why?
She scooped a slice of the key lime pie onto a plate with a spatula. Maybe because I’m the one.
He considered this. He said, I should have known that.
What?
You being the one.
Standing that close, Falk could smell her perfume. To him it smelled like fabulous Vietnamese flowers and he had never been to Vietnam. When she turned to leave they squeezed close.
I think about you, he said.
She could not help but smile. She felt sorrow for this misfit. His parents dead and gone, living at his cousin’s, expelled from school as dangerous. His was a story of misfortune and mala suerte. When any soul with eyes could see he was gentle and quiet and only needed to be loved. He should be suckled like a child, pampered with dulces, and made to laugh.
With one hand she held the key lime pie carefully away from her body. She put the other hand on his chest, against his white apron smeared with mustard stains. You think about me?
I do.
She stared at his lips. What do you think?
I remember you.
She kept her eyes leveled on his mouth, then stood on tiptoe and lifted her face to his lips. They kissed once and pulled away, then Falk pulled her hips close to his and kissed her again, her mouth opening like a hot flower, the smell of her breath, a taste of sweetness, her lips warm and smooth. To Falk it felt as if he had stooped to enter a tunnel where all the world faded away and there existed only the here and now of her scorching lips, her smooth muscular tongue in his mouth. All his flesh tingled and dimly he was aware of how she held the plate with its slice of key lime pie away from her body, her tiny feet lifted out of her flip-flops, his hands on the small of her back, feeling the swell of her hips through the thin cotton cloth of her blue dress.
When they separated she pushed him away softly, still looking at his lips, whispering that she had to go. She left him there in the walk-in cooler. In this coolness his body still tingled, and he struggled with the surprise of the moment, the before-and-after-ness of it. After a moment he left the walk-in carrying a tray of breaded shrimp.
Gusef stood outside the door, shaking his head. You should not love this girl, he said. This woman. She is good person but that does not matter.
Falk stood there, holding the tray of breaded shrimp in front of his body. He looked up to Gusef and listened to what he said. I was just getting some shrimp, he said.
She is like sun. She will blind you.
Falk simply stood there, blinking, the smell of Una’s kisses still with him, a loose smile on his mouth making him appear slightly drunk.
Gusef reached out and tapped his forehead. Wake up, silly boy. You will love her and you will end up dead. And this you will regret from dark hole of wisdom called grave.
As Una moved into the dining room, glancing at the occupied tables to see who was ready for the check and who needed iced-tea glasses refilled and who looked like they wanted her attention, she savored the taste of Falk’s kiss on her lips. She would have to lie to Gabriel. She would ridicule Falk as nothing but a boy. A güero who didn’t know nothing. She would hate these words, the words that would come out of her mouth, a mouth still warm with the taste of the boy’s sweet tongue.
A person can be nice. Nice and tender and soft-spoken. He was the opposite of this one, Gabriel, a man and harsh to all but her. She hated and feared lying to him, the lies she felt compelled to tell and, for the moment at least, to believe herself.
For a good two years Una had felt something like love for Gabriel. She knew the stories about him and thought most of them exaggerated. People liked to have a badass around to make them feel high and mighty about themselves. Everybody knew he’d stuck a knife in Pedro Alamogordo’s gut, but that was considered by most a positive civic development. Still she knew in her heart and veins that Gabriel was a man upon whom she could not count. Plus he had an anger problem. Whatever feeling Una had that might have been called love was now worn thin and weak, the memory of a good time one night long ago followed by a year of bad ones.
At the counter Gabriel now sat alone. He ate a bowl of gumbo, crumbling a fistful of Saltine crackers into the bowl. He thought about what the tourist had said and didn’t get it. Gumbo was gumbo. Shrimp and crab, okra and spices, tomato and basil. There was no mystery. He thought the tourists were full of shit and wanted to turn around and shout at them, tell them they should go back to Minnesota or Manitoba or any of those other cold fucking states that started with an M. Let them know they weren’t wanted. That they were out of place.
He held his tongue. Una walked by and he knew she was pissed at him for drinking in the middle of the day, something she hated. The next time she passed he told her he’d be back to pick her up at the end of her shift. She asked where he was going and he said he didn’t know. He needed to think.
Gusef watched Gabriel leave and frowned. He saw right through his skin to the darkness of his soul and the clouds in his brain. He told Una she should find somebody new. He said, This angry fisherman, no.
Una told him she needed him to run a credit card for table four.
Gusef seemed swollen with romantic and moral indignation. He will not do, said Gusef. I speak truth. He has two ideas in his head, and it is crowded.
DOWN SHORELINE DRIVE from the Black Tooth Café was the Sea Horse Motel, also owned by Gusef. It was a two-story eggshell stucco beside the green and sluggish Red Moon Bay. Wrought-iron railings and red shingle roof. Cheap enough that when people checked in and signed the old-fashioned register it was like a release form for no complaints. Its claim to stylishness was the fanciful figure of its neon sign—an elaborate sea horse, the name in script above the matching icon with its amber stallion neck and spiny emerald mane. The loopy letters of the neon grapefruit script in the office window usually read Vacancy.
Walter Hamilton—the tourist Gabriel had insulted in the Black Tooth—and his wife were staying at the Sea Horse. They had recently arrived in Goodnight for the fall and winter months. Walter was retired and considered his life one of ease and refinement. He saw no reason for Gabriel to threaten him. For two hours afterward his hands trembled. He drove back to the Sea Horse in his RV that was big enough to accommodate a touring rock band. He told his wife he was going fishing.
I don’t care if there’s anything in the water but jellyfish and old crab traps, he said. At least I’ll be alone.
She watched him leave and wondered what in the world.
Before heading to the pier Walter bought a Dr. Pepper from the motel’s vending machine in a breezeway near the office, beside the ice machine. He removed the twelve-ounce can from the machine’s low mouth and hid it in his tackle box. Being borderline diabetic he was supposed to avoid unnecessary sugars but he couldn’t help himself. Dr. Pepper was just one more thing he was hiding from his wife.
India Hamilton was a righteous woman and did not stand for foolishness. She believed in discipline. Drinking soda pop was not altogether sinful but certainly undisciplined and if she had seen Walter with the can he would have caught the sting of her tongue.
India’s hair, like Walter’s, was white as snow-goose feathers. Her skin was pale and crinkled, befitting a healthy woman sixty-six years of age. Together India and Walter resembled Mr. and Mrs. Claus and, what’s more, they owned a farm in Minnesota that raised Christmas trees.
With the Dr. Pepper hidden in his tackle box, Walter brought India a bucket of ice before he left for the pier. She asked if he was all right.
Your hands are shaking, she said. Have you had your pills?
I’ve taken my pills.
Then what’s wrong?
I don’t want to talk about it. I’m going fishing.
She turned back to the newspaper crossword she was doing at the table in the Sea Horse Motel’s kitchenette. As he was leaving she