The Love Book

by Nina Solomon

  Maybe it was the seeming lack of oxygen or the stress of being on stage, but suddenly she couldn’t contain herself. There was no other way to describe it—she blew a gasket—going off on Sean the way she imagined her grenade extinguisher would have, if he hadn’t sold it on eBay. “Baloney! You were only interested in my grenade!”

  The firedog stopped racing around in his car. The auditorium grew silent.

  “Uh oh,” she said, suddenly realizing that her voice was echoing through the auditorium.

  She pulled off the mask and lumbered off the stage. Sean was right behind her. She heard the students laughing. “The fireman wanted Ms. Baczkowski’s grenade! It went off with a bang!”

  “Wait up, Cathy,” he called. He caught up to her at the end of the hall. “Just tell me why you fell off the face of the earth. Then I promise never to bother you again.”

  “You really don’t know?”

  He shook his head. He was at least half a foot taller than she was without her heels.

  “The grenade? You told me you’d take care of it for me?”

  “I did. I sold it.”

  “At least you admit it.”

  “I still don’t get it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You changed your mind about going out with me, that’s fine, but when I didn’t hear from you after I paid the contractor . . .”

  “You’re the one who paid the contractor?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “I had no idea. As much as I liked that grenade, I really did need the money. How can I ever thank you?”

  “Let me take you out tonight. I’ve never seen a woman look so hot in turnout gear.”

  Cathy peered down, blushing.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Pick you up at seven. I’ll be the one in the red fire truck.”

  * * *

  Driving home after work, the misgivings began to kick in. Instead of a sense of elation about her date with Sean, she felt dizzy, off-kilter. Was it vertigo or her inner compass telling her she was veering off course again? After a few speed-up slow-downs and a missed exit or two, she finally made up her mind, pulled off, and turned the volume down on David Hasselhoff. It was autopilot all the way to surprise her father.

  She used the key under the mat. The lights were on in the kitchen and the sink was full of dishes. The pot of coffee on the stove looked like it had been made days ago. Her father wasn’t in the den watching the news like he usually was at this time of day.

  Like Ariadne’s thread, she followed the cord of his oxygen tank through the house and finally into her mother’s sewing room, rechristened the guest room, just off the pantry.

  “Dad? It’s me, Cathy,” she called.

  No reply.

  From inside, she heard what sounded like . . . cries of pain?

  “Dad, you all right?”

  The first thing she noticed when she opened the door was her father wearing the blue terry cloth robe she’d bought as a visual representation of her soul mate’s imminent arrival. The second was that his home care nurse, a hefty woman in a pink uniform, was kneeling between his legs. Changing his oxygen tank? Down there?

  “Dad?”

  Startled, he pulled the robe around him. “For Pete’s sake, Cathy! You scared the bejeezus out of me! Can’t a man have some privacy in his own home?”

  The zaftig nurse rose as unobtrusively as possible, maneuvered around the various medical devices, and slipped out.

  Cathy’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God, Dad! In Mom’s sewing room?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  BLIND TRUST

  SOMEHOW GARRETT COAXED MAX into trying on dresses at Saks, dresses with sequins and beads, a red strapless gown that cost a small fortune, and then a knee-length, champagne silk halter dress that floated over her body and made a quiet whispering sound when she moved. “I like it when you dress like a girl,” he said. The fabric was as cool as his hands on her hips as he pressed her against the mirror in the dressing room. She’d never played games like dolls or dress-up as a girl and had no idea they could be so much fun. When the saleswoman asked if they needed any assistance, Garrett told her that so far they were doing fine and secured the door with a chair. When they emerged, Max’s handprints remained on the mirror like a bouquet of daisies.

  Garrett was being honored for his work on global warming, a black-tie dinner at the Kennedy Center. He hadn’t asked her to go—she always had back-to-back clients on Fridays and hostessed at Antoine’s—but she’d arranged for a friend to cover her shift and planned to surprise him.

