Faith in the Flesh Read online

  “My God!” I exclaimed. “The poor thing.”

  He glanced down at the dull white counter. “Yeah.”

  “What a waste,” I added sadly.

  He looked firmly back at my face again, “All the more reason for those of us who still have a chance not to blow it,” he said.

  “Amen.”

  He held my eyes. “Then what time should I pick you up?”

  “Excuse me?” I was sure I hadn’t heard him correctly.

  “We should celebrate life and death the proper way,” he explained, “like the ancient Egyptians used to do, with feasting and dancing and everything else that makes life worth living.”

  I looked away. “Everything else?” I asked pointedly.

  “A walk on the beach in the moonlight, a good movie, listening to music, a glass of wine and a gourmet meal… I would be honored if you would share any or all of the above pleasures with me, Ariana.”

  I met his eyes again. “Well, when you put it that way how can I possibly refuse?”

  “You can’t.”

  His regard was so penetratingly direct I suddenly felt breathless again. “Yes I can,” I forced myself to correct him, tossing my hair away from my face defiantly, “I just don’t want to refuse.”

  “Of course you don’t.” He smiled. “Why refuse what you want?”

  “Sometimes you have to,” I said quietly, thinking of my blue-eyed ex-boyfriend.

  “Then it’s not really what you want,” he stated with conviction. “Sometimes you think you want something because you’re afraid of something else, which is what you really want.”

  “What do you mean? Afraid of what?”

  He shrugged. “All sorts of things. Gracias,” he said to the old man as he brought over our coffees.

  I was grateful for something to do with my hands. “I’m sorry but I don’t think I know what we’re talking about anymore, John.” I decided I liked the feel of his name on my tongue.

  He stared down at his already empty little cup as he twirled it around and around. “I think you do,” he insisted quietly.

  Strangely enough I realized he was right, and the stab of excitement I experienced warned me this man was dangerous. “Are you a psychiatrist?” I demanded politely, instinctively searching for a weapon with which to defend myself against him.

  His laugh was a deep, almost silent tremor in his chest reminiscent of a large cat’s purr. “No, I’m not,” he said and smiled at me again, “but thanks for asking.”

  I smiled back at him until my tostada suddenly arrived then I eyed the long, butter-soaked slices of grilled Cuban bread in dismay. Not only was I suddenly not hungry, I couldn’t imagine casually chewing and swallowing anything with this man watching me.

  “I’ll bet you normally take your butter on the side,” he teased.

  “Yes, but they don’t have tostadas up in Boston so I thought I’d splurge.”

  “Boston?”

  “That’s where I live.” I sipped my deliciously sweet hot coffee.

  His cup chimed against the saucer as he turned it upside down and pushed it away from him in a “Well, so much for that” sort of gesture.

  “I flew down for the funeral.” I cruelly turned the knife, immensely pleased by his reaction.

  “I see.” He reached into a back pocket of his pants for his wallet. He had long, strong legs to match his broad shoulders—his suit draped over him beautifully. “How long will you be in Miami?” He merely sounded polite now.

  “I don’t know.” There was a roundtrip ticket in my purse but I suddenly heard myself say, “I keep thinking about moving back down.”

  He tossed a five-dollar bill onto the counter then thrust his wallet back into his pocket, and I was torn between another enticing view of his tight ass and the adorable dimple suddenly digging deep into his right cheek as he smiled up at the calendar hanging on the wall across from us. “It’s the first Friday of the month,” he announced.

  “So it is.” I entertained the strange thought that if his head was dipped in a vat of plaster, his profile would come out looking very much like an ancient Roman bust.

  “Do you like art?” he asked as though reading my mind.

  “I love art. It’s one of life’s greatest pleasures.”

  “Then meet me at the America’s Collectiongallery on the corner of Ponce de Leon and Andalucia at eight o’clock this evening. We’ll check out the new exhibits before dinner.”

  I mimicked his matter-of-fact tone, “Okay, I’ll see you there.”

  He got up to leave but then paused just behind my stool. “Are you staying with your family, Ariana?” He was standing so close to me his black jacket seemed to merge with mine and I had to turn my head to look up at him.

  “Yes, with my mom.”

  He rested his hand lightly on my shoulder for an instant. “I’ll see you tonight,” he promised quietly.

  The warmth of his touch lingered long after he left, seeping into my muscle through my jacket and mysteriously relaxing me, yet at the same time excitement painfully mingled with anxiety began gnawing at my stomach. I pushed my tostada away. It was too soon. I had just broken up with someone. And yet I didn’t have a choice, I had to see this man again. For some reason from the moment I saw him he had been as impossible for me to resist as the law of gravity. I was falling for him fast and I was honest enough with myself to admit there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Everything about him attracted and intrigued me. His thoughtful way of speaking, contrasted by the dark intensity of his eyes, made him much more than just another handsome man. I sensed a depth in him I couldn’t resist as it made me hope it might be equal to my own. Already the fear he might not show up at the gallery tonight was destroying my peace of mind. He hadn’t asked for my phone number, which either meant he was infinitely confident or he didn’t much care whether I showed up or not.

