No Ordinary Love Page 17

  Tony nodded. “That will be another song. ‘You see how I am, and that’s all I have to be.’ Thank you.”

  And now I’m supplying him with actual lyrics? “So, where should I meet you for our date?”

  “I will be out here waiting for you.” He walked quickly across Bush Street to the bus bench and sat.

  Trina waited for traffic to thin before crossing Bush Street. “Tony, I’ll be at work for the next four hours,” Trina said. The ER and Naini will have to survive without me tonight because I have a date.

  “It will give me time to write,” Tony said. “I have a lot to write about.”

  “You’ll have to make a reservation at Cielo Azul,” Trina said. “And since Cielo Azul is a fancy place, I will have to go home to change.”

  “I do not want you to change,” Tony said. “I like you the way you are.”

  He’s not being funny. He accepts me for me. “I want to go home to change my clothes. I doubt Cielo Azul will let someone wearing scrubs dine there.”

  “They should let anyone in,” Tony said.

  “It’s a very fancy place,” Trina said. “And I want to look good for you.”

  “You look good,” Tony said. “You are good. Do I look okay?”

  “Hey, you’re Tony Santangelo from Brooklyn,” Trina said. “You can wear anything you want. But first we’ll need a reservation, and I hear reservations are hard to get there, so . . .” Take the hint.

  “I will call Cielo Azul and make a reservation for eight o’clock,” Tony said. He pulled out his phone and pressed the Google app.

  “Hey, that’s a smartphone,” Trina said. She sat beside him, setting the bag beside her.

  “Phones are not smart,” Tony said.

  “And neither are some people who use them.” She stared at the screen. “Wow, you’ve already found Cielo Azul’s Web site. See the number?”

  “Yes.” Tony pressed on the phone number and waited a few seconds. “Hi, my name is Tony Santangelo. I need a reservation for dinner at eight o’clock tonight.”

  Trina pressed the speaker button. “I hope you don’t mind if I listen in.”

  “No.”

  “We have no openings for dinner this evening, sir,” a man said. “We won’t have any openings—”

  “We will only need two chairs and a small table,” Tony interrupted. “Trina is slender.”

  Well, at least he noticed my body. It’s nice to be slender.

  “Sir, this is Cielo Azul,” the man said. “We are booked through the end of next month, sir. If you would like to dine with us—”

  “I have a date with Trina,” Tony said. “She is very pretty. I promised her I would take her to dinner at Cielo Azul.”

  “You should not make promises you can’t keep, sir,” the man said.

  Pompous ass! “What if I told you he was Art E., the famous songwriter?” Trina asked.

  “You’re Art E.,” the man said.

  “Go ahead,” Trina whispered.

  “I am Art E.,” Tony said.

  “I don’t believe either of you,” the man said.

  “Did you see the story about Art E. in the entertainment section of the newspaper this morning?” Trina asked.

  “No,” the man said.

  “I was in the newspaper,” Tony said.

  “Yes,” Trina said. “About you tipping Carlos a thousand dollars. I am sitting next to the subject of that story in front of Saint Francis Memorial.”

  “I don’t believe you for a moment,” the man said.

  “Okay, it’s your loss,” Trina said. “Let’s try Bar Tartine or Aziza.”

  “This is a joke, right?” the man said.

  “I did not tell a joke,” Tony said.

  “Wait a minute,” the man said. “Am I on the radio?”

  “I do not know,” Tony said.

  “This is some prank call, right?” the man said.

  “This is a phone call,” Tony said.

  “You can’t fool me, whoever you are,” the man said. “Please don’t call again.”

  Click.

  “He hung up,” Tony said, putting his phone into his pocket. “I did not make a reservation for us.”

  “We can go somewhere else,” Trina said. “It doesn’t have to be fancy.”

  “I want to take you to the best restaurant in San Francisco,” Tony said.

  “You don’t have to, Tony,” Trina said. “You could take me to a street vendor, and I’d be content. Tell you what. There’s a little Irish pub near where I live called Johnny Foley’s. We can go there. They have two pianos in the Cellar.”

  “I played my piano in the cellar in Cobble Hill,” Tony said. “But they will not be my piano.”

