Summer in the City

by Irene Vartanoff

  Rona was laughing. So was Perry.

  Susan continued to complain, only half-serious now because she knew she wasn’t in any danger. She had friends to protect her.

  “Why aren’t men hitting on you, Rona? Or you, Perry?”

  “Because they haven’t figured out yet if we’re merely here together, or together-together, if you get my drift,” Perry said.

  “Incoming!” Rona said.

  “Ah, I found you again.” That second man who had pestered her at the bar had actually followed her, and was smiling a silly grin.

  Rona looked him up and down, clearly rejected him as inferior stock, and spoke to him coldly.

  “Buzz off. You want to get laid, find somebody else. This is a family party.”

  The man’s face took on an unattractive red hue. He promptly turned around and left.

  “I’m impressed,” Susan said. “I expected a big fight. There’s always one in the movies because the drunk guy thinks his manhood has been insulted when a woman tells him off.”

  “He wasn’t drunk enough,” Perry said.

  “Plus, he’s here to get laid,” Rona said instructively. “That’s the only reason single men come here. No point in wasting his time once he saw that you’re with friends.”

  “Then why are we here?” she asked, puzzled.

  “Because of the great music,” Perry shouted over the too-loud speaker system. Perry was not being intentionally ironic.

  The next bar was a bit quieter. On the way over, Rona had explained that if they all danced together, fewer men would bother Susan if she then sat at a table for a while. Why sit when she could dance? So she danced and danced and danced, until finally she had to sit down. She wasn’t used to so much dancing. By now it was midnight, and she’d had a long day. A small table had miraculously cleared, and she sank down into one of the chairs and put her arms on the table to rest.

  She was enjoying the view until a man came and stood between her and it. She looked up and found him looking at her. She said, “Excuse me, but you’re blocking my view of my friends. Could you move to the side, please?”

  The man didn’t. He started muttering pickup lines so old that they had cobwebs on them. She wasn’t even listening. Finally, she took a leaf from Rona’s book, and in a loud, cutting voice said, “I am not going to have sex with you. Go find somebody else.”

  He backed away. She had handled that like a real New Yorker.

  By the time Rona and Perry joined her at the table, sweating from their energetic dancing, she was fed up. She’d had to warn off three men already. “Is it going to be like this at every place we go to? Because if so, I’d rather go home.”

  “The next place will be different,” Perry soothed. “It’s a gay club.”

  “Won’t gays prefer not to have any women around?” she asked, perplexed.

  “Nobody will mind as long as you aren’t after the same men they’re after.”

  Perry was correct. The third club had much less exotic décor, but the music was the loudest and the place was jammed. Strictly with gay men. She enjoyed a leisurely orange juice at a table and was left blessedly alone. The writhing was about the same.

  At two a.m., they left. The cool of the evening was particularly nice in the city with all the daytime noise and congestion gone. They hiked uptown, not saying much, but all of them in a good mood. There weren’t any cabs, anyway.

  “My feet don’t hurt anymore. They’re too numb,” she remarked. “I feel strange.”

  “I haven’t danced this much in a while,” Perry said. “It was fun, but I’m beat.”

  Rona wasn’t having any of it. “This is New York. The Big Apple. You should be ashamed of yourselves, pooping out at only two o'clock.” She kept looking at passing taxis, trying to flag one still on duty.

  “I can’t stay out all night,” Susan whined. “I have to be at work in only seven hours.”

  “Ha! At our age, we only need five or six hours of sleep. You pathetic weaklings can go home and I’ll hit another club,” Rona threatened. They passed a particularly seedy-looking bar, and she gestured at it. “That one has good music, I hear.”

  “No, no, no,” Perry said, with exaggerated fear. “Dangerous place. I hear they recruit for the CIA.”

  “I always wondered. What if you're MIA in the CIA?” Susan asked idly. She was tired. She felt weird.

  Rona looked at her suspiciously, “How did you get drunk on orange juice?”

  “That last one tasted funny. In fact, I feel odd right now.”

