Buy Me Love

by Martha Cooley

  Yeah, well, join the club—you and a whole lot of other people . . . I’ve got a doctor in an HMO through my freelancers’ union, but my coverage sucks.

  Taking her hand, he spread it open, planting a fingertip on each of hers.

  So have I answered your questions?

  For the most part, yes.

  Good. Wanna hear mine now?

  Yeah, I do. Actually, first I want to tell you about something that just happened to me. Maybe it’ll be like your telling me about adopting Ennio—maybe it’ll make things clearer.

  Okay. But don’t you think we need a little . . . intermission, first?

  5

  One leg draped over hers. Hand on her breast.

  Dove, he murmured. What great fluffling.

  She threaded her fingers through his. His kissing gentle now, no longer urgent.

  Roy, tell me why you’ve been alone for a while. It’s not just because of Ennio, is it?

  He exhaled slowly.

  Not just that. But he’s been the major reason.

  The other reasons?

  I’ve been working a lot, since I need to do more than just make my own ends meet—I’ve got a kid to help support. Between my jobs and the time I spend with Ennio, there’s not much energy left. And then, oh, I don’t know . . . I’ve tried with a couple of women over the past few years, but it hasn’t worked. I got bored.

  Do you miss your ex-girlfriend?

  Nope. She was bad for me and for everyone in my family. And you, do you miss your old boyfriend?

  What old boyfriend?

  He took her chin and shook it gently.

  Talk to me, why don’t you?

  Tell him. Go on.

  Jesus Christ. Tell him what? That she’d never figured out how to couple, save in the physical sense? That she hadn’t thought about Paul for more than five minutes in as many years? That there’d been no steady relationship before Paul, and none after?

  Stupid trying to explain any of that. Better to talk about money instead, but keep it vague. Say there’d soon be a large up-tick in her bank account balance. Call it an unexpected influx—some very generous funding from a source she wasn’t at liberty to disclose. Cash arriving out of the blue. Say it as if the whole thing were just a lark.

  Then say she planned to share the funds with friends in need. Say Ennio sounded like a good candidate for therapy. Say she’d gladly pay for it.

  6

  This isn’t at all what I was expecting, said Roy once she’d finished talking.

  How do you mean?

  You know, you asked me about my past, and I told you about it. So I was thinking you’d tell me how come you’ve been alone for a while, too. I definitely wasn’t expecting you to talk about money. Or offer me any.

  Look, Roy, my romantic history—there’s really very little to say . . . I was a loner in my twenties, then I was with a guy for about ten years. The marriage ended when I was forty-one. I’d reached a point where I couldn’t imagine being with him any longer. I’d published a book of poems, and hoped to keep writing and publishing. But he was always busy with work, and he wanted a family, and I didn’t . . . It just wasn’t there, the urge to have a kid. It never was. So he and I disappointed each other, and the disappointment ended up being bigger than the love. After we broke up, I pretty much lost my appetite for the whole thing.

  What whole thing?

  Being in a couple. I just got used to being alone. It didn’t feel impossible or awful. It became normal—is normal, for me. I was never someone who longed to be in a relationship or had to be a mother. And I’ve never feared solitude.

  So you had no sex or companionship during all this time? Like, a decade?

  No, I’ve had a few affairs. It’s not that I don’t enjoy being with other people, or having sex. But I haven’t been actively looking for a partner. I’ve got a few close friends; that’s been enough for me.

  He rubbed his thumb across the palm of her hand.

  There’s something you’re not saying, he said. I can feel it. Something that’s got nothing to do with romance.

  You’re right . . . it’s Win, my brother. I’m really worried about him.

  How come?

  I can’t count on him to take care of himself. He’s in debt, he’s a mess, he drinks constantly. I’m going to give him some money, but it won’t fix anything. He’ll just give the money away and keep drinking. He’s on a downhill slide, and it’s excruciating to watch.

  Sounds like you think of yourself as your brother’s steward. Not in a legal sense, but still, you feel like you’re his guardian, don’t you?

