Tunnel of Love

by Hilma Wolitzer

  The dentist’s name was Dr. Gordon Alan Leonard. He had three first names! Linda found that sort of elegant, like the names of royalty. The four-story building in which he had his office didn’t seem very regal, though; it was pretty seedy, in fact. The whole area, at the outer edge of Culver City, looked deserted and run-down. Maybe Dr. Leonard was young and just starting out, or was one of those humanitarians who treated poor people for low fees, and had to keep his expenses low, too. She scanned the lobby directory, which was arranged by floor number, for his three names, and noticed that no other professional people were listed. A palm reader, an importer of Indian spices, and a pet-food supplier shared the first floor. The lobby smelled exotically of the spices. There was a novelty distributor and a domestic employment agency, called Maid to Order, on the second floor. For the third floor, the directory said, “Space available, call Donna.” Dr. Leonard was listed as being in room 401, right before the Movie Institute of Health and Beauty, in 402.

  Linda wiped her wet shoes with a Kleenex and gave herself a last-minute inspection in the smudged glass of the directory before she rang the bell for the elevator. The building was very quiet; she could hear the elevator cage descending slowly on its creaking chains. Maybe nobody else came in on Saturdays, either. It was so nice of Dr. Leonard to accommodate her this way. As she rode up, she remembered her interview with Manny, the two of them sitting on the wine cases, how he had encouraged her to talk about herself, and then hired her on the spot.

  There were no signs of life behind the frosted door of the Movie Institute, but a light was on behind the door of 401. Linda didn’t see an umbrella stand, so she stood her dripping umbrella discreetly against the wall next to the door. Then she hesitated; should she knock first or just go right in? She decided to play it safe and do both, tapping lightly on the door and then opening it before anyone could answer. She found herself in a tiny waiting room, with three shabby leatherette chairs and a table with a few magazines scattered on it. No paintings or prints on the walls. No canned music, either, which was certainly a relief. The inner door, to what had to be the dental office, was shut. Linda wondered if Dr. Leonard had heard her come in, or if she was supposed to knock on that door, too. She put her ear against it and thought she heard the murmur of voices. She hoped no one had beaten her to the punch for the job, but maybe it was just a patient with an emergency. Linda sat down on the nearest chair and picked up a magazine. She glanced at her watch; she was ten minutes early despite the rain. If nobody came out in five minutes or so, she would knock then, making a good impression by being on time, without seeming overanxious.

  The magazine was a year-old copy of People, in a plastic binder marked “American Airlines.” A soap-opera star featured in an article had actually died suddenly since then, in real life. They’d had to kill him off on the show, too, Linda remembered, and now it felt eerie to read about his career plans, and look at pictures of him smiling and lounging near his pool, and sharing a slice of pizza with his wife. It was as if she could still warn him that he would have a heart attack soon if he didn’t get some exercise and watch his diet, the way Robin used to warn his onscreen character that his girlfriend was double-crossing him. Linda was almost at the end of the article when she heard footsteps that came closer and closer until they stopped and the inner door opened. A disheveled-looking woman about her own age came out and shut the door quickly behind her. After giving Linda the onceover, she adjusted her wrinkled skirt and finger-combed her hair. Linda was about to say something sympathetic about toothaches, when the woman gave her a bitter little smile. “Good luck to you,” she said sarcastically, and went out the door. Another job applicant, after all, and obviously a disappointed one. When it was too late, Linda wished that she had said, “If you really wanted the job, you should have remembered that good grooming counts.”

  The inner door opened again, and there was Dr. Leonard, at last. He wasn’t the young, clear-eyed do-gooder Linda had hoped to see. He was at least sixty, wore half glasses, and was kind of portly in his white jacket. But he looked both pleasant and serious, like those fatherly dentists in TV commercials who sit on the edge of their desks and push denture adhesive. “Ms. Reismann, I presume,” he said in silvery tones that matched his hair.

  “Yes. Hello,” she answered, as she stood and shook hands with him. His grip was firm and encompassing. She thought of Manny again, of the unexpected kindness of older men.

