Next Life Might Be Kinder (14 page)

Holding on to the glass tightly, I flung the water at Dr. Nissensen. It splattered across his shirt and vest, and some hit his face.

“I see,” he said.

“I see, I see, I see, I see, I see, I see! Can you please stop saying that? You
don't
see—it's me who sees. I see Elizabeth almost every night.”

“It's just water, Sam, so I won't add my dry-cleaning bill to your fee this week.”

“I apologize. This David Korder got to me, I guess. Plus, that word—”

“Perspicacity. Yes, I noticed you didn't like my using it. But I don't know if your reaction means you don't know how the word is defined, or you know its definition and don't like how I applied it to you.”

“I know what it means.”

Silence. He wrote something down.

“Back to the idea of addiction,” he said, “as I sit here drying out. Perhaps try and consciously stay away from the television five o'clock on Sundays. Discipline yourself.”

“What do you suggest I do?”

“If you need help with this, Sam, how about, just for a few months perhaps, adding a telephone session on Sundays at five
P.M.
? In the past I've accommodated clients on Sundays.”

“What if I switched my Tuesday at ten to Sunday at five? I could easily drive into Halifax on a Sunday. Spend Sunday nights at the Haliburton House Inn.”

“What I'm suggesting is
adding.
”

“
So,” I said, “you'd kill two birds with one stone.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you showed that you took the word ‘addiction' seriously and want to help provide an alternative to watching
They Crossed Over.
I appreciate that. But you've also revealed the fact that you think I need to talk with you more than once a week.”

Silence. Then Dr. Nissensen said, “Give all of this some thought. Our time is up.”

T
HINGS GOT WORSE
with Alfonse Padgett, though by increments, which made it difficult to experience any clear sense of a buildup or the full dimensions of the threat. Two or three days would pass without a confrontation or a disturbing encounter or even a sighting of Padgett. Then something nasty would happen.

At about six o'clock in the morning on the day of the third lindy lesson, I met Derek Budnick in the lobby. “By the way,” he said, “I learned four people dropped out of the dance lessons. They didn't consider it fun anymore. All those dustups—too uncomfortable, eh? And one fellow hurt his ankle. No refunds asked, though. Nice of them.”

I bought my daily newspaper. The hotel kept copies of the
Chronicle-Herald
on reserve at the registration counter; each resident's name was written in black marker at the top of the front page. That morning, I sifted through the stack and found my copy, then carried it to the sofa near the front window, sat down, and started to read. When I got to the page of obituaries, I was sickened to see that, violating the photographs of the deceased, both men and women, were crudely drawn Groucho Marx–style eyebrows, Hitler-like mustaches, and broom-end beards. Scrawled in the garish manner of graffiti over a paragraph in each major obituary was
“YOWZA! YOWZA! YOWZA!”

I looked up from my newspaper and saw Alfonse Padgett standing near the lift, staring at me. Mr. Isherwood was talking to Derek Budnick across the lobby. Another bellman, Mr. Delveaux, was speaking to a newly arrived guest, a quite elderly woman with large, expensive-looking leather suitcases. As I met his stare, Padgett held out his arms and danced with an invisible partner out to the middle of the lobby, then back to the lift. He slid open the grille, stepped in, and disappeared upward.

This set loose a panic in me. I all but hurtled up the stairs to our apartment. Though Padgett had in fact gotten out on the top floor, the fear that he was headed to our apartment unnerved me. In our kitchen I made coffee for Elizabeth. She had just woken, and, dressed in her nightgown, she walked as hesitantly as a somnambulist into the kitchen and sat at the table. She held out her empty hand and said in a Frankenstein voice, “Cof-fee, cof-fee. I must have cof-fee.” I handed her the cup of coffee. After taking a sip, she said, “Darling, did you forget the morning paper?”

“Oh, yes, sorry,” I said. I went back down the stairs. In the lobby I saw that my copy of the paper was gone, so I purchased a second one. I would not have wanted Lizzy to see the defacements on the obituary page anyway. In our apartment again, I handed the newspaper to Elizabeth. “Coffee, a newspaper, a husband who doesn't care that his wife woke up looking like a hag—what more could a girl want?” To my eyes, Elizabeth looked sweet, funny, and sexy. The strap of her nightgown had fallen to partially reveal a breast, but she lifted the strap back up. I was aroused, yet, curse of curses, I knew I should relate this new incident with Padgett to her, and sooner rather than later.

