Hello, Rest of My Life by Rick Lenz

Author:Rick Lenz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chromodroid Press
Published: 2021-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

17

THE RED LANTERN INN

I meet Valory Valentine at the Red Lantern at three thirty in the afternoon. Maybe it was only coincidence that she chose the same restaurant where Sam and I had our first date.

Still, why did she say she knew it would have meaning to me?

The Red Lantern is one of the most popular restaurants in this part of the San Fernando Valley. Founded by Joe Capra, Frank’s nephew, in 1956, it has an old Hollywood feel to it. Right now, in the middle of the afternoon, midway between lunch and dinner, it’s doing brisk enough business to keep the staff well occupied.

I tell the slim, pretty girl at the reception podium that I’m meeting a friend. The girl smiles at me in a flirtatious way I haven’t experienced for a long time, hands me a menu, and leads me into the wood-paneled restaurant. It’s darker at this time of day than I would have expected. The booths are as I remember them, covered with shiny red leather. The receptionist leads me to one that could accommodate five people. It’s opposite a wide aisle across from the bar.

Valory is seated facing the bar but looking at me as I approach. She smiles warmly, apparently happy to see me.

I sit on the booth’s semi-circular bench. I’m gripped by déjà vu. The booth’s red leather has a soft, buttery feel to it. I slide around toward her, but not too close.

“What made you choose this place?”

“I like it here,” she says. “And I thought you would.”

“I know, you told me over the phone. What did you mean by that?”

She takes a sip from the Dubonnet with a twist, half finished, in front of her. It feels as if she has no immediate intention to answer my question. She smiles, a distracted Mona Lisa, and nods, looking over my shoulder.

“Would you like a drink?” she says.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you,” I say to a tall, silver-haired waiter with bushy white eyebrows and the dark feel of a gypsy, made darker by an aura of an indentured servant with no hope of living long enough to be granted freedom. He’s scowling at me.

“I don’t usually drink during the day,” I say with a social unease I don’t remember feeling for half a lifetime. “I guess I’ll have a Guinness, if you’ve got that.”

“Draft or bottle.” It’s not a question, kind of a foreshadowing.

“Draft,” I say. He’s already heading back to the bar.

I look at Valory. It floods my mind again how weird this is; I’m in Sam’s and my place with another woman, a woman I’m squeamishly attracted to. I can’t turn around and walk out. I can’t not find out whatever she knows—if she knows anything.

“What did you mean when you said you’ve been praying for me?”

“Anything interesting happen since we spoke?” she says.

I frown. “Yes. Stanley Kubrick gave me some money.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not positive why, but maybe he’s just a kind man. My hopes had gotten built up. … And, uh, he found out that I was trying to make my own movie, the low-budget thing I told you about.

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