“Love is funny,” Moran said.
Sunday night Moran saw lights on in Number One and checked with Jerry. Jerry said it was the Latin lovers, they’d paid for the place they could come anytime they wanted, couldn’t they? Moran was always patient with Jerry; he said yeah, but why at night all of a sudden when up till now they’d only come afternoons from one to five? Jerry said, don’t ask me; those Cubans, you never know what they’re up to. Moran checked with Nolen and Nolen said the piano player was off Sunday and Monday. Moran said well, maybe they were seeing what it was like at night, like regular folks. He wouldn’t worry about it.
MORAN WAS WATCHING Monday Night Football on television, Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears fighting it out for the obscurity award, Moran trying to decide if he’d rather be a wide receiver or a free safety… whether he should have another beer and fry a steak or go to Vesuvio’s on Federal Highway for spaghetti marinara and eat the crisp breadsticks with hard butter, Jesus, and have a bottle of red with it, the house salad… or get the chicken cacciatore and slock the bread around in the gravy… The phone rang.
Moran got up out of his chair and walked barefoot across the vinyl tile floor. It felt sticky and he thought again of carpeting the living room, redecorating the place and getting rid of the dumb furniture that was here when he moved in: the jungle floral print, black and pink and green, curved bamboo arms on the chairs and sofa. He could hear the wind outside, that overpowering ocean pounding in out of the night. Sometimes it made him feel daring to live on the edge of it, fifty yards away watching a professional football game in color. The phone was on the end of the high counter that separated the kitchenette from the rest of the room. He said, “Coconut Palms…” and expected to hear the voice of a secretary calling from up North somewhere.