Friday After Eleven

Short Fiction

My neighbor, Drew is as near to a friend as I have out here. Tuesday, after work, we sipped hoppy microbrews while Drew sizzled thick, marbled ribeyes over hickory charcoal in this Disneyland suburb called Garden Grove—a city locally known as the retreat to where Mickey returns at night to shed his heavy head and drink nips of Fireball whiskey and scratch instant-win lottery tickets at his patio table while Minnie fixes their dinner of cheddar chunks and stale bread crusts.

Drew has a fabulous wife called Vivian who has a taste for chardonnay and a hobby of matchmaking.

“Naomi Nolan,” said Vivian. “She calls herself Nayno. She dated my brother for a while and then Drew’s cousin. We keep in touch. She’s fun.”

“Nayno,” I repeated.

“Nayno,”said Vivian. “It’s a fun name, right? No pressure, honey. So you meet for drinks, maybe it turns into dinner. Who knows?”

Drew handed me another beer, this one lemon and puckery.

“It’s a double date with Nayno’s sister and her new guy, Franco. Friday at seven-thirty. The Apex Star Club at the top of the Hilton. Three blocks from your office, maybe four. You’ll be fine honey. I wrote it down for you but you’ll lose it. Give me your phone and I’ll put it in your calendar.”

***

Friday, after eight, I study Nayno as she watches her sister dance with Franco. Nayno is curvy and pretty in the LA way and it works for the moment under the dim party lights strung from poles around and across the rooftop lounge. Her hair is long and raven, her lips plump and glossy, her eyeliner expertly winged. Her long tanned legs cross in a warm nest of soft thighs. A tall shoe dangles a glimpse of pink sole.

But her arms, one a sleeve of inked graffiti, the other unspoiled, make me wonder if she’s unfinished or worse, uncommitted. Like mismatched batons, they conduct her rambling stream of valley-speak that I can’t quite hear over the music. I nod my head and plaster a smile.

She sips her espresso martini and leans-in to breathe the money-smell of my suit. It seems to cling to me like the greasy miasma of a roadside diner and I can tell she’s hoping I don’t just eat there. Her hair tickles my nose and she says fun, flirty things that I’ll never remember.

Friday after eight, Nayno tells me I should grow a beard like Franco’s. She rubs my chin as if she knows me.

The music stops. The sister drifts back to the table in awkward afterglow. Franco stands-ramrod and points his beard toward a server of indeterminate gender. Another round arrives with a bow and a scrape.

Nayno says we should all say one thing to get the conversation started.

Franco goes first. He says he’s nearly finished with his screenplay and he’ll soon be shopping it around.

The sister goes next. “It’s too bad they don’t make movies here anymore,” she says.

Nayno, in her turn says: “They could at least repaint the goddamn Hollywood sign. It’s all about appearances.”

All eyes are on me. I rub my eight-o’clock shadow and try my best to press vague thoughts into slippery word-molds as Franco bucks his beard impatiently.

“My parents listened to The Beach Boys,” I say. “They watched Johnny Carson. I guess I hoped it might still be like that.”

Nayno and Franco laugh at this. They throw their heads back in game-show guffaws and hold up their palms as if auditioning realistic reactions. They look at each other and then at me and they laugh and they laugh.

The sister, far from laughing, smiles gently.

I tell her I’ve forgotten her name.

“That’s okay,” she says.

As plans go, this had been a poor one and one easily abandoned. “I don’t know what to make of Nayno,” I whisper to her.

“We’re not sisters,” she whispers back. “I’m the day manager at her gym. I hardly know her.”

And I’d like to know her name because I hadn’t bothered to learn it before I noticed that her arms are long and elegant and her smile is kind and it starts in her eyes.

But there is Franco and it’s Friday, nearing nine and the music has turned soft -piano and he is pointing his beard at her as if to dance a romantic scene into his screenplay.

Nayno pushes a warm thigh to mine. She squeezes my chin and wiggles my head. She exhales flirty words in alcohol-accent and flips her hair for emphasis. She holds my cheeks fish-mouthed and talks to my eyes. She tells me she likes to spend Saturdays naked in her California king.

