Hot Properties (37 page)

The phone rang. She stared at it for a moment, unconscious of what it was. She answered it abstractedly.

“Hello, hello,” a male voice said with excessive cheerfulness. “Thank God it’s you. I didn’t know what I’d do if he answered.”

Patty, still picturing her characters frozen in position, unspoken words in her mouth, had no idea who this was. “Well, that’s lucky,” she said.

“I know it’s late. I’m sorry. Can you talk?”

“Yeah,” she said, puzzled. And then she recognized the voice. It was Jerry Gelb! Her old boss, the villain who had shattered her self-esteem. He sounded so odd.

“What? He’s asleep?”

“You mean David?”

“If that’s your boyfriend.”

“No, he’s at work. Is this you, Jerry?”

“Yeah!” he said with a combination of bravado and sheepishness. “I’m bombed. I’m snookered. I’ve been thinking about you. I had to call.”

“It’s one o’clock in the morning,” Patty said, but she knew, with a clarity that had utterly escaped her when she worked for him, why he was phoning.

“I know, I know,” he said, again with a mix of shame and pride. “I’m cracking up. I can’t forget you. Your beautiful big eyes. How are you? I miss you.”

“I miss you too.” she said with a sarcastic lilt.

“You do?”

“Sure. I always miss men who reduce me to tears on a daily basis.”

“Oh, come on. Surely I wasn’t that bad.”

“No. I was.”

He laughed. “Touché. You sound great. Any chance we could meet for lunch tomorrow?”

Patty wondered if she could have asked for a better revenge than this drunken call. She had control of him now. Sex had put him out of control, and being fired had put her out of his control. She could so easily torture him now, without any fear. “What do you want to have lunch for?” she asked sweetly. Too sweetly for it to be meant honestly.

But Gelb didn’t seem to notice. “My God.” He sighed. “You know.”

“No, I don’t.” Again, she almost sang the words. A siren luring him to disaster.

“Don’t make me say it. I’ve made enough of a fool of myself. I have to see you.’ You sound great. You sound beautiful!” he added.

This ceaseless flattery and boyish confession of adoration began to intrigue her. She tried to summon up her image of him as a middle-aged man, but the youthful voice on the phone interfered. “I am,” she heard herself say. “I’ve gotten thin and beautiful.”

“You were always thin and beautiful!” he protested.

I could get him to say anything. She marveled at this power, relished it. “I can’t have lunch with you,” she said.

“Why not?” That sounded more like the old Gelb. Demanding, arrogant, controlling.

“My boyfriend wouldn’t like it.”

“So don’t tell him.” Gelb laughed.

“That would be dishonest.” Patty cooed. I’m mean, I’m mean, she thought, delighted.

“Come on! Say yes. Go ahead and tell him. Tell him you’re having lunch with your old boss. Nothing strange about that.”

“He would think it was strange. Having lunch with the man who fired me. He would want to know what you wanted.”

“I need your advice,” Gelb said.

“My advice? What about?”

“It’s a secret.”

“How are you going to get my advice if it’s a secret?”

“I can’t talk about it on the phone. But …” He hesitated. “I may have a job for you.”

“You want to hire me?” Patty said, flabbergasted. Would he really go that far just to get laid? Hire somebody he believed was incompetent? Wouldn’t a whore be cheaper and less of a fuss?

“Come to lunch. I’ll tell you about it.”

“You can tell me now.”

“No.” He was firm. “Come to lunch. You have nothing to worry about. I’m not going to assault you in a restaurant.”

“Where are we going?”

“How about the Four Seasons? You love that place.”

“Okay,” she said, without considering it. She could cancel. She didn’t care how rudely she treated him.

“Great! See you there at twelve, all right?”

“Okay.”

“Love you. Bye.” And he hung up before she could refuse to accept so intimate a statement. He had managed to leave her feeling furious. He had gotten her to agree to see him. And he had insulted her by sneaking that farewell—the good-bye of an accepted lover—in at the end. She looked at the pages in her typewriter, unseeing, back in her past, living again as a confused and scared young woman battered by embarrassments. She wished she could have it all back to replay her stupid responses. Maybe at lunch she could do that. Desert Gelb, leave him with his erection at the table, laugh at his unsatisfied desire for her.

