Looking for a Love Story (23 page)

“As soon as we can.”

“I still wish I knew what you are getting out of this.”

It was his turn to try to make it light. “A new partner for my act. Now that Benny’s gone—”

“The act! Oh, my God, what will we do about the act?”

“I guess we’ll have to come up with a new one.”

“By tomorrow?” Because that was how fast they’d have to do it. Today had been a rare day off, but tomorrow night the show would be back on. And at the moment, Masters, George, and Doran was missing one third of its cast.

“No,” Joe said. “We can’t do that.” She watched him draw in a deep breath. She knew he’d never walked out on a performance before. It went against the core of everything he believed. It was blasphemy.

“I’ve never been a no-show in my life.” Ellie put his thoughts into words. “Not since Pa put me onstage when I was six.”

They looked at each other. “We’ll have to cancel,” Joe said.

CHAPTER 22

It was noon when I turned off the tape recorder. I’d been writing every day for a week without taking a break, and I was beat. Plus, I’d run out of chocolate bars. So even though a part of me wanted to keep on going, I decided that Benny’s exit was a natural place to stop. And it was definitely time for me to have a little human contact. I picked up the phone.

I’m really working hard
, was what I reported to Alexandra.
But it’s very fulfilling. I’ll email you the part of the manuscript I’ve written
.

I’m having a ball
, was what I told Sheryl during our phone call.
It almost doesn’t seem like work. I’ll email you the chapters I’ve finished so you can tell me what you think
.

“I know, I know,” I said to Annie. “Sending them my pages is pathetic. What do you want from me? I’m an applause junkie. I’m looking for a twelve-step program. But in the meantime, I’m sending
out those pages so I can get my fix.” The truth was, I knew I was going to get applause, I was that sure of this story. “It’s as if I’ve always wanted to write about these people,” I told Annie. She yawned, and threw a meaningful glance at her empty food bowl. Life lesson: Dogs keep you from getting too artsy.

Annie was out of kibble, so a trip to the store was in order. I e-mailed the chapters to Alexandra and Sheryl and headed out. The elevator seemed to be stuck on the penthouse floor. When it finally did move, the sound of shrill barking preceded it. It was coming from inside the elevator cab and you could hear it echoing up and down the shaft. The doors opened, and I heard a familiar voice say, “Lancie, be quiet! Mommy is already upset. She had to come all the way home on her lunch hour to take you out for potty time!”

I stepped inside and saw the lawyer from the penthouse with her Yorkie. Abigail something.

“You haven’t got a dog-walking service yet?” I asked.

“I thought I was on the trail of one, but they don’t have an opening until one of their schnauzers goes to the Hamptons for the summer. That’s almost six months from now. I’ll probably be certifiable by then.”

The day before yesterday, I would have mentally rolled my eyes and dismissed this as a spoiled-rich-person problem. But now that I had Chicky’s five thousand bucks in the bank, I clucked sympathetically.

In the lobby I detoured to check my mailbox. I’d been working so hard it had been a couple of days since I’d picked up my magazines and the bills that I could now pay. When I opened the box, the first thing I saw was a long, ominous-looking envelope from my bank. I ripped it open. Then I yelled a phrase that wasn’t very ladylike. “Is everything okay, Francesca?” Abigail asked.

“I may need a lawyer,” I said darkly.

“Are you in trouble?”

“I will be. I’m going to kill someone.” And I raced out of the building.

“I NEED TO
talk to you right now, Chicky!” I yelled. I’d barged past the woman sitting at the front desk of Yorkville House and raced to Chicky’s room, where I’d begun banging on the door. I figured she’d probably seen who I was through the peephole and was hiding, but I was prepared to stay there all day if I had to.

Chicky opened the door when I was midway through my second onslaught. She seemed thrilled to see me. For a second I’d thought maybe I’d misunderstood the missive from the bank. But there was no mistaking the phrase
insufficient funds
.

“Doll Face, what a pleasant surprise,” Chicky said. “Come on in. Tea? Cookies?”

Her sweet-old-lady face was so innocent. So shiny with welcome. No way she could have deliberately tried to screw me. Now I felt guilty for all the ugly thoughts I’d had on the bus ride over. The poor little thing probably made a mistake in her checkbook, I told myself. I still haven’t learned to balance mine, and I’m years younger than she is. Thank God I hadn’t accused her of anything. “Chicky,” I said gently. “I’m afraid there’s a problem. The check you gave me, it—”

“It bounced like a rubber ball?”

“I’m afraid so,” I said, still with the gentle tone. Because it was clear that she hadn’t grasped the gravity of the situation.

She nodded. “That’ll happen when you don’t have any money in the account.”

So she
had
grasped the frigging gravity! Innocent little old lady be damned.
“You knew?”

“Oh, I know to the penny how much I have. I’m very good with figures. I kept the books for my family business for years.”

“You don’t have any money?”

“I have enough to cover my expenses here. See, I bought an annuity.” She paused to chuckle. “Those poor dopes thought they were getting a bargain with someone my age, but I plan to live forever. I love being alive. Every time you turn around there’s something new and fantastic happening. Or you get a second chance at something fantastic you thought you’d lost—”

“You don’t have the money.” I broke into her happy riff.

“I’m not broke, but I don’t have enough for extras. I’m awfully old, you know, and I do live on a fixed income.”

“But you said you could pay fifteen thousand dollars.”

“Yes, about that. When I read your advertisement on your website, you know—when you said you were looking for work—I got the feeling that making money was very important to you.”

“It’s the reason I’m doing this!”

“Exactly. If I had said, ‘I can’t pay you now, but I’ll give you a piece of the action when we sell the book,’ you probably would have turned me down.”

“Not
probably
. Definitely.”

