Rhetorical Question

“Good.” She said, “You’re not a whistler.”

He was, for the moment, understandably confused.

“What?”

She laughed. She knew he would be.

“You’re not the whistling type. You know?”

“No.” He interrupted in his usual condescending way. He didn’t have to though. It was a rhetorical question. He’d been drinking scotch for the majority of the day.

“Like, some people are whistlers and some people aren’t. I just can’t see you sticking two fingers in your mouth and making a loud, annoying sound. Like, for what?”

He nodded in concentration. Then he grinned, still nodding.

“So in other words; you don’t find me obnoxious, is what you’re saying?”

They walked down 110^th street side by side and step for step, very closely. From afar or from behind, it might have seemed as if they were holding hands.

“Yeah, at least not in that way. Whistling is just one form of … is ‘obnoxiousness’ a word?”

He turned his head to the right because a smile had sprouted suddenly across his face without his say so. Not that he was ashamed of his teeth but because the source of this smile was something he was not yet prepared for.

“I’m not sure but I’d bet ‘yes.” He said, after convincing himself to say it to her face.

“Okay, good –”

She stopped walking. He did too, a step later, once he realized.

“I forgot –” Her voice trailed off and then suddenly, she sprang back to life. “Oh yeah… there’s just different kinds of obnoxiousness. Whistling is like a trait of one of the different kinds. You’re not that kind of obnoxious, as far as I can tell. But I don’t know; you could be other kinds.”

He chuckled looking slightly upward and to his right again. It really was a perfect night. The wind had subsided considerably from the early evening and the warm air was clearly nature foreshadowing since the next day’s date was May the 1^st. The moon was in front of them and the Park to their right on the other side of the street. Their walk had begun on Broadway at 114^th street and by now they were just coming up to 8^th Avenue on 110^th. Along the way, the couple, who had just met only about two hours prior, talked eagerly with evident affection about nothing, everything and anything. From Jenny’s love of Spike Lee films and tendency to attach names to certain smells – “You mean like, people names?” “Um hm.” – to Matthew’s inherited record collection and inability to whistle.

“I’ll have you know, I’m all kinds of obnoxious. You’ve only known me for a couple hours.”

“Doesn’t really feel like it.” She leaked out, facing straight ahead.

He gave no verbal response but instead sent her a quick, timid glance. He thought about the phone call that he was obligated to make once he got home and the call that he would rather make, and then gave her a second, more confident look. She still, however, wasn’t facing him.

“I don’t know about that.”

She was now.

“I mean, we don’t even know each other’s phone numbers. How well do we really know each other?”

Tension and anticipation spilled out of her chest in a relief veiled as laughter. He took a small amount of comfort in the considerable discomfort he had just caused her. The confidence she had shown since he sat down next to her in the booth at Havana Central, was the only thing about her that made him uneasy. It didn’t seem to really fit her.

“Are you asking me for my phone number?”

“Yeah, in a round about kind of way.”

They stopped at the foot of a crosswalk and looked at each other face to face for longer than they had the whole night. Expectation mounted as they both seemed to be waiting for something besides the changing of the street lights.

“You want mine first?”

“No, I was waiting for you to take your phone out.”

“Oh, I don’t have one. But if you tell me I’ll remember it.”

“You don’t have a cell phone?” She wasn’t sure if he was serious or not, which prevented her from masking the ridicule. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Don’t need one.”

“Your girlfriend think you don’t need one?”

He snorted and made sure that his uneasiness was visible. She got the message but decided not to let it soil the moment. She recited the number as they crossed the street where Lenox Avenue turns into Park North.

“You’re really gonna remember that?”

“Yep.”

“But aren’t you kinda drunk?”

“Well, technically: Yes. But –“

“What do you mean ‘technically’?”

“I mean like, if I had to sing the XYZ’s while hopping in a circle and balancing a feather on my nose, I’d fail miserably. But I had the chips at the restaurant, plus this nice little walk has got me a little closer to sober.”

“Okay, I’m pretty sure you couldn’t do any of that completely sober and what the hell are the XYZ’s?”

“The alphabet backwards.” He replied as if she should have known (which is exactly the way his sister said it to him when she was all of five years old).

“Okay… so, say it back to me right now. I bet you forgot already.”

He obliged, thus winning the bet.

“Wow, that’s crazy. I could never do that. My memory is terrible.”

He did something he’d long since resolved he’d never do and almost never did, unless he was under pressure, which are the only times he’d ever have a reason to do so in the first place.

“So by tomorrow will you forget I have a girlfriend?”

He spoke before thinking. She in turn, walked the remainder of the way with her arms crossed.

“You are still drunk.”

“You weren’t really supposed to answer that.” He said, quite sheepishly.

“You weren’t supposed to ask.”

“It was a rhetorical question.” Now defensively. “Is it really ‘asked’ if it’s rhetorical?”

“Hmm, ‘I’m not sure, but I’d bet yes’.”

Her tone was fit somewhere between scathing and irritated. But her vibe was still warm. And incidentally, they had now reached their final destination as a couple for the evening.

“I don’t know why Schomburg didn’t occur to me when you said 110^th and 5^th.”

“Yep. That’s my home. Is that some kind of problem for you?”

“No! I was just say-“

She took half a step forward and kissed him where he bled.

“Call me tomorrow, if you still remember.”