Street Dreams (20 page)

The route to Koby’s place was circuitous, requiring me to snake through unfamiliar areas of Los Feliz. We had arranged to
meet for dinner at a small Italian restaurant, a couple of miles from his house—good and fine, except I was four hours early.
If he wasn’t home, well, no big whoop. Maybe I’d drop in on my little sweetie still resting in the baby nursery at Mid-City
Peds, pending the outcome of the court custody hearing. I sure hoped the infant wound up with Louise, who
really
wanted her. The woman was a saint and I hoped a judge was smart enough to see that.

I started the climb into the hills of Silver Lake. The day was bright and beautiful, and when the reservoir came into view,
iridescent cobalt against the cityscape, my spirits lifted. There was a whole big world out there, my perspective reminded
me. It was up to me to make the most of it.

Koby’s ten-year-old Toyota was in the driveway. I parked curb-side, got out, and skipped to the front door, where I rang the
bell. It was one of those chimes that couldn’t be heard from the outside. When there was no response, I knocked hard and waited.

After a minute of loitering, I figured he had probably taken a bike ride or a walk. The day was certainly gorgeous enough.
I went around to the back metal gate that spanned the driveway. It was rectangular, about five feet tall, and easily scalable.
Feeling a bit like a Peeping Thomasina, I gripped the iron top bar and hoisted myself up, peering down his driveway. Toward
the back, I could make out an open door, from which I heard the clipped notes of reggae music. The gate latch was padlocked,
but that didn’t stop me. I flung myself over the top with minimum effort.

The music got louder as I approached the door, walking along the right side of his house. It was planted with espaliered citrus
trees—vines of green weaving through white lattice. The leafy branches were frosted with perfumed white blossoms, and a gentle
breeze blew through smogless skies. I was about to knock on the open door, but instead I elected to peer inside.

The room was devoid of conventional furniture, holding only a workbench with a circular saw. Koby was kneeling on all fours,
hand-sanding the floor, dust flying every which way. He wore a yellow tank top and jeans, pads protecting his knees, and a
surgical mask covering his nose and mouth. His well-defined muscles gleamed with sweat, as if sculpted and oiled. If I had
a
real
vivid imagination, I could have added some jazz. Then the setting would have made a perfect backdrop for a blue movie.

I watched him for several moments, then rapped forcefully on the door. He looked up, turned to the source of the sound, then
leaped to his feet, as graceful as a panther. He pulled his mask off his face and turned down the music. With Bob Marley in
retreat, I heard the stream of fast patter/talk that could only come from a sports announcer. His face registered confusion.

“What time is it?” he said.

“I’m early,” I told him. “Very early.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Just fine.” I walked inside the room. He was repairing the floor-boards, replacing the rotted pieces with fresh strips of
wood. The room was small but held a beautiful backyard view: the red-tipped leaves of rosebushes not far from bloom, beyond
the bushes a glimpse of the lake. There was sawdust all over the place. It speckled his dark skin like freckles.

“You do your own gardening as well?”

His eyes followed mine out the back window. “The yard is tiny—mostly the rosebushes. I love the roses. In a week or two, it
should fill with flowers.”

“It must be beautiful.”

“It is very beautiful.”

I looked at the repairs he had done. The new strips fit perfectly into the running-board pattern. In the corner of the room
was a small TV resting on the floor. The Lakers game was on. Conference play-offs.

I pointed to the TV. “What’s the score?”

“Lakers are up by three, two minutes to go to the end of the second quarter. Lawrence Funderburke just scored off the bench
for the Kings. They’ve been trading baskets. It’s going to be close.”

I tapped my foot. “I’m restless. Need any help?”

“If you give me about twenty minutes to clean up this mess, and another twenty minutes to clean up myself, we can do something
together.”

“You’ll miss the game then.”

“They will survive without my suggestions.”

“Really, I don’t mind helping out.” I looked at the workbench. “I wouldn’t trust myself with the circular saw, but I can sand
with the best of them.”

“You’ve done woodwork before?”

“I used to help my dad out when he did the add-ons. He’s one of those handy guys.” I regarded his repairs with admiration.
“Probably not unlike yourself. Are you a perfectionist, too?”

Koby shrugged. “Is there any other way?”

“Now
that
sounds like my father.” I continued to gaze outside. “I saw my father this morning. I asked him for help on a case, and he
came through. It was productive. We got some good information. I would have loved to act on it right away, but I promised
him that I’d wait until the lead detective got back from his weekend vacation.”

“Why did you promise to wait?”

“Because technically, it’s his case.” I turned to face him. “There’s this thing in LAPD. You’ve got to follow protocol. I
have a little problem with that.”

“It’s a tightrope,” Koby said. “To think independently—but not
too
independently.”

“That sums it up.”

“It is the same in my field. I am the one to spot the first signs of trouble, but I’m not supposed to act without consultation.
I must talk to the doctor; I must talk to the psychologist. I consult with the physical therapist, the occupational therapist,
the play therapist, and if the kids are older, the speech therapist, the educational therapist, and the reading therapist.
In the end”—he smiled—“I use my own judgment. I was a medic in the army. If it’s an emergency, I do what I have to do.”

“Does it get you into trouble?”

“No, because most of the time, I do the consults. I even see the point of the consults. It slows me down. In medicine, to
be too quick is often not good.”

“Are you always this rational?”

“Most of the time, yes.”

“That’s also like my dad. Rational.”

“Why do you sneer when you say that?”

I laughed. “I apologize. It is a compliment—even though I’m saying it like it was an insult. My dad is very rational. It makes
him really good at what he does.”

Koby caught my eye. “And how is he as a father?”