The heavy lock on the door to the hallway turned. David was home. Patty moved hastily, guiltily, putting away her manuscript and her thoughts. Both felt like betrayals of David.

David found her standing awkwardly in the middle of the room waiting for him. She felt like a teenager who has frantically put out the illicit cigarette and desperately fanned at the residual odor and smoke.

“Hey! You’re up!” he said with the exuberance of a drunk. Were all the men in the world loaded tonight? she wondered. He went to her unsteadily and hugged her. She didn’t want the embrace and moved quickly out of it.

“Did you close the section?”

“I have to go in tomorrow for a while. Check on a few things. Basically it’s done.”

“What happened? The world blow up?”

“No. … What did you … ? Oh, you had a dinner with Tony’s wife.”

“Betty. Her name is Betty.”

“My, my.” David looked amused at Patty’s seriousness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be sexist.”

“I was just telling you her name. God, am I in a foul mood,” she said, by way of apology. In fact, she had been in a great mood until Gelb called.

“Why? Did she say something?”

“Who?” Patty, thinking of Gelb, couldn’t imagine what woman he meant.

David smiled. “Tony’s wife,” he said pointedly.

Patty smiled back. It was this, his wit, that she had once been so fond of. Still was fond of. “No.”

“Well …” He moved to her, gently putting an arm around her. “What is it?”

Patty felt a sudden revulsion at her behavior, at her distrust of David. “I gave something to Betty to read.”

“Something?”

“A novel I’ve been writing.”

“You mean, not the romance novel?”

“No, a serious … Something of my own.”

“No kidding!” David looked startled. “How long have you been working on it?”

“A month. A few weeks.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure I could keep it up. I wanted to wait until I was really into it. Am I terrible?”

“No. I understand. I would be the same way.”

“You mean to say you wouldn’t tell me if you were working on a novel?”

David laughed. “Just like you.”

“But that’s terrible!” Patty insisted, her face a perfect mask of shock and outrage. “Don’t you trust me?”

David smiled. “I never know when you’re kidding.”

“Good,” Patty answered. “Don’t you want to read what I’ve written?”

“Sure.” But he looked doubtful, his eyes red, his feet unsteady.

“You’re too tired.”

“No!” he said firmly, but then sagged. “Is there any coffee?”

“You can read it tomorrow.”

“Oh, for Chrissakes. You want me to read it now.”

“I don’t want you to die.”

“Get me the pages and some coffee.”

Patty hustled over to the desk, pulling the manuscript out of its grave, buried under several hundred sheets of blank typing paper in the bottom drawer.

David laughed. “You really didn’t want me to know.”

She smiled and gave him the pages, rushing out of the room to the kitchen, relieved to have something to do.

The coffee took forever to heat up. She couldn’t hear anything while she waited—no paper rustling, no laughter, no groans—and she became convinced he had fallen asleep. But no. He was sitting up reading attentively. As she approached with the coffee, she got a view of his profile. His lips were pressed tight, his chin up. He looked prissy and dissatisfied. She knew it. He was going to hate her novel, probably spoil her desire to go on. She should never have succumbed to her hungry vanity. She handed him the coffee.

He looked up. His eyes looked funny. Patty thought for a moment that his wide and confused eyes were due to drunkenness, but when he took the cup and stared longer at her, she knew it was the writing. “They’re good,” he said, his tone surprised.

“You haven’t read very much. Maybe you won’t like the rest.”

David’s eyes slowly returned to her pages. “They’re good,” he said again slowly, a man in shock, repeating unbelievable news to himself. “They’re good,” he mumbled once more.

CHAPTER 11

I’m gonna give it to her. Fred thought furiously. He looked at the shadowed figure of Marion in the taxi. The seat made her look small, a fat little girl, her head barely reaching above the window. I’m gonna let her have it, he thought again, the excitement of his resolution pumping through him. She thinks I’ll take it quietly like I always do, but I won’t. I’m gonna call her bluff. She can’t get away with making a fool of me anymore.

The Plexiglas partition between Fred and the driver was frosty with dust and scratches, the side windows covered with stickers that warned or cajoled the customer with New York City Taxi Commission regulations. The seat seemed to be sliding down through the bottom of the car. There was nothing to look at but the shrinking form of his wife. His anger welled in his chest. But he couldn’t begin, frightened that once out, the flood of his rage would never subside and would end only by drowning them both.

