Next To You (11 page)

‘Yes, but I’ve been away so long it feels like a new town. How about you?’

‘Wilmette. I only moved into this building five years ago. Where’d you live?’

Caroline pulled strawberry ice cream out of the freezer, set it on the counter, drew a metal scoop from a drawer, and ran it under hot water from the faucet. ‘We lived over near the old Odeon Classic. Do you remember that place? I loved going to the movies there. The Regent over on Dorchester reminds me a little of the Odeon.’

He adjusted his glasses. ‘I thought the Odeon was well before your time. I took a lot of dates there. They always had the best film festivals.’

‘They did!’ She waved the scoop in the air, nodding. ‘They had the best movies. I went to film festivals there all the time. Sometimes I think I was the only kid in high school who didn’t go to parties and get stoned because I was too busy going to movies. My friend Jim and I would go out for pizza, and wind up at a Monty Python marathon or an Errol Flynn double feature. My husband told me I’d missed out on so much because I didn’t go to keg parties—like getting bombed was so educational. How’s this for educational? I learned how to dress and kiss from watching old movies at the Odeon.’

He placed the other screws in position, zipped them in, and completed the job. He rose as she scooped out a ball of ice cream. ‘I met my wife there,’ he said. ‘At the Odeon. Her change tipped out of her purse in front of me, after she bought a Coke.’ He unscrewed the drill bit. ‘That’s interesting. I met Quincy when he dropped his keys, and I met you after Alex spilled milk on my shoes. I never realized how some things fall at my feet.’

Caroline pushed a fat ball of strawberry into a parfait glass, oddly surprised and—rather bizarrely—disappointed, to learn he had a wife. ‘I didn’t realize you were married.’ She glanced at the dog. Batman stood on his hind legs, stretching up, hoping for a spilled blob of ice cream or utensil to lick, but she didn’t drip or spatter anything. The dog looked as disappointed as she felt. She fished a spoon out of another drawer and set it inside the dish.

‘I’m divorced.’ William waved the drill in the air. ‘How long before it all went to hell for you?’

‘A little over five years,’ Caroline said and the words came out a little far away, to her ears. For a moment, Drew and Alex floated past together on a little life raft in her mind. She swallowed, and turned to hand William his parfait glass. ‘I hope strawberry’s all right.’

‘Strawberry,
oh boy
!’

She smiled weakly.

Batman sat at Caroline’s feet, looking up, licking his chops. His hopeful, round eyes stared at her spoon, his little black nosed sniffing the air.

‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘If you give Batman the opportunity, he’ll snatch the ice cream right out of your bowl.’

Her voice had been very soft as she spoke. Will pulled off his glasses and set the drill down, brushing her fingers as he stood to take the ice cream. He wanted so much to relieve the palpable uneasiness she had about herself and her relationship with Alex.

Waving pages of the personal history of William Terrance Murphy so soon was atypical for him. He’d comfortably revealed a good deal about himself in a very short period of time. However, since he’d already cracked the spine on the book of his life this week, mentioned the title
Growing Up With Albinism
, told stories about his family, and brought up his divorce, perhaps offering more details would make her marriage, kicking and screaming its way to the grave, not seem quite so awful.

With a thoughtful sigh, he leaned against the counter like she had. ‘Yvonne and I only lasted two years. We’re lucky to have been friends before we got married, as well as after we divorced. There was never any animosity. Our marriage sort of … relaxed itself to death. After all these years, I still love her, and she knows it too. There’s that infantile, fairy tale ending part of me that, way down deep, almost,
almost
believes that one day she’ll wind up back with me for the big happily ever after finish, but the intelligent grown-up in me knows we’re better friends than spouses.’

‘I wonder how many people still carry a torch for their exes.’

‘A torch? I wouldn’t say I carry a torch for Vonnie. It’s probably more of a used matchstick with one tiny unburned, spot left in the wood. We have a relationship that benefits us both exactly the way it is.’ He spooned a small mound of ice cream into his mouth, smashed it against the back of his teeth, and swallowed. ‘I just got a birthday card from her today. She’s on an Alaskan cruise.’

‘When’s your birthday?’

‘Last Saturday.’

‘If I’d have known, I would have put candles in your ice cream.’

‘Thank you, but the number of candles would have instantly reduced this to a milkshake, and I prefer to enjoy my ice cream in a more solid state.’

