Once dinner was prepared, I plated it and sat on the couch to watch the game. My life during the school year really was pretty routine. Work all day, come home and make dinner, and then watch baseball or some other sport while papers were read or graded. Such an exciting life we teachers lead.
As I was cleaning up the kitchen, my phone rang. It was April. My heart began to race. This would stop eventually, right?
“Hello?” I answered, the racing of my heart not translating to my voice, thankfully.
“Hey,” she said. “What are you doing?”
So nonchalant. God, she drove me crazy.
“Just finishing up the dishes. What about you?”
“I’m sitting at the bar in my kitchen, listening to a silent house.”
“I guess if the house started talking, you’d have big problems on your hands.”
“God, you’re dumb, you know that?” She laughed.
“I know.” I smiled.
There was a silence for a moment or two.
“Do you feel like getting out of your silent house for a while?”
“What are you proposing, sir?”
“You’ll see. Be ready in twenty minutes.”
“Am I dressing up?”
“No, just casual.”
“Okay.”
“See you soon.”
“Bye.”
I threw off my work clothes from the day and put on shorts and a t-shirt. I made sure it wasn’t a Rays’ shirt this time.
I drove to her house, remembering every turn as if I had been there a million times. I really had no idea where I was planning on taking her, but the idea of being spontaneous appealed to me. God, I just wanted to see her.
I pulled into her massive driveway, the gate open and beckoning me to enter.
She was standing by the front door, holding a duffle bag, waiting for me as I pulled up.
Her hair was loose and flew behind her in the breeze as she walked toward my car. She was wearing white shorts and an orange tank top, her style very much Florida. Any man would have been forgiven for taking an extra long look at her extra long legs, but seeing as how she was getting into my car, I figured I could look as much as I liked.
“Hey!” she said, markedly more jovial than the last time I saw her. “Where are we going?”
She threw her bag in the back seat.
“Just be patient, ma’am. You’ll see.”
She fidgeted in her seat for a moment, and then bounced up in realization.
“You got a new car!” She smiled as she said it and my heart did somersaults.
“Yep. I finally said adiós to the Roller Skate.”
“And hola to air conditioning.”
I couldn’t stop the smile.
“You have the sexiest, crooked smile,” she said, reaching out and touching the corner of my mouth.
I left her neighborhood and headed toward the boardwalk. There were a bunch of shops there and they always had live music. Not necessarily good live music—but live music nevertheless. Tonight it was a mariachi band composed of five, chubby, grey haired men. We stopped to listen to them. April smiled and tapped her foot through two songs before I grabbed her around the waist and started dancing. She squealed and clung to me as I spun her around. I danced her through three songs just to have her body pressed that tightly against mine. When we were both breathless we headed over to an ice cream shop and grabbed two cones.
“Have you heard if they made it there safely?” I asked. I didn’t really want to talk about him, but I knew I couldn’t just act like they hadn’t left.
“Yeah,” she said. “He called before you got to the house. I made him call. It wasn’t a long flight.”
“Did he not want to call?”
“We haven’t really spoken the last few days.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I don’t know what to do.”
She reached out a pinkie and linked it with mine as we walked.
“What does your gut tell you?”
“My gut says leave him.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. But then I start thinking about everything else and my gut seems less sure.”
“Like the kids?”
“Yeah. They love their dad. They are too young to realize what an asshole he is and how miserable he makes me. He buys them toys and takes them places so he is a god to them.”
The last sentence was spoken with particular disgust. I wanted to change the subject, but this was clearly what she needed.
“Plus, he leaves for weeks at a time, so every time they see him, it’s like a novelty. Like Cuban Santa Claus returning with presents.”
“He brings them back something every time?”
“Every time. At least now they still love me because I feed them and take care of them. But I am already the bad guy. It’ll only get worse the older they get. And then at the end of the day, he’s kind of a crazy person. I knew it when we got married. My dad thought he just needed a woman in his life to ‘tame’ him. But there’s no taming Marco. The older he gets, the more I realize there’s no end in sight. I convince myself that staying is best for the kids.”