Summer in the City

by Irene Vartanoff

  “Maybe this Michael could talk her into it? I want to meet the guy.”

  “Good idea. We can grill everyone at once. Bev hasn’t moved out or told me when she plans to. She’s still my girl, but this is getting annoying. I’ll arrange something. It’ll have to be in the courtyard, I think. My place is too small.” She heard Louis cackle at that statement and she bridled, looking around at her newly presentable but still small living room. Except for that one pile of newspapers. It was growing. “It’s much better these days, so don’t take that attitude. I’m getting control of my clutter.”

  “What day are you thinking?”

  “How about Saturday early evening. Drinks?”

  “I was going to see Perry that evening, but I can cancel.”

  “You’re still seeing him?”

  “Just friends. You know I’m not all that gay even though I like to play the game.”

  “I hope you’re not leading him on.”

  “No, we got that straight pretty quickly.”

  “Good. You can bring him to the party. I won’t be grilling people the entire time.”

  “I might do that. He’s a funny fellow.”

  “I’ll invite Edward, who is anything but.”

  “How is that going?”

  “The truth? Not well. He did introduce me to his daughter, although I was the one who had to speak up and inform her we were a couple.”

  “Bet that went over like a ton of bricks.”

  “You’re right about that. Little Miss Society Princess had a hissy fit on the spot. Not an appealing sight. Edward told her to stow it, I’ll give him that. The trouble is, later he told me I shouldn’t have used the word stepmother.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  She sighed. “Yeah. I’m doing some heavy thinking about this.”

  ***

  “How do you feel about fat?” Susan asked, as she idly ran her hand across Michael’s hard, flat belly. They were lying in his big bed in his pleasantly appointed, masculine bedroom. They’d finally made it to the bed the second time.

  “If it’s on you, I’m fine with it,” he slid his hand along her decidedly convex, even wrinkly stomach, and then reached up toward her still-plump breasts.

  “Last year, at my daughter’s wedding, Bev’s husband, Todd, made a big scene and publicly called me a fatso.”

  “Todd’s an asshole. Everybody knows that.”

  “He was mean, but it was the truth. I weighed a hundred pounds more than I do today. I took a year and lost all that weight. The odds are I’ll regain it. Most people do. It’s almost impossible to lose weight and keep it off.”

  “So?”

  “What I’m really asking is, if and when I regain the weight, would you still think I was sexy?”

  Michael’s hand had reached her breasts. “Hmm…would you still have these?”

  “They’d be bigger.”

  “Then okay.” He palmed each one gently.

  “Really? Because the rest of me would be bigger, too.” She was so serious about the fat issue that she was managing to not completely melt from his touch. Barely.

  Michael stopped fooling around and moved over her, his face mere inches from hers. “Gain two hundred pounds. Dye your hair purple. Get a full-body tattoo. Pierce everything. Doesn’t matter.” He leaned in the final inches and took her lips forcefully.

  ***

  It was late Sunday evening and still no sign of Susan. Bev was lonely and bored. The hall doorbell rang. Funny, no one had called from downstairs.

  Bev heaved herself out of her chair and walked to the door. When she looked through the peephole, she couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “Todd!” she shrieked.

  She opened the door. Rona was behind him. “He rang my bell. Are you okay with him visiting you?”

  “Yes!” Bev said, excited. “Come on in, both of you.” Finally, he was here.

  Todd walked inside, but Rona didn’t. He was wearing a suit, but his Florida tan made him obviously not a New Yorker. He looked good.

  Bev turned to Rona, who said, “Call me.” With a wave, she retreated down the hall. Bev wheeled around and stared at Todd, who was already prowling around the living room. He’d always had too much energy.

  “Aren’t you going to kiss me?” she asked.

  “I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong impression. Coming up to New York wasn’t my idea.”

  “Then why are you here?” Bev asked, disappointed and already angry.

  “I got nagged into it. By your mother and mine. And of course, Uncle Sol. He insisted I take time off from the hospital and bring you back.”

