What Men Want

by Deborah Blumenthal

  I got up and walked to the loft to go to sleep. The cold country air and the long walk had knocked me out and I pulled the down comforter around me. I heard Ellen and Moose talking softly by the fire and then as I was dozing off I noticed that the light was out and that they had gone to sleep. I envied the fact that they had each other to hold.

  The calm and the cold helped me sleep deeper than I had in a long time. I woke at ten-thirty and then got up only out of guilt. Ellen and Moose had been up for hours. There were eggs and pancakes on the stove and they had gotten the newspapers. We all sat in front of the fire reading. Both of us wanted to spend an extra day, but with the fundraiser coming up, we couldn’t afford to be out of town. Ellen asked Moose if he would come in for it and he shook his head.

  “Black-tie? I don’t think so,” he said. “You can tell me about it though.” I could see that Ellen was disappointed, but she understood.

  “I don’t blame you,” she said. “I hate black-tie functions too, and if this wasn’t our shindig, I’d write a check instead of showing up.” I told him about Slaid Warren’s approach and that seemed to make sense to him.

  “I know his stuff. I started reading it after I met him on an Outward Bound trip.”

  “Outward Bound?” I said. “I didn’t know he was such an adventurer, but it doesn’t surprise me.”

  “It started out as a travel article he was going to write. But then he really got into it. In fact, I don’t even think that he ever wrote the piece. He just decided that trip was something that he wanted to do for himself.”

  “He’s always testing,” I said, still resentful over his horning in on our idea.

  “Yeah, maybe when you grow up with a single parent, that’s what you do,” Moose said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “His dad was killed in Vietnam,” Moose said. I didn’t know.

  “I wonder why that never came out?”

  “Why would it? You live your life and you move on.”

  So I learned something new about my rival. Growing up in a single-parent household had to have made him more sensitive to suffering than those who grew up with the security of having two adults around. Despite the hardship, he had obviously done all right for himself.

  We flew back to New York Sunday evening, going over the weekend together.

  “He’s got an enviable life,” I said.

  Ellen nodded. “Still, how could anyone he lived with survive up there full-time?”

  “Well, you can’t if you have to be on camera,” I said, “but do you think that you’re going to spend your life on the air doing consumer investigations? At some point you may just want to exchange the world of television for the world of nature—with the best outdoor guide that you could find.”

  “Eventually, maybe,” she said. “But right now…”

  The employment opportunities in one of the coldest and remotest places in the country were obviously limited. In fact, the population of Saranac Lake was just over five thousand, about the same size as my high school.

  “Well, maybe you can get into furniture building, or designing log cabins,” I said. “Or if all else fails, you could shovel snow.”

  “Well, I do shovel every day,” Ellen said, “but it’s not exactly pure white snow.”

  So we got lost in our separate worlds again once we were back in Manhattan. I was working on a new column about efforts to control New York City noise levels. After work I took the bus up Madison Avenue to a designer resale store to look for something to wear to our gala. The store was a treasure trove of cast-off designer gowns that society types turned in after just one wearing because they didn’t want to be seen in the same outfit twice. The shop also sold shoes that had been worn for photo shoots but then couldn’t be returned to the manufacturer and sold as new.

  As it turned out, I did better than finding something gently used. I picked out a midnight-blue satin gown that still had the tags on it. It had spaghetti straps and a low-cut back. I found high-heeled silk sandals to go with it in a shoe store up the street.

  I’m not usually one to brag, but the day of the event, things came together exactly the way I had hoped. I had had a haircut three weeks before, just enough time for it to grow the tiny bit it always needs to fall in the way I like. My hair color—just a notch lighter than usual—was warm, not brassy, and the new foundation and silver eyeshadow brought out my eyes and my pale complexion.

  The event was going to begin at seven, and I met Ellen there at five to make sure that the caterer had brought all the food and that the bar was stocked. The wait staff were all dressed in white and when the guests started arriving, Ellen and I were at the door to welcome them. We rolled out a red carpet, and TV cameras were there along with the print media to record the arrival of every visitor.

  It costs money to make money and while we had donations of food, wine and flowers, we spent on staff and rental of the tent, dishes and silverware. We showed a video spelling out the seriousness of the problem and then had speakers talking about what could be done to help the homeless, particularly children, if the city had adequate funds. Ellen and I circulated for most of the night, meeting people and greeting others whom we knew. We didn’t know for sure how much money we had taken in, but we guessed that we had at least met more than seventy percent of our goals.

  Marty was there, representing the paper, and for once he looked relaxed. I had never met his wife before, so I sat and chatted with her about the world of newspapers, which she left when their son was two.

  “Do you miss it?” I asked her.

  “Sometimes,” she said. “But then when I hear what Marty went through during the day I’m glad I’m doing something else,” she said. Something else turned out to be writing a novel about the newspaper business.

  “That’s one way to settle old scores,” I said jokingly.

  I excused myself to go the ladies’ room, but as I was approaching the door, I felt a hand on my arm.