  “Oh God,” I said, shoving my hair away from my face. “What am I getting myself into now?”

  The old man stared tactfully into space.

  Chapter Two

  It was after four o’clock in the afternoon when I finally returned to the steaming-hot shell of my rental car. The long day stretched behind me in a black-and-white blur of powder-coated old women in black dresses, black limousines with bone-colored leather interiors, motorcycle cops in black leather boots and tight black pants, their white helmets shining beneath the brutal sun as they parted traffic for the funeral procession on the way to the cemetery. And finally there was the dark earth waiting to receive my great aunt, surrounded by white lilies. Afterward, walking into the popular Cuban restaurant Versailles, with all its mirrors reflecting colorfully dressed patrons cheerfully laughing and talking, proved a stimulating contrast. It was time to stop feeling sad and to celebrate Ana Maria’s ascent into Paradise. Cubans don’t tend to feel guilty about the fact that death sharpens the appetites of those left behind.

  * * * * *

  My belly pleasantly full after the delicious Cuban feast at Versailles, I groaned in the grip of the sweltering humidity trapped inside my car and yet, paradoxically, I was looking forward to getting home to my mami’s house and taking a long, hot shower.

  I thrust the key into the ignition, turned it and then stared down in disbelief at the fragment of metal resting in my hand—the key had snapped neatly in half. Part of it was stuck in the ignition. The other part was in my hand. Well at least the engine was purring quietly, which meant I wasn’t stuck in the parking lot of a funeral home.

  I promptly switched on the air-conditioner. I couldn’t possibly think straight with the skin melting over my bones.

  “Why me?” I groaned, angrily shifting into reverse then rocketing out of the parking spot only to have to wait impatiently for my chance to turn left onto 37th Avenue. The last thing I felt like doing was driving back to the rental office for a new car. This one still worked just fine. It even seemed oddly special to me now… I couldn’t help feeling it was meaningfully symbolic
I was suddenly in possession of the two halves of a broken key that had to be joined to become whole. And of course I felt this way because of the mysteriously handsome stranger I had met this morning in the funeral home. A broken car key was an annoying problem yet I couldn’t help smiling. I am both intensely positive and somewhat overly dramatic by nature, so even the smallest details often strike me as profoundly significant. I believe all the events in my life form the pieces of a cosmic puzzle.

  I was tempted to drive to Mami’s and deal with the problem of the broken key tomorrow but that was out of the question since there was no guarantee I could get the car started again. If memory served me correctly there had to be at least one or two locksmiths on Coral Way who could extract the half of the key stuck in the ignition and make a whole new copy for me. It would be faster than driving back to the airport for another car, therefore I determinedly turned left onto 22nd and began scanning both sides of the street for the type of business I needed. The big old trees growing on the islands dividing the road made it a bit difficult to see but it wasn’t long before I spotted what I was looking for on my left.

  I made an illegal U-turn and pulled into a parking spot along the curve. It wasn’t yet five o’clock—the place should still be open and I might still be able to enjoy a long, hot shower and maybe even a little catnap before getting ready for my date with John.

  Holding my breath, I inserted my half of the key into the ignition and quickly flicked my wrist. It worked, the engine shut off.

  I slipped out of the car, careful to leave it unlocked, slipped three quarters into the rusty old parking meter and pulled open the heavy glass door leading into the locksmith’s shop.

  I was relieved to see there weren’t any other customers in the store as I stepped up to a glass counter. Behind it stretched rows of work tables littered with fragments of metal and cluttered with all sorts of arcane equipment for cutting, grinding, smoothing and whatever else the marriage of locks and keys required. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

  “Hola?” I called hopefully.

  Silence.

  “Hello?” I repeated impatiently.

  Directly across from me at the back of the store a door opened and a man dressed in tight black jeans and a short-sleeved black t-shirt stepped purposefully into the room, looking down at something he was holding in his hands. He didn’t see me as he stopped at one of the worktables and switched on one of his many power tools. Apparently he hadn’t been responding to my call.

  I stared at him in disbelief. Since when did locksmiths look like that? I had recently been to an exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts up in Boston entitled The Vikings. Apparently these Scandinavians had been in the habit of hoarding scraps of silver and stashing them away in secret places where only they could find them, if they survived that is, which many of them obviously didn’t. Staring at the man bending over a table of metal fragments I felt as though I had come upon a hidden treasure myself. It didn’t seem possible you could find a handsome Norseman in a dusty old shop in South Florida but there he was, and the broken key in my hand had led me straight to him.

  I cleared my throat. “Um, excuse me…”

  “I’ll be with you in a second,” he replied without looking up.

  I shifted impatiently onto one high-heeled foot. My shoes were killing me and I had been wearing the same clothes for much too long, since four o’clock that morning to be precise. They felt uncomfortably heavy with all the different atmospheres their silk and cotton molecules had absorbed today—Boston’s melancholy mist, the airplane’s stale dry air, the funeral home’s chilly purity, the restaurant’s rich smells, not to mention the rental car’s hot oven—and I was dying to peel them off so my thoughts and feelings could flow comfortably together for a while in a long hot shower.