  “Shall we go in?” Dr. Leonard said, and he held the door open for her.

  There was a single treatment room inside, and a small, adjacent consulting office. She started for the latter, but he took her elbow and guided her into the former. “Oh, but I’m here about the—” she began, but Dr. Leonard interrupted her. “I know, dear, I know,” he said. “Now, why don’t you have a seat and we can chat.”

  The only seat, except for a chrome stool on casters, which he had already appropriated, was the reclining examining chair. Linda perched sideways on it, facing him, with her purse held primly on her lap. It was awkwardly quiet, and she realized she missed the gurgling of the little chairside sink, which she was used to from a lifetime of dental visits. But of course this wasn’t a regular dental visit. What was it, though? A little alarm was ringing remotely in her head.

  Dr. Leonard scooted his stool closer to the chair, so that his knees almost touched hers, and shuffling through some papers he’d picked up somewhere, said, “Let’s see now. You have no experience, am I right?”

  “Yes,” Linda said. “But I thought—”

  Once more, he interrupted her. “Not necessary, not necessary. What counts around here is attitude. Attitude, and personality, and a willingness to learn. I assume you’re willing, uh … Linda?”

  “Well …” Linda said.

  “Good. Very good,” he said absently, and rubbed his hands together. Then he began staring at her so earnestly over the tops of his glasses she almost expected him to say something about her overbite. Instead, he put one hand on her shoulder and said, “Would you mind if I steal a little kiss?”

  “What!” she cried, jumping up so abruptly her knees banged into his and he rolled back a few feet.

  “Wait,” he said, starting to rise. “Don’t get the wrong idea.”

  “Too late, I already did!” she yelled, making for the door to the waiting room. As she ran through it and opened the outer door, he called sadly after her, “I would have taken care of that overbite!”

  She didn’t wait for the poky elevator but headed for the fire stairs, taking them two and three at a time, although she looked back and saw that he wasn’t following her. She knew by the spicy smell that she was getting close to the lobby, and when she got there she walked right through it and out into the rain. She’d left her umbrella upstairs, of course. “Jerk! Idiot! Fool! Imbecile!” she pronounced as she ran toward her car, alternately addressing Dr. Leonard and herself.

  She drove away so fast she’d gone two or three blocks before she noticed that she hadn’t put her seat belt on. As she was buckling herself in at the next traffic signal, the Mustang’s engine shuddered convulsively a few times and then died. There was a red warning light glowing on the dashboard, something to do with the battery or the alternator or something. Had it been lit before the engine conked out? She kept turning the key in the ignition and pumping her foot against the gas pedal, but all she heard was a series of clicks and the pummel of rain on the roof. “Oh, great,” she said.

  She looked in the rearview mirror; there was no one behind her, no one anywhere on the wet, pockmarked, two-lane street. Now Linda knew why all those people in Mercedes and Jaguars who passed her on the freeway seemed so devoted to their car phones; she would have given anything for one at that moment. There weren’t any public telephones as far as she could see, and she didn’t know where she would even go if she abandoned the car and tried to look for help. “Help!” she said, just to hear the sound of her own voice again. Then she put on her distress blinkers and continued to
sit there, still belted in.

  The traffic light changed four or five times and only two cars went by, both of them heading in the other direction and neither of them even slowing down. Linda leaned on her horn when she saw the first one approaching, only to discover that was dead, too. She opened her window and received a faceful of rain as the second car sped past. She was thinking that she might be worse off if someone did stop, some maniac or mugger, when a sleek red Z pulled up alongside the Mustang. She opened her window again as the passenger window of the Z lowered, and she saw a dark-haired young man sitting behind the wheel, leaning toward her. “Hello, in there,” he said. “What’s the problem?”

  My whole rotten life, she thought, but only said, “I’m not sure. It just conked out.”

  “Aha!” he exclaimed, as if she’d said something more specific, and he started to get out of his car. She rolled up her window and locked all her doors as he came toward her. He was both muscular and slender, with snakelike hips Linda couldn’t help glancing at with a pinch of envy. He tapped on her window. “Can you release the hood?” he mouthed, and when she did, he pulled it up and disappeared behind it.

