“I
t’s really hard to be sympathetic toward somebody who is so tan,” Leigh told Howard on his first day back from St. Barts. They were having lunch together at a restaurant forty minutes from Sellevision, a small, unremarkable establishment where there was no chance of being seen together.
“Well, I’m telling you, Leigh, it was hell, just hell. Can you pass the salt?”
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said, placing the salt shaker in front of his plate.
“Yes, I told her.”
“Oh, Howard! You did? You really did?”
“Yes,” he cleared his throat. “And no. I mean, I started to.”
She glared at him, dropping her fork on her plate. “Howard, cut the b.s., okay? Did you tell your wife you want a divorce or not? I want to know where we stand.”
“All right, I started to. I started talking about making changes, evolving as people, and then I realized that it was just too heavy. Way too serious a conversation to have in an airport in San Juan.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, I thought you went to St. Barts. Are you just physically unable to tell the truth?”
“We did go to St. Barts, Leigh, but we changed flights on the way home in San Juan.”
“Okay, whatever, I don’t even care about that. I’m just really confused. You told me, you promised me, that you were going to tell your wife as soon as you got back.”
“I know what I promised, and I’m going to keep that promise. I love you, Leigh.”
“God damn it, Howard,” Leigh said, blinking back tears. “Why are you doing this to me? Telling me you love me, telling me ‘oh, I’m going to leave my wife for you,’ and then nothing ever happens, nothing changes?”
“Sweetheart,” Howard said, reaching over and placing his hand gently against Leigh’s cheek. “It’s just timing, that’s all it is, it’s just a matter of finding the right time.”
“I hate how much I missed you,” she said softly, almost under her breath.
“I missed you too, Leigh, so much, so very, very much.”
Leigh stared at the poached blowfish on her plate. “You know, I bought this book while you were away,” she said, poking her fork at the fish. “It’s about women who love people they shouldn’t.” She decided not to tell him the exact title.
“Leigh, why? Why are you reading trash like that, huh? I’m not the wrong man for you. I’m the right man for you, because I love you.”
“No, wait. Just listen.”
Howard exhaled and set his fork down. “Okay, I’m sorry, tell me about your little book.”
“Well, it just really made me feel upset, because in the book they talk about the warning signs, what to look for in a bad relationship. And it was like they were describing you. Everything they said, it was all you.” Leigh dabbed her pinkie under each eye and sighed.
“Sweetheart, I just want to hold you. You need to be held. Let’s get out of this place and go somewhere where we can be close for a couple of hours.” Howard raised his hand and wrote his signature in the air, signaling the waiter to bring the check.
A
fter making love on top of the garish bedspread at the Ramada Inn. Howard rolled over, said, “I’m just gonna grab a quick shower,” and went into the bathroom. Leigh stared at the heavy pleated drapes over the window that matched the hideous bedspread. Though it was midafternoon, the room was dark, except for what light leaked out from under the bathroom door. In the dark, that’s me, Leigh thought to herself.
This was Leigh’s day off, so Howard drove her home. “I’ll see you tomorrow, sweetheart, and don’t forget that I love you.” He kissed her cheek.
Leigh managed a weak smile, stepped out of the S-Class Mercedes and walked into her apartment building.
Howard pulled away and headed for Sellevision. As he merged onto the freeway, he caught a glimpse of his aquiline nose, slightly sunburned, and hoped that it didn’t peel. He also thought, What excellent rhinoplasty.
W
ith a grave expression on his face, the news anchor read the Teleprompter. “In other news, killer teens continue to terrorize schools across the country. The latest massacre occurred yesterday in rural Alabama, where a twelve-year-old boy executed seventy-two of his classmates with an Uzi submachine gun. The youth, now in police custody, is said to have listened to music by the recording artist Celine Dion. And now for sports.”
“Cut,” the director shouted. He folded his almost carpeted arms across his barrel chest and walked over to the news desk. “Max, ya gotta sell the news. What’s with this sour face?”
