Pellegrino swaggered in through the open door, and took a seat by the windowed corner. His hand motioned for a waiter. A mist of sweat glazed his arms, resting down on the plastic tabletop green, near a winebottle with a flower pink stemming out of the neck. Moisture rings scattered over the table, flecks of crumbs, a scrunched napkin. Pellegrino sat with his legs apart, chinoed pants gray rolled dastardly to his knees, feet tucked into dusty straw loafers. One calloused hand clutched a packet of matches.
“Quiero tomar, por favor.”
Fans lazily droned, swinging slowly circles above his head. Outside on the porch, a dark-haired man strummed a guitar, lamenting voice, his work man hand’s dashing rhythms. His barefoot tapped, jutted head bobbing and eyes closed. A hot day, the man leaned against the wall sweating, leaned against the wall of the restaurant in shade, playing, guitar case open.
The day sneaked by. Pellegrino motioned for the boy again.
“Mas, por favor.”
“Si, señor.”
“You always drink so heavily,” she sneered, tapping a cigarette from a pack. “And so early.”
“It’s after five,” Pellegrino drawled back.
“And so early,” she repeated. Danny held the cigarette to her lips, lit it with a quick snap of lighter, blew smoke over her left shoulder. A fly crawled frenetically jaggered over the tabletop. Pellegrino waved it away with his hand, and drank.
Danny tossed a leg over the other chair, leaned back, arms hanging carelessly. Her chest pushed out, sweat sliding disappearing into her white dress. A strap snaked off her shoulder. Her heavy lidded eyes finding his.
Pellegrino waved with his free hand, and with the other, he touched her leg beneath.
Danny laughed. “Don’t think you can.” Her face shone bronze, freckled brown against her sweatedmisted face. Her lips parted. “Scoundrel,” she murmured. She twisted her body, throwing crossed legs out, no longer under the table.
“You’ve changed,” Pellegrino remarked, taking from the boy another bottle. “You used to be so modest and kind.”
Danny smirked, her warm features all sunny gold. But her eyes hardened. Pellegrino set down his glass, to look at those eyes. Splintered eyes. Hard to tell what eyes like that saw when they watched her muse by a mirror. Saw, leaning over a face, lips parted neatly, full and fully sweet. Eyes like that fell down a world, catching many things. A frown from the reflection of taxi cab window. A slip of patronizing glint from another’s eye. With eyes like that, complicated by many colors, they saw everything, felt such pain and hurt and never showed a damn thing. A kiss. They opened wide and sufferingly wet. Eyes quick to conceal and quick to deceive.
“Of course, I’ve changed,” Danny said, eyes icing over. “I’m not one of those people who stay the same for long.” Her chin lifted up, and she shot down a look.
Pellegrino knocked back a glass. Her white cotton dress flittered at her thighs. She tapped her cigarette into one of his empty glasses.
“So, tell me,” she coolly said, her foot picking up rhythms stagnating in through the window. “Have you done much this past year, or fuck around nice and cozy like you used to?” She held the cigarette to her lips. Danny’s eyes grasped his hard, cool and mirrored emptiness.
“I see you still like to destroy yourself,” Pellegrino said, drinking back.
Her condescending face lifted off his to motion around the room. “I see you are still a fool and a hypocrite.”
Bodies, warm, enduring in heat under fans with cool drinks. Musician music played, but no one spoke in ennui heat, wafting in hot steamings from their bodies.
Danny laughed. “Pell-e-gri-eeno,” she broke up, dashing another cigarette out to replace the first. He made to touch her hand resting by the one two three glasses. “Tu gusta yo.” She snickered. She ran the hand through her hair, laid it on her lap. “Oh, really…” she murmured, her posture accenting all her softness. “Were you expecting some kind of response from me?” Her fingers mimicked lightly to guitar. “I advise you to remove your hand,” Danny snipped. Her cold jaggered eyes narrowed. “Ah… there.” She smiled politely.
He moved his hand to the middle of her back. “You used to enjoy me more,” Pellegrino told her, spinning her in a turn. She wafted her body close, then teased away.
Danny smiled politely.
“You’ve changed,” he said. The crowd pulsed around them, move sweating going. “Have I?”
“No…” Danny smiled politely, dancing. “You’re a disillusioned old man,” she finally let in.
“And still a fool,” Danny said.
“And you can’t change a fool,” Danny told him, teasing away with swiveling hips. “Because a fool doesn’t want to change.”
“Me gustas tu,” Pelligrino sang her song back.
He could feel the sway of her hips twist twist, rippling skirt flipping around her thighs. Danny’s hips, turning in, turning out, and move and moving, feet skipping lightly stepping over the cement floor. Her head bob bob bobbed to music. They narrowed, her eyes, when she caught his. She turned away over the crowd, dancing bodies under night. String lights red white green circled them in.
She moved away from his hands as the song faded. Pellegrino reached out, and she shook her head, smirking at him, stepping back into the crowd. Turned she went.
He saw, to it, to watch her go. Pellegrino ran a hand over his face. Her head bobbed dirtygoldenbrown. Head half-turned, looking back almost, until blacked out by other bodies and gone.
His white shirt plastered against his body, “Excuse me, excuse me,” he said pushing his way through. Outside bar, he beckoned with his hand. A wavy blonde waltzed up. She, too, with small hands, motioned for a drink. Her face swung over her shoulder toward the crowd dancing.
“Do you want to dance?” Pellegrino asked, setting down his empty glass.
“Sure, Jack.”
Her held out hand white. He moved her through the bodies going, moving. Her legs, hips go, her hands, Egyptian flutter above her head.
“I was in the war,” Pellegrino said, leading her to fro in front of him.
“I don’t care, Jack,” she said.
“My name isn’t Jack,” Pellegrino told her. Go go go. All ancient lands and deserted cities. Go go go, he felt the need to say.
“I don’t care, Jack,” the blonde shrugged. “Who’s that, Jack?”
Pellegrino, turned around in the direction the blonde looked. Danny danced slowly through bodies.
“My fiancé,” Pellegrino grinned to the blonde.
“She’s pretty.”
“Of course she is,” Pellegrino said. “Come, keep dancing.”
“Who’s this?” Danny asked, smirking still, looking down on the blonde.
Pellegrino wrapped his arm around the blonde. He faced Danny, duel and keen, keeping blonde’s face to his chest.
“My fiancé,” Pellegrino said, smiling back Danny’s smile.
“She’s pretty.”
“Of course she is,” Pellegrino said. He let go of the blonde. “Shake her hand.”
“Hey, Jack, how many fiancés do you have?” Blonde asked, taking a step away. Pellegrino thought, she’d be sweeter if she wasn’t so smutty.
“At least forty or so. Jack’s very international,” Danny said. She held up her hand, hiding her mouth, murmured, “He thinks he’s clever, spreading us all over the world.” Her eyes flashed. A hand stole down her dress top, and she withdrew a bill. “Here, buy yourself something nice.”
Blonde hesitated, then snatched the bill from Danny, shrugging. Flipped her skirt. Pellegrino saw to it, to watch her blonde head disappear into an embrace with another.
“You insulted her,” Pellegrino said, reaching for Danny’s hand.
“Where did you go?”
“Me?” Pellegrino laughed. “I was right here. Where did you go?”
“Nowhere far…” Danny led them away from the center of the floor. Persons pushed, shoved, danced into, arms, feet tapstepping. Pellegrino lifted his eyes from the peanut-strewn floor to the edges of a white dress. He stretched out a hand to her hips. Danny said, “You were supposed to follow me.”
“Ha, catch me following you.”
“Fool,” Danny said, sliding across the taxi seat. She lowered her head to look up at him. “You’re following me now.”
“Get in the car,” she smirked.
They drove beneath a bridge. He couldn’t see her. Then he could see her. Then he couldn’t. He heard her soft laugh. They drove under another bridge and her image disappeared. There she was again, a stripe of light fleeting over her demure easy face.
“Look at you,” Danny laughed, “You want me to be so badly.” She rested her face against his shoulder. “You want me so badly. You want to own me so much…” She laughed. “You’ve forgotten already how much I’ve changed, and…” Her voice faded out, and he lost her again, taxi cab going beneath bridge. The streets empty, the lights shone soft and unchanged. “Look at you, fool…”
Eyes like that. Opened wide and hurt moist and observed a dangerous world passing through. Eyes of that class stopped him down the streets in some vague city, one lusting look of conning love. Eyes to steal and look, and sink into a sigh. Eyes mild sweet modest, fooling fools. Eyes hurting to never hurt again. Like that, not fluttering close over a face longing to own such eyes like that.
“Wouldn’t it have been nice,” she said, turning her eyes away, “If none of it ever happened and we…”
“Yes,” Pellegrino said, “It would have been nice to think on.” The taxi drove beneath a bridge, and another, and she was there and she was gone, and she was there, and she was gone. Until finally, she was gone.