  Bev’s shoulders sagged a bit. Since this visit wasn’t even his idea, she had a bad feeling her travail wasn’t over yet.

  “What’s with the dinky accommodations?” Todd paused, obviously ready to be distracted by any little thing.

  Bev glared at him. “This is Susan’s apartment, not mine. I was lucky she took me in. Especially after you called her names at Nancy’s wedding.”

  Todd’s brow darkened. “That smug fat hausfrau. She’s so roly-poly you could roll her down a hill.”

  “Not anymore, Mr. Mouth,” Bev retorted. “She’s looking good these days.”

  “So, anyway, I’m here to talk some sense into you, doll.”

  She’d hoped Todd’s coming to New York meant he was ready to negotiate. Damn him. She wasn’t going to give up.

  “We’ve been over this before, wise guy,” she said defiantly.

  Todd’s face turned beet red. He hated it when anyone openly defied him. He was used to all the nurses and patients kowtowing to him at the hospital.

  “I told you how it has to be.”

  “You might as well hold your breath.” She glared at him.

  “Look, no one would have to know. We could pretend you were pregnant and gave birth up here.”

  Bev slapped him across the face.

  “How dare you! I am not raising your fake son. Get out! Get out of here!” she screamed.

  Todd headed toward the door, but turned back. “You’re being unreasonable. I’m staying at the Hilton, in case you change your mind.”

  “You dickhead, I’m not the one who needs to see reason. You are.” He was so aggravating. Bev followed him to the door just so she could slam it on him, the jerk.

  Before she could do so, Susan arrived from the elevator, looking well-loved. Bev could tell she and Michael had had sex.

  Todd automatically leered at Susan because she was attractive. Then he did a double take and realized who she was. She looked at him blankly at first, then with recognition and quickly hidden disgust.

  “Susan? You’ve lost a ton of weight. Did you have any work done? You look marvelous.”

  Todd was so lame. His effusive compliments would have been just right for a Boca bitch. Susan was obviously affronted. Todd, the moron, couldn’t see it.

  “Todd. Are you here to collect your wife?”

  At her hopeful question, the bastard started to sputter. “Well, I…no.”

  Bev said a loud, “Ha!”

  Susan looked disappointed. She must be desperate to get them gone. Who could blame her? Obviously Susan still resented Todd calling her a fatso at the wedding. Even though it had been the truth then.

  Bev remembered that she was mad at him for being a prick. “You’d better change your tune, mister.”

  “Not a chance.” He headed for the elevator. Then he turned around and said to her, “Think about my idea. It’s practical.”

  “Drop dead!” she yelled after him. Then he was gone, the high and mighty jerk. She burst into tears.

  “Damn him, damn him!”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, why did Todd come if not for a reunion?”

  Bev wasn’t about to explain why Todd and she couldn’t reunite. So Susan was puzzled. Tough.

  “It’s a long story.”

  Bev sat down and turned the TV back on. She had to calm herself.

  ***


  Bev was less annoying when she was crying. Susan chastised herself for her uncharitable thoughts. Bev obviously loved Todd and wanted him back. Something was keeping them apart, something that Bev refused to explain. Too bad he hadn’t come to take her back to Florida.

  “At least he came to see you.”

  Bev cried harder.

  She gave it up. She would much rather go to her room and think about Michael, anyway.

  Chapter 24

  Susan’s Friday afternoon discoveries at Coquette Books now seemed a lifetime ago. She still showed up bright and early Monday morning as usual and did her job. Linda was also her usual unpleasant self. Susan briefly wondered if it could all be an act Linda cultivated to keep people from asking her too many questions. Not Linda’s dislike of her, which seemed genuine enough. The way Linda kept everyone away from her except a few favorites. By growling and yelling at people and being as uncooperative as possible, Linda created a space around herself that gave her enormous privacy in an otherwise full office. No one went to see her or talk to her except her closest friends, unless they absolutely had to. Everyone steered clear of her. It might explain why employees didn’t hang around Susan’s desk, either. It was too near to Linda’s office.

