“Go ahead.”
Gus pressed a button on the steering wheel. “Hello?”
“G-man!” Michael’s voice, amplified but not otherwise worse for wear, blared from the car’s speakers. “What’s up?”
“Not much, Mike. I’m actually—”
“So what happened with the Hasidic director?”
“It’s not the filmmaker who’s Hasidic. It’s the graffiti artist, but—”
“Whatever. How’d it go? Did you work that ole Rinehart magic?”
“Not … exactly.”
“What?! What happened?”
“I’ll explain, but what I’m trying—”
“What? I missed that. You cut out for a second.”
“He’s trying to tell you that I’m in the car,” piped Marjorie. “So you don’t say anything risqué.”
Gus shook his head. “That’s not why I wanted him to know you’re here. I thought—”
“Morningblatt! Do you mind if I call you that? I know it’s Fred’s name for you, but it has a nice ring.”
“Mind? I love it! How was Italy?”
“Bellissimo.”
“Buono! I want to hear all about the food!”
“Oh, Madge. We went to this little place on a vineyard near the—”
Gus interrupted, irritated, “Can you girls play catch-up later? When I’m not on the phone? Or in the state?”
A whistle shot from the car’s speakers. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
“Someone always does,” said Marjorie.
“Fuck, you guys are annoying! Can we talk later, Mike? We’re obviously not getting anywhere now.”
“Aren’t you gonna tell him what happened with Danny?” Marjorie feigned innocence.
“We’ll talk tonight.”
“Wait!” said Michael. “Madge, did I hear that you’re moving in with your stalker?”
“We gotta go,” barked the grouch.
“But—”
“Bye.”
Gus pressed the steering wheel’s End button with force, like he was releasing a bomb.
“Well, that wasn’t very polite.” Marjorie smiled.
They arrived at Runyon shortly thereafter and spent twenty-five minutes looking for parking—pre-exercise road rage is what burns the most calories for Angelenos. Jockeying for spots did not boost Gus’s mood. Up the mountain’s initial incline, he stomped silently, as Marjorie struggled to keep up. Moody much?
He offered to buy her a water from an honor kiosk at the entrance, but she declined in protest of his attitude. She regretted the decision. It might have been temperate for July, but this was the desert. Dogs from Chihuahuas to Great Danes raced past in pursuit of owners, panting less than Marjorie. She almost tumbled more than once to her death as her untread sneakers slipped on rocks and dirt.
She stopped at a plateau to catch her breath. They had cleared the steepest part of the climb, but ahead was another hill. Her chest stung. She propped a hand on each hip.
“You okay?” Gus asked.
“Fine, fine, fine. Just. One. Minute.”
Gus nodded, amused. Nothing like some Marjorie-style humiliation to cheer him up. As she mentally drafted her own obituary, a bleached blonde—with breasts that stood separately at attention without the help of a bra—sauntered by in high heels. The shirtless, steroid-addled former Real World contestant at her side was also unfazed. He flashed a forearm tattoo of a Chinese symbol that he thought meant “success” but actually translated to “vacuum cleaner.”
“How are they doing that?” Marjorie croaked.
“They’re probably out-of-work actors. It’s their job to stay in shape.”
“But why would anyone hike in stilettos?”
He shrugged. “They’re on a date.”
Marjorie’s mouth, hanging open in hopes of catching extra oxygen, dropped wider. “Wait, seriously? People do this on dates?”
“Of course.”
“But you get all sweaty.”
“Not everyone thinks that’s bad.” Nodding toward the trail, he said, “Let’s go. It gets easier. Promise.”
As they crested the last hill to the lookout, Marjorie was calling him a liar. “Nothing about this. Is. Easy.”
“I didn’t say, easy. I said easier.”
With no stamina left for fighting, Marjorie held up a hand in protest. She walked to the edge of the ridge and bent at the waist, taking deep, labored breaths.
“Over here!” called Gus, climbing onto a bench, tilted back and raised for the best view of the city. Marjorie collapsed beside him, relieved.
He pulled his water from his pocket. “You want?”
