In the Bag (18 page)

“I’m not even listening to you,” I said, laughing and covering my ears. “I won’t let you sully a lovely memory.”

His voice softened. “I wouldn’t dream of doing that.”

We were alone. The bar had closed a half hour earlier. Even the bartender was gone.

“You have a flight to catch,” he said, “and here I am keeping you up.”

“Oh, it’s
no
problem, really,” I said, a little too eagerly.

Don’t sound so damn pathetic. He’ll think I want him to spend the night in my room.

“Want to walk around the neighborhood?” he asked.

“That would be nice.”

My body was exhausted from the long afternoon of baking. And now the wine had made me light-headed. But the night air felt wonderful and warm.

We saw a group of rough-looking boys selling what looked like drug paraphernalia from a card table across the street. Andrew again changed places with me so he was walking next to the street.

“Back to gooey butter cake for a moment,” he said.

I laughed.

“No, really,” he said. “I don’t think you realize what an inspired choice that was. Maybe the people there tonight didn’t get it, but to me, gooey butter cake represents analog culture right as it started turning the corner toward digital.”

“And why is that?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I’m not always good at explaining these things. But I feel them. You’d have to ask Jimmy Webb to explain cakes. He wrote a song about a cake called ‘MacArthur Park.’ ”

“Donna Summer,” I said. “Loved her.”

“Yes.” He sighed. “She did a disco cover of it. But it was originally a Richard Harris song because nobody else would record it. Do you remember it? ‘Someone left the cake out in the rain . . .’ There’s a poem by W. H. Auden with the line, ‘My face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain.’ ”

I stopped walking and turned toward him. “That’s heartbreaking.”

“I agree,” he said. “Don’t you know exactly what he’s talking about?”

Yes. Because I’ve looked like that before. More than once, in fact.

We walked in silence for a block.

“Does Webb visit his mother in prison?” I asked.

“No, but I go. Laura doesn’t want Webb to see her like that.”

“And when she gets out?”

“Webb will be a grown man. They’ll have to forge their own relationship.”

“You’re so . . . matter-of-fact about all this,” I observed.

“I hope I don’t seem cold. I make a living putting things in places. It’s the only thing I know how to do. I, um, I went to therapy once.”

“Oh, really?”

Did that sound accusatory? I didn’t mean it to. I’ve been seeing Nancy on a weekly basis for years, ever since my first anxiety attack, which came cleverly disguised as a heart attack.

“I mean, literally, just one time,” he explained. “It wasn’t a good fit for me because I’m not very good at talking to strangers.”

“You’re doing fine tonight,” I said.

“That says more about you than me. The therapist told me I was thinking my feelings rather than feeling them. And that I needed to work more on feeling my feelings. But when you’re raising a teenager, who has time to feel? I think you have to be a doer, not a feeler. Know what I mean?”

“Yep. In fact, sometimes I find myself thinking, ‘I’ll decide how I feel about that next week.’ You have to put it on the calendar. And then my daughter keeps telling me I should date.
Date?
When?”

Okay, Coco has never said that. Why was I making this up? Because it’s getting late, and I have to know where I stand with this guy.

“So you don’t date much?” he asked.

“Nope,” I said.

I am not counting all the terrible dates I’ve had. Those don’t even qualify as dates. And I’m not counting Chuck That. Or the sous-chef I saw a few times when I was on the rebound from Chuck That. Or any of those disastrous Match.com lunch dates. Yes, there were dozens of them, one worse than the next. But I didn’t enjoy any of them—and I paid for my own damn meal every time. Those were not dates. They don’t count!

“Me, neither,” he said. “Have you tried online dating?”

“No!” I protested quickly. “I mean, not with any real . . . success. All the guys—er, the couple of guys I met online, were weirdos or married or religious nuts or survivalists still mad the Y2K thing didn’t pan out. Or guys who lived at home with their mothers or . . . How ’bout you?”

“I tried the one called e-Symphony or e-Melody. Something like that.”

“You did eHarmony?” I asked.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“And?”

“It was a lot of work,” he said. “It seemed too much like a job, answering all those questions. So then I tried Craigslist.”

“You did not!” I said. “Isn’t that where—”

“Yeah. I got lots of interesting photos and offers for sensual massages.” He laughed. “I had no idea. But I did find a great old Eames chair on Craigslist. Some nice light fixtures, too. So it wasn’t a complete waste of time. To tell you the truth, the only woman I see on a regular basis is my sister, Laura. She can have visitors on weekends, so I see her then.”

He is so nice.

“Is the . . . place nearby?” I asked.

“It’s not bad. About two hours, each way. And then once you get to the prison, you have to stand in line for an hour. And then Laura and I visit for a few hours. It ends up being a whole day. I try to make it there every weekend, but sometimes I can’t.”

I wonder if they allow visitors to bring in food. I could find a darling picnic basket and fill it with fabulous treats and send it with Andrew. I could win her over. She’d like me before she even met me. Wait, listen! He’s still talking.

“Webb’s on a traveling soccer team. They have games most Saturdays. The only other woman I see is my lawyer, Tamra. I see her quite a bit.”

Of course he was seeing somebody back home. Of course. But Tamra? Tamra, my ass. She was Tammy in high school. But a lawyer? Shit.

