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Page 29.
Chapter 12. The Story of L
 L was a nurse whom I met while getting a flu shot. She was a beautiful Latina, 31 years old, 5' 6", with long, thick black hair that was so glossy it almost looked blue. She had light olive skin and exotic features like one sees on Mayan wall frescoes-the swept back head, long curving nose, thin prominent lips, small chin, atop a long neck the color of caramel.
At this flu clinic, where she was moonlighting, she wore the traditional white nurses' uniform, complete with starchy cap, white nylons, sturdy white shoes, and a white dress buttoned up the front. She was one of those women with very skinny, almost stick legs but muscular, wiry, whippet-quick and strong—I mean her entire frame, not just her legs.
I was waiting in line for some minutes behind a nondescript assemblage of men and women, when she and I caught one another's eyes. What attracted me to her, aside from her exceptionally well toned body in that white uniform, was the humor and good nature in her eyes.
"How are you?" she said in a faintly accented voice. She managed to stick me quickly and painlessly. "Go sit over there," she ordered, and had me sit for observation on a plastic chair beside her. I watched with interest as she passed several more patients through. There was a lull, in which she stripped off her latex gloves and washed her hands. "What's your name?"
I told her, and she took her time filling out my chart. She admitted later that she was stalling in the hope I would summon up the courage to ask her out. I had that sixth sense about it, as always, and made some comment that led to a conversation which led to our having dinner that evening. I picked a nice, cozy steak house that I could afford, having just been paid from my librarian job. She ran home, changed into casual evening clothes, and came around to pick me up in her car.
We relaxed over a pair of margaritas, and talked about who we were. L was second generation American of Belizean and English descent, whose family had moved to the San Francisco area a generation earlier. Her father was a professor of Spanish Literature, and her mother was a nurse as she had become. "Why do you like nursing?" I asked. We were already holding hands, though I was not about to push things. It felt good, and I knew for sure all good things would come in time.
"I like helping people," she said as she squeezed my hand. "I like being in the middle of things. What I miss most is having someone to be friends with."
I put my hands around hers. "Someone who will be nice to you and enjoy spending some time with you?"
She rolled her eyes up. "If you would pay some attention to me and keep being nice like this, I would enjoy spending time with you, yes." She patted my hands, trumping my protective gesture. "I'm not needy, trust me. I'm very self-reliant, which is why I often push people away from me personally. I get so busy helping others that I end up sitting there alone most evenings." She leaned close with an embarrassed air. "Do you mind that I am so much older than you?"
"Six years?" I shook my head. "You aren't your chronological age, but however young you feel. Also, I think Latinas age so well, that you don't seem any older to me than I am."
"You are so flattering," she said. Her teeth flashed when she laughed, and she had pink gums. Her eyes were dark and beautiful, with the whites narrowing like almonds outward. "Are you full of it, Peter?"
I trumped her hands with mine again. "I wouldn't be sitting here if I thought anything less of you."
"Did you know I was older?"
"Only by your sophistication and maturity. I like that. It intrigues me, because you have so many secrets."
"I do?" She laughed, in a tone that suggested she knew I was full of blarney, and yet there was an element of truth to it, and I was certainly sincere.
"You were married? Had kids?"
She shook her head. "I dated someone for years. Actually, a few someones. One guy through college, another through my early nursing years, and I just broke up with someone a few months ago. Like I said, I am so busy that it takes me a long time to latch up, and then I just stay with a guy unless he leaves me."
"Did they leave you, those guys you were dating?"
"The first one and the last one. I got dumped real good recently. The middle guy—"
"Yes?" I waited. "Don't want to tell?"
She shook her head. "Maybe someday, if there is a someday."
I didn't care but I said: "See what I mean, secrets?"
"That's not a secret worth keeping. Okay, I'll tell you. He was kind of unsure about himself, and then after we dated for three years he decided he was gay and left me for a doctor at the hospital where we worked. I changed jobs soon after."
"You were embarrassed?"
She nodded. "I was. But more so I was scared about HIV. Luckily, we always used protection and he was careful about it. I don't think he had had sex with many men at that point..." She seemed to realize she was embarrassing herself again, so she waved her hands like a bird trying to take flight and squealed "Enough already, let me out of that conversation!" "Tell me about Belize," I said to change the topic, and she did. Dinner came, which was very enjoyable. We went to the mall and down by the water (maybe the classic test) and then she applied the 'not-on-the-first-date' rule by kissing me demurely good night as she dropped me off at my place, and then drove off in her nice little VW Passat. I stood waving, and she waved back and there was absolutely no mistaking the longing and interest in her gorgeous eyes—the hunger, I should say—as she drove off.
