Requiem for a Realtor (4 page)

“Carrying my own weight is less of an effort in my case,” Stanley said, poking a finger in his partner's huge belly like the witch in the fairy tale. “You ought to take better care of yourself, George.”

Poor George was a sucker for every new diet that came along, and from time to time he actually lost some weight, but inevitably he would fall off his diet and balloon up again. Then he would resume his visits to the Rendezvous with Stanley, slopping up single malt scotch and gorging on cholesterol. It was George's crush on the singer there that got Stanley interested in her. Wanda Janski had a voice, no doubt of that, and in the dim lights of the bar, singing her heart out, she looked beautiful. The sentimental lyrics and the scotch made George forget his wife and yearn for the plush solace of Wanda. But when she joined them, it was clear to Stanley that it was himself she was interested in. At first Stanley's attentiveness to Wanda had been just an effort to annoy George, but the atmosphere of the Rendezvous worked its magic on him as well. When George mentioned their agency she said she was looking for a new apartment.

“Tell me what you'd like, and I'll find it,” Stanley said, putting his hand on hers. Wanda drank only spritzers while she worked, just enough to keep a buzz on that did not interfere with her performance. “How many are there?”

“How many?” She looked at him.

“Husband, kids.”

Her laugh seemed to draw on the human kindness of her ample breasts. “I'm single. In my work, I only meet guys like you.”

“I wish I met gals like you in mine.”

“So find me an apartment.”

“I handle commercial property,” George said despondently. “Apartments, houses, that's Stanley's side.”

Stanley gave her a card, not really expecting to hear from her. Conversations in bars never really count.

“What a woman,” George sighed when she left them.

“I think she likes you, George.”

“Go to hell.”

“You're just saying that because I'm worth so much to you dead.”

“What a thing to say.”

“It's true, isn't it?”

“I could say the same to you.”

George turned his attention to Wanda, who had rejoined her accompanist at the piano. Later, when she sang “Danny Boy,” George wept openly. Well, after all, he was married to Susan. Stanley was never bothered by thoughts of Phyllis on such occasions. Anyway, both their wives thought they were at a reunion in Milwaukee.

When Wanda called it took Stanley a minute before he remembered who she was. Shirley had been a little starchy when she said there was a woman on the phone. Young as she was, the office manager had the manner of a den mother and was always urging Stanley to carry his share of the business. She had come to suspect that when a woman called it was not a client.

“Have you found me an apartment?”

“Amazing that you should ask,” Stanley said, playing for time. The voice was familiar, but he couldn't place it. “I was just about to call you.”

She was free now, if he was.

“But I don't know where you live.”

She told him.

“That's in your own name?”

Her laugh brought back memories of the singer at the Rendezvous. “Wanda, I'll be there before you can say Jack Robinson. Or sing ‘Danny Boy.'”

When he got there, he couldn't see why she would want another apartment. But he looked the place over, professionally, and he noticed the plaited palm stuck behind a picture, a memento of Palm Sunday. In the kitchen was a religious calendar, St. Hilary's.

“I grew up there,” he said.

“So did I.”

In business, any hook on which you could hang a sale would do, but in minutes they were sipping Chablis and talking about the old parish. She had gone to the parish school, too.

“What year?”

She had been a couple years behind him. “My parents shipped me off to military school.”

Why did that always interest women? Somehow it did. Stanley told her all about it, and went on to the years at Marquette.

“I see you're married.”

Stanley never took off his wedding band. It was a superstition. He felt that if he took off the ring, the legal paper that bound him to Phyllis would shrivel, grow yellow, dissolve into dust.

“Not in the Church.”

“Oh.”

“A civil ceremony.”

“Any kids?”

“No.”

Why did his life suddenly seem a string of empty events, the stupid military school, Marquette, his partnership with George Sawyer? Even Wanda seemed to find it sad, no matter the interest she showed. He almost told her he would inherit a bundle when he was fifty. He did tell her, later, when his visits became a ritual, weekly at least.

“This is good wine.”

“It's from the supermarket.”

“Actually I don't like white wine.”

“So I'll buy some red.” Already it was clear this wasn't a chat between a Realtor and a client.

“There were Collinses who lived on Lincoln Avenue.”

“That was us.”

“Funny we never knew one another.”

“Well, now we do.”

“Now we do.”

“Wanda, there's nothing wrong with this apartment.”

“Who said there was?”

“So why are you looking for another?”

“Do you always believe what you're told?”

In the bedroom, there was a print of a Renaissance Madonna on the wall, and behind it more palm.

“You still go to Mass?” With the drapes pulled and the mild glow of wine, afterward they would lie in her bed for hours and talk about anything.

“Not as much as I should.”

“I don't go at all.”

Maybe it was the fact that they had both grown up in St. Hilary's, but religion became a frequent topic. And after Phyllis had told him what she had learned about Church law, Stanley naturally talked it over with Wanda.

“If that's true, I'm as much married to you as I am to Phyllis.”

“If it's possible for her, it's possible for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Now what could I possibly mean?”

Stanley knew a sudden panic. One thing about a wedding band, it prevented things going beyond a roll in the hay, no matter how frequent. He liked Wanda, he really did, and he had become used to their afternoons together. When he listened to her sing at the club it was not just imagination that she was directing all those steamy ballads to him. When George Sawyer fell off his most recent diet and came along, he noticed that Wanda treated Stanley like a lover. Stanley denied it in a way that made it clear it was a gentleman's denial.

“You could go to Mass again,” Wanda said.

He had told her, half sincerely, that he missed the religion that he had lost, but his marriage had cut him off from it.

“You could receive Communion.”

She might as well have been proposing to him. Let Phyllis marry that bastard Jameson, and he and Wanda could stand before the altar at St. Hilary's while Father Dowling said the nuptial Mass.

