Then I noticed the calming in her tone, therapeutic, almost reminding me of the onetime my manager, Paul, got me to attend a shrink. The gaze was incessant, the questions rigorous. This doesn't irritate me with judgment as she had asked if I was okay. For the first time in months I don't want to be alone.
Her face is round, cute little dimples on each side. Fresh coffee beans, the divine scent of waking up, reminds me of those brown eyes. Inviting in all the right ways. She's friendly, not too friendly, but just enough for me to put my size 11 in my fucking mouth as I thump my chest while asking, "Angelique, por favor, do you believe that it's worse to have never know love than for it to be snatched away?"
Shit, will she see me as a weakling for asking? One of those men who can't get to mid-morning break without texting I love you to a significant other. Oh, and also texting did you get the sticky note on the cup of coffee next to the two egg omelet. But the way she tugs her bottom lip through her teeth in thought tells it all. She doesn't think I'm mushy.
"Love? These days, I'm not sure what love is..." Angelique pauses for a moment, my breath hitches in my throat as she ponders the severity of my question. For the first time in forever I want to build a connection with someone. A mutual understanding. She shakes her head, adding, "So no, Eduardo, that's an experience that I don't know firsthand."
The air forces its way through my lungs. I thought she was broken, as broken as I am at this moment. That is why she's here, alone; right? I rub my hand against the throbbing in my forehead. "Never?"
I glance at her ring finger. No telltale signs of a ring on her rich complexion to indicate she once was wed, or still is wed, nothing on all of her fingers. I glance around subtly. This place is for lovers and the occasional chick vacation. There's no lover nor group of dirty friends.
"Never?" I cock an eyebrow. This is wrong. Maybe she's waiting for her lover, I don't know. But this is wrong. "Oh, all right. I appreciate you not allowing me to bleed out," I say glancing at the bowl on the coffee table. Then the sincerity of my tone evaporates since there'll be no connection between she and I, "I'd better go."
Gritting my teeth to the imaginary, but so very loud flamenco dancer tapping in my ears.
"Tell me about her if you'd like," Angelique offers.
Our eyes connect once more. Nah, she isn't reading me. Though I, on the other hand, have read her wrong. There's this fucking heaviness in my chest. A heaviness I can't contain. We aren't alike, it's time to find another bottle to end my sorrows, since the connection that I felt was just the aftermath of alcohol. "Um, nah, I don't think...
The words rush forth from her mouth. "I can tell you about how I've never fallen but blinded myself into thinking I have."
"Shit … " I quietly mouth through grimaced teeth, ignoring the friendly gesture while beginning to rise as the throbbing refuses to cease.
"I don't have hard liquor, Eduardo," she muses with a half smile, "well not that hard. But tequila. You're bound to have a headache."
"Fuck yeah, I already do." This shit bangs through my eardrums, that it's hard enough for me to wince and apologize in her presence again.
But I want to know her story. I can scent it off the warm brown of her skin tone. Miss Angelique Curtis has felt pain. She has been in love, with love – or however a woman would like to spin it. No comprendo. I'll just take it that we are one in the same. She has been in love period.
I haven't had a discussion about what I'm going through. Maybe that anthropologist was right. Edward is right on most occasions, and Orlando was there to help, too. I just want to feel something. To hear the pain that's brought Angelique here. Even if I refuse to tell her all of mine. I'll give just enough, no doubt. Two broken souls, me and Angelique can drink over emotions. But telling all is not in the cards.
I shrug, "Tequila works."
Angelique gives a slight nod, places her palms on her knees and rises. "Okay, let me go dig it out of one of these rollaway bags."
The flowing dress molds to a voluptuous backside as Angelique slips into the bedroom. I lay my head back, instantly comforted in a place I spent my younger years playing hide and seek.
When she returns with a gallon of alcohol, I consider if she's the alcoholic, since there are no signs that Angelique has come to the sea with not even one guest. There are complementary coffee mugs with the Inn's logo dangling from her finger by the handle.