Max swallowed and cleared his throat. “Um, well, I just thought, you know, since this is about a kid killing other kids, it should, you know, be sort of on the serious side.”
The director, a large, balding man with one thick black eyebrow running horizontally above his eyes, was losing patience. “Look, this shit happens all the time. Americans are bored with killer teens. Maybe in the nineties it got under people’s skin, but not anymore. This stuff is so over.”
Max nodded his head.
“Jazz it up! You know? Put a wink in it.”
“A wink,” Max said. “Okay, I’ll try that.”
The director exhaled and turned around. “All right, okay, let’s take it again from the top.” He clapped his hands. “Everybody quiet now, and . . . action!”
Again, Max recited the news copy, this time trying to impart a certain edge of restrained wit to the delivery. He even smirked slightly when he mentioned Celine Dion.
“Cut! Cut! Cut!” the director shouted. “Okay, this isn’t working, but I have an idea.” He spun around and started yelling. “Mitch, hey Mitch! Where the hell is Mitch?”
“I’m right here!” shouted one of the guys wearing jeans and a T-shirt, a half-eaten croissant in his hand.
“Mitch, buddy, I want you to throw a key light on Max’s chin. Maybe something a little off to the side, something to really emphasize the cleft. Do that for me, buddy?”
“Sure thing,” Mitch said, tossing the rest of his croissant into a nearby trash can and running off in search of a key light. The director then stomped back over to Max. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. Forget what I said before. This time, I want you to be sexy.”
“Sexy?” Max asked, unsure.
“Yeah, I want you to think Brad Pitt meets Dan Rather. The fact is, fifty-nine percent of our viewers are women.” Then, liking his own idea more and more, the director said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” and rubbed his hands together fast. “This could be good, so just really seduce the camera. Forget you’re reading about killer teens. Pretend it’s poetry.”
After the audition, Max phoned his agent, Laurie.
“She’s in a meeting,” the receptionist said after putting Max briefly on hold. “Any message?”
“Tell her I just got out of the audition with WXON for the anchor spot.”
“Mm-hmm-hmm,” the receptionist mumbled into the phone as she wrote. “And a phone number where she can reach you?”
“She has my number. I’ll be home in a couple hours, have her call me there,” he said, then added, “when she gets a chance.”
Max walked down Broadway, thinking about his chances with the station. He thought that what he may have lacked in journalistic appeal, he made up for in personality, believability, and looks. Plus, he was just so natural in front of the camera. It was difficult to read the director, though.
Then, as he was walking, he saw a $50 bill, right there on the sidewalk. He bent over and picked it up. It looked real. He grinned, stuffed the bill into his pocket, and continued walking. So much of life is luck, he thought.
ten
The flight attendant aboard the Concorde approached Bebe and Eliot with two tall crystal flutes of champagne balanced on a silver serving stray. “Veuve Cliquot?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you very much.” Bebe took one glass for herself and handed the other to Eliot. This marked the first time since the son
ic boom a few moments ago that the two had acted like adults.
Not wanting to establish a precedent for such behavior, Eliot sipped his champagne with a loud, childish slurp.
Laughing, Bebe challenged him. “I dare you to be normal for five minutes.” Then looking at her watch, “I’m going to time you.”
“Okay, time me,” Eliot grinned. After a pause of about three seconds, he turned and asked, “What do normal people talk about?”
“God, how would I know?”
“Okay, let’s talk about our jobs, normal people talk about their jobs, I think.”
“Terrific, you’re doing good so far. You go first.”
Eliot raised his eyebrows and said seductively, “There’s no stain on earth I wouldn’t eliminate for you, my dear.”
Bebe smiled at him.
Then remembering, he said, “Oh, I almost forgot, I brought you a surprise.”
“You mean like a trip on the Concord to Paris for dinner isn’t enough?”
He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket. “Voilà,” he said, presenting her a long, black velvet jewelry box.
Startled, Bebe said, “Oh no, Eliot, no, whatever that is, it’s way too much, I can’t.”