He sat up on the edge of the bed, anxious to get out of there. It was one thing to be enraged by what Phyllis had said, to feel that his wife was betraying him, but he sure as hell wasn't going to pull such a stunt himself. Not with Wanda, not with anybody.

“Wanda, I am as married as I'll ever be.”

“Even if she leaves you?”

“She won't.”

They were both out of bed now, and Wanda pulled on her colorful muumuu. Stanley was getting dressed. By the time he was in the living room, he had made up his mind.

“I am going to stop giving her any reason to leave me.”

“And I'm the reason.”

“I told you what she said.”

“Get out of here.”

“Now, Wanda…”

“Go, you sonofabitch. I mean it. I'll be damned if I'll provide your wife with a reason to leave you. Stay with her. You deserve one another.”

“Wanda, you don't understand. Sure, I'll
tell
her I'm not seeing you anymore, but…”

She missed him when she threw the wineglass, and he was outside pulling the door closed when the heavy ashtray hit it. He hurried down to his car.

8

David Jameson's father had been a barber with a four-chair shop at a time when men got their hair cut once a week. The helpers he hired came and went, there was always a plentiful supply, and business was good. First, there was his location, on Dirksen and Fourth, right in the heart of the business district. A man could make an appointment, get his hair cut, and be back at his desk in half an hour. Jameson Sr.'s hair was thin, and he slicked it back on his head with witch hazel. David had his mother's hair but his dental office was not unlike his father's shop.

He had two assistants, young men who were paying off their student loans and had not yet opened their own offices, a species of apprentice, and older dentists who wanted to keep their hands in part-time. There were seven dental chairs, three of which were David's. He scheduled patients in bunches and was able to attend to three simultaneously, thanks to a very efficient dental nurse and a succession of technologists who were trained to do the preliminary work and to wind it up afterward. He used up a dozen pairs of latex gloves an hour, flitting back and forth, but he himself bade each patient good-bye and he prided himself on the belief that none of them thought of his office as an assembly line.

When Bob Oliver had approached him about doing a feature on dentists, David had snatched the opportunity. He made himself available, he devoted a great deal of time to providing the reporter with information, he figured in all the photographs eventually used. Not all had been used, but he bought them all from the
Tribune,
had them framed and hung them about the office. A handsome reprint of the original article was available in his waiting room.

“How many patients do you handle at the same time?” Oliver had asked.

“I can only work on one patient at a time,” he answered carefully.

That had been the only dangerous moment, but then Oliver was not the kind of writer who sought to balance praise with blame. The feature had been a tremendous boon. Not least because Oliver sent his sister Phyllis for a consultation.

Phyllis was the kind of woman his parents would not have liked. David was surprised that he himself found her attractive. It is not easy for a woman in a dental chair to retain desirability. Sometimes David thought all those open mouths had kept him single. Phyllis was somehow different, fearful of pain, childlike, yet completely trusting.

“Where are the pictures of your family?” Phyllis asked when their sessions got under way. From the outset, he had scheduled her alone for an hour, not wishing to entrust her to any latex-gloved hands but his own. She was a small woman, but for all that every bit a woman, as she had made little effort to conceal. Bridget, the nurse, had ventured to say something disparaging about the way Mrs. Collins dressed, but she had never made that mistake again.

“My parents are dead.”

“I meant your own family.”

“I have none.”

“You're not married?”

“Who would have me?” he asked, surprising himself.

“Oh, you.”

He turned down the Muzak when she was in the chair, not wanting to miss a word she managed to say while he was working on her smile. She enjoyed returning to the fact that he was unmarried, and he found he liked discussing it with her.

“It is such a serious step.”

“Are you Catholic?” she asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“I was raised Catholic.”

“What happened?” Is this why she had been brought to him, that he might give her wise counsel, perhaps lead her back to the faith? She told him of her marriage, and soon that became their great topic. He suggested that it was something they might discuss in less trying surroundings, thinking of the ever-watchful Bridget.

They had lunch together, on a Wednesday when there was no need to hurry, and she was fascinated when he spoke to her of the canon law of marriage.

“How do you know all these things?”

“I once thought I would become a priest.”

“You would have made a wonderful priest.”

He patted her hand and felt devoured by the smile that was now almost perfect. She turned her hand over and held his. That was when she told him about her husband.

“I can't tell you what that does to a woman.” She meant the discovery that her husband was unfaithful.

“It must be a terrible cross.”

“I don't think I could ever do that.”

“I should hope not.” He felt the pressure of her hand.

Too soon her smile was all that it had been intended by nature to be, but he was reluctant to let it end. There was still so much he had to say to this troubled soul. An annual checkup would be as bad as a final good-bye. He carefully examined her mouth and said he wanted her to make another appointment.

“I do root canals, you know.”

“Oh my God.”

He smiled. Once the procedure had rightly struck terror in patients, but there was no longer need for that. She agreed to X-rays, and when she returned she wept in his chair as they talked. It was all he could do not to gather her in his arms. Only with reluctance did he tell her a root canal was unnecessary.

When Bob Oliver hailed him on the street, David Jameson turned and felt the leap of guilt. Was this an irate brother come to avenge his sister's honor? Of course, nothing had happened as yet, but David no longer thought that his heart was pure with respect to Phyllis. But Oliver was so affable it was a relief.

“I don't suppose dentists drink.”

“Only in moderation.” How playful he suddenly felt, thinking, this is her brother.

They had a drink in the bar of the Calumet Hotel, sitting at an out-of-the-way table. Oliver congratulated Jameson on his sister's new smile. “The man who brings a smile to women's mouths” had been one of the less happy phrases in Oliver's feature article.