“He’s … very caring. In general, I’d say we have a good relationship.”

“I enjoyed meeting him.”

Suave, I thought. The man was diplomatic. I said, “He was a bit miffed with me.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t tell him you were black.”

“The color of my skin is important to him?”

“No. I think he was just taken aback. On the positive side, he thought that you were a good guy.”

“That sounds promising. Unless you don’t like good guys.”

“No, I like good guys very much. I just haven’t done a very good job of choosing them in the past.”

Koby was quiet.

“You don’t know me,” I said.

“But isn’t that what dating is for?”

I looked at the flowerless rosebushes. “True.”

Koby studied his dust-coated hands. “So … this lack of good guys … Is there like an ex-husband in the picture?”

“No … thank God for that.”

“So you … you’ve never been married or …”

I studied his quizzical face. “No, I’ve never been married. No kids, either. I’m a free agent. What about you? Have you ever
been married?”

He shook his head, but his eyes seemed rife with relief. “Cindy, there’s nothing wrong with experimenting, no? That is what
youth is for. And it’s good that both of us have never been married. One less piece of baggage.”

“I’ve still got plenty to deal with.”

“Don’t we all.”

Abruptly, he took my face in his hands and kissed me hard. When I didn’t object, he kissed me again, this time long and slow,
his teeth nibbling my lips, his tongue dancing against mine. It was a kiss filled with lust and desire, a kiss that was hot
and vibrant. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me into his body, his hands sweeping over my rear, his erection
digging into my hip. I didn’t mean to do it, but the next thing I knew, I was stoking the engine, so to speak.

Not that it mattered, but the man was more than proportional.

Who the hell was I kidding?

It mattered.

He closed his eyes and moaned. “I am sweaty.”

“You smell like a man,” I told him. “That’s just fine with me.”

Eventually, he did shower. We both did … together … an act almost as intimate as the ones that preceded it. As he soaped my
back, he kissed the nape of my neck, a sinewy arm snaking around me, his hand resting on my breast. I looked at his fingers,
at his nutmeg-colored digits against my pale, freckled complexion, and for a moment, I fantasized about the progeny we’d produce—café
au lait skin, with brown eyes and thick, thick hair. I always hated my complexion, and welcomed the thought of it changing
in the next generation.

I got out first, toweling dry as I pulled off my shower cap, shaking out my hair. I shivered as water evaporated off my skin,
then slipped under the crumpled sheets to get warm and catch my breath.

Several minutes later, he entered the room stark naked and eyed me in the bed.

“I’m just resting,” I told him. “I’m spent. At least, for a couple of hours.”

He picked up the watch on his nightstand, then slipped it on his wrist—still nude but now he could tell time. “Hungry?”

I sat up, letting the sheet fall from my breasts. “Actually, I am.”

His topaz eyes were still on my body. But he said, “I’ll get dressed then.”

He was one of those lucky people who looked great in or out of clothing, and I enjoyed watching him move. He opened a door
to a tiny closet, his shirts hanging neatly inside. He stared at the array for almost a minute—something a woman would do—then
picked out two shirts to show me. One was lilac, the other was tomato red.

“What color pants?” I asked.

“Black.”

I thought a moment. “The red.”

He placed the lilac shirt back in the closet. “Red to match your hair.”

“Then you’d need orange.”

He slipped the shirt on. “Not orange. The shirt would be the color of a sunset—brilliant and fiery with copper—and even that
wouldn’t capture it.”

I stared at him shocked. “That was beautiful.”

He beamed. “Thank you. It took me twenty minutes to get the words right.”

I threw a pillow at him. He blocked it with an elbow. “Isn’t it the thought that counts?”

“Yes, that is worth something.”

“Worth a lot. I used a thesaurus. English isn’t my native language.”

“Don’t give me that. You’re totally fluent.”

He put on Jockeys, then slid into a pair of black jeans. “Now
that
is a very good compliment.”

His face was dead serious. I had hit something important. “How’d you learn?”

“I learned at first in Ethiopia, more in Israel, but mostly from my stepmother.” He buttoned his shirt. “She is English speaking
… from Canada. I make her speak the language to me because I want to speak
real
English. I saw America as my ticket to freedom. I think my vocabulary is pretty good.”

“It’s
excellent,
Koby.” I got up and started to dress. “I have Ivy League friends who don’t sound nearly as educated as you do.”

“Thank you, that means very much to me because I work very hard on it. Now I must work on my spelling. Other than medical
terms, my English spelling is absolutely atrocious.”

“My spelling is atrocious and English is my native language.”

He smiled. “That is nice for you to say. English is the third alphabet I learned. There is little in common between Amharic
and Hebrew, although both are Semitic languages, and English is totally different. When I first get here, I could speak and
understand quite well, but I couldn’t read much except medical texts and that is only because the medical language in Hebrew
is borrowed from English. There is an expression in Hebrew—to break your teeth, meaning to do a hard thing. I used to break
my teeth reading the newspapers. Now I can read the words, but I still cannot spell them. That is the next hurdle.”

I tucked my blouse into my pants and began putting on my boots. “You’re very … driven, aren’t you?”

“You are first discovering this?”

I laughed and shook my head.

“What?” he asked.

“I know I keep harping on this, but”—I laughed again—“you are so like my father—just thinner and darker.”

“Don’t they say that girls are attracted to their fathers, as boys are attracted to their mothers?” He sat down next to me.
“Now, my mother died when I was young. She is not so clear in my mind. So I can create whatever fiction I want.”

“What’s your stepmother like?”

He thought a moment. “Tall … strong … brown eyes … pale skin.”