  A Good Samaritan. Linda felt ashamed of herself. And she didn’t think it was fair of her to be sitting so cozily dry inside the car while this stranger was out there getting drenched on her behalf. She knew she couldn’t be of any real assistance—she didn’t even have her umbrella to hold over the parts of him not protected by the raised hood—but she got out, anyway, and stood beside him, looking in at the mysterious clutter of machinery as he tinkered with it.

  “I think it’s the battery,” he said, finally. “No lights, no horn or anything, right?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said, “and I don’t have my jumper cables with me. It looks like you flooded it, too,” he continued. “Were you pumping the gas to try and get it started?”

  She had to admit that she had been.

  “Then a boost wouldn’t help much now, anyway. It’s got to dry out, maybe overnight.” Then he looked at her and said, “Hey, you’re getting wet.”

  “You, too,” she answered. His black silk shirt was plastered to his back and he was standing in a puddle.

  “Come on then,” he said, slamming the hood down so hard it made her heart leap. “Let’s get inside.” He guided her to the passenger side of his car, and when he opened the door she stood there hesitantly for several seconds, as both of them got wetter. All the warnings she’d ever given Robin about getting into cars with strangers came back to her now, especially her emphasis on the seductive charm of most psychopaths. But he really did seem okay, even if he was a little slickly handsome, with the black shirt and tight pants and those neck chains and everything. And what was the alternative—going back to Dr. Leonard and trading kisses for the use of his telephone? She ducked into the Z and sank deeply into the black leather seat. He slammed her door, causing another vault of her heart, and ran around to get in on the other side. There was a mixed fragrance in the car: the scents of new leather and carpeting, and something delectably musky she couldn’t name. Him, she suddenly realized, and edged toward her door, with her fingertips poised on the handle.

  “Nathan Diaz,” he said, flashing a smile and shaking out his wet curls. Linda noticed a tiny gold hoop in his right earlobe, the flawless spiral of the ear itself. “And it’s okay,” he added. “I’m only wanted in a couple of states.”

  She blanched, and then blushed deeply. “Linda Reismann,” she said. “Thanks a lot. Really.”

  “Wait, I haven’t done anything yet,” he said. “You got towing insurance?”

  “No,” Linda said. “And I really can’t afford to have it towed right now.”

  “Maybe I could help you out,” Nathan said.

  “Oh, thanks, but I just couldn’t,” she told him.

  “Then we’re going to have to get your car over to the curb, and pray it’s still here tomorrow, and in one piece. Come on, it’s easy, I’ll push and you’ll steer. And then I’ll drive you home. Don’t worry, I’ll bring you back here first thing tomorrow morning to pick it up.”

  On the way to Linda’s, they exchanged stories. Nathan, it turned out, was a dancer, too. She should have known from the fluent way he moved. He used to be part of a Latino dance team, he told her—Delila and Diaz—doing club dates and private parties, but they’d split up about two years ago. He’d held a lot of different jobs since then, but now he was a dancercize instructor at a swanky women’s health club called the Beverly Body, where, among other things, he led the salsa workout. “What about you?” he said.

  She didn’t tell him every last detail of her life the way she’d told Manny. This was different; they were only killing time, only making casual conversation. She mentioned the dancing, of course, and that she’d come from the East originally, and was out of work at the moment.

  “You’re kidding,” Nathan said. “We’re looking for someone at the Bod right now! Could you teach a few jazzercise classes? Of course you could,” he answered for her.

  “Listen,” she said. “I haven’t danced professionally in a long time.”

  “So what?” Nathan said. “The body doesn’t forget anything.”

  That was true; her own body was a veritable warehouse of memory. Still, she tried not to get too excited. “I had a baby a few weeks ago,” she told him, and for the first time he became still and thoughtful.

  Then he said, “You’re married?”

  “No,” Linda said. “Not anymore.”