Our intimacy—my consummation with dear L—occurred that weekend after one or two lunch dates and a movie evening. She was a fulltime E.R. nurse and saw a lot of nasty things every day, so she had this mixed air of competence versus innocence, experience versus naïveté, hardness versus tenderness. She could probably bake you a cake and change the oil in your car while ironing—in other words, she was utterly feminine without being dependent. Having a relationship was not about being needy or codependent but about working out a kind of deal.
She told me at one point as we walked together arm in arm, after a movie one evening: "You can stay with me as long as you want, as long as you aren't mean or dishonest. I don't think you would ever be either of those things, but some men can be and I had to say it."
"It's okay. I understand."
"So what's your boundary?" She would ever be the deal-maker.
I had to think for a moment. "I can't think of anything more than what you asked me."
"That's fair." She was always about being fair and making deals and being on the up and up. She pulled me close and kissed me. Tongues talk to each other in various ways. Her tongue had a languid way of telling my tongue that she really liked being in the same mouth with it (hers or mine) and that it was just a plain pleasure to roll around together in all that spit and desire.
We drove to her place, which was a really neat high-tech themed apartment downtown. "Ta-dahh!" she said, flipping on the lights as we entered for the first time. "Wow," I said, gazing at the glossy wood floors, the glass and steel furniture with red, white, and blue cushions, the steel ceiling with greenish glass panes. "It's a loft," I said. "I've always wanted to live in one."
She turned proudly with her arms out. "Well, second best is having a friend who lives in one." She swept into my arms, bounced off, and dashed into her kitchen. "Want a drink? How about some juice?"
"Nurses always give juice," I said. "Yes." She threw things in a blender—ice, bananas, strawberries, vanilla cream—turned the gadget on High for a minute, and served up smoothies.
"Wow, that's good," I said, sipping creamy sweetness, wondering if her oyster would taste like this, as we sat in the living room area looking out of a broad picture window at a spectacular view of the city from the fifth or sixth floor. "Sixty or eighty years ago, this was a factory," she said. "Think of all those people who worked their lives away here, making shoes. That's what they made here. Shoes. Work boots. Combat boots."
She had her philosophical side that way. She also had the first threads of gray in her glossy hair, and a few wrinkles in the usual places. She was also direct and honest and fun and could sometimes read minds. She stood on tiptoe on those thin legs, with that whippet-thin body, and reached up for a bottle of white brandy. "I'm going to put a little spirits in there so that you don't see my wrinkles." That's not the kind of statement that begs a clever reply, or any reply, so I smiled reassuringly.
The skyline grew more magnificent as night deepened. She had a good place here under the haze of building lights and neons. Traffic noise was minimal. Laughter from party goers in the bars and restaurants below was more noticeable than the occasional honk of a horn or rev of an engine. She had this narrow stainless steel ledge that functioned as a counter top directly before the picture window, and we sat side by side on bar stools nursing our fruited brandies and looking outside. A cityscape isn't complete unless you have at least one rundown hotel from yesteryear to stare at, with a few bulbs missing in its lighted sign. There was such a place a block up the street.
L was a talker and a good listener, and buddy of a woman. For a while, she actually sat with her arm through mine. Or she would reach out suddenly and hold your hand for a while. She would gaze into your eyes as if it helped her listen more intently. I talked a little bit about my book that I was writing (portions of which would find their way into a detective novel I would publish years later).
L was a follower of the not-on-the-first-date rule, and had already tested me for predatory tendencies, so I was well vetted. I ended up walking part of the way home, and taking a bus the rest of the way. The light of the city were bright, and my heart was soaring.
Over the next week or two, we sat at her perch by the window and enjoyed the marvelous view, and soft music, and eventually slipped into each other's arms for a dance on the concrete floor. She had low-end Persian carpets, very tasteful and good on the bare feet, just didn't last a century like the high-end thing. On our third or fourth date, we undressed each other and danced naked in the soft glow of nearby red and pink and green neon signs. There were few possible Peeping Tom opportunities in the black windows of shuttered Victorian buildings around us, whose working staffs had long ago gone home for the night. Had anyone seen us, they might have seen faint sticks and squares of colored light moving about. I don't think L was into being watched. I think she was just carefree. There was also a secret side of her that I would get to know in time.
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