"Aye, Angelique, La buena mierda, mi gusta – the good shit, I like." I say in Spanish upon seeing that the brand isn't cheap.
"What?" She smiles, pouring us both a generous amount.
"Er, just showing my thanks." I nod, since I usually attempt to keep the cuss words at a minimum around a female.
"Thanks is gracias. You apologized for cussing before, so I'll go out on the limb and say La … La buena mierda, mi gusta … is probably something I might not need to decipher. But, you should know where I'm from, everyone is bilingual if only in bad language." Angelique smiles, while plopping back down onto the cushiony chair across from the couch. She folds one thick thigh over and sits on her heel. "All right, Eduardo, who goes first."
I lick my lips. I can hear her calling me Franco instead of my manager's name. Fuck me … the way she says it.
"Tell me about this time wasted." I toss that ball right back into Angelique's court.
She purses her lips, though those brown eyes twinkle. "Clamming up, eh?"
I shrug it off, the challenge.
Angelique takes a long gulp then says, "Well, you asked me have I ever been in love. I take it you were implying deeply, madly..."
"Shoot for the fucking stars," I nod.
"Yeah," she murmurs. "Shoot for the … stars. I guess you could say that I had my version of fireworks, if we go by the books."
"What's his name?"
"Carlton," Angelique speaks the weight I feel. I set my drink down untouched, because she is exactly what I need. She begins to tell me about the gilipollas.
She wanted to change him. "Changing" a man must be one of those primitive female traits passed down throughout the ages. Yet, as Angelique tells me the kind of idiota Carlton is, I understand. My own mother would slap the shit out of me for thinking about asking a female to pay for dinner the first time, and Aunt Célia would do even worse.
"You think I'm stupid?" She pauses, but doesn't wait for my response. With a quick chug of her mug, Angelique grits her ultra-white teeth to the burn. Then she continues, "Oh, so I've told you about grocery shopping. I'll admit the times when I used my Sam's Club membership card instead of him, I actually made out like a bandit with regard to points earned. Oh, and I told you about the snapping at waiters he loved to do. We just about broke that habit. But the kicker, Eduardo, the darn kicker is, I finally got a chance at the ring that I've been waiting on. Instead of bringing up Jessica, or bringing up any of the crap that Carlton and his coworker, Omar, joked about, I reverted back to my primary goal. ‘Make Carlton make this world a better place,' okay that was corny."
She pauses to laugh.
I take a sip of my drink because at this point it's not a laughing matter. It's a hop on a plane to Southern California and have a chat with Carlton, after I beat some sense into him.
"What if he had pretended to want a profound conversation about love? What if he wanted to … " her words slur, index finger up in thought, "Wh … what if he made me believe that he cared about me feelings as opposed to holding up that damn ring! I was two seconds from snatching that engagement ring and running. And the kicker is – forget about the ring or the cookie-cutter husband. The damn husband with accolades that I've wanted all along. No, my list of requirements in the male species dummied down to one thing at that very moment. I wanted love! A sloppy, blue collared man who can make me laugh my ass off, with a friggen beer belly. Eduardo, does that sound like a plan?"
"Angelique," I finally get to say as she's stepped off a teeter-tottering ‘soap box.'
"Yeahhhh?"
"No, No, Angelique. No beer belly, standup comedians. I gotta ask. What kinda cabrón proposes to a woman in a car?"
Her dark brown eyes sparkle in thought, and she gives a tipsy giggle while shrugging a few moments later.
"This isn't the sixties, with those cool classics – " What the fuck am I talking about, in the sixties they weren't classics? She's drunk, I'm coming down, so this works. I continue, "This isn't back in the day where you're on lover's lane in a shiny ass convertible. Overlooking the night lights. Shit, you women, I can't understand you. But even I know what a woman wants with regard to popping the question. And it's not a guilt proposal before making you drive yourself home at night."