Naked in LA (3 page)

I tossed my coat back onto the hook. I heard the door to the diner slam shut in the wind as someone came in.

“There’s customers out there,” Tony said. “What do I pay you for?”

Donna, the other waitress, had just finished her shift. I looked at her, hoping she’d offer to step in, but she just shrugged her shoulders. I guess she knew better than to get in the middle of this one.

I grabbed the order book and slammed out of the door.

Angel sprawled in one of the banquettes, arms spread, fingers tapping an impatient tattoo on the plastic. “What can I get you?” I said, pen poised. I didn’t even want to look at him.

“You didn’t call me. Why?”

“Why do you think?”

He sighed, like a teacher with a pupil who was just too slow to learn her lessons. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“What is there to get?”

“I’m in a position to help you.”

“I’m doing fine on my own.”

He looked around the diner, the red plastic banquettes, the Formica tables, the old guy asleep in the corner with a dribble of coffee in his beard. One of our regulars. “Yeah, you’re doing real good, baby.”

“What do you want, Angel?”

“I want to take you out to lunch.” There was a shopping bag under the table. He dragged it out and pushed it towards me. It was from Burdine's; there was a sleeveless dress, low heel pumps, a notch-collar jacket.”

“By the look of it, who you want to take to lunch is Jackie Kennedy.”

“It’s Pierre Cardin, cost a fortune.”

“Should have saved your money. I’m working.”

He patted the banquette next to him, inviting me to sit. “Listen,” he said, leaning in, “I already cleared this with your boss.”

“You had no right talking to Tony!”

“He’s a very understanding guy. I spoke to him a couple of days ago...”

“...a couple of days ago...?”

“...and he got a replacement all lined up for you. So please, go in the back, put the nice clothes on, and I’ll take you somewhere real fancy for lunch. We got a lot to catch up on.”

I looked up at the kitchen and saw Tony, Frank and Donna all watching through the door. It looked like the only way I was going to keep my job and get Angel off my back was to go with him. One lousy lunch. How bad could it be?

Chapter 4

Tony and Donna couldn’t look at me. Tony chewed on a toothpick and shrugged. He didn’t even think to feel bad about it.

I went out the back to the washroom to change. I hadn’t worn fashion label clothes since Havana, and despite myself I liked how they made me feel. Then I put on some lipstick, checked my reflection in the in the cracked mirror and dragged a brush through my hair.
Dios mio
, look at me. My hair…nothing I could do with it, or my nails.

But when I come out, Tony whistled. I glared at him. I had gone to work a waitress, but I was leaving looking like a French model. I felt like a whore.

Angel was sitting in the back of the gleaming Chrysler Imperial parked out front, waiting. One of his goons opened the door for me and I slipped in.

I settled down into the soft leather upholstery. I thought about the Bel Air we used to own, this was like coming home. It was cool inside the limousine, almost cold. “Do you like stone crabs?”

“I’ve never been out with one.”

He shook his head. “Always got to be smart with the answers.”

“Always got to be dumb with the questions.”

“Let me try again. Do you like seafood?”

“I used to. It’s a long time since I ate anything except tinned sardines.”

“Good. I’m taking you to the best seafood restaurant in Miami.”

The Imperial sighed along the boulevard across Biscayne Bay and over the Douglas MacArthur Causeway. “So tell me,” he said. “How did you end up working in a diner, for Christ’s sake?”

“How do you think, Angel?”

“I don’t know, enlighten me.”

“Papi got sick. I mean real sick. He had a heart attack the night Batista left Cuba. I managed to get him out, to the hospital here in Miami. We never had the chance to bring much with us, and by the time he was fit enough to travel again the whole thing back home had gone to hell. Friends wrote us, told us that it was dangerous to come back, they were throwing anyone who could write their own name into prison for being subversive. But we supposed it would only last a few weeks, and that the Americans would take over and throw Fidel out. I guess we’re still waiting.”

“I couldn’t believe it seeing you there like that, baby. That’s no place for a girl like you.”

“You get used to it.”

“You’ve changed. You were such a spoiled little brat in Havana.”

“Thanks, Angel. I got to say, you’ve not lost a bit of your charm.”

“You know what I mean, baby,” he said, and put his hand on my knee like I was his date for the night.

“What about you, Angel? Looks like life’s been real good to you.”

“I do okay.”

“How’s that pretty wife of yours? You got kids?”

He looked out of the window. “Two.”

“
Me jodas!
What is it, three years? You’ve been busy.”

We drew up to a white clapboard and stucco place on Miami Beach. A pink neon said:
Joe’s Stone Crab.
There was pink muslin on the windows, pink lamps on the tables, not the sort of place I associated with guys in Angel’s line of work. The owner hurried over. “Mister Macheda, how wonderful to see you. We’re a little full today but I’m sure we’ll find you a nice table. This way, please.”