“Please, I wanted to—please, Bebe.”
Feeling that she had already been rushing things by agreeing to this crazy Concorde trip in the first place, Bebe was now feeling like this might have been a mistake, that Eliot was moving a little too fast.
“Eliot, that’s so—I don’t even know what—sweet, generous, but I just don’t feel comfortable.”
Eliot shrugged nonchalantly. “Okay then, if that’s how you feel, I’ll eat it myself.” And he popped the jewelry box open, revealing a colorful candy necklace.
Bebe burst into a fit of laughter, snatched the necklace from the box, and gave the elastic a little stretch. “Oh my God, I haven’t seen one of these in years,” she cried. She doubled it and slid it onto her wrist.
“It’s lovely,” he admired.
She extended her arm in front of her, as though wearing something by Harry Winston. “You failed your normal test,” she told him.
“I had you really worried for a minute there, didn’t I?”
“Maybe a tad,” she admitted. “But thank you. I mean it, this is like the sweetest—no pun intended—thing.”
She leaned over slowly and kissed him on the cheek, then pulled away slightly and paused, lips parted.
Gently, tentatively, he moved his lips to hers, closing his eyes.
And they kissed.
He brought his hand around to the back of her neck and she placed her hand along the side of his face.
For an instant, her eyes opened, and then suddenly she pulled away from him. “Oh my God, Eliot, look!” she cried, pointing out the window beside him.
Eliot turned quickly.
Almost breathless, Bebe whispered, “Oh Eliot, have you ever? It’s so beautiful. I feel just like Jodie Foster in Contact.”
Out the window of the Concorde, from an altitude of over eighty-five-thousand feet, the curvature of the earth filled the lower portion of the window. Blackness and stars filled the rest.
“I
thought you said you spoke French,” Bebe said, punching Eliot playfully in the shoulder.
They were sitting in the back of a taxi, en route to an address that Eliot gave to the driver by pointing to it in a travel guide. “If I told you I didn’t speak French, you wouldn’t have come.”
“The ugly Americans go to dinner,” she joked.
“Ugly?” he said, looking at her and smiling.
She came fairly close to blushing, turned away, and looked out the window.
Although the early-evening sky was overcast, there was still a pinkish hue around the edges. Two bicyclists sped past the taxi. On the river, a group of swans bent their graceful necks to take pieces of bread an old woman on the bank was tossing them. Bebe had been to Paris before, but it felt new.
The restaurant was a tiny bistro on a narrow, twisting side street, down a few moss-covered stone steps. Inside the floor was slate, with ten tables each blanketed by crisp white tablecloths. Three beeswax candles sat on each table. A row of tall topiary trees lined the far wall. Bebe thought it truly looked like a place out of a fairy tale. “Eliot, you almost get the feeling they have gnomes in the kitchen.”
“Yeah, either that or they serve gnomes for dinner.”
Over an appetizer of paté, capers, mustard, and fresh, crusty bread, Eliot and Bebe had the inevitable Past Relationships from Hell conversation.
Bebe told Eliot of the Gay Weatherman (“I just thought he really happened to like Cher. Then I found the Bob Mackie”).
Eliot topped her with Tales of Theresa, including her infamous I-slept-with-my-brother confessional weekend.
The waiter arrived, waited for a break in their laughter, then offered more wine.
“We’ve both really got to stop dating guests from the Jerry Springer show,” Bebe said.
“Speak for yourself. I’m strictly a Sally Jessy kind of guy.”
Dinner was braised medallion of duck with vegetable confit and, of course, more wine.
As Bebe watched a bite of duck fall from Eliot’s fork and land on his tie, she thought, Is it possible that he becomes more handsome by the minute, more charming?
Removing the stained tie, rolling it up, and slipping it into the outside pocket of his jacket, Eliot told Bebe that although it was only their third date, “I really feel like I’ve known you forever, and I don’t throw my clichés around lightly.”
Bebe admitted that she felt exactly the same way, that the flight over had been magical, and so was dinner—right now.
