Alligators in the Trees

by Cynthia Hamilton

  Philip hung up the phone and exhaled deeply. What a performance, he congratulated himself, as he reached for a glass of water. That’ll give the two of them something to chew on, he thought as he hit the intercom button.

  “If a Martin Fink or a Marianne Glessner calls, tell them I’m in a conference and cannot be disturbed,” he instructed the receptionist. “Make sure everyone is aware of this. It’s extremely important.”

  “Yes, sir,” the young woman replied. Philip sat back, arms above his head, exultant in his success. Anything less than pure panic on their end was unimaginable. He leaned back over his desk and buzzed the receptionist again.

  “If you receive any calls from either Martin Fink or Marianne Glessner, I want to be notified via email immediately. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Mr. Glessner.”

  “Thank you.” Philip looked up Stan Michelson’s phone number and followed through on his threat. Michelson wouldn’t be jumping for joy when he learned of this new development. Undoubtedly, he’d be on the phone to Martin as soon as he listened to his message.

  It tickled Philip no end to imagine the highly charged conversations his bombshell was sure to ignite. Marianne would come unglued at the prospect of reconciling. He envisioned her face as she listened to his message, imagining how her features would distort and her voice would become shrill, her finely honed composure shattering like an expensive crystal vase. She might even get a wrinkle over this snag in her treacherous plan.

  He imagined Martin cringing as he witnessed the perfect porcelain doll transform into a vexed shrew. And they probably thought fleecing him was going to be as effortless as taking candy from a baby. What they were soon to find out was ol’ spineless Jellyfish Phil was going to beat them at their own game.

  Plan of retaliation in motion, he turned his mind to the business of saving his building. “Leslie, can you come in here when you get a chance?”

  Over the next hour and a half, while Philip orchestrated the various components needed to save his building, he watched as urgent, red-flagged messages from Martin Fink appeared in his inbox. “Mr. Fink called. Says it’s urgent that he speak to you. Call him on his cell ASAP.” Twenty minutes later, same thing, with the tag-line “Don’t speak to anyone re: divorce until you speak with him.” And one more similar email thirty minutes after that.

  At the same time, his cell rang so incessantly, Philip finally had to turn it off in order to concentrate. Though Martin’s frantic and thwarted attempts to reach him gave Philip a certain satisfaction, he was really far more interested in rebuilding his business than in what was becoming a mundane conflict. He had won the war against Marianne; at this point, the battles were insignificant.

  Thirty-Six

  Priscilla awoke to the sound of a piano playing at what seemed to be a considerable distance. It was so soft and vague, at first it seemed to be background music for her dream. Slowly, the details of her surroundings began to take on significance, until finally she realized with a sharp pang of dread exactly where she happened to be.

  She sat up, holding the sheet to her as a thin protective shield, and checked the room for other inhabitants. She was alone, thank God. She exhaled and panted weakly as she summoned her brain for an accounting of the events that led her to be in what was apparently Tobias Jordan’s bed.

  She spotted the few articles of clothing she had been wearing when she entered the room the night before, and made a quick dash out of bed to retrieve them. She pulled on her panties and squirmed into her bra and covered as much of herself as she could with her T-shirt.

  “I can’t believe I came in here without my skirt on,” she lamented out loud. “Jesus, what he must think of me.” She staggered into the bathroom and confronted her disheveled appearance, groaning at the dark smudges of mascara under her eyes. She scrubbed them off with the nearest towel. Realizing this was only part of the problem, she gave up and hurriedly lathered her face and splashed away the remaining traces of yesterday’s makeup.

  Great. Now she was barefaced and hung over, hardly a vision of glamour. Well, she wasn’t exactly hung over, just a little fuzzyheaded, especially in the memory department. She ran her hands through her hair while desperately trying to piece together what had transpired after the last cocktail.

