I spent the rest of the weekend alone with the memory of Xochitl’s face, her perfume, the shape she added to the red dress. I wanted to call her right away, the next morning, even though I’d read in countless magazines that women don’t go for men who show that much interest. The number Xochitl gave was an office and she would not be there until Monday anyway.
On Monday, Blutarski split for lunch at exactly noon, which was his routine. I jumped in his chair, picked up the phone, and read Xochitl’s work number off the matchbook. She answered with that rough voice, but in a businesslike tone.
I said, “Wassup, nena?”
“May I help you?”
“It’s me, Eddie.”
“Excuse me?”
“Eddie Santiago.”
“With what firm, sir?”
“We met at the club?”
Xochitl switched me to lame music. I squeezed the phone with my shoulder and pulled one of Blutarski’s supersharp pencils from the cup on his desk. I drew large circles on a clean yellow pad.
Xochitl came back on the line. “Sir, may I transfer you?”
“Xochitl, are you trying to embarrass me?” I repeated my name and that we’d met at the club.
“Saturday night?”
“No. Friday.”
“Which club?”
I told her.
“Hmm. Who did I meet?” She pretended to think out loud. “Oh wait! Are you the exterminator?”
“No.”
“The accountant?”
“Uh-uh. We danced, Xochitl, remember? You said I had a strong beat?”
“I say that to everybody. Wait! Are you the guy who just moved from downstate?”
“That’s me. The big guy with the goatee.”
“You call that peach fuzz a goatee?”
I heard the phone ring in the background. I began to say that I could call back later, but Xochitl threw me on hold before I could speak.
She came back on the line.
I said, “Are we gonna be able to talk like this?”
“The mic is yours.”
Just then, I drew a blank. There was a lull in phone calls, so we just floated in that artificial silence that happens when people listen to each other breathe over the line.
Xochitl dropped an abrupt laugh. “You’re a regular poet, huh, Eddie?”
I smiled on my end. “Well, shit, now there’s pressure.”
“Do you suffer from performance anxiety?”
“What?”
Xochitl dumped me for another call. When she came back, I said, “C’mon, Xochitl, whyn’t you let me take you out? This is silly.”
“Where are you gonna take me?”
I thought about the bed in my little room, but said, “I don’t know. Someplace where we can talk.”
“Doesn’t sound like you got much to say.”
I said, “Maybe if I was looking directly at you, I would get inspired,” which I thought was pretty good, but I think Xochitl had already dumped me for another line.
Suddenly, I smelled Blutarski. He stood over me. It was the first time since I worked for the man that he brought his lunch back to his desk. I was planted in his soiled chair, cradling his phone with my neck.
Blutarski gave me the “get out” signal with his fat thumb. “Hey, new guy, do I look like Illinois Bell?”
Just then, Xochitl came back on the line. “Sorry, Eddie, I gotta run. Call me tomorrow.” She hung up.
The following day I called Xochitl from a public phone.
“You outside?” she said.
“Making a delivery.” I’d forgotten that I told her I was in the “ink business.”
“What is it you do again?”
I thought to change my answer to say that I was outside traveling to a corporate account. Instead, I said, “I work with my hands, Xochitl. I mix ink.”
I explained a little about the process.
“Sounds messy. Do you like it?”
I began to say that it was all right, but Xochitl was already on another call.
When she came back, she said, “That was my daughter. How many kids you got?”
“None.”
“Does that mean you don’t claim them, you don’t pay child support, or you just never gave them your last name?”
“None of the above. I never fathered any.”
“How’s that possible?”
“It just is.”
Xochitl paused. “You never got a girl pregnant?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Is there a problem with your sperm?”
“Boy, you don’t hold back.”
Xochitl giggled. “Are you gay?”
“Bite your tongue.”
“Hey, you hear stories.” Xochitl let the other line ring. “You never been married?”
“I never felt ready.”
“At your age!”
“Maybe I just never found the right girl. But I think you’ve had your twenty questions, Xochitl.”
