Salsa by Jason Peck

A good run it’s been so far, Julian thinks, this thing between him and Sammie – nights out while ignoring her husband’s calls, trysts in hotel rooms purchased merely for the self-aware absurdity. The brief escape from pending-middle-aged, lazy-river lives they both realize they’d resigned themselves to. Dinners and wine. Moments that seemed like romance and might have actually been. And sex, which had always seemed secondary. But Sammie’s been off lately, distant. Her husband returns from abroad in two weeks, and Sammie’s dropping hints that he knows everything. Julian figures that in all likelihood he’ll be receiving, at bare minimum, a righteous ass kicking unless things with Sammie conclude. Quickly.

And most of all – quietly. He’s been trying hard to end things, to walk that fine line between compassion and firm finality without pissing Sammie off. Get it wrong, and she might tell her husband anyway. He wouldn’t put it past her.

And ending it tonight would be appropriate – poetic even, since the bar where they’d spent most of their evenings is having its last night of business as well. Luba’s Bar & Grille, this hole-in-the wall establishment halfway between their homes, this place that was never crowded enough to get caught, that was grimy enough to carry its own quiet charm. Here they could pretend they had nothing to hide, neck like teenagers in the dark spots. And then there’s the five-man salsa band, whose ineptitude had kept the two in giggling fits. But tonight, the doorman greets them like old friends, begs them into staying for the music – cover paid, first drinks on the house.

“We’ve always appreciated your patronage,” the doorman says to Julian in a voice that genuinely quivered with emotion. “You and your wife.”

“We’re not together,” Sammie says, rolling an eye at Julian. “Are we?” she asks Julian with a raised eyebrow. She crosses her arms, hiding the hand with her wedding ring.

The doorman looks away. Julian pays the cover regardless. Moments like those happen often; since her husband’s announcement, Julian knows he’s dropped from Sammie’s delightful taboo to her quick fling with that guy in her accounting department.

“You’re welcome,” Julian says to the doorman, passive by nature as always.

A giant Going Out Of Business sign is out front, but the slogans written in chalk make it clear the bar won’t go quietly. Priced out – burn this mother down, says one. Going out of business (landlord’s an asshole).  The patio’s open, the party spilling into the streets, salsa music from the band inside blasts two blocks out. Shots on sale – fifty cents off, half off, then free of charge, most likely. Dozens of people, more than a hundred maybe, all of them cheering and catcalling the band. Luba’s had never before been this packed, not even close, and Julian wonders if he’s pushing his luck. If there’s any night they’d get spotted together, it’d be tonight. 

He slumps in his chair. He’s thirty-six and already feels ancient. He wants to run his arm around Sammie’s waist, and knows he shouldn’t. He also wants this night to be over, wants all things Sammie-related detached cleanly, swiftly from his life. 

“You’re thinking again,” Sammie says. The room’s too small and the music too loud, so she speaks directly into his ear. Her lips hit his ear lobe unintentionally, and he shivers a little. On stage the piano player starts her solo. Julian doesn’t know shit about pianos, but even he can appreciate the musician’s talent, her every note clear and precise. At least one person on stage can play.

“Thinking happens when I’m about to die,” Julian says. “First you tell me your husband was shorter than me. Then I learn he’s bigger.”

“Pfft,” Sammie snorts.

“Now I find out he’s armed.”

“Pfft. That’s my problem.” She sips her beer again, sits back in her chair and watches the band with disinterest. “This band needs claves,” she says absent-mindedly. “Salsa’s no good without claves.”

So Julian tries relaxing. Everyone else is. Especially the band, even though they don’t have enough brass for guiding the rhythm, though their beat doesn’t match their drummer’s, though the trumpet player – the owner, coincidentally – always fucks up that short, hard staccato bopbopbopbop in his solos that Julian sort of recognizes from Latin stations on the AM dial. It’s a stage full of pot bellies and sweater vests; square, white, uncool to a T – Julian’s time here has taught him much about how to not make salsa music sexy. But they bring the energy at least, the trumpet player flourishes his instrument side to side, the bass player is hamming it up on his upright instrument, the guitar player sways and brings his hand down heavy on the last strum that ends the song. 

What does it take for people to care so little about appearances? he wonders.

Now might be the time to leave.

Drink a few beers, tap Sammie on the shoulder and wave goodbye before a response. Farewell to all – bar and lover both. Maybe Sammie will exit first, hop on the trolley without a goodbye and leave him instead. One of them must end it. Should the burden fall to him, he’ll be as firm as possible, realistic, compassionate. From here on, he’ll again cherish the institution of matrimony again like his parents had instructed. He’ll pick up the burdens of adulthood where he abandoned them, marry another wife, relegate Sammie to the memories he’ll never speak of and will try hard to forget. And yet Julian sits there at Luba’s, unmoving. He stands. He has to go to the bathroom.

