The Big Kahuna (Fox and O'Hare #6)(36)

Driss




I know how this looks. A woman like her, young enough to be my daughter. But it wasn’t cheap or crude like that. I didn’t chase after her, I didn’t make promises. And it wasn’t love at first sight, either. There was no thunderbolt, no magic moment. It happened slowly, day by day. She came into the restaurant one Sunday morning, took a seat at the counter, and ordered the breakfast special. Because of the wide-brimmed straw hat she hung on the back of her chair, I thought she was a tourist, here for the weekend, but when I brought her the eggs and hash browns she’d ordered, she asked me if I knew whether the hardware store two blocks up from the restaurant was open on Sundays. She needed to buy paint for her floorboards.

The next week, she was back. We started talking. I found out she was from San Ysidro, a couple miles north of the border with Mexico, and until recently had worked as a bartender, but after an acrimonious separation from a man she had been with since high school, she’d decided to start over. Move to the desert. Open a vintage store. Growing up, she’d always shopped at thrift stores or at the Goodwill and, as a result, had learned to spot stylish, inexpensive clothes. “I have an eye for what other people miss,” she said. And I could see she had good taste, from the linen dress she had on, the red kerchief around her neck, the leather-strapped watch on her wrist. But what really drew me to her was the ease of her smile.

She’d leased a commercial space near the antique stores on the 62, in that little stretch where tourists and beatniks always stopped on their way to concerts in Pioneertown. She was working on refurbishing the place, getting ready for the grand opening. I knew what that was like, starting a business in a new town, so I tried to help. I went with her to see the space, gave her my opinion about local contractors, who could be trusted and who couldn’t, who was punctual and who was on desert time. She considered my advice, took some of it and discarded some, but she always listened to what I had to say. I had forgotten what that was like. Being listened to, I mean. Her name was Beatrice.

I won’t ask you to understand what happened. I just want you to imagine it. We were standing in the middle of the store, with the morning light streaming in from the windows, and we were talking about the wallpaper. In several places, especially by the front and back doors, it was stained or peeling, so I recommended a local contractor for the tedious job of stripping and repainting. Beatrice ran her hand over the paper, which had a pattern of pink vines on a light green background. “You’re right that it should go,” she said, “but I will keep it here, in the alcove.” In that little nook, she said, the wallpaper was still in its original condition, and would be the perfect background against which to display antique hair accessories and costume jewelry. I scribbled the name of the contractor on the back of my business card and handed it to her. When she took it from me, our eyes met and she smiled. That is the moment I always go back to when I try to unwind what happened between us.

I’m sixty-one years old now, a grandfather already. Maryam and I were married more than half our lives, and I thought we would spend the other half together. We argued a lot, especially in the last few years, but that wasn’t why we grew so far apart. The truth is that we were always different, from the beginning. We met in 1978, at a UNEM meeting at the university in Casablanca, but I had been there because I wanted an end to government corruption, better schools, fair wages, things like that, whereas she’d come to find a friend who’d borrowed a textbook from her and never returned it. I was driven by a sense of optimism, which I don’t think Maryam ever really shared; she was more the pragmatic sort. When the police arrested Brahim and Karima and others like them, I wanted to stay in Casablanca and continue the fight, but Maryam wanted us to move here.

Always, we had to do what she wanted. She couldn’t compromise. Once, I remember, when we were still newlyweds, we went to the fabric market to shop for curtains. Our apartment was on the ground floor of a converted colonial house, but it faced commercial buildings on all sides, and it got very little sunlight. We agreed on sheer curtains because they would let in what little light there was, give us some privacy, and wouldn’t be expensive. The shopkeeper unrolled sample after sample, while Maryam assailed him with questions: how much is this one, how much is that one, are you seriously asking for this much, do you have this in other colors. Then she picked out damask curtains. “But this will block the light,” I said.

“It’s such a pretty pattern,” she replied.

I tried to imagine our living room with those curtains, and I couldn’t. On the weekends, I liked to sit by the window and read the newspapers, but with these curtains I knew I’d have to sit on the balcony or go to a café just to get through the morning news. “You like something with a pattern?” I spread out the fabric samples on the counter. “Then how about this lace? It has a pattern.”

“I don’t like lace.”

“No lace. Let’s try cotton, then. It’ll let in some light.”

But Maryam didn’t like any of the fabrics I chose, so in the end I gave in. We bought the curtains she liked and went home. I got the ladder and brought out my tools, but every time I drilled a hole, she’d tell me the rod needed to move a little higher or a little lower. When the curtains were finally up, we had five holes in the wall and the rod slanted on the left. I don’t know why I’m remembering this, so many years later, it’s such a small thing. Maybe it’s because I’m trying to understand what happened myself. All I know is that life is short. Without realizing it, I had been traveling down the road from birth to death with the wrong companion. But now I had found the right one, and I didn’t want to give her up.