I Loved You Wednesday (24 page)

“That’s clear,” I say, thinking it’s anything but.

“They’re only keeping it open another couple of weeks. Apparently business isn’t good.”

“That’s no surprise.”

“One other thing,” shifts Chris, not looking up from the weather page. “ Astin asked if I would be his escort to a party Saturday night. He needs a date, and there’s no one else he can ask. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not!” I say, shrugging casually, turning back to the bathroom to finish washing so I can get out of the house as fast as possible before she senses how very much I really do mind.

I race around the Village most of the day, tending to, among other things, my two auditions, neither of which proves to be any milestone makers. When I return to the apartment around four in the afternoon, I find Chris still curled up in my corduroy chair, the
Times
still unfolded in front of her, still in the same bathrobe, the tarot cards spread all over the floor in front of her, a small box of Kleenex resting snugly between her legs.

“How are you?” I ask, approaching her.

“Worse than yesterday. Not as bad as tomorrow,” is her smug but glum answer.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“This is the way I left you.”

“I know.”

“What happened to your audition?”

“I didn’t go.”

“How come?”

“Why bother?” “Not good, Chris. A no-name actress has no choice. That’s why you bother. If your agent finds out you’re not showing up, she’ll stop sending you around.”

“It’s not that I didn’t want to go. I tried. Just couldn’t get it together.”

“You feeling depressed about something?”

“You know, if your career should take a sudden dip for the worse, you can always find work as a psychic.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I sure as hell wish I knew.”

“No ideas?”

“None. I’ve been sitting here all day crying. And I swear I don’t know why. Every time I tried getting up I just started crying all over again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I even read my tarot cards, figuring it might tell me why I was so upset.”

“And?”

“And look at that reading. Have you ever seen so many daggers?”

I kneel down in front of the chair and hug her tightly. “Well, Carmen, we’ll just have to cheer you up, that’s all.”

“No, thanks. I’m too tired. I think I’ll take a nap.”

“All right. I’ll join you.”

So we go into the bedroom to lie down for a couple of hours. From time to time, I reach over and try to get affectionate, but Chris is just not in the mood. She nudges away from my attentions, turning over, farther away from me.

Several hours later the benevolent side of the Three Faces of Eve awakens, and Chris is suddenly no longer distraught. Without even mentioning what went on earlier this afternoon, we kiss and kiss, winding up spending the better part of the next hour or so promising total commitments to each other forever and ever.

Afterward, still ebullient and spirited, we go to Ruskay’s, the neighborhood candlelit romantic spot.

We’re so attached to each other, we keep our fingersclasped together throughout the dinner (ever try cutting your meat with one hand?) and play all sorts of footsie-leg entanglement games beneath the table.

We arrive home a little after midnight. I undress, go into the bathroom and wash. As I walk back into the bedroom, I find Chris sitting on the edge of the bed, casually removing and examining the contents of my trousers.

“Chris . . . what are you doing?”

“Emptying your pants.”

“You’re going through my pockets!”

“No. I’m just looking. I always do. I get small clues to the kind of day you had, what you’ve been doing when I wasn’t with you.”

“When you weren’t with me?”

“Yeah. When we’re not together.”

“But, Chris, that’s my personal property.”

“Don’t be silly,” she dismisses. “Some loose change. A wrinkled Kleenex. Big deal. Nothing between us is
private,
is it? Please feel free to look through any of my things if you wish.”

“I do not wish.”

“My stuff isn’t as much fun as yours anyway. Take this laundry ticket, for instance.”

“Why?”

“Well, I didn’t even know you used these cleaners. I thought you preferred the Chinese guy up the block.”

“It wasn’t a matter of preference. It was convenience. I was late, so I just dropped my shirts off at the closest place.”

“Now I know!”

“Now you know what?”

“How you feel about laundries.”

“Chris, if you want to know how I feel about laundries, ask. I promise to give you an unqualified dissertation. But don’t go through my pockets, okay?”

“Why not, if it gives me pleasure?”

“Because they’re mine! Just like the messages on my service!”

“What are you trying to hide?”

“Everything, kid. Especially the three mistresses I’mkeeping in separate apartments on Sutton Place. I don’t want you finding their love letters.”

“Don’t make light of this!”

“No, Chris. Don’t make heavy of this. Period.” Walking over to her with determination, I practically pull the pants out of her hands. As I walk to the closet to hang them up, I continue, “It has nothing to do with you. I just don’t want anyone going through my pockets. Now you know. Don’t blow it up or interpret it to mean anything else like how it affects the way I feel for you. They are unrelated matters. Got it? I love you, Chris. Both in spite of and because of your phenomenal gift for spontaneity, irrationality and surprise. Understand?”

Chris looks up at me, the wounded puppy. In no way does she understand. “Well, no matter,” I continue, much more subdued. “Now that I’ve vented my spleen all over your head, I feel much better. I’m going to sleep. See you in bed!”

Like ships in the night, Chris and I pass without speaking: me to the bed, she to the bathroom. To cry.

And so, as I lie awake listening to the sniffles and quiet sobs emanating from behind the closed bathroom door, I carefully plot ways to bring her out of this. But I can’t. I’m enervated and spent. So I fall asleep.

Some time later—twenty minutes, an hour, two?—I’m aware of a body crawling under the covers, far from next to me. I know it’s Chris because I’d recognize those sniffles anywhere.

“Feel better?” I ask the stranger on the other side of the bed.

“I want you to make love to me,” answers Chris, mid-sniffle.

“I don’t feel like it,” I tell her quite honestly.