  I guess so.

  You know, if I were in his shoes, I doubt I’d want someone else thinking they had to take care of me. I mean . . . it’s weird for me to feel indebted to Gina.

  Financially?

  No. I’m in debt to her for something I didn’t even realize I wanted: my relationship with Ennio. That isn’t Gina’s doing; it’s just what happened—to her, to Ennio, to me . . . I realize I don’t actually owe her for anything. But it’s weird anyway.

  That makes sense.

  And I’m uneasy about being in your debt as well. Because if I start taking money from you . . . I dunno, the whole thing makes me uneasy.

  I understand, Roy. But I’m not making you a loan, so you’re not in my debt at all. There’s nothing you’ll have to pay back. And we’re just talking about money here. It’s not like with you and Gina and Ennio—that’s a totally different situation. Look, just pretend there’s cash lying on the street, and I just happened to spot it and point it out to you, so you can pick it up. That’s all.

  He shook his head.

  Sounds nice. But the thing is, suppose you give it to me and then realize you need it yourself? And I’ve already spent it?

  Don’t worry about that. And none of this has anything to do with . . . whatever is going on here, between us. It’s just a matter of redistributing resources. It’s like I’m Robin Hood, and I’m giving away money.

  At that, he smiled.

  Didn’t Robin Hood steal from the rich to give to the poor?

  I haven’t stolen anything from anybody! It’s just . . . call it luck of the draw.

  Awfully mysterious. Is it legal?

  Perfectly. Sorry I can’t say more; not yet, anyway.

  Reaching for his clothes, he began to dress.

  Let me think about your offer, dove. It’s extremely kind.

  Ah, don’t put it that way. Don’t sound so formal, please.

  I’ll need to speak to Gina before I can give you an answer.

  Gina?

  Yeah. I can’t just go find an expensive therapist and expect Gina not to wonder how the bill’s gonna be paid. If I tell her a friend’s giving me funds for it, she’ll worry the money-source might dry up, and then what’ll we do?

  Tell her I promise to cover the cost for as long as Ennio needs the therapy.

  Look, Gina’s still gonna wonder. I mean, be honest—it is pretty weird to have someone you haven’t known for very long offer to pay for your kid’s therapy. It’s like pulling a prize out of a Cracker Jack box or something.

  God, do they still make that stuff?

  They do! It gives Ennio a stomachache when he eats too much of it, which is good, else he’d be totally addicted. C’mon, get up—let’s have a glass of wine or a cup of tea . . . oh, wait, shit, what time is it? I didn’t realize it was this late. Gina’s going out tonight, and I’m taking care of Ennio, and now I’ve totally lost track of time . . . I’m sorry, I have to get home.

  Hey, it’s good to lose track.

  Yeah . . . but I’m still sorry. When can I see you again?

  Lemme think, what am I doing this week . . . tomorrow I need to go to Sunset Park. Want to come with me?

  To your brother’s?

  Yes. Someone else will be there—the sister of his girlfriend, actually. She’s been in Madrid since the bombings, and now she intends to move back to New York. Win has ask
ed me to give her a bit of money, to help her get back on her feet.

  Okay, I’ll go with you. I’d like to meet your brother.

  Can you get there at six? We’ll stay a half-hour, not longer, I promise.

  Sure. Then I’ll take you to dinner afterward. And we’ll spend the rest of the night together.

  Yes . . .

  His tongue tracing circles on her throat.

  Go now! Ennio needs you. The canines do too.

  Text me Win’s address, okay?

  7

  A hum in the silence. Roy’s absence palpable, like a scent. Absence, redolence—there was a poem in those words, if she’d not skitter off before trying to write it.

  What was the last thing she’d written? The last actual poem?

