Impersonal Attractions (16 page)

Annie couldn’t stop the giggle that followed them across the street to Rick’s car. He waved at her with an embarrassed flip of a hand as he loaded his trick-or-treat favor into the car for the ride back to morning-after reality and home. She waved good-bye to the ghost of Halloween Past.

TWENTY-FIVE

L
ola and Annie had concurred that the best burger in town was at the Balboa Café, and a burger was the perfect antidote to Thanksgiving turkey. The restaurant was part of that great singles swamp at Fillmore and Filbert they called the Bermuda Triangle, but the hamburger on baguette with grilled onions was worth it. Lola ordered a bottle of Mirassou champagne to wash it down. “Why not?” she said. “We deserve it. To
Meeting Cute
.”
She toasted Annie with her tulip-shaped glass.

“So,” Lola continued, “tell me how it’s going. Met anybody interesting? How about that writer you were so enthusiastic about?”

Annie groaned. “Lloyd Andrews. I was slapping on wrinkle cream for a week before I met him. Needn’t have bothered.”

“Wasn’t he interested in your long, white body?”

“He’s not interested in much of anything that doesn’t relate directly to the life and times of Lloyd Andrews.”

“From what you said about his letter, he certainly seemed interested. How did that line go?”

“I wanted to tell you about this, so I brought it along.” Annie held up the letter she’d found in her bag.

“‘I read your ad and wanted you, wishing I could transport you here immediately, naked and hot and curious. I would open a bottle of champagne and we would make love until hunger drove us out at some mad hour of the night in search of food, feeling wonderful, a little crazy, and very pleasantly close.’”

Lola poured Annie another glass of champagne. “So which part didn’t you get? The bubbly, the feeling wonderful, or the pleasantly close?”

“The champagne I got. The a little crazy, too, from just being there. Great apartment in Telegraph Landing, those new co-ops down by the Embarcadero, all multileveled, lots of thick carpet and views over to the East Bay. That was nice. But I also got two nonstop hours of the Lloyd Andrews Story. With no breaks for audience participation.

“He never asked, ‘And what do you do? Or think? Or are you alive?’”

“It wouldn’t have been so bad, but as I told you, I’d read all his work and it’s very autobiographical, so I already knew the stories. It was like going to the movie after you’ve read the book. Except the book was better.”

Lola laughed, and signaled the waiter to clear, ordering some coffee for both of them. “Was he at least nice looking?”

“A little like Kenny Rogers, which certainly isn’t bad. But with a few more pounds in the gut. That was okay, if he just hadn’t been so godawful egocentric.”

“We can hope that when you become a rich and famous author you don’t also become fat, pompous, and boring, or does it come with the territory?”

“God, I hope not. I plan to remain svelte and humble and fascinating, my own self.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Lola sipped her coffee.

“And how about you? How’s
your
love life? Met any more midget gynecologists?”

“Nope. No blind dates. No ads.”

“Why?”

“I’ve pretty much run through the possibilities of the letters I got.”

“Oh, God, that reminds me.” Annie told her about David and the ads he had circled in the
Guardian,
including Lola’s.

“I’ll look back and see if there’s anybody who sounds like him. It’s possible. I just skimmed over the ones from white boys. If I find him, should I give him a call?”

Annie laughed. “Wouldn’t that be funny? Up to you, my friend. Depends on what you’re looking for.”

“Worth an hour or two?” Lola arched her eyebrows suggestively.

“Definitely.”

“I was just teasing. I’ll look and let you know.”

They both ordered raspberries with
crème fraîche
and another cup of espresso.

“So you’ve written off Lloyd Andrews and David. Anybody else on the horizon?”

“Not really. Except this man Harry that my friend Sam introduced me to a few weeks ago at a party. But he’s never called. Maybe I should give him a jingle.”

*

The party had been in a mansion perched high on a hill in Pacific Heights. The twinkling lights of Sausalito and Tiburon across the Bay had been reflected in three mammoth mirrors on the living-room wall. The room was done in Art Deco plum, blue, white, and silver. Acres of cloud gray carpet billowed, threatening as quicksand to her high-heeled black sandals. Calla lilies and purple irises bloomed out of season in Baccarat vases. Tuxedoed waiters circulated with oysters Rockefeller, shrimp
remoulade,
crayfish bisque in minuscule pastry cups.

Their hostess greeted Sam and Annie with a hug, handed them long-stemmed glasses of Lillet, and introduced them to a small group of bejeweled older women and dark-suited men.

Annie had wandered over to the baby Steinway to give a closer listen to the Cole Porter. She chatted a bit with the pianist, Tim Belk. He was very good. He was playing Frank Sinatra’s “Emily” for her when Sam approached with Harry.

Sam had mentioned Harry on the way over, a friend of an old boyfriend. She had often thought that Annie might like him, but he wasn’t an easy one. He could be a little off-putting at first.

Annie could see what she meant. It wasn’t that he wasn’t attractive. He was 6′ 2″, about 200 pounds, with football shoulders but a little softness around the middle. His face was round, his teeth even and white, his eyes that kind of chameleon hazel that changed with the color of his shirt. What was left of his hair was about the color of hers. But she didn’t mind balding men.

The oddness was in his manner. After Sam introduced them and tactfully disappeared they exchanged the usual pleasantries about the house, the view, the food, and were just about to move to a second more personal plateau when he lurched off. He evaporated, with a sudden flash of shoulders and elbows that seemed to be the first part of him to go.

