As it turned out, the driver was right, and he dropped Mike off at the restaurant less than twenty minutes later. He wasn't as early as he intended to be, but at least he wasn't late, and Jasmine didn't seem to be there yet. He was really glad he got there first, because the place was a lot nicer than any restaurant he had ever been in, and he wouldn't want Jasmine to see his reaction. He first thing that caught his eye as he entered the foyer of the Capitol Grille was what looked like a set of lockers, like one might find in a school gym, but made with fine dark wood and clean, shiny brass. Each door was only about a foot squared, and each one had a bright brass grate on the door, to see inside, and a small brass plate with a name on it. Most of the names Mike didn't recognize, but there were more than a few that were familiar. He saw one locker for Carmelo Anthony, and another for Anthony Carter. There were two lockers side by side for Bruce Willis, and two more below them for Dustin Hoffman. Peering through the grates, all Mike could see was the cork ends of wine bottles, and nothing else. Must be nice, he thought, to keep your favorite wine at the restaurant so they never run out.
The foyer of the restaurant was all done in dark wood, which Mike figured was probably mahogany and probably expensive, with more brass touches around the reservation desk and the small bar nearby. Two or three people were waiting at the bar, but other than that, there were very few people in the restaurant at all. Mike didn't mind this one bit, preferring that the place not be crowded. For a moment, he got apprehensive as he thought maybe Alex might have forgotten to make the reservation for him, especially because he didn't seem to want Mike to be distracted by Jasmine in the first place. He relaxed when the woman behind the reservation desk found his name in the book, but he still leaned over and peeked for himself just to be sure.
She showed him to his table, a nice spot by the window. Mike hated sitting at tables in the middle of any restaurant, because he felt so exposed, as if he were on display. This spot suited him just fine, and the slow business the restaurant was seeing tonight gave the table a more secluded feel anyway.
"Perfect," he told the hostess who seated him.
She smiled back at him without saying much, but only looked is way for a moment. Her eyes flitted from his face to the window, where she looked nervously at the street. Mike wondered if it was almost quitting time for her, or if she was distressed about the lack of people coming to eat tonight.
"Anything else I can get you, sir?" the hostess said, glancing through the window again.
"I'm waiting on someone," he said, "a woman, brown-skinned, kind of tall, beautiful."
The hostess looked at him probably with her full focus for probably the first time, and smiled knowingly and genuinely at him. "I'll look out for her," she said. "Your waitress will be Sheryl. She'll be along in a moment."
Mike nodded and the hostess returned to her post. Mike looked out the window, wondering if he would see Jasmine as she pulled up outside. If he looked across the way and down the street leading away from the restaurant, he could see some of the lights of Broadway. The sounds of the traffic passing by were faint. Mike was surprised at this, since all the movies he had seen of New York always depicted it as loud and boisterous all the time, night and day. As he sat there watching the people walk by and trying to look up at the tops of the nearby buildings, he thought about staying longer in New York, mostly for business, of course.
Just as he was checking his watch, a black and silver Fossil he had bought for the outfit, and looking out the window for Jasmine, he saw her approaching from the foyer, with the hostess in tow. She moved so gracefully between the tables of the nearly empty restaurant, wearing a black dress that showed off her figure without being immodest. There was caution and reserve in that dress, obviously sexy but not immodest or ostentatious in the least, just as there was in her movements. Mike could see her confidence mixed with hesitancy and self-preservation. Even her earring were silver pendants, modest strings of fine silver links that reached almost to her shoulders, all the more visible because her hair was pulled up away from her neck in a kind of loose bun. And she was smiling.
Suddenly, Mike was aware that he was standing on his feet at the table, without remembering when he had stood up.
"I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long," she said, smiling beautifully and far less reservedly than at work. Mike wondered if what he had been seeing at the studios had been the result of her work, and not him, like he'd thought. "The traffic by the park was a mess. The police were rousting out some of those protesters, or whatever they are."
Mike nodded. "Yeah, I saw that." There was a moment of awkward silence while the two of them both just looked away from each other and took in the rest of the dining area.
"I hope you don't mind," Mike said, "but I rented the whole restaurant for the evening." He lowered his head sideways to catch Jasmine's eye. "Thought it would be more romantic that way."
Jasmine laughed out loud, just momentarily, but genuinely. "Really?" she said, looking down at her plate and moving her white napkin to her lap. "Must have cost you a fortune."
"If only you knew," Mike said.
"So," Jasmine started, resettling her napkin on her lap before looking back up at Mike. "Never mind," she said, a sheepish grin settling on her face as she looked into Mike's eyes.