  “Of course not,” Trina said. “You would have had to bring your piano on the airplane.”

  “It would not fit,” Tony said.

  “And if we go to Johnny Foley’s, maybe you could play a song for me.” Maybe my song, the one he wrote for me today.

  “I would like to play a song for you,” Tony said.

  “I look forward to it.” She stood, moved in front of him, and knelt, squeezing both of his hands. “Are you sure you want to wait four hours for me? It might rain.”

  “There is a twenty-percent chance of rain today with winds from the southwest at seven to ten miles per hour,” Tony said. “I watch the Weather Channel.”

  “It’s required viewing around here,” Trina said. “Did you have lunch?”

  “Oh,” Tony said. “You did not eat your lunch at the park.”

  “It’s okay,” Trina said. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes,” Tony said. “But I can wait.”

  “Are you sure?” Trina asked. “There are some decent places to eat around here.”

  “I ate at the BeanStalk Café yesterday,” Tony said. “Hyun Ae made me a messy ham and cheese sandwich. Her name means ‘wise and loving.’”

  “You could go there now,” Trina said.

  “I will wait for you here,” Tony said. “I do not want to miss you again.”

  He’s worried I won’t come back. She intertwined her fingers with his. “I will come back, Tony. I’ll be out as soon as I can.”

  Tony looked down at his lap. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” Trina asked.

  “For holding my hands,” Tony said.

  Has anyone ever held this man’s big, strong hands? I may be the first. “I’m kind of a touchy-feely, hands-on person.”

  “Touchy-feely,” Tony said.

  “I’m a nurse,” Trina said. “I have to touch my patients to help them. I hope you don’t mind if I touch you.”

  “I do not mind,” Tony said. “Your hands are warm and strong and dark brown. I like your color very much. It is like house blend at Angela’s Sweet Treats and Coffee in Williamsburg. It is like Hires Root Beer. It is the color of your eyes.”

  He’s warming my hands and my heart. “I’ll see you in a few hours.” She released his hands and stood.

  “Okay.”

  Trina picked up the bag. “I’ll be back,” she said in her best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice.

  “You are not the Terminator,” Tony said. “You are too nice.”

  Trina laughed. “See you soon, Tony.”

  “Bye.”

  Tony flipped to a new page and wrote: “I am happy. This is good. This is how two people should . . . be.”

  The syllables are wrong, but the words are right. I am happy, this is good, this is how two people should . . . lots of drums . . . be. Naomi will hold this note a long time. Yes. This is good.

  Tony looked at the people around him waiting for the bus.

  Yes, this is very good.

  Trina will be back.

  He looked at his hands.

  She held my hands.

  My hands miss her hands very much.

  22

  Trina sneaked through the halls and took stairways instead of elevators to avoid ES and ES2 and found Naini on the seventh floor
helping a double amputee wearing prostheses navigate a set of wooden stairs.

  “You are doing fine, Mr. Lewis,” Naini said.

  The man’s T-shirt was drenched in sweat. “Has it been ten minutes yet?”

  “No,” Naini said.

  “I’m done,” Mr. Lewis huffed. “I’m toast. I have to rest.”

  Naini helped him to a chair, handing him a towel and a bottle of water. “We’ll try again in a few minutes.”

  “In a few minutes?” Mr. Lewis wheezed. “You’re killing me. Marty never worked me this hard.”

  “It could be why you are still here, Mr. Lewis,” Naini said. She smiled at Trina. “You have escaped.” She saw the shoe bag. “And you are carrying a DSW bag.”

  “You still have that book you wanted me to read, the one about Art E.?” Trina asked.

  “I loaned it to Tina,” Naini said. “What is in the bag, Trina?”

  Lovely. Tina, who has been hitting on me mercilessly since she heard I was getting divorced. “Why’d you loan Tina that book?”

  “She is not a bad person when she is not trying to have sex with you,” Naini said.

  “She’s been hitting on you, too?” Trina asked.

  “I am a sexy Bengali woman,” Naini said. “What man or woman could resist me?”

  “You haven’t . . .”

