So as best as my siblings and I can understand it:
Despite the flirting beauties, the siege of phone numbers, and the painful pick-up lines, he’s never dated anyone. Always made excuses for why he turned down this one or that.
I remember berating him about it in a poor imitation of his mother’s signature line, “Yah, viejo, por que tu no tiene novia?”
And hearing him parrot, just to get on my nerves “Vieja, por que tu no tiene novio?”
“Because you haven’t found me one." Eye roll. “I keep asking you to introduce me to your hot movie friends and you never do,” shoving him sideways for good measure, watching his eyes laugh even as he rubbed his shoulder in mock aggravation.
“Okay, okay, sorry. I’ll get to it.”
He never did. When I finally got a boyfriend, he had nothing to do with the film industry, and Kattar, who was in LA shooting a movie at the time, didn’t find out until a week or so after.
(anytime you describe something in past tense like a "flashback.")
Narration:
It’s the Frank Sinatra hour, on “Oldie but a Goodie.” The same six songs for sixty minutes straight.
“Fly Me to the Moon” has played seven times by the end of the ‘marathon’ as I pull into the hospital parking lot and ease the car into a shady space by the front door.
The place looks like a wasteland. There are no cars other than mine - though there’s probably separate parking for doctors and staff - nothing in the whole area but a styrofoam container tumbling over the pavement like an urban tumbleweed.
I guess that’s a good thing?
I shove the car door shut with one foot, my arms too full of bags of scones and paper boxes of overly expensive pastry for any bending over, unless I was looking to give the pigeons the best meal of their lives.
I push the ‘lock’ button on my keys twice for good measure, watching the lights flash like the car is blinking back tears.
The sound of my footsteps on the pavement rebounds off of one wall and strikes the other - bouncing back again - a noisy game of echo tennis.
The receptionist just waves me through when I enter the lobby, talking hurriedly to someone on the landline.
I hit the button for the elevator with my elbow and slide between the metal doors at the same time as a tall woman in a blue scrub with extremely gray hair. She smiles at me grimly.
