The Second Life of Nick Mason

19

As Nick Mason was nervously getting dressed for his first date, he silently prayed that Quintero wouldn’t call him during dinner. He knew if he suddenly had to get up and leave, there wouldn’t be a second date.

He showed up at the pet store at exactly seven o’clock. He was wearing his single-breasted Armani suit. A white dress shirt, no tie. Lauren was closing up the shop, but somehow she’d already changed into a summer dress.

“You look great,” Mason said when he saw her.

“Thank you,” she said. “So where are we going?”

“Maybe we just park on Halsted,” he said. “Walk around.”

Max was pawing at his gate the whole time. Mason went over to put a hand on his head, and Lauren kissed the dog on the nose. She stood up close to Mason. She smiled to break the tension. Then they both left the store and got in the Camaro. She knew enough about cars to be impressed.

“I can’t imagine what it cost to restore this thing,” she said.

“I wouldn’t know,” he said, leaving more questions than answers.

She looked over at him, her expression saying she still hadn’t figured this guy out yet. Mason put the car in gear and they headed down the avenue. They parked in a lot, got out, and started walking north on Halsted Street. Tall brick buildings had shops and restaurants on the first floors, apartments above them. It felt a little strange to Mason because although this same street ran all the way down through the city, across the river, past Bridgeport, along the western edge of Canaryville, down there it was just a wide street with empty, weed-filled lots on one side, low, faceless buildings on the other. It’s like he was in a different city now with a street name that made you think of home.

They walked under the El just as a train rushed by above them, then found a restaurant on the eastern side of the street and stepped inside. It looked like the right kind of place-a bar and some tables, nice enough without being too much, and mostly full. The greeter promised them a table if they wouldn’t mind sitting at the bar for a few minutes.

Mason ordered a Goose Island. Lauren had the same. They sat there and clinked their bottles together and there was another awkward silence. Mason couldn’t remember the last time he’d stood next to a woman in a bar and tried to make conversation.

That made him think about all the nights he was out with Gina, just standing close to her, the way they didn’t have to say anything at all. And then when they got back home… No, he said to himself. Don’t go there.

“So Max stays there in the store by himself?” he said to Lauren, looking for something, anything, to talk about. “Every night?”

“He’s fine. The cats keep him company. And he guards the place at night.”

“What happens when he comes to live with me? Who’s gonna guard the shop?”

“It’ll be a little strange not having him there,” she said, “but he’s going to have a new home. That’s what he needs.”

“He’ll like the town house.” Then he thought about Diana. Probably should have said something to her, he thought.

“Maybe I’ll get the chance to come see him there. Or if you want me to just bring him over…” Lauren gave him a little shy smile and he was about to say something, but then the waiter came over and showed them to their table.

After fitting them with menus and lighting the candle, the waiter walked away and they were back to the awkward silence.

“So I’ve been trying not to ask,” Lauren said, “but you live in a Lincoln Park town house and you drive around in a vintage Camaro. What exactly do you do?”

“I’m the assistant manager of a restaurant.”

She looked surprised. “Which one?”

He fumbled on it for a moment, blanking on the name. That wouldn’t be the greatest answer to give her. Funny, I don’t even remember.

“Antonia’s,” he said. “On Rush Street.”

“How’s business these days? I imagine it might be tough for a high-end place.”

“We’re hanging in there.”

She nodded and took a sip of her beer.

He took a long hit off his beer. “Okay, listen,” he said, putting his beer down. “I gotta tell you something.”

She put her arms on the table and leaned in to hear what he had to say.

“I’ll just say it. I did some time in a federal penitentiary. Just got out. The part about me being an assistant manager, that’s true. But I’m just starting there.”

“Okay,” she said, working it over in her head. “You get out of prison and you go right to one of the top restaurants in town?”

“The conviction was overturned.”

“Oh!” she said, her face brightening. “You see that in the paper, somebody going to jail for something they didn’t do. Finally getting out years later.”

“It’s prison, not jail. But, yeah.”

“Prison, jail-what’s the difference?”

“The amount of time you’re there,” he said.

“How long was it?”

“Five years.”

“You’re telling me you did five years for a crime you didn’t commit? Are they gonna make that right? Pay you something?”

“No.”

“They should,” she said. “You lost five years of your life. They have to do something about that.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“What did they say you were guilty of?”

He hesitated.

“A robbery.”

“They thought you were there,” she said. “A case of mistaken identity.”

“Something like that.”

