Sweet Thursday

23 One Night of Love

Sonny Boy is truly the only Greek born in America named Sonny Boy. He operates a restaurant and bar on the wharf in Monterey. Sonny Boy is plump and getting plumper. Although he was born near Sutro Park in San Francisco and went to public schools, Sonny Boy has singlehandedly kept alive the mystery of the Near East. His perfectly round face hints Orient Express[86] and beautiful spies. His bushy voice is congenitally confidential. Sonny Boy can say “good evening” and make it sound like an international plot. His restaurant makes friends for him and supports him. Perhaps Sonny Boy, in one sense, wears a long black cape and dines with Balkan countesses where two seas kiss the Golden Horn—but he also runs a good restaurant. He probably knows more secrets than any man in the community, for his martinis are a combination truth serum and lie detector. Veritas is not only in vino but regularly batters its way out.

Doc stopped his old car in front of Sonny Boy’s, got out, walked around, opened the door, and helped Suzy out.

She was a little shocked but she remained silent. The sentence, “You think I’m a cripple, for Chrissake!” rose to her throat, but she followed Fauna’s advice—whispered it and pushed it back. The fact of his hand on her elbow did a magic thing to her, pushed back her shoulders and raised her chin. The gritty light of resistance went out of her eyes.

Doc opened the door of the bar and stood aside to let Suzy enter. The regulars on the stools turned to look. The eyes crept from pretty face to pretty legs, took in the martens on the way. For one second panic halted her, but she saw no look of recognition in the eyes of the regulars.

Sonny Boy turned sideways to get around the end of the bar. “’Evening, folks,” he said. “Your table is ready. Would you like to have a cocktail here, or shall I send one over?”

“Oh, let’s sit at the table,” said Doc.

Sonny Boy bowed Suzy through the door to the restaurant, and she strolled ahead with her nice walk. Sonny Boy, rolling along beside Doc, said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Your secretary called. It’s all fixed. You got a secretary, Doc?”

Doc overcame his surprise. “Part time,” he said.

“Who’s the lady? She new around here?”

“She’s new around here,” said Doc. He caught up with Suzy.

“This way,” said Sonny Boy. He led them to a round table in front of the stone fireplace. A pine fire crackled and sent out its fragrance. The table had a centerpiece of wild iris. The breadsticks stood like soldiers in their glasses. The napkins were folded to make little crowns. It was the best table in the house, private, but downstage and well lighted.

Suzy’s eyes darted around the room. No other table had flowers. Something wonderful happened in Suzy. She didn’t walk around the table and sit down. She waited, and when Doc held her chair she seated herself, looked smiling up at him, and said, “Thank you.”

Sonny Boy hovered over the table. “Good you telephoned,” he said. “I had trouble getting pompano, but I got it. How’s about a cocktail? The wine’s cooling.”

Doc said, “One time I had some kind of—”

“I remember!” said Sonny Boy. “The Webster F. Street Lay-Away Plan[87]—a martini made with chartreuse instead of vermouth. Very good.”

“Very effective, as I remember it,” said Doc. “Two doubles.”

“Coming right up,” said Sonny Boy. “I told Tony to be here to play piano like you said, but he’s sick.”

Doc looked at Suzy to see whether she knew Fauna had made the arrangements. She didn’t.

It is probable that if Doc hadn’t ordered the Webster F. Street Lay-Away Plans he would have got them anyway. They arrived with a speed that indicated they were already mixed.

The shock of a necktie was leaving Doc. He looked across the table and smiled at Suzy and he wondered, What is beauty in a girl that it can come and go? This Suzy did not faintly resemble the tough hustler who had screamed at him the night before. He raised the cocktail glass. “You’re pretty,” he said. “I’m glad you came with me. Here’s to both of us.”

Suzy swallowed a gulp, held back her tears, and waited for the spasm to pass.

“I should have warned you,” said Doc, “there’s a rumor that this drink is made of rattlesnake venom and raw opium.”

Suzy got her breath. “It’s good,” she said. “But I was watching its right hand and walked into a left hook!”

Her mind cried, I shouldn’t of said that! I forgot already. Then she saw Doc’s amusement and it was all right.

Suzy noticed a waiter drifting delicately within earshot. She had discovered something for herself. When in doubt, move slowly. Her head turned toward the waiter and he drifted away. She was delighted with her discovery—everything-in-slow-motion. She then lifted her glass slowly, looked at it carefully, then sipped and held it a moment before she put it down. S-lo-w-ness—it gave meaning to everything. It made everything royal. She remembered how all the unsure and worried people she knew jumped and picked and jittered. Just doing everything slowly, forcing herself, she felt a new kind of security. Don’t forget, she told herself. Don’t ever forget this. Slow! Slow!

