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He sits up and refills my glass with the bottle the waiter left us, before pouring the last of it into his own.
“That night of the arrests,” he continues. “How did the DA find out about the deal?”
Hm. I take a sip of my wine to give myself a second to think. I could try and lie to him. But I think I can tell him the truth. It’s not going to help him. And I don’t think Mateo would hurt me. He’s been honest so far, so I can return the favor.
“I told him about the deal,” I say.
Immediately, Mateo’s eyes widen. “You? How did you find out about it?”
I quickly continue, “That’s the thing. I don’t know. I found an anonymous letter on my desk. It had to have been someone in the office that left it there. I thought my colleague Blaine was setting me up. He’s kind of had it in for me. But I took a chance and informed the DA. It turned out to be true. I got lucky.”
“Hm,” Mateo replies.
For a moment, I’m not sure what he’s going to do or say. I think for a second that he’s going to get up and walk away without saying a word.
But then he picks up his glass and tilts it toward mine.
“Well, we both got lucky at the club last week. Maybe your luck will rub off on me.”
It feels so weird to talk to Mateo about this. It’s like he understands my job better than any of my other friends. But he’s on the “other side.” Still, I feel a little easier talking to him now that we’ve cleared the air. Like I’ve just given confession and been relieved of my sins.
Mateo and I don’t talk about work for the rest of dinner, mine or his. His answers are also no longer vague or cryptic. I feel like we’re really getting to know each other.
Somehow, I am telling Mateo about a road trip my family took down to Orlando when I was 12 and my sister was 8. How I had spent weeks before the trip planning out our itinerary for the three days in Disney World. I had this little red notebook and I planned out everything. What time we’d go in, what rides we’d go on first, which restaurants we’d eat at, what time we’d get in line for the parades.
Then I’m telling him how my sister lost her shoe at some point, and we had to stop in Virginia to buy her a new pair. Then the transmission went out on our minivan in South Carolina, and we had to stay over to get it repaired.
The whole time, I was trying to update the itinerary. Trying to cut three days into two. Swapping out dinner at a sit-down restaurant for quick service at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe.
We ended up only getting one day in Disney World. I had fine-tuned my itinerary so that in the morning we did Magic Kingdom, and in the evening we did EPCOT. We ran around from ride to ride constantly. The only time we ever sat down that day was on a ride or waiting in line.
I slept the whole ride back, all 18 hours, laid out in the back row of the minivan.
“Your parents drove the whole way back? In one sitting?” Mateo asks me. He seems to enjoy picturing my family running around Disney World like maniacs.
“Yep,” I say. “My dad drove the whole way back. He stopped for gas, snacks, and bathroom breaks, but that was it. We probably made some kind of vacationing record.”
Mateo shakes his head, grinning at me.
“If you could take a road trip,” I ask, “where would you go?”
“I don’t think I’d be good on a road trip,” he answers.
“What? Why not? You can’t drive 18 hours straight?”
“I probably can’t,” he says. “I don’t have a license.”
“Did you…” I hesitate to ask. What if Mateo lost his license for some reason? “Did you used to have one?”
“No,” Mateo leans back in his chair. “I never got one.”
As I think back, I recall that I’ve never seen Mateo driving. He’s always had someone else with him to drive.
“My brother Damien took a motorcycle trip. Did the whole Route 66 thing,” Mateo says.
“That sounds fun,” I say. “Well then, if not a road trip, what’s your favorite form of transportation?”
“Canal boats,” Mateo answers. “But it’s hard to get anywhere in Philly that way nowadays.”
