hurried home through the windy rain to shower and put herself together, wondering what men in their late fifties liked in a younger woman. Youth, for starters. But nothing flashy or cheap-looking. If a man like Charlie wasn't comfortable, he wasn't going to get involved. He would smile politely and move on. Now she slipped past the few other men at the bar and let her hand touch Charlie's sleeve.
'Hey, mister,' she whispered close as he turned. 'Remember me? I'm that girl who flirted with you last night.' She kissed him quickly on the cheek, leaving a smudge. She felt nervous, a little insecure, but a drink would fix that. 'Been here long?'
'No.' He shook his head and folded the paper and slipped it into his breast pocket. They stood silently, and as before he seemed to be studying her. But his attention was not cold and hard; rather, it seemed to come from some other part of him. His blue eyes were sorrowful. She remembered what he'd said about his son.
She ordered a drink. 'You seem glum. Or preoccupied. Or noncommittal.'
'Nah,' he said, 'just business.' He shifted his weight uncomfortably.
'Just glum old preoccupying business?'
'That's it,' he said. 'Everybody wears a nice suit and you try to kill the other guy first.'
She touched the scar on his hand, rubbed it. 'Why did you become a businessman?'
'I wanted to make money.'
'Did you ever have any other inclinations?'
'You mean artistic or musical or something? Tap-dancing?'
'I don't know.'
'At the time I had to think of something to do to support my family. I had to pull a rabbit out of a hat.'
She sipped at her glass, not sure what to say.
'I was in my early thirties and I needed a new start.'
It seemed impossible that he'd never been able to do whatever he wanted. 'Something happened?' she asked.
'Something always happens, Melissa. I'm sure a few things have happened to you.'
'Why do you say that?' She felt the drink warming her cheeks. 'You don't think I'm just some nice young woman who likes talking to you?'
'I think you are nice and young, and what I don't get is why you're not married already or with some great guy starting out.'
If you only knew, she thought. 'If you only knew,' she said.
'It can't be that bad.'
'No,' she agreed. 'It's not. But I wandered into this place last night and heard you eviscerate whoever it was on the phone, and then you glared at me like I was the problem and I thought, Well, here's a live one.' She gave him a soft jab in the arm. 'Okay?'
'Okay.' He smiled. 'You're something.'
'I better be something,' she teased. 'How else am I going to get your attention?'
'You did all right in that department.'
'I noticed before that your back looks like it hurts.'
'I'm okay.'
He was a little defensive. 'You just walked stiffly, that's all.'
He didn't say anything.
'You hurt it?'
He pulled the same piece of paper from his breast pocket, scanned it distractedly, refolded it, and put it back. 'Long time ago.'
Again a silence fell between them. He looked down with a troubled expression. She wanted to kiss his brow. He can't say it, she thought; he wants to, but he doesn't know how. She leaned closer to him. 'Charlie?' she whispered.
'Yes?'
She kept her hand on his arm, rubbed the material of his suit ever so softly. 'Get a room.'
'Here?'
She nodded. 'C'mon. You can lie down. I'll give you a back rub and make charming conversation that you won't appreciate because you like the back rub so much.'
He studied her, with sadness it seemed, a yearning that pained him. 'Melissa,' he exhaled, 'I'm an old guy. I-'
She touched her finger to his lips. 'Trust me,' she whispered next to his cheek. 'We'll just talk if that's what you want.'
He sighed heavily, as if unable not to comply, and pulled out his billfold. He slipped a credit card onto the bar, then found a napkin, unclicked his fountain pen, and wrote, as she watched the letters appear, 'I need a nice room for two, now. Arrange this, please-and tip yourself $500.' He beckoned the bartender and slid the card and napkin toward him.
The bartender inspected the napkin, blinked his quiet assent, did not look at Christina, then disappeared to the phone.
The room was too cold, and he turned down the air conditioning. They left the lights off, and the last edge of the day fell in through the windows. He sat in a padded armchair and faced her, and she said to herself, Look at his eyes, that's where you'll find him. The other things are not him, maybe even a disguise somehow, as you have disguised yourself for him. She lit a cigarette. 'I shouldn't do this.'
'I don't mind.'
She took one puff, then stubbed it out. She wondered if she could seduce him. She wondered why she wanted to know. 'When you were my age what were you doing?' she said.
'How old are you?'
'Twenty-seven.'
He was silent. 'I was flying airplanes.'
She was surprised. 'What kind of planes?'
'Fighter jets.'
She examined him, trying to connect the statement to the man she saw. 'How fast could you go?'
'I did Mach two lots of times. About sixteen hundred miles an hour.'
All she could see was one half of his face. The light caught the wet curve of his eyeball. 'Did you fly in the Vietnam War?'
He nodded.
'You dropped bombs?'
'Yes.'
'Missiles and napalm and all that stuff?'
'All that stuff, yes.'
'You saw Saigon during the war?'
'Absolutely.'
'You ever cheat on your wife over there?'
'No.'
'Never?'
'Never.'
'Why?'
'It didn't interest me enough.'
'What interested you?'
'Flying.'
'Do you still fly?'
'Only business class.'
'Not a little Cessna or something?'
'There'd be no point.'
He wasn't giving her much to go on. I'm asking too many personal questions, she told herself. 'You have a