  The next day Max returned to Saks for the dress. The two yards of lighter-than-air silk cost more than she made in a month. Luckily, the blond trust-fund baby, Pam’s former client, had agreed to pay twice her usual rate. After leaving the glittery perfumed maze on the first floor of the department store, she went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral to light a candle for Calvin, an antidote to the blatant commercialism. The sanctuary was filling up with afternoon worshippers. Max thought of the expression in Calvin’s eyes the last time she saw him. She’d been so angry she’d pushed him away when he tried to hug her. The tiers of votives blended into a shimmering amber waterfall of flames. At the door, an old woman was asking for donations. Max dug into her pockets for some change, then impulsively emptied all the money she had on her into the woman’s basket. She’d have given all the money in the world to redo that day.

  She had an hour, more than enough time to do her one hundred flights, train her clients, and still make the eight o’clock Acela to DC. She’d never been late for a session and her clients knew the drill. If they weren’t there on the dot, tough luck. She had three clients that afternoon: Gina, the bionic trophy wife; Gina’s frat-boy son; and the trust-fund baby at three. She’d promised to push him until he puked. She and Pam still weren’t speaking, but she wasn’t about to turn down a paying client. Like Calvin always said, one man’s loss is another man’s gain.

  She stepped out into the hall at the same time as the drug dealer. His ferret was on a pink leash with a matching leopard-print harness.

  She smirked. “Pink?”

  “Only color I could find,” he said, pushing his sunglasses up onto his forehead. “This little bandito’s been getting loose. Freaking out the tenants. The other day I found him on the tenth floor. You’re still trying to run away too, I see.”

  “You have to train if you want to get anywhere in life,” she said.

  “How will you know when you get where you’re going?”

  “Easy,” she said. “When I win.”

  “I’d challenge you to a race, but you’d have to give me a head start. No way I could do one hundred flights in sixteen minutes, forty-eight seconds.”

  “You’re timing me?”

  He laughed. “You’re like clockwork. Have fun climbing to nowhere, Shorty. Me and the bandito are off to Jones Beach.”

  “Just remember to close the fire door,” she said.

  Simon laughed. “I keep telling you, mon, it—”

  “Yeah, yeah. And these,” Max said, holding out a bag of cigarette butts, “aren’t from the fuckwads in the apartment above me.”

  “You have to be the love, Shorty. Like it says in that Love Book.”

  “I told you, no more quotes. I threw that book out for a reason.”

  After her one hundredth flight, all she wanted was fresh air. Sixteen minutes and forty-five seconds. Still room for improvement. She propped open the fire door, but the brick she used wasn’t heavy enough and before she could react, it slammed shut. There was no knob on the outside and banging would do no good. Right now she actually would have been thrilled to have the drug dealer timing her. Something told her she was going to be late for her appointment with the bionic trophy wife. Always a first time for everything. It began to snow, huge lavender flakes as large as daisies falling from the sky. She put her arms under her T-shirt and sat below an overhang, watching the steam billowing out of the boiler chimney.

  The summ
er before seventh grade, Max and her best friend Jessica had biked down to Walker’s Point to see the blowing cave. Her parents, Didi and Carl, were entertaining on the wraparound porch, drinking daiquiris. They gave the girls money for pizza and ice cream and told them to be back before dark. It was high tide. Max held out her hand while Jessica inched her way out onto the slippery boulders. They found a good spot on the bluff overhanging the water and sat shoulder to shoulder, waiting for the first wave to burst through the opening of the cave. Finally, a wave crashed onto the rocks, spurting out and drenching them both. They screamed into the wind and hugged each other, pretending to be lost at sea. Neither of them noticed the car that had pulled over on the side of the road. A dark-haired man got out and asked them where the blowing cave was. Before Max could warn her, Jessica said, Over here. The man ventured out onto the boulder, and sat down next to her. He laughed raucously when the first wave hit and leaned into Jessica. Max told Jessica it was time to go home. The man said he was a producer looking for pretty girls to be in his movie. Had they ever seen Endless Summer? Max pulled Jessica to the road and told her to get on her bike. Her parents were waiting. Jessica refused to go. She’d always wanted to be in a movie. She said that Max was just jealous. Max raced home to get her father but he told her to stop making up stories. If Jessica doesn’t come home immediately I’m calling her parents. Max rode the half-mile back to Walker’s Point, her eyes stinging with the salty spray. It was nearly midnight by the time she found her friend, shivering, wrapped in a thin blue towel, her long hair tangled with sand and seaweed. Please . . . please don’t tell my parents, Jessica wailed. Max never told anyone. You’ve made a spectacle of yourself again, Maxine, her father said when she finally got home. Did you even think about the consequences? You’re a delinquent! In the fall, they sent her to live with Calvin. They thought he’d knock some sense into their wayward daughter. If he couldn’t, nobody could.