My mouth pulses bass-like until she releases her grip. I rub my cheeks for a moment until the feeling comes back.

“I have an old blind dog that sleeps on my bed,” I tell her

Nayno busts her big LA laugh once again because she doesn’t see what one thing has to do with the other but the sister pulls away from Franco as he’s leading her toward the dance floor. She comes back to sit at the table.

“What does the old dog do?” she asks, and I stare for a moment as the question is an odd one to ask about a dog but she folds her hands on the table and tilts her thick ginger hair to one side and blinks her blond lashes expectantly.

“What he does,” I say, “is he sleeps most of the time, very deeply. Often, he pumps his legs like he’s running and he makes soft barking sounds as if he’s still young and he’s crisscrossing ahead of me along the gravel road that leads down to the duck pond.”

“And when he wakes up?”

“He smiles,” I say. “I think it replays on the back of his eyes.”

And I see that the sister has a smile in her eyes and for the first time, I notice that they are green.

Nayno laughs. “I didn’t know dogs smiled,” she says.

“They do,” I say.

But still, there is Franco. He stands with his arms folded, his head tilted back, eyeing us down his excellent beard.

I rub my chin.

Franco strokes his beard with one hand and points at me with the other as if trying and failing to remember my name. “Hey,” he says. “We’re all doing the homeless march on Sunday.”

“Yes, I almost forgot,” says Nayno as she wraps her hands around my upper arm. “And it ends less than a block from my favorite brunch place.”

“What do you say?” asks Franco.

“It’s a noble cause,” says Nayno. She squeezes my bicep and the muscle contracts in reflex.

“Will we take some of them to brunch with us?” I ask.

Franco snorts at my question and turns his beard toward a roving server.

“They make the best vegetarian omelets and the Bloody Marys’ are to die for,” Nayno says.

“I didn’t know vegetarians ate eggs,” I say.

“They do,” Nayno says.

And now it’s Friday after nine and I’m wondering if these people ever get hungry between Sunday brunches.

“So, will you join us?”

“I don’t think so,” I say.

Nayno tilts her head and styles a pout. “Why not?” she asks.

“It just seems performative,” I say.

Nayno breaks her bicep-grip and swats my words from the air. “All the world’s a stage,” she says, her tanned cheeks popping pink.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “but I’m likely to say anything after this many drinks.”

“Then, you’ll come?” asks Nayno.

“I don’t think so,” I say.

Nayno arranges a disappointed expression and executes a quick but graceful half-turn on her chair. She scans the crowd and soon her gaze fixes on a table at the far end of patio. She taps Franco on the shoulder and points to where he should aim his beard.

“In the Dodger’s cap, between the two guys in fedoras,” she says.

“Oh my God” says Franco, “It’s him.”

“I can’t believe he’s here,” she says.

“Oh God,” says Franco.

“You should talk to him about your screenplay.”

“I might not be ready,” says Franco.

“I’ll come with you,” Nayno says.

As Nayno pulls poor Franco away by the arm, his magnificent beard darting back and forth nervously, the sister, who is not really the sister, tells me she doesn’t see how this night could have gone any differently.

And It’s only because I’ve never known a woman with kind, green eyes and strawberry hair and elegant arms that I take the chance again. “I wish I had listened for your name the first time,” I say.

“It’s understandable,” she says. “You didn’t know it might become important to you.”

There are faint freckles sprinkled around her nose and cheekbones. I want to take her hand but both of them are tightly folded on the table. Her lashes are long and she raises them now to see if I am open to a question.

I rub my chin.

“What do you do?” she asks.

“I work in that tower behind you,’” I say, “three floors from the top. If you turn around, you can see it.”

But she doesn’t turn around. She blinks patiently beneath a faint suggestion of eyebrows.

“The lights are still on in my office,” I tell her.

“What do you make?” she asks.

