An Ex to Grind (14 page)

"But here's the bad news: he didn't ask for her number. He just said, 'See you again sometime,' and went to take a shower. She was really disappointed."

"She's not the only one." Crap. "It must have been the hair."

"What?"

"I warned you. Dan's not attracted to women with ringlets."

"She says it was her remark about her brother."

"What's her brother got to do with this?"

"They were talking about their families and she mentioned that she had a brother who was always borrowing money from her and spending it on things like clothes and cars and trips. She said to Dan, 'He has absolutely no shame when it comes to taking from me. What kind of a man acts like that?' She could tell by the look on his face that something was wrong. I guess he soured on her right then."

"You think?"

"Hey, it's not her fault. We were the ones who didn't tip her off about Dan's situation."

"Dan's situation," I muttered. "It's my situation, and I need to get out of it. I hired you to help me get out of it, Desiree."

"Relax, would you? I've got plenty of other girls. All shapes and sizes. Later in the month I'll go through my files and you can come—"

"Later in the month? I don't think you're getting the urgency here."

"And I don't think you're getting that your five grand only buys you one date per month."

"I doubled your fee. I'm entitled to as many dates as you can scare up."

I needed to calm down. Acting all pushy wasn't a smart move. If I really pissed her off, she could tell Dan what I was up to and blow the whole deal. "I'd really appreciate it if we could pick another client right away," I said sweetly. "Are you free this afternoon, by any chance?"

"I suppose."

Contestant number two was Rochelle, a former ballet dancer who currently designed websites. Desiree maintained that dance and football were both sports and that the two of them were bound to find common ground. I had my doubts, given Dan's antipathy for anything with cultural significance. Besides, Rochelle looked awfully skinny in her photo, and he had always liked that I had meat on my bones. But Desiree kept promoting her, so I finally agreed.

Rochelle and Dan met at the Post House, the restaurant where he ate lunch after the gym. She reserved a table for herself, sat in the back right next to him, caught his attention, and eventually got herself invited over to his table. I know this, not because I was peering at them through the window, but because I stopped by the restaurant earlier that day and paid the maître d' to spy for me. I was a busy executive, and it would be a much more efficient use of my time, I'd decided.

The maître d's name was Fred, and he was one of those brusque, old-style maître d's who work at the same place forever and have no aspirations of being, like, a screenwriter. At first he was protective of Dan and nearly took my head off about what a loyal customer he was. But within five minutes, the guy was in my pocket.

"Will this cover it?" I said, sliding a twenty across the table.

"A hundred will cover it."

"How's fifty?"

He shook his head. "A hundred bucks and I'll squeal like a pig."

So I paid him his hundred. He promised to call me at the office with a full report about Dan and Rochelle the minute they left. We also agreed that, should there be future occasions where I required his assistance, he'd be available. At the same price.

It amazed me how quickly he was willing to sell out his "loyal customer," but such was life. As for that wad of cash, no, I wasn't crazy about parting with it, but I cleaved to the dictum I'd learned in business school: there are times when you've got to spend money to make money.

Fred checked in about three o'clock. Apparently, Dan bought Rochelle a Bloody Mary, which she barely touched. He bought her a steak, and she didn't touch that either. Nor did she touch the baked potato with sour cream and chives, the creamed spinach with minced onions, or the cheesecake with fresh strawberries. Fred was clearly more interested in who ate what than in who liked whom.

"She's a ballet dancer," I said. "She probably eats lettuce for lunch."

"Nope," he said. "He bought her a salad, and she hardly touched that."

"Did they seem to have good chemistry?" I asked. "I mean, was there any physical contact?"

"He had his hands on her blouse."

"He was pawing her in public?" I said with a mixture of excitement and revulsion.

"Nah, he was mopping her up. She spilled the Bloody Mary on herself. It was the one sip she took, and it ended up all over her."

"Not very coordinated for a dancer," I said. "Did you notice anything else?"

"I heard her say she'd love to."

"Love to what, Fred?"

"I didn't catch that part."