Just as Mike was about to speak, the waitress was there by their side. "Good evening, and welcome to the Capitol Grille," she said, placing menus in front of each of them. "I'm Sheryl, your waitress this evening. May I take your drink orders?"
"I'll have a mojito," Jasmine said, picking up her menu without opening it.
The waitress jotted down her order and turned to Mike.
"I'll just have a Coke, with plenty of ice," he said.
"Wait," Jasmine said as the waitress wrote, "you're not going to let me drink by myself, are you?" She cocked her eyebrow and grinned. "Not very gentlemanly."
Mike looked out the window at the cars passing by. "I don't drink," he said.
Jasmine leaned forward in a pretend look of shock and disbelief. "A rapper who doesn't drink?" she said, with exaggerated surprise. "So no forties? No Hennessy? No popping bottles of Krystal?"
Mike continued to look out the window for a moment more, watching a limousine pass by the restaurant before looking back at Jasmine. "My father drank," he said with a kind of pregnant finality, an awkward look on his face that was half grin and half grimace.
The playful smile vanished from Jasmine's face and she sat back in her chair like a child who's been scolded in class. "I'll have a Coke also," she said to the waitress, without looking at her.
Another awkward pause hung in the air around them, as Mike looked at the menu, and Jasmine turned her plate a quarter turn and shifted her cutlery. Mike's eyes immediately went to e prices on the menu, and they widened when he saw them. Alex had warned him that this place was expensive, and when Mike had said he wanted an expensive place, Alex's exact words were 'very expensive.' But now, looking at he menu, over a hundred dollars a plate is more than Mike even expected. Telling himself that this was what he wanted anyway, he steeled his nerve and shrugged it off.
"I'm sorry" she said, "If it helps, you're not the first person I've done that to. It seems to happen a lot to me. If you have any other personal tragedies, maybe you should get the out now, so I can trample all over them and get it over with."
Mike laughed a quick, surprised laugh and looked back at Jasmine. He reached across the table, without thinking about it, and took her hand where it rested against her plate. Squeezing it in his own hand, he said, "You were going to ask me something before?"
Jasmine's eyes went up and to the left, and her forehead wrinkled up. "What?" she said, and then quickly pressed her left hand to her lips. "Oh, no. Never mind. Just another stupid thought."
Mike watched her for a moment, intrigued, but not sure if he would be putting her into an awkward situation by pressing the matter. "Well, if you don't want to say..."
"It's just that," she blurted out, "I mean, when you first told me where we were going, I thought you were kidding," she shifted her weight and leaned closer to him, as if sharing a secret, "or maybe you didn't know what you were doing."
"I knew it," Mike interrupted, leaning in to match her posture, "you just wanted to see me crash and burn. That's the only reason you came."
"No, no," Jasmine said vehemently, but chuckling at the same time. She reached out for his hand, but then pulled back nervously. "No, that's not true. But I did wonder what you were doing."
"No faith." Mike shook his head.
"I came, though."
Mike looked at her and smiled, nodding his head.
"Okay," Jasmine said, hesitantly, "I guess what I'm getting at is, how can you afford this? I wouldn't want to feel like you were breaking the bank with this."
"No way, girl," Mike said, his eyebrows low over his eyes and his brow pushed together. "Let's just say I've got plenty of money saved up."
Jasmine looked at Mike incredulously.
"Seriously," he said, "I don't make a whole lot of money, but I don't use any of it either. My grandmother says I'm a miser, like one of those ninety year old guys who lives like a bum, and then dies with a million dollars stuffed in his mattress. That's the other thing," seeing the waitress coming from the other side of the restaurant, Mike spread out his napkin on his lap, "I live with my grandmother, and she's still in the hood, so expenses are pretty low. I keep most of what I make."
"Your grandmother?" Jasmine said, leaning back in her chair.
"Well, yeah," Mike said, "but it's not like it sounds. She needs my help. She doesn't even leave the apartment any more."
"Really? So this is okay for you?"
"I'm telling you, I've got this," Mike said, "It's just out of character for me, because I don't spend money unless it's for something I really like."
"Oh, really?" Jasmine said, smiling bigger and more beautifully bright than Mike had seen her look yet.
Mike tried to figure out what her look meant. "Oh, no," he said, "I didn't mean it that way, I just ..."
"So this isn't something you like spending on?" Jasmine said, holding back laughter as she teased him.
"I was saying ..."
Just then, the waitress was there, setting their drinks on the table in front of them. "Thanks so much," Mike said, with real gratitude in his voice, as Jasmine sat back and watched him squirm.
