“This food is like crack,” she whispered. “One bite and I’m hooked.”
Lamar gave her a questioning look. “What do you know about crack?”
She made a sucking sound with her tongue and teeth. “I’ve seen enough crackheads to know once they get on the stuff they crave it over and over. And no, I’ve never done drugs.”
Lamar held a forkful of catfish inches from his mouth. “Did I insinuate that you did?”
“No, but your expression spoke volumes.”
He set down the fork. “What did it say?”
“That maybe I had some experience with substance abuse.”
Reaching over the table, Lamar took her hand, increasing the pressure on her fingers when she attempted to pull away. “The thought never entered my mind. If you say you didn’t drink until the legal drinking age, then I figured you didn’t do drugs. It had nothing to do with your father being a cop, because I’ve known kids whose parents were in law enforcement and it was only their intervention that kept them out of either jail or prison.”
Nydia felt properly chastised as she stared at their hands. “I’m sorry about what I said, and will you please let go of my hand? I want more of this mess,” she added with a forced smile. The mention of drugs served to change the mood from easygoing to tense as they finished their meal in complete silence.
The only information Nydia knew about Lamar was what he’d revealed to her, and it was apparent she had misjudged him. There were times when her quick tongue had gotten her into situations from which she had to work hard to extricate herself, and she didn’t want to have to repeat the action with Lamar. Spontaneity had come into play when she invited him to come to New York and stay with her parents; once the words were out she wasn’t able to retract them.
She remembered her grandmother’s warning over and over whenever she’d gotten into a verbal confrontation with her mother:“Piensa antes de hablar.”It had taken years, and after being grounded over and over she made certain to think before talking back to Isabel Santiago.
Lamar settled the bill and escorted her out of Ruby’s. There was no exchange of conversation during the drive back to the city, and if it hadn’t been for the radio, the car would have been as silent as a tomb. Lamar found a spot in the lot for hotel guests and parked.
Nydia now knew the drill. She’d wait for him to open the passenger-side door and help her out. He held her hand as they made their way to the entrance to the hotel. The daytime heat had only slightly abated with the setting sun, but not the humidity, and she had come to recognize the smell of the Mississippi River, which was within walking distance from the Louis LaSalle. The lobby was crowded with guests in formal dress filing into one of the ballrooms. It was only a week ago the Singletons had taken over the entire hotel for an anniversary and wedding celebration.
“What floor are you on?” Lamar asked Nydia when the doors to the elevator opened.
“Fifth.” He punched the button for the designated floor. The doors closed, and the car rose swiftly.
Nydia removed her key card from her wristlet and swiped it. The light turned green, and she pushed open the door. “Please come in. I have to get thepastelesout of the freezer.”
* * *
Lamar walked into a suite that was nearly twice as large as the two-bedroom Brooklyn walk-up he’d shared with two engineering students. The apartment had contained a galley kitchen, a minuscule eating area, a tiny bathroom with a commode and shower, and every third week someone would sleep on the living room’s convertible sofa. He dreaded those weeks, because the mattress was so thin the springs left an imprint on his body. After a while he bought a roll-away cot; although smaller than the sofa, it was a lot more comfortable.
He stared at Nydia when she took off her heels and left them on a mat near the door. He smiled. Even her feet were tiny and delicate. She smiled at him over her shoulder. “Would you like some coffee?”
Lamar nodded. “Only if you’re having some.”
“I’m going to makecafé con leche, or as you folks call it down here, café au lait.”
“There’s nothing better than café au lait and beignets in the morning. That’s what I call powdered crack.”
Nydia gave him a long, penetrating look. “Please. No more crack jokes.”
He pantomimed zipping his lips. “Done.” Lamar stared the laptop, printer, and stack of folders on the desk in a corner near the wall-to-wall windows. It was obvious Nydia had brought work with her. “Do you always work while on vacation?”
Nydia waited until after she’d ground coffee beans to answer his question. “Yes, but only because I’m handling the payroll and taxes for three neighborhood restaurateurs. The owners input the hours for their employees, and I compute the withholding and generate electronic payroll checks. I also electronically file quarterly and year-end taxes, reconcile bank statements, and oversee accounts payable and receivable.”
“Wouldn’t you do the same if you become the accountant for Hannah’s business?”
She nodded. “Yes. The difference is Hannah doesn’t want me to maintain her books remotely. Once I invest in her venture it would be best for me to live here. Hannah is hands-on when it comes to her business. This is not to say she will micromanage what we do, because she’s perceptive enough to recognize her partners’ expertise.”
Lamar wanted to ask Nydia why she hadn’t accepted Hannah offer to invest in the inn. She’d claimed she wasn’t involved with a man, so he wondered what else was going on in her life that would prevent her from relocating. There were so many questions he wanted to ask her, yet he did not want to pry all the more into her personal life.
Pushing back his chair, he rose and walked over to the windows. Nightfall was complete, and he could barely make out the slow-moving waters of the Mississippi River. The river, the sights and smells, the distinctive speech cadence of locals, the food, music, architecture, the city’s ethnic mix and colorful history served as aphrodisiacs that Lamar was helpless to resist. He’d flown to different countries and islands in the Caribbean for vacation and over long holiday weekends during his first year of marriage because of the benefits afforded him through his flight attendant wife. However, anytime he spent more than a week away from his city of birth he would experience a restlessness that made him crave home. What he found ironic was that he hadn’t felt that way when attending college in New York City, perhaps because there were parts of the city that reminded him of the Big Easy: the ethnic mix of different neighborhoods, the offbeat Bohemian funkiness of Greenwich Village, the many international restaurants, jazz clubs, and the nonstop excitement of a city that never went to sleep.
When Nydia had invited him and his daughter to come to New York to visit with her family during Christmas, initially he’d believed she was throwing out the idea to see his reaction, but then he realized she was serious. There was something about Nydia that reminded him of Iggy, who’d invited Lamar to share his family with him. Interacting with the Gonzalez family had assuaged his homesickness.
