It is like a beautiful unique shell, the kind you find in the Caribbean with swirls of radiant tropical colors. It seduces you with its sexy veneer and perpetual Technicolor hues. But on the inside, the city is hollow and lacking substance. South Florida is the southern capital of saline implants (for men, too) and Botox injections (guys, too). Most of the guys only care about what car you drive, what gym you work out at, and how much you make. At least back in Boston, I’d get into these heavy conversations about world politics, religion, and gay marriage. In Miami, books are used as towel weights.
If I sound bitter (do I really?), it’s because I haven’t had a boyfriend since I moved to South Florida from Boston four years ago. Cupid has had terrible aim when it comes to me, and I’m hard to miss, with my face plastered on every billboard and bus. Cupid did find me love back in Boston where I worked the weekend shift at the other Channel 7. Louie was my partner for the three years I was a general assignment street reporter. He was basketball-player tall and built, with aqua eyes and brown velvety fuzzy hair from his crew cut. He had one of the most endearing smiles, a good heart, and an infectious Boston accent. He was head director at the local Boys and Girls Clubs organization, and I often helped him with events by accompanying him to after-school basketball games or field trips with the kids during the summers. We’d go to Provincetown during the summer weekends and visit my family in nearby Sandwich on the Cape. Everything seemed to point that we were going to be together forever. He even put up with all my social and speaking engagements as one of the few Portuguese-American journalists in New England. My heart melted when he began taking Portuguese classes at the Boston Center for Adult Education to better communicate with my relatives on my mother’s side. We were planning a trip to visit Portugal when everything fell apart.
One afternoon, I came home early from work. I wasn’t feeling well due to a stomach bug. It was four and I walked into our bedroom and found him in our Beacon Hill bed with one of his college-age coaches from the center. I literally caught them with their pants down. No matter how much Louie begged and tried to explain that it was a mistake and would never happen again, I couldn’t get past the situation. It replayed in my mind relentlessly like a This-Just-In news alert at the station. I wasn’t just hurt. I was disgusted he would do that to me, to us, to our future! A fire churned in my gut from all the pain, and sadness hijacked my heavy heart. Work kept me grounded, but when I was alone, the tears would well up in full force.
We broke up. And just as I was planning to find a new place to live, our sister station in Miami offered me a job. It was perfect timing, and I thought coming back to Miami, where I studied at UM, would be a nice way to start again. I already had Ray here as a friend, and we roped Brian into our little group this past year when he and Daniel bought their estate on the Beach. So far, the move has been everything I had hoped for except in the dating department. That has been a big flop. Guys here seem more interested in saying, “I went out with the Channel 7 reporter,” or “I hooked up with Ted Williams.” I know this because I’ve overhead my former dates and tricks gab in the bars and bathrooms at Score. To them, I’m that Ted Williams and not just Ted.
“So, it’s just you and me, Max, right?” He jumps up and scratches my knee playfully. We continue walking, passing other couples pushing their strollers and small children on Pine Tree Drive. I really hoped that was going to be Louie and me one day, but one mistake dissolved that dream into nothing. Asshole!
Max and I venture back into the house, where I feed him some more of his favorite treats. I check my mail (credit card offers galore!), and find my mortgage and BMW lease statements have arrived.
I slip out of my clothes and into my egg-shaped gleaming white tub. I take a nice long hot bath with rose-scented bubbles in my Jacuzzi. This is my getaway from the big 7. I come here, let the water fizzle up to 90 degrees, and feel the tickling bubbles rush up and down my back. As the steam rises, the heat clears my face and sinuses. I scrub the layers of make-up off my face, slip underwater, and feel the water envelop me into a liquid cocoon, lulling me into a dreamy state. I feel warm and safe down here. No news to chase. No guys to date. Just a silent peacefulness. I stay in the tub for half an hour before I start to get ready for tonight.
It’s 10:55 p.m., and I’m strutting down Lincoln Road toward Score like a whore on the go. Parking was a bitch tonight—even worse than Trina Tucker—so I had to park in the municipal garage two blocks away.
I bet I’ll be the first one here since I’m always on time. Ray tends to be on Cuban time, and Brian, well, he stops by whenever it suits him. I pass the baristas whipping up coffee and mocha lattes at the corner Starbucks, and I catch a glimpse of straight couples dancing in the Cuban cigar lounge. I meander through the traffic of stylish trimmed, tanned, toned, plucked (and tucked) people hitting the strip with the same confidence and attitude as if they were starring in their own music videos. Hey, at least I have a good excuse for my purposeful stride. I’m on TV five days a week reporting the news, and I’m a member of the smart set, the small but growing intellectual circle here. I find I am forced to read The Boston Daily and The New York Times online to tame my appetite for layered stories with substance. Locally, I must make do with The Miami News, no offense Ray.
I finally arrive at Score, and notice the guys lounging in the café table chairs outside, watching all the man-traffic coasting in and out of the bar. I grab an empty table and slouch back in my chair and relax. I’m the first one to arrive.
The word “Score” is emblazoned in big bold black letters on a sign above the entrance, the banner radiating what the word means, get it on, win, hook it up. Score! The thumping bass and electronica float from the South Beach clubs and over Lincoln Road, reminding me of many other Friday nights in South Beach.
I order a vodka with grapefruit juice from the baby gay waiter, who looks like he should be on Nickelodeon with his spiky blonde hair and boyish bod. I stare at my watch a few times as the minutes and the men go by. Score soothes me. Being here on a Friday sands the sharp edges off my day.
“Oh my gosh! Like aren’t you the Ted Williams, star reporter for Channel 7?” I hear some queenie-lisping guy gushing from behind my seat. Must be a viewer, a fan. I’m used to this. I turn around ready to sign an autograph or shake a hand when I see a certain Cubano with blue eyes and a burning cigarette in hand. It’s Ray, pulling my leg, as usual.
“And aren’t you Miami’s most fabulous and chronically tardy movie critic?” I fire back, getting up to give my bud a big hug and trying to avoid any falling ashes from his ciggie.
“Good to see you, Ted, even though I see you on the buses in front of me on the road and on the news and in Flamingo Park trolling for tricks at 3 a.m.”
“Oh no, you didn’t! Besides if you saw me there, it’s because you were there. I was just looking for you, fucker,” I tease Ray back. We have this ongoing inside joke about Flamingo Park, where desperate horny guys go after not scoring at Score, Twist or even online. Flamingo Park is the last resort, and the guys are there until sunrise moseying around, rustling through the bushes and trees. I’ve never been there. Ray swears he hasn’t either, but we can’t help but joke about it like those “Your Mama’s so fat” jokes.
“Well, my deep throat sources told me you just came from there, and that’s why you’re late, as usual!”
“Only because I was looking for you Ted,” he says, blowing a plume of smoke my way. We burst out laughing (I cough a little from the smoke). Our heads bob, me from my giggles and Ray from his dry heaving.
“Well, grassy-ass!” I say, my way of pronouncing the Spanish word gracias.
We sit down and the man-boy bartender reappears to take Ray’s order. Ever since we met at UM, Ray has had a thing for Coronas. He said his dad Oscar would drink them with his uncles during baseball games when he was a teen and he ended up catching the buzz when he got older. I remember watching the Canes football games with Ray, and he always had a Corona in his hand. I go for more of the classy drink that gives you a warm buzz from the vodka and yet a sweet but tarty taste from the grapefruit.
“So what’s new with you? I saw your story last night about the real estate robber. That’s messed up. I don’t get how you do the TV thing. You have to rush and run