The Ladies' Man (20 page)

He puts his lips against the phone's mouthpiece and cups his hand over his mouth. “I'll fill you in later. I can't really talk.”

“Do you have my number?”

Nash hunches even lower over the phone. He whispers, “I do.
And
your fax.
And
your address.”

“But?”

“No buts. I was hoping to come by soon. Tomorrow.”

After a pause Cynthia says, “Nash?”

“What, doll?”

“I told Adele I was your financial adviser. I said you missed an appointment and that I was concerned because it wasn't like you not to show up.”

Nash smiles at that gift. “A little white lie,” he says. “No harm done.”

“She said it was probably a mild case of amnesia, but I thought she was being sarcastic.”

“I think that was Adele's idea of a joke.”

“Seriously,” she says. “I think there's something you're not telling me.”

He considers the various possibilities, then says, “I'm so damned embarrassed, hitting the floor like an old geezer. And I haven't told you the worst: He took my wallet.”

“No!”

“You know what a pain that is.”

“What about your luggage?”

“At my hotel.”
With the bellman
.

“What are you going to do?”

“I'll get by. I won't be driving here, and I try not to rely on credit cards. The cash was negligible.”

“Still, it's horrible. It's a violation.”

“Did I mention my black eye?” he asks cheerfully.

Cynthia makes a noise that may be either sympathy or self-reproach. “I'm usually the most level-headed woman I know,” she says.

“Of course you are.” He raises his voice and projects it down the hall. “Why do you think I chose you as my financial adviser?”

“I shouldn't have lied, but what could I say—‘Hello? This is Nash's latest sexual conquest calling'?”

“You did the right thing. It was very clever of you. I mean that.”

“Thank you.”

“So what time tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? Are you too sore to come by tonight?”

Nash's loins twinge as he conjures her naked form and his constituent role. “I'll see what plays out here,” he says.

“If I can help, call. I have my internist's home number.”

He makes his voice stern, clientlike. “I'll bring those papers and, um, those … canceled checks,” he says. He lowers his voice to add, “And anything else you think you'll need.”

Finally, she laughs.

“So? Do I get a second chance?”

“I'm breaking all my own rules,” says Cynthia. “I'm acting like a teenager.”

“Which I love,” he murmurs.

“Seriously: I thought I was never going to see you again, so what was the harm of making one last phone call? What did I have to lose? I thought you were one of those men who talks his way into bed and is never heard from again.”

“Poor Cyn. We're not all walking stereotypes. Some of us, believe it or not, get knocked down on our way to keeping a promise.”

“You're saying you were headed here when you were mugged?”

What harm? he wonders. “God's honest truth,” he says.

“We've been discussing you,” says Lois as Nash limps across the doorsill and lowers himself into the brocade lounge chair.

“What aspect of me?”

Lois looks at Adele. Adele says, “Your financial situation.”

“Because you knew that was my C.P.A. calling?”

Adele looks to her sister and says, “Would you put on some water for tea, Lo? I'd do it, but I'm still sore.”

Lois rises and leaves with a lingering, backward glance.

Adele doesn't speak until there is water running in the kitchen. “Here's what I'm offering,” she says. “If you leave tonight, right now, I'll pay for a room at the Holiday Inn.”

For a few seconds, Nash thinks Adele is talking about sex: She's gotten rid of Lois to arrange the world's most overdue assignation.

“Fascinating,” he murmurs.

“Not
fascinating
,” she hisses. “I want you out of here, and if I have to bribe you, I will.”

He recovers to say, “Absolutely not. What kind of man would let you pay for his hotel room?”

“A man with a cash-flow problem,” she says.

Nash does have a cash-flow problem, but that doesn't prevent his taking offense. After all, the desk clerk at the Copley Plaza had been reasonably civilized about the credit card embarrassment and in accepting the postdated, out-of-state check. “Is that what you
think?” he demands. “Because my financial adviser called? I'm a wealthy man. I have unopened checks—residuals—piling up at home. This has nothing to do with cash flow or room charges. This is about making sense of what happened thirty years ago.”

Adele leans closer and says, “But what you don't understand, Harvey, is that I'm no longer interested in making sense of you or anything pertaining to you.”

“Can I tell you why? Because you hate to be seen as vulnerable. Today was a dramatic illustration of that. I saved your life and you do
not
want to factor that into your I-hate-Nash equation.”

Adele asks, “How did your accountant know where to reach you?”

“I left the number with her service.”

Lois returns without cups or teapot, and sits, all ears, as if slipping late into a lecture. “It's brewing,” she offers when conversation stops. “I made a whole pot of Breathe Easy.”

“Nash can't stay. He has to meet with his accountant.”

“Tonight?”

Nash smiles. “That's your sister's version. I'm not so sure the question of my leaving has been settled.”

Adele says flatly, “I've offered to pay for his hotel room if he leaves right now.”

Lois cries, “I hate this! Why can't we just let bygones be bygones? We all have our reasons to be bitter, but I don't see why we can't act like civilized adults.”

“Bitter toward me?” Nash asks. “What did I do to you?”