 

Elizabeth wore the same black dress for the third lindy lesson. She had tried her best to bring me up to speed on the first two, despite my utter lack of dance skills. I could trip on thin air. Stumble on a shoelace even if I was wearing buckle shoes. (These insults courtesy of Arnie Moran.) Still, we had a good time.

I put on a dark gray sports coat, a white shirt, a bow tie that Elizabeth bought me to wear for the lessons, dark slacks, black socks with brown triangles, and black shoes, all buffed and shined. I sat at the kitchen table watching Elizabeth tip a small bottle of perfume to her finger, then touch her finger behind each ear and behind her knees.

“Who'd be down there to notice perfume?” I said.

“It's me knowing it's there, my love. It's me knowing. Later, when it's mixed with sweat from the lindy, you'll know where to find it. Remember what Myrna Loy once said, it's got to be my favorite line of hers: ‘He left fingerprints of perfume behind my knees.' Now
that
is what I call sexy.”

“Let's skip the lesson.”

“No, it's your first. It's my third. You're married to a more experienced woman.”

When we entered the ballroom, I immediately looked around for Alfonse Padgett. He was nowhere to be seen. The jukebox was already at work. The Boswell Sisters again. Just from the way the couples were warming up, I could tell they'd attained some confidence over the weeks. Arnie Moran, dressed in his customary getup, saw us and came right over. “Mrs. Lattimore, Mr. Lattimore,” he said, greeting us disingenuously. “Mrs. Lattimore, I've taken the liberty—did Mr. Budnick mention? I've arranged for a furniture restorer, Mr. Abraham Kaufner. You may have seen his window on Young Street. He does excellent work. His card is waiting for you at the front desk. I want you both to know that I have asked bellman Padgett not to attend my classes. In fact, I reimbursed his entire fee out of pocket.”

“My understanding was,” Elizabeth said, “when Derek Budnick interviewed the creep bellman Padgett, he didn't mention what had been damaged and in whose room. So how come you knew there was a reason to tell us about this Mr. Kaufner?”

“I'll own up. I heard the details from Padgett.”

“Mr. Moran,” Elizabeth said, “you're pathetic. You only disallowed Alfonse Padgett because Derek Budnick told you to disallow Alfonse Padgett. Or Mr. Isherwood did. You let Padgett—how would he say it?—‘put the fix in.' You arranged this Mr. Kaufner only because you feel guilty. But I will call Mr. Kaufner. And I thank you for that reference. Okay, I've had my say. My husband and I are paid up in full for the lessons, and everybody's waiting.” Elizabeth then clasped Arnie Moran's shoulders with her hands, turned him around, and shoved him toward the bandstand.

Stepping up gingerly to the microphone, Arnie Moran said, “Yowza! Yowza! Yowza!”

“A bit rough on our dance instructor, maybe,” I said.

“Sam, let's agree on everything else.”

Elizabeth moved us a few feet to the left and held me, ready for the lindy. She was all concentration now.

In our apartment after the lesson, Elizabeth said, “I consider Arnie Moran to hold creep-number-ten position in our hotel. Alfonse Padgett is one through nine.” She sat on the chaise longue. “Still, a lot of progress was made tonight, don't you think?”

“Are you referring to the lindy?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I think you're the wild swan of the dance floor, Lizzy. It's like a time warp dancing with you. It's like I was in 1935 or something.”

“It was your first lesson. I think you only got back to, oh, about 1954.”

“Behind your ears, the back of your knees, that inspired me a lot.”

Elizabeth kicked off her shoes. “Like the cookbooks say, I'm spiced to taste.”

T
HE SECOND TIME
I went to the shoot, Lily Svetgartot spotted me well back in the gathering of onlookers. It was another scene shot at night. I'd arrived at the Essex Hotel in my pickup at eleven-fifteen
P.M.
The lobby was full of lighting equipment. In this scene, actor-Padgett was getting instructions from actor-Isherwood on how to water a big plant near a corner sofa. “Three glasses of water per day,” actor-Isherwood said. “Can you count that high, bellman Padgett?” Actor-Padgett laughed, but when actor-Isherwood turned back toward the registration counter, a menacing scowl completely occupied actor-Padgett's face.

