Perfect on Paper (20 page)

“And you
agreed 
?” Elinor Ann said the evening before the rendezvous was to take place.

“I hadn’t planned on it. But then I realized that seeing Billy would be the perfect Christmas present for Hank.”

“Is that so? Tell me—how does one go about wrapping such a generous gift?”

“You didn’t let me finish. If I sit down with Billy and tell him I have a boyfriend, he’ll back off. Hank will never have to know anything happened, and then everything will be fine.”

“
If
you tell Billy about Hank.”

“Of course I will.”

“I don’t know, Dana.… Can’t you just tell him in an email?”

I’d considered that option but ultimately decided it was best to have the conversation face-to-face. “I’m the one who messed up here. He had no idea Hank even existed. Besides, I’m hoping to salvage our friendship. If it weren’t for Billy Moody, I’d never realize my dream of having a puzzle in the
New York Times
.”

“That’s only been a dream of yours for—what? Two weeks?”

“More like three. But that doesn’t make it any less of a dream.”

“If you say so.”

Elinor Ann had problems of her own. Angus had broken his wrist during the first basketball game of the season, when the Tulpehocken Trojans had defeated the Kutztown Cougars.

“So now the only Cougar I know is you,” she said. “Plus my eager errand boy isn’t allowed to drive until the cast comes off.”

“Will he be okay?” I asked, relieved she hadn’t thought to throw in a Trojan joke while she was at it.

“I expect so. The doctor said it was a clean break.”

“Will you be okay?”

She sighed. “Now that I’m forced to go to the grocery store on my
own—well, let’s just say I had to take a saw to the deep freeze the other night to liberate the last bag of frozen peas.”

“I think you’re looking at this the wrong way. If Angus can’t drive, he’s less independent. He needs you again.”

“Hmm. I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

“Maybe grocery shopping won’t be as scary as you anticipate. Don’t you think tomorrow’s as good a time as any to find out?”

“I guess so. On one condition.”

But I was way ahead of her. “You’ve got yourself a deal. You go shopping, and I’ll come clean to Billy.”

I chose Katz’s Delicatessen for our meeting, since its cavernous, cacophonous room and lack of table service struck me as an appropriately unromantic setting in which to conduct our business. And the moment that business was concluded, I’d follow through on my promise and bring up the real issue at hand.

But I’d forgotten how skilled Billy was at derailing my good intentions. When I spotted him outside Katz’s, my pulse rate soared. I don’t know how he managed it, but we were kissing before we’d even exchanged hellos. I braced my hands against his chest in an attempt to distance myself, but somehow they found their way around his neck, and in no time we were grinding away like bonobos.

We were eventually interrupted by a stentorian blast from the horn of a passing dump truck. “Nail her, buddy!” the driver hollered, loudly enough to be heard the entire length of Houston Street.

The incident, while mortifying, had the desired effect of bringing me to my senses. “Maybe we should go inside,” I said.

“Great. I’m starving.”

I wasn’t. As soon as the smell of food hit me, I realized I had no appetite. A patron walked by carrying a pastrami sandwich the height of a seven-layer cake, and a wave of nausea—or was it panic?—swept over me.

Ah. But I could order a knish. A nice, bland, relatively compact knish. We approached the counter, where Billy caught the eye of a server.

“I’ll have a knish,” he said.

Great,
I thought. I wasn’t about to order the same thing. What else on the menu was smallish?

“I’ll take a hot dog.”

What the hell had I ordered that for? There was no genteel way for a woman to ingest a hot dog. Now I was about to sit directly across from Billy Moody and go down on a six-inch length of meat.

We picked up drinks and made our way to a table, where I turned my head and took a surreptitious bite of my lunch. What the hell had I done that for? Now I was going to have hot dog breath when Billy kissed me again.
If
he kissed me again. God, I hoped he was going to kiss me again.

No, I didn’t. I had to stay focused. I took a big swig from my bottle of Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray, hoping its medicinal taste would jolt me back to reality.

Billy pulled the puzzle and two pages of clues from his backpack and spread them out on the table. “I think we’re all set here. Just wanted you to look it over one last time before I send it off.”

I’d looked it over on the computer so many times in the past week that I could practically recite the clues from memory, but I dutifully scanned the pages. “Seems fine to me. So… what happens now?”