  The high-pitched grinding of the electric saw the Miami Viking was using made me grit my teeth, and then the deep silence that followed the grating noise made me feel as though I was being deliberately ignored. “Excuse me,” I repeated, shifting onto my other heel indignantly, “but I’m kind of in a hurry…”

  He finally glanced at me. “I’m almost…done.”

  Our eyes locked across the room and I held my breath as though suddenly plunged into crystal-clear water alive with dangerous, hard-to-resist currents.

  He literally dropped what he was doing and walked toward me slowly, as though intentionally letting me get a good look at him. His jeans were so tight I wondered if they were even safe for him to wear but I was glad he had risked it.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked. He didn’t smile, as though the question was intensely serious.

  I held out my hand. “The other half of the key is stuck in the ignition of my rental car outside,” I explained, indicating the street with a toss of my head that also served to get the hair out of my eye.

  “Hmm, that’s too bad.”

  My indignation slipped and faltered on his perfect bone structure then seemed to burn away in the reddish-blond hair combed neatly back away from his face. “That’s too bad?” I repeated, urging him to explain what exactly he meant by that so I wouldn’t be forced to get angry with him.

  “It’s too bad the guy who owns this place is gone for the day. I’m just helping him out for a few weeks and learning as I go.”

  “So you can’t help me?” I couldn’t believe it. This man looked like he could do anything he wanted to.

  “I didn’t say that,” he replied coolly. “Can you start the car up again?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Then bring it around back and I’ll see what I can do.”

  * * * * *

  Both front doors of the burgundy Ford were wide open and I was bent over on the passenger side looking into the car. The Viking lay sprawled across the front seat on his back, one of his legs braced on the door beside me, the other leg bent up into a black pyramid in front of me. His head was flung back beneath the steering wheel, exposing the vulnerable white slope of his neck. I was intently watching the muscles in his muscular upper arms tense as he determinedly jiggled a needle-fine instrument deep into a mysterious crack between the ignition and some other mechanical organ I didn’t know the name of. I hadn’t really listened to the explanation he gave me for what he was doing. I was too busy enjoying the view.

  We were alone in a little private lot behind the store, surrounded by concrete walls. It was late in the day but the sun was still a long way from setting. It was hot in the car and I could tell he was sweating, the pale skin of his arms shone like marble.

  “How can you still be so white living in Miami?” I asked curiously. I also felt compelled to try to entertain him. He had been operating on my car for over fifteen minutes now—a grueling, boring task—and the least I could do was make conversation.

  “I have no idea.” Despite his awkward position he still managed to shrug.

  My eyes kept gravitating to the dark space between his thighs. Either boring grueling work turned him on or there was a promisingly large cock buried in his tantalizingly tight pants. The longer he lay there like that the harder it was to tell my hands they couldn’t obey the electrical impulses my brain was sending them to explore… “You must wear sunblock,” I insisted in an effort to distract myself.

  “SPF 32,” he confirmed. “I don’t much relish the thought of skin cancer. Unfortunately, I usually forget to put it on.”

  I laughed, relieving some of my pleasantly growing tension. I didn’t want to be late for my date with John but I was in no hurry to escape the company of this hardworking Norseman. “Is there any hope?” I asked.

  “There’s always hope.”

  I liked his response. “Is it going to take much longer?”

  “I don’t know since I really don’t have any idea what I’m doing.”

  I almost slapped his thigh playfully…hungrily. “Then maybe you should just give up,” I suggested reluctantly.

  “I never give up, baby.”

  I straightene
d up to take a deep, sobering breath of the refreshingly cool evening air. I was going to be a lovely night for a walk around the galleries and I felt intensely alive, maybe because I had been at a funeral today…or maybe because I had flirted with two very attractive men today. Yet “flirting” wasn’t the word to describe what I had experienced with John. I was enjoying myself at the moment but I was in complete control, merely making the best of a little technical glitch in my day. I was having a little fun but soon, with either half a key or a whole one, I was driving away, end of story.

  I bent over into the car again just in time to see him shift his lean hips and strain his whole body in an effort to thrust deeper into my ignition. It was such an exciting sight I found myself wondering what I would say if he asked me out. I would be tempted to accept but I would also, I realized, easily be able to refuse. When John essentially commanded me to meet him at the gallery I felt a profound relief I would be seeing him again and knew I would have done almost anything to keep him in my orbit.

  “What’s your name?” I asked this other man abruptly.

  “Eric McGregor. Thanks for caring.”

  “You’re Irish?”

  “Yes, but long since exiled to the lovely swamps of Westchester. My father’s family is from Ireland, my mother’s from Venezuela.”

  “Then you speak Spanish?”

  “Don’t sound so amazed.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just that you look like a Viking.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment. So what’s your name, beautiful?”

  “Ariana Padron, half Cuban, half American on my dad’s side.”

  “And what do you do for a living, Ariana?”

  “I’m a freelance writer and editor.”

  “Sounds interesting. What’s your work like?”

  “It varies. I’m a freelancer. At the moment, I’m writing lifestyle articles for a variety of e-zines, including some pieces on food and nutrition. Trite as it may sound I’m seriously working on a cookbook.”