“I don’t care.”

“Chris. I can’t perform on command. I’m a bit upset about what’s been going on, and I just don’t feel particularly passionate right now. Try to see it from my side for once. Besides, we did it before going out for dinner, remember.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Listen. If our sex drives aren’t the same, it doesn’t mean I care less. Just that you can do it more frequently. Nothing else. And I’m really tired. So good night.” Leaning over, I try to get to her face for a kiss, but Chris turns her cheek on me. “You’re a very difficult woman!” I say, turning over on my stomach. Closing my eyes, my only hope is oblivion won’t be far away.

And as the first waves of semisleep begin clouding over my consciousness, just as I’m starting to drift off again, I hear Chris asking out loud, most rhetorically, “
There’s someone else, isn’t there?”

The next morning, Saturday, I get up early and get into the kitchen to prepare a huge breakfast for the two of us. Bringing it into the bedroom on a tray, I wake Sleeping Beauty, most anxious to see what today’s Response to Life is going to be. And my barometer registers Four Stars. Terrific. The kid’s in splendid spirits: warm, adoring, sparkling with enthusiasm.

And the entire day goes wonderfully well. It’s beautiful and sunny and surprisingly mild for the middle of March, and we go for a lazy walk in Central Park and then stop off for lunch at one of those Fifty-seventh Street all-omelet places and then take in a movie on the East Side.

Afterward, on the way home, Chris suggests we stop off at Baskin-Robbins for a late afternoon
dolce
, a slight fat attack to cap the day.

“I’m not sure, Chris. I’ve still got that mushroom omelet swimming laps in my stomach from lunch.”

“Nonsense,” dismisses Chris. “A solid ice-cream cone is just what you need to wash it all down. Besides, you’ve got to get a cone of your own; else I won’t have another flavor to taste.”

“Why don’t you just get a double scoop?”

“I plan to. I was talking about sharing a third flavor.”

“I see.”

“Come on, Steve. Don’t be a party pooper. Celebrate life!”

“You dare me to celebrate life?”

“Double dare you!”

“You’re on!”

And so, stalwart and eager, we taxi over to the crowded West Side Baskin-Robbins, pick a number and wait our turn.

Chris spends the next few minutes carefully pacing up and down the counter, peering down into the various ice-cream cartons, ruminating over which flavors to vie for.

“I can’t make up my mind,” she says quite seriously, coming over to me. “What about you?”

“I was thinking about English Toffee.”

“English Toffee?”
repeats Chris distastefully, as if I’d just suggested pouring ketchup all over my breakfast cereal. “That’s an old lady’s flavor!”

“Says who?”

“It’s so Howard Johnson, so conservative. No zip. No pizzazz. Can’t you be a little more extravagant? A bit more bon vivant?”

“All right. Tell me how.”

“Remember, Steve, I’m liable to devour at least a third of whatever you decide to order, so your decision is most critical.”

“Okay.”

“So go with something a little more adventurous.”

“Like what?”

“Something with a bit more flair than humdrum toffee.”

“Fine. Like what?”

“Something with a bit of ambiance to it. Something with that certain
je ne sais quoi
... a flavor that bespeaks of that unmistakable mark of cultured refinement and dignified air of good taste.”

“Great. I’ll take it.”

“A flavor that separates common ice-cream gorgers from sophisticated, delicately paletted ice-cream lovers. A flavor which instantly conveys to the man behind the counter that you’re a discerning gentleman who knows his pints and quarts!”

“Terrific! What do I order?”

“Bubble Gum!”

“Perfect, Chris! I don’t know why I didn’t think of that myself.” And, turning to the harried fellow behind the counter, I carefully order, “One English Toffee cone, please.”

“ Traitor!
’ yells Chris, bringing the back of her hand up to her forehead, preparing to faint. “
Pearls before swine!
Why do I go on, day after day, trying to bring culture to this heathen? Did I study all those years at the Sorbonne, working toward my doctorate in Ice Cream Flavors in vain?”

“Chris. The man is waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“To take your order.”

“Okay, hotshot. Watch this!” Turning to the bemused fellow behind the counter, Chris goes into her veddy British, veddy nasal Margaret Rutherford, ordering, “I should like a double cone, if you’d be so kind, young man, combining the following
flavors
: Blueberry Marshmallow and Peanut Butter ‘n’ Chocolate!” Then, turning to me in triumph, Chris inquires, “Now! How about that?”

“What can I say? Taste will out!”

Chris’ double scooper is handed to her, I pay the man and we leave. Just as we get outside the store, though, Chris brings her tall cone to her nose, complaining,
“Yeccch!
Oh my God! How awful!”

“What?”

“Something’s wrong. Smell yours.”

So I smell my ice cream, and as I do, Chris pushes it smack into my face.

And as I stand there in the middle of Broadway and Seventy-first Street, finding it difficult to believe I’ve just fallen for perhaps the oldest trick in the books, as English Toffee drips down my nose and dribbles onto my jacket, Chris looks at me and says, “Now aren’t you sorry you didn’t order Bubble Gum?”

And the race is on!

I chase her up Seventy-first Street, across Columbus Avenue, and just as I’m about to catch her, preparing to rinse her hair in a Blueberry Marshmallow-Peanut Butter ‘n’ Chocolate rinse, she trips and falls, bruising and scraping her knee, while her cone goes flying into the gutter.

I rush over, bending down to help. Hugging her, I ask, “You hurt?”

“Of course I’m hurt! You think I’m elastic?”

“Poor baby!”