No matter what she had said, Gabriel was too much a gentleman to go all the way with Harper, even if he was pretty sure they both wanted to. Not in his mother’s apartment, certainly. He drove her home, made plans with her to go out the following night. They sat in the car together in front of her apartment, with aromas from his mother’s leftovers recirculating through the A/C.
“You want to come up?” Harper asked.
“I do. I will, but not tonight.”
“Gabriel, I’m a grownup. If I say you can, you can.”
“I know that. But if I wasn’t a gentleman, you might not like me so much.”
She gave him a weak smile. “I don’t think that’s possible, sweetie. Sailor isn’t home yet, and even if she gets home, she won’t bother us. She definitely wants us to hook up.”
“My mother,” he said. “I have to talk to her.”
Harper snickered at that. “You need her permission before you can spend the night with me?”
“No. No, of course I don’t. I don’t think she and my dad asked anyone’s permission. What I mean is, she’s so messed up in the head. I just want to talk to her, try to talk her down a little, maybe stay with her tonight. Because the truth is, if we hook up, that will be all I think about, and all I want to do. I have a responsibility, Harper. I have to take care of that, and then I’ll give you all of me. I promise I will.”
Harper took his hand, squeezed it. Her expression was a tense smile. Worry lines appeared on her forehead. “This can’t be goodbye. It can’t be, right? You’re not ending us here, are you?”
“No way! I want a lot more. But I’m a responsible man. My mother raised me that way. I’ll only feel better giving you everything if I make one last try to get through to Mama first.”
“Gabe, do what you feel you have to, but I’m just going to say again what I said before. She’s fine. She’s great. You should be proud of her. Now, before I go in, open your zipper.”
He blinked at her for a moment, then opened his zipper soundlessly as though she'd cast a spell on him. And maybe she had. But he didn't want to fight it, even though he knew he should.
She scooted across the seat to him, planted her lips on his, and reached through the zipper and the fly in his underwear to find his dick. He was already hard, now almost unbearably so. She moved her fingers along him gently, following its slight forward curvature, giving little pinches at the perfect time. Her other hand flowed through his hair. He reached for her, but she said, “No, hun. This one’s my gift to you.”
She continued to caress his shaft and plant kisses on him, on his lips, on the tip of his nose, on his neck, while her hand did its magic. She knew when to slow and when to speed up – he had never had such an incredible hand job before. He felt his legs weakening, and he exhaled fiercely as he came onto his trousers.
Harper fell back into her seat. “I guess you liked that.”
“I guess I did.”
“It’s my turn next time.”
“Got you,” he said.
"Here's your appointment reminder." She reached under the back of her shirt and unhooked her bra. Then she took both his hands and guided them to her breasts. His breath hitched. Leaning closer, she kissed him deeply, flicked her tongue against his and made the sexiest little noise he'd ever heard when he gently pinched both her nipples.
Harper unbuttoned her slacks, took one of his hands and slid it beneath her silky panties. His fingers skated across her hot, smooth skin until his fingertips sampled her slick wetness.
Already, his dick was stirring again, but she pulled back, refastened her bra and slacks.
"Don't forget," she said.
They had a long kiss goodnight. After zipping up, he walked her to the door, made sure she was inside, and returned to his car in a daze. Beneath her sweet exterior was a tiger he never wanted to tame. He could already imagine building a life with her, not just because of the potential for great sex, but because she was filling places in his heart that had been empty for too long.
But now, he had to deal with his mother and get that out of his mind, because he was so in love with Harper that, soon, no one else would even be real to him.
****
The next night, as Gabriel was loading his gear into his car, his phone buzzed in his back pocket with a new text. He ignored it for the moment. It must have been his mother fussing at him to come to dinner, he thought. He’d stayed with her the night before, and she’d been up and down all night, rummaging through the kitchen. Despite the fact that Harper had kept her distance all day and he’d felt too guilty to seek her out, he already planned to stay with Sofia tonight as well. How that would affect his and Harper’s chances, he had no idea. The phone buzzed again, and he checked it absently.
The text said: Is there problem wit your mother?
No name on the caller ID, so he dialed the number the text had come from. “Who is this?” he demanded. “Who’s asking about my mother?’
“Hey, Gabriel. Gabriel, right?”
“Tell me your name right now,” Gabriel said. He’d lost his father without warning. Was his mother in danger now? Who the fuck was this guy? “In fact, right now isn’t fast enough, because if you are talking about my mother, I want to know yesterday.”
“Take it easy, man! Is Ivan from across street. We know each other. Your mom’s friend, right?”
