“I’ll be right back,” Mercedes says, and lets herself be led off. “Don’t leave the area.”

32

His car smells of old onions. I hadn’t expected showroom cleanliness from the man, yet I had expected a certain order, considering his profession. You would think as much.

And yet it is good news. A car in such a state is never scrutinized.

I clip the inexpensive wireless transmitter—one that allows me no more than a three-hundred-foot range, but operates well above the FM band—under the passenger seat, draw a deep breath, savoring his essence, and step back into the frozen night.

33

At nine-thirty the party begins to wind down, the dolls and race cars and action figures having been duly named, adopted, and secreted away. Rebecca had returned not with a handful of napkins and a paper cup of ice water as Paris expected, but rather a warm washcloth with which she gently washed his palm. They chatted as she did, and for Paris, so long out of a woman’s arms—any woman’s arms—the experience was highly erotic and ended way too soon.

Then, the requisite old-fart feelings return and he begins to feel silly.

“You’re sure you don’t mind?” Rebecca asks. “I can take a cab.”

“I won’t hear of it.”

“It’s not out of your way?”

“Not at all,” Paris says, wondering how he was going to clean the inside of his car in the next ten minutes.

“You’re sweet. Let me get my coat and say good-bye to some of the kids.”

“No problem,” Paris says. “I’ll meet you by the back door.”

Paris watches her walk away again, wondering, again, how he got to this age, this volatile state of his heart. When he cruised the nightclubs in his twenties, he would look at the guys in their forties—hanging around the bar, drinking their Scotch-and-somethings, surveying the human landscape like hairsprayed jackals—and laugh at their feeble attempts at picking up young women. Now he is that guy. When the hell did that happen?

The hall is just about emptied when Mercedes returns, her coat on, her shiny black boots in hand. “Where’s your little friend?”

“Don’t know,” Paris says. “Lost track of him when he went for his new Tootsie Pop.”

“I meant the one in the tight jeans.”

Paris laughs. “Off to say good-bye to the kids, I guess.”

“Ah . . .”

“She just needs a ride home, that’s all. Said her car broke down.”

“I guess they don’t make Big Wheels like they used to.”

“C’mon. She’s not that young. Is she?”

“No,” Mercedes says. “Just giving you a hard time.”

They stroll to the door. “So, what do you have planned for the rest of the evening?” Paris asks.

“Not much. Home. Bubble bath. Snuggle up with Declan and watch It’s a Wonderful Life for the thousandth time. Cry like always.”

“Uh . . . Declan?”

“Yeah. Dec’s my twenty-year-old houseboy from Dublin. Soccer legs, eyes like Colin Farrell.”

Paris isn’t going to fall for it. “I see.”

“Declan is my dog. He’s a Jack Russell terrier. Jack Russells are a smaller version of the English Fox terrier that a guy named Reverend John Russell . . .”

Mercedes keeps walking and talking, but Paris is frozen in his tracks.

Mercedes stops, turns. “What?”

“You have a JR?”

His car smells like Taco Bell. He had done a quick cleaning job, shoving everything into the back seat and covering it all with that quilted moving blanket he carries around just in case he sees a spinet piano on a tree lawn someday, all the while reprimanding himself for offering a ride to a pretty woman before thinking about this. He is now parked by the back door of the auditorium, both doors flung open, heater on.

Paris looks around the emptying lot. There are only a handful of cars left. Then, on the other side of the lot, next to the parking kiosk, he sees Mercedes’s brother, Julian, standing with some teenaged boys. Nearby, a fifty-gallon drum burns. Paris waves, but Julian doesn’t see him.

Catholics, Paris thinks with a smile. Mercedes must have told him about the party and he had volunteered, too. He looks for Mercedes but doesn’t see her. A few minutes later he notices Rebecca approaching from the auditorium wearing a long dark coat and matching beret, compounding Paris’s schoolboy dread. He has always been a sucker for women in berets.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she says.

“No problem,” Paris says. “You all set?”

“Yep.”

They both get in the car, buckle up. Paris pulls out of the parking lot, heads east, absolutely dispossessed of clever conversation. Rebecca breaks the silence first.

“So, how long have you been doing the Cleveland League party?”

“Let’s see,” Paris says. “This was my fourth.”

“Wow. You’re a real vet.”

“I’ve got the broken eardrums to prove it, too. How about you?”

“Just my first. There was a little article in last Sunday’s Plain Dealer. Some of the kids were quoted in there about what they wanted for Christmas. Some said they wanted a family. Some said they just wanted a friend. It broke my heart and here I am.”

“They appreciate it,” Paris says. “They really do. And they won’t forget you.”

“I hope not. But you. Four years. You must really love kids.”

Paris thinks about it for a moment. It was true. “I do. The part that hurts, though, is that some of those kids are going into the system one day. Some of them soon. Guaranteed. And there isn’t anything we can do about it.”

“I know,” she says. “It’s sad.”

Rebecca turns her back to her door, crosses her legs, smoothes her coat. Paris can feel her eyes on him, but does not have the courage to look over. The silence lasts for four or five stoplights. Paris fills it by turning on the radio, finding a station with Christmas music. Finally, at University Circle, Rebecca asks, her tongue firmly in cheek: “By the way, can I chip in for gas?”

“Sure,” Paris says, deadly serious. “I was just going to bring that up, in fact. I think it comes to twenty-six cents. But don’t sweat the penny. A quarter’s cool.”

Rebecca laughs. “Okay, then. But at least let me buy you a cup of coffee.”

Paris almost blurts out: “Sure. That would be great.”

The Starbucks at Cedar-Center is busy with Christmas Eve revelers, mostly kids in their late teens and twenties. Paris takes a corner table. Rebecca soon joins him bearing espresso. She places the cups on the table and removes her coat, reminding Paris what a great body she has.

“Gosh I’m getting old,” she says, sitting across from Paris. “It used to be that everyone behind the counter here was my age or older. Now I feel like somebody’s mother.”

Right, Paris thinks. What a hag. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that for a while,” Paris says. “Take it from someone who knows.”

Rebecca smiles. “So you’re Father Time then, huh?”

“Sometimes I feel a thousand years old. And those are my ginkgoba days.”

“Well, as a semi-young single woman, all I can say is you look pretty good for a thousand.” She sips her espresso. “Besides, like Groucho said: You’re only as old as the woman you feel. Or something like that.”

Wow, Paris thinks. She even quotes the Marx Brothers. I’m in love.

Over the next ten minutes or so they discuss their lives, their respective romantic pasts. Paris, divorced, one daughter. Rebecca, divorced, no kids. The conversation flows freely and comfortably.

“So, can I ask an unbelievably personal question, considering the time we’ve known each other?” Paris asks.

Rebecca examines every square inch of his face before answering. “Okay.”

“What happened? In your marriage, I mean. That is, if you don’t mind telling me.”

“I don’t mind telling you. What happened was I was married to a man who thought he was going to hit me and screw me in the same twenty-four-hour period. Took me a whole year to figure it out. I was young. That’s my only defense. One day I woke up, looked at the newest bruises, grabbed a few dresses, and walked. Never looked back.”