Valentine's Day Fandango

The worst of winter was passing in Rubacava. It was still pretty cold, but there were a few warmer breezes coming in off the sea sometimes. None were making it to the top of the cliff where the Rub-a-Mat was. That little relationship between topography and weather took me by surprise. I woke up early one morning for work and left my hotel, felt the breeze, and thought it was going to turn out to be a cool day rather than a frigid one. So I went back to my room and ditched my heavy coat for a jacket. I didn’t learn my mistake until I got to the top of the cliff. While a warmish breeze was coming over the water down below, up on the cliff top a cutting wind was howling down from the hills further inland. It went right through me and I was rattling like a maraca as I ran to the Rub-a-Mat, fumbled with the key to get the doors open, and dashed inside.

So first off I got the coffee brewing and practically crawled into the first cup. After thawing out a little I got moving, getting the place ready to open. Velasco was in the doors before it officially was, not that I cared. He was the only early bird there ever was. He knew the weather better than I did and was sensibly bundled up.

I must have passed a calendar somewhere, sometime after getting out of bed because as soon as Velasco got himself seated the date suddenly popped into the front of my mind. "Hey, Valentine’s Day is coming up!" I blurted out loud.

Velasco looked up from his paper. "Yeah, it usually does this time of year," he said with a bark of laughter.

I sent him a self-conscious ‘grin’. "I know," I said, "but I guess I’ve lost track of time lately. I bet I still thought it was January when I went to bed last night."

"Been busy?" Velasco asked.

I shrugged. "Busy getting into the swing of things, maybe," I answered. My LSA involvement and the search for Meche had been picking up, not to mention all the changes going on in the Rub-a-Mat, but I just let Velasco think the ‘swing’ was purely local.

"If you’re taking notice of your surroundings again," Velasco said, "you must be settling in OK."

"I must be," I said. "I remember New Year’s all right…at least I remember being hung over afterwards. Maybe I was hung over all through January."

Velasco chuckled. "I hear that Carla gal you’ve been hanging around with really packs it away."

"She reminds me of the stories about Prohibition I heard from my uncle, the one that ran liquor from Cuba to Florida," I said. "The way he told it, people who drank then would get as tight as possible because they couldn’t be sure when they’d next get the chance."

"Yeah, that was about the size of it," Velasco said. "Unless you were in good with the boys who ran the speaks or weren’t too particular about what you drank. Kinda unhealthy either way, though." He paused a moment or two. "But I don’t think your Carla is the right age for that."

"She isn’t," I said. "It’s just that when she drinks, she drinks to get stiff as a board." I shrugged. "Damned if I know why."

Velasco turned a page in his paper and smoothed it down. "So, uh, is she what got you thinking about Valentine’s Day?"

It was my turn to laugh. "No, I don’t think so. Like you said, I’m probably settled enough now to see what’s in front of me."

"Well, she is, too." There was a pause. "Probably built when she was alive, too."

"Are you trying to suggest something?" I asked, a little more sharply than I meant to.

"Just making conversation, son," he said not very innocently and turned back to his paper.

* * *

People trickled in and out that morning and then the lunch crowd hit. I got a good idea of who the newcomers in town were. Like me, they were the ones running around the cliff-top part of town in jackets. The lunch crowd petered out and Jesus went back to his office to work on the books. Jock got caught up on stocking the food, and scratched his head when it dawned on him that no one had touched the ham sandwiches or the crab salad. I guess Rubacava decided to keep kosher that day or something. After that Lola came running in, wearing a jacket.

"Here," I said, holding a mug of coffee out to her, "wrap yourself around this."

"Thanks," she chattered and then took a long swallow. "It was kind of warm until I got up here."

"Yeah, I guess that sea breeze can’t climb," I said.

Lola put the mug down and took off her jacket and hung it up. "So, did anything interesting happen this morning?"

"Not really," I said with a small shrug. "Unless you count me waking up to the fact that it’s not January any more."

Lola gave me a sideways look. "Manny, it’s almost the middle of February!"

