Mr. Nice Guy

by Jennifer Miller

Lucas nearly choked on his mini hot dog.

  “To a young man from Pinecrest named Cal Braden. He does real estate law for Palmer and Coletta, which is apparently one of the top firms. Lucille said he is definitely going to make partner, that he’s a real go-getter.”

  As if Lucas wasn’t. As if Lucas was a bum.

  “Mel is very happy, so the good news is that last summer is water under the bridge. It’s such a relief!” Patricia had not looked this elated since Lucas had announced his own engagement.

  “This is crazy. Mel’s only been dating this guy for like five months!”

  “When you know, you know.” Patricia shrugged. “Look, honey, don’t be upset. You’ll find the right person.”

  But what if he already had and she wasn’t interested?

  “Once you get your life on track,” his mother added. “Women respond to men who have a plan.”

  Lucas opened his mouth, but Sam shook his head.

  “But for now,” Patricia said, “be happy that Mel doesn’t hold anything against you.”

  Lucas couldn’t contain himself any longer. “Mom! Mel broke up with me!”

  Patricia frowned. “You did back her into a corner—running out on your own engagement party?” She cleared her throat. “And everything else.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I know we haven’t discussed the specifics—”

  “That’s damn right.”

  “But Lucille says you didn’t give your all to the relationship.”

  As if he and Mel were a baseball team. This was absurd. “Are you really going to believe Lucille over your own son?”

  “Luke,” Sam interjected. “Lucille’s right about—”

  “Shut up, Sam.”

  “I’m just saying, honey, that the Woodwards don’t hold a grudge against us.”

  “Of course!” Lucas slapped his palm on the island. “It’s not me you care about. It’s Mel’s parents. My marriage was your ticket into their social circle, to all of Lucille’s committees. That’s why you care about Mel ‘forgiving’ me.” Lucas pumped air quotes so hard, his fingers cramped. “You just want a better table at the country club.”

  “That is not true.” Patricia shook her head, her eyes brimming. “Not true at all.” She rushed from the kitchen.

  Sam shook his head. “You’ve been home for what—five minutes?”

  “She started it!” Lucas protested.

  “You’re a moron,” Sam said, and hurried after their mother.

  Sam’s rebuke made Lucas’s cheeks burn, so he popped a pig in the blanket into his mouth and focused on the rush of fat and salt. He was smart to have left this place. Smart and brave to have cut the cord. He didn’t need anyone’s forgiveness—least of all Mel’s. He popped a second hot dog into his mouth and chewed vigorously. He could eat these things all day and wondered if his mother had made enough for him to take extras back to New York.

  * * *

  That night, Sam tried to talk some sense into Lucas. “Cut Mom a break,” he argued. “Think how she feels, trying to fit in here.”

  “She and Dad put themselves in this situation,” Lucas said. “If she didn’t base her self-worth on these unattainable goals, she’d be a lot happier.”

  “Aren’t you doing the same thing?”

  “That’s different, Sam. I’m trying to build a career. Mom and Dad are social climbers.”

  “And why is their ambition any less noble than yours?”

  Because theirs is petty and insignificant. But Lucas knew how offensive that sounded, so he kept his mouth shut. Instead, he announced his need for a stiff drink.

  “Well, fortunately,” said Sam, “we’re going to a bar.”

  * * *

  Each year their high-school friends gathered at the Pig and Whistle Pub the night before Christmas Eve. Lucas had been nervous about entering the fray; he hadn’t seen any of these people since the broken engagement. He spent the first hour regaling his friends with tales of New York. He had plenty—enough, in fact, to mute his own depression. But halfway through a rollicking tale of the love hotel (in this version, Katie and Corinne were indeed socialites), the currents in the bar begin to shift. People who’d been eddying around him were flowing away, pooling elsewhere. And Lucas saw why. Not more than twenty feet from him, stood Melanie Woodward, his ex. Mel held a Michelob ULTRA in her right hand. A cluster of young women gathered around her left, as though waiting to kiss the ring of Don Corleone.

  Everyone in the bar was now highly aware of the situation. Lucas was aware that everyone was aware. And Lucas did not want everyone to see him crumble.