  * * *

  Max could barely feel her toes. It was dark and several inches of snow had accumulated when the fire door finally opened. As much as she would have liked Garrett to be her savior, at that moment she didn’t care if it was the creepy porter who always stared at her ass when she passed him on the stairs.

  It was Hector. He helped her up and wrapped her in his green parka, still warm from his body.

  “What took you so long?” she asked.

  “Listen, bitch, for all I knew you and the pilot were on your way to Peru.” He pulled her close. “I’ve been running around the city all day looking for you.”

  After a warm shower, again wearing Hector’s huge coat, along with sheepskin boots and nothing underneath, she stretched out on the futon couch.

  “Where is your pilot, anyway?” Hector asked, handing her a mug of tea.

  “In Washington. He’s getting an award.”

  “Let me guess: he didn’t ask you to go.”

  “None of your fucking business.”

  He smirked, nodding condescendingly. “Just like I thought. Jacques Cousteau’s in a relationship.”

  “Just because you’re a prick doesn’t mean there aren’t some decent guys out there.”

  “And you think you found one?”

  “Maybe I have.”

  She slipped off Hector’s coat. The bathroom mirror was still fogged up despite the exhaust fan. She wiped away a circle of condensation, applied lip gloss, and ran her fingers through her hair. Ignoring Hector’s whistles when she emerged wearing the silk dress, she unzipped Calvin’s army duffel and began packing.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “DC.”

  “No fucking way,” he said, grabbing the bag. “You have hypothermia.”

  “Give me that,” she shot back, shoving him as hard as she could in the chest.

  Hector held his hands up in defeat. “Okay, be a dumb bitch. See if I care. Just don’t come crying to me when the guy dumps your sorry ass,” he said, storming off.

  She sent Garrett a text, Arriving in DC at 11. Wearing the silk dress . . . nothing else, then hoisted Calvin’s bag onto her shoulder. She was locking the door when her phone pinged.

  It’s only colleagues and spouses. You’d be out of place.

  She felt like she’d been punched in the gut. Calvin had taught her not to show the merest hint of vulnerability. One thing she’d never do was admit to Hector that he’d been right.

  Fuck you too, she texted back, then dropped her bag and kicked her door.

  The drug dealer came out of his apartment. “Everything okay, Shorty?”

  “Does it look like everything’s okay?”

  He smiled, checking her out. “I’d say so.”

  “If you like girlie shit,” she said.

  “Girlie shit looks good on you.”

  She was about to unlock her door, then changed her mind. “Is it all right if I come in for a minute?”

  “Be my guest,” he said.

  Simon’s apartment smelled like incense, probably to mask the smell of weed. She’d expected a total mess, but the studio, a mirror image of hers, was tidy and minimalist. Nothing out of place. The ferret was sleeping on a sheepskin bed by the radiator. On the windowsill, on top of a stack of thick scientific texts on subjects ranging from neuroplasticity to quantum physics was The Love Book. Maybe he sold used textbooks to med students. Max peered through the blinds into Simon’s garden. Underneath a bamboo arbor of hanging ferns were pots of exotic plants still blooming, despite the light dusting of snow: elephants ear, peacock orchids, birds-of-paradise. Three wrought-iron chairs around a stone fire pit. This was hardly the junk heap and cannabis tent she’d expected; he’d created a sanctuary. A drug dealer with a green thumb.