He shrugged. “I send it in and we wait.”

“For how long?”

“For as long as it takes to hear back.”

“But—that’s torture!”

He grinned. “Maybe you’ll learn a lesson from it.”

“Such as…?”

“It’s not nice to keep a person waiting for too long.”

We sat there, smiling at each other and allowing the sexual tension to ratchet up a few more notches.

Which was not what was supposed to be happening. Our business had nearly concluded. It was almost time for the big reveal. There was just one more matter to discuss.

“Did you bring that disc with the crossword construction program?”

Billy mock-hit his forehead with the butt of his hand. “Son of a gun. Slipped my mind.”

Suuuure it did,
I thought.

“Do you have a few minutes?” he said. “We could go over to my place, and I’ll burn it for you right now.”

I shot him a bemused look. “Are you sure you forgot, or is this how word nerds lure women to their lairs?”

“Why don’t we just call it a happy accident and leave it at that?”

Why not, indeed. If I did go over there, perhaps the post-collegiate dorm room I imagined he called home would have an adverse effect on my libido. And wouldn’t it be better to tell him about Hank in private?

Of course it wouldn’t. But once I told him, I had a feeling I was never going to see Billy again. And the closer I got to that moment, the longer I wanted to put it off.

“Okay.” I took a final slug of Cel-Ray and got to my feet. “Let’s go.”

The apartment was remarkably nice, a real one-bedroom on the third floor of a walk-up with no evidence of roommates. Instead of the beer-can pyramids and dirty-sock funk I’d expected, there was a grown-up’s leather sectional. Framed, matted copies of his published puzzles hung in an eye-level frieze around the living room. And all of the lamps had shades.

“This is… surprising,” I said, ogling his midcentury modern coffee table and sisal area rug.

“You expected a basketball hoop and assorted swimsuit calendars, didn’t you?”

“Well… what do you do, anyway? Besides crosswords.”

He groaned. “Tutor rich prep school brats.” He cocked his head toward
the blinking answering machine on his desk. “That thing’s probably full of frantic messages from neurotic moms who want to arrange extra flash-card sessions before the next SATs. The only reason I put in a landline is so I don’t have to talk to them until they’ve calmed down.”

“I see. So if I called you, I’d get a machine?”

He slipped his hands into the back pockets of my jeans and pressed me against the wall. “If you called me, you’d get my undivided attention.”

He tasted like knishes, which meant I surely tasted like hot dogs, but neither of us seemed to mind. In fact, I wouldn’t have minded kissing Billy Moody for the rest of the year, and the year after that…

Until something brushed up against my ankle and I shrieked.

“Relax,” he said, scooping up—Puny? “This is Biddy.”

“No, it isn’t.” I opened my wallet and extracted a photograph. “It’s Puny.”

“Yow. Maybe they’re brothers. I got mine off Craigslist from some nutcase whose new landlord didn’t allow pets.” He looked at the picture, then at Biddy, and back to the picture. “You know, when you and I move in together, we’ll never be able to tell which one is which.”

“Oh, right—move in together!” I laughed, even though the thought of having Billy Moody around all the time wasn’t so much funny as dangerously enticing. Plus I’d wind up with a much nicer coffee table.

“Don’t mock me,” he said, dropping the cat and pulling me onto the couch in one fluid gesture. “It’s not that preposterous an idea. Tell you what—let’s pretend for a little while. Give us a chance to see what it’d be like.”

I should
not
be kissing this boy,
I thought, kissing this boy.
This is wildly inappropriate. Not to mention wrong. Not to mention Hank, who really does deserve to be mentioned… just as soon as we stop…

The phone rang—not his cell, but the landline.

“Ignore it,” he muttered, tugging on my shirt button.

I followed his advice until the beep sounded and a woman’s voice came through the speaker.

“Biiiiilllly,”
she said in a breathy tone that would be ideally suited for a career in the phone-sex industry. “Billy
Moooody
. Pick up. We have pussy issues to discuss.”

I leapt from the couch. “
Pussy
issues?” I said, rebuttoning my shirt—which should never have been unbuttoned in the first place.

He leapt from the couch. “It’s not what it sounds like.”

“Are you free tonight?” the woman on the answering machine continued. “I was thinking I could come over after dinner, around ten. Let me know!”