Doc gave her a cigarette and held a match, and she leaned forward so slowly that the flame was touching her fingers before she had lighted it. A lovely warmth stole through her body. She felt bold, not defensively bold, but safe.

She asked, “Do they know—what I am?”

The Lay-Away Plan works equally on all. Doc said, “They know you’re with me. That’s all they need to know. Shall we have one more?”

It came before he got his finger raised for attention. If this was conspiracy, Sonny Boy wanted to be in on it. If felicity, he liked that too.

“I like a fire,” Suzy said. “Once we had a fireplace where I lived.”

Doc said, “You’re pretty. Yes, by George! You’re pretty!”

Suzy swallowed the first words that rose and swallowed the second ones and ended up by dropping her eyes and saying “Thank you” softly.

Sonny Boy personally escorted the waiter, who carried the ice bucket with the chilled Chablis. Then he stood back and surveyed the table. “How is everything, Doc?”

“Just fine,” said Doc.

“You ready to eat?”

“Any time,” said Doc.

And Suzy’s discovery continued to hold good: Take it slow and keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.

The cold, cracked crab, the pompano, were new to her, and they required an eating technique she didn’t know. She did everything a little behind Doc, and he wasn’t conscious that she watched every move he made.

When champagne and fruit and cheese arrived, Suzy knew she had to be alone. A thought so overwhelming had come to her that her knees shook and the blood pounded in her temples. Slow! she warned herself. Take it easy. She looked at the leaping flames and then pivoted her head to Doc. “Will you excuse…?”

“Of course!” He jumped up and drew back her chair. Suzy moved regally toward the Ladies’ Room. She could not feel her feet against the floor.

Doc watched her passage. Strange, strange, he thought. What is it? “Maidenly” is the word. A kind of lonely and terrible modesty. What has made the change? Then he thought, It’s an act. Fauna coached her. But he knew that wasn’t true. Acting couldn’t get into the eyes like that. Coaching couldn’t draw the blood to her cheeks. He spun the champagne bottle in its bucket, and he found himself wishing she would hurry back. His eyes found a window that reflected the door to the Ladies’ Room.

Behind that door Suzy dampened a paper towel and put it against her forehead. She stared at herself in the mirror and she didn’t know the face. She thought of the dinner. “I hate fish,” she said out loud. “It makes me break out. But I ain’t broke out.” Finally she was ready to inspect the thought that had sent her out: the symbol, the mystery, the signpost with an inexorable pointing finger. It was so plain no one could miss it. Fate was not only pointing the way but booting from behind. She thought of the dishes being taken away: the heaped legs and claws of crab and—They had eaten their horoscopes! Cancer and Pisces—fish and crab.

“Great God Almighty!” she said, and she was limp in the hands of Fate.

Sonny Boy came to the table. “Everything all right?”

“Fine,” said Doc.

“Just like you ordered.”

“Huh?”

“Your secretary told me.”

“Fine,” said Doc, “just the way I wanted it.”

When Suzy came back she was dedicated. You can only fight Fate so far, and when you give in to it you’re very strong; because all of your force flows in one direction.

Doc held her chair and then he popped the champagne cork and smelled it.

Suzy said, “Can I have it?”

“Of course.”

Suzy turned the cork in her fingers and looked at it. It was very beautiful. She put it in her purse and took an iris from the vase.

“Do you like champagne?”

“I love it,” she said and wondered what it would taste like. And she did love it.

Doc said, “You know, out in the sand dunes there are little valleys covered with pines. Sometime, when you can, let’s take meat and things out there and cook our supper. It’s very nice.”

“The fire reminded you,” said Suzy.

“That’s clever of you—so it did.”

She said, “Doc, will you sometime teach me about the stuff you got in your place?”

“Sure I will.” A surge of affection filled him. But he was a little afraid too of her terrible modesty. He looked away from her eyes to the wild iris in her hand. “There’s an old Welsh story,” he said. “It’s about a poor knight who made a wife completely out of flowers—”

The wine was strong in Suzy now. She said the sentence twice to herself before she said it aloud to Doc. “I hope she didn’t wilt.”

The low voice of Doc’s guts burst through at last. “I’m lonely,” he said. He said it as a simple matter of fact and he said it in wonder. Then he apologized. “I guess I’m a little drunk.” He felt very shy. He filled the glasses. “What the hell! Let’s have some brandy too.”

Suzy turned half away from him so that her face was outlined in leaping pine flames. “You know that place you said—out in the sand dunes?”

“Yes.”

“Could we look at it?”

“Whenever you want.”

“On our way home?”

“You’ll ruin your shoes.”

“I know,” said Suzy.

“You could take them off.”

“I will,” said Suzy.