Beginner's Greek

by James Collins

  Eventually, Arthur shook his head and became reflective. “A little while later, she got a bit serious and said she knew that I didn’t just want to give her a present, but that I wanted to tell her something about my feelings for her and that she was very touched and appreciated it more than she could say.” He fell silent for a moment, and Graham and Peter joined him in his wonder at this beautiful sentiment. “Well,” Arthur said finally. “I’m going to hold on to this. It might come in handy later on.” He snapped the lid closed and picked up the box. Then he put on a cumbersomely sly expression. “Or, then again,” he said, “I may want to trade it in for something else.”

  After the men talked for a few minutes more, Arthur said that he had better be off. They all stood up, and Arthur shook hands with Graham, saying again how much he was anticipating their dinner together. To Peter, he said in a stage whisper, “Keep up the good work. The longer we keep the real truth about me from him, the better!” He gave a little wave with the jewelry case, which he still held in his hand, and he was gone.

  Graham’s and Peter’s eyes lingered on the door after Arthur had closed it behind him. Then they looked at each other for a second before bursting out into laughter. Tears came to their eyes and they could barely speak. “Oh my God!” Peter managed to say, “I almost had a heart attack!” Graham clapped him on the shoulder and cried, “Arthur Beeche himself walks in!” Peter clapped Graham on the shoulder and they laughed and laughed until they seemed to be spent. But then they looked at each other and started laughing all over again.

  Eventually, when they had settled down, Peter threw himself into his chair and leaned back in it. “Ah, man, unbelievable,” he said.

  Graham had sat, too, and said, “First I think we’re totally busted, and then he asks” — he imitated Arthur’s voice — “ ‘Would there be any chance of my joining you?’ ”

  Graham chuckled. Peter chuckled. Graham chuckled some more. Peter chuckled some more. They both chuckled at the same time and sighed and shook their heads and said, “Oh, man . . .” Then there was silence with little punctuations of chuckling. And then there was no more chuckling.

  Peter’s brow began to darken and became darker and darker. After a long silence, he spoke. “Cute story,” he said.

  Graham cleared his throat. “Which one?”

  “Holly and the necklace.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure. Cute.”

  “And how about that necklace.” Peter made a low whistle. “Gorgeous, huh?”

  “I suppose. If you like that kind of thing.”

  “How much would it set you back, I wonder.”

  Graham shrugged. “Beats me.”

  “I figure it’d have to be a couple of million bucks. Four times two is eight, so right there that’s eight million to help tiny little innocent poor children suffering from cancer. And that’s a check he can write over dessert. Then it was really touching what Holly said to him, you know, about how the feelings meant so much to her. Honestly, I got all choked up. Oh, but wasn’t Arthur sweet? That impish look and him saying, ‘Or I might trade it in for something else.’ A real sweetheart of a guy.” Peter gnashed his teeth for a moment, and then muttered, “I hope they’ll be very happy.”

  “Now, Peter —”

  “Yes, sir. Oh boy! I sure have got it made! Arthur Beeche? He’s a punk. A two-bit palooka. I can whip him easy. No problem. Like taking candy from a baby.”

  “Now, Peter, I don’t think sarcasm —”

  “Look, Graham, why pretend? It’s all over. You should be happy. Only a fool would prefer me as a son-in-law to Arthur Beeche. There’ll be no hard feelings if you just want to slink off, and we can forget about this whole conversation.”

  “Now, Peter —”

  Peter gave a wave of his hand. “Go on, go on. If you play your cards right, you’ll have a backer for a dozen pictures.”

  “Now, Peter, you don’t think that I would —”

  “I don’t think anything but that your visit has been a complete waste of time and that from now on I wish your good friend Julia would keep her lunatic ravings to herself.”

  “Now, Peter —”

  “Please stop saying that!”

  Graham looked at Peter sympathetically. Very slowly he shook out one more little joint and held it up. “One for the road,” he said.

  Peter grunted.

  Graham lit the joint and took a deep drag and passed it to Peter. It went back and forth a couple of times. Then Graham said quietly, “Yes, they could probably be happy.”

  Graham drew on the joint, handed it to Peter, and waited for him to pass it back. Graham was now holding it between his thumb and forefinger, and smoke rose from it like a wavering thread. “There’s only one problem,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Holly is in love with you.”

  Peter scowled and made no reply. They smoked awhile in silence.

  12

  Over the next couple of days Peter heard Holly recount and re-recount her dinner with Graham and Arthur. What fun they had had! Graham told such stories! As different as they were, he and Arthur had gotten along wonderfully. Isn’t it funny how that can happen? They had become so palsy that Holly had begun to feel left out!