I was almost to the door by the time she hung up, but he somehow managed to grab hold of my wrist. Briefly I considered screaming my head off until the cops arrived, but if there
did
turn out to be a perfectly reasonable explanation, well—there went my shot at a crossword in the
New York Times
.

I shook free of his grasp and drew myself up to my full height of five feet, nine and seven-sixteenths inches. “I had no idea rich prep school brats had such youthful-sounding mothers.”

“They don’t.” He rolled his eyes. “That was the nutcase whose new landlord doesn’t allow pets.”

Ohhh.
So
that
was what she’d meant by pussy issues.

“And she’s not just nuts,” he went on. “She’s annoying, too. The cat’s full name is Widdle Iddy Biddy Kiddy. But when she told me she wanted visitation rights, I went along with it.” He shrugged. “Figured she’d eventually get sick of coming all the way across town to see him. And, well… she was kind of cute.”

“Ahhh. So you slept with her.”

His face flushed. “Hey—it’s not like I’m proud of myself. It happened months ago.
One time
. I’ve been dodging Maya ever since.”

I tried to calculate how young a woman would have to be to have a trendy name like Maya, ultimately concluding she must have been born within a year or so of 2006.

But that wasn’t important. This was my golden opportunity to finally
set the record straight. “It’s probably for the best that she called. Because—because I really shouldn’t be here. Because—because I—because I have a boyfriend.”

There. I’d said it. Phew.

He broke into a wide grin. “Why, you little strumpet.”

This was hardly the reaction I’d anticipated. He was supposed to give me a look of pained disgust, at which point I’d mollify him by explaining that I’d found him so irresistible I couldn’t help myself, and then we’d resolve to embark on a new relationship that would be all business and no pleasure—at least, not the kind of pleasure that had permeated our last two assignations.

“So, when do I get to meet this guy?” Billy said, still grinning and edging toward me.

“
Meet
him? Uh, how about never?”

“Oh, c’mon. I have to make sure he’s good enough for you, don’t I?”

“Can’t you just… take my word for it?” I said weakly, wondering what had become of all that resolve I’d left my apartment with. He was now standing so close, I could feel his breath on my face. Then I couldn’t, because he was kissing me again and I was kissing him back, which wasn’t at all what one would expect to happen mere seconds after one confesses to having a boyfriend.

“
Good
enough for you?” Elinor Ann said. “If you ask me, you’re the one who’s not good enough for Hank!”

“That’s quite a change of heart. Do you recall insisting he was a con man for the past couple of months?”

“Well, he’s officially off probation. Dana, I thought Hank was—you know. The One.”

“Same here.”

“So, what does that make Billy Moody? The Two?”

I sighed.
Elinor Ann’s right,
I thought to myself.
I
am
Goldilocks in reverse. Unless a guy is too young or too old, he’s never just right.

“Look, I told him about Hank, didn’t I?” I finally said. “And I know I shouldn’t have kissed him. From now on I’m going to limit my communication with Billy to email only. If I don’t see him, nothing can happen, right?”

“That’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say.”

I was about to get off the phone when I heard a
ping.

Elinor Ann heard it, too. “That’s him, isn’t it?”

I opened the email and whimpered involuntarily.

“What’s it say?”

“ ‘Forgot to burn you a disc of the crossword software,’ ” I read aloud. “ ‘I’ll give it to you next time we get together.’ ”

Elinor Ann let out a snort. “For your sake and Hank’s, I hope that second sentence refers to the disc.”

At least I made good on my promise,
I thought to myself while attempting to wrap the more traditional gift I’d bought for Hank, a rugged black leather jacket that simply refused to be folded into submission. I’d intended to have the presents ready well in advance of Christmas Day, but now that I was due on Seventh Street in an hour, the pressure was on. Just the thought of my boyfriend and my half brother attempting small talk in my absence was turning me into a hopeless bumbler.

Perhaps I should warm up with Tom-Tom’s exquisite antique opera glasses. Finding an appropriate present for him invariably posed a challenge: What did one purchase for a millionaire whose hobby was shopping? But he’d love the tiny binoculars, with their inlaid-pearl handles and silk-lined case. Vivian had bartered hard for them. They’d cost me one and one-third Hannahs.