Loving Time

fifty-four

At nine A.M. Mike Sanchez met Judy Chen in her family’s deserted real estate offices in Astoria, Queens.

“Where’s April?” she asked when he arrived alone.

“Oh, she had things to do.”

Judy handed over the list of apartments she had to show him. She was a smaller woman than April, with a flat chest, wide hips, and curly hair. She looked him over appraisingly as he studied the listings at her desk in the window of Chen Realty, which never opened until noon on Sundays.

He looked at the last column first, frowning over what seemed to be very high rents.

“What’s the story with you two?” Judy asked.

He didn’t answer, had moved on to WBF, EIK, RIV VU, UTL INC, and thirty other abbreviations that weren’t familiar to him.

“You wear that gun even off-duty?”

“Yeah.” His eyes were focused on the information on the sheet. It didn’t exactly tell him the things he wanted to know, like which one of these places April would like. He was a detective, but he didn’t know what April liked, only knew she had class. Her Chrysler Le Baron was classy. Her clothes. So was the way she moved around, elegant, not flashy. He wanted a place where a classy woman would feel comfortable.

“You always wear it?”

“The gun? Yeah, I do.”

“April doesn’t wear hers.” Judy leaned over, breathing in Mike’s strong, sweet scent.

“Yeah, she does.”

“You sure?”

Mike looked up, finally distracted. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“So what’s the story with you two?”

He gathered some of the ends of his mustache into his mouth and sucked on them without being aware of it, then shook his head as if he weren’t sure himself. It used to be that he just reached out for whatever female attracted him at the moment and didn’t think about it too much. He might even have reached out to flat-chested Judy Chen if the mood hit him just right.

He never saw any reason to get personal. They wanted it. He wanted it. The idea was to satisfy the urges without getting attached or diseased. He’d always been careful about both those things. Then he got personal with Maria and they got married. Look what that led to.

After that eight-year disaster for which Mike felt deeply hurt and responsible, he developed into a first-rate detective and lost interest in the opposite sex. In his free time he hung out in bars, drinking and smoking and suppressing a profound rage. Then a year or so ago nature kicked in again. He got back to liking the easy-smiling, earthy ones with the big chichis who spread their legs without asking a lot of questions.

He got interested in April Woo only because she was sitting there beside him every day, not looking in his direction, not interested at all. It pissed him off and injured his healing ego. She just kept her head down and did her work, wouldn’t let any man near her. He was intrigued, was impressed when she thought of things he hadn’t thought of. When the other guys teased her, he started stepping in.

April Woo had sneaked up on him. He’d never met a female who said she didn’t play around and meant it for more than a week—two weeks max. April had him pendiente for months. She meant what she said. She didn’t fool around, wasn’t going to sleep with someone she worked with. It was sad.

“What’d she say about the two of us?” Mike said finally.

Judy had a round eager face, a lot of powdered shadow around her eyes. Her curly bangs grazed the penciled-in eyebrows. She smiled slyly. “She said not to mess with you.”

Mike sat back with a pleased laugh. “Oh, yeah? You likely to do that?”

“Of course not. I don’t date my clients.” Judy sulked a bit, pulling on her curly hair. The gesture made him think that’s just what Judy did. Mike guessed she was older than April, over thirty and getting anxious.

He pointed to the listings. “What do you think I should look at?”

“Well, what are your priorities? What are you really looking for?” She gazed so deeply into his eyes, he had to look away or laugh in her face.

“I don’t know. Something a woman would like. Sun, sky. Maybe a terrace or a little garden …” He stared out the window at the quiet Sunday street. “Bedroom,” he murmured, and felt himself getting excited at the thought of April in his bedroom.

Judy Chen laughed. “They usually come with a bedroom. What’s this for, getting married or getting laid?”

Two hours and five apartments later, Mike parked behind April’s newly washed Le Baron on the street in front of the Woo house and waited as if it was a stakeout. It took five minutes before a window opened on the second floor.

“What’s up?” April yelled across the frozen grass.

He got out of the car. “Want to come out for a while? I want you to meet someone.”

“Yeah, who?” Without waiting for an answer, she shut the window.

A few minutes later she appeared at the front door. “What’s the matter with you? You look sick.” She was wearing her red turtleneck sweater and black slacks. The week before when he had turned up she’d demanded to know what he was doing there. This week she seemed to be expecting him. Probably Judy Chen had called and told her they were finished.

“You want something to drink?” she asked, stunning him with an invitation to come in.

“Sure.” He followed her inside, looking around for her disapproving parents.

No one else seemed to be home, not even the dog. Still, April avoided the open door to the living room, where Mike could see a hard-looking sofa, two hard-looking Oriental chairs, some of the cheap red and gold things with tassels and paper coins that could be found in Chinatown, and not a lot else.

April entered the enclosed staircase to her place, gesturing for him to follow. At the top of the stairs he wiped his cowboy boots on a welcome mat that had lotus flowers and two Chinese characters on it. He didn’t ask what they meant.

“It’s kind of a dump. I never had time to finish it, and it’s a real mess.” Nervously April admitted him to the neatest place he’d ever seen.