“I know you eat at her table. That might be good enough for you to say friend. Now what do you mean by is there a problem? Spit it out, or I swear to God--”
“Okay, okay. You know, right, I did not have to tell you. I look out for her. She told everyone, ’Come to dinner at 7 sharp,’ and we get here and the door is halfway open and is dark. No one at home.”
Gabriel emitted a stream of Cuban curses, told Ivan he would take care of it and he should shut the door on his way out. He texted Dwight, who was still finishing up some maintenance work, that he had to go look for Sofia.
Dwight replied, I’ll go with you.
Gabriel texted, I won’t drag you into it. I have no idea what happened.
Dwight answered, I love her too, man. We got this.
Okay, but I’m driving.
Ten minutes later, they piled into Gabriel’s Altima and raced along Surf Avenue to Ocean Parkway. The traffic was heavy, especially by the Belt Parkway onramp. Gabriel pounded his steering wheel. He would try the places she shopped, the bodega, the farmer's market, the discount shoe shop, the fabric store, the panaderia — she must have gone shopping and run out of time. But it wasn't like her to leave the door unlocked when she wasn't home.
He pulled up by hydrants or double-parked and in turn ran into each place he found still open. Then he drove block by block between Avenues U and X, slowly, ignoring the blaring horns of other vehicles hastening home. He and Dwight kept their eyes peeled for any sight of her. At last there were red and blue lights. A white sedan with a blue NYPD logo on it was pulling him over. He parked by a hydrant again and the sedan came up alongside the Altima. The cop, a burly blonde man in a black uniform with prominent badge, rolled down the window as Dwight did the same.
“You’re driving awful slowly,” said the cop. “What’s the deal, buddy?”
Gabriel and Dwight explained and showed the officer a picture of Sofia. The cop studied it. “Oh, yeah, I might’ve seen her on a bench by the basketball court. Offering food out of a container to some kids. Is she okay mentally?”
“Where?” Gabriel demanded. “I need to find her.”
“Yeah, by the elementary school on Avenue T. Is she okay, mentally okay?”
“I need to check on that,” said Gabriel.
“I’ll head over where I saw her, and you can follow me.”
“Thanks.” Gabriel followed the police cruiser for several blocks.
“Should’ve cast the net wider,” said Dwight. “Gee, I wonder what she’s doing so many blocks from home.”
“Don’t know.”
“She couldn’t’ve lost it, right? I mean, she’s always sharp when I see her.”
“Yeah, same. Just look out, would you?”
Next to a tall chain link fence, the cop tooted his siren once, then drove off. Gabriel climbed out of the car, while Dwight came around and took the wheel. Gabriel ran to the bench where his mother was sitting with a lidless plastic container of tostones.
“Mama, dios mio! What are you doing here?”
“The children are hungry. Hungry children. They come to play here.”
“Mama, you can’t do like abuela used to do in Havana. Nobody knows you here. You can’t feed children in the street. You’re lucky they didn’t arrest you. Come on, let’s get in the car. You didn’t drive here, right? Let’s get in the car.”
“No, no I didn’t drive. M’ijo, children are hungry.”
Gabriel clasped her arm and gave a gentle tug. Not resisting, Sofia let him lead her to his vehicle, put her in the back seat, sat beside her. “Let’s go back to the house.”
“You okay, Mama?” Dwight called over the seat back.
“Okay? I’m a widow. What’s okay about that?”
“Are you healthy, are you lucid?”
“Sure, yes, gordito.” She started to offer him a tostone from her large supply, then looked at them and dropped the whole plastic container onto the floor mat. “What happened? They’re cold.” Then: “Gabrielito, what’s lucid, is that a kind of whale, what does he mean?”
“It means, are you thinking clearly? You’re not, Mama. We should go to the hospital and get you checked out.”
“Yeah,” said Dwight. They were at a red light. “Should I turn left for the hospital or go straight to your house, Mama?”
Sofia pursed her lips, then finally said, “Go to my house.”
There was little more conversation till the two men had gotten Sofia upstairs and laid her down on the sofa. Dwight ate apples from the dining room table while Gabriel made a pot of green tea. He made Sofia sit up and lifted the cup to her mouth.
“You’re crazy, I can do it,” said his mother. She lay down again. “Leave it, put it on the table. On the coaster, not on the glass!”
Gabriel had learned even in childhood to put everything on coasters. The one he used was a souvenir of his mother’s one vacation, to San Juan in the early 90s. He held his own tea cup and sat on the end of the sofa nearest his mother’s head. A clatter came from the kitchen where Dwight was putting the uneaten dinner from pots to storage containers.