  “Oh God,” she moaned, sinking down on the edge of the bathtub. “What did I do?” she asked, strictly a rhetorical question, for she now had a remarkably accurate, blow-by-blow replay running across her mind’s eye. She felt sick with disgust when she recalled how she had put a lip-lock on Tobias, without any prior advance on his part.

  He must think I’m such a slut, she thought, covering her face with her hands. No better than a groupie, she sighed, letting her fingers trail down her still-damp skin. It was then she realized the music she heard had to be coming from him. She sat there a moment longer as she tried to decide if this was a good sign or bad.

  When she couldn’t stand her curiosity any longer, she tiptoed out into the hallway, where she snuck a peek at Tobias sitting at the piano. She slipped back behind the wall to assimilate the meaning of what she had seen. There he sat, alternately playing and making notations on a piece of paper, naked save for the pair of orange briefs, with a cup of coffee perched on top of the piano, seemingly happy as a clam.

  This must be a good sign, Priscilla reasoned, hazarding another glimpse. If he hated me after last night, he wouldn’t still be here, let alone nearly naked. He’d have decamped, at least long enough for me to sober up and clear out, she thought, noticing how downright chipper he looked while he worked.

  Well, that’s good, I guess. Unless what happened between us last night was so ordinary, it didn’t faze him in the cold light of day. She snuck one more glance, her gut feeling telling her that he didn’t really look remote or hostile. Feeling a little more secure on this front, she decided to make a run for the other side of the suite.

  “I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up,” Tobias said casually, not bothering to look up from his work. Priscilla stopped dead in her tracks, mouth slack from surprise, hands stretching her T-shirt as far south as it would go. Tobias looked up and made a funny little noise, something akin to a laugh, that funny half-giggle, half-snort she heard from him before. Priscilla tried to speak, but nothing was forthcoming.

  “I ordered some breakfast for you, but it’s probably cold by now,” he said, indicating a room service cart with a tilt of his head. He ran one hand across the keys in a grand swoop, signaling a time-out. “Did you sleep okay?” he asked, regarding her curiously.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Priscilla managed to say. Flashbacks from a few hours ago made her blush and shift her feet nervously. All she wanted to do was dive into a hole and stay there.

  “Wish I had,” Tobias said. “You kept me awake half the night with your snoring.” It was meant as a joke, but Priscilla missed it entirely. She stood there dumbstruck.

  “I’m kidding. I slept like a rock. Come here,” he said, finding her discomfort entertaining. Against her will, her feet propelled her toward the piano, where she stopped short, using its shiny black hulk as a barrier between Tobias and her indecency. “Come sit next to me,” he coaxed her. Priscilla didn’t budge.

  “I seduced you last night, didn’t I?” she croaked, her voice raspy with sleep and the excessive merriment of the day before.

  “Well, let’s say you got the ball rolling. I had meant for it to be my job, but I didn’t have the heart to take advantage of you in your…uh…inebriated condition.”

  “I was stinking drunk, wasn’t I?” she asked, tracing patterns in the fine dust on the piano lid.

  “I wouldn’t say stinking,” Tobias said, barely able to stifle a grin.

  “I’m so embarrassed,” Priscilla said, unable to look him in the eye.

  “Don’t be. I don’t think you’re a rampaging tramp, if that’s what you’re worried about. Come and sit down. I want to show you something.” Holding her T-shirt down, she rounded the pi
ano and took a seat on his left. The narrow width of the bench made for rather cozy quarters.

  “Hello,” Tobias said, smiling. He gave her a light peck on the check, which made her even more self-conscious. “Want some coffee?” he asked, reaching for his oversize cup. Priscilla shook her head. “I had a lot of fun last night…before and after.” He got a slight smile out of her. “Here, have a sip—it’s good coffee.” She took the cup and held it with both hands as she took a cautious sip. “Good, huh?”

  “Yeah, but not quite as good as Frank’s,” she said handing it back to him. He laughed and waved the cup away.

  “We’ll share,” he said, reaching for his notations.

  “Are you working on a new song?”

