QUACK

Water and Wine

THIS CHAPTER IS FROM SAL'S POINT OF VIEW.

I have never much paid attention to the comings and goings of the people in my life. I’m pretty used to being left behind or doing the leaving myself that to pay attention is just taxing.

But this is how you entered my life.

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The year is 1991. I’m 21 years old and working in a bar in downtown Florida called Black and Blonde. All the staff has either black or some shade of blonde hair. I’m of the black variety, being part-Mexican.

Anyway, I’d just begun my shift when a bunch of guys come in. They’re dressed in nice button-down shirts and ties, really preppy. Not the usual patrons. As you know, you’re one of them. You and your lot are here to celebrate having passed the bar exams. Newly-minted lawyers.

You aren’t as handsome or as tall or as loud as your companions, but I notice you right off the bat. You have a mop of dark, wavy hair. It’s the kind made for commercials. Even from the distance, from the other side of the bar, I can see that your eyes are a strange bright blue. They are beautiful, alert, electric. You have an easy smile, and a dimple pops up from nowhere whenever you do.

The sad part is, you and your lot don’t sit on any of the tables that I’m covering tonight. Y’all sit just outside of it, on a table covered by another waitress named Jessie. I have no idea what the hell for, but she sure is making a show of serving you and your friends.

My side of the bar is pretty quiet, so I duck behind the counter and start to wipe down used glasses and spilled drinks. This is when you decide to walk up to the bar.

At first, you do nothing. You pop some nuts into your mouth. If you’re watching me work or watching the TV hung up in the corner, I don’t really care. I’m just hoping you can’t see me blush at your proximity.

“Nice hair,” you say after a while, popping more nuts into your mouth. When I don’t say anything, you smile. “I like your eyes.” I continue to blush as much as I continue to ignore you. “I like the way you wipe.”

At that, I look up. That is probably the weirdest, least flattering pick-up line I have ever heard. “Excuse me?”

You hold up your hands as if I have pointed a gun at you, trying not to laugh. “That’s not me,” you say, pointing at your mouth. “It’s the peanuts… They’re complimentary.”

And this is how you exited.

It’s a little after seven months since the night we met in Black and Blonde. You and I are squaring it off in the living room in this tiny apartment we’ve moved into just three days ago.

I am wringing my hands as I wait for you to say something. You are looking at me like I’m something you found stuck at the bottom of your shoes.

“Did you hear me?” I say, tears coming down my face. “I’m pregnant, Henry!”

I’m thinking this couldn’t have come at a worse time for you. You just told me a few nights ago that you’ve been offered a job in your uncle’s firm in New York, and what a big opportunity it is and how you’ve always wanted to go back to New York after that one trip there a few summers ago. How are you supposed to do that now that with me and a baby in tow?

Easily, apparently. You simply don’t bring me and that baby with you. Of course. How silly of me to think otherwise.

You know, they say they make babies look like their fathers for the first few months of their lives so as to forge a bond and so that men are less inclined to leave their offspring.