The Deep Blue Sea
a short story
by Angus Brownfield
***
Published By
Copyright © 2012 by Angus Brownfield
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The Deep Blue Sea
I wouldn’t go so far as to say Carlos Robertson is a paragon of sexual ethics. In fact, until a couple of years ago, I would have said he had round heels. For reasons I’ve never completely understood, lots of women find the man attractive, and in the days before it sunk in that AIDS could get any of us, women would, let us say, make themselves available to Carlos. Numerous women. Enough to make his former roommate—that would be me—somewhat jealous. No, very jealous.
It’s possible what makes him a woman magnet is his cosmopolitan air, which, when you’ve seen him rising from a rumpled bed, undone by overdrinking or other carousing, isn’t fooling me. But women like it. He’s rugged and dark, something of a buccaneer, avoids cheap scents, and he speaks with this curious Scottish accent.
Carlos’s family came here from Chile when he was a wee tot, fleeing the bad business when Allende was overthrown. His parents were second generation Chilenos, but oddly enough speak English with a decidedly Scottish accent. (There’s a story in that, which I will skip just now.) And Carlos, learning his English from them more than from contemporaries or teachers—he was home schooled until junior high—retained just a hint of an accent—a charming burr shall we say. Of course he had to speak perfect Spanish as well, and he has a way of tossing off honeyed Spanish phrases when he decides to charm the pants off some woman. —At least he used to.
Well, one day last week, after no communication either way since the Fourth of July, Carlos called me. Was I available for lunch?
“When?”
“Today. In an hour.”
“Hell no, Carlito”—(I called him Carlito in college, particularly when he was with a girlfriend). “Besides, what’s the big rush?”
“A matter of the heart, Federico.”
I am not Latino, rather a typical American mongrel with grandparents from four different gene pools, including one DAR member, a Slav, a German and a Mick. I am Frederick, but in those days there was something a tad reckless, a tad romantic, being called the nickname Carlos gave me, Federico—implications of a spiritual connection to Fellini, perhaps, or García Lorca. I have always liked the nickname, and reminding me of our college friendship was a way to interject himself into my schedule.
“Soonest I can meet,” I said, “is after work. Can it wait till then? You haven’t got an assignation at three, have you?”
“Can it be just after five?”
We agreed on the Hyatt Regency’s street level bar—a block from my office—after he rejected the Buena Vista (too noisy) and the Pied Piper (too quiet).
“What? Are we going to discuss an abduction?” I asked. “Or is she jail bait?”
“You’ll find out.”