My Father's Wives by Mike Greenberg

Author:Mike Greenberg [Greenberg, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

SATURDAY

ALCOHOL AND ALTITUDE DO not mix. I slept hard but badly and awoke thirsty, head aching. It was just before six when I pulled open the blinds. When the sunlight flooded the room my aches instantly disappeared, replaced by a powerful surge of energy. The mountain just outside the window beckoned, lush and green. I stumbled out to the street in rumpled gym clothes, looking for breakfast. Behind the counter at Paradise Bakery I found a curvaceous young blonde, no more than twenty, with a warm smile and a steel rod embedded in her tongue. “Top of the morning!” she said. Her gleeful expression and youthful innocence stood in stark contrast to her piercing.

“That must have hurt,” I said.

“It did,” she replied, her eyes widening, “but it was soooo worth it.”

Something inside me stirred. “I need coffee,” I said, “badly.”

“I only make it well,” she said. “If you want it served badly you’ll have to go somewhere else.”

“What else do you serve well? I’m starving.”

She glanced at the chalkboard above her head. “Everything is fresh,” she said. “Egg and cheese on a bagel?”

“Sounds terrific.”

She spun on her heel and disappeared into the rear, emerging a moment later with a bagel in one hand and a giant knife in the other. “You can come around back and help yourself to the coffee if you like,” she said. “We don’t open until seven.”

I looked at my watch. “That’s a half hour. I’m sorry if I’m causing you any trouble.”

She stopped midslice and stared hard into my eyes. “Do I look troubled?”

“You do not.”

“So, get some coffee.”

I selected the largest of the three cups and filled it to the rim with black coffee, rich in color and texture. “This is wonderful,” I said after a first sip. “It smells better than any coffee I can ever remember.”

“It’s the altitude,” she said. “Everything smells better in the mountains. Where are you in from?”

“Is it that obvious I’m not local?”

She just laughed.

“New York,” I said.

“Me too.”

“Really?” I was surprised. “What part?”

“Upper west,” she said. “Parents split when I was six, mom moved to New Rochelle. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I came out here the week after I graduated high school.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Well, I’m legal, if that’s what you mean,” she said with mischievous eyes.

Behind her, the microwave issued a ding to announce the readiness of my eggs.

“It isn’t,” I said. “I swear.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said. “But I’m nineteen, either way.”

We stood in silence as she completed my sandwich and wrapped it in wax paper. I sipped the black coffee. Then she came from behind the counter to hand me my breakfast, staring directly into my face, and it was as though there was no air in the room, nothing separating us at all. I was sure if I took a single step toward her there would be no stopping us. I didn’t, of course, because I am a married man and I don’t do that sort of thing, even when naked supermodels are pulling me into a bathtub.

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