“Why did you walk so far, Mama? Estabas loca. You can’t give food to kids on the street in Brooklyn. You had all the freeloaders coming to dinner anyway.”
This was a signal for the clatter of plates and silverware in the kitchen.
“Yeah, I don’t know, I just wanted to get out. I like kids. You’re the best son I could ever ask for, but I was feeling emotional and I wanted to see some kids. I just took the tostones just in case.”
“Mama, you’re too young to lose your mind. We should take you to a psychiatrist or something, get you checked out.”
“No, no. If I need that I’ll tell you. Or Ernesto will tell you. He doesn’t want to miss any meals, so he’ll try to make sure my head is clear, I know that. A healthy Sofia means Ernesto y su familia get full bellies.”
The microwave trilled in the kitchen.
Gabriel nodded. “If you wander anywhere again, vamos al hospital en seguida, got it?”
“Yeah, yeah. I used to lead him by the hand, and now he says I’m wandering. Wandering is good. So many years in this neighborhood and I still don’t know it. So why shouldn’t I wander?”
“Because someone will think you’re crazy.”
“You mean like you?” Sofia got up on one elbow and took some tea, then fixed her son in her gaze. “M’ijo, don’t you have a girl to be with right now?”
“No, tonight’s my date night,” Dwight announced as he set down a piping hot dish of rice and beans on the table and went back.
“Is she a good girl, gordito? This Harper girl?”
Dwight leaned out of the kitchen to answer. “No, Mama. At the aquarium they say she makes Pamela Anderson look like Our Lady of Lourdes.”
“Huh?”
“She’s great, Mama.”
“Oh, you could have just said that.”
Gabriel received his mother’s tea cup and put it on the coaster. “Why are you asking him, not me?”
“Guests, have to talk to guests.”
“I’m not really a guest,” shouted Dwight. “Think of me more like a light fixture or a piece of crown molding.” He emerged with another plate and two forks. “Dinner is nuked and served.”
“Okay. Gabrielito, is she a good girl? The marrying kind, or the kind that’s just for a little while?”
“I don’t know her that well, but so far she’s amazing.”
“Thought so.”
A throbbing vein in his neck confirmed for Gabriel that he wasn’t ready to talk about Harper just yet. “You want to talk about Papa?”
“Your father —. Your father, he was so serious all the time. So whenever he did put on the charm, I still knew he had planned it out almost to the word. But dying? He didn’t plan that one, for sure. He had tickets to the Knicks for that weekend.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Why, you wanted to go?”
Gabriel looked away. “Mama, you know, right, I’m trying to follow in Papa’s footsteps. I want to make you proud. I want to honor his memory, to be as perfect as he was.”
“Perfect, huh? Who told you he was perfect?”
“No one. I could see for myself.”
“That’s what you saw?”
“Come eat,” Dwight said. He had now put a third loaded plate on the table.
The three sat, but Sofia didn’t lift her fork as the other date.
“My Rafael wasn’t perfect,” she said abruptly. “I could never find two socks of his that matched, and always they were inside out. He would roll around in the bed so much and pull the blanket more and more under himself till I didn’t have a stitch of it covering me. And you know, I cannot remember one time he took me out special, unless it was something he was happy about. Why not just say to me, Sofia, I want you to be happy tonight? Why not, huh?”
“I’m sorry, Mama.”
“You’re sorry? What did you do?”
“Nothing. I just didn’t know, that’s all.”
“You didn’t know, why should you? That is all husband and wife stuff. When you get married, then you’ll know. I learned when I got married. I learned fast. It’s not all wine and roses.”
“I like roses,” said Dwight.
“Me too. My Rafael, he liked roses. He used to bring me roses. White roses. Pink roses. Never the red ones. I wonder why not the red ones.”
Gabriel set down his water glass and looked at her. Tears were flowing vigorously from her lower eyelids.
“I’ll buy you red roses, Mama.”
Sofia waved him off. “Ah, forget it.”
She wept, and he held her as his own tears dampened his mother's hair.
When the tears stopped flowing, they all ate together, and then Dwight said, “I’m headed home, but call me if you need anything.”
“Sure, I will.”
“Great food, Mama. Glad you’re okay.”
When he was gone, Sofia said, “Now you can stop worrying about me. What you need to do is go be with that girl. And what is that on your pants? You want me to wash them for you?”
He clamped his hand over the white spots on his slacks. Oh no – he had grabbed the wrong pants this morning, and was wearing the pair he had worn during the hand job. “No, Mama, I’ll do it later.”
“I have some stain remover in the bathroom. It’s Tide. You know, the orange stick.”
“No, Mama! Ay mierda, I don’t want to talk about my pants!”