‘Was it a happy one?’

Will went for a small slice of pity. ‘Let me say, for the first time ever, I actually felt sort of, kind of, slightly old, but only for about fifteen minutes.’

‘How old are you, William, forty-five, forty-six?’

‘Fifty-six.’

‘You look younger.’

‘Bless you. I owe my youthful appearance to a few good inherited genes, and a life spent being unable to worship the sun. How old are you, if I may ask?’

‘Let’s just say I have about ten years less experience than you.’

‘I thought you had to be about twenty-seven.’

‘Your pants are on fire, William.’

Will waggled his eyebrows. ‘You know, they knocked down the Odeon Classic in eighty-nine. That makes me feel practically Stone Aged.’

She licked the back of her spoon. ‘Sorry. Tell me something. When you went to the Odeon in the seventies, did you wear one of those John Travolta
Saturday Night Fever
suits on your dates?’

He laughed, the spoon he’d just tucked into his mouth jiggled and bobbed.

‘You did, didn’t you?’

He pulled out the spoon. ‘I was seventeen, and it
was
the height of fashion at the time,’ he said, his laughter and the glob of frozen strawberry making his voice thick.

‘And I bet you thought you looked awesome.’

‘I can make any suit look good.’ Chuckling, he scooped more ice cream onto the spoon, and asked, ‘Would you like to go sailing sometime?’

‘Did you just ask me to go sailing?’

‘Sure. My friend Quincy has a sloop.’ Will put his empty parfait dish on the counter. ‘He wants to take it out once more before he has it,’ he chuckled, ‘dry-docked and scraped for old barnacles. He told me to ask someone, so I’m asking you.’

Caroline rinsed the strawberry milkiness from her fingers. Her mind flicked through a series of film scenes aboard sailboats. She tossed aside images of Nicole Kidman in the thriller
Dead Calm
and settled on a scene from
Sabrina
, where Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart listened to a phonograph of ‘Yes, We have No Bananas.’ That was a nice presentation of sailing. She nodded. ‘I’ve never been on a sailboat before. I guess it could be fun. When?’

‘That I don’t know yet. May I please have a napkin?’

She tore a paper towel from a roll and handed it to him. ‘Did you really like going to the Odeon Cinema?’

‘If I wasn’t a lawyer I would have been a film historian. I love movies. I love television, I love music,’ Will wiped his fingers, ‘and I better finish this dog door because
Biker Build-off
is on in twenty minutes and I never miss it. Have you ever seen it?’

‘No.’

‘These guys design custom-made motorcycles. It’s fascinating stuff. Would you like to watch it with me?’ He dabbed mouth.

‘Motorcycles? No thank you, but would I have to bribe you with ice cream again if I asked you to watch an old movie with me Friday night?’

‘I’m open to an ice cream bribe, but I’m partial to popcorn too, unless it’s burned.’

She crossed her arms, brow creasing. ‘I don’t know if I want to share my popcorn if I have to pay for your companionship with junk food. The again, I’m not the one who’ll be prostituting myself for ice cream. Could you get disbarred for that?’

‘Let me just say this ice cream gigolo’s favorite flavor is mint-chocolate chip,’ he said, and dunked the crumpled napkin in the sink.

***

The following morning, when she let Batman out, William was on other side of the vine-covered trellis. They began to chat. Caroline liked that. She’d liked that his friendship was easy, that he was easygoing. She liked the unremarkable way they slipped into conversation, the mundane things they talked about, but mostly she liked that her new neighbor made her feel normal. Starting over with an average life, grabbing life by the balls wasn’t so hard.

Making new friends wasn’t so hard either. By the time William had watered his ivy and all his potted plants, she decided it was silly to talk with a partition between them and invited him over for coffee.

She asked him over the next morning too, and the morning after that as well, until morning coffee at her place became a pre-work occurrence, and she liked the routine. No, she loved the routine, and two weeks after morning coffee became routine, it expanded to a few evenings of ice cream, chatting and watching the hulking TV at William’s, the dog settled on the edge of a Turkish rug, eyeing them with his head on his paws, primed to lick out milky bowls the pair had finished.

Somehow, they always wound up in the same positions; Batman on the rug, Caroline curled up in the short corner of the wide L-shaped couch, her feet tucked beneath her, William smack in the middle, stretched out, his legs resting on the long side. They watched
I Love Lucy
,
Lethal Weapon, Laura
,
The Big Sleep
,
Notorious
, and
Chinatown
. Each night Will drifted off to sleep on the couch, and each night Caroline tiptoed home with the dog.