“Tamra and I go to lunch every couple of weeks. I like her a lot. And she looks like Glen Campbell. Or maybe Glen Campbell’s sister. Tamra’s pushing eighty these days. I guess that’s my type. Is there a support group for men who have a thing for Glen Campbell?”

It was nothing! Thank you, God! I love lawyers! What would we do without lawyers?

“I don’t know about a support group for you,” I said. “But my daughter plans to study psychology, so I’m pretty much doomed. You might as well commit me right now.”

He smiled. “I have no idea what my son will study. He recently told me he wants to be a caveman.”

“A what?”

“Don’t ask,” he said. “I think it means he doesn’t want to work. He’s very laid-back. I try to see that as a good thing.”

“It
is
a good thing.”

“Right. But when he tells me there’s a college major called Leisure Studies, can you understand why I get a little nervous?”

I couldn’t help laughing. He was nice. And funny. And honest.

“My daughter is so rigid and tense.” I said.
Wait. Was I describing Coco or me?
“It’d be interesting to see how our kids got along.”

“I’d love it,” he said.

“Really?”

“Of course. I’d love my son to meet a young woman who was excited about her future.”

We walked and talked about everything—until we saw a man unloading bread at a café.

I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes after five.

“We have to get back to the hotel,” I said.

Andrew hailed a cab. Ten minutes later when we pulled up to the hotel, we found the bellhops eating chocolate-chip cookies.

“Can I help you with your bags?” he asked.

“No, no,” I said. “I’m fine. I really have to run, though.”

And with that I dashed toward the elevator, leaving Andrew in the lobby.

I cursed myself all the way up to the sixth floor and continued cursing myself as I threw my makeup bag and unworn pajamas in my suitcase. Why hadn’t I given him a business card? Why couldn’t I blow off the flight and take a later one?

Because I had to get back to Coco, that’s why. So why didn’t I tell him that, so he’d know that I was interested?

The self-critical rant played through my head as I raced back to the elevator and rode it to the lobby, where I found Andrew, waiting for me. He carried my bag to the front entrance and hailed a cab.

“Can I call you?” he asked as I climbed in the cab.

“Of course,” I said. “My number in Chicago is 312—”

“No, I mean, I want to call you in Paris. Is there a number where I can reach you?”

I dug Solange’s cell phone out of my purse.

“Ugh, I don’t even know the number on this thing,” I said. “Why don’t you just call me at Solange’s apartment?”

I wrote the phone number on the back of my shopping list. “Here,” I said. “Coco and I will be in Paris until Saturday.”

CHAPTER 41

Webb

I
could smell the foul cheese as soon as we walked in the apartment. I didn’t have time to mess around. I grabbed her bag and started for the bathroom.

“Wait!” Coco said. “That’s not your bag.”

“I know,” I answered, rushing toward the bathroom. “But I left something in here that I need to . . . do something with.”

“Webb! That’s
not
your bag. It’s mine. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you.” She was trying to pull the bag from my hand.

“Hey, hey, hey,” I replied, pretending to joke around. “I’m serious. I need to get my—”

“
I’m
serious,” she said, grabbing a handle of the bag. “This is
my
bag. Give it to me, and I’ll give you your bag.”

Oh, God. I really hated to do it, but there was no alternative. With one quick motion, I pulled the bag away from her. I was just two steps from the safety of the bathroom.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Coco yelled. Now she was trying to pin me against the wall.

“I put something in here I need,” I said. “I’ll just be a second.”

She was suddenly in my face and swatting at the bag. “No! You do
not
have my permission to take my bag in the bathroom! No means no!”

“Coco,” I said, holding the bag behind my back. “If you really want to know, it’s something embarrassing that I don’t want you to see.”

“Like what?” She was still trying to grab the bag from me. Then she stopped. Her arms dropped. She smiled. “Is it a . . . condom?”

“A
what
?”

I didn’t know how to play this.
Should I laugh? Should I say that it was a condom? That wasn’t such a bad idea.
I turned and threw the bag in the bathroom and then locked myself in with it.

“Up, up and away, si’l vous plait,” I warbled in a fake French accent from the other side of the door.

Quickly, I fished the stinky cheese out of the bag’s side pocket and flung it in the toilet with a humiliating
PLONK.
I flushed and rezipped the bag.

When I emerged from the bathroom, Coco was sitting sideways on a chair in the living room. Her arms were crossed. Her legs were dangling over one arm of the chair. She looked cute as hell. She also looked mad as hell.

“Sorry about that,” I said, setting the bag down gently at her feet.

Silence.

“Coco,” I tried again. “You’d laugh if you knew what this was all about. I should just tell you.”

“Actually, I don’t even
want
to know. I just want to know what train station you’re leaving from so we can figure out how to get there.”

We rode the Metro in silence. When we got to the station, we ran to the platform. The doors to my train were closed.

“Pound on the doors,” Coco said. “See if they’ll open them for you.”

I did. As if by miracle, the doors opened.

“Go!” she said. “Good-bye.”

“Bye,” I said. “This was . . . fun, right?”

“Yeah, right,” she said.

I jumped up the trains steps with one leap and threw my bag inside the train only to realize I had no euros left. None. I’d spent everything buying time at the Internet place. The train door had closed behind me.

I hit the door panel with the palm of my hand and the door reopened. Coco was still standing on the platform.

“You, uh, don’t have any euros I could borrow, do you?”

“What?” she asked.