Cheapskate in Love (7 page)

“Hi, Linda. It’s me, Bill,” Bill said cheerfully, pretending
that yesterday had never happened. Instead of recalling that she was crazy and
that he had sworn to never speak with her again, he reverted to being the
hardy, young buck nuzzling his soft, shy doe. Again he was the dashing cavalier
paying court to his alluring, coy mistress.

“I know who it is,” she said, without any trace of coyness.

“I got all of your messages,” he rushed on, eager to
insinuate himself in the sensitive affections of his sweetheart. “But I’ve been
so busy. I had a hundred things to do at the office. Calls kept coming in. I
was being pulled here and there. I had to send email after email. My coworkers
wouldn’t leave me alone.” At that moment, he recalled the makeup and rubbed his
face with his spare hand to remove it, never ceasing to talk. “There’s a big
pitch coming up next week that I have to prepare for.”

“Answer my question,” she interrupted, flinging off any sign
of shyness. “Can you or not?”

“I didn’t have time to call until now,” the courtier
continued. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to get away sooner next time. You’re more
important than any work I have to do. I won’t let it happen again.”

“Yes or no,” his angel thundered, as if judgment day had
come.

“I can definitely go for a hike Saturday,” he assured his
darling, concluding his premeditated speech. “I would love to see you again.
We’ll have a great time.” With those selling words, he closed a better pitch
than he gave most clients.

While Linda and Bill had been chatting, the patient on the
table felt something on his left ear and touched the spot with his hand. He was
alarmed to see blood on his finger. “My ear is bleeding,” he suddenly said to
Linda in alarm, raising his head from the table.

“Don’t be a baby,” she snapped at the patient.

“What did you say?” Bill asked her. He thought she had
spoken to him and was uncertain if she
was
as happy as
he was that they would be seeing each other again. He then heard the patient
screaming, “I want out of here! Take these needles out!” Those words consoled
Bill immediately, because he knew that Linda was momentarily distracted. He was
completely put at ease when he heard her shout back, “Shut up and relax! Act
like a man. It’s just a little blood.” The sound of a door being slammed told
him that Linda would very soon be able to concentrate all her attention on him.

“It’s good you can go. If you were trying to waste my time
now, I would hang up,” Linda said to Bill, with a voice a little sweeter than
she had used with the patient, whom she had left in the room alone. She now
stood in a hallway.

“I’m glad you’re happy,” Bill replied enthusiastically. “I
want you to be happy. Where do you want to hike?”

“The mountain,” she said, meaning Bear Mountain in upstate
New York.

“The mountain?” he asked timidly. He was not accustomed to
walking long distances and even less skilled at walking uphill. “Don’t you want
to go to the beach?” he wondered, hoping as hard as he could.

“Mountain” was the definitive, non-negotiable response.

“OK, let’s go to the mountain,” he sighed. The thought of
going there made him anxious, because he knew the punishing pace that Linda
would set. He had hiked with her before. Yet since he was trying to win her
heart and mind, reckless and crazy as they might be, he didn’t want to
disappoint her. He reluctantly agreed. “When we meet, I’ll have a surprise for
you,” he went on.

“No candy,” she warned.

“No, not chocolate,” he said. “Do you remember saying
something about my hair?”

She didn’t. How could she, since she didn’t think much about
what she said to him? And why would she, since Bill showed her the same
consideration?

At that moment, their conversation ended because the
patient, whom Linda had left inside the room, walked out fully clothed without
a needle sticking in him. The patient didn’t say a word to her and only briefly
glanced at her, as he walked out of the clinic. She followed him, screaming
continually, until he drove away in his car. “What are you doing? Get back in
there! You have to pay me! You can’t leave! You idiot!” She was so seized with
anger that her professional advice lapsed into Chinese, mixed with plenty of
swearing.

Bill listened for a while, marveling at the fluency and fire
of his little lovebird. He thought what she did for money was a bunch of bunk,
but he had to admire the intensity of her belief. He hoped he could see some of
that passion Saturday night and Sunday morning in her bedroom. On that hike, he
thought, he
really
had to conserve
his strength, so he could perform well in the post-mountain workout. At the
very moment he thought that, a particularly violent burst of screaming came
from Linda. It disturbed his
pleasure-planning
and
recalled to mind a fight he had had with her before. To banish such an
unwelcome remembrance, Bill ended the call and went back to work. He was happy
to imagine what tomorrow would bring.

That night in the bathroom of his apartment, he prepared the
surprise for Linda he had hinted at. She had mentioned in the past that he
would look better if he dyed his hair and had once given him the number for an
expensive salon where one of her patients worked. But the comment from his
coworkers was the real reason he undertook the transformation. He didn’t place
much value in anything Linda said, although he sometimes pretended to, in order
to flatter her. Flattery was an essential part of dating, he thought. All of
the women he saw seemed to expect it.

Standing in front of the mirror above his bathroom sink, he
applied hair dye to his thinning, greying hair, as carefully as he could.
Although he kept turning his head back and forth to see if the coloring solution
was applied evenly, he did not cover the sides and back of his head as well as
the front.

“A little more here,” he said to himself. He squeezed the
dye bottle above the crown of his head, and a gob spurt out.

“Damn,” he cursed, quickly trying to spread the excess dye
through his hair.

Chapter 8

A light shower was in the forecast for Saturday, and when
the morning dawned, thick grey clouds in the sky confirmed the likelihood of
rain. Bill tried to persuade Linda to change her plan, but she was inexorable.
She would not watch TV. She would not go to a movie. She would not exercise at
a gym. She wouldn’t even go shopping, which was the last suggestion Bill made,
because it was the most costly substitute activity. He was somewhat relieved
that she didn’t want to shop, since he felt compelled to pay for her purchases,
when they went to stores together, and she was accustomed to a much more
expensive lifestyle than him on account of her wealth. He came from the old
school of relationships and thought the man should always pick up the tab, no
matter how much it hurt his wallet. The women Bill dated always allowed him to
indulge this chauvinistic tendency, without complaint.

