The Kiss

1.

The golden lamps aloft warmed the pale hall and gave a shimmering halo to the dun head, as if the house were quietly, subtly spotlighting her as his next trick. But she was the quietest one, modest in a meek way. She'd look around the arch of her laughing, chattering friends, alert to each shift and lapse in the conversation. Yet she seemed to be the center of the enterprise, if not the attention; even the charismatic one, the effortless leader with the red-wine hair, would glance at her every so often and direct words to her. To which the girl would reply with bright, fake favor; when attention shifted away the mask fell, her eyes lowering to the white tablecloth. He took a sip from his flute, calculated, pondered. What was the situation here?

"What do you think?" His fellow, Marco—stage name La Abeja—had followed his gaze. "Will they do?"

"They don't look very serious. I'd say this is just a night-out for them."

"That tall one looks good. Ready."

"Then most likely she is not. Or if she is, this is probably not her kind of trouble."

Chatting casually with La Abeja, he felt something bore at him, as if he were being watched. The dun-haired girl was gaping openly at him, owlish eyes framed by smoky mascara. She wore a becoming blue-green dress, in the style of a summer frock but fancier, meet for a fancy dinner. At first he looked away, affecting casual indifference, giving her a chance to save face. When the staring continued, he slowly met her gaze again. Smiled. She looked away hastily, but not before her milkmaid complexion had turned a radish red.

The transgression of the prank-excursion, if such was one, seemed to be the high point of the evening, and whatever sense of purpose uniting them visibly slackened. The group seemed poised to depart, like a flock of birds in migration, exchanging possible plans and enterprises. The girl half rose, half fell in tandem with this shifting purpose. Again, she was the recipient of some persuasion, half-playful, half-earnest. Her round face showed a frustrated ambivalence. Finally, they departed for good, like bouquet petals scattered by a wayward wind, leaving the girl alone at the table.

Cruel, but typical. Why hadn't she gone along, though? The girl, apparently not biding the solitude, rose and went to the bar to refill her drink. The smallest glance at him, swift as quicksilver, confirmed his course.

"A fish, a fish." La Abeja was crowing as if the triumph were his.

He straightened from the counter. "I'll meet with you later."

"Happy fooling" was his reply.

She did not glance at him when he asked the bartender for another glass, but she stiffened slightly. Was this some sort of hard-to-get play? Or was she new at this, too shy to make the first move? She seemed too young for this sort of play.

"Enjoying your evening?"

She murmured an equivocal answer.

"You look lonely." He brushed away a stray wisp of her hair, careful not to touch her skin. "A crime, for a girl of your pretty looks." Not really. She was plain on the side of frowsy. "I saw you come here with your friends. Are not you spoken for? Should I dare hope, my sweet?"

Her eyes, a smoky gray-green, had followed the path of his hand, entranced. Finally, she shook her head. "I'm alone."

He put some coin on the counter—both drinks, he told the tender, on him. Then he turned to her.

"Two hundred, signorina," he said.

It took her a moment to realize what he meant. "A night?"

He smiled pleasantly. "An hour."

How charmingly expressive, her face, framed by wavy locks of pale brown, whose emotions he could identify with precision: Shame, embarrassment, uncertainty, curiosity. Desire.

"If I say yes?" she asked.

"Then you and I, we can settle accounts over at that chamber over there, in private."

While the clerk reckoned the bills and logged the transaction, he took one of her hands, winding it over his arm. She grasped it, tentatively but with wonder. With his evening suit and her seaweed skirts, standing side by side, they must look, he thought, like a parody of a civil marriage.

"All in order," the clerk said professionally, handing him the key. "Enjoy your evening."