“Something about you don’t fit.”
“You worried I’m a player?”
“Should I be?”
“Maybe I’m just mysterious.”
“Or maybe you’re hiding something.”
“I guess you won’t be able to figure that one out without getting a little closer, will you, Xochitl?”
We let that one sit.
I said, “So? When are we going out already? I’m standin’ in the friggin’ rain.”
“Invest in an umbrella. Call me tomorrow, Eddie. I gotta run.”
An early-autumn chill settled over Chicago. The sky was overcast and gray. I stamped my feet, held the cool receiver to my ear, and wondered again whether Xochitl was worth the two quarters. I was getting tired of the phone. I dropped them and dialed.
“Xochitl.”
“Hey.”
“It’s Eddie.”
“I was waiting for your call. Wanna meet after work?”
I warmed up. “Tell me where.”
She did.
“I gotta go home first, shower, and change,” I said.
“Good. Remember to use deodorant.” She said it in a way where I couldn’t tell if she was joking. “And please don’t be late.”
I waited for Xochitl for over an hour. I dipped chips in salsa, nursed a strong margarita, checked and rechecked my new watch. Finally, I accepted that she wasn’t coming. I paid the bill, left a weak tip, and walked out.
Xochitl was out on the sidewalk, in front of the restaurant, arguing into her cell phone.
I tapped her on the shoulder. “Looking for me?”
Xochitl signaled for me to hold, then walked away to finish her argument. I heard enough to know that the other party hung up on her in midsentence. Xochitl redialed and listened intently to the other end.
She left a voice mail: “Now you’re afraid to pick up? Think slamming the phone fixes things?”
Xochitl slammed her cell shut and walked past me. She put her hand on the door to the restaurant and looked back. “You need an invitation?”
“I waited over an hour, Xochitl.”
“My babysitter fell through,” she said. “Is that gonna be an issue?”
Xochitl didn’t wait for my response. Instead, she pulled the door open. A cool wind hit her just before she stepped inside, and even though Xochitl’s eyebrows were knotted in frustration, her black hair flew. I followed her.
The same guy who seated me the first time looked a little peeved to see me again. He sat us at the same table. Xochitl removed her brown leather overcoat. She wore a formfitting tan turtleneck, a brown leather skirt, brown knee-high boots with a nice heel. Her makeup was more sedate than it had been at the club. She put the cell phone down on the table.
“Did you eat?” she said.
I was still a little peeved. “No, Xochitl. I waited for you.”
Xochitl clucked her tongue and opened a menu. “Me? I don’t wait for no man.”
In the better light of the restaurant, I was able to see details of Xochitl’s face and body that I hadn’t noticed in the low light of the nightclub. She had the very beginning of wrinkles around her eyes. Her face was slightly chubbier than I remembered. And her hands, her fingers looked a little rough, despite the manicure. Like maybe they had seen a lot of work in a sink somewhere. But she looked good. Real good. I inhaled her perfume and it softened my mood. The waiter asked for our drink order.
Xochitl kept her eyes on the menu and did not acknowledge the waiter. I’d read in some magazines that no matter what the official position, modern women still like for a man to take charge.
I said, “The margaritas are the bomb,” and ordered two. The waiter took off.
Xochitl put the menu down. “Normally, I don’t drink during the week,” she said, “but I guess I could use one.” She looked at her cell again.
“You seem distracted, Xochitl.”
She put her phone down. “You’re right, Eddie. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you wait so long. I honestly didn’t mean to. I would have called if you had a phone.”
Xochitl had a point. “Well, you look beautiful. It was worth the wait.”
Xochitl thanked me with a smile that reached her eyes this time. I noticed her many gold rings. She wore a bracelet that had an image of the Virgen de Guadalupe. I reached across the table and let my fingertips barely skim the bracelet. “Gift from an ex-boyfriend?”
“Yeah, right. Some of us work for a living.”
“Don’t get testy. I guess I’m just wondering who’s got you so hot and bothered over the phone.”
