I was leaving my office to go home and get ready for my dinner date with the man my mother had pinned all her hopes for my future on when the phone rang. Without considering the ramifications, I picked up. Big mistake. The caller was Kyle, who was bordering on hysteria because a mosquito had bitten him on the arm and he was absolutely sure that he’d contracted the West Nile Virus. The poor man was having a full-blown anxiety attack, complete with heart palpitations and shortness of breath, so I had to talk him down. When we finally hung up forty-five minutes later, he’d downgraded his imaginary disease to malaria, which I told him could be treated with medication and would not lead to his horrifically painful death by encephalitis.
Running short on time and not having a change of clothes with me, I was forced to work with what I had. I refreshed my makeup in my office’s small bathroom, then released my hair from the clip I’d pulled it back with and did my best to finger-fluff the wavy tresses into some sort of a soft, tousled style. Sadly, I could only do so much with what I was wearing. In an effort to make my outfit look less business-like, I removed the jacket that matched my black cotton pique skirt. The turquoise silk stretch top I had on underneath was curve-hugging and bared some skin, so exposing it made me feel a bit more feminine and date-ready. I glanced down at my feet and groaned. My shoes were all wrong for a night out on the town; there was just nothing sexy about functional black pumps. I promised myself that if Tony and I made it to date number two, I’d wow him with some flirty, pedicure-flaunting footwear then.
As I raced up I-95, I tried to call Tony on my cell to let him know I was running behind. When I realized that the damn thing was dead because I’d forgotten to recharge its battery, I was so frustrated that I hurled the phone at the dashboard, taking a chunk out of the vinyl right above the speedometer. My crappy luck continued as I was forced to maneuver my way around not one, but two, accidents on the freeway. Fortunately, they were both confined to a single lane, so traffic wasn’t backed up; it just moved slowly for a few miles due to everyone gawking at the police cars and tow trucks.
It was a quarter past seven when I reached the seafood place on Las Olas Boulevard where I’d arranged to meet Tony, which not only made me late, but guaranteed me getting an earful from my mother.
‘You’ve disgraced the family with your tardiness! I’ll never be able to look Marisol in the eye again, not when you’ve treated her son so shamefully. What’s wrong with you? I set you up with el hombre perfecto, and you let a silly, unimportant thing like your job interfere. Ay, I give up! Die alone! See if I care!’
I valet parked because it would have taken me another hour to find an empty spot in that trendy part of town on a Friday night. Although it was still early, the street was already bustling with cars and people, who were there to eat, drink, and get their party on at the numerous bars, clubs, and restaurants.
Once inside The Reef, I scanned the crowded waiting area, looking for a single man with an irritated expression. I saw one who fit the bill, standing by a large potted palm near the hostess station. Remembering my mother’s words, I plastered a ‘friendly, but not too friendly’ smile on my face and made my way over to him.
“Tony?” I queried when I was close enough for him to hear me.
“That’s me. You must be Pilar.”
“Yes. I’m so sorry I’m late. I got held up with a patient. I tried to call, but my cell wasn’t working.”
“Not a problem. I’m just glad you made it.”
He seemed nice, although he wasn’t really my type physically. I’d always been attracted to men who were tall, and Tony was on the short side. However, what he lacked in height, he more than made up for in width. His body was incredibly bulky. Like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson bulky. The muscles of his upper torso were straining so hard against the fabric of his fitted shirt that it looked as though it might burst open at the seams. And when he held out his hand to shake mine, the veins on the inside of his arm looked as though they were pulsating.
The hostess sat us at a cozy table for two on the far side of the main dining room, which was decorated in soothing shades of blue. There were candles and fresh flowers on the table, and the music being piped in above our heads was something jazzy and subdued.
“This is lovely,” I complimented Tony on his choice of restaurants. “Have you been here before?”