Mike ordered a steak that cost more than the most expensive pair of shoes he had ever owned, and tried not to blink as he did it. Jasmine ordered a salad topped with some sort of grilled chicken that the waitress recommended, and then they were alone again.
"So," Jasmine started, "you live with your grandmother?"
"My grandmother was the first woman in our family to go to college," Mike said, his eyes full of pride and confidence, "and she stuck to it and got her masters in psychology, back when people weren't even getting masters degrees, especially women."
"But she still lives in the hood?"
Mike bounced his head back and forth, hissing through his teeth. "Yeah, that's complicated." He drank some of his soda. "I think she had big dreams of coming back to the hood and changing things. She opened a counseling center in our own neighborhood to try to help people on drugs, people with violence issues, keeping families together. She even to a government grant to pay for it all. Top of the line."
Jasmine squeezed a lemon wedge into her cola, and then reached over for Mike's as he offered it. "Is that why you talk the way you do?"
"How do I talk?" Mike said, smiling and trying to draw out a compliment.
"You know, proper,"Jasmine said, stirring the lemon juice and the crushed lemon wedge into her soda. "Not like someone from the hood in Miami."
"That was Grandma too," Mike said, feeling is hunger rise as he watched Sheryl coming toward them with a basket full of bread. "Whenever I said something wrong growing up, first it was correction, and then punishment, usually writing lines, just like I was in school." As soon as the waitress set the bread basket down, Mike took it and held it out to Jasmine, who held up her hand with her palm out, to refuse. He looked among the different types of bread, from plain white rolls to multigrain flatbread to dark pumpernickel slices. He took a dark slice and spread some butter on it before taking a big bite.
"So what happened?" Jasmine asked, looking at the bread with a lingering stare, as if she wanted one. Mike looked up at her, puzzled. "I mean, how come she doesn't go out in the community any more? " Jasmine lowered her voice respectfully. "Is she not well?"
"Oh, no," Mike said, shaking his head firmly, "she's well enough that she thinks she can still tell me what to do." He finished off the bread in his hand. "No, she's as healthy as a horse. She just doesn't want to go out any more. I think she doesn't feel like she's accomplished much."
Jasmine looked genuinely concerned as she put her glass down. "After all of that? Everything that she did to change the community?"
Mike took another piece of bread and put some butter on his knife before looking into Jasmine's eyes. "But the community didn't change, did it?" He looked down at his bread, spreading a thick layer of butter onto it, making sure he hit all the edges. "Besides, I think that ...," he paused, "... dealing with my father took a lot out of her. Kind of broke her spirit. When he died ...."
Jasmine nodded, watching Mike intently. There were a few seconds of silence, and then it seemed as if she might say something, but then the waitress arrived again with their food. Mike looked up at her as if he were still starving, and Jasmine seemed eager for her salad as well, but for some reason, Sheryl just stood there with the tray of food, staring out the window with her eyes squinted, tracking something. At the same time, Mike and Jasmine both turned and looked out the window, to see what she was looking at. As soon as they saw it, the waitress unceremoniously dropped the tray onto the table between them with a loud clatter.
Coming around the corner and through the spaces between the buildings across the street from the restaurant were a handful of ragged looking people with signs and banners. Then the handful turned into a dozen, and two dozen, as more and more protestors swarmed through the alleys and streets, blocking the traffic and converging on the restaurant, stopping just off the sidewalk, about ten yards away from the very window they were looking through.
Just when Mike opened his mouth to speak, one of the men at the forefront of the crowd, a white man with dreadlocks and overalls, drew something out of a dirty tote bag by his side, drew back like a Major League pitcher, and hurled it right at the window.
As soon as the man released it, Mike could make out the shape of a dark red brick, turning over and over in the air.
Without thinking, Mike leaped out of his chair, accidentally pushing the table at Jasmine, pinning her against her chair.
The waitress turned her back to the window and ran as straight as she could to the kitchen, dodging tables and chairs as she went.
In one motion, Mike stepped toward Jasmine and pulled the table away from her. He grabbed her hand and pulled her forward until she practically forward out of her chair and onto the floor under the table.
Before he could move himself out of the way, the brick burst through the window in a shower of glass and dust, covering Mike with shards that hung in his sweater and pieced the skin of his right cheek. If he hadn't instinctively turned sideways at the impact, he was sure he would have had a face full of glass, and probably an eyeful as well.
He reached down towards Jasmine, blood trickling down the right side of his face into his black collar, and pushed her against the wall, under the table, where the straight flat edge of the table and the wall made a protective cell. When he looked back up, he saw three more bricks flying at different windows.
