my word; ain’t you the smarty-pants?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“My cousin, Dzhane, is a smarty-pants too.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, sir, he was the son of a sharecropper in Alabama and got accepted to Auburn University. His SAT scores totaled 1315 even though he only got as far as ninth grade in school when he quit to work full-time on the farm.”
“Very impressive, Letitia.”
“But he never went to Auburn. He didn’t have any money, and he wasn’t a football or basketball player, so they wouldn’t give him a scholarship.”
“That’s a shame.”
“But Dzhane kept the acceptance letter the university sent him. Seven years later he showed it to his boss at the toy factory he got hired to work on the assembly line at. Like you, Eddie, the guy was impressed too.”
“I don’t wonder.”
“A few months later, a slot opened up and my cousin got promoted to foreman. Today Dzhane is the plant supervisor.”
“I’m glad.”
“Now me, Letitia Jones, I wasn’t no smarty-pants so I went to the school of hard-knocks out in Brownsville. I barely graduated.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down erratically. “I was almost expelled from Yale in my senior year.”
“Why?”
“I had a few too many drinks at a fraternity party and took a joy ride in a campus vehicle. I ended up crashing into the Dean of Arts and Sciences’ house, into his porch to be precise.”
“Yikes!”
“Unfortunately, the Dean and his wife were having cocktails on the porch at the time.”
“Double yikes!”
“And their daughter was in the rear seat, drunk as a skunk … and naked as the day she was born.”
“Oh, Lordy, that was a doozy of a mess you got yourself into!”
He dropped his head. “I was always a disappointment to my family, Letitia, I’d be a shoe-in for the lifetime-achievement-award for fuck-ups.”
“You can’t un-do the past, sugar, what’s done is done.”
“I know.”
“My father was strict Orthodox and always wore a Yarmulke; he wanted a ‘Steady Eddie’ for his only son and he ended up with me instead.”
“My daddy ached for three sons and he ended up with three daughters; if that wasn’t enough of a disappointment, two of us got knocked up as teenagers.”
“I’ve got many regrets, Letitia.”
She patted his arm. “I’m sure you had the best of intentions.”
“My father used to say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”
“I’m a Bible-thumping, Holy-Roller, Gospel-singing, Pentecostal, Born–Again, Southern Christian Baptist, God-fearing sinner. We know all about damnation and the eternally burning fires of Hell.”
“That’s a lot of things to be, Letitia.”
“What are you?”
“I’m a professional cynic and a confirmed skeptic; I don’t believe in anything.”
She frowned. “Tell me, Eddie, what were your dreams for yourself when you were young?”
He gazed out at the river. “I … I always lived in the here and now, Letitia, I never thought too far into the future.”
“You must’ve wanted to be something when you grew up.”
“Hmm.”
“A fireman, a jet pilot, a basketball player; what?”
He rotated the gold signet ring on his pinky. “I can’t remember wanting to be anything … and PRESTO! … that’s how it turned out.”
She sighed softly.
“What did you want to be, Letitia?”
“You’ll laugh if I tell you.”
“I promise I won’t.”
“You will, Eddie, but I’ll tell you anyway.” Her face brightened and he heard longing in her voice. “I wanted to be a prima ballerina since I was four years old, I wanted to dance Swan Lake.”
“As in that movie with Natalie Portman?”
She nodded. “I saw Black Swan ten times.”
He placed his hand tenderly on hers. “That was a very big dream.”
She lowered her eyes. “Can you imagine me, a fat slob in tights, pirouetting on the stage at Lincoln Center?”
“I’d pay to see it.”
She pushed him away roughly. “You’re a damn fool!”
“You’re not the first person to tell me that.”
“It’s time you started going to temple, Eddie, it could turn your life around.”
“I am what I am.”
“And you need to get off the street.”
“I’m not going into a shelter; if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“No. You can sleep in my apartment out in Bed-Stuy, Eddie, I got an extra bed and I wouldn’t charge you nothing.”
“Thanks, Letitia, it’s kind of you, but no thanks.”
“You’d be doing me a favor. I’ve been without a man so long my neighbors are beginning to think I’m a lesbian. Having you stay with me would be a boost for my reputation.”
He glanced about to make certain he was out of earshot of other people on the pier and whispered. “I might be gay myself.”
She began to laugh so hard into her fingers that the fat rolls on her midriff quivered and a tear rolled down her dark cheek.
“I’m serious, Letitia, it worries me. The other day I caught myself staring at young guys.”
“You were just daydreaming about being young again, Eddie, that’s all that was. I’ve done the same when I see slim, sexy gals. They remind me of what I used to look like 135 pounds ago.”
“I dunno.”
“Honey