He rubbed the dark stubble on his head. Did I mention that Tony’s head was shaved? He probably hadn’t taken a razor to it in a few days, so there was a little bit of regrowth sprouting up. I found myself remembering the Chia Pet I’d used for a science experiment in the third grade. I’d called him ‘Ramon,’ and he’d gotten me an A-, which I’d been very proud of.
“Yeah, a couple of times. They’ve got a good menu here. Lots of healthy food. Most of your fancier restaurants only serve entrees that are high in trans fat. They cook their meat in hydrogenated oil, then smother it in cholesterol-rich sauces and gravies. They even load their vegetables down with grease.” Ramon, I mean Tony, made a disgusted face.
“I guess that you really have to watch your diet since you work out so much?”
“I work out a minimum of four hours a day, mostly doing weight training and cardio, which requires mega-energy, so I’m on a 3500 calorie diet. How many calories do you consume daily?”
What a strange first date conversation! Was his next question going to be, ‘How much do you weigh?’ If so, I was leaving.
“I have no idea.”
“Guess,” he persisted.
“Um, 1800?” I just threw out a number that sounded good.
“And what’s your exercise regimen like?”
“Well, I don’t really have a regimen. I do yoga when I can, and I walk a lot.”
Tony shook his head. “That’s just sad. I wouldn’t even call that exercise.”
“I suppose I could do more, but I work such long hours . . .”
“Excuses, excuses. If you don’t take care of your body, how can you expect your body to take care of you?”
“What can I get you to drink?” An extremely perky waitress suddenly appeared at our table.
“We’re ready to place our dinner order,” Tony replied.
We were? I hadn’t even looked at my menu yet.
“Ma’am?” the young server looked at me.
“Why don’t you let me order for both of us?” my date suggested.
I smiled my acquiescence, although I feared that I was going to end up with some boring, low-carb, no-fat, doesn’t-have-any-taste-or-flavor meal.
“We’ll have the portabello mushrooms with low-fat vinaigrette for our appetizer, and for our entree, the red snapper without the caper sauce. Please, tell the chef not to use any butter in the cooking of the fish. As for the vegetables, bring us some sweet potatoes and steamed broccoli.”
Broccoli? Yuck. I hated broccoli.
“And to drink?”
“Bottled water. No bubbles.”
Apparently, carbonation was too wild and crazy for Tony.
“As I was saying, you need to get motivated about exercise,” he continued once the waitress was gone. “I suggest getting a personal trainer.”
“Is that what you do at your health clubs?”
“That’s right. But I mostly train serious bodybuilders. You need to get a trainer who specializes in women. I plan to have several different types of trainers, each with their own area of expertise, at the location I’m opening in Hialeah later this summer.”
“You’re opening a third club? That’s great!” I enthused. “Business must be booming.”
“The Ripped gyms here in Lauderdale are extremely profitable. And my business partner has been encouraging me to expand to the south since everyone in Miami is so fitness-conscious.”
The name of his gyms was Ripped? Nothing subtle about that.
Our waitress returned with a bottle of Panna and a basket of bread, which she sat down in front of me. I reached for a sourdough roll and met with a disapproving stare from Tony.
“White flour is not your friend,” he told me.
“I don’t know. We’ve had some really good times together,” I joked in return.
Tony didn’t even crack a smile. He obviously took the subject of nutrition very seriously.
“Try the whole wheat.” He placed a different roll on my bread plate, which seemed rather presumptuous to me.
“The secret to eating carbs without gaining weight is to eat good carbs. Brown breads and pastas, long grain rice, sweet potatoes . . . you want to avoid anything that’s white.”
Please, like any self-respecting girl with a drop of Cuban blood in her would give up black beans and white rice? Was he nuts?
Humoring him, I took a bite of my wheat roll. It was dry and could have really benefited from a nice glob of butter, but I didn’t want to get another lecture on the evils of fat.
“You should really get your body fat checked.”
Great. I was going to get the lecture anyway.
“I’m sure I’m in the normal range.”
“Do you even know what the normal range is?”
What was this? A pop quiz? “40%?”
