The restaurant Blitz chooses is definitely a hole in the wall. The outside is white stucco with a dark brown door. The roof is tin.
But the gravel parking lot is packed with cars and pickup trucks. When we go inside, a couple gruff-looking men with bushy beards are ahead of us for a table.
A stout Hispanic woman in a white ruffled blouse and brightly striped skirt whisks one of the men to a booth. Blitz stands patiently by a window, drawing me close to him, his chin on my shoulder and his arms around my waist.
When the woman returns, she notices him and her eyes light up. “Benjamin! Is that you?” She fans herself with a menu. “¡Dios mio!”
A few customers notice her surprise, and she immediately straightens her expression. She motions him forward. “Come this way.”
We walk toward her, and she gives him an enveloping hug. “How is your mama, hijo?”
“She’s good,” he says. “Glad I’m home for a bit.”
“You not cause her any trouble, no?” The woman’s face is stern.
“No, no,” he says.
The woman turns to me. “And who is this? She is lovely, but not Mexican!” She fingers my black hair.
I have no idea how to act. I just stand there, trying not to look panicked.
“No, Lito, I’m seeing a white girl.” Blitz can barely contain his laughter as Lito clucks.
“Well, I’m sure we’ll like her anyway.” She smiles at me. “You don’t put up with any nonsense from this one, okay?”
I nod.
Another table leaves and she waves for one of the men in line to go take it. “You wait right here, Benjamin. I’ll seat you somewhere no one will look and see who you are.”
“Thanks, Lito,” Blitz says. He takes my hand and pulls me closer to the side wall, behind the little podium where Lito keeps the menus.
When she has settled the other man and motioned for a waitress to attend to him, she returns to us. “I’ll take you to the family table, of course,” she says. She picks up a couple of menus and looks me over. “You could use a few tacos, little one,” she says to me.
“She’s a dancer,” Blitz says as we walk along the wall that borders the kitchen. I can hear the sizzle of fajitas and smell something in a fryer. My stomach rumbles again.
“Ah, so she has to stay skinny,” Lito says. “A pity.”
A half wall in the back corner separates a long table from the rest of the restaurant. The chairs are empty, although the space is littered with cups and newspapers and books.
“Everybody works the lunch rush,” Lito says. “You will have your secret space.” She winks at him. She is about to pass us the menus, then thinks better of it and tucks them under her arm. “Never mind these. I will bring you what you need.” She takes off to go into the kitchen.
“She really is like family,” I say.
Blitz holds a chair out for me. “Lito is a very pushy friend of my mother’s.”
“She doesn’t want you dating a gringa, then?”
He laughs. “She is just seeing how you will react. It doesn’t matter. Nobody cares.”
When we sit down, Blitz takes my hand and kisses each finger, one at a time. The food smells divine, and I try to relax. I’m in another world, and it’s good to be out among new people, even if it’s scary.
“So who is your best friend in the world?” I ask him.
He presses his lips against my knuckles and scrunches his eyebrows. Finally he says, “Well, up until the scandal, I would say it was Duke. We grew up together, and I moved him to LA to be a bodyguard of sorts. But we haven’t talked since everything went down.”
“Hasn’t that been a while?”
“Almost a month now. I stuck around a couple weeks, hoping it would blow over. But I swear every day there was some new women’s group ready to express their outrage.”
“Have you talked to the girl?”
He closes his eyes as if the thought of it is painful. “My lawyer has advised against it.”
“I’m sorry I keep bringing this up,” I say. “I really didn’t know anything about this until I met you.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “I wouldn’t go out with me either without the third degree.”
“I don’t even have a Twitter account,” I say. “So at least I can’t jump on the Burn Blitz Burn hashtag.”
He smiles, kissing my hand again. “I’m hoping I never make you feel like you should.”
My heart flips. This is intense. I lay my cheek against his hand, wrapped around mine. I want this moment to last, every moment to last. But I don’t even know how often I can see him, or how long he’ll be here.
Lito returns with a pitcher of tea and two glasses. “It’s got sugar,” she says. “You can burn it off later.” She plops them on the table. Behind her, a short man sets down a basket of chips and an enormous bowl of queso.
Blitz and I look at each other and laugh.
