mischievous smile.
I look around the corner and catch Naomi’s eye.
“Oh, my god,” I say. “This is you, isn’t it?”
She comes closer.
“Yup, me and Peter.”
“Peter?”
“My brother.”
“You have two brothers?”
“No, just the one is more than enough,” she says.
“I thought his name was Jason.”
I see Naomi’s face change.
“You introduced him to me as Jason,” I say.
“No,” she says. “Peter.”
“I remember distinctly…”
THEN WE’D BE HAPPY
Her shoulders drop and she takes a deep breath.
“Okay, look, I lied, alright? I made a mistake and I lied
and I’m sorry,” she says. “Don’t tell Spencer. Please?”
I shake my head slowly.
“I am such a sucker. You played me.”
“That was all Spencer’s idea. He wanted to have a little
fun with you.”
“Oh, but you really played me. I felt like such a jerk.”
“I’m sorry. Really sorry. I had to make it real.”
“So who is Jason?”
“An old friend. Doesn’t matter. Just… please?”
95
A First for Nita
NITA’S FIRST ARTICLE, A review of a local eatery, has just
been published. To celebrate, we all go there and pass the
story around while we wait for our food:
THE PERFECT BLEND
I keep coming back to the Perfect Blend for the beef stroganoff. They
do some nice things with veal and chicken here, but the stroganoff is
what I usually order. It’s more mushroom than beef, really, but that’s
okay because I like mushrooms, and the sauce is just right. I have
mine over rice, but you can have noodles if you like.
The place is low-key and unpretentious. You pick up a menu on
your way in and seat yourself. The tables are all small squares of
laminated wood, and more often than not you can get one by the row
of windows facing the fountain outside. It’s not much of a fountain, if
you want to know the truth, but the sound of cascading water is
always pleasant.
As you might guess from the name, the Perfect Blend is designed
to drive coffee lovers to distraction. They have something like forty-two
THEN WE’D BE HAPPY
kinds of coffee here, made only from Arabica beans, which, I gather,
are the best you can get. I always have the mocha-java borgia after
dinner. It comes with a mound of whipped cream and a sprinkling of
orange zest. Perfect.
—ANITA CHAN
“I like your style,” I say.
She smiles and I’d kind of like to hug her. Maybe if we
weren’t sitting across from each other. I’ve never been
friends with a girl before, so I don’t know what’s
appropriate. I know this, though: I’m as happy as if her
success were mine.
97
Wasted
MARTY NEVER SEEMS TO have any money (though he’s
working now, part time, slinging espresso drinks for a
local coffee-roasting company), but he always has weed.
Spencer buys from him, and sometimes we all share a
joint. It’s nice, but then all I want to do is make a tuna
sandwich or, better yet, a tuna melt. Either that or bake
brownies, with walnuts if we have any.
I always feel stupid afterward. Like what am I doing
with my life? (It doesn’t help that I’ve received responses
from three more school districts informing me that they
wish they could hire more teachers. Instead, they’ve had to
let some go. Budget cuts, don’t you know?)
Marty tells me to lighten up. Marty. The guy who is
always up for a little class warfare or whatever.
Spencer is more philosophical.
“Time you choose to waste is not wasted time,” he
says.
I’m impressed until he tells me he saw it on Facebook.
THEN WE’D BE HAPPY
Even worse, this will become Marty’s favorite saying,
only he will change it to: “Don’t waste your time not being
wasted.”
99
One for the Spank Bank
I’M THE FIRST TO arrive at the Backstreet Bar. Then
Naomi. We get a booth in the back.
Naomi is wearing a V-necked sweater so loose it leaves
one shoulder exposed. No bra strap. The material is
stretchy enough that she can, and does, expose one breast
as well. Just a little tug is all it takes. I watch, wide-eyed, as
her nipple hardens. Then she covers it back up.
I look at her quizzically; she simply smiles.
“Just a little something for you to put in the spank
bank,” she says.
“Do it again,” I say, fumbling for my phone. “I’d like
to get a picture.”
Naomi shakes her head, looks up and smiles. Spencer,
Marty, and Nita are all coming toward us.
“What have we missed?” Spencer says.
Crash
MONDAY WE LEARN THAT one of our cooks has died in a
car crash. His name was Chaun, and he worked the lunch
shift. I didn’t know him well but he was one of those guys
here working at two restaurants and trying to get ahead.
