Cutting Teeth(67)

“Of course.”

“And you trust me and you trust my judgment?”

He glances over at a man and a woman at the next table clearly involved in some sort of casual job interview that’s not going that well. “Yeah. I mean, I want to be involved…” He uses his knuckle to scratch beneath his nose. “I’m his father.”

“You are involved.”

“Okay.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Only that you’re kind of a solo artist, you know? Looking out for Number One.” He keeps his eyes trained on the floundering man with the résumé. “Not in a bad way.”

“Number One?” She lifts her eyebrows. “I make every meal, do laundry, do pickup and drop-off ninety percent of the week, and I’m looking out for Number One?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Marcus slouches, hunching in that fancy shirt of his.

“How did you mean it, then?” Rhea wants to give Bodhi everything. She kind of wants to give Terrene everything, too. Last time she checked, they’re not the same everythings.

He rolls his eyes. “I mean, you need help. Your job—your career, your business—it takes up a lot of space. As it should. But maybe you need to let some stuff go, let people in.”

“My job takes up space? Space? I think I’ve got plenty of space. I don’t think anyone’s suffering—least of all Bodhi, if that’s what you’re implying—from a lack of space.” She can’t help comparing herself to him, can’t help worrying that someday he might up and start to believe Bodhi would benefit more from living with him in his grown-up condo, being driven around in his luxury SUV. “Nobody’s claustrophobic here, Marcus.” She feels the mercury in her barometer sliding up. Same as it did that night at the Roosevelt Room. A little bubble of memory rises to the surface and pops: How many times do I have to explain myself?

She’d pressed the palms of her hands against the metal table to cool them, and when she brought them to her lap, they had left oily palm prints. She and the white, male, twentysomething John Doe officer both stared at them as they talked, so much that Rhea eventually moved her hands back, refitting them to the spot she left, even when her fingers got cold, even when they started to lose circulation. It was a long night, the smell of secondhand smoke and stale coffee, the ghost of body odor.

Rhea was a cocktail waitress and usually it was a good time. She made friends. She listened to the regulars’ problems. She even helped some people. And she felt good doing it.

She knew that guy was going to be an issue; she’d waited on him before, but tonight he was edgy with alcohol and in the mood to show off for his buddies, which is the worst mood for any man, as far as Rhea’s concerned. He was the type of guy who wore flashy bald eagle swim trunks on the Fourth of July and shitty sunglasses owned by his father in the eighties, who favored penny loafers and yacht rock that he was too young for. A former frat boy, he nurtured the paunch growing over his khaki shorts as a status symbol, as though to broadcast, I don’t have to look good to attract women, that’s what the money is for. And when a Jay-Z song came on, he sang all the lyrics—all of them.

You look like the kind of girl who could use a big tip.

It felt like she’d been caught smiling, not knowing she had food in her teeth. She understood: She’d been to college. She’d moved away from home. She worked in an ugly office, but in an office nonetheless. She dressed business casual and still a guy like him could smell her white trash from a mile away and he wanted to make sure she knew she wasn’t fooling anyone.

Her face burned, her pulse bulging in the tender spot at her throat.

He asked if she’d ever had a nice meal. When she said she had, he asked her if she knew what omakase was and said it was so cute when she didn’t. He’d fix that, he said. He could Pretty Woman her, he said. She felt like someone had poured fire down the front of her shirt and her job was to stay chill.

And then, as she was walking by, balancing a tray of fancy drinks on her shoulder for her largest party over there in the corner, what’d he do? He touched her ass cheek. Like it was one of the many things he owned. Like it was nothing. Like her ass was for sale.

She can still remember the sound of cascading glass as the tray tipped and they all hit the floor one after the other after the other, too late to save. The eyes of an entire bar turned on her and he laughed. He fucking laughed.

Right up until she whirled around and clocked him with the one highball glass that had somehow stayed on her tray. The son of a female state senator. Four stitches through the eyebrow. Charges pressed. She had assaulted-assaulted him. What he did was “different.” There was never any excuse for physical violence, don’t they teach that in public schools? And that was the end of that. Her mother said she always knew this would happen. At thirteen, Rhea dented the side of her mother’s car with a travel mug, so obviously this whole thing was inevitable.

Before that day, she wouldn’t even have thought of herself as a woman with a temper, but there it has been ever since, coiled in the basket like she’s keeping a wild animal for a pet. The world keeps it fed and she keeps it contained in case she ever needs it again.

“I’m not trying to argue with you.” Marcus puts up his palms as though he can sense it there, too. “Let’s reset. What’d you want to talk about anyway?”