Sammie doesn’t look up when he pushes his way through the rows of chairs and people, moving with apologetic clumsiness. No sooner does he leave, than the guitar player squeezes into the spot next to Sammie.

Sammie looks up to Julian, casts him an eye that asks: Do you mind if he sits here?

Julian rolls his eyes to say I’m done caring.

Jealousy stabs him anyway. Sammie looks good for her age. She’s also pushing forty, but she’s younger than her years, with a face that still gets her carded. Older to be sure, but maintained. Similarities between them seem to end there. Julian had settled for the job at their office only because his business failed and left him nearly homeless. Sammie had studied for it, hungered for it. Years from now – possibly even next week – she could very well be his boss. Husband or no, she has options. And Julian? His ex has already remarried. Sammie had been the first one in a while. A long while.

There’s a narrow hallway to the bathroom, and Julian gets in before the rest of the crowd can beat him there. Coolers of beer line the walls and make the hallway even tighter, bottles of wine and whiskey in the windowsill block a view of the party that’s spilling outside. He opens a cooler, cracks a can. What the hell, why not?

The trumpet player-slash-owner is waiting in line at the bathroom when Julian arrives. He’s older than Julian, fifty-something and large enough that his bulk fills the hallway. A year coming here with Sammie, and Julian can’t remember his name. Tim? Something with a T. Julian supposes a more outgoing man than he would have learned by now, but the Tim name sticks regardless.

“Sorry to see you closing,” Julian says. It seems like the only appropriate greeting.

“More crowds like this, and we might have stayed open,” Tim says.

They press themselves against the wall to let a woman cut on the way to the restroom; Julian recognizes her as the piano player, the talented one. She slaps Tim’s belly on the way over, and he pretends to smack her ass. But his hand stops before he hits the target and drops to his side.

“That’s my wife,” Tim says. She’s taking it all well. Me, I’m a wreck.”

“I’m sure you’ll bounce back,” Julian says. 

The man laughs. “I put a lot of money into this place.” 

Julian knows he should tread carefully, standing as he does in this man’s ruined dream. But there’s nothing bitter in the tone, no inflections of anger in the voice. Full and merry and heavy-jowled, the man looks more like an off-duty Spirit of Christmas.

 “You’re probably wondering why someone would dump his savings in a bar,” Tim says.

Julian’s bladder is full. The pressure makes his insides ache, and his stomach’s getting queasy. “Sure,” Julian says. “Why?”

“My wife and I wanted something of ours,” Tim says. “Something of our own.” He laughs a little, takes a quick sip of beer, then reconsiders and drains the glass outright. “And I did it for the music too.”

“Well, you’re pretty good out there,” Julian lies. “Was that a bit of Tito Puente?”

Tim laughs. “Shit. Puente was mambo. Totally different genre. And I know I’m terrible. But you get lost in the moment, you know? Thanks for lying and being nice.”

“Any time.”

Then Tim’s wife leaves the bathroom and puts her hand on Tim’s shoulder to comfort him. Julian’s struck by their chemistry, despite the comical difference between this man and his reed-thin wife. But perhaps they complement each other, fit together and form something whole. He enters the restroom at last, does his business, and when he emerges, the wife is pouring tequila into shot glasses laid out in a row. Julian sees Sammie still chatting with the guitar player. She’s laughing, and Julian’s jealous again but he doesn’t know why. The guitar player is like the others here, all gray hair and formless like potato sacks, and in Julian’s mind, obviously capable of stealing her away from him.

“Bottoms up,” Tim says. He drops a glass into Julian’s hand, and tequila spills over the sides into his fingers.

“Celebration,” the piano player says. She’s slurring her words a bit. Julian clinks his glass and drops his shot in synchronized style with everyone else. The piano player gives off a hoot. Tim slaps the counter, exhales like he’s breathing fire. Julian’s head starts wobbling. Inebriation announces its imminent arrival.

“I see you found a new boyfriend,” Julian says when the guitar player leaves and he reclaims his seat next to Sammie.

“I had an old boyfriend to begin with?”

“You have to call me something.”

“You won’t be calling me anything.”

He’s always kept his mouth shut when she gets like this. It’s prevented a public scene so far. The alcohol is kicking in and Sammie is there and all things considered, he’s realizing how he’ll miss her when things are cut off for good. His mood begins clicking to a pleasant phase. He leans into her, and she nuzzles into his shoulder.