“What?” Lito says. “Your girl will blow away otherwise. You too!” She throws her hands up in the air. “Humans are supposed to eat! And don’t tell me you want vegetarian frijoles! They aren’t any good without lard!” She takes off again, followed by the server.
“My LA friends would run screaming from this place,” Blitz says, dunking a tortilla chip deep into the melted cheese. “But Lito’s right. We can burn it off.” His eyes dance with mischief. “One way or another.”
My chest constricts. I look away, picking up a chip and nibbling on the corner.
“Come on,” he says. “Dunk it good. Don’t make me eat all this cheese alone!” He picks up another chip and buries it in the queso, then lifts it to my mouth.
I bite it, feeling the queso drip. Blitz catches it with his finger, then brings it to his lips. “You cannot take the San Antonio out of this LA boy.”
“You think you’ll go back?”
“I haven’t succeeded in convincing them to let me yet. I’ll have a decision then.” He picks up another chip and taps it on the edge of the bowl. “I really don’t know what to do.”
The thought of him leaving just as I get to know him, to pick out a dance partner on live television, is just too much.
At least it isn’t a wife.
Or so he says.
Lito returns with a steaming platter and a tortilla warmer. She plops them down. The metal plate, nestled on a wooden base, is filled with shrimp and chicken, peppers, and onions.
“Flour tortillas,” she says with a huff and makes the sign of the cross. “Because you’ve gone as white as the belly of a whale.”
“Lito, you are so cruel to me,” Blitz says. “Come give me a kiss.”
Lito rolls her eyes, but leans down and presses her lips to Blitz’s forehead as if he is a child.
“You know you love me,” he says.
“I do.” She laughs and shakes her finger at him. “Bring your mama around. I haven’t seen her in too long.”
“Will do.”
The other server comes up and sets down more plates. A bowl of pale orange rice. A plate of refried black beans. Then a pile of something green, flat, and somewhat squishy looking.
I don’t want to ask what it is in front of Lito. She looks over the plates that have been placed on the table and nods in approval. “Let me know if you need anything else,” she says.
“It looks great,” Blitz says. “Thank you.”
Lito waves her hands at him as she leaves, the server trailing in her wake.
When she is gone, I poke at the green things. “What are these?”
“Nopales.”
When I look at him quizzically, he adds, “Cactus.”
“Oh!”
“It’s really good when done correctly,” Blitz says. He adds one to my plate. “And Lito really knows how to prepare them.”
I poke at it tentatively. “I’m game to try anything.”
“Really?” His fork halts in the middle of spearing a piece of shrimp. His smile is positively devilish. “How are you with handcuffs?”
My face blossoms with heat. I scoop a spoonful of beans and plop them on my plate.
“Too cliché,” he says. “I knew it.”
When I still don’t look at him, he places his hand over mine. “I’m sorry. I forget sometimes that you’re real, not part of a studio audience.”
I can’t look him in the eye. It’s not that I’m offended by him mentioning handcuffs. It’s just how casually he treats sex, like it’s something you do with anyone, like sharing a pair of headphones to listen to a song. Or passing over a cup so someone else can sample your peppermint coffee.
I almost want to bring up the paternity suits. If there were fifteen of them, there had to be a lot of women. Like a ridiculous amount. But instead, I open the tortilla warmer and pull out a fluffy warm tortilla, flour, just like Lito said.
Blitz sits back in his chair. “I’ve wrecked things,” he says. “I’m really sorry.”
He sounds so contrite that I take pity on him.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m probably more uptight than you’re used to.”
I want to tell him that I’m not really prudish. I’m more passionate than he can imagine. I can ignore anything, even the red sirens going off that tell me I’m wrong, so wrong, because I am buried in such bliss.
But I don’t say it. I’m not sure it’s even true anymore.
“I don’t believe that,” he says. “I’ve danced with you.”
Our smile at that is genuine and the tension falls away.
We dig into the meal. Lito checks on us, opening the tortilla warmer and squinting at the dishes to make sure we are eating to her satisfaction.
It’s delicious. There’s some sort of spice on the shrimp that builds with every bite, but the fat in the refried beans cuts the heat so that I can keep going. The food starts to make sense, like culinary chemistry. It’s so much better than the plain meat and potatoes that serve as the base of most of our meals at home.
I want to keep the mood light, so I lean over to Blitz and say, “So if you do choose a wife from your show, are you going to make sure she knows how to cook like this?”