His house, I hear, was already mostly paid for even though
I’d place him in his mid-thirties.
Now he’s dead. Ran his Dodge Charger head-on into a
flatbed truck loaded with bell peppers. He and his wife
were burned beyond recognition.
At work everyone knew right away that something was
wrong because he had never been late in seven years.
There had been footage of the aftermath on TV, but I
didn’t see it and even those who did never made the
connection.
People who knew him agreed he tended to drive too
fast, and some wondered if he fell asleep at the wheel. He
had left L.A. at 1 a.m., crashed on Pacheco Pass at 7 a.m.
The news gives us all pause.
AL RISKE
Here was a guy who worked hard for a future he and
his wife will never see.
102
Rent
MARTY DISAPPEARS FOR A couple of weeks, without
notice, then shows up again.
“You owe me,” I say.
“Why’s that?
“Rent.”
“Oh, right, forgot about that.”
“Where were you anyway?”
“L.A., mostly,” he says. “Me and Fredson. Little road
trip.”
“Who’s Fredson?”
“You know, guy we shot pool with that night at the
Backstreet Bar.”
“Right.”
I don’t remember him at all.
“He was driving down there and asked me to go
along,” Marty says. “Always wanted to see Disneyland and
all that.”
“Must be nice.”
AL RISKE
“Yeah, well… Listen,” he says, “I’m just going to pay
half this time.”
“What do you mean, half?”
“I wasn’t here, so…”
“So what?”
“So I’ll just pay for the time I was here.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Marty.”
“Why not? You had th
e place to yourself, so I
figure…”
“Look, you rent a hotel room they don’t give you a
discount for the times you aren’t there. They’re holding
the room for you, so you pay for the whole time.”
“Dude, this ain’t no hotel.”
“No, but you want a place to come back to, you pay
your share.”
“You want me out of here, just say the word.”
“Come on, man…”
“I can pay half,” he says. “I got no job, remember?”
“Yet you can head down to L.A. and…”
“That was all Fredson, man. He knew I wasn’t doing
anything and he wanted some company.”
“Right.”
Marty hands me some cash. It isn’t enough, but I take
it.
104
Mixed Emotions
IT’S LATE, ALMOST CLOSING time, and I’m sitting here at
the Backstreet Bar with Spencer because he likes to come
here after work.
The problem with this place is that there’s always a
chance we’ll run into Ariel. She gets that I’ve cooled
toward her and that makes it awkward. Right now she’s
hitting on a guy who’s even younger than I am. I try not to
pay any attention but every now and then I happen to
glance over there. Every time I do, she catches my eye. It’s
uncanny. She must think I’m watching her.
Maybe she thinks I’m jealous, I don’t know. The look
in her eye seems to say, This could be you.
I know the guy is in for a good time and that’s fine.
The thing is, Ariel likes this place as much as I do, and
neither one of us is ready to cede it to the other.
Shortly after midnight, she and her boy toy get up and
make their way toward the door, grinning and leaning into
AL RISKE
each other. I reach out and grab Ariel’s forearm. She stops
and looks at me, surprised, pleased, uncertain.
I nod toward their table and she sees her handbag
there.
“Thank you,” she says, but I get the feeling she would
have been happier to leave it behind, credit cards and all,
than to have to walk back and get it now.
106
The Wind
THE WIND IS BLOWING and I step outside just to feel it on
my face. On the horizon, far away, fireworks flash. It’s
Independence Day.
Best Thing Ever
I GET TO THE club about half an hour before the doors are
supposed to open and already the line goes halfway
around the block. Up ahead I see this girl looking right at
me. She’s bouncing up and down and waving, first with
one hand, then both. Finally it dawns on me: It’s Nita. I
didn’t recognize her at first because her hair is now blue—
her third color in as many months. Spencer is with her and
Naomi and Marty and his new friend, Fredson. That’s his
last name but that’s what we call him. I don’t know why.
But I don’t know why we do half the things we do.
We’re here to see this new band from L.A. that Nita
really likes, and when we get inside we grab a table near
the stage. I notice Tanya and her new guy a few tables
over but pretend not to see them. We all pretend.
“First round is on me,” I say.
I head for the bar, knowing it will be way faster than
waiting for table service. Not that the bar isn’t already
surrounded by suckers who have the same idea. Still, I
THEN WE’D BE HAPPY
manage to get my order in and I’m waiting patiently when
this guy bumps past me and grabs this other guy by the
shirt.