Marjorie nodded, humbled. Cooling down, she looked out at the skyline. LA was laid in front of them: Downtown to the left, Santa Monica to the right, buildings topped with turquoise pools ahead. The day was clear; a thin line of navy blue ocean sat in the distance. She couldn’t help but think of the mountain metaphor Gus had used months ago on Fred’s stoop—about climbing to lookouts instead of one peak.
“Pretty, huh?” Gus smiled, then returned his gaze to the landscape.
Marjorie nodded. But she wasn’t looking at the view. Gus hadn’t struggled like she had, but the uphill hike had been a workout. His T-shirt clung to his chest and back. Always a bigger fan of a toned, slim build than huge muscles, she thought the cheesy Real World guy had nothing on him.
“How come you don’t have a girlfriend?” she asked before she could censor herself.
He looked surprised. “Um, I don’t know. I guess I haven’t met the right person recently.”
“But you go on dates?”
“Sure.”
“How often?”
“Enough.”
“How much is enough?”
“What are you, my mother?”
“No. I’m pretty sure I’m not your mother.”
“So nosy,” he chided. “Ready to get going?”
Marjorie leaned back onto the bench. “You’re going to have to carry me.”
“Don’t worry; it’s all downhill from here.”
Marjorie unstuck her thighs from the bench. “Why do people use that expression like it’s a bad thing?”
37
Marjorie’s hotel room door was propped open; the maid had just begun cleaning. She pulled out her cell and dialed Gus’s number.
“Hey, I have to come to your house to change.”
“What? I just dropped you off. Why?”
“Because my room is being cleaned and I need to shower before dinner.”
“Can’t you wait?”
“Where, Gus? In the lobby?”
He sighed. “Okay, fine. It’s the upper doorbell.”
Marjorie walked the block to Gus’s place with a bulging tote bag. She rang the bell and he opened the wooden door, barefoot in a T-shirt and jeans, hair damp from the shower. How in the world did men get dressed so quickly?
“I’m letting you in,” he said, blocking her entrance to the apartment, “but my housekeeper has been on vacation in Poland for the last couple weeks, so don’t judge.”
“Fine.” She waited; he didn’t move. “Are you going to let me in or not?”
Reluctantly, Gus stepped back to reveal a cozy living room—not spare like his New York office. A comfortable couch sat atop an oriental rug, probably inherited from a relative; magazines and books were scattered about in stacks.
“Stop looking at everything like you’re trying to figure me out.”
“I’m not!” Marjorie examined a black-and-white photo of toddler Gus with his mother on a carousel. “So cute!”
He put his hands on her shoulders—apparently willing to touch her, if it meant moving her along—and marched her toward the hallway. “The bathroom is through here.”
As Gus disappeared back into the living room, Marjorie opened the door to her left, which turned out to be the bedroom: wrong door. But that’s where she discovered the real surprise. It was bedlam—a total mess
. Laundry tumbled from an overstuffed basket. The bed was unmade. A desk in the corner was piled so high with scripts and DVDs that no one could possibly have worked at it in years, let alone days.
“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed with delight. “You’re human!”
“That’s not the bathroom!” He rushed over and slammed the door.
“Too late, Gus. The secret’s out: You’re a horrible slob! And I feel it’s my duty to torture you about it.”
“I don’t know if the word ‘horrible’ is appropriate.”
“But ‘slob’ is, for sure.”
Gus looked up at the ceiling’s scalloped moldings, as if asking a higher power for mercy. “All right, fine. The secret is out. And the bathroom is in there.” He crossed to a built-in cupboard and rotated a latch—stiff with white paint—to reveal linens. Some were folded, presumably by his housekeeper or an ex-girlfriend; the rest formed misshapen piles. He tossed a towel to Marjorie, who caught it, just. “Now, for the love of God, get in the shower and stop giving me shit.”
“Fine, but water won’t wash away this knowledge.”
The French blue–tiled bathroom was clean, save two empty shampoo bottles that lined the tub’s porcelain ridges. Marjorie resisted the urge to snoop in the medicine cabinet for possible Magnum XL condoms or telltale medications (herpes cream, antipsychotics, Rogaine). She wound her hair into a bun, so it wouldn’t get wet, and turned on the shower. Stepping under the stream, she closed her eyes and relaxed her posture. The water ran down her shoulders. She sighed, content.