His smile spreads slowly. “Are you interested in the position?”
I sit back. I hadn’t expected that. “I can cook. Give me a recipe and I’ll try anything.”
I can tell he wants to make another innuendo out of that, but he resists, folding his cloth napkin and setting it beside his plate. “Can I have you for the whole day? Can we just keep going all afternoon and into the evening and until it’s a new day?”
If only. I check my watch. It’s already been three hours. I can spare maybe one more.
“I’m sort of a daytime Cinderella,” I say. “I’m supposed to be back to scrubbing floors at three.”
He sighs. His hand reaches across the table for mine. “Tomorrow, then? I didn’t see you last Thursday.”
I wonder if I can get away with dancing tomorrow. Maybe, since I didn’t today. I can remind Mom that I’m working for my toe shoes and need the practice. Three times a week minimum, Betsy has said.
“When are you at the academy?” I ask him.
“After school,” he says. “It’s hip-hop day.”
“Come early,” I tell him. “Like at two. We can dance.” This will also create a deadline. When it’s time for the hip-hop class, he’ll have to go and I can run home.
“I’ll be there,” he says. He lifts my fingers to his lips. I’m so used to this gesture now that it’s almost like our private code. I refuse to think about him kissing anyone else like this. I’ll assume it’s a Benjamin thing, too old-fashioned for the fast lane with Blitz Craven.
Lito comes out. “I hope you liked it all. You know you aren’t paying for it.”
Blitz nods. “I wouldn’t dare offend you like that.”
She kisses his cheek and turns to me. “You will be good for this ne’er-do-well,” she says. “I think you have him by the tail.”
What does she mean by that? I look at Blitz, who shrugs. “Probably so.”
We head back to Blitz’s car. A couple of guys are standing by it, taking pictures.
I hang back. “Do you think they know who you are?” I ask.
“Nah,” he says. “The Ferrari always draws a crowd.” The car chirps as he approaches and the boys back away.
“Sick ride,” one says.
“Thanks,” Blitz calls back.
They look at me, and one elbows the other. He says, “I bet she is too.”
Before I can even process what is happening, Blitz has rushed the guy and punched him in the face.
“Blitz!” I say. “Stop!”
The guy is sprawled out on the asphalt.
“Don’t talk that way about her,” Blitz says.
“What the hell?” the guy says, holding his jaw.
“Please get in the car,” I say. “It’s okay.” My hands are shaking. I’m scared to death. I’m so afraid they’ll make a scene, that there will be a big fight. Blitz could get hurt, the police could come, someone could video us. I could be discovered. It’s all blowing through my mind like a horror film.
Blitz stands there a moment, staring the guys down, daring them to do or say anything else. But they walk away, shaking their heads.
Finally, he turns to the passenger door and holds it open for me. I slide into the seat. He walks around the front and sits as well, but he doesn’t start the car.
“You okay?” I ask him. “Did you hurt your hand?”
“No.”
Now that we are safely in the car, I’m less freaked out and more worried about him. “Let me see.”
He grips his steering wheel, so I reach for his hand myself, pulling it toward me. Then I do what he has so often done for me, bringing his red angry knuckles to my lips to kiss each one.
He comes down from his anger. I can feel it dropping, degree by degree. When his breathing is back to normal, I hold his hand to my chest. “You better now?”
He nods. His voice is strangled when he says, “I’m sorry.”
“Is this common, taking punches at people who insult your women?”
Blitz laughs a little. “Actually, no. I’ve been in the tabloids for a lot of things, but never for hitting someone.”
“Good to know,” I say. I wonder why this time was different. “Do people usually not dare to insult your dates?”
He shakes his head. “No, it’s been done. I’ve just never felt quite so…” he falters. “Protective. And angry. He really pissed me off. Nobody should disrespect you like that.”
I don’t point out that sending a naked picture of someone isn’t exactly respectful. But maybe he’s learned his lesson. Maybe these hard knocks are what he needed to realize he couldn’t keep living his life the way he had been.
“Well, thank you,” I say. “For defending my honor.”
He starts the car with a low rumble of the engine. “You’re welcome,” he says.
We head back to my part of town. It’s been an interesting afternoon, full of reversals and revelations. My time with Blitz is always like this. He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met.
And since I don’t know how long it will last, I have to hold on to every moment.