“So you understand the problem. I had to promise you something. And fifteen thousand dollars is a nice round sum.”

“Which you do not have. And the contract we both signed?” She shrugged. “So you gave me a check that was no good.”

“There wasn’t any other way to get you started.”

“That’s fraud.”

“Probably.”

“I could have you arrested!”

At that, her sweet smile vanished. She looked down at her gnarled little hands and began twisting them nervously. When she
looked up after a couple of seconds, there was a tear streaming down either cheek. She looked tiny and vulnerable and frail. I felt like the love child of Hitler and Cruella De Vil. “I would never do that, Chicky,” I said.

Instantly her face was wreathed in smiles. “I know, Doll Face.” She patted my hand. “I was just giving myself a little test run. Crying on cue is my only real theatrical gift. I’m rusty, but I’ve still got it.” She patted my hand. “And I wanted to be sure you’re as nice as I thought you were.”

I wanted to throttle her. But nice people don’t hurt octogenarians. “I can’t believe you’ve done this to me!” I cried.

For the first time she looked concerned. “Doll Face, it’s doing you a world of good, working on this story. For one thing, there’s no pressure when you’re writing a vanity memoir for a little old lady in a nursing home.”

She was right about that. “That’s not the point.”

“Sure it is. You needed to get your confidence back. You choked for a while there, but now you’re writing again.”

“Because I was suckered into it.”

A hand waved dismissal. “Potato, pot
ah
to. You say
suckered
, I say
persuaded
. I knew this story would be right up your alley.”

That was the hard part—because it was. Really and truly. And I had to drop it. “I have to earn a living. I’m sorry, but I can’t write for free.” I started for the door, but Chicky’s voice stopped me.

“You’ve never really had it hard, have you, Doll Face?”

It was the last straw. I whirled around. “You don’t know anything about me!” I shouted. “You don’t know what my life was like!” But even as I was shouting I was thinking,
How hard was it—really? Yes, my parents got a divorce and, yes, my husband dumped me, but sixteen-year-old Ellie Doran was pregnant with nowhere to go. She had to marry a man she didn’t love or have an abortion back in the days when that could kill you
.

But I’d been so used to feeling sorry for myself. “I’ve had it plenty hard!” I yelled. And I stormed out of Chicky’s room.

In the lobby, I ran into Show Biz. Literally.

“You might want to slow down a little,” he said, as he massaged the shoulder I’d plowed into. “Balance—as in staying on one’s feet—is an issue in a residence for older folks. It doesn’t take much to tip some of them over.”

“Did you know?” I demanded. “When you answered my ad for Chicky, did you know she never had any intention of paying?”

There was a pause. “Not exactly. I did wonder about the money … but she wanted you to write that book so much—”

“Why me?”

“Damned if I know. But when you two hit it off the way you did, I just hoped it would all work out.”

“We hit it off because she conned me!”

But that wasn’t the reason. I liked Chicky. And I liked her book … which I wasn’t going to be writing. Suddenly I was crying—right in the middle of the Yorkville House lobby—which really pissed me off, but I couldn’t make myself stop. I rushed out the front door, going at warp speed. Show Biz had to run to keep up with me.

“What are you going to do now?” he panted.

“I’m going to go home, pack up the rest of those damn tapes, and send them back.”

“Do you have to, Francesca? All Chicky wanted was—”

“Don’t say that name, okay?”

“But maybe there’s a way—”

“She lied to me! Now I have to start all over again and try to find a real job.”

And whatever that job is, I won’t be writing about Joe and Ellie
.

At my side, Show Biz was now running and limping. I slowed down. “You don’t have to keep me company,” I said.

“I’ll come with you to your apartment and pick up Chicky’s … uh … the tapes.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to.”

WE REACHED MY
building just as the sun was going down. The park was bathed in pink. Show Biz stopped dead in his tracks. “Wow!” he whispered. “You get those sunsets every evening? Talk about a view!”

The awe in his voice dragged me out of my self-pity. I looked up and saw the scene through his eyes. “Yeah, it’s great. You should catch it from the roof garden. You can see the whole city.”

“You own or rent?” The longing in his voice was like something you could touch.

“Own,” I said. “For the moment. As long as I can afford the maintenance.”

“Right.” He forced himself to stop staring at the park and the glowing sun and went inside the building with me. I gave him a quick tour of my apartment—more cause for awe on his part—and then I started putting the tapes back in Chicky’s plastic grocery bags.

“I wish you could reconsider,” Show Biz said.

“Remember that maintenance I mentioned? The condo gets real nasty with delinquents.”

He nodded. I looked at the grocery bags in my hand. When Show Biz left, the whole Chicky episode of my life would end for good. I guess he was thinking something similar, because he started searching around in his pockets. After a second he produced a scrap of paper and wrote his phone number and email address on it. “If you ever feel like having a cup of coffee,” he said, as he handed the paper to me.

“Thanks. We’ll have to do that.” But of course I knew we wouldn’t, because this was New York and you always made empty promises like that. Which was too bad, because he was one of those people you think you’d probably like a lot if you really got to know them. But I handed over the bags, he took them, and he was gone.

And it was over. No more Chicky. No more Joe and Ellie. No more book—the one I knew I could actually write.

“I’m fine,” I said to Alexandra on the phone. “I’m moving on.” But the apartment was so damn quiet.

OVER THE NEXT
few days it got worse. I’d gotten used to Chicky’s taped voice talking to me throughout the day. Now I felt like I was getting divorced again—only without the husband-cheating-on-me part. And I had to find a job. All over again. I looked at my bed and thought about how much I wanted to get into it and pull the covers over my head.

“Why shouldn’t I?” I said to Annie “Nothing ever works, no matter how much I try.”

You’ve never really had it hard, have you, Doll Face?
Chicky had asked.