Then, suddenly, alarm bells went off in her head.
Marjorie’s eyes popped open. She looked at her feet, submerged in pooled water at the tub’s bottom. She was in LA, in a strange bathroom, far from everything she knew and loved. Once she climbed on a plane the next morning and flew back to real life, she would once again be unemployed. She had no financial security, no plans. She should have been panicked, but instead she felt better than she had in ages. Why?
In her defense, life was falling back into place. If she moved in with Mac, she wouldn’t have to worry about paying rent. So there was no great rush to find full-time work. Plus, she’d proved herself employable. She was back on speaking terms with her best friends, whom she’d live close to again in Manhattan.
But it was those “reassuring” facts that made her uneasy.
Barbara Plum often suggested envisioning one’s “happy place” to find peace and direction. To Marjorie’s surprise, when she closed her eyes, her little room on the second floor of Fred’s apartment came to mind. She saw the streets of Carroll Gardens, the old Italian men sitting in straining folding chairs, biscotti, meatballs, Roberta’s garden, and her roommate’s funny hats and beat-up guitars. In the midst of the chaos, Brooklyn had become her home.
She had to speed things up. How long had she been contemplating her existence, while Gus stood outside, wondering why she was lagging? She picked up his soap, something generic and milky green from the drugstore, maybe Irish Spring, something boys use.
She needed to finish up, calm down and get out. This is a shower curtain with a world map on it: Peru, Texas, Canada. That is the scar on my knee from when I fell off a swing. That’s Gus’s phone ringing, the murmur of his conversation, too distant to decipher. That’s the sound of his voice, upbeat. That is Gus. I like Gus. Oh, God. Oh, no. I like Gus!
It was time to face the truth: Against all odds, this new life had grown on Marjorie. Change had busted its way in and, when her back was turned and eyes were shut, it had made itself at home. Why did that feel like a betrayal? And of whom or what?
There was Mac, of course, whom she’d “tamed.” What about their life together, so like the one she’d unconsciously envisioned since her teenage years? What about Pickles, Vera, and her mother and the Marjorie they expected her to be?
And what about Gus? Her boss, who lived in California, who might not like her like that, who recoiled at her touch, who watched C-SPAN, who might have antipsychotics in his medicine cabinet, and who definitely had a surly disposition. What about Gus, in whose shower she now stood, naked, in every sense of the word? Too many unknowns.
“Marjorie!” he called above the din of water, at that moment, like he knew. “You almost out? I want to tell you something.”
Just a wooden slab with hinges separated them. She could picture his hand on the knob; one twist and he’d open the door and see her through the transparent plastic. She sensed his closeness like a buzzing. She had to get it together. Gus couldn’t read her thoughts, she reminded herself. There was still time to salvage her old life, escape, do the right thing.
“Yeah, one sec!”
“No problem.” His footsteps faded away.
Marjorie finished, facing into the stream so water pinged her cheeks and forehead. She stepped out and dried off, then searched for her bag of clothing. Shoot! She’d left it in the living room. Minutes before, retrieving it might have been mildly awkward, deflected with a joke. But now Marjorie had tasted that Garden of Eden apple.
She had two options: She could ask Gus to pass the tote through the cracked door, which seemed strangely intimate, or she could act nonchalant and march into the living room in her towel. Just grab the bag.
Letting her hair drop to her shoulders, she looked at her reflection in the mirror for solidarity, then tucked the towel securely around her chest. At the door, she took a deep breath and reminded herself to act normal. What was normal again?
Marjorie stepped through the hallway into the living room. “Hey!” she said too loudly. “Just grabbing my bag, no big deal.” (Nothing like saying “no big deal” to make something a big deal.)
Her bag sat two feet from where Gus leaned against the doorframe at the kitchen’s entrance. Of course. He looked up from his iPhone, flushed, and looked back down. He seemed not to know where to rest his eyes. “Oh, I—you’re in a towel. Which is fine because I gave you that towel … to use. Not to keep.”
“You think I’m going to steal your towel?” Marjorie hadn’t accounted for Gus’s discomfort when she opted to feign poise; it had clearly been the wrong choice. Under much less inappropriate circumstances, Gus maintained strict professional boundaries.
