Nothing To Lose (A fat girl novel) (27 page)

He could see her mission to save dinner had transformed her. She worked with a prim efficiency, as if he weren’t there. He had always liked the cheerful sounds of cooking and sat contentedly at the kitchen table.

“I’m going to have dreams about that guy. I know it.” She stirred the rice grimly. “It was the violent way he did it.”

“If you tell yourself you’ll dream about something just before you go to sleep, you won’t dream about it.”

“That sounds like something your mother told you.”

“Not my mother,” he said. “A respected psychologist.”

“Who? Joyce Brothers?”

He didn’t mind the hostility, he had done the same to her when he first came in. It was strange because they had exchanged fourteen sentences, tops, so why were they mad at each other? “ If you want to be snotty about it, go right ahead and have your bad dreams.”

“Who said it?” she demanded. “Tell me.”

“Nobody. I made it up.”

“That’s very nice.” Did she mean it was nice of him to try and soothe her or was she being sarcastic? “How can someone just invade your property like that? Shouldn’t he have had a search warrant or something?”

“He didn’t have to search. He saw what he was looking for right away.”

She glared at him as if he were condoning the whole thing. “Mrs. Beck was right. Fascism is right around the corner.”

“Mrs. Beck. Who’s Mrs. Beck?”

“My best friend’s mother. She had the government’s number all along. She was an activist long before it was fashionable. When we were in fifth grade and couldn’t keep the Spanish explorers straight she told us, ’Remember girls, Pizarro pissed on Peru.’

Literally he must have urinated – he was there several years and figuratively, he pissed on the Incas.”

He smiled and refilled his wine glass. “Did Mrs. Beck also feel that America had pissed on her?” He knew how to talk like that, too. If she was a bleeding Liberal, he couldn’t take it.

“Yes, exactly. She felt her ideals and rights were trampled on daily by General Motors, General Haig, General Mills and Frito-Lay.”

“And your parents? The same?”

“Oh, no. Just the opposite. They had a full color portrait of Eisenhower over their bed.”

The chicken was half done and she turned the pieces with authority, gripping them firmly in her tongs. Her hair had come undone from its bun and framed her face which was flushed. He had been watching her smooth, lovely neck as she cooked. She was a pretty girl.

“Did you always side with Mrs. Beck?”

“Not consciously.”

“But you always root for the underdog?”

“Not always. Sometimes I like the top dog.” She saw right away that he might construe that to mean himself and became very busy with the dishes. “I’d better set the table. We’ll be ready to eat in ten minutes.

Dinner was quiet. Leeds and Merlow were hopelessly drunk although far from boisterous. They kept trying to cut their chicken with rubbery hands. Susan was overly cheerful but didn’t acknowledge the virtue of the dinner, which Luis considered ungrateful. It wasn’t the best dinner he’d ever had, but it was fine.

They skipped coffee and dessert and he steered the two men home. When he finally lay down on Jack Tobias’ bed, his fatigue was almost sensual. He looked forward to a deep and refreshing sleep. The restlessness had left him. He felt calm and somewhat optimistic.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Exercise No. 21 called for dumbbells, five pounds in each hand, to firm her upper arms and bust. It was called the ‘Slow Motion Clap,’ done flat on her back with her legs up on a chair. She did six slow motion claps and then sat up.

“What’s the matter?” Don stayed up, too, after one of his sit-ups.

“I’m lonely.”

“Huh,” he grunted and continued down again slowly, “welcome to planet earth.”

“No. I mean really lonely. I’m lonely in the mornings. I’m lonely on the weekends. Saturday nights were made to torture lonely, single people. All those couples look so smug…’Oooooh, you’re alone. Well, get away from us! You must be incomplete and n-e-e-d-y.’”

“You’re going to judge yourself by a bunch of idiots who go out on Saturday night? You know how stupid it is to go out on Saturday night?”

“Don, forget about Saturday night. I’m alone too much. It scares me. Sometimes, I think there’ll never be anyone in my life again. It really scares me.”

“So what else is new? Everybody’s scared. You know what Kafka said about life: Life is like being seasick on land.”

“I never heard that Kafka said that.”

“Well, he did, believe me. He was a very unhappy person but he knew what he was talking about.”

She ignored him. “I’m not doing enough to meet men.”

He made a throw up sound. “Every other building on First Avenue is a singles bar. You want to go on the rack? Go right ahead. Just don’t stuff your face after the first rejection.”

“There’s a woman who lives above me. She goes all the time and meets men. She says they can be very insulting. They say,’ Sorry, but you’re just not what I’m looking for.’ She calls them garmentos. The guys from the garment district are garmentos, the guys from cable TV are cablelleros and the ones in the stock market are Dun Quixotes for Dun and Bradstreet.”

“Veerrry clever. Veerry stupid. Don’t you know how good-looking you are? And you’re not pushy either, or loud. You’re a very refined human being.”

“Thanks. I can feel both my hipbones now.”

“That’s another plus for you. Tragedy has given you a soul. Would you believe Susan Scott has a soul?”

“Well…”

“Exactly. She’s never had to delve. Who needs to delve when the whole world wants to suck your toes?” He did his final sit-up and crossed his legs. “That’s where you have the advantage. You’re beautiful and you have a soul. Another few pounds and you won’t have to worry about men. They’ll be all over you, including the guy upstairs. Well, actually, he’s downstairs from here. We’re upstairs.”

“The guy upstairs? You mean God?” She knew whom he meant.

“Don’t play Mary Jane with me, sister. The guy upstairs. He’s not a garmento or a caballero but he’s got some Latino.” He cackled maliciously.

