The Ladies' Man (18 page)

“Papi,” says Lorenz. “This is Kathleen Dobbin.”

“How do you do,” the old man mumbles.

“We came back for coffee.”

The old man tears the legs off the body of a wet crab and drops them into a sauté pan. “Please go ahead.”

“Can you join us?” asks Kathleen.

“I better finish this,” he says in accented English.

Lorenz signals to Kathleen that something needs to be finessed. “Papi? We're going into the living room for a few minutes to talk,
so you can finish up and join us.” He leads Kathleen into the next room and to a seat on a plaid sofa. Lorenz waits for the running water to create background noise before he explains, “He didn't have his teeth in. This'll give him a chance to get them.”

The water stops and a door closes.

Kathleen asks, “How long has he lived with you?”

“A couple of years. He stayed up in Lawrence after my mother died, but it wasn't a great situation for him, so I said, ‘Let's give it a try. If it doesn't work out for either of us, we'll think of something else.' ”

“So it's worked out? He likes the North End?”

“Sure. His first name's Antonio, so he fits right in: Tony Sampedro. No trouble there.”

Kathleen looks around the living room, which is overfurnished with side-by-side black lounge chairs, a large TV, tinted family graduation photos, and two scarred maple coffee tables. “Where's the cat?” she asks.

“She's shy. I can bring her to meet you if you insist.”

“No need to traumatize her,” says Kathleen.

Mr. Sampedro joins them. Not only are his dentures in, but he is wearing a plaid shirt and a narrow tie in cobalt blue.

Kathleen says, “You didn't have to get dressed up on my account.”

Mr. Sampedro takes her fingertips in his hand and bows slightly. “I don't like to greet lady guests in an apron.”

“I'll make coffee,” says Lorenz. “Regular or decaf?”

“Did you have supper, Miss?”

Kathleen says yes, she did. An early dinner.

“Because we could have my crabs,” says his father.

“I think just coffee and those biscotti,” says Lorenz.

“We could have cocktails,” says Mr. Sampedro. “A banana-and-rum milkshake.”

Lorenz says, “Let me check if we have what we need.”

“We have everything,” his father says. “I bought bananas today.”

Kathleen says, “Sounds delightful.”

“We have a Waring blender,” says Mr. Sampedro.

“Can I help?” asks Kathleen.

“No, no. You stay and talk with me.”

As soon as Lorenz leaves the room, Mr. Sampedro says, “He's a good boy. I have one son only and I couldn't ask for a better one.”

“Papi! I can hear every word you're saying.”

“He's not so great,” Mr. Sampedro yells, then slaps his knee and guffaws.

“I don't think I've ever tasted a banana-rum milkshake,” says Kathleen.

“I don't make it very often because I have hardening of the arteries, but when we have a special guest, I think it's only good manners to join her.”

“I know what you mean,” says Kathleen. “You have to treat yourself once in a while.”

Mr. Sampedro smiles, and Kathleen senses another endorsement is bubbling up. “My son is lucky. He doesn't have to watch what he eats. He's very strong and very healthy.”

Kathleen says politely, “He has to be fit for his job.”

“That's right! It's an important job down there. A whole building depends on him.”

“That's true. I know
I
do.”

Mr. Sampedro asks, “Do you have children?”

“I was never married,” says Kathleen.

“No babies?”

“No,” says Kathleen. “Just a bunch of sisters.”

“All pretty girls like you?” he asks.

Kathleen laughs. “And fading fast.”

Whatever that means to Mr. Sampedro, he laughs too. “Do you like crabs?” he asks.

“Love 'em.”

“I wasn't planning on buying them, but then I was walking by the fish market just when it was closing and I see them through the window and I knock on the glass and point and the man unlocks the door. He knows me. I'm a regular. I bought every one he had left.”

“I saw you were cooking them in a tomato sauce.”

Mr. Sampedro grins. “You smell that?”

Kathleen nods.

“It's a
sofrito
. I cook onion, tomatoes, garlic, some wine, in olive oil. No green peppers! I put the crabs into my sauce and we eat them with rice. They're cooking now.”

“It smells delicious. I could smell it coming up the stairs.”

“Lorenz,” yells his father. “Stir the crabs. And turn down the gas.”

“I did, Papi.”

“How's the cocktails?”

“Coming right up.”

Lorenz reappears, holding a tin Coca-Cola tray with three frothy drinks in parfait glasses. He places the tray on the nearest coffee table, presents the first glass and first cork coaster to Kathleen, and all three raise their glasses. “A celebration,” says Lorenz. He glances at his father as if his presence is constricting his freedom of expression, but forges ahead anyway. “I had hoped this day would come,” he says.

Kathleen touches her glass to his.

Mr. Sampedro adds, “Here's to our beautiful guest. I hope this is the first of many visits. Maybe next time she'll come earlier and eat with us.”

“I'd like that,” she says.

“You work in Lorenz's building, no?”

“I have a shop there.”

“I know—” He snaps his fingers in Lorenz's face.

“Lingerie, Papi. Bras and girdles.”

“That's right! I'll come see it and buy some presents. Do you have boxes?”

“Boxers?”

“Boxes. For the presents.” He pantomimes the shape of something square.

“Oh! Of course. And wrapping paper and ribbon.”

“It's a hop, skip, and a jump, you know. Lorenz comes home for lunch sometimes. It takes five minutes.”

Kathleen smiles. Lorenz tells his father to move over, please, so he can sit next to his guest.

