The Lesson Page 4

  “You could be the girl with the hot date.” He smiled that innocent smile again.

  He sure made things difficult. He was too sweet. His polyester pants were too awful. Hot date? Lord, forgive me for laughing. She had caused all this, and now she didn’t know what to say. But then she remembered with small relief her commitment to stick to business. After all, Big Bick’s paid her to wait on customers, not date them.

  “Can I get you anything else?”

  “If you work tonight, what time will you get off?”

  “Would you like a refill on your soda?”

  He declined. Gina wished him a nice afternoon, he returned the sentiment, and then she turned away to serve her other customers. She could feel his eyes following her as she moved from the dining room to the kitchen and back again, but she was determined to make him think that she had dismissed him from her mind, so she avoided looking in his direction. After a few minutes, while she lingered behind the ice cream case where she could observe him without his knowledge, she saw him get up, pay his bill, and leave. She waited until he had exited the restaurant to clear his table. He had left her a ten-dollar tip for an eight-dollar lunch.

  She was happy for the ten dollars, but it didn’t change anything. She wasn’t impressed by big tippers; she’d learned that they often wanted more than just a refill. And she certainly wouldn’t have her head turned by some guy just because he looked like a dreamboat in uniform. She wasn’t like those silly girls back at Buchser High who swooned over senior high boys who enlisted, and then fresh out of boot camp came swaggering back to campus on a pretense to parade around in their official-looking duds and funny haircuts. Some girls would fall in love with a uniform worn by a guy they wouldn’t give the time of day to in civilian clothes. Gina was smarter than that. She had a career in her future. And if a man played a part in her personal drama, he would be educated, sophisticated, and well off. In short, he would be nothing like the strange bird that was Kevin.

  As she predicted, before Gina’s lunch shift ended, one of the owners, the wife, pulled her aside to say that a waitress on the dinner shift had called in sick. Gina agreed to come back at five. She wasn’t particularly happy about it. Friday night meant five hours on her feet, and sometimes her section was too full of demanding customers for her to even take a fifteen-minute break. But she needed the money. Dinner tips were always larger than lunch tips because of the higher cost of the dinner menu.

  #

  The Friday night dinner shift was more nightmarish than usual. Even with Gina there they were short-handed. By nine forty-five, fifteen minutes before closing, Gina was exhausted and famished. She ached with fatigue and her feet were on fire. She hadn’t had time to eat a meal at the restaurant on either shift, and though there were several places on campus to get a bite to eat between classes, she wouldn’t dream of spending her precious tips that way. The fall quarter had begun and she still didn’t have all her textbook money.

  She encouraged herself as she wiped down tables that she would fix something to eat the minute she got back to her apartment. But that thought led to another, equally troubling one: she had walked to campus this morning, expecting to walk home again midafternoon after her last class. Now that she’d agreed to work a dinner shift, she’d be walking the seven blocks to her Lincoln Street apartment in the dark. The neighborhood of tidy, older homes between Big Bick’s and her apartment wasn’t particularly dangerous. But walking alone at night, anywhere, gave her the willies. She decided it would be best to avoid Homestead Road, with all the traffic and attention that would bring, and instead walk down quieter, less traveled Monroe Street.

  Her aching feet and empty stomach continually pushed her thoughts toward closing time. She was trying to remember what, if anything, was in her refrigerator that she could camouflage with peanut butter to call a meal when she saw Kevin walk through the swinging door of Big Bick’s.

  Chapter Three

  He startled her, but at least this time she didn’t mistake him for an officer. That would have been impossible, actually, because no (sober) sailor would follow orders issued by an officer who wore mud brown polyester slacks, a butter yellow T-shirt with I FOUND IT! printed in big red block letters across the chest, and a lime green ball cap with DIRK’S “WE EAT DIRT” CLEANERS screaming across the front in lavish black embroidery, all accented nicely by rose-tinted, wire-rimmed glasses.

  Kevin took a seat at the lunch counter where Gina was tidying up. Pilar, who had been doing the nightly clean-up of the freezer case, set down her water bucket, leaned against the counter as if she had nothing in the world to do, and watched.