  An unopened bottle of Cuervo sat next to the television. Two years ago that wouldn’t have even gotten her through the night.

  Suck it up, Max, Calvin had said. She’d just come home from the ore pit. Calvin was on the phone, his back to her. He was wearing a chambray shirt and overalls. His boots were caked with mud. I suppose it’ll be good for you to be with people your own age, he said. He hung up and stood by the window staring out toward the pond as if he were looking for something, though his eyes had already begun to fail him. I won’t go, she said. They can’t make me. She ran out and locked herself in the shed. Calvin pounded on the door with his huge fists. Open the door right now! he shouted. You told me I could stay with you forever. Suck it up, Max. That’s life. Shit happens, people die. The only thing you can count on is that people will always disappoint you. Deal with it. She came out and buried her face in Calvin’s chambray shirt. But not you, Calvin. His chest expanded, then collapsed. Yes, Max, even me.

  One month later, he shot himself.

  Without a word, she unzipped the halter dress and let it fall to the floor in a pool of pearl-colored silk. Simon seemed momentarily caught off guard when she reached up and unclasped the straps of his overalls, but quickly regained his senses. His hands caressed her torso like a sculptor, finally resting on the curve of her hips. His body was smooth and perfect, muscular, ripped, and lean. Max put her hand under the waistband of his striped cotton boxers. She would have expected something flashier.

  “Whoa, Shorty, what’s the rush?” he said, pulling away. “How about a glass of vino? We barely said hello.”

  “Shut up, Simon,” she replied, pushing him onto a chair and straddling him.

  He held her still with one arm while he reached behind him into a desk drawer. “Let me put on a boot,” he said, opening a condom with his teeth. Then, unable to resist any longer, he groaned, “Lord have mercy,” and pulled her to him.

  She closed her eyes, letting her body take over. In her mind she was racing up a never-ending flight of stairs. One step at a time. One more flight. One more landing. Just a little further. But she knew she could never go high enough.

  With Simon’s large arms around her, she felt small, safe. She caught herself before she came. She wasn’t doing this for pleasure. It was to level the pla
ying field, get back at Garrett.

  Suck it up, Max. That’s life. Deal with it.

  When she knew Simon was close, she held his hands above his head, waiting until his body shuddered before getting off him. He leaned back and took a deep breath. “Ah, the agony.” She pulled on his overalls, the straps barely covering her chest, leaving the dress on the floor. No more girlie shit for her.

  “Why the haste, Shorty? Your turn. Time to eat under sheet.”

  “No thanks, I’m good.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  TEXAS SIZE

  MONDAY MORNING EMILY MADE CRÊPES for Zach. The batter was a little gloppy, but nothing a good dousing of syrup couldn’t remedy. She waited for the fancy French crêpe pan to heat up, a “present” from her ex-mother-in-law along with the two-volume set of The Art of French Cooking. The merest hint of snow on brownstone rooftops was the only evidence that remained of last weekend’s freak October snowstorm. How quickly things could disappear without a trace.

  She hadn’t expected to see Duncan ever again after the disastrous weekend at his agent’s house. He’d finally returned her seventeenth message and they’d had a three-hour scorched-earth conversation. He told her she was a hack writer, that she dressed “conventionally,” and complained that she didn’t even read the New York Times correctly. So, when her friend at the Daily Beast had asked her to go to DC last Saturday to interview the recipient of an award at the Kennedy Center for their online edition, she’d accepted without hesitation. Duncan wasn’t going to be inviting her to any must-attend literary events in the foreseeable future. During the interview, the award recipient and Emily had more than a little flirtation. He was handsome and intelligent and it took her mind off Duncan. She’d gone back to his hotel for a drink and some more flirting, but once she made it clear that the evening wasn’t going any further, he told her he had an early flight in the morning. And, big surprise, when she did some research, she’d discovered the guy was married.