  Susan needed more evidence if she was going to blow the whistle on the embezzlement. She needed proof of a link between Linda and the suspect company, or between Linda’s approval of that company’s invoices and someone else in the office who was in collusion with her. Once the morning load of manuscripts was handled, there was time to find the link.

  It didn’t take long. Now that Susan knew what she was looking for, she quickly found the incorporation papers filed for the suspect company. It was only a couple years old. That in itself wasn’t significant. In the advertising business, it was common for people to quit or be fired from one company and go start their own and steal back the clients they’d previously served. Plenty of these new agencies closed up shop after a few years. The one she had worked for when she and Rick were first married was long gone.

  She looked for proof that this was a real agency. News articles about it, press releases, boasting in ad biz newsletters about new campaigns or clients won away from the big boys. She found none after the first year. Evidently, the agency had failed. Yet New York State records indicated that taxes were being paid and the corporation was not on hiatus. There even was a mailing address listed. A post office box. Dead end there. Then she followed the officers. No names were familiar. Then she did a sort and compare with lists of people who worked for Coquette Books at all levels. She’d already accessed a complete employee listing from HR. That was probably a firing offense, but most HR departments were busy churning paperwork. They had no time to notice when something was up with the files. Anyway, she knew how to cover her tracks.

  She hacked into the email system and did a comparison search with emails addressed to the marketing and sales departments at Coquette. No communications from the suspect company, nothing setting up their services.

  Then she went looking for any coincidences. She found Linda’s name. And Elizabeth’s. Linda’s maiden name was the same as the president of the suspect corporation.

  Oh, golly. She had to think about that one.

  ***

  The next evening, Susan came home to find Bev arguing with Todd. In person, again. Bev was nicely dressed for the second time since she had come to New York, and she was wearing careful makeup. Todd was in another suit.

  They didn’t look any happier.

  “Oh! I’m sorry. I can come back later,” she said.

  “Don’t bother,” Bev replied sourly. “This fool was just leaving.”

  “Hey, knock it off.”

  “Stop trying to foist some other woman’s child on me.”

  “Why not? You had sex with another guy. You’re no better than me.”

  “You bastard. You screw everything in a skirt, and you dare to judge my one slip?”

  “It’s different. I’ve told you a million times, it’s just sex. Those women meant nothing to me,” Todd justified.

  “Ha! You did it a million times.”

  Unnoticed, Susan backed into the hall, nearly falling out the door. Amazingly, Rona picked up when Susan frantically called her apartment. Her voice was shaking. “Come upstairs right away. Bev just accused Todd of making some girl pregnant and wanting Bev to raise the baby.” She ended on a sound that at first she didn’t even realize was coming from her. It was a wail.

  “Uh-oh. Coming.”

  The yelling was still going on. Evidently, living in a big house had accustomed Bev and Todd to noisy fights with no fear of neighbors’ complaints. Susan stared at the door to her apartment, transfixed.

  Rona was out of the elevator in a minute. “Finally, we get some light on their problem. Let’s go in and solve it.”

  Todd and Bev were still fighting, each reciting, in turn, a list of bad behaviors. Bev’s list was better than Todd’s.

  “Then there was that waitress at Denny’s. At Denny’s. You have no sense of decency. You put the make on her in front of our children, you slime.”

  “You’re such a bitch. You were complaining and carrying on about the order until the poor girl was in tears. Over hash browns. I wanted to console her.”

  “Sure, you did. That’s why it took half an hour in the back room, you bastard,” Bev claimed.

  “If you weren’t always—”

  “Time!” Rona said in her authoritative professor’s voice. “That’s enough, you two.”

  Todd and Bev turned, surprised. Rona continued to assert her authority. “Todd, what’s this I hear about you wanting Bev to raise your bastard by another woman?”

  “Why not? She screwed some other man last year. It could have been her bastard.”