"This is what I get for my hundred dollars? Fragments of sentences?"

"You wanted the whole conversation, you should have paid me more. I would have put a bug under the table."

Later, I called Desiree to see if she'd heard from Rochelle.

"Good news," she clucked. "They're going out tomorrow night."

"He asked her out?" I said, practically leaping out of my chair. It was late and I was the only one left in the office. My voice echoed through the empty corridors.

"She was the one who asked him out, but a date's a date."

The night of the date was a nerve-wracking one for me. As I sat on my bed with Buster on my lap, my back propped up against the fake-walnut headboard, I was fixated on whether Dan held Rochelle's arm when they crossed the street, whether he kissed her good night when he brought her home, whether he brought her home at all and instead took her to his place.

Or should I say our place. I sighed as I looked around my bleak, impersonal studio in the Heartbreak Hotel with its I'm-only-living-here-temporarily vibe. It was fine, sure. Not a total rat hole. It's just that our old apartment was special. It was a home. The only one I'd ever known. Instead of facing a dark alley, it had sweeping views of the city that used to make Dan shake his head and say, "I'm definitely not in Minco anymore." It was dated and tired when we'd bought it, but after our renovation it was spectacular. I remember standing in the threshold and thinking, This apartment will be my security. I'll hold on tight and never let it go.

What a fool, huh? Who would have guessed that not only would my ex get to keep it but that I'd get to pay him to keep it.

"Well, we'll just see about that, Buster," I said, rubbing my face up against my dog's. "We're not giving up without a fight."

Buster snorted, jumped down from the bed, and trotted off to the tiny alcove that was my kitchen with its miniature appliances. They reminded me of the ones Weezie gave her daughter as toys, so she could "pretend cook."

I got up and followed my dog to make sure there was enough water in his bowl in case he was thirsty. While I was there, I decided it was time to throw out the stack of newspapers I'd allowed to pile up on the floor. I bundled them up, told Buster I'd be right back, and headed for the trash room at the end of my floor—locking myself out of the apartment in the process. As soon as I heard the door slam behind me, I realized I was in trouble. I'm serious. I was wearing only a T-shirt over my underpants. That was it. Not exactly the appropriate attire for prancing around the building in search of the super.

Oh, and did I mention it was 10 P.M.?

I might as well have been stark naked the way I skulked over to Patty's apartment, praying no one would see me.

I rang her bell, put my mouth right up to her door and whispered, "It's me. Melanie. Let me in, okay?"

Nothing. I pressed my ear to the door. No target practice. Not even the hum of the TV. Patty was either out or out cold.

Now what? I thought, sliding down onto the floor, so I could cover my tush with the T-shirt while I tried to get a handle on my predicament. I couldn't just go knocking on my neighbors' doors. They were all strangers. Well, except for Evan Gillespie, who was practically a stranger. What's more, the last time he'd seen me, I'd rejected his overture to come over and look at his paintings. And then there was that piece of cheese/snot dangling from my nose, which had rendered me unappetizing as well as unfriendly.

God, how could I possibly show up on his doorstep half-dressed and ask for his help?

Because I had nobody else. The realization of how alone I was—not just in the hall that night, but in general—depressed me. There were a couple of colleagues at work whom I saw socially, when we made a conscious effort to clear our schedules, and there was Weezie, although she had a full life with Nards and the kids and lived an hour away in Connecticut. But no big, boisterous circle of buddies. Dan had been my best friend once, which was only natural. A husband is supposed to be your best friend, but then what happens when he falls away?

You're stuck in the dimly lit hallway of the Heartbreak Hotel, that's what, wishing you could crawl into the carpet.

I allowed myself a few more minutes of self-pity then picked myself up. I yanked on the bottom of the T-shirt, stretching it, stretching it, stretching it so that it just covered my privates. And then I padded in my bare feet and bare legs over to Apartment 3F.

Please let him be by himself, I thought as I rang the bell. If there's a party in progress and ten people rush out to have a look at the wacko from 3A, I'll die.

