The Lover from Fifth Avenue (The Greatest Love Stories)

by Natalie Ansard

- Yes, I did, but she didn’t hear me: she was putting on her make-up in the bathroom at the exact moment.

  - Well, you could have repeated it.

  - I could have, but I haven’t.

  - Why? Maybe you weren’t brave enough? – Donna asked, patiently picking up olives on the table in front of her with a toothpick. She saw Donald as an increasingly strange man. In any case, he wasn’t devoid of bravery. To attract her full attention in such short time really meant that he was very interesting.

  Donald took a piece of toast and resumed: - That’s exactly what I’m aiming at: I’m talking about nosy fools who have never done anything brave and specific their whole lives. Such people can ruin the lives of others. For instance, Donald Cooper has ruined half of Donald Cooper’s life. Yes, I’m talking about myself: exactly because I was being myself – confused, hotheaded and slightly inconsiderate – I’ve wasted half of my life chasing women who are not my type, definitely not my type. Donna, where have you been all these years? Why haven’t we met before? Why? Damnit, if I had known that you’d show up in Paladino some day, I would have founded it twenty years ago.

  - Your corny words make you seem like an unsuccessful lover – Donna continued. – No one uses such trivial ways to seduce women nowadays. You slander your own wife and glorify another’s. You know, the art of courting has advanced immensely while you weren’t looking.

  - Love letters are exchanged via e-mail, and tulips are ordered directly from Holland – Donald retorted.

  - No, not that! You don’t know anything! That’s not how it’s done – she rebuked him.

  - Then how? – Donald feigned extreme ignorance and pleading humbleness. – Please, teach me how it’s done today. It looks like I haven’t paid much attention in class during this lesson.

  - Let’s start with the first lesson: you’re going to pledge to remain faithful to your lawful wife until death do you part – Donna said, not giving up on the humorous scenario introduced by Donald. – Your hand, please!

  He lifted his right hand to his shoulder and turned his palm towards Donna, earnestly saying: - So help me God!

  - Excellent – Donna laughed. – Now swear to me that you’ll leave Donna Nash out of your heart.

  - I swear I won’t. I’m just going to swear that I’ll invite you to have coffee with me at Cappuccino. Have you ever been there?

  - No – she admitted.

  - They have the best Italian-style coffee in town. It’s a charming little coffee salon.

  Donald went on to praise the venue and said they should go there after the holidays.

  - I can’t promise you anything – Donna said. – I’m too busy.

  - I’m sure your boss will give you a day off – he said whimsically. – Besides, Paladino can always go out of business, but I can’t ruin my chance to have a coffee with Donna!

  - I can’t promise you anything – she repeated, but there wasn’t determination in her voice.

  - Then let’s make it Monday at five. If that’s too old-fashioned and English-like for you, let’s make it six.

  Then he laughed at his own joke, but with hidden agenda on his mind. Donna menacingly threatened her with her finger as if she wanted to say that nothing was certain in life, not even her accepting his invitation.

  While the city was emerging from the purplish darkness, reborn, rinsed and pure, the two of them continued to talk about the trivial and less trivial things. For the first time, she didn’t feel restrained and stiff while talking to a man. She was absolutely sure that her words were paid attention to, that this was a man who was willing to listen to her unconditionally. In fact, she was liberated from the hazy guilt-trip imposed on her by the thought that she was cheating on Victor: just because she tacitly obliged to go to Cappuccino with Donald, she thought that she was doing something impermissible and unfair to her husband. But now, she felt as if those thoughts were unfounded.

  * * *

  That’s how she went out with Donald Cooper for the first time, on a date she initially considered ridiculous and nonbinding. It was ridiculous because she had already had hundreds of cups of coffee with Donald at Paladino, and nonbinding because he was behaving towards her in the same manner as he did in the office – whimsically and light-headedly. However, this was their first time to ever meet or to have a coffee outside of Paladino: she had used to consider it unthinkable. Now he invited her, and she saw it as a big turning point in their relationship.