  “Thought you might like a ride home.” Kevin smiled as he took off the ball cap and laid it on the counter, clasped his hands, and waited.

  “How do you know I didn’t drive?” Gina gave him only a cursory glance so that their eyes met, enough to be civil but without a drop of warm and fuzzy. She wouldn’t return the smile or stop cleaning. She just continued to wipe the counter, the damp gray dishrag swooshing back and forth, back and forth. She was stalling. It was so difficult to know how to deal with persistent guys like Kevin who couldn’t take a hint. Where was the blonde bombshell best friend when you needed a distraction?

  “You walked.”

  Gina stopped wiping the counter. He was annoyingly confident. Now she was mad.

  “You don’t have to be an FBI agent to drive by a girl’s apartment to see if her car is parked out front,” he explained.

  Gina shook her head in disgust. “I’m sure there must be a law against stalking girls you hardly know, and if there isn’t, there should be.” As she said this her eyes rested briefly on the screaming ball cap. How could a guy who was such a lady-killer in uniform be so clueless about civilian clothes? Was he that artless? Or did he simply not care what other people thought?

  She struggled. Maybe it was time to just get it over with. She wasn’t interested. He was a lot of fun but he wasn’t her type—especially when he dressed like a stoplight—and he would keep coming around if she didn’t make that plain. She would do anything she could to keep from hurting him, but she had to speak the truth. In an effort to be as diplomatic as possible, she decided to keep the emphasis on herself, not him.

  She stood directly in front of him. In her side vision she could see Pilar, who was still making no pretense at getting any clean-up done. At some level below the surface, Gina was annoyed at both of them. She was beginning to feel like the star attraction in a dog and pony show. All she lacked for the part was a big ruffled collar.

  “Kevin, I think you should know that I just came out of a hurtful relationship six months ago, and I don’t think—”

  “Well then,” he interrupted. “Isn’t that why God gave us ice cream? Let’s go get some.”

  He waited, his eyes on her, while she stood, immobile and speechless, her wiping rag still in her hand. This was not at all the response she had expected. Her girlfriends delivered their lines far better, administering the customary sympathy she had come to expect, but not Kevin. She had just said the words that normally evoked pity and understanding looks from every quarter, but Kevin ignored all that. He saw only an opportunity to get his foot in the door—again. He sure made things difficult, though she smiled to herself in spite of it all: she had to admire the guy for being such an opportunist. But still, he wasn’t her type. It was time to be blunt or this nonsense would go on forever. Aware that Pilar was still listening and not wanting to humiliate Kevin publicly, Gina leaned into the lunch counter close to his face and sotto voce, to soften the effect, she said:

  “Kevin, I’m not interested in dating anybody right now.”

  “Oh, I see.” Kevin studied her eyes for several seconds. Then he said in an exaggerated, sing-songy way: “Ooh, it hurts so good. Stop it some more.” Then he leaned forward on the counter and looked directly into her eyes, challenging her.

  Gina had never heard this little ditty before. “And what’s that supposed to mean
?” though she had an idea. Too angry to be reasonable now, she set down her wiping rag and stood with her arms crossed on her chest.

  “A girl who’s not interested doesn’t show up at a Bible study dressed like a ruby goddess. Nor does she invite guys into her apartment to spend half the evening socializing.”

  Gina opened her mouth and then shut it again, burning with embarrassment. Why was her life one sticky guy situation after another? Gina’s Law: Be friendly to some guys—especially those who wear polyester pants—and they stick like glue. She knew she’d been unwise to let a guy she hardly knew into her apartment. Dumb, dumb, dumb. She heard Pilar snickering behind the freezer counter.

  “My reasons for dressing up for Wednesday’s meeting are not what you think.” Not exactly, anyway. It’s more complicated than that. Why she had worn her killer red dress was none of his business. And besides, he was a guy. He wouldn’t understand why a girl felt a need to break out of the stifling cocoon she had spun for herself six months ago. And he certainly wouldn’t understand why she had felt the need to spin one in the first place.