  “Terrific dress,” he whispered. I pivoted to find myself face-to-face with Slaid Warren.

  “Oh,” I said, unable to hide my surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “The same thing as everyone else,” he said. I looked at him in his black tux with a black tuxedo shirt under it.

  “Nice look,” I said, gesturing toward his outfit.

  “I thought so myself,” he said, all modesty.

  I smirked and he laughed.

  “You’re so gullible, George.”

  “So how’s your event coming along?” I asked.

  “It’s really amazing. We started a Web site for people to visit to contribute ideas and tell us about the dinners they’re planning.” He shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe the things they’re cooking up.”

  “It was a brilliant idea,” I said in all honesty.

  “I thought so too. Unfortunately I can’t take the credit for it.”

  “Who thought of it?”

  Slaid scratched his head. “It’s kind of a long story,” he said. “Do you want to go someplace and have a drink?”

  The evening was winding down and I was almost ready to head home anyway. Ellen said she’d hang around along with the interns from her office and supervise the cleanup crew. “Get out of here,” she said, making sure she let me know that she saw Slaid. I picked up the Judith Leiber bag that I’d borrowed from her and I waved to Slaid. A few minutes later we were heading down Park Avenue.

  “I just want you to know that I can’t walk too far in these heels,” I said.

  “I’ll carry you if you want,” he said, straight-faced.

  “You may have to,” I said. He picked me up for a moment, and then put me down.

  “Maybe a cab’s not a bad idea,” he said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  If you can stay awake until one or two in the morning, and you’re out walking in Manhattan while the rest of the city sleeps, the city belongs to you. We stopped at my apartment and I traded my silk gown for a shirt, jean
s and flat boots, and then we walked over three miles from Murray Hill down to Soho, talking about everything except newspapers.

  Slaid talked about his father, an army captain whose jeep was blown up when he drove over a mine in Vietnam. He paused for a minute. “His tour was just about over,” he said. “He was short—a week away from coming home.” His mother had letters from him that he had written over the previous month talking about all the things that they would do together when he was back. They planned to go up to Cape Cod and rent a house, he said. Eventually, his father hoped to go into business for himself as a builder. Slaid stared off into the distance.

  “In thirty seconds, three lives were blown apart.” We talked about the ongoing problem of land mines that are hidden in the ground long after a war is over and the reasons for starting it are all but forgotten. We ended up in an all-night bar that he knew about because the owner was a former district attorney who got fed up with his job and traded his business suits for jeans and black T-shirts.

  “So who gave birth to the idea of having small dinners to raise money for the homeless?” I asked him.

  “My grandmother.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “I swear. She was talking about a book group that she’s in and how word of a good book spread from one branch of the group to another during small dinners that they held every other month at the members’ houses.”

  “And that gave you the idea for the fund-raising dinners?”

  “Well, I figured that if the grass-roots approach worked for spreading the word about a book, why shouldn’t it work for getting people together to do good for the city?”

  I nodded.

  “And one more thing,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I knew it would get your attention.”

  “So we’re back to competing,” I said as a statement rather than a question.

  “No,” he said, putting some money down on the table to pay the check. “Something else. But I guess the job is blindsiding you.”

  When we got back to the apartment, it was almost four. Slaid came up to see where I lived, or where I used to live, but I didn’t get into that with him. I suppose that he noticed the plaques of advertising awards Chris had won that were on one of the bookshelves, but he didn’t ask about them and I didn’t explain.

  He made himself comfortable on the couch with his feet propped up on the ottoman. I went into the kitchen and made us hot tea. I was sure that in the short time that I waited for the water to boil, he had examined the bookshelves and the overall apartment and gathered that I lived with someone, probably surmising that things were on the skids, otherwise why would I have invited him up?

  I brought two mugs over to the coffee table and sat down next to him. It wasn’t as though I planned to do anything more than talk, but before I knew it, I was leaning my head back on the couch and his mouth was over mine.

  “Look—” I said, starting to protest, although I wasn’t sure why. He had soft lips, full lips, and soon they were pressing against mine harder and harder and I was kissing him back with more passion and heat than I expected. He unbuttoned the top button of my blouse, and then the one beneath it, and then the one beneath that, and slowly, I reached around and pulled down the shoulders of his tuxedo jacket, making it easy for him to slide out of it. His shirt came off next, tossed onto the floor. His body was the way I imagined it, smooth, muscular, the sinewy build of a swimmer, not someone who pumps iron. A moment later, I was lying back on the couch, and Slaid was leaning over me. I don’t remember what I was saying, or wasn’t, but suddenly my attention went from his lips and the feel of his fingers running through my hair to the sound of a key slipping into the lock of the door. The two of us turned our heads simultaneously, and I pulled away, ready to jump up, convinced that someone was trying to break in. It was so late and I was so tired that I couldn’t recall if I had double locked the door or not. At that moment, the door flew open.

  Chris walked in and dropped his suitcase, staring at us for a minute without saying anything. There was a confused look on his face, as if he had entered the wrong apartment and couldn’t figure out what was happening.