  “Shots!” Lucas exclaimed to the remaining friends who were sticking to their territory. “Why haven’t we done shots?” And so the group of them marched toward the bar and promptly threw back a round of tequila shots. After the second round, Sam sauntered over and asked Lucas if he wanted to take a break. Lucas did not. “How ’bout another round?” he asked.

  “How ’bout some water?”

  But only one thing would come between Lucas and a disastrous next drink, and that was—

  “Hi, Sam!” Mel said, appearing suddenly beside them. She leaned in for a hug.

  —yes, well, Lucas thought, perhaps another drink would be preferable to this.

  Sam put on a big smile. “Lucas,” he said unnecessarily, as if talking to a senile relative. “Mel’s here!”

  “Melanie,” Lucas said. He never called her that, and he hoped she noticed. But Mel only smiled and went in for a hug. She smelled different, which for some reason felt like a rebuke.

  “You’re looking really good, Luke.”

  How long was this conversation going to last? Why was it even happening? He looked around for his brother, but Sam had sidled away. Lucas turned back to Mel, his head swinging around too quickly. Mel wavered in his line of vision, so he blinked hard, trying to stabilize. He leaned backward, and the bar steadied him. There, that was better. Mel had stopped moving. She was wearing a dress he’d never seen before and knee-high boots. Her brown hair was smoothed and straightened with the usual meticulous attention. And, per usual, pinned above her forehead was a little hump of hair.

  You look good, too, but why do you smell different? Why all of a sudden do you smell like somebody else? Lucas opened his mouth, but what came out was, “Your dress is new.”

  Mel gave a little twirl. “Cal bought it for me when we went to the Rebecca Minkoff sample sale in SoHo.”

  “When did you guys visit the city?” Lucas asked, trying to sound nonchalant. For some reason, knowing they’d been in the city, while he was living there unawares, made his heart pound.

  “Cal lives in New York. I was visiting him.”

  “New York City?”

  Mel nodded. “Crazy, right? After the big fuss I made about not wanting to move there. And now here I am just a few months away from joining him!”

  “Hold on. You’re moving to Manhattan?”

  “Well, we are engaged, Lucas. I’ve applied to a couple of grad programs. Though if I don’t get into school right away, it won’t be the worst thing, since Cal owns a one bedroom in Chelsea. It’s right around the corner from this amazing southern restaurant called Tipsy Parson. The food is like my mom’s cooking but on crack. And they have the most incredible cocktails. Have you been? Anyway, the point is that I don’t have to freak out about rent—you know how crazy rents are in the city.”

  Hell no. She was not trying to commiserate with him about the Manhattan real estate.

  “Anyway, I’ll let you get back to it.” She nodded at the shot glass on the bar. “But I wanted to clear the air between us. We’ve both moved on. I’m happy for you. I hope you can be happy for me.”

  Last summer, all Lucas wanted was for Mel to have shown even a little enthusiasm about New York. Now her impending arrival felt like a declaration of war. She had no right to invade his city, just glide in on somebody else’s mortgage—and not because she really wanted to be t
here or could appreciate being there, but because her fiancé just happened to be a rich real estate lawyer with a one bedroom in fucking Chelsea. “And where is Cal?” Lucas felt anger rumble in his stomach.

  “He’s flying down tomorrow. Closing a deal. But maybe once I’ve come to the city, we can all get together. I’m sure you can introduce us to some really cool spots.”

  “You keep calling it ‘the city,’ like it’s your home or something.”

  “Well, it will be,” Mel said plainly.

  Lucas scowled under his breath. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Believe what?” Her face was so open, so innocently inquisitive, that he almost didn’t answer. But then he did.

  “You think that I want to spend time with you and your new fiancé? After I begged you to move with me? After you made it absolutely clear that you would never live in New York and that I was ridiculous for even considering it myself? After you broke off our engagement and then jumped into bed with some other guy, like what, a month later? And then posted a million pictures of the two of you online so you could prove to everyone how much better than me he is? And now you want to hang out? You want me to show you the ‘cool’ spots as you call them.”

  Mel stared at him, shocked. But Lucas wasn’t finished.

