5.
This time i duked the doorman at the Marriott a twenty to hold my car out front. Unfortunately Jordan Richmond and her male friend didn’t go to the Marriott. They went down the street to a bar called the Kendall Tap. It was small, so I waited outside across the street for two hours and twenty minutes until they came out and walked back toward the college. Before we got there they stopped beside a silver Mercedes sedan parked at an expired meter. The man took a parking ticket off the windshield and folded it and put it in his pocket. Then he went around and opened the passenger door. Jordan got in. He closed the door, walked back around, got in the driver’s side, and drove away. Foiled again. Mostly to make myself feel better, I wrote down the license plate number. Then I walked back to the Concord College parking lot. Jordan Richmond’s car was still parked there. That meant that her friend would need to bring her back. I went over to the Marriott and got my car from the doorman, and parked on the street near the Concord College parking lot. I was hungry. It was 7:13 on the dashboard clock. If Jordan kept to last night’s schedule she wouldn’t be picking her car up until about ten. I thought about a baked bean sandwich with mayo on anadama bread. I thought about corned beef hash with eggs. I thought about linguine with meatballs.
I wondered why I never thought about foie gras, or roast guinea hen, or duck with olives. I wondered if everyone was like that or was it because I was plebeian? Probably because I was plebeian. Maybe if you were more cultured you thought about Dover sole when you were hungry.
It had been raining in Boston much of the time since Labor Day, and it began again. I liked rain. I thought it was romantic. Susan didn’t like it. It ruined her hair. I sometimes wondered how we could possibly be together. About the only thing we liked in common was us. Fortunately we liked us a lot. There seemed little chance that linguine or Dover sole was forthcoming soon, so I watched the rain patterns on my windshield and thought about sex. Kendall Square at night is not lively. Now and then someone in rainwear would trudge past me. Occasionally a car, its wipers arcing slowly, would move along Broadway. The rest of the time it was just me, and the bright traffi c lights refl ected on the rain-shiny street.
At about ten of ten the silver Mercedes pulled up and parked next to the parking lot. The tall stranger got out and went around and opened the passenger door. Jordan Richmond got out wearing some sort of cowboy-looking rain hat. They held hands as they walked to her car. He waited while she unlocked the door. Then she swept her hat off and turned into him and they kissed good night. It was a long kiss, enough, probably, to straggle her hair, and it involved a lot of body English. Finally they broke and she got into the car, and then got back out again and they kissed again. Thank God the rain blurred it some. I tilted my head back and stretched my neck and looked for a long moment at the roof of the car. When I looked again she was getting into her car for the second time. This one took. He waited until her door was closed and her car was running before he walked back to his. She pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the Longfellow Bridge. I stayed put. When she was safely on her way, the tall stranger went west on Broadway, and I followed him.
He pulled into a garage on University Road, off Mt. Auburn Street. I lingered outside near the corner, where I could see both Mt. Auburn and University Road. He didn’t reappear. The garage serviced a large condominium building under which it was located, and my guess was that the tall stranger lived there and had accessed it by an elevator in the garage. There was nothing more to see there. I decided to go home and reread my collection of Tijuana Bibles.