Cheapskate in Love (18 page)

Donna turned toward Catherine. “I swear I wasn’t trying. I
didn’t do anything to lead him on.”

“You’re cursed. If you were plain like me...” Catherine saw
Bill return outside and stand in the middle of the window. “Your boy’s back,”
she said under her breath.

Donna looked and saw Bill waving at her. She wanly returned
his wave.

“If you were like me,” Catherine continued, “men wouldn’t
even notice you.”

Bill blew kiss after kiss toward Donna, who received his
attention with the same enjoyment and facial expressions that the smell of
rotting trash in summer would give her. Catherine came to Donna’s rescue. Leaning
in front of Donna, she began blowing kisses madly back to Bill, which quickly
prompted him to leave for good without any backward glance.

“I can’t go through with it,” Donna stated. “I can’t go out
with him. I can’t. I simply can’t.”

“What are you worried about?” Catherine asked. “Him? He’ll
be putty in your hands. You can put a leash on him and have him do whatever you
want.”

“I guess you’re right,” Donna replied. Encouraged by
Catherine, she put Bill out of her mind for an entire week.

Chapter 19

After Helen left the salon that morning, she went to a
luncheon with two of her long-time friends, Joan and Sandra, whom she was in
the habit of meeting at least once a month. All three enjoyed their
get-togethers, and they looked forward to the next one with eagerness. Their
meetings were a better aid to happiness and
well-being
than any medicine or doctor’s visit. With talking and laughing, their cares
would whither away.

On this occasion, they gathered at an elegant French
restaurant on Long Island, near the town where the hair salon was located. The
decor of the restaurant was modern with simple, sturdy, dark-colored furniture
and huge, primarily red bouquets scattered around a light, neutral-toned space.
The atmosphere in the restaurant was calm. Because it was less than half full
of diners at this time of day, it was also rather quiet. The most animated
discussion was coming from their table, where the entrées had already been
served. Joan and Sandra were trying to understand what Helen was doing in a
certain part of her life. However, as friends sometimes do, they were talking
and judging much more than they were listening and accepting. Joan had a fiery
and impulsive character, which would seem to give her the verbal advantage in
any social situation. But Sandra, who was empathetic and devoted to both women,
was the wealthiest of the three and unintentionally somewhat domineering. She
held the most sway over their conversations, without stirring any resentment
from the others. They could always see that she meant well. It also helped that
she usually paid for their meals.

“I don’t understand,” Joan burst out. “I simply don’t
understand. It’s incomprehensible. It’s like, it’s like,
it’s
like a Democrat becoming a Republican.” She gestured, shaking both hands in the
air wide apart, her left hand holding a fork and her right a knife. A native
Indian dancing to warn off evil spirits would make the same motion with two
rattles.

“Joan, no politics,” Sandra said sternly. “Remember, we
decided those conversations were always in bad taste. Political discussions are
rarely civil nowadays and practically never informed, especially on one side,
and we all know which one that is. There’s no need to talk about that party. No
need. We can rise above their ignorance and dishonesty, and we will.” For a
moment, however, Sandra slipped on her ascent. “How they can think they are
doing something for this country by trying to destroy it with their
fear-mongering, cowardice, and selfish lies is beyond me. Thank God, money has
not made me blind. But that’s enough of that. We’re not going to be
sidetracked.
There’s
enough people stuck in the mire
of petty politics.”

“I know, Sandy, I know, but I can’t think of anything else
stranger,” Joan admitted.

“Strange is certainly the right word,” Sandra agreed. The
two women looked at each other, nodding their heads in mutual understanding.
Then they turned to look at the source of their bewilderment, and she looked
right back at them.

“It’s not so strange,” Helen said. “It’s hard to explain,
though.”

“Whatever do you see in him?” Joan wanted to know. “I’ve met
him. Does he have some redeeming trait that I didn’t notice? He certainly
doesn’t resemble Cary
Grant,
so don’t try to tell me
that his looks swept you off your feet. If you ask me, and I know you’re not
doing that, his physical appearance is like an ice-cold shower. Not the sort of
thing you want too much of.”

“Joan, he has two excellent characteristics that I’m aware
of, which we should by no means overlook or depreciate. First, he has a job.
Second, he pays his own rent. Those are always good qualities in a man. And
they’ve been a bit more rare in the economy we’ve had for a while.” Although
Sandra thought such qualities were commendable in a man, she did not consider
them so laudable in a woman. She had not worked for a living nor paid rent in a
long, long time.

“Funny, Sandy,” sniffed Helen. “He has many good qualities.”
She was certain, however, that she would never convince them of that, since
they had already formed an opinion about him on the basis of a few incidents.

“Like what?” wondered
Joan.

“Well, he’s thrifty,”
Helen
declared. “He knows how to hang on to a dollar.”

“Miserly,” Sandra said, contradicting her. “Anyone who gives
you a cheap bouquet another woman rejected is a miser. The economy may be poor,
but we’re not living in the South Sudan yet.”

“A miser
and
a
jerk, I say,” commented Joan.

Helen was undisturbed by their opinions. She smiled, as she
remembered what had happened that evening. “Oh, he wasn’t trying to be
romantic,” she told them. “He was dejected. He had just been dumped again. He
was sad and lonely. He didn’t have to give me the flowers. But he acted like a
gentleman, at least for a while. He ran off when he felt the situation was
becoming too sticky, too close for him. The flowers were sort of pretty for
corner deli flowers.”

“Uh-huh,” said Joan, stabbing her salad with her fork. “He
sounds like a real gentleman.
With a refined taste in
flowers.
A regular Prince Charming.”

