Room for Love (32 page)

“But, Jacquie, please find me. We have to talk,” he calls after me as I'm pushing west, looking for Anthony. I find him sitting on a curb with the magazine curled up in his fist.

“Anthony, I was going to tell you.” The words spill out of my mouth and land in a puddle in the gutter in front of him. “I've tried so many times, but I didn't know how or you weren't around, and I was afraid you'd hate me. God, I was going to tell you the other night and fell asleep waiting for you to come home and we didn't see each other all yesterday and then tonight I was going to and this—” I look around me. “There were other times, God, that first day I was so close, but we got along so well and I didn't want to ruin it and then it just got harder and harder.”

“Stop, Jacquie. Stop it.”

I do, then I turn and let the weight of my body pull me to the curb beside him. He's sitting to my left, but I'm afraid to look at him. I stare instead at my hands trembling on my bare thighs, which are covered in a layer of sweat. It's so hot.

“Jacquie, I just don't know what to say.”

“I know.”

“You're so flippant about us in here.”

He holds out the article, which I scan, finally reaching the last paragraph and reading the final sentence in horror: “Anthony, my wonderful new live-in boyfriend, still doesn't know the real reason why I turned up at his door that day, and I expect when he learns the truth he'll blow his top. But the good news is that if he kicks me out of his elegant Brooklyn loft, at least I know how to meet the next guy.”

The blood drains out of me and I feel as though I will disintegrate onto the hot pavement. “Oh my God, Anthony, that's not what I wrote. I swear, oh my God,” I say while I stare at my purple flip-flops resting pigeon-toed in the filthy gutter below me. “In my version, I was really contrite and prayed that you would forgive me, but they must have changed it.”

We sit silently for a minute until he says, “Jacquie, I feel like everything is different.”

Tears creep into my eyes. I've never heard his voice quaver like this before. He's always seemed so strong.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“You know, when you showed up at my door, it seemed like a miracle.” He pauses. “That's our love story. And it's false.”

“I still showed up at your door,” I say, barely able to speak or I'm going to start crying. “We still fell in love.”

“Yeah, but it wasn't fate,” he says. “You were trying to meet a guy.”

“But I met you,” I say, my voice cracking.

“I don't know. It's different.” He stands and looks down at me. “Can you stay with a friend for a few days? I need to think about this.”

I nod, trying not to cry. I look back at my building, relieved that the facade looks okay. I'm terrified to talk to someone about the state of my apartment, though. I stand up off the curb and brush dust off my butt.

“Anthony, I have to see what's going on. Will you please come with me? I'm so freaked out.”

He shakes his head and turns his back to me. I hear him mumble, “I need a drink,” and watch his handsome back enter the pub across the street from my building. I can't believe how physically attracted I am to this man who might be walking out of my life for good. When I can't see him anymore, I run for the nearest fireman, who must be about twenty-four.

“Hi; that's my apartment up there,” I say, pointing. “The one where it started. Can you tell me anything?”

“It's bad,” he says. “I don't know a lot, but we think something exploded, maybe in the bathroom. We put it out and everything will be okay, but there's a lot of water damage. Are you okay? Do you have a place to stay?”

I draw a blank. Anthony just kicked me out. But then I remember Courtney and Alicia. One of them will take me in.

“Yeah, I have a place to stay.”

“Well, the marshal will come by to check everything out tomorrow. You should call the station to set up an appointment. Here's the number.” As he's handing me a piece of paper, like a tornado Anthony reappears in front of me, rushing out of the bar and toward me as if he's ready to ram his fist—or me—into the first solid object in his tracks.

“Fucking shit!” he says, grabbing my shoulder and shoving me away from the fireman, to whom I make an “it's okay, I know him” motion with my hand. “You went on fucking TV?” he shouts at me, when we're out of earshot of the fireman. I guess I'm on TV in the pub. I guess I'm missing myself. “You went on fucking
Between the Sheets?
Fuck! Everyone I know in the world is probably watching and everyone is gonna know that you did this to me. Goddamm it!” He actually stomps his foot and gnashes his teeth. “What the hell were you thinking? What am I going to tell my friends? Jesus, I can't believe you'd be so deceitful and duplicitous and inconsiderate of me. You were, like, living a double life or something. Me and you were like a joke for you.”