  “The thing is, Mel, cool isn’t about where you go. It’s a way of looking at the world. It’s about what you want out of life and the risks you’ll take to get it. It’s about opening yourself to new opportunities, taking risks, being open—” Wait, had he already said that? Maybe, but he needed to make sure she understood his point. “Whether you live in Podunk, North Carolina, or Chelsea or on the moon, Mel, you’ll never be open-minded enough or ambitious enough to be cool or understand cool or even experience cool.”

  “Lucas,” Mel breathed. “What in the hell are you talking about?” Her eyes were starting to tear, and she wiped at them fiercely. “Honestly, I don’t know why I’m crying. You’re drunk and you’re being an asshole.” She looked around, as though in search of a witness. Fortunately, Sam was already making his way back.

  “What’s going on?” Sam asked.

  “What’s going on,” Lucas spit, “is that the city, as she insists on calling it, doesn’t want her, doesn’t need her, has no use for her. Mel-an-ie.” He lifted the shot glass from the bar and raised it high into the air. He was the fucking Statue of Liberty, holding aloft the light of freedom, and if Mel didn’t get that, then she could suck it!

  Sam reached up and removed the shot glass from Lucas’s hand. “OK,” he said. “We’re calling it a night. I’m sorry about all this, Mel.”

  She nodded, dazed, though by now she was safely ensconced by her squad.

  “Tell your mom thanks for not holding a grudge!” Lucas shouted as Sam pushed him toward the door. “Tell her we don’t give a shit about your country club!”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Sam demanded, once they were outside.

  “I can think of a couple things,” Lucas muttered. Then he leaned over and vomited in the parking lot.

  CHAPTER 28

  Carmen walked home from Mira’s, despondent. She couldn’t remember any Christmas having gone so completely and terribly awry. She had spent a lovely day with a small, eclectic group of Mira’s friends. And that night, per the usual tradition, settled down to play Gin. But as Carmen searched the kitchen for playing cards, she discovered a stack of mail beneath a pile of catalogs. They were notices from Mira’s landlord—or, to be precise, his lawyers—stating that she’d broken the law by living on the rent-controlled lease of her deceased partner. Since the couple wasn’t married, the letters explained, Mira must pay market rate if she was to stay. Further, the landlord was ordering her to make up the difference in rent for the time she’d been “scamming” him. The sum was $48,750, which Carmen knew her grandmother didn’t have. The letters went back months.

  Carmen’s heart seized up. She carried the envelopes into the living room. “Were you ever going to tell me about this?” she asked.

  “He’s just a bully trying to make me flinch,” Mira said, fiddling with her iPad. “But I won’t.”

  “Mira, they’re threatening legal action. Eviction.”

  This word captured Mira’s attention. “I am eighty-six,” she said pointedly to Carmen, “and I have lived here for decades. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Carmen walked over to her grandmother. Did she really not understand what these letters meant? Or that by ignoring them for so long she’d made herself even more vulnerable? And yet Mira’s refusal to take any of this seriously meant that Carmen was going to have to step in and find a solution—and that was going to take a lot of money.

  “Nobody’s going to throw a little old lady out of an apartment the size of a manhole,” Mira said, having noticed Carmen’s silence.

  “If that manhole is on Barrow Street, they will,” Carmen said. “We need a lawyer.”

  “Forget it. Neither of us can afford that.”

  “I have savings.”

  Mira shook her head. “This will work itself out. You’ll see.”

  “Mira, these kinds of problems don’t just vanish. You can’t ignore them.”

  Mira gave a dismissive “hmm.”

  Carmen couldn’t take it. “Don’t shrug this off like it’s nothing. Don’t you understand?” She was standing directly over Mira now and she was still looking at her iPad. “Mira, you are going to get kicked out of here if you don’t do something. It may already be too late. How could you have just ignored this? Pretended it wasn’t happening? It’s like you live in a fantasy world.” Carmen shook her head and started pacing back and forth.

  “That is an unkind thing to say to me, Carmen.”