Just then, the door opened.

Evan was alone, it appeared, and understandably surprised to see me. He was wearing a smock over his jeans, and it was splattered with paint. Even his finely etched face had paint splotches here and there. I must have interrupted Picasso at work.

"Uh, hi," I said, continuing to pull on the T-shirt. The only problem there was that, while pulling on it made it longer around my crotch, it also made it sheerer around my chest. A no-win situation.

"Hi," he said, looking me up and down. His expression was sort of a cross between squelching a laugh and trying to figure out what was going on. "Melanie, right?"

"Right." I started winding a lock of my hair around my finger and twirling it.

He nodded, continuing to eye me. "I remember inviting you over to see my work. I just don't remember you saying yes."

"I'm sorry. I didn't come to look at paintings," I said, utterly mortified but relieved that he was home.

"No paintings, huh?" He checked out my state of undress again and smiled. "Then you must have liked me more than you let on."

I felt my face flush deeply. It had been so long since a man flirted with me, let alone ran his eyes over my body (not counting Jed Ornbacher) that I found it extremely unsettling. "I hate to bother you, but the reason I'm here is because I locked myself out of my apartment and I can't really go asking the super for his key like this. I was wondering if you'd help me."

He crossed his arms over his chest and didn't even try to conceal his amusement. "You want me to lend you some pants?"

"No."

"A longer shirt than the one you've got on?"

"No. I would appreciate it if you'd go downstairs and ask the super of this fine establishment to give you the key to my apartment."

"Supers don't hand out keys to anybody who asks for them. At least, they shouldn't."

"But you're not anybody. You're my neighbor. You could explain the situation to him."

I was desperate, and he could see that, so he toned down the teasing and offered his solution.

"Come." He motioned me inside 3F. "First you'll call him and explain it to him yourself. And then I'll go downstairs and get your key. It'll all work out just fine if we do it that way."

"Okay." Despite the awkwardness of the situation, I liked listening to him. Whether it was the unique cadence of his voice or the reassuring way he spoke to me, I liked it.

He took off the smock he'd been wearing over his turtleneck and handed it to me. "Why don't you cover yourself with this while I find the man's number. You're probably cold."

I liked that he cared if I was cold too. I thanked him and put on the smock, paint and all. While he went rummaging around in his backpack to look for the phone number, I glanced around his apartment. It was supposed to be furnished just like mine, Patty's, and all the others, but he must have moved some pieces out because all I saw in that studio was the sofa, the coffee table, and the bed. The rest of the space was filled with art stuff—bins of brushes, piles of drawings and photographs, and canvases in various states of completion, one of which was propped up on an easel.

Intrigued, I walked over to take a closer look.

It was a colorful oil painting of the sea during a storm, on a Caribbean island, possibly. Along with the blues and greens and even pinks of the water and sky, there were a couple of fishing boats in the scene, their crews struggling to stay afloat. The painting was amazingly three-dimensional—as accurate and realistic as a photograph but so much more vivid. I was entranced.

"It's called
Summer Squall
," said Evan when he came back and caught me appraising his work. "I painted it in the Bahamas last summer after I got fired. I'm just doing some touch-ups now."

"It's beautiful," I said. "I feel as if I'm right there."

"Glad you weren't. We all got soaked that day."

"But nobody drowned or anything?"

"Not a soul. It was one of those five-minute thunder boomers. They have them almost every afternoon." His dark eyes shone at the memory. Obviously, he was a man who enjoyed the outdoors. An adventurer.

"Do you sell in galleries or is this just something to fill your time while you look for another publishing job?"

"I'm not looking for another publishing job," he said. "Not after I was replaced by a woman barely out of college whose only work experience was at MTV. I met her once, and she actually confused Thomas Pynchon with Monty Python."

"Why do you think she got your job?"

"Because she's the right demographic—young and female and a reader of chick lit. Haven't you noticed that men are becoming obsolete in this society? It's all about what women want now."

His speech sounded like Nards's. "Do you really believe that? Women are doing well, but men are still running the world."