  “One time! One time!” Bev screamed. “It was a mercy screw, for god’s sake. You’ve screwed around on me every year we’ve been married.”

  “See. She admits it,” Todd said, smugly.

  “Let’s keep on topic here,” Rona said.

  He put on some hauteur. “I don’t see that this is any of your business.”

  “You’re standing on property I own, buster. You can take your ‘I’m an important surgeon’ attitude out on the street. Don’t mess with me here.”

  Todd looked taken aback, but she didn’t give him the chance to respond. She turned to Bev before she could start up again, which she looked as if she was about to do. “What about this baby?”

  “Todd claims he’s the father, but he’s lying,” she said, sulkily.

  “I want my son,” he said.

  “It’s not your baby!” Bev screamed.

  Susan couldn’t help asking, “How can you be sure?”

  “He had a secret vasectomy ten years ago,” Bev proclaimed.

  There was a shocked pause. Todd looked stunned. Then everybody spoke at once.

  “Oh, my god!”

  “How did you know?”

  “Whoa!”

  “You never told me! Bastard!” Bev shrieked. “I tried and tried for a third child, just so you could have your son. Finally Uncle Sol felt so sorry for me he told me the truth.”

  “He should stay out of our business.”

  “I know why you did it. So you could screw even more women. But it backfired, didn’t it?” Bev jeered. “No son for you.”

  Rona intervened, “You’re a doctor. How can you claim you’ve made some woman pregnant despite a vasectomy?”

  “Sometimes they don’t take,” he insisted.

  “You lied to me for ten years!” Bev shrieked.

  This was so messy, but Susan had to ask, “If you think this is your baby after all, why don’t you do a DNA test to be sure?”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Todd responded, irritated. “I don’t care who contributed the sperm. I’ve always wanted a son, and the girl doesn’t want the baby. I’m married to Bev and she’d better accept this child as her son.”

  “That’s co
mpletely illogical,” Rona said.

  “I’m not raising your bimbo’s baby,” Bev insisted.

  Todd said with a holier-than-thou look on his face, “You’ll do as I say.”

  “Fat chance.”

  Rona did not look impressed at the level to which the argument was quickly descending. “You two are married. You’d better work this out. Or agree to a divorce, if that’s that you want. After which, Todd can raise this other woman’s son on his own.”

  Both Todd and Bev looked mulish.

  “Todd, you take Bev out to dinner or something. Go away and try to talk this over without shouting.”

  Bev sniffed disdainfully. Todd looked stubborn.

  Rona wasn’t having any of it. “It’s my way or the highway. I’m perfectly capable of calling the police and having you both removed from my property. Get going.”

  Despite some more arguing, they were gone within minutes.

  “Married people are crazy,” Rona said.

  “Yes, we are. I guess I should go back home to Rick.” Susan’s words came out with a tremble.

  Rona frowned. “Are you finally going to tell me what’s up with you two?”

  Susan did, explaining about Rick’s insistence she have a fling. A half-hour later, they were both sitting on the couch Rona had despised so much a few weeks ago, drinking ice water.

  “That’s some story, honey.”

  “And I don’t even know for sure if Rick wants me back. Maybe he just wants me to even the score.”

  “But he runs the risk of losing you to Michael.” Rona smiled sadly. “Men are strange creatures. They get these weird ideas and nothing must stand in their way. Not love nor logic nor even their best interests.”

  “I don’t know that we women are any better.” Susan sighed.

  “True. You spent last weekend in bed with Michael. And you a married woman,” Rona said. “Okay, sort of separated.”

  She stood and started pacing. “I set a terrible example all those years ago. You know the huge price I paid for it. Yet you’ve been ignoring my good advice.”

  “I didn’t mean to, not really,” Susan said. “At first I was just playing. You know, pretending. Window-shopping. Then it all became real. Michael is a wonderful man. I’d met him before, but we’d never connected. This time,” she stopped to gather her thoughts, “this time was instant chemistry on all levels.”