“Listen, when you have kids with someone, you’re stuck with them for life.”
“Understood.”
The busboy brought corn chips and salsa. Xochitl dipped. I noticed that her long nails changed color since Friday. They were pearl white now, with little gold accents. They matched nicely with her brown-and-gold motif.
Xochitl reached across the table and touched my chin. “So what happened to that fake goatee?”
I smiled. I had wondered whether Xochitl would notice that I shaved it off.
“Me la tumbé.”
“Too bad,” she said. “I kinda liked it.”
The waiter brought our margaritas and asked for our orders. By then, I was not so sure that the magazines had it right when they expounded on women. I decided to let Xochitl order for herself.
The drinks were strong. The material of Xochitl’s turtleneck stretched across her chest and hovered over the table. We talked about the fact that Halloween was around the corner, and how afterward the holidays would fly by. Xochitl went into a riff about the pressure she felt to provide at Christmas. I could not relate, but I pretended like I did. I agreed with Xochitl that our own childhoods had been more modest in comparison to the modern generation.
Piñatas hung from the restaurant ceiling in the shapes of burros and wild stars. I told Xochitl a story about the fifth grade, when we made a piñata for a Cinco de Mayo party, and how this blindfolded kid swung wildly with the stick and missed, hitting the teacher’s face, cracking her glasses and giving her a bloody nose with one shot. I described how funny it was when the two halves of the teacher’s glasses spun across the hardwood floor in opposite directions, and how her eyes looked bugged-out without the glasses. Xochitl covered her mouth when she laughed at my description of the teacher and said, “Pobrecita.” She seemed a little rosy-cheeked from the margarita. I didn’t tell Xochitl that the kid in the story was me, that the teacher was a bitch, and that I whacked her on purpose, that I could see beneath the blindfold the entire time.
Xochitl said, “Poor kid must’ve felt terrible.”
“Ah, he was one of those kids that was always in trouble.”
Xochitl nodded. She told one about a quinceañera where a spoiled girl waltzed in a ball gown, real sophisticated, then tripped and fell with her legs in the air. Xochitl was pretty mocking when she imitated the stiff upper body of the girl as she waltzed.
“When her heel caught that dress and she fell? Everybody saw her pasty legs and humongous ass. Not to mention her grandma panties. Some of us laughed. I mean the shit looked funny. Well, la princesita gets up and runs to the bathroom crying.”
“That was a hard kick in the crotch for a fifteen-year-old.”
“Let her learn. Anyway, they got it all on tape, right? So I keep telling them to send it to America’s Funniest Home Videos. But the family didn’t think it was as hilarious.”
“Did everybody get cake at least? With the piñata we never saw the candy.”
Xochitl dipped a chip. “You know what? She threw such a tantrum in the ladies’ room, they called the party off right away, before cutting the cake. That pissed me off. I had already given my card with the money in it. So I just went over and cut myself a big-ass piece of cake, big enough for me and my kids, got the server to wrap it in aluminum foil, and took it home. We had it for breakfast the next day.”
I grinned. “Tú eres mala.”
“You never heard of, ‘let them eat cake’?” Xochitl had a smile on her face that was the most unguarded so far. She looked right in my eyes as she sipped her drink. “You,” she said, sounding a little tipsy finally, “are a very good-looking man.”
I resisted the temptation to lick my lips. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that.”
Xochitl blinked at me real slow. “You just moved here?”
“That’s right.”
“From where again?”
I paused. I knew Xochitl liked to ask questions, so I had prepared a backstory, just in case. Some women get hot for a guy who’s been in a cage. But I figure the more ambitious ones will rarely go for it.
“I told you, Xochitl. I used to live downstate.”
“Where specifically?”
“Joliet.”
“Really? I got cousins who live down there.”
“No shit,” I said. “What do they do?”
“Oh, this and that.” Xochitl mentioned a couple names.
“Never heard of them. But it’s not exactly a small town.”