  “I’m sorry, but it’s true. Why do you think you and Mom don’t talk anymore? Why do you think you spent your life bouncing from job to job, never being able to stick anything out for more than five minutes? It’s because your version of reality doesn’t match up with anyone else’s. And it impacts the people around you. It impacts me. Now I have to fix this for you. Because you insist on being completely irresponsible. Like a child.” Carmen was aware, as she said these terrible things, of how truly awful they were. But she couldn’t stop herself. She was terrified for her grandmother—for what would happen should Mira be forcibly removed from her home. And so this assault, these accusations, seemed the only way to reach her. But Mira was looking at her granddaughter with hard, unloving eyes, her lips drawn tightly together.

  “I have lived my life as I wanted to live my life. And I have never asked you for a thing, so don’t talk to me as though I am such a burden to you. Don’t talk to me like you know so much better, because you don’t, Carmen. You don’t know.”

  “But I do!” she nearly screamed. “Evicted, Mira! Evicted! That means you have no home. That means you have nothing. And it’s happening. It’s going to happen.”

  Suddenly, to Carmen’s horror, Mira began to weep. Carmen ran to the couch and knelt down. “I’m sorry. Mira, I’m so sorry.” She reached for her grandmother’s hands and Mira allowed Carmen to take them, but they remained flaccid and unresponsive. “Mira, please!” Carmen pleaded. “I didn’t mean it. I’m just worried. We have to do something.”

  Mira pulled her hands away and dried her eyes with the corner of her robe. “I’m very tired,” she said. “I’m going to bed now,” she said almost mechanically. “Please lock up on your way out.”

  Carmen turned out the lights and left the apartment. Walking home, she realized her mistake. Mira, who had lost her partner of decades only one year ago, had been ignoring the letters out of a deep-seated fear. In letting her own anxieties escalate, Carmen had inflamed that fear. She’d not only taken a verbal battering ram to the woman she loved more than anything—she’d also blown a hole through her grandmother’s tenuous optimism.

  And Mira was still being threatened with eviction.

  * * *

  Carmen arrived home, put on her pajamas
, and sat down to wait for Lucas’s call. It may have been Christmas, but the magazine’s publishing schedule wasn’t taking a break. A column needed to be published. And Jays had issued a decree: The next “Screw the Critics” theme would be video sex, via Skype. Carmen and Nice Guy were to lead each other through a verbal maze of kinky entertainments to see who could make the other come first. “And no cheating,” the Editor instructed via email. “Record the conversation so that I can adjudicate if necessary.”

  I bet he’d like to adjudicate, Carmen thought. Adjudicate into a wad of Kleenex.

  Carmen wasn’t sure what turned Jays on more: the sexual exploits of his ex-girlfriend—he was always a little masochistic like that—or the rapidly climbing newsstand sales and Web subscriptions that “Screw the Critics” continued to produce. But neither Carmen nor Lucas had any interest in creating a visual record of their interaction, so the two joined forces and pushed back: They’d do phone sex, but no Skype. And there would be no recording. It was the first thing they’d agreed upon in ages.

  Now, phone in hand, Carmen felt overwhelmed by the amount of meanness in her small world. The cruelty of others—and her own.

  When Lucas finally called, she answered with exhaustion. “What?” she groaned.

  “Did we not have an appointment? I need my weekly dose of humiliation.”

  How much of Lucas’s sarcasm masked genuine hurt? “I—” she started in, but couldn’t get any further. All at once, she was sobbing, struggling to muster the control to apologize and hang up. The phone shook in her hand.

  “Carmen, what’s wrong? Are you all right?”

  She swallowed her tears, but more came.

  “Carmen, seriously, what’s happening?” Lucas was starting to sound panicked.

  “Why do you care?” she sobbed.

  “Please.” He sounded genuinely concerned. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  So she did. Because suddenly she couldn’t bear the thought of being alone with her own self-loathing. Because for the first time in these many months, Lucas was being kind. And hell, despite their emotional distance, they knew each other in ways nobody else did. He listened patiently, asked her some questions. Slowly, she began to calm down. When her eyes were finally dry, she asked him to hold on a moment and went into the bathroom to splash water on her face. Worried that Lucas might hang up, however, she hurried back.