“No. Just—you were in there for a while. I thought you might be dressed.”
“Nope. Not dressed.”
He held her gaze for a beat. “Not dressed.”
Never had Marjorie been more aware of her nakedness under a swath of terry cloth. “Um. My bag is right there.” She pointed.
“Oh.” He looked down at it but didn’t move. “Did you want me to—?”
“No, no, no. I’ll grab it.” She tiptoed to within a foot of him, feeling his eyes on her as she kneeled. The bag’s handles had, of course, gotten tangled inside the bundle of clothing and toiletries—lavender shea butter lotion, calendula toner, pink underwear.
“You said you had something to tell me?” Marjorie peered up at Gus, desperate for normalcy. The sun shone through the window onto his face, emphasizing its angles.
He swallowed, hard. “Yeah, good news. Danny called. He wants us to distribute the film, at least internationally. He looked us up online and said we seem like the best fit.”
“Oh, my God!” Marjorie forgot her discomfort and stood, beaming. “You’re kidding? That’s amazing!” Without thinking, she clasped his hands. “Gus! We did it!”
For once, he didn’t flinch. Instead, he stood still, eyelids half lowered, gaze steady. “Actually, you did it. You were the deciding factor. Danny said he could tell that you were not only smart and, of course, from Brooklyn, but that you genuinely cared.”
“Well, that’s sweet, but I’m sure it wasn’t me.” She dropped her hands to her sides.
“It was you,” Gus said. “Seems he’s got a little crush.”
“Imagine that.”
“I can’t.”
“Hey!” Marjorie shoved his shoulder.
He gave her a lazy, cool half grin that would
trail her for years to follow and pop into her head at unexpected moments like a surprise. “A big crush, on the other hand. Now that I get.”
It happened so fast. The tension between them, Marjorie reasoned, had to be defused. Otherwise, the apartment’s gas appliances, the pressure cooker, the BBQ’s propane tank would surely have combusted in mass stainless steel wreckage. This was a public service for the safety of Gus’s neighbors.
Time and space suspended their regular rules. The air thickened, charged and inevitable. As Gus drew close, Marjorie saw fragments of herself in his eyes, and sunlight, white splotches that persisted behind her lids once she closed them. He kissed her hesitantly, his lips a question mark against her own. But soon that propriety transformed to urgency, an exclamation. As she pressed against him, the balls of her feet pushed away the uneven wooden floor, osmosing its history in the Braille-like ridges against her skin. She slipped her hands under his shirt, following the crease up the path of his spine. He slid his palms behind her head, then down her still damp back and sides, tracing a nonsensical route, the long way home. He lifted her closer. And the thread of the story was lost in a jumbled tangent of terry cloth and skin.
It wasn’t until the towel threatened to completely fall away that Marjorie’s higher consciousness returned. Slowly, reluctantly, she remembered the existence of phones and planes and clocks, daylight streaming through the window, offering no cover. This is not okay. Her bare limbs felt so right against Gus’s skin and rough jeans, this version of him a happy surprise. But she had to stop.
Pulling away was like stepping from a warm bath onto a cold tile floor. It took Gus a moment to realize what was happening, his expression dazed. But then he stepped back, raising his hands in surrender like she was holding a gun on him, like this was a stickup. And she felt depressed as his face clouded with concern. “I’m sorry. I’m—I thought you—”
“No, I do. It’s just … Mac.”
“Right. Mac.” Gus’s arms fell to his sides. “Your not so imaginary friend, who you’re moving in with.”
“That’s the guy.” She tightened the towel across her chest.
Gus’s hair was ruffled; his T-shirt sat askew across his shoulders, riding up on one side. Marjorie’s own hands had traversed that territory moments before, had displaced that shirt. She wanted to reach out again, prove that she’d been there. He rubbed the back of his neck, his head dropping toward the floor, a habit, she now realized, she found adorable. He looked up at her, hangdog, “I’m not that creepy boss, right? ’Cause that’s my worst nightmare. To make you feel uncomfortable—”
Will You Won't You Want Me?: A Novel Page 25