“It must have killed you going away like that for something you didn’t do. I can’t even imagine.”

“You do the time every day,” he said. “Or the time does you.”

This is a mistake, he thought. I can’t sit here and lie to this woman. One lie tonight turns into another lie the next time. How far could I take that?

What was I thinking? That I could have a normal relationship like a normal man?

“So what’s it really like? You hear things about how it is in prison…”

“There are three kinds of people in prison,” he said. “People who want to get out, people who never want to get out, and people who know they are never going to get out. You can’t count the days. You keep quiet, keep to yourself. Don’t go with anybody, don’t owe anybody. You’re all you got in there. The only thing you can count on is yourself.”

Lauren was leaning over the table again. Her entire body language had changed. Mason remembered something Gina had told him once a long time ago. A boy wants a good girl who will be bad just for him, but a girl wants a bad boy who will be good just for her. Mason wasn’t an ex-con-not officially, not on paper-but maybe that made it even better. He was bad, but not too bad.

Little does she know, he thought.

They ordered dinner. They had a few more drinks. When they were done eating, they went back outside into the warm night and walked up Halsted Street.

A few blocks up, he heard a band playing a Springsteen cover in a bar and slowed his pace.

Lauren noticed. “What?”

“I just like that stuff,” Mason said.

“So do I.”

“Yeah? You want to go in?”

“Yeah!”

They drank a little more. They stood close together while the band ran through all of Mason’s old favorite songs. “Born to Run,” “Thunder Road,” then slowing down for “Meeting Across the River.” It was good to feel her body close to his.

When it was after midnight, they walked back to the lot where he had parked his car. He could feel her shoulder brushing against his arm as they walked.

“Take you back to the store?”

She hesitated for a moment. “No, I don’t have my car there. I take the train down most days.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”

They got in the car and he asked her where she lived.

“I’m right up by the stadium,” she said.

“Wrigley?”

“Yes. Two blocks away.”

“You’re a Cubs fan.”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“We were getting along so well,” he said as he put the car in gear.

He drove up through Lakeview to Wrigleyville, shaking his head as he saw the stadium looming above them. Lauren started laughing.

After he parked the car, she took him into an old brick building and up a set of narrow stairs to her apartment. He turned her around and kissed her in the doorway. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back.

“How long has it been?” she whispered into his ear.

“A long time.”

“How long? Tell me.”

“Five years.”

“Say it again. How long?”

“Five years.”

“Show me,” she said. “Show me what five years feels like.”

He lifted her up and took her into her bedroom. They took off each other’s clothes and came together while a fan blew back and forth across the room, cooling his back.

He went slowly, stretching her out on her bed and touching her, remembering what a woman feels like. Her neck. Her breasts. Her stomach. Her long legs. The wide curves of her hips.

He smelled her scent. He tasted her. Then she moaned into his ear as he entered her and the five years of waiting finally started to unwind inside him.

He took her hands and held them together on the pillow, above her head, as the passion worked its way through his body and into hers, and then back again, until it was too much to hold on to anymore. Five years of desire. Of hunger. Ready to be released.

Mason held on to her tight, trying to shut out everything else in the world outside that window.

The man who kills cops in motel rooms, he’s not here. His past is not here, the things he’s done, the things he may have to do tomorrow.

Tonight, you are someone else, Mason told himself. For these few hours, you can live inside a different life. He held on tight and dove into her again, this stranger beneath him.

The next morning, Lauren woke up to an empty space next to her. But then she smelled the fresh coffee and, two seconds later, Nick Mason came into the bedroom with two mugs. He was dressed.

“Cream and sugar,” he said. “I hope that’s how you take it.”

She sat up and pulled the sheet up to cover herself. “Thank you.”

“Listen, I just got a call,” he said. “I have to go.”

The message had been simple. Same place. 8:30.

“Are you married?”

“No,” he said, taking a sip of his black coffee.

“Most single guys I know wouldn’t bother to make coffee on their way out to an emergency.”

“I’m not married, Lauren. I was before I went away. Now I’m not.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll make breakfast next time.”

“Is there going to be a next time?”

“Yes,” he said, bending down to kiss her.

Mason left the room and put his mug in the kitchen sink. He went out the door, closed it behind him, and took the stairs down to the street. It was a hot morning, threatening an even hotter day.

Another lie already, he said to himself. And then another, every time the phone rings. He was looking for his car, squinting in the sunlight, when he felt a heavy hand on his back.

“Hey, Nickie boy.”

Mason turned to see Jimmy McManus.