"I know that now. I guess I wasn’t paying attention. The holidays are over and we’re back on dull time."

"There’s another one coming up," she said.

"Yeah, if Valentine’s Day really counts. It’s not much of holiday."

"Maybe," Lola said. She got a broom and started sweeping under the tables. "It is if you’ve got someone special."

I went ‘hmpf’ and asked, "Know anyone that fits?"

Lola paused to look over at me and said, "You?"

"Me?" I laughed. "How do you figure?"

"What about Carla?"

"Her?" I was surprised. First Velasco, now Lola. I shrugged. "Well, she’s fun to be with, but she’s really just a friend."

Lola’s sweeping got a little slower. "So…would you…" she began.

"But you know," I went on, not really hearing Lola, "she could be free that night. Since we’ve gone out a few times it might seem rude to not at least suggest something. You know?"

"Yeah," Lola said in a tight voice and then concentrated intently on her cleaning.

* * *

I went down to the docks to visit Glottis when I got off work. Then I bummed around town for a while. I went back to my room, got out my contact list, and phoned up a few people about Meche. No one had seen or heard about her which really wasn’t very surprising any more, but it was still disappointing. A couple seemed irritated with me, whether from being pestered too much or being bought out by Domino I couldn’t say. The calls took a while because I made conversation with these people, apart from the two who were annoyed. I didn’t want them to feel I was just grilling them so I made an effort to be interested in whatever was on their minds.

Then I went out and bought the Rubacava and El Marrow papers. The El Marrow news was pretty stale by the time it got to Rubacava but still I was on the lookout for anything interesting, especially in the personal ads. There wasn’t but that wasn’t surprising, either. After dozing off until nightfall, I left my room again to get something to eat. I decided I was too lazy to bother going anywhere, so I went back to the hotel and phoned up Carla. It turned out she was free the 14^th and had nothing better to do, so we made a date. Still lazy, I looked at the TV section of the Rubacava paper, saw no one interesting lined up for Paar, and decided to turn in early.

* * *

The days rolled over to the 14^th soon enough and I got to thinking about how time was piling. It was just over three months now since Meche had disappeared. That seemed pretty bad. A month isn’t such a whole lot of time. It’s only the time it takes for a mail order to arrive. Three months is a quarter of a year and that’s a depressing way of looking at it. So when it came time to collect Carla I was feeling blue and she picked up on it.

I took her to a quiet little restaurant in Rubacava’s old quarter—a dense cluster of Plateresque buildings tucked into a little notch in the cliffs near the docks. It was one of those neighborhoods where time had done its damage and moved on only to be followed by chic entrepreneurs who renovated the place into ironic shops and sardonic bistros, all having a kind of shabby elegance like an aging starlet in a debutante’s gown. Carla ate it up. I picked that restaurant because it didn’t have a bar and served nothing stronger than light wines.

We were seated at a small table near a wall, tucked between two suits of armor from the wrong period. A Gypsy violinist meandered among the tables. The owners were confused about geography, too. We had our drinks and had ordered, and I settled into a quiet funk while Carla clicked her fingertips on the table top.

"Bad day?" she asked eventually, sounding idly concerned.

I shifted to sit up a little straighter in my chair and reached for my wine glass, filled with something white and a little sour. "No," I said. "About average. I’m just thinking and it’s getting me down a little. I’m sorry."

I elaborated with some moody silence. Carla picked up her purse and opened it. She took out a penny and pushed it across the table toward me. It was a cute gesture. I picked up the coin and turned it over in my fingers.

"These don’t buy as much as they used to," I said.

Carla shrugged lightly and projected a small smile. "It’s still the going rate."

"All right," I said and put the penny down. "I’ve been thinking about unfinished business. Old unfinished business. And I think the older it gets, the harder it’s going to be to finish." She took a sip from her glass but didn’t say anything. Nice to see she knew how to sip. "You know I’ve been looking for someone. It’s been three months now and I’m starting to worry."