Lois keeps her eyes nervously on Adele as she answers. “You hurt my sister very badly. Which had emotional repercussions throughout our whole family.”

“Lois thinks it's my fault that we're all old maids,” Adele says.

Lois's normally ruddy face is splotchy and her voice shakes. “How dare you say that! I never said that in my life! I never said anything like that! I never called myself an old maid!”

Adele says, “It's poetic license, Lois. Don't be so touchy. We're three middle-aged, unmarried women.”

“I was married. I'd still be married if I hadn't found certain things out!”

Nash decides that the novelty of the Dobbin sisters in their loungewear is wearing thin. He has satisfied his curiosity to the point of boredom, and poured cold water on his redheaded harem fantasy, especially now that Kathleen, his new favorite, is screwing someone at work. His checked sports jacket is draped over the couch, behind his hostesses. He pulls it free with a yank and puts it on, gravy stains on both lapels.

“Are you going?” asks Lois.

“Wouldn't you?” he asks. “Or would you stay here and play psychiatrist?”

“Lois will show you out,” says Adele.

He straightens his shoulders and makes one last speech. “I only meant well. I wanted to make peace with you. I'm not a perfect person. I'm a flawed man, but at least I admit it.” Ordinarily, in choreographing a dramatic exit, he would kiss the hand of the party being dumped, but facing the unyielding Adele and the unappealing Lois, he merely nods and retreats.

“Wait,” Lois calls.

Nash keeps walking until he reaches the front door. She catches up with him and asks, “Where are you going tonight?”

“To a hotel.”

“Which one?”

“Not the Copley Plaza.”

Lois grasps his elbow with her two hands. “Are you well enough to leave?”

“I'll be fine.”

“Are you angry?”

He answers, with all the parental condescension he can muster, “No, Lois. I'm not angry.”

“Are you going to sue Kathleen for assault and battery?”

Nash hasn't thought of that. “I honestly don't know. I'll have to see how my recovery goes. Whether I scar, and whether I need plastic surgery.”

“I want you to know,” she whispers, “that you have one friend in this family. I think Adele and Kathleen have acted like crazy women and I don't want you to think we're all cut from the same cloth.”

“I appreciate that,” he says. “More than you know.”

He has no choice: He leans over and places a soft good-bye kiss on Lois's wide brow, expecting she will close her eyes and accept it gratefully. Instead, Lois charges. She grabs his bruised face between her big hands and grinds her lips into his.

Nash, behind sunglasses, admires the pink garters hanging from the lacy black corset, and the adorable sheer bikini panties embroidered with the days of the week at the pubis—until he is galvanized by the sight of Kathleen Dobbin dressing a silver mannequin in the same window. Delighted, he raps on the glass, waves, then sweeps inside to declare the coincidence of the century: He, Nash Harvey, Boston babe in the woods, has, amazingly enough, stumbled upon temporary quarters in Harbor Arms, eighteen floors above this very spot.

Kathleen says, “I told you where my shop was.”

“You absolutely did not. And frankly, I would have thought twice about inflicting myself on a Dobbin sister if I had known.”

“This isn't a hotel,” Kathleen argues. “People don't move in overnight. There's a whole procedure.”

“I'm subletting,” he says. “A lucky break. My accountant found it.”

He's already wondering how to present this to Cynthia:
It's awkward, very. A sister of Adele's works downstairs in the ladies' specialty shop and I don't want to flaunt the fact that I've moved in with you so soon after I reached out to them. You understand, don't you? We'll simply take separate elevators and meet at the garage level
. He looks around the shop, which he finds heartbreakingly small. “Great space. I'd admired your window displays before I realized whose hands were buttoning up that nightie.”

“Thank you,” she says stiffly.

“How was your weekend?”

Kathleen blinks.

“Your date?” he prompts.

“I heard you.”

Nash raises both hands in apology and surrender. “You're right. I'm too damn familiar—a product of too many years in casual California.”

Kathleen lifts her chin an inch higher. “Haven't my sisters and I made it clear that we don't want to pursue a friendship with you?”

Nash smiles. “Not to a person.”

“Well, Lois doesn't speak for the rest of us, especially not now. And if Richard appeared hospitable, then that was just a reflex. He's more gregarious than the rest of us.” She crosses to the counter and puts price stickers on boxes containing—to his absorption and utter delight—a foam-rubber product called “False-C's.”

“How much do those go for?” he asks happily.

“Why?”

“Just curious. People in advertising like to know products and prices.”

“Twelve dollars.”

“Do you sell a lot of these?”

“They're new.”

“I hope,” he says gravely, “that they do well for you.”

Kathleen pounds the last sticker with a closed fist. “Is this what I have to look forward to? Daily visits and phony chats about products?”

“I'm not a stalker, Kathleen.”

“But there's no avoiding you! We try, but you keep turning up.”

Nash likes her suit. It's black with a short jacket and a silver squiggle of a pin that looks like modern art. “In that case,” he says, making sure to stare dolefully, “I'll never darken your doorway again. And I trust you're sorry about my injuries even if you can't express it.”