“It’s beautiful,” Mike said, and meant it. “Really.” He took in the plush deep pink sofa with two tapestry pillows of matching pavilions among the clouds and mountains with blooming cherry trees embroidered in pale pinks, blues, and gold. In front of the velvet sofa were two carved wooden tables. One had April’s new nine-millimeter on it. It was still in its box because she had not yet taken the training to qualify for carrying it.

Mike’s gaze traveled to the not-so-newly-painted walls decorated with several scrolls hung with braided rope of more mountain scenes April was never likely to see. The Venetian blinds on the windows were up. He went to look at the view. The garden was shut down for the winter. A denuded hedge hid part of the house on the other side. He turned to the tiny kitchen. Two woks hung above a two-burner stove. The shelves were lined with colorful porcelain jars, bags of unidentifiable dried things. There was a wide rack that held many knives.

“Beautiful,” he said with the solemnity of a person having a religious experience. “Can I see the rest of it?”

“It’s really small,” April muttered. “There’s not much more to it. The bedroom is a mess.… ” She indicated where it was.

“I’m sure it isn’t.” He passed her, moving to the front of the house, his heart hammering away in his chest with the violence of fifteen racehorses in the home stretch of the Kentucky Derby. Oh, God, she was going to do it. All the work, the pressure he’d put on people, the arrangements he’d made, were for nothing. She’d invited him in. She loved him. She was going to make love with him right here, right now, in her own house.

He was in ecstasy. He couldn’t believe it. He’d thought of this moment, dreamed of how it would happen when they finally got together. For months he’d fantasized different April scenarios—April as a hungry tiger, fiercely passionate and aggressive. April ripping her clothes off and going straight for his zipper. April as a cherry blossom, tender and yielding. April touching him, embracing him with all her heart. He’d dreamed of their two naked bodies pressed together in ardiente pasión. April kissing him all over. April with her legs wrapped around him.

He was almost dizzy with anticipation as he went through the door to her bedroom. It had a single bed like his, only hers had a quilt with pink flowers on it. Not cherry blossoms, violets maybe. The bed was made. Two pillows were propped against the wall with the impression of her body on them as if she’d been lying there waiting for him. The chair beside the bed was piled with books.

The fragrance of the light scent she wore was everywhere. He wanted to put his face in the nightgown hanging over everything else on the closet door, sink to his knees, and die on the spot. His heartbeat was like thunder in his ears. He felt almost sick with desire as he waited for her.

But April didn’t follow him into her room. He waited and waited, but she didn’t come for his embrace. Why didn’t she come in? He began to pace, unwilling to leave the bedroom but uneasy about forcing the issue. Finally he poked his head out the door. Steam was beginning to pulse out of the archway into the kitchen. The steam was not April’s desire. The water in the kettle had begun to boil. In a second the kettle whistled, sending his heart into shocked awareness that she had not invited him in for love.

“Mike.”

She summoned him. There was nothing he could do but leave the place of his dreams. As he emerged painfully from her room, she handed him the drink she’d been so busily preparing in the kitchen. He regarded the steaming cup of green liquid with deep distrust. It had a bitter smell.

“Maybe some other time,” he muttered.

“Drink it,” she commanded. “It’ll make you feel better.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine,” he lied.

“No, you don’t.” She clamped a hand on his forehead. “You’re all clammy, you’re sweating. You have a fever. Drink it, you’ll get better.”

That was how April allowed Mike Sanchez close enough to die for her but not close enough to touch. He had to drink the foul herbal tea to get out of there. And only after he drank the tea and told her he felt better would she agree to get in his car.

Then he told her where they were going. At one on Sunday, every Sunday without fail, his Mami always put dinner on the table. She invited some of her ladies from the building, or a cousin, sometimes a priest or a couple of nuns from the order. Always there was lots and lots of food.

April talked about the missing Boudreau file and how that bothered her, but she did not ask any questions. She glanced at him two, three times as they drove to the Bronx, as they parked on Broadway, then again as they waited for the elevator in the low brick building where he lived. He didn’t want to talk about work. She could see how nervous he was.

“Don’t worry, it’s not a big deal,” he kept saying. “I saw yours, you see mine. That’s all. Not a big thing.”

He kept saying it was no big thing, but his heart was going crazy again.

The aromas that greeted them as they stepped out of the elevator on his floor were almost unbearably delicious. Clearly his mother had outdone herself. He could smell onions and peppers, chicken mole, beans and melting cheese. He glanced surreptitiously at April. She didn’t like cheese. He wanted her to like it.

“Smells good,” she murmured as he turned the key in the lock.

“Yeah, my father taught her everything.” Mike opened the door into a room warm with cooking and filled with heavy wooden furniture piled with bright pillows covered in coarsely woven fabrics with bold geometric patterns. He smiled encouragingly, then turned to the table by the window, where his mother sat bathed in the midday sun.

Maria Sanchez had her long hair down her back. She was wearing a purple taffeta dress, with a ruffle around the neckline low enough to reveal the tops of her plump, round breasts. When the door opened, one of her arms was outstretched and her hand was pressed to the lips of a dapper little man with a high pompadour and a bright green shirt.

Mike froze as if confronted by a couple of Uzis. Equally stunned, his mother gaped at him, then at the beautiful dark-haired woman in the red sweater and black jacket beside him, then back at him. Finally her surprised face relaxed into a wreath of smiles.

“M’ijo,” Maria breathed. “Dichosos los ojos. Come in.”