  “Yeah. I got strangely inspired somewhere over the course of the last few hours.” Priscilla bit her bottom lip. She felt a strong stirring in the lower half of her anatomy. She crossed her legs and endeavored to act demure, but one look at Tobias showed her the futility of pretending that his nearness didn’t affect her.

  “So…would you like to hear what I’ve got so far?” Priscilla made herself as small as possible in order to give Tobias all the room he needed. After a couple of experimental chords, he played what he had committed to paper.

  “What do you think?” he asked afterwards, his hands resting in his lap modestly.

  “That was beautiful,” Priscilla said, struck as she was by the simplicity of the melody. It was hard to believe his songs started from such a humble beginnings, only to finish up as complex and masterful compositions, as mesmerizing as they were indelible.

  “No words yet?”

  “The words are incubating,” he said, his fingers straying over the keys. “There was a girl named Priscilla/ Whose friends thought of her as Sam/ Who drank with the wildest abandon/ And liked to have her sex wham-bam…Ouch!” Tobias yelped, as he took a sharp elbow to the ribs.

  “Thanks a lot,” Priscilla said, feeling insecure enough without the needling.

  “It was just a joke,” Tobias said lightly.

  “Actually, I was thinking the lyrics should be something like this,” she said, “Beware the man bearing exotic treats/ Imported champagne and expensive eats/ Who pours wine and whisky like water/ For girls young enough to be his daughter.”

  “Touché!” Tobias said, stung by Priscilla’s sharp wit and sharper tongue. “That ought to teach me to not throw the first stone,” he said, looking at her askance. “You’re not that much younger than I am.” Priscilla laughed.

  “That’s funny. There’s more than a twenty-year difference between us, but that makes me old compared to the rest,” she said.

  Tobias glared at her with narrowed eyes before lunging at her. Priscilla anticipated the move and jumped off the bench just in the nick of time. Guessing at what was to follow, she rid herself of the coffee cup and primed herself to fend off the attack. The coffee cup had been a liability, costing her the second that gave Tobias the edge. In the blink of an eye, he had her pinned to the floor.

  “You’re a maniac!” she shrieked, fighting him the best she could from her vulnerable position. Laughing so hard made it difficult for her to summon her strength. Tobias remained the straight-faced tormentor until Priscilla got wise and performed her ear-wiggling trick again. Tobias’s face split with laughter and Priscilla made her move, tossing him off her with a combined thrust from her hips and legs.

  “You’re the Devil’s daughter,” he cried out weakly, flat on his back, the wind almost knocked out of him. Priscilla scrambled to her feet and made a run for it. Tobias, spryer than she had expected for a man his age, nearly had her by the ankle, but she slipped out of his grasp and lurched toward her room. She slammed the door, but forgot to lock it, and by the time she hit the shower, Tobias was on her heels. The frenzied foreplay turned them into a couple of lust-crazed animals.

  “I guess we should do something,” Priscilla said, though she barely had enough stamina to lift her head to look at the clock. Tobias was in no better shape, despite his earlier vigor. They were both sprawled across what was meant to be her bed, spent and lethargic.

  “Like what?” Tobias asked, not bothering to turn his head her direction.

  “Um…I don’t know. Maybe go get something to eat,” she suggested.

  “We can order room service,” Tobias said, clearly not up to the task of leaving his suite.

  “Don’t you feel like getting out for a while?” Priscilla asked, rolling onto her side to face him. “It looked like it was going to be a nice day.”

  “No. I’m just fine where I am,” Tobias answered, folding his hands across his chest contentedly. Priscilla laughed at him.

  “I bet you couldn’t move if the building was on fire,” she teased him.

  “I could, I just don’t know if I’d want to.” She gave up and rolled onto her back again.

  “So, this is the life of a rock star, huh? Eat, drink, fuck, order room service four or five times a day…” Tobias lolled his head to the side.

  “You don’t exactly look like you could run a ten-minute mile yourself,” he said dryly.