  Naini laughed. “No, I have not.” She raised her eyebrows. “Not with someone as ordinary as Tina. Now you, on the other hand . . . will now tell me what is in the bag.”

  Trina opened the bag. “Are either of these your size?”

  Naini looked into the bag. “I can squeeze into these and wear two pairs of socks with these.”

  “Take them both,” Trina said.

  “There was a three for the price of one sale?” Naini said.

  “No,” Trina said. “A friend bought me the ones I’m wearing, but he didn’t know my size. He bought three pairs to make sure one pair fit me.”

  “A friend?” Naini smiled. “Who have you been hiding from me and does he have a well-paid brother who wants to satisfy a sexy Bengali woman?”

  “I’ll have to tell you about him and his brother later,” Trina said. “I really need that book.”

  “Why?” Naini asked.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Trina said.

  “I might,” Naini said.

  Trina pulled Naini to a window overlooking Bush Street and pointed down to the bus bench. “There’s a man under the roof of that bench.” She squinted. “You can just see his hiking boots.”

  “He has big feet,” Naini said.

  “Naini,” Trina said, “that man is the composer Art E.”

  “Oh yes, and I am the goddess Lakshmi,” Naini said. “Bow down and worship me. Shower me with lotus flowers.”

  “Nice to meet you, goddess Lakshmi, because that is Art E.” Trina bowed once. “I don’t have any lotus flowers. The shoes will have to do.”

  Naini peered down. “Some random man with big feet gives you shoes, and that makes you think he’s Art E.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Trina said. “I gotta go find Tina.”

  “She always seems to prowl around X-ray,” Naini said. “She has asked me out twice there.”

  “I can’t believe you turned her down,” Trina said.

  “She is not my type,” Naini said. “She is far too clingy and tall.”

  “I’ll go to X-ray first,” Trina said. “Thanks.”

  “Thank you for the shoes,” Naini said.

  “Thank the man on the bench.”

  “I will open a window and shout, ‘Thank you, Art E.’,” Naini said. “No, I will not. They will send me back to India.” She turned to Mr. Lewis. “Rest time is over, Mr. Lewis. Time to climb.”

  Mr. Lewis moaned.

  She winked at Trina. “Go find Tina. I know you will make her day.”

  Trina took a series of stairs to X-ray and found Tina talking up an LPN, whose eyes seemed to be searching for an exit.

  “Hey, Tina.” Please don’t hit on me.

  Tina left the LPN in a flash, and the LPN hurried away. “Hey, Trina.”

  Tina and Trina. Maybe she wants my body so we can rhyme together. “Do you have that Art E. book Naini loaned you?”

  “Yes,” Tina said in a husky voice. “I’ve been meaning to return it to her. That Sponge guy is a trip.”

  I know. I think I’ve met him. He’s on the bus bench outside. “You have it with you?”

  “It’s up in my locker,” Tina said.

  Yes! “Could I get it? Naini knows I want to borrow it.”

  “Sure,” Tina said.

  She’s making eyes at me. “Could I get it now?”

  “Sure,” Tina said, leaning closer and raising a hand.

  Tina wants to pet me now. Trina backed away to the wall. I’m touchy-feely. Tina is strictly feely, and that makes me touchy. “Could we go get it now, please?”

  “I’ll meet you at my locker in ten minutes,” Tina said. “As soon as I unload the old cow in there who broke her hip doing Tai Chi in the park this morning. Can you believe it? Tai Chi.”

  Though I want to know how someone could break a hip doing Tai Chi, I will not get into a conversation with this person. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Tina raised her eyebrows. “I’ll hurry.”

  Trina sat on the bench in front of Tina’s locker for only five minutes before Tina crept into the locker room.

  “I told you I would hurry.” Tina opened her locker and held out the book. “So are you and Naini . . . a couple?”

  Naini is extremely sexy, but I’m not built that way. “No.”

  Tina licked her lower lip. “Are you doing anything tonight? I’ve been hoping to take someone to this little intimate bar—”

  Trina snatched the book. “I have a date.”

  Tina blinked. “Yeah? Who with?”

  The subject of the book I’m holding. “His name is Tony. Thanks for the book.”