  “Furthermore, I didn’t invite you in, Kevin. You invited yourself.” She didn’t like the unfriendly way that sounded. “But I did have a really good time.” She delivered this last, tacked on thought hoping to soften the delivery. After all, it was true. She’d had a wonderful time. His stories and jokes were very entertaining.

  “You can’t walk home in the dark alone. And you can’t eat scrambled eggs every night.” He said this without a trace of a smile. He wasn’t making fun, and she sensed no triumph in his voice. She looked at him, poker-faced, hoping he could not see from her eyes that he had scored a bull’s eye—twice.

  Maybe she was just hungry and exhausted. Maybe she was tired of doing nothing but work and study. Maybe she’d had too many long and lonely weekend evenings since Michael left. Maybe it was all these things combined with Kevin’s persistence and her trepidation about walking seven blocks back to her apartment alone in the dark. Maybe she was weary.

  “I’ll be finished with my closing work in ten minutes,” she said, picking up her dishrag. “I’ll change into my street clothes and meet you at the door.”

  Chapter Four

  The Apartment, Lincoln Street

  Gina awoke to the warm glow of a late morning sun streaming through her narrow bedroom window. What time was it? Through bleary eyes she strained to see the alarm clock on the scuffed wood nightstand. Eleven-thirty. The morning was nearly over and she hadn’t even gone to the Launderette with the week’s worth of dirty clothes. But it didn’t bother her that much, because since Michael had broken off their engagement and moved to Berkeley, Saturdays had stretched out like long dusty roads on a hot summer day, endless, monochrome, and dull. If she slept most of the morning, it just made the empty weekend go by faster. When she was asleep she wasn’t missing Michael.

  As her feet hit the carpet she remembered why she had slept so late: she and Kevin had stayed up, talking and sharing funny stories, till four a.m.

  How could that have happened? She had planned only to do a sociable, just a little ice cream, a little pleasant talk, not more than an hour or so. But they had ended up at the Pruneyard Shopping Center in Campbell, at Marie Callender’s, a local pie shop, enjoying sandwiches and coffee and splitting an enormous serving of coconut cream pie. Kevin had entertained her with outrageous stories of stunts he and his older brother had pulled when they were little, while his mother was at work and they were in charge of their little sister. Most of these hijinks centered around terrorizing poor, defenseless Mimi by rolling her up in a carpet, or locking her out of the apartment, or bribing her with snack cakes to get her to do her brothers’ chores. Gina also heard wild stories of shenanigans at sea, mostly idiocies committed by drunken shipmates who failed to return to the ship when it was docked in foreign ports.

  “One Saturday night when we were docked in Manila," said Kevin, "a first class petty officer got so drunk, instead of making it back to the ship he staggered into one of the many Catholic churches on the island.”

  A Catholic church? He had her full attention.

  “He flopped down into a confessional box and shut the door behind him. Then he just sat there. Didn’t say anything. The priest coughed a few times to get his attention but the first class didn’t respond. Finally, the priest pounded on the wall three times. The first class mumbled, ‘Ain't no use knockin.’ There's no paper on this side either.’”

  Such irreverence. Gina felt guilty for laughing but she couldn’t stop.

  “Another time a guy was supposed to be back to the ship in time for dog watch. That’s a late day, two-hour watch, like a security guard for the ship. But he got drunk in some bar somewhere and didn’t show up till his shift was over.”

  “What happened?”

  “He was still drunk when he crawled back to the Shasta, so he was hauled in front of the commanding officer. The C-O said, ‘You’ve been called in for drinking.’ And the sailor said, ‘Okay, let’s get started.’”

  “You’re making this up,” Gina sputtered, covering her mouth with both hands.

  “Another time we were docked at Mare Island, and three guys went into Frisco for a night on the town. They got drunk as skunks, and on their way back to the Flint they decided, like bozos, to stop at one more bar. They parked their car at the curb and one of the guys put a quarter in the parking meter. The meter zoomed to sixty and he said, ‘Look, I’ve lost a hundred pounds!’”