On the third week of ice cream, she handed William a freezing carton of mint-chocolate chip. ‘I remembered you said you liked this kind,’ she said.

‘That’s very thoughtful. Thank you.’

‘You do realize I’ll probably eat half the tub, don’t you?’ she said, following him to his kitchen.

‘Ha! I know you well enough already. You’ll have a toddler-sized scoop—and I’ll eat half the tub, which mean I’ll swim six times this week instead of five.’ He put the ice cream in the freezer.

‘You swim?’

‘I run too. Why?’

Caroline made a face. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Sure.’

‘Well, it’s … does … this is stupid … okay,’ she huffed, ‘does swimming … does it … okay …’

He laughed. ‘Just ask.’

‘Right. Ask. Does chlorine in the swimming pool—’

‘Bleach my skin?’

Her face flushed. Caroline figured the tips of her ears were probably aglow too.

‘No, not any more than it bleaches your skin.’ he said. ‘But it turns my hair yellow, makes my trunks fade, and dries out my eyes and skin, which is why I swim in a saltwater pool. And I liked that you asked. I like that you’re curious enough to want to know. It’s not a stupid question.’

She rubbed the back of her neck. ‘Yeah. It was a dumb question, one I didn’t exactly think through, but I didn’t want to make an assumption. Chlorine makes my hair kind go kind of green.’

‘I like that you asked,’ he said again, smiling softly. ‘Really.’

‘Is my face still red?

‘A little.’ He opened a cupboard and took out two bowls, a deep one and one slightly larger than an espresso cup. ‘It’s cute. You look like a little girl, which corresponds nicely with size of the ice cream scoop you’re going to have.’

She stuck out her tongue. ‘I’m so hungry. I could eat that whole carton.’

‘And you’d probably puke after.’

‘Did I ever tell you Bonnie Chesterman asked me if I make myself throw up?’

‘She asked me if I ever saw you throw up.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘No.’

She laughed. Will liked making her laugh because the more she giggled, the more he was convinced she sounded like Betty Rubble.

Caroline stopped giggling and looked him up and down, her mouth flattened into a serious line, although the solemn look didn’t reach her eyes. ‘William, do you ever
not
wear a suit? Isn’t it uncomfortable to always be tucked in and neat?’

He glanced down at himself. ‘I’m not wearing my jacket, am I?’

‘That’s because you know you’d rumple it when you stretch out to watch TV.’

‘I’m comfortable.’

‘Do you have casual clothes, jeans, t-shirts?’

‘Yes, of course. Jeans, leathers, t-shirts, polo shirts, chinos, flat fronts, moleskins, I’ve got everything.’

‘Then why are you always in a suit?’

‘I’m as comfortable in these clothes as I am my own skin, and I like to look good. I do look good, don’t I?’

Head shaking, Caroline touched the perfect knot of his tie and slid her fingers down the silk. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Not a hair is out of place. I’d love to mess you up, William.’

What she did and what she said thrilled Will to the core, even if how she meant it wasn’t how his body took it. She loved the quality of the silk, the cut of his suit; the rational part of his brain knew that, but the primitive part sent out a buzz that took a minute or two to fade.

The next evening, the routine changed. Will showed up at
her
place with a packet of microwave popcorn and a bottle of Coke. He’d left his jacket at home, but took care to loosen his tie before he knocked. He started laughing when Caroline opened her door. She wore a pair of daisy-dotted, light green flannel pajamas and thick white socks. She looked homey, welcoming.

‘I see you’ve truly embraced casual-dress Friday, William.’

‘You noticed. I’m so pleased,’ he said. ‘And you’re having pajama party. Cool! I brought popcorn, but really should slip out of these casual clothes and into my—’

‘Birthday suit. That’s
so
funny. Hang on a second while I fake laugh.
Aha-aha-aha
.’

‘Now why would you think I was going to say anything about a birthday suit?’

‘Weren’t you?’

‘Well, yes, but my delivery would have been so much better than yours.’ He crossed the threshold, grinning as he waved the popcorn. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said with regard to prostituting myself and getting disbarred, so I figured I’d better bring my own, especially since you said you weren’t too sure about sharing with me.’