  “Oh, brother,” Rona said. “Get away from her, Perry. She’s allergic to alcohol. She’ll throw up any minute.”

  No sooner was the warning uttered than she started to heave into the gutter.

  Rona held her and helped her clean up afterward. “That wasn’t too bad. Think you’ll do it again?” Rona asked.

  “Maybe,” she said. Although the alcohol was still singing in her veins, she felt and sounded a good deal more sober.

  Rona said acidly, “You stink, girl. Keep downwind of me. You realize that now we’ll never get a cab.”

  “It’s okay,” she replied cheerfully, feeling much better, and quite drunk. “My feet are still numb.”

  Chapter 10

  Susan threw up one more time. After that, they’d gotten lucky and flagged down a cab, bribing the driver with extra money to ignore the smell. By the time she tiptoed into her apartment, it was three a.m. The lights were all on, but the door to the second bedroom was closed. She took a quick shower to wash the stink off and threw herself into bed. She was asleep in seconds.

  The next morning, she woke up with her head pounding and her stomach queasy. Hung over, despite all the puking. This was why she never knowingly imbibed. The results of even one drink were too unpleasant.

  She rushed out the door to her job. No sign of Bev yet.

  Susan wanted to speed through her work that Friday because Louis was coming over and she wanted to leave the office on time. Several editors decided to empty their desks onto hers. It took her an extra hour to clear it. The mailroom people worked all day, so she had no excuse not to finish.

  By the time she arrived home, Louis was already there chatting with Bev. They were both sitting on the couch. The television was on. He wore clean cotton coveralls over a casual T-shirt, and looked quite the handyman. Bev was in a housecoat that looked like a rag she’d stolen from somebody’s grandmother. What Bev would call a shmatte. Susan had never seen one worn by anyone under seventy-five years of age.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Not a problem. Bev and I have been catching up about her children. My lifelong devotion to Rona has kept me from fathering any of my own.”

  She refrained from doubting him, but Bev wasn’t so tactful, “You don’t have any kids because you’re gay, Louis.”

  “Only some of the time. It’s a hobby, not a serious vocation,” he joked.

  “Louis,” Susan protested, laughing.

  “Todd told me you’re gay,” Bev said flatly, as if Todd’s pronouncements were the word of god.

  He looked a bit annoyed. “Maybe he should have consulted with me before he decided to label me.”

  Susan rushed into the potential breach. “Did you eat lunch, Louis? May I offer you something?”

  “No, thanks. Let’s get to the patching. I brought a ton of supplies and noisy power tools,” he warned Bev. She had already sunk into her usual indifference again.

  Susan quickly changed into casual slacks and a T-shirt so she could help ready the tools. Louis had even brought a power strip with surge protector and a heavy-duty extension cord, both essential items in such an old apartment with its pre-war wiring. He’d done much of the woodcutting in his home shop once she had given him the measurements. Even so, he was a meticulous carpenter and measured the holes himself all over again.

  “While I’m doing this, you should probably cover everything near the hole,” he said. “It’s going to get dusty.”


  She pulled out the plastic drop cloths she’d bought. “See, I remembered.” She draped both bedrooms.

  Since Louis knew exactly what he was doing, they soon had the two-by-fours he’d pre-cut nailed into the wall gaps. These would give the wallboard something to be screwed into. Once one side was done, he stuffed special fire-retardant and sound-deadening insulation in between. Then he sealed up each side with drywall tape and joint compound.

  “Okay. Now we wait for it to set up. Could be an hour, because it’s so thick. If you have a fan, we might be able to speed the process. Then, we can sand and paint.”

  “What if the paint takes all night to dry?” As she asked, they were moving the tools and supplies to the kitchen and bathroom to start the hole-elimination process again.

  “I see your point. Okay, I’ll come back early tomorrow and do the painting then.” He gestured for her to hand him the first piece of wood.

  “You know so much about construction. Do you use your building skills here in New York?”

  “I’ve been teaching at a boys’ club for several years. I also donate time to volunteer home-building causes.”