  What did she expect of that meeting? Nothing much. Just a conversation – an hour or two of casual chit-chat about nothing in particular. She simply wanted to sit somewhere she had never been before and, over a cup of coffee, talk about movies, fashion, unimportant things, events and a bunch of other trivialities imposed on them by the media every day. She knew that meeting any other friend would result in her confiding to them – which she wanted to avoid at any cost. She didn’t want to confess her troubles to anyone because she knew that there were only two solutions regarding her life with Victor: she could either put up with him, or leave him. She absolutely didn’t want anyone to brood over her, to get smart over a matter that was so simple and evident. There were only two options – staying or leaving!

  Her marital crisis, which she considered merely momentary, wasn’t something she wanted to talk about outside of her home, nor to discuss it over a coffee. She also didn’t want anyone to snoop on her marriage, nor to rudely peek through her bedroom keyhole. She just wanted to discuss ordinary things. She missed casual conversations and chatting so much! There was always something between her and Victor that didn’t allow them to at least start such a conversation. First it was his business, then her neurosis, then the phone calls from Tatum Longoria and, recently, from another strange woman, then the kids’ arguments… The list was endless.

  They met at Cappuccino at five; for a full two hours, he entertained her with his witticisms, talked about his music preferences, recalled his trips around Europe and South America, lauded Brazil where he had spent four years… It was almost impossible for Donna to utter a word, but even those few things she said were enough to make the date longer and more interesting. During the conversation, they discovered they liked the same books, almost the same movies, same wines, had the same sense of humor. They never mentioned their marriages, private lives, Victor Nash, Madison Cooper… All of that made her confused and enthusiastic at the same time. It was almost eight when they left Cappuccino: she never imagined that the time would flow by so quickly. If she had spent those three hours at home, they would have been longer than eternity.

  While they were walking down the street, he gave her a questioning look and asked:

  - So, how did you like that coffee?

  - I didn’t even drink it. I don’t even remember having coffee. With your stories, there was no time to drink coffee – she honestly replied.

  At parting, she agreed to a second date, same time, same place, on Thursday. While she was driving home, she was happy: that meeting wasn’t only entirely unusual, but also pleasant, relaxing and almost like a short vacation. While they were talking, Donald was very tactful, gentle, compliant and, most importantly, unobtrusive and refined. And she: a romantic daydreamer, relaxed and calm as if she just woke up from a sentimental dream. She couldn’t consider any decisions right now: she was always somewhat afraid of them, irregardless of their nature. She usually waited to see what time would bring. The only thing that was on her mind while she was unlocking the doors was a question: how would Victor react to her belated arrival and would he make a scene because of it.

  However, when she took the stairs to the upper floor, there was no one, as usual: the entire house was dark and silent. Victor’s parents were on a winter vacation in Puerto Rico; they were supposed to return in two weeks. The kids were probably somewhere downtown at some nightclub. She had to admit: in the unfortunate bonfire of her marriage, the only thing that wasn’t burning, that still kind of functioned was her relationship with Sarah and Winston. She wa
s always there when they needed her, although those occasions were becoming increasingly seldom. They were leading their own lives, probably completely unaware of the things that were going on in the house. She had no idea where Victor was. She saw less and less of him recently: he would spend his days in the office; he came home late, or not at all. He behaved indifferently, disinterestedly and almost repulsively. Sometimes, while gazing at him at breakfast or those seldom Sunday brunches they had together, she asked herself: “What is he doing? What is he thinking? Did he finally manage to end his affair with Tatum Longoria? If he did, why isn’t he doing anything to put his marriage in order? What is he waiting for? Maybe for only two things: either to start an affair with some other woman, or for me to leave him.”

  She undressed with slow, reflex movements, casually throwing her fur coat and dress over the sofa in the living room, and then went to take a shower. While the water evenly gurgled above her head and guggled under her feet, she indulged in the whirlpool of endless droplets and bubbles and, for the first time, started thinking about the indescribable pleasure she felt after meeting Donald. At the same time, another thought emerged in her head: tonight, she felt happiness she hadn’t felt for a long time, and now she found herself in the middle of terrible suffering. She started thinking about something that had terrified her before. She started thinking about adultery. She suddenly felt that the way out of this intolerable discomfort that she and Victor ended up in cannot be begging, pleading, sleeping pills, tranquilizers, tears or nightmares, but adultery. Only adultery!