  Trina headed straight for the first stall in the nearest staff bathroom, closed the door, and began reading. She skimmed through Tony’s childhood, howled with laughter at Tony’s encounter with Jasmine, skimmed through Tony’s involvement with Naomi Stringer—she is so overexposed—and focused on the last two chapters.

  Tony watches the Weather Channel, set in his routines, shy around women, pulls and twists on his fingers when he’s nervous—that’s Tony all right. “Flinches on contact with people he doesn’t know”—but he let me touch him. I guess he’s comfortable around me. Either that or he thinks he knows me. “Too polite and accepting of others.” That’s not a fault. It’s a virtue. Unlike so many of us, Tony has an open mind. Tony likes Hires Root Beer, memorizes map books, says inappropriate yet truthful things, has the worst handwriting on earth—

  “Trina, are you in here?” Naini called out.

  “Yes,” Trina said, opening the stall door and stepping out.

  “ES and ES2 have been looking for you,” Naini said.

  “How did you find me?” Trina asked.

  “Tina told me,” Naini said. “It seems she was waiting for you to come out of the bathroom for a long time. She is quite a stalker.”

  “I’ve been a little sick,” Trina said.

  “I see,” Naini said. “Are you enjoying the book while you are being ‘sick’?”

  I’d rather enjoy the Sponge in person. “I am.” She handed the book to Naini. “I’m through with it.”

  “You could not have read the entire book,” Naini said.

  “I have been sick a long time,” Trina said. And I’d rather read the man than the book any day. “Where are ES and ES2 now?”

  “On one of their many breaks between breaks,” Naini said. “They’re on two.”

  “Good.”

  Trina went to the nearest waiting area, bought a package of cheese crackers and a can of A&W Root Beer, and took them outside to Tony.

  Tony stood. “We can go now.”

  “
Not yet.” She handed him the crackers and root beer. “I thought you might be hungry and thirsty.”

  “I am,” Tony said. “Thank you.”

  “I know it’s not Hires,” Trina said.

  “It is okay,” Tony said. “I also like Doc’s Root Beer. It is made in the Bronx.”

  “I’ll be out in about two hours,” Trina said.

  “Okay.” Tony sat.

  She put her hand on his shoulder. “How’s your writing coming?”

  Tony showed her a notepad. “I have one notepad left.”

  Trina turned her head to the side. Is that written in English? Tony could be a doctor here. “Do you need more paper? I could get you some.”

  “I will be okay,” Tony said. “My hand is tired.”

  She backed away from the bench. “See you soon.”

  “Yes,” Tony said.

  Instead of going by the nurse’s station on the second floor to check in and possibly run into ES and ES2, Trina stood at a hall phone inside the ER and called psych.

  “Is this Doc Ramsey?” Trina asked.

  “This is she,” Dr. Ramsey said.

  “Hi, this is Trina Woods, and I’m working with an Asperger’s patient.” Well, I am. Sort of.

  “How do you know he has Asperger’s?” Dr. Ramsey asked.

  “He told me,” Trina said.

  “That’s a good sign,” Dr. Ramsey said. “He knows he’s different, and he may have already taken steps to function better socially. Is he high functioning?”

  “Yes.” He’s actually a genius. He has numerous hits and has won three Grammy Awards.

  “What are his strengths as you see them?” Dr. Ramsey asked.

  “Music, definitely.”

  “And his weaknesses?”

  “Shyness mostly,” Trina said. “Fear of physical contact, too.” Talking to women, but that’s not a weakness as long as he only talks to me exclusively.

  “That’s par for the course with Aspies,” Dr. Ramsey said.

  Aspies? What a strange nickname.

  “He sounds fairly well adjusted,” Dr. Ramsey said. “What is he in the hospital for?”

  “Um, a routine checkup.” To check up on me! “Is there anything I should look out for?”

  “Well, there’s stimming and perseverating,” Dr. Ramsey said.

  Those can’t be real words. “What are they?”

  “Asperger’s sufferers use stimming to calm themselves down,” Dr. Ramsey said. “They might pace or rock or make noises that soothe them.”