“I don’t mind cleaning them. You’re a full-grown man, but mothers never stop being mothers, do they?”
“Mama, will you let me talk?”
“What is that stain, anyway? Is it from the habichuelos? They were too greasy? Did you drop some off your fork, hijo?”
“Mama! Callense, would you? Come, sit down here.”
Sofia wiped her hands on the apron and moved toward the sofa, where Gabriel was gesturing. He sat in the armchair facing her, then jumped up. That was where his father had used to sit.
Sofia stared at him as he moved away from the armchair like it was a dancing cobra. He went toward the dining room table, but she kept staring.
“Sorry. That’s Dad’s chair. I shouldn’t sit in it.”
“Shouldn’t?” She looked at him darkly. “No, why should it bother me? You’re the man in the family now, right? Why not sit there? Your ass is just as good as his was, right mi’jo?”
Gabriel fetched a dining room chair and placed it backward, sat facing his mother and leaning on the back of the chair. “Mama, listen. These dinner parties every night, they’re completely loco already. You need to cut it out. Seriously, you’re overcompensating for Dad’s death.”
Sofia’s eyes widened. “That’s what you think? That I’ve gone crazy?”
“I don’t blame you. It was so sudden, and you two were so close. Your marriage was perfect; you had everything worked out.”
Sofia leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “We did? When was that? We used to fight for hours, only when you weren’t around, of course. He was such a perfectionist, your father. Everything that wasn’t how he wanted it, he had to say something, or it would cause him pain. If I don’t put one napkin straight, he thinks he will fall into his grave.” She gasped, sat back, crossed herself. “God rest his soul. I wanted to do everything just right for him, but it was hard. He deserved it. He was an amazing lover, that man. Even the day before he died.”
“Mama!” Now Gabriel was sure his mother had lost her mind. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “You shouldn’t tell me things like that!”
“Oh, what does it matter?” She got up, walked around him and settled in the armchair he had vacated. “Ever since we got this chair, I wanted to sit in it, but it was always his. I cleaned that upholstery every week, so I should have been able to enjoy that plush against my skin, but Rafael, he would notice if the cushions weren’t the same shape he’d made with his butt that morning. Mi’jo, I hope you are never like that.”
“No, Mama, I’m not. I could never be a perfectionist, cause I’m too far from perfect. I try hard, that’s all.”
“No one can be perfect, Gabrielito. But in the opinion of that girl you brought tonight, you are pretty close. I could see it in her eyes. You like her, too, right?”
“Yes, Mama. Don’t get mad, but the truth is I’m in love with her.”
“Good.”
“But she’s not Cuban. Not at all.”
“So?”
“So, you always said you wanted me to marry a Cuban girl.”
Sofia settled back into her chair. “Oh. Oh, I see. That’s why you stayed with Rachel when you didn’t love her.”
“Well, you always loved her, Mamita.” Gabriel shifted the seat to face her better. The chair back was really digging into his thighs. Finally, he got tired of it and moved to the sofa.
Sofia smiled. “You are a good boy, mi’jo. You really are. Your father would never tell you how proud he was that you followed him in his career. He didn’t want you to relax. He wanted you to keep working hard, so he never told you when you did something he liked. I guess he was right about that. Grandpa Fernando was such a mean man, but he got that right. He kept Rafael’s head in his work.”
Gabriel felt a fierce headache coming. His mother had taken control of the conversation, was saying a lot of things about his father that he didn’t want to hear. He tried again to get to his point. “Mama, the dinner parties. Stop, or at least slow down. It’s crazy.”
“It’s what I couldn’t do when he was alive,” she countered. “You didn’t know your abuela, my mama. It wasn’t just in the street that she gave away food. She used to have thirty people every night, all the cousins and everyone she saw in the street that morning on her way to the market. Of course, Fidel spoiled all that. So many people disappeared in our neighborhood in Havana. So many cousins.”
“Yes, Mama. I know about that.”
“Really? You know everything? Who do you know who disappeared with no explanation? Eh?”
“Okay, no one.”
“That’s right. No one. You’re a smart boy, and I’m proud of you, but this thing I know more about than you. I loved your father, so I decided to live his way as long as he was living. But now he’s not, God rest his soul. Now I will live my life my way. And please, no more of this telling me to stop. I’m not loco, Gabriel. You are. And you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because you aren’t with that girl; you’re with your mother. You said you love her, right?”
“I love her.”
“So, call her right now and make sure she hears it before she goes to bed. And then, my beautiful son, leave me alone to finish the dishes.”
“I will, Mama, but I’m staying here again tonight, okay?”
“Suit yourself.”