  Her body shook as in a fever. For the first time, she felt some kind of inner fear, something resembling ecstatic madness: she feared that she’d soon fall in love with Donald Cooper.

  * * *

  There was something unusual, intense and unequivocal behind Victor’s frowned, just woken up eyes.

  While he was leaning over Donna’s sleeping, warm and perfumed body that Saturday morning, fascinated by the cascade of her black hair on the pillow, he was thinking with a certain dose of bitterness: “Our downfall shouldn’t start from the end. Absolutely not!”

  While his eyes followed her perfect facial features, the extraordinary beauty of her nose, the perfect angle of her eyebrows, the almost invisible trembling of lips, her faultless figure and the contours of her bodily perfection, Victor Nash thought for a moment that this was probably the end of their seven-month staggering through life, the end of the awful matrimonial labyrinth they got themselves into under fortuitous circumstances. He said to himself: “Our downfall shouldn’t start from the end, but from the Butterfly. Yes, that’s it – from the Butterfly.”

  To Donna Nash, his wife, the Butterfly was that small triangular part of her body, as fresh as a baby’s cheek, that separates the thigh from the waist, that soft, tender plane above the crotch where smoothness ends, and soft stubble of pubic hair begins. All of Donna’s lusts spread from that part of her body, all of her hidden desires, it was the birthplace of her sexual pleasures and hot fireworks of passion; it was the usual testing site for her perfumes, a frequent resting place for Victor’s mouth, and the starting point for sexual foreplay. At the mere mention of the Butterfly, the desire for unrestrained sexual lust would rapidly start to grow within Donna.

  He forgot the first time Donna had led him to the Butterfly during a foreplay – in the beginning, she was actually prudent, tame and somewhat timid – but he excellently remembered every flinch of her body while he gently touched that most mysterious and sacred corner of her emotions with his lips or his tongue. Her blood would boil from pure lust, a bright red wave would strike her cheeks and she would draw him ecstatically to herself with the prophecy and the desire of eternal love.

  Of course, Victor enjoyed it too, mostly every time when Donna gently took his head and pointed his lips towards the Butterfly that was prancing under his touch: there was something so sweet, so attractive and constant in her efforts to make him touch and lick the Butterfly.

  He totally neglected the Butterfly in the last few months because their life wasn’t harmonious anymore: he was to blame. He openly admitted to that, he was aware of his mistake and when exactly he had done it, but he didn’t want to become the executioner of his marriage. Not at all! He wanted to preserve it at any cost, and that’s why he was asking himself lately: “How much have I loved my wife, my Sugar? Too much? Too little? Too flatly? Maybe a little bit of everything. Now, I’m sure of only one thing: I loved, and I still love living with her.”

  There was nothing between them lately, neither feelings nor love. They didn’t love each other too much, too little, not even flatly. They didn’t love each other at all. Their marriage was regularly filled with rudeness, conflicts, malevolence and arguments; all of that disabled any kind of intimacy, the expression of any kind of feelings. He became increasingly silent, sometimes trying to utter those dreadful words through his dry lips: “Sugar, now you’re cheating on me.”

  The Butterfly was the first serious sign that something was terribly wrong between him and Donna; the clinical picture of their marriage was overall depressive. Donna’s silence became fraught, it was hiding some sort of presage within itself. Victor was only partially suspicious, he didn’t have more evidence that something was indeed going on and that she was cheating on him. Besides, he was still too listless in love, too passive during conversation, and too oblique about his own future. However, he wasn’t negligent towards his son and his daughter: he was still a gentle and good father to them. However, they weren’t kids anymore, but grown-ups with their own lives, their own way of reasoning and judgement. He lost any kind of influence over them – the children were leading their own lives.