  “Well, I haven’t had anything to eat since dinner last night. But other than being weak from hunger, I have plenty of energy.”

  “Tell you what—order yourself an omelet or a club sandwich or something, and let me rest for a little while, then we can go out and cover this town from one end to the other, if you like. How does that sound?”

  “Fine,” Priscilla said, “except for one small detail.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I think you should order for me.” Tobias scoffed. When he glanced over at her, he could see she wasn’t any more likely to flee a burning hotel than he was.

  “I thought you were raring to go,” he mocked her.

  “I lied.”

  “All right,” Tobias said wearily, bending to an upright position. “I’ll make the call. What do you want?” he asked, reaching for the phone.

  “Club sandwich,” Priscilla said, her mouth watering at the thought.

  “And a beer?”

  “A coke.”

  “Hi. Can you please send up a club sandwich and a coke? You want fries or a salad with that? Both. And have the waiter leave it in the living room. That’s right. I’ll be in the shower, so go ahead and add a twenty percent gratuity. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you.” Having completed his task, Tobias flopped backwards onto the bed. “Enjoy,” he said, before closing his eyes.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Are you going to go to sleep now?” Priscilla asked, snuggling up on her side to look at him.

  “That’s the idea,” he said without opening an eye.

  “You’re making me sleepy,” she said.

  “Better listen for room service.”

  As Priscilla lay there watching him, she wondered at what she had gotten herself into. She had a hard time believing that Tobias regarded her as anything but a casual fling, in spite of how natural and relaxed they were around each other, and how genuinely fond he seemed to be of her.

  She supposed this sort of thing was normal to him: easy sex and companionship, disposable and readily replaceable. She wondered how many females had lost their hearts to him over the years, and if there had ever been a relationship that started as spontaneously as this which had made any sort of lasting impression on him.

  It was hard to imagine, yet she honestly felt at that moment they could carry on this way indefinitely. Only someone really naïve could believe that, she told herself as she closed her eyes and drifted into a sleep so sound, she never heard the arrival of her food.

  When she woke three hours later, Priscilla again had trouble remembering where she was. The sight of Tobias still sleeping next to her and the intense growling in her stomach quickly refreshed her memory. She propped herself up on one elbow to view the clock over Tobias’s inert form. Quarter to five? Amazing, she thought, lowering herself back down.

  “Oh, G
od,” she groaned. She wasn’t a kid anymore. She very much doubted she could sustain this kind of lifestyle for long. How did Tobias manage it, at his age? Years of practice, she guessed, as she edged off the bed. She snagged a terrycloth robe out of the bathroom and padded down the hall to main room, where she found a sliver dome-covered tray sitting on the coffee table, like an offering to the gods.

  She wasted no time diving into the sandwich, the bread soggy in the middle and hard around the edges, but manna from heaven, nonetheless. The coke was a lost cause, as was the salad, and even though the fries were cold and limp, she ate them anyway, dousing them with a torrent of ketchup.

  She helped herself to a diet coke from the mini bar, balking only briefly at the five-dollar charge she was incurring by doing so. Tobias was such a big spender, she doubted he had any idea how much he was being overcharged for his extravagances. She wandered back to her appointed room, last quarter of sandwich in hand, and sat down on the corner of the bed to observe her host and lover.

  It occurred to her as a funny footnote it was fortunate there wasn’t a soul in the entire world who was expecting her in Florida. She would have been classified as a missing person by this time. Oddly enough, she sort of felt like a missing person, someone who had mistakenly fallen through the looking glass and was never able to resume her old way of life.

  Was that such a bad thing? she asked herself as she glanced around at her current digs. So what if the old Priscilla Vanderpool had disappeared? She had been toying with the idea of putting her former identity to rest anyway, at precisely the same moment Tobias called to her on the street. Well, wasn’t that an interesting coincidence? She glanced over her shoulder and discovered she had not been unobserved in her meditations.

  “How long have you been awake?” she asked Tobias, who lay staring up at her with his usual maddening grin.