  “What the hell is going on?” he asked finally. I pulled my blouse up over me.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded. “You were supposed to be in Paris.”

  “I was in Paris. I just got back.”

  “You could have called.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “I guess you forgot that this is my apartment.” He looked at Slaid who sat there, silently, not knowing what to make of what was happening.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Chris said.

  “And who the fuck are you?” Slaid said back.

  “Jenny’s former boyfriend,” Chris said, putting the emphasis on “former” as though what he had just witnessed was what caused the relationship to recede into the past tense.

  “Where’s your model girlfriend?” I asked him, beginning to steam at the nerve of him coming back in the middle of the night without first calling. He had another relationship, why the hell did he think that I was just sitting around pining for him without having a life of my own.

  “She went to her place,” he said flatly. He looked around and raked his fingers through his hair, obviously not knowing what to do now that he had arrived with his suitcase. Clearly, things with Bridget hadn’t gone the way he expected.

  “I see,” I said coolly, even though I didn’t.

  Slaid stood up, putting his shirt back on and quickly buttoning it up. He didn’t bother to tuck it in. He looked over at me.

  “Do you want me to stay?” he said, moving closer to me.

  I shook my head. “No, thanks, it’s okay.”

  He grabbed his jacket and slung it over his shoulder. He gave Chris one last cool glance before he turned back to me. “I’m sorry, Jen,” he said softly, giving me a wistful look. “I’ll call you later.” I watched him close the door behind him and then turned to look at Chris.

  “So what’s going on?” I said. Chris looked ready to cry.

  “The fuckin’ plane was diverted to London on the way back because of a bomb threat. I haven’t slept in twenty-four goddamn hours, and now I come back to my own place and find you screwing on the couch with some jerk you probably just met.”

  “First of all, we weren’t screwing on the couch,” I said. “And second of all, who he is or isn’t is none of your business.” I stood up and realized that I had never buttoned my blouse, even though I had hastily pulled it around me. I closed the middle button, and then headed for the bathroom as he opened the refrigerator door and grabbed a soda.

  “In the meantime,” I said, turning back to him, “I’m dead tired and don’t want to be talking about any of this right now, so why don’t you just sleep on the couch. We can deal with this tomorrow.” With that, I went into the bathroom to wash off my makeup. Then without looking back into the living room, I went into the bedroom and got into bed. I slept fitfully for most of the next day, waking every few hours, not sure whether it was day or night. When I finally got out of bed, it was almost three in the afternoon. Chris was gone, and so was his suitcase.

  One day went by and then another as if life was nothing more than a revolving door between office and home. Chris didn’t call, and neither did Slaid. Had Chris gone back to Bridget? Was he just marking time until he called and wanted to move back into his apartment? I went through every possible scenario. I did the same thing with Slaid, trying to imagine whether he had merely thrown up his hands and assumed that I was back with Chris or whether he’d just decided to move on after his aborted opportunity.

  Why is it always easier to see what’s going on in everyone else’s life, but when it comes to your own, everything is blurred and out of focus? To distract myself, I went to a knitting store and spent over a hundred dollars on wool for a Fair Isle cardigan that I was ready to give up on when I saw how complicated it would be to knit. I cast on s
titches for the left arm, and then stuck the needles with two rows of knitting into the magazine rack. I went out to eat, but got mad at myself for having a monstrously large portion of meat loaf with gravy, and mashed potatoes, followed by apple pie with vanilla ice cream.

  Another day I went shopping, and, of course, everything that I tried on was tight. Was it because I had probably gained five pounds or merely because every designer was now making their clothes one size smaller?

  Finally I decided that the best place to lose myself was the gym. After an hour-long workout, I went for a massage. The therapist seemed to intuit just where my stress points were and using a combination of Swedish massage and shiatsu, she stroked, poked, pulled and pushed until my body turned into what felt like a loaf of freshly kneaded dough. Human contact, and pampering without the strings attached. It was a welcome alternative to complicated relationships. To pamper my kink-free body even further, all I had for dinner was a fruit smoothie from Jamba Juice. I came home, watched a mindless show on TV and then went to sleep.

  Exactly ten days after I had seen Chris, I was at work, struggling to come up with a riveting lead for a column on a judge in landlord-tenant court when the phone rang.

  “Hi,” Chris said.

  There was silence for a few seconds. I took a deep breath. “Hi.”

  “Jen, look, I’m sorry that I just barged in on you,” he said. “I…I…” He seemed at a loss for words. “Can we just meet for dinner?”

  “Okay…where.”

  “Whatever,” he said, true to form. “What are you in the mood for?”

  “Let’s meet for Chinese at seven,” I said. He named a Chinese restaurant in Times Square. The food was good and came before you had a chance to close the menu. He could say what he had to and then I’d be on my way. It was clear that the living arrangements would have to be discussed. He didn’t know yet about the co-op that I hoped to buy, and I’d let him know what the timetable would be. Like two people going through a divorce, we’d have to decide who’d get what articles of furniture since we had purchased several pieces, including our new Pottery Barn sofa, together.