When Bill arrived at Linda’s house to go to Bear Mountain,
he did not need to point out the surprise for her. “What happened to your
hair?” she exclaimed instantly. She stood staring at his head with her arms
straight at her side. He leaned in for a kiss, as usual, but she backed up,
locked in a stare with eyes wide open, as if an alien from outer space was
bending toward her.

“I dyed it,” he said, abandoning his attempt to kiss her.
“Don’t you like it? I did it for you.”

“Who dyed it?” she cried.

“I dyed it,” he repeated.

“You killed it,” she blurted out. “It died.”

She insisted that he go and have his hair fixed immediately,
and that was a reasonable request. It looked like a multicolored wig or the
pelt of a raccoon, an old, hoary raccoon. The multitude of shades in his
thinning hair extended from tan to the darkest brown—all dusted with the
grey of age—because the dye had not been uniformly applied or allowed to
set for the proper duration. Bill, however, was adverse to such an extreme
measure as spending more money to beautify hair, even if it was on his head,
and dismissed her advice. “Color highlights are in,” he said, trying to make a
joke. “Next time, I’ll do a better job.” Linda was more interested in going
hiking than worrying about what he looked like, so eventually she let the
matter drop, although she avoided looking at him the rest of the day.

Since it was doubtful that Bill’s car could travel the
distance to Bear Mountain and return, they went together in Linda’s car, and
she drove. During most of the trip to the park, she entertained Bill by telling
him what a piece of junk his automobile was and what kind of car he should buy.
The best choice, she explained in detail, was the kind of car
she
was driving. Bill asked an
occasional question, but mostly stared out the window, fearful that he would be
walking uphill and downhill for hours.

He knew they would easily arrive in the park before eleven
in the morning. She had wanted to come so early—it was the earliest time
they had ever started a hike together—because she said she felt stressed.
The strain of her relationship with Bill was probably the cause, but she didn’t
say that, because she wasn’t the introspective type. She only said that she
wanted to release the psychological pressure she felt through vigorous,
extended exertion. That was all she was certain about. Acupuncture wasn’t going
to cure a mind-body imbalance by itself, she knew. Bill didn’t share her
philosophy of health. Although he was somewhat sad and depressed, even if he
wouldn’t admit it to himself, hours of hiking were not going to make him feel
better. On the contrary, it would exhaust him to the point where he could
hardly move. He had agreed to come, however, because he wanted to mend the
broken tie between them. In his innermost thoughts, he doubted that he was
compatible with Linda, but he repressed those nuisance notions for now, since
there was not another object for him to lavish his affection on at the moment.

Unless it started to rain, he was certain she would continue
to punish him with her marathon march until at least five o’clock. Without
rainfall, he knew he wouldn’t be able to convince her to go for a drive instead
or have an early dinner. His power of persuasion over her was nonexistent.
Since the rain had not yet appeared and might not at all, the closer they came
to their destination, the more sluggish and despondent he grew, while she
became more energetic and high-spirited.

When they arrived, Linda leaped out of the car and started
stretching, while Bill unloaded a backpack and put it on. Filled with water
bottles, food, bug repellent, a first aid kit, a blanket, and umbrellas, it was
heavy and caused Bill to walk leaning forward to balance the weight. He
willingly served as the beast of burden, because he thought that was the man’s
role. But he hardly had a choice, because Linda would never offer to help.

In the sunlight of early summer, the natural beauty of Bear
Mountain and the surrounding Hudson valley lands can fill the eyes and hearts
of people of all ages with a comfort and deep solace that no city ever can. The
majestic, wide Hudson River sparkles and surges onward, as if it were the
source of life, nourishing the abundant trees and other plant life that press
upon its shores. Even under a clouded sky, the area retains a somber, stirring
magnificence. It is a vision of earthly glory in any weather, a sight to behold
by anyone who can see.

But first a person must lift their eyes from the ground and
look around to see the grandeur of the place. Bill trudged on the trail,
weighed down by the backpack. He was always behind Linda with his eyes cast
down at his feet, cringing inside with each step forward, and frequently
glaring at the back of Linda. She marched ahead, vigorously swinging her arms,
never looking back or talking to him.

For hours, they walked on with only brief stops to drink water
or have a snack. Bill fell further and further behind. Sometimes when the path
curved enough, he lost sight of Linda altogether. He tried to hurry when that
happened and catch up, but the longer they hiked the less able he was to close
the distance between them. Since he rarely exercised, he tired quickly. His
dislike for walking up and down hills and indifference to nature further
dampened his ability to match Linda’s pace. Only his interest in Linda
encouraged him to keep moving, but there wasn’t enough of that to help him move
as fast as her.

When they had been walking for over three hours, a light
rain, which the clouds had threatened all day, finally began to fall. Bill was
a hundred feet behind Linda when he felt drops of rain land on his head. This
was the moment he had been waiting for. His energy shot up, and euphoria seized
him. “Linda, Linda,” he shouted. “Can you wait a moment?” With his
new-found
stamina, Bill broke into a jog to catch up with
her. “Linda, wait,” he yelled, racing as much as he could with the backpack.

Linda had heard him call her both times, but only after the
second cry did she reluctantly stop and turn around. “Walk faster,” she said,
when he caught up to her, panting.

“I felt a few drops of rain,” Bill said. “We had better turn
back. We’re a long way from the car. It could start to pour any second now.”