  Nathan brightened immediately. “Then it’s all settled. You’ll come in this week for an interview and an audition. Do you have references? Hell, I’ll give you a reference myself.”

  “But you don’t even know me,” she protested.

  He turned and looked into her eyes. “Yes, I do,” he said.

  When the Z pulled up to her building, Linda saw Robin’s face appear at the kitchen window and then quickly disappear. Linda knew she’d be grilled like a prime murder suspect before the day was over. She said a hasty, grateful goodbye to Nathan, who kissed her hand when she offered it for a friendly clasp, sending a charge all the way up her trembling arm, as if she’d stuck her fingers into the toaster. “See you tomorrow, Linda mujer,” he said, and she hurried off.

  “Who was that?” Robin demanded. “What took you so long? Where’s the Mustang, anyway? And why can’t we get a cool car like that, instead?”

  She didn’t ask a thing about the job interview, and Linda was both relieved and a little hurt. She had decided not to tell Robin any of the ugly details of her encounter with Dr. Leonard, just that the job wasn’t right for her and vice versa. Linda didn’t want her to get the idea that there were only two kinds of men in the world, the good ones who died young, and all the others, who lived to make women miserable. Even if it was true.

  8

  Lost in Space

  STAR TREK. THAT WAS the first thing Linda thought of when she stepped into the lobby of the Beverly Body Health Club and Spa. Maybe it was the ultra-modern architecture and all those pulsing computer screens around the circular desk. Or maybe it was the two silver-blond receptionists in their matching black spandex bodysuits, looking like the twin pilots of this black-and-white spaceship. If Linda ended up working here, would she have to bleach her hair, too, in order not to clash?

  Nathan had said the club was “swanky,” which didn’t begin to prepare Linda for the gleam and glamour of it, the softly perfumed air, the piped-in semi-classical music, and the cooler whose double spigots dispensed Perrier and Evian water. And of course there was valet parking—she hoped her poor Mustang didn’t die of disgrace among all the Bentleys and Rollses out there. This certainly wasn’t anything like those fly-by-night health clubs she remembered from Newark, the ones that advertised specially reduced membership deals one week and closed their doors the next. Linda once lost four hundred dollars that way, had used the exercise equipment at Shapely Lady only twice before
it disappeared from the face of New Jersey.

  The receptionists at the Body weren’t very receptive. They were like those scary saleswomen in boutiques who can tell from a mile away that you don’t belong, that you don’t have the taste and money that entitle you to enter the premises. Nathan had said to ask for the general manager, Mr. Rembrandt. “Whom shall I say is calling?” one of the blondes inquired coolly. And after Linda told her, she said, “I’ll see if he’s in,” in a tone that indicated it was highly unlikely, although Linda had mentioned that she had an appointment.

  As she sat waiting tensely in a black suede armchair, leafing through one of the club’s brochures, a few clients strolled through the lobby, carrying their squash racquets and sports bags. They were all impeccably groomed women in their thirties or forties, whose designer athletic shoes probably cost more than Linda’s entire outfit. She had thought, when she left home, that she looked especially nice in her safari suit and patent-leather flats, that she had managed to effect a satisfying balance between sportiness and style. Now she wished she’d worn something flashier, or simpler, and that she had more hair and longer fingernails. The brochure she held was printed on heavy creamy paper that made her hands look work-reddened and rough. “Welcome to California’s acropolis of health and beauty,” it said on the opening page. From the captioned photographs that followed, Linda saw that the club was equipped with continually updated, state-of-the-art body-building machinery, and that there was a swimming pool and three Jacuzzis on the glass-enclosed roof deck. Massage of every persuasion, from Swedish to shiatsu to reflexology, was available to members, and so were numerous kinds of therapeutic baths and wraps. And in Aphrodite’s Place they could be coiffed, manicured, pedicured, and sloughed of their dead skin cells in a single Afternoon of Indulgence. According to the brochure, a medical doctor, assisted by a licensed nutritionist and a renowned Rumanian esthetician, supervised all of the club’s treatments. Linda could see that mere floor exercise, although offered in great variety, was only a small part of the Body’s agenda.