In fact it was the best table in the restaurant, in the corner and a little secluded. Angel’s two bodyguards sat near the door so they could watch everyone who came in.

The owner pulled out chairs for us, snapped his fingers for the maitre d’ and the sommelier, handed us two leather-bound menus. “I hope you have a pleasant lunch. Call me if you need anything.”

Angel took the menu with barely a glance.

The restaurant was crowded with the wealthy Miami set, with suntans, loud tropical shirts, and lots of gold jewellery. There was a strong scent of coconut oil--most of these people had just come from the beach. None of them looked like they worked that hard for their money.

I wanted to cry. It was like stepping back in time, to the life I used to have.

“What’s the matter?” Angel said.

“Nothing. It’s just been a long time since I went some place where the women have jewels instead of tattoos.”

It was a joke, sort of, but he didn’t get it.

Men were staring at me. I was used to that all my life, but since I came to America, most of them wore baseball caps. These were guys with expensive wristwatches and even more expensive wives. Some of those same wives were looking at me like I was a prostitute. I glared back at them and they looked away. But maybe They’re right, I thought. That’s what I am, in a way. Angel bought me for the day.

I could have eaten the menu. It was a long time since I had lunch in a good restaurant. I usually made do with a chicken salad sandwich next to the trash cans.

Angel took it out of my fingers and tossed it aside. “How about you leave this to me,” he said. He snapped his finger at the waiter, perhaps he thought it would impress me. “Stone crabs. Melted butter. Thick toast.”

The wine waiter was hovering at his other elbow. “Champagne. The Pommery 50. Okay?”

“Yes, Mister Macheda.”

They hurried off.

Angel took out his cigarettes and lighter. He looked around the room, some people were smiling and waving at him, and he answered them with a curt nod. He was enjoying himself a great deal, playing the big man. He really hadn’t changed at all.

“It’s so good to see you again, baby.”

There he went with the “baby” again. He used to call me that once, he called me “baby” the night he took my virginity, just a day or two before he got engaged to his present wife.

“You look beautiful.”

“I did when I was eighteen.”

“You’re still a knockout. The clothes really suit you.”

“Thanks.”

“You got a boyfriend?”

“I have to work and take care of Papi. I have no time to date.”

“Too bad,” he said, blowing out the cigarette smoke and grinning at me like a wolf about to eat its lunch. I knew why I was there. He thought he still owned a part of me and he wanted to call in his markers. You see, no one ever had said “no” to Angel, that was his gift and that was also his trouble.

Chapter 5 

“I can’t believe I found you again,” he said.

“It’s not that crazy. Half of Cuba is in Miami now, it was just a matter of time.”

“I always felt we were meant for each other, baby. If it wasn’t for my parents things would have turned out great for us.”

“Yeah, sure. If you’d married me instead of Salvatore’s daughter, we could have worked in the diner together.”

He looked irritated at the idea. “That would never have happened.”

A huddle of waiters crowded around our table. They put a huge silver dish of crabs, their shells and claws broken, in the middle of the table along with a sauceboat filled with melted butter and a long rack of toast. Then they brought out the pink champagne, but instead of serving it in flutes, it came in tankards like beer.

The head waiter stood behind my chair and tied a white silken bib around my neck. Then he did the same for Angel. I sat there stunned. I hadn’t worn a bib since kindergarten. I had imagined a refined lunch.

Angel dropped several hunks of crab onto my plate and doused them in melted butter. Then he started eating, totally ignoring me.

I picked at the crab. I had to admit, it was the best crab I had ever eaten, the butter tasted of caramel, and the champagne was ice cold and tasted of strawberries.

There was no further conversation. Angel was totally absorbed in his food. It surprised me; I was expecting to be seduced. But this was just gluttony, there was no savouring of anything. I remembered it was always like with Angel, whether he was in bed or in a restaurant, it was all the same to him. You satisfied whatever hunger you had, wiped up afterwards and thought about the next thing.

When he’d finished, he wiped the grease off his chin with the bib, threw it aside and sat back. He finished his champagne as if it were a Budweiser and lit another cigarette.

I thought about my father at home in bed watching Huckleberry Hound and nibbling at the Spam sandwiches and tinned orange juice I had left beside the bed. I pushed my plate away and put down the bib. I was hungry but I couldn’t eat.

“What’s wrong, baby? You don’t like crab?”

“I don’t have much of an appetite these days.”

The waiter came for the plates, asked Angel if he wanted desserts or coffee. He waved him away with a flick of his hand.

“How’s your father these days?” I asked him.