“No, a woman’s body fat should be between 25 and 31%. It’s lower for men - 18 to 25%. I’m in the best shape of my life right now, and I’m at 18.75%.”
“Good for you,” I muttered and removed what appeared to be some kind of a corn muffin from the bread basket.
“Too much sugar,” Tony warned. “And you know what sugar is . . .”
Sweet? Delicious? Fun?
“Empty calories. Your body gets absolutely no benefits from sugar, which is, big surprise, white. There’s nothing good about foods that are white.”
Tony was starting to sound like a food racist. I put the corn muffin back, even though I was starving, and wondered if my date would have any objection to me chewing on my napkin? I looked down at the piece of fabric in my lap. It was white, of course.
Tony reached across the table and took my hand. At first, I thought that he was trying to be romantic, but he disabused me of that silly notion when he lifted my arm up and inspected it like a side of beef.
“Your triceps need a lot of work. That’s a problem area for most women. After 30, those muscles start to lose tone. If you don’t take some preventative measures now, you’re going to have nothing but flabby skin here,” he poked the flesh on the underside of my arm, “in another 5 years or so.”
“I’m not 30 yet.” There was an edge to my voice as I pulled my manhandled limb back.
He shrugged. “Close enough. It’s just a matter of time before gravity catches up with you.”
If our server hadn’t brought out our appetizer just then, I probably would have decked him.
While I tried to enjoy the mushrooms, Tony blathered on about deltoids and triglycerides and circuit training and . . . I was officially bored by the time the fish arrived and mentally checked out of my date, surreptitiously glancing around the room to see if people at other tables were having a better time than I was.
There was a nicely dressed older couple behind Tony, who were toasting each other with champagne. Maybe they were celebrating an anniversary? They looked so happy and in love . . . like there was no place else on Earth they’d rather be. Due to my circumstances, I had a hard time relating to that feeling.
Looking past the blissful marrieds, I saw a table populated with five women. They were laughing and sharing a plate of fried calamari drenched in marinara sauce, which beat the hell out of plain grilled fish. I was tempted to get up and join them.
At the table to the ladies’ right sat two men, both wearing rimless glasses and suits, who were deeply engrossed in conversation. I wondered what they were talking about. Business? Politics? Their golf games? Which superhero had the hottest girlfriend?
A hostess was leading a man with dark, thinning hair and a bleached blonde in an obscenely tight red dress to a table in the opposite corner of the dining room. He had his hand draped possessively over her shoulders, and she was whispering in his ear (naughty nothings, no doubt.) I wasn’t particularly interested in middle-aged men and their plastic surgery-enhanced bimbettes, but there was something about him that struck me as familiar. So, I watched as they took their seats. From my vantage point, I could only see the mystery man’s profile. He was quite handsy with his companion, stroking her bare forearm, touching her cheek, and finally, squeezing her too-tan thigh, which was almost entirely exposed by her short skirt. She reciprocated by nibbling on his neck. He adjusted his position in order to give her better access to the area behind his ear, and that’s when I finally got a good look at his face . . . with a gasp, I dropped my fork.
“I know. It’s shocking, isn’t it?” Tony obviously thought that I was reacting to something he’d just said.
I nodded my head uncertainly.
“With that high a percentage of this country’s population being overweight or obese, America is the fattest country in the world, and it’s just going to get worse if people don’t start learning discipline. Discipline in their diets, and discipline in sticking to an exercise plan.”
“Uh huh,” I half-heartedly agreed before turning my attention back to the PDA-crazy pair across the room.
I knew the man because he was a patient of mine. Actually, he and his wife, who was a demure, sweet-faced brunette, not a platinum-haired hoochie mama, were patients of mine. They’d been coming to me for marital counseling for about three months. Annette had been concerned that after 16 years of marriage, her husband had lost interest in her. Joe had assured her repeatedly over the course of our sessions that that wasn’t true, that he’d just been preoccupied with work, that he still loved and appreciated her even if he didn’t tell her or show her often enough. Bastard, I fumed. I should have known that he was cheating on his poor trusting wife.
