"Did you break your dad"s heart?"
"I don"t think so. Every couple of years I send him and Mom on some great vacation and tell him he has to take notes on everything. He always comes back with a big report and tons of pictures."
"So he takes you seriously?"
"Who says I"m not serious? Nothing like a destination review from a source I trust."
"Your family sounds like so much fun."
"They are. What about yours? Do you see them a lot?"
"I try to get over to Brooklyn every weekend. But it"s just Mom and Victor and me."
"Your brother isn"t married?"
"He"s . . . no, he"s-" The waiter returned with their entrees, postponing a discussion of Victor. Judith was looking forward to telling Carmen about her brother and his accomplishments, but 117 she didn"t want to rush through it. Victor was a big part of her life, and anyone who knew her needed to understand why.
"This is the best Alfredo sauce in New York," Carmen said, wasting no time digging into her linguine.
"I bet if Cathy were here, she"d tell you that was too heavy to eat in the evening."
Carmen waved a hand dismissively. "Cathy would have me eating fish and salad at every meal. You can"t do that to an Italian.
It"s against our nature."
"But she"s Italian too, right?"
"Oh, she can eat whatever she wants. It"s all about my deprivation, not hers."
Judith knew people like Cathy, women who had children and began mothering all of their friends. Carmen didn"t seem to truly mind it. Rather, it was as if both were playing a familiar game, with Carmen trying to sneak things by.
They dug into their dinners ravenously, mindful of the clock.
The curtain was going up at eight, whether they were in their seats or not.
"Italians don"t just eat," Carmen explained. "They have relationships with food. No offense, but I really don"t think the Irish understand food."
Judith chuckled. "No offense, but I"m not Irish."
"Excuse me? O"Shea isn"t the greenest name in all of Ireland?"
"It might very well be. All I know is it was easier to spell than Kowalczyk."
"Than cola what?"
"Kowalczyk was my maiden name. Very Polish."
She laughed aloud as Carmen froze for several seconds before dropping her jaw in exaggerated shock.
"Your maiden name?"
"But I take your point about food. Kevin didn"t care what or where we ate, as long as he got enough. He wasn"t really fond of 118 seafood, but he liked-" Carmen"s expression hadn"t changed at all. "What? Did I forget to tell you that I used to be married?"
"To a man?"
"Well, doh! I guess deep down I knew I was making a mistake. I just didn"t know I was making one of that magnitude."
Carmen"s face finally returned to normal and she eyed her plate again. "I think I"m going to sit here quietly and enjoy my dinner while you tell me all about that."
"Well, I-"
"Just answer me this. Are you definitely a lesbian?"
Judith made an X across her chest with her fingers. "Cross my heart."
"I"m very glad to hear that. Do you have any more surprises?"
She almost mentioned Victor, but she never played him for laughs. "I can"t just dump out all my surprises at once. If you want to know them, you"re going to have to discover them one at a time."
Carmen"s face brightened. "That sounds like an invitation."
Judith ignored the flirtation. "Do you really want to hear about my ill-fated marriage, or can you do what I do and just pretend it never happened?"
"Oh, no. I want the details." Carmen leaned across the table and lowered her voice. "And don"t leave anything out."
"You don"t get those details, because there are some things I just don"t want to experience again, thank you. But Kevin really was a nice guy. He was from Boston. I met him at a friend"s wedding here in New York and we started seeing each other. We went back and forth on the weekends, but then he got a job here in the city and we got married."
"How old were you?"
"Twenty-three. And we were married for three years."
Carmen took one last bite and pushed her bowl away, apparently satisfied. "What happened? I mean, besides the obvious."
"Believe it or not, it wasn"t the obvious. I had no clue there 119 was more to s.e.x than what we had, but that"s another story altogether."
"Now if you"re going to talk about s.e.x, I may need a ciga-rette."
Judith was momentarily stunned. That didn"t fit her image of Carmen at all. "You don"t smoke, do you?"
"No, but I could start."
"Please don"t do that on my account."
"So if it didn"t have anything to do with s.e.x, what happened?"
The waiter brought their check and Carmen quickly handed over her credit card. "We need to go or we"ll be late."
Judith couldn"t tell the whole story of Kevin without talking about Victor, so she gave a quick version as they headed out.
"Kevin never liked New York. He talked about moving back to Boston, but I couldn"t leave. Finally, he just got another job there and that was the end of it."
"You chose staying in New York over your marriage?"
The way Carmen put it sounded pretty cold. "It"s more complicated than that. He knew I wouldn"t leave, so getting a job in Boston was the same as asking for a divorce." They arrived at the theater, effectively ending the conversation before she could fully explain.
Carmen adjusted the settings on her cell phone as the lights went dim. "Remind me to turn this back on when we go out. I never remember."