“I think I need another glass of wine, if we’re going to
continue this conversation,” Sandra said. “Maybe it’ll make more sense to me
then. But you,” and she pointed at Helen, “have had enough.
Probably
too much.
No more for you.”

“Say what you like, but I’m convinced that Bill is attracted
to me and likes the attention I give him.”

“And that’s why he’s always running from you?” Joan asked.

“And ignoring you?
And telling lies?
And pushing you away?” Sandra continued.

“Yes, exactly,” Helen answered.

The other women let out loud sighs of disbelief.

Helen attempted to persuade them. “He knows that his feeling
for me is so strong that he has to actively resist it, or he’ll be overwhelmed.
Like most men, he’s afraid of his emotions. He’s not only running from me. He’s
running from himself.”

“Makes perfect sense to me,” observed Sandra, who was trying
to see Bill as Helen saw him, “up to a point. If we were talking about some
other man, I’d agree with you. They are scared of expressing what they feel,
but that doesn’t seem to be Bill’s problem. His problem seems to be that he has
the emotional capacity of a clam. He doesn’t have
anything
to express.”

“What about George, Helen?” Joan interjected. “He was so
different.
So kind, so protective.
Did he ever act like
Bill? Mine never did. There was a kind of instant spark between us. We were in
love before we knew it. He can act like an oaf, but he doesn’t act like that
toward me. He’s never done that. And he wouldn’t, because he knows what’s good
for him.” She waved her knife and fork in the air again, this time in a
threatening manner.

“Bill is much like George was,” Helen replied. “The only
difference, I think, is that George met me when I was young and beautiful.”

“We are all
still
young and beautiful,”
Sandra
contradicted her
forcefully. “Every one of us. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.”

Helen and Joan smiled at Sandra’s flattery. It was a
delightful thing to hear.

Helen continued. “I think Bill’s divorce really scarred him
psychologically. In all the years he hung around with George, he never talked
about his ex-wife. Never. He joked about how cold she was a few times, but
that’s it. I think he was so wounded by the experience that he hasn’t been able
to go forward emotionally. I also think he knows that he contributed to the
problems that lead to the divorce, although he won’t admit it. He won’t accept
any responsibility for what happened or acknowledge that he shared in the
blame, so what he’s done is regress. Humans have to go in some direction while they’re
alive, and he’s gone backwards. He’s retreated to a psychological state, a
mentality he had before the divorce, and he’s stuck there, hiding from
everyone, but mostly from himself. Since he doesn’t want to recognize the
passage of time or act his age, only younger women—who, of course, have
to be good-looking, because that makes them seem younger—can feed his
delusions. That’s why, I think, if he could see me somewhat as George did
thirty years ago, I think he’d forget all about the
Lindas
and
Tanyas
he’s always chasing, acting like a fool.
He can’t really think that women fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five years younger
than him have any actual interest in him. He’s not stupid.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Joan remarked. “We tend to
overestimate men all the time, simply because they’re men, and they’ve ruled
the world up until now. Bill’s just another guy.”

“I think he knows,” replied Helen, “that if he was rich, his
situation would be different. There are younger women who would stay with him.
They’d gladly put up with him to spend his money. But because he’s only middle
class with a modest lifestyle...”

“You mean poor lifestyle,” observed Sandra dryly. “He acts
like a borderline beggar.”

“He does,” smiled Helen, “He enjoys it, too, I think. So
much so, that I’ve never seen him with an American girlfriend. I’ve heard him
say that foreign women are more interesting, but I think he believes they are
less materialistic than Americans and more likely to give him a chance. His
girlfriends have been mostly Asian, Hispanic, or Russian immigrants.”

“He’s so shallow,” Joan scoffed. “Foreigners always think
Americans are rich, so they would have higher expectations of him. They’d also
be less forgiving of his faults, I think, especially his cheap ways.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Sandra began. “And I have a
suggestion. But first we better all have another glass of wine. It may help
open our minds and make what I have to say more intelligible.” She waved her
right hand energetically high above her head to get the waiter’s attention.

Chapter 20

In a state of triumphant euphoria, Bill returned to his
apartment. He may have been on his feet as he walked through the door, but in
reality he was floating, carried on the invisible vapors and mystical,
emotional currents of love.

When he had left the salon in a rapturous state, because of
Donna and their date next weekend, his physical surroundings had dissolved from
his mind, and he couldn’t perceive distinctly what was in front of him or where
he was. Internally, he was transformed to the same great degree as a
nonbeliever, who undergoes a past-shattering, instantaneous religious
conversion and becomes a completely different person from who he or she was
before. Although there wasn’t much religion in the visionary existence that
Bill had entered, unless one counts adoration of Donna as a religious act, he
traveled back to his apartment, like Moses coming down from Mount Sinai,
absorbed in a trance, because of the awesome revelation he had had. He didn’t
know what time it was, who he was, or what he was doing. The past, the present,
the future, their demands on him, their ties to him vanished from his
consciousness. There were only two exceptions to his absolute mental emptiness:
Donna and the planned outing with Donna in a week’s time. Those two items alone
stuck in his head, thoroughly resistant to removal. They filled out his
meditations completely. He had become separated from every other person,
object, activity, or thought. All sense of their relevance was lost to him, as
if he had been suddenly struck dumb with amnesia or lobotomized. If he touched
objects, like the steering wheel of his car, he was not aware of them. The sole
meaning, purpose, and exercise of his life had become a spiritual and physical
union with Donna, even if she was still an inactive participant and unaware of
what she should be doing. Those were minor issues to be addressed whenever. He
knew that he had found his
telos
, a word used by the ancient Greeks to
describe a person’s ultimate goal in life. And not only had he discovered the
goal toward which he had been striving for from birth, he had nearly reached
his manifest destination, or so he believed.