“We don’t make anything,” I say. “We have long meetings, three days a week and I nod my head but I never remember any of it.”

“But what do you do?” she asks again.

“I’m paid to study market trends and make forecasts.”

“So, this is your passion?”

“I’ve lost all interest in it,” I say. “I’ve learned to hedge my predictions.”

From the far end of the patio, a sudden commotion, a raised nasal voice. Franco, wide-eyed and indignant, slaps effeminately at two low-grunting men in fedoras. They lead him toward the elevator, head down, beard splayed in frantic frizzles across his chest.

The crowd’s reaction is divided—some laugh, some jeer. Stage right, the automatic doors close to a smattering of applause befitting the exit of a minor villain.

In the tower, my office lights have gone dark.

At the far end of the patio, Nayno has her hands wrapped around the arm of the famous director in the Dodger’s cap.

The sister, all ginger and green, blinks blonde.

“It’s a shame about Franco,” I say.

“His name isn’t really Franco,” she says, “but he thinks it’s stronger than the one he was given.”

I rub my chin. I tell her I have a frozen pizza at home.

***

In the Uber she says she hopes the old dog will smile for her.

“He’ll need to get a sense of you,” I say. “He doesn’t rely on appearances.”

She rests her head on my shoulder and asks me what it’s like where I live with my old dog and I know now that she’s not asking about Italian marble floors or Fendi Casa furniture.

“I live next door to Snow White,” I say.

She raises her head from my shoulder. “What is she like?” she asks.

“She wears plaid drawstring pajama pants and a crop-top in the evenings when it’s warm,” I say. “She puts-on music from the forties and dances barefoot with very short men on her patio. They come and go at all hours.”

“Lovely,” she says, her emerald eyes glistening. She rubs my chin now that she knows me. “You could use a shave,” she says.

Friday after eleven, I stand with the sister under the porch light and touch her face for the first time—a face that a woman like Nayno might consider undefined or non-descript—a face a woman like Nayno might outline in mascara and scribble in Crayola.

Bing Crosby croons Beautiful Dreamer from Snow White’s patio. I fumble the key in the lock and the old blind dog howls from upstairs. A woman paces the sidewalk in bathrobe and slippers, waving her arms and ranting something about beauty rest.

I point my key in the direction of the woman. “Sleeping Beauty,” I say.

“Oh, of course,” the sister says. “Isn’t she lovely.”

A battered Econoline with one working headlight rumbles-by, rounds the cul-de-sac and skids to a stop in front of Snow White’s house. Several very short men drop from the side door and scurry toward the gate, jostling and tripping and cursing one another.

“I counted five,” the sister says. “There should be seven.”

“Like I said, they come and go at all hours. There’s no way to keep track.”

On the sidewalk, Sleeping Beauty fans her face, as if feeling faint.

The old blind dog is scratching at the door.

“I love it here,” the sister says as she wraps her hands around my arm. “It’s so authentic.”

“Yes,” I say. “I knew you would.”

I turn the key in the lock and bring her inside. The old blind dog barks and barges. He spins in circles and loses his footing. He shakes his head and snorts, then, quiets himself in front of her, extending his head to take-in her scent.

She kneels to gather his face to hers. She kisses the blaze on his forehead.

The old blind dog closes his blank eyes as if to focus a picture on the back of them.

I set the oven to preheat and open a bottle of California chardonnay. The sister slides the patio door for the old blind dog and follows him out. I pour two glasses and try to remember i

f I’d ever before felt like this was home. The oven beeps in readiness and winks its’ green light. I place the pizza on the rack and set the timer.

Outside, her shoes lay beside her on the bricks. Her feet are on the chair, knees up, arms hugged around them. She points through the hedge.

“They’re arguing over whose turn it is,” she says.

The old blind dog follows her voice to sit and be scratched as if he’s always known her.

From the far side of the hedge, a violin intro, a velvet baritone.

“Perry Como,” I say.

“Some Enchanted Evening,” she says.

The old blind dog smiles.

The oven light winks.

I take her hand and we dance.