  Peter was now spending a good deal of time staring out the window. The phone rang, the e-mail indicator blinked, the graphs on his screen skittered, and the numbers jumped. Peter ignored them. Observing him, one might have thought that before him lay an undulating sea whose ever-changing surface registered with blues and silvers the clouds above, and the sun’s slow progress. Or he might have been watching the traffic in a colorful city square — the larking urchins, the lovers walking hand in hand, the elders on shady benches engaging in their voluble discourse. In fact, all he could see was the protruding grid, for that was the architectural style, of the building across the street. A few vivid images rotated in his mind as if in a continuous slide show: the words in looping script, Graham’s hands moving in the air, the glistening necklace. At regular intervals, he would suspend all his thoughts and darken all other images as he remembered the way Holly looked when on the airplane so many years ago they had turned to each other for the first time and she had smiled.

  Peter was staring out the window one evening in the state just described when someone from the mailroom dropped a small manila envelope on his desk. It had come from the seventy-seventh floor. Peter opened the envelope and withdrew its contents. First, he found a note from Arthur saying that his mother wanted to invite Peter and his wife to the dinner and dance she gave every December and that an invitation was enclosed; she had thought that this was the fastest way to get it to him, and she apologized for the short notice. Peter opened the invitation, addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Peter Russell, and saw an elegant card expressing Mrs. Beeche’s desire for their company and providing the details. It made Peter happy that Mrs. Beeche had thought of him. But in addition to Arthur’s note and the invitation, the manila envelope contained another sheet of paper. Peter unfolded it and saw the name Isabella Echevarria de Sena inscribed at the top. Isabella. How odd. Peter read what she had written:

  My dearest devious Artie,

  I should have known that when you invited me up to see the Beeche Venus you had an ulterior motive. I’ll never be able to think about your office in quite the same way.

  Thank you thank you thank you for another unforgettable night.

  Counting the minutes until we are together again, and thinking of all the things I want to do to you.

  Love,

  Your Iz

  Peter’s hands trembled and his heart pounded as he read these words. When he tried to reread them, his hands shook with so much fury that he could barely do so.

  Good God! he thought. Somehow this note had gotten mixed up with the others. So that was it! Isabella had been Arthur’s special guest at his dinner! He was the one who wanted to put her with all the big shots. And he was screwing her all the while he was pursuing Holly as if she we
re the only woman on earth! They even had cute little pet names for each other! Mr. Square, Mr. Decency. What complete bullshit. Like every other man, he was really a duplicitous horn dog. Of course. That goody-goody act could never have been the whole story. Fucking Isabella all this time. The low-life scum. The dirtbag. The prick. The scoundrel! Well! We’ll see about this! Peter may have stood by and watched while Jonathan cheated on Holly, but there had been reasons for that (although at the moment he couldn’t think of what they were), and he would be damned if he would let Arthur Beeche get away with it! Arthur and Holly were going to have a drink at Arthur’s place that night, before going out to dinner. They might not know it, but their plans had changed.

  Without even stopping to put on his overcoat, Peter left his office and the building. Once on the sidewalk, he realized that at this hour by far the fastest way to get to Arthur’s would be to take the subway. Somehow, that didn’t seem to fit the drama of the situation, but he nevertheless walked quickly to the station, swiped his MetroCard, waited on the platform, watched two trains go by without stopping, and finally boarded a third one that soon became so crowded that Peter could have died and still been held upright by the crush of his neighbors. Forty minutes later, having transferred to the local and run eight blocks, Peter arrived at Arthur’s. He rang the bell, and almost immediately a door swung open. A tall, gangly young man with red ears greeted him.

  “Good evenin’, sir,” said the servant in a brogue.

  “Good evening,” Peter said. “I am Mr. Russell. Mr. Beeche is expecting me.”

  “Yes, sir. Very good, sir. If you would just wait here a moment, sir, I will have your name sent up.” He walked a few steps to another servant, a short, chubby, Hispanic-looking man, who stood at the foot of the stairs.

  “Mr. Russell to see Mr. Beeche,” said the man who had greeted Peter. The second servant nodded. But in the time required for this exchange to take place, Peter had already begun to mount the staircase. The tall servant turned and called out, “Excuse me, sir, excuse me!”

  Peter’s step was very fast, and he quickened it in response. The servants looked at each other, looked at Peter, looked at each other again, and then began to give chase.

  “Excuse me! Excuse me! Mr. Russell!”

  “Escusa may! Escusa may! Meester Roossell!”

  Peter looked behind him and then increased his speed. He reached the top of the stairs, turned left, and began to walk quickly down a corridor. He had a pretty good idea which room Arthur and Holly were likely to be in, the private study. The tall servant took the last few steps in one bound and hurried after Peter. Looking behind him again and seeing that the servant was catching up, Peter walked faster. Meanwhile, having rested at the top of the staircase, the shorter servant brought up the distant rear, taking sixty-fourth-note steps and covering little ground. The tall servant drew almost even with Peter, and the latter then simply broke out into a run.

  “Sir! Sir!” the servants called.

  Peter reached the door of the study, seized the knob, and threw it open. Within, he saw Arthur alone on the sofa. He had a drink on the table next to him. On the other side of the room Miss Harrison sat at a writing table. There was no sign of Holly.