  Going to her desk, she pulled a notebook from a drawer. There: four years ago, at the end of December 2001. A half-dozen lines. Four fucking years. And Walter dead now for four weeks, Walter who left Morristown almost forty years ago. When he left, Win kept asking where’s Walter and Nola kept not answering. She’d been focused on some tragedy in Peru, a volcano that had recently avalanched. Nine miles in seven minutes, she kept saying, the avalanche had traveled nine miles in seven minutes . . . Win had snapped nine beats with his left hand and seven with the right. Making music of it. As for herself, she’d carried Clef the cat upstairs, murmuring a couplet to him: Walter isn’t coming back, Walter’s gone away for good . . .

  Had she really made a poem of it—Walter’s abandonment of the family? Yep, a couplet, written in simple, clear kid-speak. Away for good.

  Ennio was a kid who liked poems. Liked “Jabberwocky,” at any rate. What else might appeal to him?

  She pulled a couple of books off the shelves.

  Something with lively rhymes. Poe, yes; Stevie Smith, yes; maybe even Tennyson. Ring out the false, ring in the true. Those bells Tennyson heard ringing wildly all by themselves, during a storm—Ennio would like the sounds and images.

  And look, a copy of Tennyson’s play “Becket” tucked in with the poems. Where’d that come from? On the flyleaf was Anne’s name. Inside were a few scattered underscores and two sentences highlighted in sparkly light-blue magic marker—Anne’s trademark. She’d always kept one of those markers in the back pocket of her jeans.

  Gold spoils all. Love is the only gold.

  Which brought to mind Nola in the living room, singing “Speak Low” so quietly as the day ended.

  8

  The phone ringing. Wasn’t it the middle of the night?

  Win, are you okay?

  It’s not Win, it’s me. I’m downstairs at your building’s front door.

  Roy—are you okay?

  Yeah, fine! Just get up and buzz me in.

  What time is it?

  Not too late, only 2:00 a.m. We’ve got hours!

  Panting slightly from the trot upstairs, he radiated heat as he held his arms open for her.

  Hi, featherweight . . . even in your robe you’re light as a sparrow.

  I’m not a dove anymore?

  Sparrows are even lighter! Yeah, you’re still a dove. But no fluffling now, okay? Let’s just sleep. Good thing I didn’t have to wait more than a minute for a train. I got here fast.

  Lucky man. Lucky me.

  Seven-thirty. Roy’s breath like the cats’, a light reassuring rasp.

  They’d both fallen asleep within minutes. And she hadn’t woken up once, nor felt the slightest concern that he’d shown up in the middle of the night. But now a hot flash—her entire body heating, scalp, forehead, neck, chest, arms, stomach, crotch, thighs.

  Good morning, furnace!

  Yeah, well, there’s no thermostat. I can’t regulate it.

  I like it, actually.

  His fingers gently wiping away the slick across her face and neck. Now his tongue between her breasts, licking.

  If you caught fire ten times a day, Roy, you’d like it not so much.

  I can imagine. Still, I like it when you get warm like this. Selfish of me, I know . . . okay, rise ’n shine, let’s get you cooled down.

  Black tea, sliced apples, buttered toast. The cats nuzzling Roy’s ankles, one on either side.

  Ellen, these cats are like dogs! Ah, it’s eight-fifteen, I gotta go walk the canines.

  What’s on your docket today?

  A couple of classes in Bed-Stuy. Did I mention I’m working at a new community center? The pay’s decent, but getting there from Bay Ridge is a drag. Don’t you have to go to the museum today?

  His hands on her shoulders, thumbs kneading tight muscles.

  Yeah, but I don’t need to rush. Ah, there, you’ve found it, that spot where it’s always tense . . .

  I can feel it. Ennio likes it when I rub this exact same spot. Okay, that’s enough! See you tonight at your brother’s, okay?

  Boy-Cat and Girl-Cat both moved to the door, blocking his exit.

  Move, cat-pals! ’Bye, dove. I’m glad you let me in.

  Me, too. Hey you two, come over here . . .

  She pinned both cats to the floor as Roy let himself out.