  “That’s a lot. And you still have time to be gay as a hobby, too.” She joked. She would never have dared to say anything like that to someone she hadn’t known as long as Louis.

  “Good one, Suze,” he said. “Now hand me the nailer.”

  In half an hour, the holes were gone. As she helped him pack up the tools, she looked over at Bev, who had not moved from the couch.

  Bev’s phone rang. She answered, and immediately was embroiled in a screaming match with her mother. “No, I’m not coming back. If you’re tired of them, you can take the girls home and let that bastard Todd take care of them himself for once.”

  Louis, coiling an extension cord, raised an eyebrow. Susan walked into the kitchen, and he followed. “Does she do this often?”

  “The screaming phone calls? Yes.”

  “In between, she just sits?”

  “Pretty much. She’s very apathetic.”

  “You realize this is not normal, don’t you?”

  She shook her head. Then she had a twinge of shame. She’d let her dislike of Bev get in the way of the truth. “I guess Bev is acting strangely.”

  “We have to help her.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she protested. “I help her all day.”

  “She’s probably depressed.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” She had been so busy fighting to hide her deep-seated anger at Bev that there had been no connecting the dots and seeing what Louis saw right away. Bev might be sick.

  “She should probably be on antidepressants.”

  Susan got a sour taste in her mouth at that idea. “People are too quick to push pills as the solution to every problem.” Her own recent history bore proof of that. “Bev is already a zombie half of the time. Pills could make it worse.”

  “I’ll talk to Rona. Something should be done.”

  Louis was right to address the situation she herself had been ignoring. Bev’s apathy was noticeable. Perhaps the breakup with Todd was the cause, but perhaps not. Susan only heard Bev’s side of the yelling phone calls. Come to think of it, Bev was yelling now, her voice escalating in volume.

  “Uh-oh.” She ran back into the living room. She was barely in time to stop Bev from hurling her cell phone at a lamp. She grabbed Bev’s arm in mid-arc. Then she gently let go.

  “You can’t keep throwing your phone because you’re mad at somebody.”

  Bev looked angry. “I can do anything I like. It’s my phone and it’s my house and—” She started to sob. She stood and raced into her bedroom and slammed the door.

  Susan looked after her with a mixture of anger and pity. Mostly anger, if she was honest. She used to like Bev, although she had always looked askance at her selfish, acquisitive streak. After what happened at Nancy’s wedding, Susan had hated her for a while. Now she was angry at Bev’s sense of entitlement. Although Bev was an uninvited guest, she treated Susan’s apartment as her own. Bev was so wrapped up in herself that she didn’t see how unwelcome she was in Susan’s summer sublet. Bev didn’t even notice how minimal Susan’s efforts were to be a good hostess. Susan often could hardly bring herself to speak to Bev. This latest outburst had gotten under her skin. The nerve of Bev claiming this was her house.

  Louis saw her emotions, obviously. He leaned against the kitchen door frame, a sympathetic look on his face. “Houseguest from hell, huh?”

  “I didn’t invite her. Rona did,” she replied, closing her lips on more words she knew she shouldn’t say. She fought her desire to barge inside the second bedroom and order Bev to start packing.

  “I’m not convinced that this behavior is depression. She’s too angry.” Susan finally said.

  “Hell, what do I know about depression?” he shrugged.

  “I, unfortunately, have personal experience of depression, and Bev doesn’t fit the profile. What I see is one long extended pout from an immature brat. Bev thinks the world should revolve around her. If things don’t go her way, she acts up.”

  “Whew,” Louis shook his head, “Don’t mince words. Say what you really think.”

  “I may be a naïve suburban soccer mom and all-round goody-two-shoes, but I do have my moments,” she replied. Her outward calm belied her roiling emotions.

  They sat and talked some more but didn’t find any simple answers or even a game plan. Half an hour later, Bev came out of her bedroom. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes sparkled.

  She addressed Louis. “It’s a miracle what you’ve done in my room. That hole was so awful, and now it’s gone.”

  “Anytime, kid.”