  Their faces swung around in surprise when Peter entered, and Arthur instantly rose to his feet and held out his hand. “Well, well! Peter! Hello! What a pleasant —”

  Peter walked up to Arthur, reared back, and struck him a powerful blow in the face.

  This action produced a sharp pain in Peter’s hand; it appeared that he had broken every bone in it. Arthur reacted as impassively as if he had been a wall that Peter had punched.

  “Goodness, Peter,” Arthur said. “I’m not sure —”

  Peter hit Arthur again, as hard as he could, pulverizing the bone fragments in his hand, and this time Arthur said, “Ow!” and stumbled backward, falling over an ottoman. A moment earlier, the tall servant had arrived at the doorway, where he had stood watching, lacking the presumption to enter. The little servant, running at full tilt, had knocked into him and bounced off, and they had both just regained their balance and taken their places when Peter punched Arthur the second time.

  “Ecod! Mr. Beeche!”

  “Dios mio! Señor Beeche!”

  Both men ran into the room. They each went to one side of Arthur and tried to help him up. Their difference in size made this an awkward business, however.

  Now Jenkins, Arthur’s butler, appeared. “Mr. Beeche!” he ejaculated. “What’s happened? Patrick, Manuel, what’s going on here? What is the meaning of this?!”

  “The gentleman,” Patrick said, nodding at Peter. “He punched Mr. Beeche.”

  “Good heavens! Put him down!”

  Manuel and Patrick let go of Arthur, who fell to the floor. “Jenkins —” he said.

  “Please, sir, don’t speak.” Jenkins went down on one knee and leaned his face close to Arthur’s. “Sir, how many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Three,” said Arthur.

  “Very good. Now, sir, can you count backward from one hundred?”

  “Jenkins, this is ridic —”

  “Please, sir, try. Try to count backwards from one hundred —”

  “All right,” said Arthur. “Ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven, ninety-six, ninety-five, ninety-four. Et cetera, et cetera.”

  Jenkins sighed with relief. “Mental faculties appear intact, thank goodness.” He rose. “Patrick, Manuel, help Mr. Beeche up.”

  Jenkins then wheeled to face Peter. In his most minatory voice, he said, “Sir: may I help you?”

  Peter pulled back his fist, causing Jenkins to cower and scream, “Help!” Patrick and Manuel let go of Arthur, who once again fell to the floor, and raced over to Peter. He had already lowered his fist, but they took him by either arm. Patrick glowered down at him as Manuel glowered up.

  When Jenkins saw that Peter no longer posed any danger, he raised himself up again to his full dignity. “Mr. Beeche,” he said, “I will go call the police.”

  Arthur had stood by now and was brushing off his clothes with his hands and straightening his jacket and tie. “No, Jenkins,” Arthur said. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  “But, sir — !” Jenkins protested.

  “I don’t think we can expect more trouble from our young friend here, but if we do I’m quite sure I can handle it.”

  “But the lady!”

  Everyone looked over at Miss Harrison. She did not seem like someone in a state of terror, fearing that at any moment she would be ravished and murdered, and in this way she disappointed Jenkins’s expectation. Rather, she seemed completely calm and self-possessed.

  “She’ll be all right, Jenkins,” said Arthur.

  Jenkins wore a look of the deepest consternation. Peter had behaved in a way that was not only actionable but also highly irregular.

  “That will do, Jenkins,” Arthur said.

  “Very good, sir. Shall I post someone at the door?”

  “No, Jenkins,” said Arthur. “You needn’t worry about us.”

  “As you wish, sir,” said Jenkins, trying to bear up as best as he could under the conflicting demands of reason and his master’s wishes. He made a slight bow. He turned to Miss Harrison and made another bow. “Patrick, Manuel,” he said. They headed to the door, and, in a devastating show of contempt, Jenkins passed Peter without any recognition whatsoever.

  Arthur and Peter stood a few feet from each other. Peter’s hand throbbed, making him wince with every beat of his heart. Nevertheless, he was squared off, ready to go another round.

  “Well, well,” Arthur said, rubbing his chin. “Not a bad right hand. You know, I did a bit of boxing myself in college. As a matter of fact, I had some club bouts —”

  Peter interrupted him. “I don’t give a good goddamn about your goddamn amateur sportsman crap.”

  Arthur stared at Peter. “No, I don’t suppose you do,” he said coolly. “For your own good, I might tell yo
u that you won’t often find someone who will react so good-naturedly to a punch in the face. Now, why don’t you tell us what this is all about?”

  “What this is all about?” Peter spat back. “What this is all about? I’ll tell you what this is all about.” He took Isabella’s note out of his pocket and flung it at Arthur. “How do you explain that?”

  Arthur caught the note against his chest and tried to read it. “Damn,” he said, “without my glasses . . .” He moved the paper toward and away from him, trying to find the best distance.

  “All right, let’s see . . . mmhmmm.” Suddenly Arthur blushed deeply. “Peter! Where did you get this?”

  “It came in the envelope with your mother’s invitation.”