Mistaken Identity

The girl from the card club is like a displaced Ukranian model-actress, all long limbs and blonde hair and piercing eyes. I can’t figure out why should be working in a sleazy card club on San Pablo until she opens her mouth and I cannot understand a word she says. It is not just her indecipherable accent; she also seems completely unhinged. She must have mistaken me for someone else and she can’t seem to stop talking long enough for me to explain.

“I can’t believe it took you so long to come here,” she is saying right now. “Mike said you were coming in last week.”

Mike? Does she have me confused with Mike’s awful girlfriend? I open my mouth to try and explain but she of course starts talking again.

“I don’t want you to come here again,” she is saying now. “I get off at work at 11 pm. You live right by Geo Kaye’s, right?” This is a small, dark bar right across the street from my house, populated by art students and really old men from the neighborhood who show up around 2pm every day. I don’t even want to know why she seems to know where I live.

“That’s perfect,” she says. “Nobody will go there. I’ll see you at 11:30.” She runs back into the card club before I can say anything.