No. no, he told himself. I won’t show fury. She’d like that. Prove to her how she got to me. I’ll give it to her cold. Aloof. Marion, as far as I’m concerned, our marriage is over. I don’t want you to accompany me on any social occasions, I can no longer promise to be faithful. I don’t give a shit about shopping for dinner. We can continue to live together but—

It made no sense.

If I hate her. I should leave her.

The taxi dropped into a pothole hard.

“Jesus.” Marion exclaimed.

The driver mumbled something.

“Watch where you’re going.” Marion called out.

Fred forgot his problem and felt dread that the taxi driver would get angry and start fighting. This driver looked insane. He had hair growing all over his body, he looked sooty, and his eyes were bloodshot. Fred had noticed all that when the cab stopped for them in front of Elaine’s, and had even considered waving him on, but didn’t, only because he was frightened that the driver, cheated of a fare, would get out and punch him.

The driver shouted something back, Fred couldn’t hear what, and now his heart beat rapidly again, this time with terror. “Shhh,” he said to Marion.

“He nearly broke my spine!” she said loudly.

“I know, I know,” he whispered back. “He’s crazy. We’ll be there soon.”

They relapsed into silence. I’m soothing her. I wanna blow her head off and I’m soothing her. It was like being a teenager living with his mother. He’d want to scream at his mother, tell her she was a whining, unattractive, bitter woman, ungrateful to his father (always tired, exhausted from work) for providing her with a life of ease. A maid to clean daily, caterers for parties, expensive trips, all the clothes she wanted (though she continued to look drab, no matter what her hairdo or the style of her dress), and all the power in making family decisions. And yet, like Marion, there was no end to her complaints that she was neglected, ignored; no action or comment his father could make that she failed to deride or despise. How his father had had the will and courage to build his business in the fog of complaints and meanness his mother exhaled at home … No more remarkable, he imagined, than his own ability to persevere in his ambition to be a novelist despite Marion’s poorly concealed skepticism.

They arrived home. Fred gave the driver a big tip, knowing that would guarantee he wouldn’t say anything. To his surprise, the driver said, “Thanks. Sorry about the bump. They oughta fix the fuckin’ streets.”

“Yeah,” Fred said cheerfully, ecstatic that the guy was reasonable and decent. Marion had gotten out and gone ahead.

“It’s that fuckin’ fag we got for a mayor,” the driver said out his window while Fred closed the door.

“Yeah,” Fred said, not so cheerfully. He’s probably an anti-Semite, he thought to himself, convinced that anyone who disliked Mayor Koch had to be. An anti-Semite and stoned, he decided after another glance at the driver’s angry red eyes. Fred hurried to catch up with Marion.

She greeted him with: “What the hell did you give him a big tip for?”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” he answered with thorough bitterness. He almost covered his mouth, embarrassed by the release, but he forced that feeling away and strode into the elevator. Then he felt good. Not happy, but vigorous. No longer constipated by a little boy’s timidity.

Marion stood outside the elevator and stared at him. For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to get in. “You’re such a baby.” she said, and then finally entered, moving to the other side of the elevator as though they were strangers riding to different floors, different lives. He wished they were. He kept his glance downward until they got to their floor, looking up when Marion moved to get out. He watched her behind move while he followed her to the door. Although there was nothing exciting about either its shape or its motion, he felt horny for her. If only he could get her to bed without all the bullshit—if only he knew for sure what made her want to fuck. Other than his pressing her for so many days in a row that she eventually ran out of excuses, he couldn’t say what did make her want to have sex. Years ago, when they were kids in college, he didn’t remember that either of them had to initiate making love. They were both so thrilled to be doing it, it was automatic as soon as they were alone together. They would kiss immediately and soon …

There was an empty feeling to the apartment. The place was jammed with their things, eight years of living together, but their footsteps seemed to echo as though it were bare. Fred turned on the television to rid the place of the silence. Marion disappeared into the hallways. Probably gonna take a bath, Fred thought to himself bitterly. Well, I’m not going in there to apologize and whine just because I want some nooky. I’ll find someone else. She doesn’t think I’d ever do that, doesn’t think I’d have the nerve to have an affair. Maybe she doesn’t think anyone would have an affair with me, Fred thought, furious. She doesn’t want to fuck me, so she probably thinks no one else does.