  Could someone with a kid always tell if someone else really wasn’t into the kid?

  Yes. Hence Roy must believe she was into his kid. Did that mean she was? Did he know what she wasn’t yet sure she knew? Or was afraid to know: was that it?

  Ennio: a wounded boy-bird.

  If it was because of Ennio that Roy hadn’t had a girlfriend since the one who’d slept with Ennio’s father, and if the boy himself was of mixed minds about his uncle’s new woman, and if his mother was ambivalent as well, and if the new woman turned out to be not Robin Hood but a jackpot winner, then what would Roy think—no, feel?

  Impervious and Stubborn

  1

  How to raise the stakes?

  Blair stared into the canal. The water lay stagnant below the ThirdStreet bridge. It smelled bad. But there were trees on either side of the Gowanus, and no one else around.

  Always go too far, Camus said, because that’s the only place you’ll find the truth.

  Going too far wasn’t a question of raw force or power, though. You could knock out the global stock market if you were a good enough hacker. Yet even if you came up with all the right algorithms to mess things up, you wouldn’t necessarily be making anything new happen. For that, you had to derange mental orbits.

  Babysitting that six-year-old kid during high school, she’d learned how derangement worked.

  The kid she was babysitting had invited his cousin, a five-year-old boy, to play. The kid found an empty cardboard box, put it on the low arm of a sofa next to a glass-fronted bookcase, and told the cousin to climb into the box. It’d be a boat, he said. They’d sail it on the sea.

  The kid held the box so the cousin could climb in. Watching, she’d figured the kid would slide and tip the box over onto the sofa cushions. The kid told his cousin that the cushions were waves in the water, and the sofa was the sea. But he didn’t slide the box onto the cushions; instead, he gave it a push in the other direction, and it tipped over and went right into the bookcase. The glass doors shattered, and the five-year-old got a gash on his elbow. She’d had to put both kids in a cab to an emergency clinic. The injured boy had needed a bunch of stitches.

  What was that about, she’d asked the kid as they waited for his hurt cousin’s parents to arrive. What the hell were you doing?

  The boy wasn’t fazed. The books were the rocks, he’d answered.

  Rocks?

  The boat smashed into the rocks. That’s how it was supposed to happen. I made it happen that way.

  She hadn’t forgotten those words. The kid had done what he did because he knew it was supposed to happen. It happened just as he imagined it. That kid was managing perception.

  2

  The biggest challenge was money. Her job paid shit, but asking for a raise would draw attention.

  No borrowing, though. No owing anyone anything. No one on top.

  The problem would need
to be solved in a different way. There were plenty of rich people in the city, people who wouldn’t miss a hundred bucks any more than she’d miss a dime. It wouldn’t be hard to pick the right person. Simply a matter of the right occasion.

  The words she’d stenciled over the tunnel had lasted for a week.

  Those seven words painted across a train trestle were enough to make some minds veer off track.

  Camus liked the story of Sisyphus. Whenever Sisyphus returns to his rock and starts readying to push it up the mountain again, said Camus, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which becomes his fate, created by him. A slight pivoting, the simple act of turning to push the rock, and suddenly Sisyphus understands that his seemingly unrelated actions have become his self-created fate. Each atom, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. A world that Sisyphus sees in a new light, each time he pushes.

  3

  For the next thing she’d do, she’d need to be in good shape. Leg muscles, especially.

  One of the guys in the stockroom at work belonged to a gym in Park Slope; he’d given her a couple of guest passes. A few hours on the leg machines would be useful. She’d need to round up supplies, too: a couple of hardened-steel chains, cable bike locks, and high-end padlocks. The police had bolt cutters, but a combination of bike locks and a padlocked chain would be hard to deal with.

  She’d get two metal plates made. Each would be roughly three feet square, and not so heavy that they couldn’t be carried easily. There was an ironworks company over in Cobble Hill that could make the plates. She’d have holes drilled in the top of each for the bike-lock cables. The chains could be carried up, too.