  Bev said to Susan, “I’m so sorry for my earlier behavior. I’ve been upset.” She turned back to Louis before Susan could respond. Bev always preferred to talk to men rather than to women, even her supposed friends.

  “Tell me why you keep hanging around Rona. It’s been decades now. I was only kidding about you being gay. So tell me the real reason.”

  After listening for a few minutes to Bev being flirtatious and animated, and talking mostly to Louis, Susan shrugged and went off to her bedroom to clean up a little. She vacuumed up their construction mess.

  Then she went to the kitchen and busied herself with creating a simple afternoon snack. She opened the lower cabinet door on the rolling kitchen island she had acquired for some desperately needed counter space. She loved its smooth maple surface. She pulled out two platters she’d bought in the gift shop of the Museum of Modern Art. They had big pink concentric color circles. She had adored them the moment she saw them. Now it turned out they weren’t a crazy purchase, since here was the perfect moment to use them. On one, she set out some cheeses and small raw vegetables with crackers to go with them. On the other plate, she put an arrangement of cut-up fruit and a yogurt dip. She wasn’t sure what Bev had been eating. This meal was deliberately finger food to tempt a fussy palate. Maybe to show off Susan’s new plates, too.

  She brought both platters to the coffee table and set them down. Louis and Bev were still talking. Bev was showing remarkable animation, laughing, smiling, and making hand gestures as she told stories of her two daughters’ escapades. Bev’s eyes continually darted around the room. Why? What was there to see? This was the one room Louis had not dramatically altered with his hole-filling efforts.

  They ate some of the food although Bev declared she wasn’t hungry. When she excused herself for a minute, Louis stared after her for a bit, then turned to Susan and spoke quietly.

  “Maybe I was wrong. Look’s like she’s taking drugs already.”

  “Drugs?”

  Louis hushed her. “I’ll talk to you out in the hall when I leave.”

  When Louis said his goodbye to Bev, Susan offered to carry his tools so he wouldn’t have to make a second trip downstairs.

  A few minutes later, in the hall, he said, “Look, Miss Ohio, despite all your drug use, you a
ctually needed those medicines when you were taking them. Did they make you this weird?”

  “Maybe. I was pretty off-the-wall at the time. They clouded my brain and kept me from acting out my hysterical urges. I still had the urges. I was living on a fluffy cloud and couldn’t access them directly.”

  He patted her shoulder. “You went through a rough time, girl. I’m sorrier than I can ever say. He was a terrific kid.”

  Her lips compressed with the strain of trying not to cry. She smiled through the tears gathering in her eyes. “Yes, he was.”

  “What can we do for Bev?”

  “Are you sure it’s drugs? Maybe it’s normal anger and depression over the situation with Todd.”

  “I was sitting close to her. Her eyes were dilated. It’s drugs,” he said flatly.

  Susan felt her expression go blank. Drugs? “She did seem unusually animated just now.”

  “Bev’s behavior is frequently up and down, right?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “Now that I think about it, she either sits and stares at nothing, or has screaming phone calls.”

  “I wouldn’t leave her alone,” Louis advised.

  “She’s a bit down, it’s true.”

  “And more than a bit up,” he replied sternly. Suddenly, she saw the lawyer in him. “Don’t you realize she might harm herself?”

  She shuddered. Selfishly, she hated Bev even more for throwing her troubles in her lap.

  “I didn’t ask to be Bev’s keeper. I don’t even like her anymore.”

  “I can see that. I wonder what she did to make you be so against her? Because it’s not like you at all,” Louis said thoughtfully. “You don’t blame her for her husband acting like a jerk at Nancy’s wedding do you?”

  “It’s not that simple,” she replied. She pursed her lips and said no more. Since he didn’t know, she was not going to tell Louis what Bev had done at the wedding. Because he liked Bev, either he would be hurt, or he’d be angry. It would serve no good purpose to confide in him. He couldn’t change the past.

  “Should we call Todd and ask him to come and get Bev?” she asked. Was she being self-serving? She wanted Bev gone, drug problem or not.