Ode to Lata by Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla Page B

hour.  I pace around the airport, my Motorola clutched in one hand and CK sunglasses in another. Objects that certify me as part of the L.A. culture.
    A young man walked by, holding a single long-stemmed rose in his hand and rendering me mesmerized. He had rich, dark skin and stirring, mystical eyes.  He could have been Indian or Latino – sometimes it’s hard to tell.  His plaid shirt and baggy blue jeans embody the grunge look that I’ve never been able to get into, but those looks and that rose…irresistible.  Who was it all for?
    He was obviously waiting for someone to arrive too, and they were probably in love.  My own parents had been just that young when they had met and fallen in love.  Could he be anything like my father? This is what he must have looked like when he had pursued my mother and turned her life upside down.  Was his relationship as passionate as theirs had been?  Judging from just that rose, I convinced myself that it must have been.
    My eyes followed his steps until I feared losing sight of him.  Then, without giving it much thought, I found myself trailing him to a lounge bar.  Settled on a barstool, the rose placed carefully on the counter top, he ordered a tap beer.  I watched him from a bench outside the bar.  Watched him.  Fascinated.  His every gesture a testament to his masculinity.  Restraint.  Minimal.  Commanding and without animation, from his strident walk to the way in which he peeled the bills from a wad to pay for the beer.
    Reminding me of the want ads that insisted upon “straight acting” contenders.  The ones that I am humiliated by yet almost exclusively find myself looking for.
    What would it be like to approach this one?  Just walk up to him and smile suggestively.  The way a woman might have when suggesting a come-on.  Ask him who he was and maybe slip him my card.
    How easy it must be for
them
to make such advances.  To do their little mating dance.  No risks involved.  Well, at least not any
real
danger.  At best, they plan to connect.  At worst, he’s flattered.  Or she may tell him she’s already involved and wants to be left alone.  There is no violence.  No fists to bludgeon the face.  No insults inadvertently delivered.  None taken.
    Instead, I relied upon the hope of the reciprocal lingering of his glance.  That most primitive and sophisticated of senses.  Pray that if he
did
turn around, catch my gaze and hesitate before averting his eyes, his pause would not imply animosity or offense.  Or botheration.  That my nervous attempt at a smile would not be countered by a sneer deforming his lips.
    Instead, looked at his back.  Ah, that back.  So much to be said about a man’s back.  To see him from an angle that was his most unassuming.  My eyes danced upon that vast land of plains and curves.  To be able to rest my head in the concave straight of his back and close my eyes and hold him from around his waist and not feel the need to be held.  Possession.
    Roll fantasy.
    We are not strangers.  He needs the beer to calm his nervousness of meeting Mummy for the first time.  We have been seeing each other for quite a while now.  He has brought the rose in the hope of making a good first impression.  Once he has won her over with the same charm that seduced me, he would call her “Mummy” as I do.  His warm, respectful candor and striking good looks disarm any initial hesitation on her part, quickly allaying any suspicions a mother comes armed with when protectively evaluating her child’s mate.  He insists on picking up both her bags, so I have my arms free to put around her; walks a few steps behind us, allowing us a moment of privacy to chatter away in Kutchi and not feel the need to converse in English for his benefit; escorts us to his Jeep or Blazer or one of those masculine cars where he insists she sit in the front seat (the only time he would expect me not to insist on that privilege).  She looks to me