Carmen clapped absently along with everyone else, glad the show was ending. If she had it to do over again, she would have suggested something different for their date tonight, something that would have let them talk more. The dinner conversation had been rushed, she realized, and she hadn"t learned much about Judith, something she definitely wanted to do.
Judith wasn"t anything like the usual women whose pleasures 120 Carmen enjoyed. She might have been, had they gone through with their frolic a couple of weeks ago. A few nights with someone pretty would have made a nice distraction, just like that other woman-Meara something or other-she had met a few years ago on one of her trips to the Big Apple. But she wasn"t thinking of Judith as a s.e.xual conquest anymore. Correction: She wasn"t thinking of Judith as only a s.e.xual conquest.
"I didn"t hear you sing," Judith said, taking her arm as they walked out.
"You scared me into silence. All I could think about was those people coming for me with a flashlight." They reached the corner at Broadway, where the lights of Times Square pulsed as if the lifeblood of the city. "This sight always gets to me."
"I think it gets to everyone," Judith said, stopping to gaze at the kaleidoscope of electronic stimuli. "Oh, I"m supposed to remind you, turn your cell phone back on."
Mindlessly, Carmen reached into her pocket and activated the device, not taking her eye from Judith"s profile, which was stunningly reminiscent of Brooke"s. "Do you want to get a drink or dessert or something? Or have you had enough of me?"
"I"m not really sick of you yet, if that"s what you"re asking."
Judith"s hand found hers and squeezed.
"I didn"t exactly ask it that way."
Judith turned and faced her, ending the inadvertent masquer-ade. "I"m enjoying my evening with you very much. I"m not ready for it to be over."
"Admit it. The real Carmen Delallo is infinitely more charming than you ever imagined." And Judith O"Shea was prettier than Brooke Nance, she decided.
"By far."
"Let"s get out of this circus. Where can we go to talk?" The obvious choice was her hotel, but Judith would probably think that was presumptuous. She would be right.
"How about your hotel?"
121.
"You just read my mind."
"I was thinking of the bar."
"That would probably be best. I have a feeling I"m going to need plenty to drink." She wrapped an arm around Judith"s waist and steered her toward the Marriott. "Are you really having a good time or are you just being polite?"
"I haven"t used my fake phone call yet."
"Right. I"ll take that as a good sign." They entered the hotel"s ground floor lobby and she pushed a b.u.t.ton for the elevator.
When the door opened, she nudged Judith through and pressed the b.u.t.ton to close the door so they wouldn"t have to share their ride. Her fingers hovered over the control panel. "Let"s see . . . I think my room is on the forty-first floor."
Judith reached across her and pressed the one that said Broadway Lounge.
"Oh, you meant the main bar," she said with a teasing grin.
Unable to resist, she closed in on Judith and kissed her full on the lips, just as the elevator rose into the open atrium where anyone looking could see. It wasn"t wild and steamy like the last time they had kissed in an elevator, but it was very pleasant.
"You"re turning me into a public spectacle again," Judith said when they pulled apart.
"We"re in an elevator. It"s our tradition."
The door opened and they exited into the lounge, securing a table for two by the gla.s.s wall that overlooked Times Square.
Carmen waved to the c.o.c.ktail waitress as she draped her coat over the back of her chair.
"What can I get you ladies?"
"Chivas on the rocks," she answered, helping Judith with her coat.
"And I"ll have a Tia Maria, straight up, with black coffee."
Every tidbit of information Judith offered was a revelation into who she was, and a stark reminder to Carmen that she wasn"t like Brooke at all. "I would never have guessed that in a 122 million years. You don"t strike me as a Tia Maria type."
"Is there a profile?"
"Certainly not somebody from New York."
"It"s my island side. The first time I had it was about sixteen years ago on my first escorted lesbian cruise. Come to think of it, I managed to keep most of the habits I acquired that week."
"That was after Kevin, right?"
"Oh, yeah. He"d been gone a couple of years by then. I went to work for Myrna after he left and she kept teasing me that I was batting for the wrong team. Then we came back from that cruise and she crowed like she had presented me at the lesbian debu-tante ball. My face was red for a month."
"And that"s your coming out tale?"
"Pretty much. It was the first time I consciously considered whether I belonged with a woman or a man. But once I had a comparison, it was a no-brainer."
The waitress quietly deposited their drinks and left after Carmen signed the room charge.
"So how has a pretty woman like you managed to stay single all these years?" Carmen asked. She was satisfied to see Judith"s face take on a pink hue, visible even in the dim light of the lounge.
"I could ask you the same question."
She chuckled. "Yes, you could. But you"d have to wait your turn because I asked you first."
Judith sipped her drink and set it down. "Most of the lesbians I know are in relationships. If they aren"t, there"s usually a good reason."
"I know what you mean there. But what does that say about us?"
"Well, we"re different," Judith said coyly. "And I haven"t always been single. I bet that"s true for you too."