Dramatis Personae II

PART II: ANNA

Dramatis Personae II

Rafi sat at the Abington Club bar, with Dimitri standing in front of the fireplace like it was a Hindu god.  The sharp bite of the Torpedo microbrew beer shot Rafi’s imagination like an arrow back to another moment of trouble between Anna and Dimitri. The sun circled over her shoulder that cloudless day in August. Anna looked like a cigarette sweated through, formless and wilted. “Shit!” she screamed, realizing that she would not get to the early childhood Spanish class she would be fired from. “Shit! Mierda!” she cried more softly, wondering what to do and cursing the tar that had left her lungs unable to handle the hilly five-mile bike ride to Chestnut Hill. She flagged a cab, but left the cab in tears when the meter exceeded her last penny.  This was a time of tzuris, trouble, between Anna and Dimitri; Rafi heard it all. She would say, “Intellectually, Dimitri is as wide as a football field and, emotionally, as shallow as the Astroturf.” "Agreed, but he's got a good heart, and he's pulled my stones out of the fire more than once. Beside, if you want to be understood, that's my role in the relationship." Or he would gasp, "She's way over our head, she needs help."  “Yeah, I'm helping her get a shrink without being admitted and fucking deported.” So it was little surprise on that day, stranded in Mt. Airy, all the pain came out trimmed in passion.

Running his rescue errand, Rafi saw her crumpled up under the schist walls at the Lutheran Seminary across the street from Wawa convenience store. She didn't know that if she had gotten there just a little earlier, she could have ridden the #23 up to O'Doodles, the boutique toy store, to teach her class. But she could barely raise her head, and there were no tears to cry.

Without speaking, Rafi cradled Anna’s left arm under her shoulder and helped her to her feet. Despite the puddle dripping off her school T-shirt, Anna collapsed on Rafi’s chest. This hug of gratitude rippled into an embrace of passion when the cocktail of pheromones and sweat hit Rafi's nose. Fast did their lips meet, and faster their arms encircled the other, fingers in search of aching skin. Rafi hadn't even taken his sandals out of the car. For her part, Anna had flip-flops. She preferred to teach the class barefoot, like the children in her classes. So as ankle met ankle, toe met toe, and instep met calf, there flowered the fragrance of what could have been, what Rafi dreamed about, what Anna had even called Rafi a "Puta Madre!" for not pursuing after he lost his job with the Philadelphia School District.

Dimitri did not know any of these things. While Rafi relived all the times they would have become lovers in a sane world, Dimitri rediscovered the meditative nature of the fireplace. "No quiero me hacer un paracaidista," "I don’t want to become a parachutist." Rafi finished his beer, wishing that she had been alone when he had first met her, and that the afternoon saw them become two naked wood sprites, climbing trees and making love, but Anna’s son Gabriel was visiting. Now, there could be three outcomes. First, she would remain in Texas. Rafi would begin with e-mails, move on to calls, use everything in David DeAngelo's and Vin DeCarlo's programs to keep her attracted and off-balance (because, after all, she chose Dimitri because of just why she was now through with him. Wide as a football field, deep as Astroturf). I'd get her to pay for her own ticket back here, but then I'd propose at the station. My right brain to God's ears.

Second, she could fly back up here, and be so pissed off from the drama that they fight and break up. She sleeps in my extra bedroom, until... Third, they forget the ill feelings, keep on hitting the therapy, and muddle through somehow. With my luck, though Rafi, it's gonna be #3. Where's the bettor's windows?

His cell phone battery was dead. Rafi had been fired from a job earlier in the Great Recession, and he had started his work day with no computer and a phone that didn't remember where its charger was. When he started that day, he suffered the same frustration he had when trying to get his child support obligation reduced when he lost his job. By the time the hearing happened, his unemployment started, so he was making enough money that if he paid no utilities, he could be that revenue stream for the Rhinoceros. Segal and he were so much in love once, but then he lost his music career, and she lost her soul. The two events were separated by a time lapse of two years, but the Rhino even admitted to the causality. Both prisoners of that ill-fated bond knew the play Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco. People with brains and souls morphing into monomaniacal half-ton beasts in front of a barely comprehending audience. She admitted to his characterization, but blamed him for beating her soul out of her. Facts, like he never touched her in anger, she threw objects in fury at him, and that their children revered him, were as disposable as truth in politics.