“I know it’s too early to tell you I’m in love with you, but is it okay if I tell you that I’m very much in like with you?”
“I’m very much in like with you too, Eliot,” she said, unaware that she was absently playing with the candy necklace on her wrist.
For dessert, they shared a cream puff drizzled with Armangac. Two spoons and one plate sat between them on the center of the table. Bebe felt flushed. She couldn’t believe she was in Paris for the evening with this wonderful guy who for some unknown reason owned the Mr. Spotless dry-cleaning chain. She couldn’t believe how quickly her emotions were making themselves known. Three dates. Three dates? How was it possible? Was she that desperate? Or was she that lucky? But why shouldn’t he like her? She was attractive, funny, sane. And it’s not like she was after him for his money. With a salary from Sellevision of well over $600,000 a year, Bebe could have easily afforded to take them both to Paris on the Concorde for the evening. As she sat thinking, eyes focused on the flickering candle flames on the table, she was unaware of what Eliot was doing—which involved a spoon, a small dollop of whipped cream, a bit of physics, and excellent aim.
The whipped cream hit her neck with a splat that startled her out of her thoughts. It took her a second to understand what had happened. She ran her finger across her neck, wiping off the whipped cream. She looked at Eliot, who was beaming mischievously. Had any other man done such a thing on their third date, Bebe would have simply thrown her glass of wine in his face and stormed out of the restaurant, never to speak to him again.
But since it was Eliot, and she, after all, had been Bozo Bebe in college, she simply plucked the sweet red cherry from the top of the dessert, popped it into her mouth and then spat it across the table, directly onto his clean white shirt. The cherry slid down down his shirt, leaving behind a red trail.
Eliot picked up the cherry and ate it.
Bebe laughed.
Eliot told Bebe that she was especially beautiful when she laughed and that that was the only reason he flicked the whipped cream on her in the first place, scout’s honor. To see her laugh.
“No wonder you’re single,” Bebe teased.
Eliot polished off the last of his dessert wine. “That’s funny, I don’t feel very single.”
A
br /> s the Concorde flew against the rotation of the earth, Bebe rested her head on Eliot’s shoulder. Then she noticed the in-flight duty-free shopping catalog and she immediately reached for it. “Can I borrow a pen, Eliot?”
“I don’t have a pen, but I can prick my finger and you can write with my blood, if you like.”
Bebe rolled her eyes and signaled for the flight attendant. Once she had a pen, she began circling items in the catalog.
Eliot watched her, amused.
Bebe leafed through the magazine, writing down item numbers.
“You smoke?” he asked, when Bebe selected a carton of Dunhill menthol cigarettes.
“Not me,” she said. “But I’m sure I know someone who does.”
T
he box arrived via certified mail, so Peggy Jean signed for it, personally. “Close the door behind you,” she ordered the mailboy on his way out.
Under his breath he muttered, “Sure thing, bitch.”
What could this be? she wondered. A thoughtful gift from her husband? Perhaps she had ordered something herself and simply forgotten?
Opening the thick paper revealed a simple, flat white box, wrapped in plastic. Sometimes chocolates arrived in such a box. She smiled at the thought, but silently warned herself against eating more than two. If they were chocolates, she would place them in the hosts’ lounge for others to enjoy, along with a little note: “Enjoy! God Bless, Peggy Jean.”
She placed the box squarely on her lap and opened it. But it wasn’t a box of chocolates.
It was a crucified rat.
The tiny little paws were thumbtacked to a homemade cross, Jesus style. The rat’s neck had been cut so it sported a collar of dried blood. And then there was the smell.
Peggy Jean let out a high-pitched scream and leapt up, sending the box tumbling onto the floor. She dashed out into the hallway, and ran screaming for the exit.
In the parking lot, a heel snapped off one of her Easy Spirit pumps. Frantically she tried to open her car door, but it was locked, and she’d left her keys and purse in her office. Tugging on the door handle caused the car alarm to begin wailing, the horn honking, and the lights flashing.