Squeezed between his father and Kathleen, Lorenz asks wryly, “Isn't this cozy?”

If there are hints being dropped, Mr. Sampedro ignores them. “He makes a good milkshake, doesn't he?” he asks Kathleen.

“Do I taste cinnamon?” she asks.

“Just a sprinkle,” says Lorenz.

“Drink up,” says his father. “It's good for you.”

“You know what he's doing, don't you?” says Lorenz. “Remember in
Guys and Dolls
when Sky Masterson takes Sara to Havana and gets her drunk on Bacardi and milk? Well, this is my father's clever way of loosening up ladies who strike him as teetotalers.”

“What?” says Mr. Sampedro. “I didn't hear what you said.”

“I wasn't talking to you, Papi.”

“I heard you say ‘Habana.' ”

“I did. I told Kathleen you were born there—hence the drink.”

“That's right. But not my children. And my wife was European.” He crosses himself quickly.

“Lorenz told me.”

“Do you like to cook?” he asks.

“I love to. I cook for my family.”

“She has no kids,” Mr. Sampedro tells Lorenz.

“I know, Papi.”

“Neither does he. My daughters all have kids. That's enough for me. Altogether they have nine. Six boys and three girls.”

“I think you probably want to check the crabs,” says Lorenz, adding in Spanish, “then go to bed.”

Mr. Sampedro says, “I'm starting to feel a little tired. I'm seventy-five years old, and I need a lot of sleep.”

Kathleen says, “I understand.”

He thwacks Lorenz's chest happily with the back of his hand, then gets to his feet with an exaggerated groan. He turns to Kathleen. “I sleep like the dead. Once I'm in my room, I don't come out. I don't even get up to use the toilet. I sleep through anything.”

“Good night, Papi,” says Lorenz. “You're starting to get on my nerves.”

“Lovely to meet you,” says Kathleen.

“Likewise. And I know Lorenz will bring you back again. Maybe with your sisters. I'll make what I cook for special occasions—
lechón asado.”
He looks to his son and snaps his fingers.

“Roast suckling pig.”

“My butcher carries them for holidays.”

“Christmas, I bet,” says Kathleen.

“Before Christmas! You'll come sooner than that!”

Kathleen checks with Lorenz to be sure he isn't looking dismayed or overwhelmed. He finds her hand next to his on the couch and squeezes it.

“I accept,” she tells Mr. Sampedro.

Lorenz has clicked off the three-way bulb next to the couch, and is grinning as he pours refills.

“What?” she asks.

“Remember that big sale you had?”

“Which one?”

“After Christmas. You were sitting on the floor, cross-legged, marking down panties and putting them into baskets labeled ‘small,' ‘medium,' and ‘large.' You'd hold up each—all business—and either check the tag or guess the size, and toss it into the right basket. You had no idea how cute you looked, or the effect it had on me.”

“I do remember that,” says Kathleen. “And I might have had an idea of the effect it was having on you.”

“So you were flirting with me?”

“I certainly was.”

Lorenz throws his head back and laughs.

“Well, wait a minute: The reason you were there was personal—to return my Christmas check. Remember?”

“Definitely.”

“January,” she murmurs. “Has it been three whole months?”

“To me it seems the opposite: Has it been only three short months since that conversation? It seems that I've known you for a long time.”

“What I meant,” says Kathleen, “was that I should have reciprocated in some way. Three months of your bringing me cappuccino and I never said, ‘Could you come to dinner next Friday night?' ”

“Because we're in a delicate position. I'm
still
in a delicate position. I'm an employee of the building and you're a tenant.”

Kathleen is listening, but not as easily as when there's a display case between them or a customer anecdote to recount. They've never been this physically close, hips and shoulders touching, and she is studying the details of his eyelashes and earlobes and freshly shaven cheeks.

“I went round and round on this,” he continues. “I even talked to my father about it. I knew you felt obliged to give me a tip at Christmas, but I couldn't cash it. Then I'd say to myself, ‘If you say something, it'll put her on the spot.' So then I'd be back where I started from, with your red envelope and the nice thing you wrote on the card. I changed my mind every twelve hours. ‘Don't cash it, but don't make a federal case out of it,' seemed one option, but then I was afraid I'd screw up your books.”

“What did your father tell you to do?”

Lorenz smiles.

“Go ahead,” says Kathleen.

“He thought I should cash the check, but buy you something with it.”

“Such as?”

“The usual—candy, flowers, a book of poetry. He thought it would make you weak in the knees.”

Kathleen is feeling extremely weak in the knees. It isn't that she's gone unkissed in her forties, but it's been a long time since the wool of someone's sweater against her arm and the smell of male cologne has induced any effect in her at all. His voice and the shape of his mouth, and the swirls of dark hair across his knuckles
 … Finally
, she thinks.
Finally. I didn't make this up
. She says faintly, “I guess it all worked out. I mean, I understood that your returning my check was a symbolic act.”

There's only one bridge left to cross. Kathleen stares into his brown eyes and waits. Lorenz hooks a finger under her chin and brings her closer. His face is warm, and he tastes lusciously, tropically, of Bacardi and bananas.

“Kathy,” he murmurs between kisses.

Lois is recapping the last thirty years, moving quickly over her marriage and divorce with the sexually confused patent attorney,
then backward to her wildly mixed emotions on the night of March 11, 1967. “I was sick for Adele, but vain enough to imagine that it had something to do with me,” she tells Nash, who is bored and working out a melody on the arm of the sofa. “But at the same time, it was probably because I was so young and so romantic—”