to Cal, and I can tell you are happy I am on your side. What do you mean, says Cal, I’m just asking Mamalisa here if it’s Shirley Temple time or not! Mama, make him stop, you say to me, scrambling around Cal to come sit with me. I can’t make him do anything, I say, he does what he wants. I don’t like it when he calls me Mama, you say. She doesn’t like it when you call her Mama, I say to Cal. Okay ladies, Ana, I’m sorry, Marie, I apologize, shall we step into the bar? he says, offering us his arms. Ana, can I call your mama Mama? Is that okay with you? he asks you. Yes, you say, Mama’s Mama.
We go out to dinner at La Calle Doce with a friend who says you make him think of the song Jolene. You color a sombrero and eat chips and bar garnishes—orange wedges, maraschino cherries, cucumber slices. You color maracas. My friend buys a song from the mariachis for you. Don Gato: You follow the story as if it is the most important news, and when Don Gato comes back to life at the end your relief is immense.
There is a wishing well in the middle of the dining room, a koi pond lit amber. You ask for a penny and then you sit on the low mosaic tile wall through three entire courses while we talk. After dessert I come to collect you, thinking you have been mesmerized by so many iridescent fish all this time. But your face is troubled. What’s wrong? I say.
Mama, you say, I don’t know what to wish for.
You give me the sweaty penny and say You can have my wish.
Thank you, I say. That’s thoughtful.
I think, my arm around your waist. I close my eyes for effect and I see The Restaurant. I see the way Casey stands when he takes an order at a table. I hear Asami’s beautiful laugh. I’m so glad that in this one exact moment I’m not waiting tables, not locked into that place across town for the night. But I still feel it going on. It’s always there. I flick the coin into the water and open my eyes. We watch it flutter to the bottom, and then we go home.
The Dangler
Shaila has a body to break your mind. You scan it once expecting a flaw, twice not believing there isn’t one, three times for the exhilaration. The way her legs are tan, a real brown sugar tan, her calves all cut up and high, her toes manicured but in that simple nude style, her ass so round, so beautiful. Her slender waist, her perfect all-real breasts floating and pulling the world to her, nipples often showing—just a bit, if she turns—through whatever silk dress she’s wearing. She has long straight dirty blond hair that falls over her face when she checks her phone. She’s gorgeous but in a porchy Alabama way, not the way women in Dallas usually look if they’re trying. Like you look at her and think that must be about how she looked before she went into her big bathroom to get ready.
I’m good enough to get the once-over in the bar at The Restaurant, I see them thinking my smallness is appealing, my ass and face are cute enough, I see them thinking that short haircut might be sexy. I’m always in a backless cocktail dress and heels, I’m flat chested and a tad muscular so theyask me if I’m a dancer and say Call me sometime, let’s have a drink. It took me a while to understand you’re supposed to work that for your money but you can let the willingness fall right off your face when you turn around. It took me a while to understand that of course men fling their entreaties out in swarms, like schools of sperm, hoping one will stick. They’re expecting to be turned down so you shouldn’t feel any obligation.
I’ve seen every woman in Dallas bring her best into the bar but Shaila’s the one who stops time and mouths. She’s easy like a man too which makes them insane. God she’s dirty, they slobber. They’re all after her and she gives them all their turns, letting them outspend each other. Ahmed owns a pizza company that runs catchy snarky ads, he’s a Pakistani New Yorker who knows Danny from the Bronx. He left his wife and
We go out to dinner at La Calle Doce with a friend who says you make him think of the song Jolene. You color a sombrero and eat chips and bar garnishes—orange wedges, maraschino cherries, cucumber slices. You color maracas. My friend buys a song from the mariachis for you. Don Gato: You follow the story as if it is the most important news, and when Don Gato comes back to life at the end your relief is immense.
There is a wishing well in the middle of the dining room, a koi pond lit amber. You ask for a penny and then you sit on the low mosaic tile wall through three entire courses while we talk. After dessert I come to collect you, thinking you have been mesmerized by so many iridescent fish all this time. But your face is troubled. What’s wrong? I say.
Mama, you say, I don’t know what to wish for.
You give me the sweaty penny and say You can have my wish.
Thank you, I say. That’s thoughtful.
I think, my arm around your waist. I close my eyes for effect and I see The Restaurant. I see the way Casey stands when he takes an order at a table. I hear Asami’s beautiful laugh. I’m so glad that in this one exact moment I’m not waiting tables, not locked into that place across town for the night. But I still feel it going on. It’s always there. I flick the coin into the water and open my eyes. We watch it flutter to the bottom, and then we go home.
The Dangler
Shaila has a body to break your mind. You scan it once expecting a flaw, twice not believing there isn’t one, three times for the exhilaration. The way her legs are tan, a real brown sugar tan, her calves all cut up and high, her toes manicured but in that simple nude style, her ass so round, so beautiful. Her slender waist, her perfect all-real breasts floating and pulling the world to her, nipples often showing—just a bit, if she turns—through whatever silk dress she’s wearing. She has long straight dirty blond hair that falls over her face when she checks her phone. She’s gorgeous but in a porchy Alabama way, not the way women in Dallas usually look if they’re trying. Like you look at her and think that must be about how she looked before she went into her big bathroom to get ready.
I’m good enough to get the once-over in the bar at The Restaurant, I see them thinking my smallness is appealing, my ass and face are cute enough, I see them thinking that short haircut might be sexy. I’m always in a backless cocktail dress and heels, I’m flat chested and a tad muscular so theyask me if I’m a dancer and say Call me sometime, let’s have a drink. It took me a while to understand you’re supposed to work that for your money but you can let the willingness fall right off your face when you turn around. It took me a while to understand that of course men fling their entreaties out in swarms, like schools of sperm, hoping one will stick. They’re expecting to be turned down so you shouldn’t feel any obligation.
I’ve seen every woman in Dallas bring her best into the bar but Shaila’s the one who stops time and mouths. She’s easy like a man too which makes them insane. God she’s dirty, they slobber. They’re all after her and she gives them all their turns, letting them outspend each other. Ahmed owns a pizza company that runs catchy snarky ads, he’s a Pakistani New Yorker who knows Danny from the Bronx. He left his wife and
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