“No, Anthony, never—”

He shuts me up fast. “Can't you think for a minute about how your actions might affect someone else? Someone you supposedly love? Fuck! ‘Hot and heavy,' you said. You got ‘hot and heavy' with some other guy you met writing this thing? What? Was I just some other guy, the happy ending for your article? You waltz into my life, pretending to be my fucking soul mate or something, all pretty and nice, and you become this, like, perfect girlfriend, and then—this? You know, something always happens, every single time. I really thought we were great together, but the whole time you've been lying to me, scheming. You know how much honesty means to me. God, Jacquie, you know.”

“I do know, Anthony, that's why it's been so hard. I was so afraid to tell you. God, Anthony, I know I lied, or kept the truth from you, but God, it was because I fell for you. You have no idea. I've been so broke and then my mortgage and my shitty salary and this editor of a major magazine offered me this story, it just seemed like a good story idea and, yeah, an opportunity, a good paycheck—and God, what if I actually met someone I liked? I wanted to fall in love and it seemed possible, to meet a nice guy, to meet you. Jesus, is that so wrong? I only lied so I could be with you. You have no idea how hard it's been. I had to find a subletter, then they burned down my apartment. Shit, my apartment! And it was all because I wanted it to work out with you.” I hold my breath, thinking for a minute that maybe for once I said the right thing.

“No way, Jacquie, don't even try to make me feel sorry for you now. You fucking manipulative— Your apartment? Like I give a shit about your apartment that I didn't even know you had? I could give two shits about your apartment.”

“Couldn't give two shits,” I say, correcting his grammar under my breath, and wish I could take it back.

“What!” he yells.

“Nothing.”

“I have to get the hell out of here,” he says, and this time turns and runs, fast. Within seconds he's hit Avenue A, turned the corner, and vanished.

When someone lays a hand on my shoulder, I pounce. “What?”

It's the cute hardware-store boy, I mean Zach. “Hey, sorry,” I say. I notice that his shaggy dog, Buster, is at his feet. I squat down to pet him—he smiles, shakes his butt, licks my hand.

“Hi, precious,” I say, standing up again to face Zach.

“So, Jacquie, you know I was staying at your apartment.”

“I do now.”

Before he can explain, Serena appears and jumps into his arms crying fairly hysterically. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine, honey. I'm fine.” He squeezes her and pulls away and holds her face in his hands so that she has to look at him. “Look at me. Look at me, baby, I'm fine, I got out. I'm fine.” She keeps crying into his chest like a little girl, taking in quick sucks of air.

“You were in there when this happened?” I ask, my heart quickening.

“Yeah.” He looks down at his feet. “I guess it was my fault.”

“What do you mean?” I demand, suddenly pissed.

“I'm not sure what happened,” he says, his lower lip quivering a bit, “but I painted your bathroom yesterday, so maybe there was stuff around, I don't know. I don't know what could have caused it. I was at the shop today and came back here after work, luckily it was early, and the bathroom was burning. I don't know how the hell—I thought I cleaned up well, but maybe I didn't throw everything away. I'm lucky I got back—”

“What the hell?” I ask.

“I don't know. I'm usually so careful,” he says. His eyes are pleading with me. “The light was on, maybe something was plugged in, I don't know. I feel awful. I called the fire department and tried to smother it, but it was too big already. I yelled and banged on doors so everyone would get out of the building and then went back in to get out whatever I could before the whole place burned down.”

“The whole place burned down?”

“Pretty much,” Zach says in a voice no louder than a whisper. “I mean, I assume. It looked bad.”

Serena looks like she's going to cry again. “God, Jacquie, I am so sorry about all this. I feel like it's all my fault.” Next thing she's sobbing, and I feel like I should comfort her, even though her fucking boyfriend, who wasn't even supposed to be living here, burned down my apartment.