Rafi parked his car in front of his garden. Every plant there served a function to make a little postage stamp environment with three seasons of interest. Tonight, the gardener ignored the garden. A quick kiss to Whisper, who had climbed up to meow out from between the indigo-pink blooms on the hydrangea and the yellow leaves on Rose of Sharon. Unlocking the door and leaning into the pressure of Serena, rubbing against his leg. Dashing into give the cats milk, to drop a pinch of Brightflash's food into the little Betta tank. Ripping the electronics out of the canvas bag with its broken clasp. Hunting for plugs. The charger - oops. stepping on that. The modem. Check. The computer charger. Latex - that's how he'd been saying "later" for twenty years - to the computer charger; it was pretty much charged from work. Charger to cell phone, modem to computer, modem booting. Cell phone charging.

Rafi's messages all pointed to the same thing. Anna's family had forgotten to set the alarm clock, Anna had, in a moment of self-sabotage echoed from her time drinking, had not attended to this at all. Anna saw that she wouldn't get a connecting flight to Philadelphia until very late. She might have to sleep in Atlanta. Anna changes her reservation.

Dimitri cuts off Anna's phone. The whole Garcia clan starts texting, e-mailing, and sending magic owls out for help. Rafi's unsuspecting e-mail full of wishes for happiness whispers into this maelstrom to which it is irrelevant.

Rafi picks up his phone and calls. Anna's phone's back on. "Anna, I hear there's some mierda pesada going down. How can I help?”

This was going to be another day in which nothing counts - until everything does. Raf knew he had been on the exercise bike only by the fact that his butt hurt and since the hot water wasn't on yet, he could smell his man-sweat. Not that this will happen, but I wonder what Anna's reaction would be if she made me like this. Rafi made a desultory gesture, a wave really, at the housework that needed done, and locked into his data. Cell phone on. Computer, check. NPR, must have. Rosetta Stone Russian discs? Loaded.

Rafi was well aware that the possibility of reading texts, checking e-mails, fielding voice-mails, listening to Marti Moss-Coane, and learning Russian at the same time was nil. The research says we don't really multitask, anyway. It's more like sequential minitasking (You heard it here first, thought Rafi. But if I'm doing stuff, I might be able to stop worrying about other stuff. At one of Anna's meetings, someone said that "planning" was different than "projecting." Rafi's crystal ball was looking pretty opaque right now.

OK. First, an e-mail. "Dearest Annochka," he typed, using a Russian diminutive for Anna's Mexican name, "I spoke at length with Dimitri last night. He feels betrayed on two or three levels. If you are coming back, and not staying in Texas, you need to read this e-mail carefully. If you are leaving Dimitri, then remember that I have pledged to you my love and I will bring you back to me.

"Dimitri is a teacher, just like me. He doesn't understand when you do things that wind up costing money. Of course, the car, but I convinced him to segregate drunk Anna from sober Anna. So now, he's focused on the $200 for the flight, and he's in his head over the $200 - it's, how do they say, emblematic. He also is afraid you are getting drunk again. He doesn't believe your aunt. He also thinks that the only thing he can trust you for is to make drama and upset. So you have to regain his trust by spending a lot of time doing normal things and producing predictable results." Rafi wanted to finish with, "If you think you can't handle it, stay there a month, leave him, and marry me. If we're so chingado that we wind up on the street, at least we'll have each other." How he longed to add that.

He grabbed his Kyocera Melo and shot a quick text. "Check your e-mail. I love you." Rafi always spelled out "you," even when texting. "It shows respect," he would say.

Then he e-mailed Dimitri. "She'll be there when you are. Let me know if I can help." Dimitri texted back. "Rafi, I have to handle this on my own. WCB after schl."

The day became a blur from then until a moment that froze like scrawled text on an oil painting.  Rafi texted them both, "I am here if you need me." Within minutes, Dimitri called back

"Everything's OK. In fact, Anna and I are closer than ever. Thank you for all your help."

WTF? Thank you for all your help? If that fucker only knew...