So he didn’t find me fascinating, she thought. But I won’t take this personally. I’m appropriately dressed. My hair is clean. She checked herself quickly in a mirror. I do not have spinach in my teeth. I did not say anything stupid. This is his problem, not mine.

Then he reappeared at her elbow. He steered her into the dining room to show her a painting. He was a collector. He would have loved to own this piece, a magnificent Frankenthaler, but hadn’t had the cash at the time. Their hostess obviously never had any kind of cash flow problem.

His style of conversation was thrust-parry. He talked very rapidly. His sentences seemed to come out of the middle of paragraphs that were running in his mind. Once he had spoken, he disappeared—either he walked away a few steps with that strange leading of shoulders and elbows or his attention seemed to take flight.

After about ten minutes he muttered something about a head stop and flew out altogether.

Odd, very odd, Annie thought. Yet there was a lot that interested her. He was witty. He had a certain presence. He was a mover and shaker in the city. He was sophisticated. He was cute. But he was also gone.

She sighed and mingled with a group chatting about sailing and then another speculating on how the 49ers were going to finish the season.

Finally she found Sam in the living room, gave her the high sign, and they got their coats.

When they were almost out the door Harry appeared again slightly behind her. “I’ll give you a jingle soon,” he said, “and we’ll have dinner.” He squeezed her upper arm and was off.

*

“And you haven’t heard from him since?” Lola asked.

“Nope.”

“Nice thing about phones is that they work both ways. I’d give him a call.”

When she got home from lunch Annie had had just enough champagne in her to take Lola’s advice. Harry’s secretary said he was in a meeting. She was sure he’d get back to her as soon as possible. Easy for her to say.

*

Later that evening Annie and her friend Tom Albano walked back to her place after catching a revival of
Bonnie and Clyde.

“What’s the matter, pal?” He threw an arm around her shoulder. “You seem a little down tonight.”

“Not really. Maybe just working too hard.”

“Those forty-five men from the
Bay Guardian
keeping you up too late?” He never forgot a thing.

“That’s research, my friend.”

“Uh-huh. No keepers then?” Tom was a fisherman who often spoke the lingo.

“Nope, I threw them all back.”

“Well, that’s their problem, not yours. You just haven’t found the right one yet—the lucky guy who deserves you.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in Prince Charming.”

“I don’t. That’s your problem. No one’s perfect, you know.” He chucked her under the chin.

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“When are you getting married again?”

“I’m not in any rush. This has been good for me. I’ve learned to cook. To do my laundry without everything turning pink.”

“Really? What’s your secret?”

“I take it to the Chinese laundry.”

Annie laughed. “I guess being married to Clara would make you cautious about getting hooked up again. But what’s your fantasy? When you do start looking what are you going to be looking for?”

He grinned down at her as he took her key. “I want a tall blonde woman with long legs and popcorn in her teeth.”

Annie shoved him through the door ahead of her. She shook her head at his rear end. Tom had always worn the worst pants she’d ever seen on a human being. Underneath that bagginess might be a nice body, but who would ever know?

As usual, they played a few hands of gin rummy. Tom was a real shark. Over the years she had amassed a debt of several thousand dollars to him on paper. This time she stayed even. He had a nightcap and went home, giving her a big hug at the door.

Then there was a blank space. She didn’t come up against it often, kept very busy so she wouldn’t. But sometimes it crept in anyway.

Loneliness sat and looked at her from the other end of her rose-colored sofa.

Sometimes she thought that her chances of finding love in this town were about as good as finding a unicorn on her fire escape.

*

Brushing her teeth, she remembered that there had been a call on her answering machine. She’d thought it would be rude to check her messages while Tom was there. She flipped it on. There was Harry’s voice. She clutched the neck of her nightgown in excitement.

Oh, crap. She and Sam had been fooling around and she’d left that stupid request on her tape. “Leave your name and number and any other personal statistics you feel comfortable saying aloud, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.” He was going to think she was a fool.

“Hello? This is the author? I want to leave my personal statistics.

“My name is Harry.

“I have a cold.

“I am leaving town on business, but I’d like to take you to dinner next Tuesday night. I’ll pick you up at eight.

“I wear a size twelve shoe.

“I wear a tie.

“I like collar pins.

“I like to drink wine, particularly red wine.

“And I like fish. What do you like?”

TWENTY-SIX

A
fter he’d proved himself with Lucinda Washington he’d had to wait a couple of months for his official initiation at a state gathering in a little town near Baton Rouge. But the smiles and the slaps on the back were enough. He knew he belonged.

The feeling grew after the midnight swearing in that took place in the middle of a field, about two hundred men, their voices rolling like thunder, welcoming him. For the first time in his life he was part of something big, something important, and his life had purpose.

Now he had two lives. The old one, going to school, doing his chores, staying out of Pa’s reach. And the new one, the secret one, where men older than he was admired him as he proved himself to be the most deadly of the night riders.

He didn’t mind the meetings, the planning, the organizing, the sitting around on his haunches on cold barn floors. It all led to the bloody bursts of midnight glory.

After Lucinda there had been a nigger preacher from a small community nearby, New Blessings. He had been stirring up trouble among his congregation.

The boy had never made a bomb before, but once he got the hang of it, it was easy. The blasts had gone off like clockwork, right in the middle of choir practice.

Three of them had died and a couple more were blown up pretty good. They had learned their lesson. There were no more meetings in the A.M.E. Baptist Church, and the doors in the Quarter were locked shut to the knockings of Yankees in the night. They’d have to find a town other than New Blessings wherein to do their good deeds.