Fridays at Enrico's Read Online Free

down to Van Ness and then up and down Russian Hill. There were a few people out, mostly Chinese in this part of town. She watched them coming out of a brightly-lit Chinese delicatessen with their white bags of takeout, people happy and smiling and talking to each other, boy, that food was going to taste good when they got it home . . . She was hungry herself, and wondered what was in the mystery white bags. Probably all that Chinese stuff that looked so good in the tray and then when you got it home tasted awful, bitter or even rancid. She had an image of Charlie, wearing an army helmet, his head sticking out of a foxhole. He was eating a bowl of something with chopsticks, grinning and smacking his lips as the sky lit up with explosions. She sighed. Would they starve, now that her father was out of work? I’m so middle-class, she thought. What would Charlie say? He’d make light of it. In fact, that was why she was coming down to North Beach, to get Charlie to reassure her. And there was a small tickle of excitement way down somewhere, telling her that she might let him sleep with her, if he was especially nice and reassuring.
    She got off at Grant Avenue, which was still crowded with Chinese, tourists, and drunks, the sidewalks jammed, traffic stopped in the street, brilliant garish lights from the tourist stores, bars and restaurants playing over everything. Jaime hadn’t been to Chinatown at night for a long time. She’d forgotten how remarkable it smelled, the smells of life and death, she decided, making a mental note to have a character looking for life come through here, not seeing the bustle of life all around him. Irony. At Grant and Broadway she turned right, walking past the open door of a nightclub from which loud Dixieland jazz blared. Jaime liked Dixieland. Her father had quite a collection of jazz records. Maybe they could sell them for money. Jaime stood listening for a while. There were plenty of people out, well-dressed men and women out for the evening, lots of Chinese going about their business, a fewyounger people dressed carelessly, a lot of them with beards. This really was a great part of town, she decided. I’ve been a snob.
    Charlie wasn’t home. At least he didn’t answer his door. Up here on Telegraph Hill at this time of night there was little traffic and, after you got off Grant, almost nobody on the sidewalks. Jaime felt perfectly safe. Just disappointed. Where could he be? She pictured Charlie surrounded by people, raising a glass of beer in a salute. He’s probably in a bar, but which one? North Beach was full of bars, and plenty of them catered to poets and writers. The trouble was, she wasn’t sure which ones. She’d heard of the Co-Existence Bagel Shop, the Place, the Coffee Gallery, all on upper Grant. Only a couple of blocks away. She was sure they wouldn’t let her in without ID, and she didn’t have any. And she didn’t want to go in one of those places, find Charlie, and have everybody know she had come looking for him. It would have been different somehow if he’d been home, alone, in bed, reading or sleeping. But how foolish of her. Charlie didn’t seem to be the kind of guy who’d go to bed early with a good book. Of course he was out on the town. But instead of walking down to Grant, she walked over to Kearny and down the steep Kearny steps to Broadway. She was planning on catching a bus for home, but as she crossed Broadway, all lit up, the bars and restaurants all busy, the sidewalks busy, she saw Charlie, dressed in a long white coat, standing at the curb in front of the El Miranda supper club. When she was halfway across the street a car pulled up, Charlie opened the door, a nice-looking couple got out, and Charlie got in, driving off. So he parked cars for a nightclub. That was his job. For some reason, this made Jaime feel wonderful, protected, on the right path. She waited only a few minutes and Charlie was back,