  Gina was embarrassing herself. Tears of laughter spilled over and ran down her face. Across the table Kevin was laughing too. He was thoroughly in his element, and she was enjoying the camaraderie so much that she didn’t think once about his weird clothes, though she was vaguely aware that they were attracting annoyed looks from other diners, one elderly couple in particular that was seated close by. Gina reached into her purse for a tissue to dab her eyes.

  “We gotta stop this, Kevin. People are staring. We’re going to get thrown out,” she said between dabs.

  “They can’t throw us out. We haven’t paid the bill yet.”

  They laughed harder.

  Kevin’s candor about sibling rivalry emboldened Gina to share stories of her own sibling squabbles, embarrassing tales in her estimation, but Kevin didn’t seem shocked that four girls could fight physically or hurl things that shattered. Gina learned some Navy terminology too, all new and fascinating to her, such as geedunk, for junk food available aboard ship after hours. They had laughed and talked at the pie shop till about eleven, but were still full of conversation and wide awake when it was near closing time. As they stepped outside, Gina looked up. The crisp fall night was glorious with stars. She wrapped her jacket around her a little tighter.

  “Why don’t we go to your place for a while?” Kevin asked as they walked toward his VW.

  “Well …” Gina hesitated, searching for the right words. “I’m not the type of girl to let a guy friend stay late at her apartment.”

  “No, you’re the scandalous type who opens the door to a total stranger after dark, including,” he said, smiling slyly, “a sailor of unknown intentions whom you met only an hour earlier.”

  They both laughed, but Gina did so to hide her embarrassment. She didn’t like being reminded of what a stupid and risky thing she had done.

  “Gina, if I were going to make a pass at you, I had plenty of opportunity last Wednesday night.”

  “Hmm. I think there’s supposed to be some logic in that," she said, "but I don’t see why I should make it easy for you a second time.”

  “If you feel that way, we could drive a while. To Santa Cruz? The inside of a beetle hardly encourages any behavior you’d have to repent of.”

  Just then they arrived in front of his dark green VW. It was new looking, but it appeared to Gina to be even smaller on the inside than her Austin. “You have a point,” she said, peering through the window to the beetle’s cramped interior. “Okay. Santa Cruz.”


  He held the door while she got in and sat down, her knees one with her chin. As they drove over the mountain on Highway 17, she began to fear that her face would be flattened into the dashboard if Kevin were to suddenly hit the brake on one of the many sharp curves. All the while she was keenly aware of the roar of the engine, which was located in the rear but blasted its fury throughout the entire passenger compartment.

  As Kevin chatted animatedly about Navy life above the ceaseless chug of the engine, a memory, as vivid as a postcard, surfaced in Gina’s mind. Michael’s Porsche was small too, but that was sexy small. Kevin’s VW was noisy and rattle-y small, not nearly as much fun as the Porsche. People standing on the street or waiting at red lights used to stare when she and Michael went jetting by in his shiny white Porsche with the custom gold trim. But no one noticed a beetle. It’s not that she cared about cars. She didn’t. But it was hard not to mentally catalogue the many differences between Michael and Kevin.

  Then, in a moment of self-realization, Gina felt guilty to think that she wasn’t listening to Kevin anymore but was instead reliving dates with Michael. Even if she had no lasting connection to Kevin, she was being rude. Though she ached with longing for yesterday, it wouldn’t do to be thinking about Michael when she was with another guy today, even if he was a guy she wasn’t interested in. It didn’t seem right. She shook out her thoughts and came back to the present.

  “The boardwalk will be all dark. Let’s go straight to the beach and walk along the surf,” Kevin said as they entered the commercial strip.

  He found a parking spot on a quiet side street. To avoid disturbing sleeping residents, they walked wordlessly along the dimly lit street, which was lined with tired-looking, World War II era, wildly painted pink-and-purple beach bungalows. So very Santa Cruz. The oceanfront looked just as hippie-ish as it did when Gina's mother used to take Gina and her sisters there in the summer when they were little. The shabby familiarity was comforting. A VW van, held together by a psychedelic mural that covered every inch, was parked alongside one rental. A garbage can near its back door overflowed with beer bottles and there were more on the ground beside it. The occupants, thought Gina, must be sleeping very deeply indeed.