*****

Luis knew that if he stopped kidding himself, he would admit that he was looking for her during the day. It began as an aimless sudden awareness of wondering where she was. At night, he invaded Lisanne’s body with everything but his invading rod, and during the day, he was looking for April. When he was driven to the train, he looked for her on the streets, but it was more than two weeks after Fire Island that he finally spotted her on the platform, waiting for the 6:03

“You survived the dinner.” She smiled shyly.

“It was fine. And yourself? Any bad dreams?”

She looked down demurely. “No. I did what you said.”

“There, you see.” She was dressed better today. Very chic although he liked her hair better the other way. She still looked vulnerable but he knew she would take offense at such a view. She might think of herself as invincible.

In contrast to their previous meeting, she was talking nonstop. First she listed all the trains that passed through Newark – the Patriot, the Minuteman, the LaSalle. She talked about her first favorite, her second favorite, etc. Then she itemized all the things she had found of value left by other passengers. An English-German dictionary, A Channel 13 umbrella, a stainless steel set of nesting measuring spoons. She had tried to turn them in, of course, but another man watching her had said, ‘Are you kidding, lady? Either you keep it or they do.’” She stopped talking and looked over his shoulder with great relief. “There’s Muriel Sachs, are you waiting for her?” Muriel Sachs was the better lingerie buyer – pretty but coarse. He wasn’t waiting for her.

“What makes you think I’m waiting for her?” She appeared so nervous, he wanted to put his hand on her arm and tell her to calm down.

“I thought maybe you were supposed to meet her.” He turned around to see Muriel Sachs buying a newspaper.

“I have a policy,” he said. “I don’t take out employees.” He had no such policy. He had said it instinctively to protect himself.

“Absolutely right.” She bobbed her head up and down unnecessarily hard. “I do the same.”

“You don’t date employees?”

“No. I date employees. I just don’t date employers.”

“Oh.”

“No. Never.”

“You mean if I asked you to have dinner, you wouldn’t accept.”

“Nope.”

“Hmmm.” This news was disappointing. “That’s interesting.”

“It’s not interesting at all. It’s sensible. It’s smart.” With each new modifier, she grew more self-righteous. He was beginning to recognize that tone in her voice. A clarion call that she had gained an edge and was running with it. “I don’t believe in eating and being intimate in the same place.” He stared at her not expecting such a heavy message. “Eating is a metaphor for earning a living, of course,” she said smugly.

“And what is intimate a metaphor for?”

Her eyes went to half-mast. “For intimate.” She barely whispered it. She wasn’t as brave as she liked to pretend.

“I see.” He paused. “Technically, you’re not my employee. You’re employed by the Burdette Corporation.”

“Mmmmmm…well, yes. Ultimately.” She made it sound as if he were being childishly technical.

“So you really could go out with me. You wouldn’t be breaking any of your rules.”

“Are you asking me out?”

“Yes,” he said emphatically. “I want you to have dinner with me.” He surprised himself.

“All right.”

“All right? All right, what?”

“All right, I’ll have dinner with you.”

He must have looked stricken because she protested that, of course, he didn’t have to if he didn’t want to. “You tricked me,” Luis said. “Why?”

“Are you kidding? I’d have to be a mental defective to turn down dinner with you.” She said it with such admiration, he felt undeserving.

“Okay, you’ve got it,” he said, smiling. When they reached Pennsylvania Station in New York, He excused himself to call Lisanne and lie. She was staying in his apartment while hers was being painted. “I should be home early,” he said, feeling like a heel. He’d treat it like a business dinner. He might even pick her brains. She was full of bright ideas. Tricky, too. But there would be nothing physical. No touching of any sort. What he had said in jest made sense; he didn’t date employees.

She insisted on taking her own cab home after dinner which should have been a relief to him but wasn’t. It made him want to see her again. That very night wouldn’t have been too soon.

He tried to pinpoint why he was intrigued. She was pretty but not that pretty. His mind kept returning to her odd moments. You want to get her in the sack, he told himself. You feel like getting her in the sack because she’s vulnerable and defensive. That wasn’t all of it. He wanted to see her finally calm and still and the way he wanted to calm her was with his body. All of his body over all of hers. The idea was so strong and provocative; he kept looking for her, even though he knew it was a bad idea. What would he do with her once her defenses were down?

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Don took an explosive sip of his coffee and coughed for five minutes. “See how excited I am?” He had wormed everything out of her. The meeting on the train. The dinner. “It’s better than The Other Side of Midnight. Remember when Bill the rich, handsome boss, taps Catherine, the mousy, lovelorn secretary on the shoulder and finally kisses her?”

“There wasn’t any kissing,” she said alarmed.

“Why not?”

“I offered to take a cab home right after dinner.”

“Very dumb.”

“I had to give him a way out.”

“You don’t give him a way out. That’s the first rule.”

“But I tricked him. It was a cute trick, but a trick.”

“Believe me, he must have loved it. It was clever and daring. It showed you had spunk. And it was flattering, too.”

“Yeah…I’ve shot my whole clever, spunky wad.”

“I want to know everything,” said Don. “He didn’t just suddenly see that you exist. It must have been working on him for a while.”

She told him about the fiasco at Fire Island, including the part about picking up the chicken and washing it off. Don shook his head. “Disgusting. I can’t believe you would do such a dumb, unclassy thing. What are you, the bag lady of the Atlantic Ocean?”

“He didn’t think it was so disgusting. He sat with me in the kitchen while I cooked. Nobody glued him to the chair.”

“Okay, so you were lucky. Through some lapse of sense, he considered it resourceful and thrifty. What are we going to do now?”

“We? We’re not going to do anything.”

“What are you talking about? Don’t you feel excited?”

“Of course. He’s a really exceptional human being. Not just good-looking…it’s everything. He’s kind and considerate.”

“Well, then?”

“It’s frightening…” she paused and rubbed her knuckles against her teeth. “It would be so easy to love him. But then what?”