“Pilar?” Tony interrupted my reverie.
“Hmmmmm?”
“I asked if you wanted me to check your body fat after we’re finished eating? I’ve got some calipers in the car. With a simple pinch test, I can determine what your number is. Then, you’ll know how many percentage points you’ve got to lose when you start with your trainer. It’s always helpful to have a goal in exercise.”
A pinch test? Was this the equivalent of Tony asking me if I wanted to see his etchings? UGH Forget it. I’d had enough of this guy and his fitness-mania.
“Thanks, but I don’t think so. If you’ll excuse me, I see a business acquaintance and I need to say hello.”
“But . . .,” Tony started to protest, but I was gone before he could finish.
With fiery indignation, I marched over to Joe’s table. He didn’t see me approach because he was too busy sucking on his girlfriend’s fingers.
“Mr. Scolari, what a surprise!” I greeted him.
He dropped the blonde’s hand like it was a ticking bomb and lifted his eyes guiltily to me. “D-d-doctor Alvarez, what are you doing in Fort Lauderdale?”
I could read his thoughts as clearly as if they were tattooed on his forehead. ‘I sneak off to another city to be with my mistress so that I don’t run the risk of running into anyone I know, and I still get busted?’
“I’m here on a date. And you?” I couldn’t wait to hear what lie he would come up with.
“Um.” He looked helplessly at the woman to his left, and she just stared back at him blankly. The two of them were apparently a real braintrust.
Fidgeting with the collar of his dress shirt as though it were suddenly strangling him, Joe said, “Candy, uh, Mrs. Lowenstein, is a client of mine, and she’s, uh, given my company a lot of referrals, so I’m, uh, treating her to dinner. It’s just my way of saying, ‘Thank you.’”
“Buy a lot of pool supplies, do you?” I addressed Candy.
“Oh, sure,” she replied in the squeakiest voice my ears had ever had the misfortune of hearing. She sounded like Minnie Mouse on helium. “My husband and I have two pools at our house in South Beach. One inside, and one out. Of course, I’m the only one who uses them because Henry’s been stuck in bed since his last heart attack.”
So, she was some sick, old guy’s trophy wife? Color me shocked. “Poor Henry,” I sympathized with the cuckolded man.
“What’s that?” I pointed to a jewelry box that was sitting in front of the gold digger.
“It’s from Joey. Look.” She opened the box with hands that were adorned with an assortment of garishly large rings and offered it to me.
“An emerald pendant,” I murmured as I surveyed the green stone. I knew very little about jewelry (much to my mother’s dismay), but it looked expensive.
“Emerald is my birthstone. Isn’t that sweet?” Candy squeezed “Joey’s” arm, and he sank down in his chair, looking like he might be sick.
I wondered when he’d last given his dutiful wife a nice piece of jewelry. It certainly hadn’t been on her birthday. During a recent therapy session, Annette had burst into tears after telling me that Joe had completely forgotten her 40th. He hadn’t even bought her a card. Bastard.
“Sweet’s probably not the word I’d use,” I grumbled and returned the pendant to its undeserving owner. “I should get back to my table. Mr. Scolari, I’ll see you Monday at 11.”
“Huh?” He glanced up at me with a startled expression.
“Your weekly appointment,” I reminded him.
“Oh.” He started to play with his silverware, rearranging the order of the forks. “I might not be able to make it. I’ve got a couple of salespeople out on vacation next week, so I’ll have to cover for them.”
Smiling complacently, I said, “That’s okay. I can have a solo session with Annette. I’m sure that we’ll have plenty to talk about.”
Joe blanched.
“No, no, I’ll be there,” he promised me. “I’ll just rearrange some appointments.”
“That’s what I like to see in my patients, an unswerving dedication to the therapeutic process. I look forward to our session on Monday, Mr. Scolari.” Bastard.