  Every marriage has its ups and downs. He knew that Donna was never too demanding when it came to their marriage: she just wanted to be the mother of happy children and to be loved incessantly. She saw herself in their bed, squirming next to his body, she saw the two of them taking romantic walks, she saw herself melting from pure zeal of her enamored heart.

  And he? He made one wrong move in his life, and it bounced back at him with a vengeance. That short, superficial affair with Tatum Longoria wasn’t exactly something that would rekindle his sexual imagination. That relationship was even incompatible with his way of thinking. However, it had happened nonetheless. When he was thinking about it in times of solitude, he could roughly conclude why it happened. It was pure curiosity, and nothing else. He wanted to get back to his university days, his juvenile pastime at the campus, and see if there was anything more left of the good old Lord. Unfortunately, he came across a woman who was no match for him; in her irritated hypersensitivity, maybe even passing love spasm, Tatum wasn’t able to soothe her increased passion and, confronted with the possibility of break-up, threatened him with her husband: “I’ll tell him you’ve made me do it. I’ll make a scandal if you leave me.” She really placed him in a delicate position.

  However, he somehow managed to resist her embrace: he simply said to her that ne had absolutely no intention of sleeping with her anymore and that he was going back to his wife, whatever she, Tatum, would do to him and threaten him with. At the same time, his luck changed for the better. Doctor Ralph Longoria got a great new position on the West Coast and immediately packed his bags for a trip to San Francisco. Between a four-year residence in California and Victor Nash, Tatum chose the former without much thinking, which proved the fact that her relationship with Victor wasn’t based on love, but on pure calculation. All of that clearly defined her as a cold, wicked woman, and her character as volatile and morally doubtful. She was actually interested only in pastime, in something incidental, maybe in a few intrigues and in a nice man as a substitute for the big emptiness in her depressing, monotonous marital life.

  Although it was short lasting, the affair left a profound mark on Victor’s overall behavior. In the overwhelming mutual poverty of emotions, in the eroded marriage turned into a torture chamber, he didn’t have much choice: he was still turned
to his obligations and business trips, always torn between his office and court hearings, he was increasingly absent from home, or returned from work absolutely exhausted and crushed. Normally picky with food, he suddenly started eating dried-up bread, canned stews and stale cheeses because Donna welcomed him with dinner more and more rarely. He would sometimes sleep on the leather sofa in the back room at his office, with no sheets, covered only by a coat or a sweater. His friend, ex-friend Mel, and his wife, ex-wife Lucy, spread the word that he had had a nervous breakdown. He often stood in front of the mirror and asked himself: is that true? When he saw the vague reflection of his face and his strangely peaceful exes, everything was clear. Everything was obvious! His behavior and appearance were a wordless proof, and some inner voice was telling him that something wasn’t right. He felt that his marriage was totally out of his control.

  He was considering the situation from every aspect, asking himself whether he could really let his Sugar go after all this time. He was resigned, no one doubted that and neither did he, but he was still sober-minded – although this horrible story of his led him to the edge of desperation. There were a lot of things that still connected him to Donna, their children in particular. Besides, he still loved her immeasurably, more and more every day. He never even thought of leaving, even when he was intimate with Tatum. There was one thing he was certain about: this marital storm, this dangerous whirlpool that caught both of them and swirled them ruthlessly, must come to an end eventually. Nothing can last forever and the same goes for this crisis, Victor said one day and made an irrevocable decision. He won’t give up! He won’t admit defeat! Never! He’ll fight for his Sugar until death! Hell will freeze over sooner than he’ll ever give up the fight to renew her affection.

  So, the Butterfly widely opened his eyes, brought him back to harsh reality, revealed the depth of the abyss between him and Donna. Now he was contemplating the best ways to painlessly overcome all of their disagreements. A man can always be a winner in bed if he shows enough patience, affection and spontaneity. The sense for all those virtues is the determining criteria for him gaining a place next to any woman. Victor roughly knew which place he held on Donna’s imaginary scale of desires: he was, and he was sure of it, on the depressing last place. However, he wasn’t swayed by that. That Saturday morning when they – inexplicably – found themselves together in their bed, he bluntly said to her after she had woken up: