“Yes. It was,” I said, flinging my arm over my forehead like I’d just woken from a dream.
“Wanna do it again?”
I laughed. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that again.”
He peeled himself off me, grabbed a couple of towels from below the table and soaked them for a few seconds in warm water at the sink by the fridge.
“Oh, you will.”
“Where’d they find you?” I asked, slowly sitting up.
“Who?”
I let my legs dangle over the side of the table as he returned to me and began gently cleaning the stickiness off me with a warm towel. “The women from S.E.C.R.E.T.”
“I’m not allowed to say, unless you become a member.”
He brought the other towel to my face and hands. He was thorough and gentle at the same time.
“Do you have kids?” I asked, out of nowhere.
There was a long pause. “I have … a son. We’re doin
g too much talking, Cassie.”
I could totally picture his son, a little boy who looked exactly like him but with bigger cheeks and no tattoos.
“Do they pay you to do this?”
He was wiping my arms, the towel turning over the soft skin on my wrists. “ ’Course not. They don’t need to pay me to do what I just did. I’d do that for you anytime.”
“So what’s in it for you?”
He stopped then, my hand in the towel. He looked sternly into my face for a few seconds. “You really don’t know, do you.”
“Know what?”
“How beautiful you are.”
I was speechless, my heart near to bursting. I had no choice but to believe him. He seemed so sincere. He finished wiping me and then tossed the dirty towels over his shoulder. He plucked his hoodie off the floor. He passed me my clothes and we both got dressed, mostly.
“Let me help you clean up,” he said, kicking an empty garbage pail to the center of the room. It took us ten minutes to toss all the broken boxes, salvaging two. I filled a pail with hot water to wash the floor and I told him I could do the rest.
“Don’t want to, but I gotta go now. Those are the rules. Thanks for dessert. And the cracked rib. And the broken elbow,” he said, inching towards me. He hesitated at first, and then he stepped forward and placed a firm kiss on my lips.
“You’re cool,” he said.
“You’re cool too,” I said, surprised to hear myself say it out loud. “Will I see you again?”
“It’s possible. But the odds are against me.”
Then he backed out of the kitchen door, winked and left the Café. I watched him trot down the darkened street, the door chimes ringing goodbye.
I thought I had gotten rid of all the evidence. But there in the bright light of the next morning, I watched as Dell went over the stainless steel with a cloth and some special solvent. Maybe it was my imagination, but while she worked it was almost as if she was shooting me an admonishing look, one that said: I don’t know how a butt print got on my table, but I am not about to ask.
I scanned the kitchen for my tray and, when I found it, bolted out the door to the dining room, only to run into another set of equally accusatorial eyes, this time Matilda’s. She was sitting stock-still at table eight. I made my way towards her.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered, looking around.