Zach leads her over to the curb and sits her down. He lets her rest her head on his shoulder, kisses her cheek, wipes a tear off her chin, and she looks up at him so lovingly, I suddenly remember being in an earthquake when my sister was a baby. My parents told me later they'd experienced tremors in L.A. before, but nothing this dramatic. It was the middle of the night and suddenly the whole house was rocking as if some giant creature were trying to rip it out of the ground like a turnip. My mother came into my room hysterical—screaming and swearing and running around erratically, unsure what she was supposed to do. When I saw her freaking out, I started crying. My dad picked me up out of bed and said, “Shhhh,” and kissed me on the nose. I remember gasping, trying to stop crying, trying to settle my breath as it struggled for space in my little chest. Together we approached my mom. He put his arm around her, and suddenly she was fine. She stopped shouting and her eyes became wide. Then we all walked over to my sister's crib and stood around it silently until the rumbling stopped. The whole time I gazed up at my dad as if he were a god.

Zach lets go of Serena's tiny, shaky hand and walks back to me and says, “Jacquie, I am so sorry.”

“Goddamm it! All anyone's doing is apologizing tonight. I can't handle it anymore. Will you just leave me alone? Please.”

“But I want to help. Whatever I can do, really.”

Suddenly I see red. I want to beat the shit out of this big blond guy who works at the hardware store and looks totally exhausted and pathetic and like he'd do anything to stop me from hating him.

“I think you've done enough, Zach. Jesus, I can't believe you were like living in my apartment and doing all this stuff—who the hell do you think you are doing all this stuff to my apartment? I mean, bookshelves and curtains, you put up a backsplash! What the hell?”

I glance down at my bag and see the light flashing on my cell phone. I wave Zach away and pull out my phone. Seeing my sister's name on my Caller ID causes my throat to constrict again. She says she's at the bar and no one knew where I was, she's called me fifteen times, the show just ended. I put my hand over the phone and tell Zach, who's still standing there, to please go away.

“But I need to—” he says as I shake my head and turn my back on him.

“Alicia,” I say, gasping for breath. “My apartment burned down!”

“Oh my God, where are you? Are you over there?” she asks.

“Yeah, I'm here,” I say. “Zach did it, you know Zach, Serena's—”

“Who?” she asks. “Not Z! Did Z burn your house down?” I start bawling. “Shit, I'm coming over there.”

While I'm waiting, I call my parents to let them know. After initial hysterics on the part of my mother, I hear my dad telling her to calm down, and she gets back on the extension to tell me she'll set up a meeting first thing tomorrow at my apartment with the fire marshal and my insurance agent and another with the lawyer who helped me buy the apartment.

“Thank you so much for dealing with all this, Mom,” I say. “I'm pretty frazzled.” She assures me it will all be all right. Meanwhile, Zach has gone off, I guess to check on Serena, and he comes back with this enormous garbage bag full of stuff and places it on the curb next to me. I put my hand over the phone.

“This is the stuff I got out of your place,” he says and hands me a piece of paper with his phone number on it. “If you need to reach me,” he says quietly.

I nod at him. He stands there for a second and then lowers his head, all hangdog-like, and turns and slinks off. He looks back over his shoulder at me and blushes lightly when he sees me catching him, which almost makes me laugh, in spite of the circumstances. My sister turns up, wearing a flame-red dress and flip-flops.

“God, this sucks,” she says, absorbing the chaos. “We were all wondering where you were and you didn't pick up your phone.”

“I've been right here the whole time,” I say. She grabs my hand and pulls me up off the ground. I lift the garbage bag, which is really heavy, and she helps me haul it as we walk the three blocks to the bar. We don't talk much.

“I think Anthony and I broke up. He found out about the article.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.” I continue to follow her through the shadowy streets.

When we step through the front door of the bar, everybody applauds. I wipe sweat and ash off my forehead and put on a happy face.

Johnny hands me a shot of Jack Daniels, which I swallow in one gulp. “Can I have the next one with ginger ale?” I say, thinking,
It will be okay, it will be okay, it will be okay. Drink whiskey with ginger ale and it will all be okay.