incredible that she made it through.”

John was speechless, and I wanted to keep it that way; speechless and on his side of the table. Sadly, it didn’t last.

“An djyoo lyga
dees boog?” He suddenly lifted his head, looking baffled.

“Oh,
djyess
,” I said. “I lie dees boog pfery, pfery much.”

His eyes narrowed, but he was so far gone, I don’t think he trusted what he was hearing. “Hi thaynk I prayfair dose boogs dat haff an appy hainding, doan djyoo?”

I saw his hand moving toward mine across the table, and I quickly picked up my water glass. “Not always. Books are as different as people, don’t you think? Sometimes I prefer to be with one person over another, just like sometimes I’d rather read a thriller instead of chick lit. And sometimes I like to read memoirs just to see the kind of crap people get themselves out of.”

“Djyess, I see djyoor poyne. Boogzann peepohl harr deeferen, djyoor righ.” He looked at me with great intensity, as if deciding now was the time.
Wait—the food still hadn’t come. Where was it?

His voice went still deeper when he said, “Een zee sayme wahy, to me a boog eez lyge a woohman. Eeesch woohman eeza ole nyew worhl waiding doo be essplore, an eesch
pooo
see ays deeferen from dee ohthers. Eeesh whan eez waiding to be deeskohfver.”

I think he just said pussy
. Yes, he did. He said ‘a pussy is like a book.’
Whaaaht?
Maybe people who seek romance online should expect this kind of thing, but it was our first date and he’s talking about pussies?

Instead of reacting, I pretended not to understand while I determined that it was probably best to abandon my steak and leave.

“Whaahdjyoo theengk?” He moved even closer, and I could feel his breath—hot and clammy and smelling of whisky. Seeing John’s alcohol-infused eyes, I could no longer deny what I’d been thinking for the past half hour: The guy was a creep—an opportunistic, smarmy, lying, short, hard to understand, prick. I could practice gratitude about a lot of things, but John was not one of them. Practicing gratitude is relative anyway. Sure, I was grateful he wasn’t raping me, but that had more to do with the fact we were in public in America than anything else. If this were Venezuela, I probably would have been raped by now and left for dead.

I opened my mouth to respond, only to close it upon seeing our waiter who was finally heading our way with what had to be our meals. Profuse with apology, he gently placed the plates in front of us—the perfectly prepared steaks, the artistically displayed frites with the decorative seasonings, and a mélange of al dente, locally-sourced sustainable vegetables. Clearly, I was not so distressed that I was unable to appreciate the mouth-watering aspects of Boa’s gustatory presentation.
This
much I truly could be grateful for.

“Will there be anything else?” asked the waiter.

“Yes. I’ll have this to-go. Please.”

The waiter blinked and glanced at my inebriated date. Surmising there would be little resistance, he picked up my plate and did a quick pivot away from the table.

Collecting my purse, I stood and quelled the disgust I felt. “Thank you, Jo-Jo. But next time you ask a woman out, I think you should let her know what she’s getting into. It would save you both a lot of time.”

He shrugged like he’d been through this before; perhaps he even expected it.

Ordinarily, I might feel guilty about sticking a guy with the check, but no such feelings arose. He’d lied, he’d been rude, he’d gotten drunk, and he’d made an obviously unwanted pass. My conscience was clear.

The Muffs were right: Saturday nights are not the best for first dates. But, despite this setback, I was not going to give up. I’d chalk it up to “experience” and press on, starting with that webinar on online dating success I signed up for.

Walking past the bar, in pursuit of the waiter with my steak, my eyes drifted across the faces—young hotties of both sexes, middle-aged tourists, and old farts with twenty-something babes fawning over them. They all looked so happy. Was there any real love on display, or was everyone just playing the game? Suddenly I felt very old going home alone—
again
. Well, at least I had my steak, and for that I was grateful.

My gaze continued to drift over all the happy people and then—there was
that guy
again. How the hell did I know him? He didn’t just remind me of the guy I’d seen at Firefly, he
was
the guy I’d seen at Firefly. He was also the guy sitting in the main dining room earlier. And like before, he was facing away from the direction most everyone else was facing. Was he trying to avoid being seen? If so, by whom?
Could it be me?

“Enjoy,” said the waiter, handing me my meal, all wrapped up in a shiny black bag.

I thanked him, glancing back at the table where John was still seated. He was leering at the poor hippie girl at the next table who stood just in time to avoid having him fall on her.
Wow
. Some people really don’t get it. But again, the human mind can rationalize almost anything.

I continued toward the front door and once more looked around for the man I recognized at the bar earlier, but it appeared he’d left. And as I exited the restaurant and walked to my car, I hoped the entire evening would turn out to be one big bad dream.