Did you ever think? She had asked before they entered that night. Did you ever think about the what-if? You and me?

Yes, he’ll never admit. He has. Of course he does. They could have ended it by now, but one of them always came back. He’s considered the what-if, all right, taking a stand and asking her to leave her husband for him.

It’s just that, honestly, he can’t imagine life with Sammie beyond the moments they manage to steal. She’d have to move in with him. She’d bitch about losing the house to her husband, with its shiny hardwood floors, central heating and cable TV, with its queen bed and sheets that cradle his skin. Julian would mean a downgrade. Sammie’s used to the better things, her retirement options are healthy; in every area but men, she’s got her shit together. But Julian’s at ease around her. Maybe she could civilize him. Haven’t marriages been built from less? His parents’ marriage was. Her parents, too.

And then there’s also the cruelty between them to think of – the moments where they fight worse than any married couple. Months ago, she had taken a long swig of her beer during a lull in the house band’s set and asked Julian why he hadn’t called for her birthday, and – honestly – is this thing they’ve got going on just a fling or something else the both of them won’t admit? 

Why can’t you just treat me like a quick fuck? he had asked back.

It sounds like an awful thing to say, something short and mean-spirited and aimed at breaking Sammie’s heart. But hadn’t the reverse happened as recently as last weekend, when Julian himself was the one broaching that what if? And hadn’t she told him, no delusions here –Julian simply doesn’t compare to the man she’s got? The week before that she’d broached the subject again. Beyond that, who can track how often this last night together gets extended to the next weekend, how often roles get switched – pursuer, pursued?

The habits Julian adopted since his divorce have fallen to the wayside – high protein, a jog every morning, meditation at night. If there’s anything Julian hates about Sammie, it’s that she never encourages him to be a better man. But how good could he be, to find himself abetting adultery? And, given that he’s liked it so far, how much did he ever want to be good?

“They’re still not playing claps,” Julian says.

“They’re called claves,” Sammie stresses. “Something I learned from four years of high school jazz band.”

“You were in the band?”

“I thought I could land a music scholarship and get into a better college.”

“I played in a band. I thought it would make me cool.”

“It failed, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

Sammie’s smiling now. The drummer taps the rim of his drum, looking for someone to join in.

“Do you think about what if?” he whispers.

“I’m going to pretend that I don’t understand you.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Jesus.”

On stage, Tim almost drops his trumpet and laughs off his clumsiness. He’s gone far past the point of intoxicated and doesn’t care. The drummer taps a few times more, and the piano player starts with an opener, some delicate tinkles that invite someone to join in. This time people recognize the cue. They join in slowly, one by one – the errant slap on bongo drum, the little ting, ting, ting on the cymbals, all five musicians filling the silence but still looking for a lead.

“Let’s play something slow,” Tim declares. His tongue lays heavy in his mouth, swollen with booze, and words come slowly. “Can’t do much else,” he says to scattered laughter.

So Tim opens with a long, low blare of the horn. Soft, almost. Then the bass kicks in and they’ve got something going, and people are finally standing up to dance. Sammie’s joining them, and her hands are on Julian’s and she’s pulling him up to dance with her.

“You know how to do this?” Julian asks.

She doesn’t answer. She takes hold of his hands, and takes a step back, hips pressing against the rows of plastic seats. Then back in his arms again and he can’t hear anything over the music, just her whispers in his ear that offer guidance. One two three four, she says, breath warm. Move to the back, five, six. Follow my right hip. He watches her dance, like her back’s split down the middle and both sides work independently. Downright serpentine.

The band plays heavy and hard and sloppy. Tim still can’t manage the hard division of notes, slurs everything together instead into something he thinks is slow and deep and romantic. Delicate plucking from the guitar player, simple but confident enough. Nothing too fast, too slow. They’ve settled in a groove, a set of bars they can play on repeat and ride out. Julian falls into a rhythm with Sammie. She lets him.

And then not-Tim blasts out something long and thick and the music starts again, the rest of the musicians come to life with a ferocity they’ve been missing all night and everyone’s dancing with abandon. Tim’s horn is blaring now, no longer the empty sound of a man going through the motions, but the full sound of a man who means it. People in the crowd start talking about the cops, about noise complaints and public drunkenness. Julian presses his hand against the small of Sammie’s back and knows their departure will be delayed, again.

Jason Peck’s fiction has appeared or forthcoming in Smokelong Quarterly, Bartleby Snopes, Jersey Devil Press, Carolina Quarterly, and Nothing Short Of: Selected Tales From 100 Word Story.