“You say something to Pam?” he wants to know.
“How come she don’t come around no more? How come
she won’t talk to me?”
Then this third guy steps in to break them apart. He’s
huge and I think he must be the bouncer, but then he says:
“That’s the best thing ever happened to you in case you
don’t know, you dumbshit.”
I feel a hand on my elbow.
“Hear that, Luke?”
It’s Nita.
“Best thing ever,” she says.
She knows how I feel about Tanya but thinks I’m
better off without her. I’m not so sure, but she’s smiling
so I smile, too.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I figured you could use a hand,” she says and helps
me carry the beers.
NITA LEADS THE WAY, picking a path between the tables,
her pleated skirt swaying, and I’m right behind her.
“I take it you never liked Tanya,” I say.
“Oh, I liked her just fine.”
109
AL RISKE
“Then how am I better off?”
She has to stop to let someone pass and I bump into
her from behind.
“Sorry.”
“No problem.”
We’re walking again and I repeat my question.
“I just think you’d be happier with someone else,” she
says.
AN HOUR LATER THE band still hasn’t taken the stage, so
Spencer excuses himself to hit the men’s room. Nita
watches him walk away, then turns to Naomi.
“How did you two get together?” she asks.
“We met at work.”
“And I got tired of waiting around for him to make a
move, so I clubbed him over the head and dragged him
back to my cave.”
Nita says, “I might have guessed.”
“Why are the cute ones always so shy?”
“I know, right?”
Nita smiles, sits back, and looks at me. I don’t know
why. I’m not cute and I’m not shy. Not really. Not
especially. Though anyone who’s been burned has a right
to be a little shy.
110
THEN WE’D BE HAPPY
THE BAND IS UPBEAT and energetic. You can tell they love
making music. Afterward we thank Nita and start to split
up, having all parked in different directions. I make sure
Nita gets to her car and is okay to drive.
“I had like one beer,” she tells me.
Which is kind of funny because the club has a two-
drink minimum.
I ask her if she’s sorry she didn’t make a move on
Spencer before Naomi came along, and she acts like she
doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
“I’ve seen the way you look at him when he’s walking
away.”
“You’ve noticed that, huh? How come you’ve never
noticed how I look at you?”
111
Um, Okay
SO I’M PEELING AND deveining twenty pounds of prawns
in the back half of the kitchen near the walk-in coolers
when my phone rings. I almost don’t know what to do.
No one ever calls me.
I look at the screen and see it’s Tanya. I figure she must
have butt-dialed my number, but…
“We should get together,” she says.
I say, “Um, okay.”
“How about dinner, my treat?”
“Um, okay.”
She suggests a time and place. I scrounge up a scrap of
paper and a pencil and write it down.
“It’s a
date,” I say. “Or whatever.”
I don’t know why she wants to see me. Maybe she
broke up with that clown I saw her with. Maybe I owe her
money. Maybe she’s finally figured out I stole her favorite
turquoise panties when I moved out.
I really hope that’s not it.
THEN WE’D BE HAPPY
“See you then,” she says.
I say, “Okay, um…”
But she’s already gone.
113
Getting to Know Nita
NITA CHAN LOOKS A lot younger than she really is.
She looks mid-twenties; she is mid-thirties.
She looks young and feels young (most of the time)
and hangs with a young crowd. So sometimes she lies
about her age. Mostly, though, she just lets people’s
assumptions stand.
There’s a general prohibition against asking a woman
her age, so that helps.
People assume she got pregnant in high school. Nita
lets them believe that. Actually she already had her
bachelor’s degree in communications, a field she is only
now breaking into.
Nita tells me the truth because she believes the
punishment for lying is always wondering if others are
lying to you.
She also believes this: If you like to dance, dance—and
don’t let anything stop you. Not shyness. Not anything.
THEN WE’D BE HAPPY
So we’re dancing, not in a club or a bar, but in her
living room, with Kayla, who is not shy at all, not here, not
with us.
Kayla thinks I’m funny. Nita’s mother isn’t sure what
she thinks.
115
Together Again
TANYA SMILES AND WE HUG.
“You look great,” I say.
I can’t help it, she does.
She thanks me with a gentle touch on the arm.
The hostess seats us right away, on the patio, under the
shade of a big red umbrella.