Falling flat on his chest, with broken glass all over him, he crawled under the table with Jasmine. He put his arms around her and his chest over her face, bracing for the impact.
Suddenly, there were eruptions of glass from all sides, as here more windows burst through spraying shards everywhere, and three more bricks landed with heavy thuds on the carpet of the restaurant dining room.
Mike peeked up over the edge of the table and saw the leader with his back turned, facing his people and shouting some words of conquest that Mike couldn't quite make out. Turning to his right, Mike could see the door to the kitchen still open, white light pouring out into the dimly lit dining room.
"Go," he yelled at Jasmine, "They're busy. Head for the kitchen."
Jasmine started to crawl out from under the table, and the stopped. "What about you?" she cried.
Mike put his hands on her side and pushed her in the direction she should go. "I'm right behind you, just go."
Jasmine nodded, fear filling her eyes with water and bringing out the red in them. She raised herself to one knee like an Olympic runner and took off for the open door and the bright light.
As soon as Jasmine got to her feet, Mike put his back against the underside of the table, grabbed the two legs away from the wall, and stood up, slamming the table top against the now empty window frame. The table was a lot heavier than he thought, but the he thought at least it would protect Jasmine from any other attacks from outside and hopefully block the protesters' view of her until she was safely in the kitchen.
As she slid around one of the tables in her way, at top speed, the chair legs tripped her up and she went down hard. She got herself up on all fours quickly, but then stopped to clear her head.
"Go," Mike yelled, his back and legs straining against the table, which slipped down the wall inch by inch.
Jasmine shook off her dizziness when he yelled, leaped up, and finished the race to the kitchen.
Having used up all his strength, Mike let the table drop to the floor. He turned around to check the street before he ran, and cursed when he saw it.
The white dread was pointing a pistol right at him, a snub-nosed thirty-eight.
Mike mindlessly reached to the back of his waistband, and immediately remembered the airport and the plane trip when he found nothing there. He stood there, feeling so stupid, his hands balled into fists so tight that his short fingernails dug into his palms. He locked eyes with the dread, hoping to stare him down.
Then the dread opened fire.
The muzzle of the thirty-eight was pointed right at his chest, but Mike just stood there and closed his eyes. Three quick shots, followed by one more after a second passed. Mike opened his eyes, just in time to catch the crazy protester pull the trigger one more time. Still, Mike had felt nothing.
The dread looked puzzled. He pointed the gun down and looked into the barrel, and then brought it back to shoulder height. He fired his last shot and Mike winced as the report filled the air.
Still, he felt no impact.
He stared at the dread with the gun, not sure what to do next. Just then, another gunshot went off, shocking Mike, who knew he had counted correctly. He leaned closer to the window, disregarding the danger, and looked left and right to try to see the shooter.
Off to the right, almost at the corner of the building, was the same cop Mike had seen at the park, with his gun raised and smoke coming out of the muzzle.
Mike looked back at the white dread. An irregular circle of red was growing out of the center of his burlap shirt. She slouched over and clutched his chest, just for a moment, before falling forward. The rest of the people around him scattered in different directions, and more cops poured out from around the sides of the building to force them back where they came from.
But the cop that had fired on the dread stayed right where he was, his gun now hanging in his hand loosely at his side. Mike watched him turn to face him, smile, and raise the hand holding the gun to his forehead, using it to make a kind of salute. His blue eyes and the silver barrel of his gun against his dark skin were the only things Mike could see about him distinctly.
"Mike, run!"
Mike turned slowly around and saw Jasmine, crouched down in the doorway, her face sticking around the corner, eyes filled with tears and face flushed. He shook off his lethargy and trotted over to her. When he reached the kitchen door, he took her by the hand, pulled her to her feet, and steered her through the kitchen towards the rear exit.
Without saying a word, Mike tried to assess the situation. His head was clearing, and fear was quickly boiling over in him. How could he not be hit? How could the guy miss him? Mike knew that pistols could be inaccurate, had even heard of situations in his own neighborhood where someone had fired at close range, even closer than the dad was, and had missed. But he had never heard of six shots fired at close range and six shots missed. And then there was the cop, the one with Dagon's eyes. Maybe it was Dagon himself. It seemed wild, but Mike was coming to the point where he could believe anything, or at least accept what his eyes told him as real, despite all of the reasons to disbelieve. He looked at Jasmine, leaning against the door jamb of the exit, crying so hard that her breath was hitching. He pulled her to his chest and held her there for a moment, humming in her ear the way his grandmother would do when he was little and the gunshots outside came too close to the windows. Nothing else mattered at the moment but getting her out of there, getting her to safety.
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