“They’re about your age. You grew up there?”
“I’m from Chi-town.”
“What were you doing in Joliet?”
“Working.”
“Doing what?”
“Odd jobs.”
“Like?”
I ran through the résumé of assignments I had as an inmate. Kitchen detail became slinging hash at a diner. The law library became a bookstore. Maintenance became handyman at an apartment complex.
Xochitl sipped her margarita. “Joliet is kind of a strange place to move for that type of work, ain’t it?”
“You had family there?”
“I just needed to get away, Xochitl.”
“From what?”
“Myself,” I said, without thinking.
Xochitl raised an eyebrow, but let it go. She asked how far I made it in school.
“Not very. I hated homework.”
“So your parents just let you drop out?”
“By that time my mother couldn’t handle me.”
Xochitl’s eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing. I just developed a mind of my own is all. I was hard to convince.”
Xochitl nodded. “Wish I could say the same.”
I asked Xochitl to tell me more about herself. She told me she went to an all-girls Catholic high school. She did well and got a scholarship to DePaul.
“I wanted to be a lawyer.”
“What happened?”
“I got pregnant. Eighteen. My husband made me quit.”
“You were already married?”
“You know how stupid an eighteen-year-old can be, right?”
“I have an idea.” I put my drink down. “What happened with your husband?”
“I’m not sure.”
“That’s not exactly clear, Xochitl.”
She looked me right in the face. “Neither are most marriages. But I don’t think it’s too smart to talk a lot about past relationships.”
I nodded. “Now it’s just you and your kids?”
“At one point I went back and tried secretarial school for a couple months. Wanted to be a legal secretary. But my husband, we started fighting about it. I never went back.”
Xochitl took another sip. Finally, she said, “This drink is too strong,” and added water to dilute it. She looked at me as she stirred. “You know how it is, Eddie. Some things you just can’t start over.”
Halfway through dinner Xochitl looked up from her plate. “You been with a lotta women, Eddie?”
“Not a lot.”
As an inmate I got an occasional slice. Friends and sisters of other women who came to Stateville to visit boyfriends and husbands and the fathers of their children. I would start them off as pen pals, then get them to visit and sneak me sexy Polaroids. We’d make out in the visiting room until I could get them to grease the guard for ten minutes alone in the bathroom. Over the years I’d lined up a handful of these—you have to, or you’d go insane.
I looked at Xochitl. “I thought you said you didn’t wanna talk about past flings.”
“I’m not asking for the whole sob story,” she said. “I’m curious about lifestyle.”
“I been with my share of women.”
“Ever been tested for HIV?”
“Of course.”
“Results?”
“Negative.”
Xochitl ate fajitas like HIV was everyday conversation.
“You always talk so blunt, Xochitl?”
“We’re getting to know each other.”
I bit into my burrito. “And? What have you learned?”
“Well,” she said, “you didn’t think to ask me my own HIV status. I think that says something.”
“Such as?”
“I’m not sure yet, Eddie. I gotta figure that one out.”
After dinner I walked Xochitl to her car, a gleaming white Lexus with a tan interior. It had nice rims, and looked well-kept.
“Wow, Xochitl. They must pay pretty nice at that office.”
Xochitl barely smiled, and did not offer an explanation.
The car had a sunroof. I said, “Wanna go for a moonlight drive?”
“I can’t. I’m up early.”
Xochitl unlocked the door and opened it so that it came between us.
I cocked my head. “Am I gonna see you again?”
Xochitl raised her crooked smile. “Call me at the office.”
“When?”
“Whenever you want.”
She got in the car, shut the door, and started the engine, then lowered the window and extended her manicured hand. I took it.
“Thanks for the company,” she said. “It was nice to share a laugh.”
I bent close and Xochitl pulled back a little.
“No good-bye kiss?”
Xochitl let her hand rest in mine and gave me the mischievous grin from the dance floor. “Mister, I hardly know you.” She pulled her hand inside, powered her window up, and drove off.