“Cut!” Istvakson said. He consulted with the cinematographer, Akutagawa. “Let's continue on in the script. Start with the scowl.”

The actors took their places. “Action!” Istvakson said. After actor-Padgett scowled, he turned and walked with a glass of water to a tall floor plant with outsize fronds. He noticed a mug of coffee and a plate holding half a croissant that had been left on the table next to the sofa. He lifted the glass of water to his mouth and drank it down. Blocking sight of the coffee cup from actor-Isherwood with his body, actor-Padgett emptied the coffee into the soil of the planter. He then turned and walked to the registration counter, holding the glass and the coffee mug, both now on the plate. He held up the plate and said, “What's the world coming to, eh, Mr. Isherwood? What's the world of this lovely hotel lobby coming to? People leave trash right out in public.”

“Cut! That's a wrap!” Istvakson said, and Lily Svetgartot tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and she said, “Got a minute?”

Well out of sight of Istvakson, she led me to her room and shut the door behind us. “Mr. Istvakson is impossible today,” she said. She poured herself a whiskey and threw it back. She held up the bottle and got a look on her face that said, Want a drink? I shook my head no. “Istvakson can be a real asshole. Excuse my Canadian English.”

“You asked if I had a minute.”

We were leaning against opposite walls in her small room. The bed was made, hospital corners and all. I noticed a second bottle of whiskey on the bedside table.

“Mr. Lattimore—Sam, if I may. I saw you the other night, too, when you came to the shoot. Which you swore you'd never do. And I gave that some thinking. I devoted some thinking to why you'd come to the shoot. And I hypothesized—if that's the word. I hypothesized that Mr. Istvakson is the devil you made a deal with, and who doesn't hate the devil? You had your reasons, Sam, to sell the movie rights to your tragedy, and Mr. Istvakson, once he gets obsessed with a story, he won't let go of it. I hypothesized that this is what actually has happened.

“But now you are tortured by this whole movie thing. Of course you are. But how can you not know this—the movie is not your story. The story of you and your wife Elizabeth is not really what Mr. Istvakson is obsessed with. Big cliché, no? Big, big, big, maybe the biggest cliché. No, Mr. Istvakson is interested only in his
version
of tragedy, not in your actual tragedy. He's not making a documentary. He rewrites your life, your marriage, the murder of your beautiful wife. He paid you—I did my research—one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars. You signed on.”

“Problem with research,” I said, “is that it only uncovers facts.”

“Sam, why are you here? Why did you come to the shoot?”

“I'm not entirely sure why,” I said.

“It's not healthy. I think it's not healthy for you.”

I started to leave her room. “In the whole time Elizabeth and I lived in the Essex Hotel,” I said, “I never once saw a bellman water a plant.”

T
ODAY JUST AT
dawn I put on my dark green windbreaker and knit cap and drove to Vogler's Cove. It occurred to me that of late, whenever I woke looking at life at an uncharitable angle, I could always go to Vogler's Cove, where watching birds helped me amend my thinking, if only a little. I had my field guide with me. There was a mixture of muted early sunlight and cold gusts of wind. Within two hours I was able to identify a common loon, a horned grebe, several cormorants, a group of mallards, a common eider, oldsquaws, a black scoter, two buffleheads, and a dozen or so goldeneyes. A photographer stood at the far eastern end, and she had a tripod camera and a windscreen. I admired her patience out there in the crosswinds, close as she was to the shoreline, sea spray thrown at her rain slicker. She wore gloves and almost knee-high, black, buckled galoshes. We waved at each other across the cove.

Last night—well, actually this morning at about three
A.M.
—I managed to add a few pages to my novel before getting an hour of sleep. My nameless narrator continues to research the day he was born. What did his parents do all that day and into the night? What was going on in the city? On page 34 he walks into a record store that has some bins of used vinyl records. In one of the bins he discovers anthologies titled
Most Popular Songs of the Year.
There is an anthology for 1949, 1937, 1936, and then he sees one for 1929, the year of his birth. He purchases the 1929 anthology, takes it home to his apartment, and plays it on his phonograph. The album is scratchy but listenable. “Star Dust.” “If I Had a Talking Picture of You.” “Ain't Misbehavin'.” He writes in a notebook: “I remember that my mother listened to the radio all the time.”