Mr. Love: A Romantic Comedy (14 page)

39

By the time the doorbell rings Gordon has been drinking solidly for hours but as he rises from an armchair and carefully negotiates his way across Bitsy’s living room, he convinces himself that he feels pleasantly relaxed rather than drunk.

He opens the door to reveal Jane Cooper, the setting sun forming a halo around her dark hair.

Without thinking, he dips forward and kisses Jane on both cheeks.

She laughs and looks up at him quizzically.

“How continental of you, Gordon.”

“
Oui, oui
,” he says. “
Entrer
.”

“I didn’t know you spoke French.”

“I don’t, I speak Clouseau.”

“Oh
, come on, don’t tell me an intellectual fellow like you has ever watched those movies?”

“The Blake Edwards-Peter Sellers collaborations were brilliant. My friend Suzie and I’d pig out on popcorn and hold our own VCR marathons. I still watch them
again every year or so.”

“I’d do something similar with my dad. My mom, sadly, never got the joke.”

Gordon crosses to the sideboard.

“A glass of wine, Jane?”

“God, yes. I need one desperately.”

She sits.

“Where’s Bitsy?”

Handing Jane a glass, Gordon says, “Meditating. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear the clang of chakras aligning.”

Jane says in a whisper, “She’s really into all that stuff?”

He sits opposite her, leaning in close and talking softly
.

“
She has been for years, ever since she got dumped. Lately she’s fallen under the spell of some self-styled guru who peddles his Aquarian snake oil on a farm outside town.”

Jane gulps her wine.

“Well, I envy her, if it helps her to find peace.”

“Peace?” Gordon sniggers nastily. “She’s got a schoolgirl crush on this charlatan. It’s all just hormones tied up in a New Agey bow.”

Bitsy enters from her bedroom.

“Hello, Jane. Why are you two whispering?”

Gordon says, “We didn’t want to interrupt your levitating.”

Bitsy shakes her head.

“Gordon, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Are you drunk?”

“Not at all. Merely expansive.”

Bitsy sits on the couch.

“How are you, Jane?”

“I’m well, Bitsy. Sorry to have to worry you with more publicity.”

“Oh well, it comes with the territory, I guess.”

Gordon says, “Jane, you’ve been with our showbiz friends?”

Jane empties her wine glass, nodding.

“I have, I’m afraid.”

She holds out her glass, allowing Gordon to top it up.

“What are they like?” Gordon asks. “And don’t be polite.”

“They’re
vile. He’s a poison dwarf who has elevated the small man complex to an art form and she is the Valley Girl from hell.”

Gordon laughs but he sees the apprehension on Bitsy’s face.

“Oh come on, Bits,” he says. “Just think of it all as a joke.”

“Easy for you to say
, Gordon. You’re not in the firing line.”

Jane reaches over and takes Bitsy’s hand.

“Look, by way of reassurance, I think they’re going to need very little time with you. They’re both egomaniacs and will want to hog the camera. I don’t anticipate that you’ll have to spend more than an hour with them tomorrow.”

“That’s a relief,” Bitsy says. “Does she have any particular take on the book?”

“She hasn’t even finished reading it.”

“You’re kidding?” Gordon says.

Jane shakes her head.

“I wish I were. Clearly reading a book is a little beyond her attention span. She’s obsessed with Suzie’s sexual exploits, though.”

“Oh dear,” Bitsy says.

“Don’t worry, just trot out your best
deadpan, Bitsy,” Jane says. “That’s when you’re lethal. She’ll just bounce right off you.”

“Well, I’ll try.”

Bitsy looks distressed and Jane takes her hand again.

“You’ll be great, Bitsy.”

“I don’t know, Jane. It was one thing doing that publicity in New York City—it had the quality of a dream and I could just pretend that I was somebody else. But doing it here in my home? In the town where I’ve lived my whole life? I’m not sure I can pull it off.”

“Oh, come on Bitsy,” Gordon says, “you’re being silly.”

Jane shoots him a warning look and he shuts up, taking a slug of wine.

The agent gets up and sits next to Bitsy on the couch.

“I understand your apprehension.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. I know you’re a very private person and this must seem very, well,
intrusive
.”

“It does. It feels like an invasion. And I feel very small
town and out-gunned.”

“Do you know where I’m from, Bitsy?”

“New York?”

“No.
Hicksville, Indiana. I’m not kidding: the town I grew up in really
is
called Hicksville.”

“That must look great on your resume,” Gordon says, laughing.

“Shut up, Gordy,” Bitsy says and Gordon shuts up.

Jane says, “When I arrived in
New York from Indiana I suffered terribly from anxiety attacks. I found the city completely overwhelming, and was hopelessly intimidated by the publishing world. Everybody seemed so sophisticated and tough. Then another agent, an older woman who has now retired, took me aside and said, ‘Everybody’s from Hicksville.’ It took me a while to understand that she was telling me that everybody gets scared. Everybody is intimidated, especially when they’re starting out. And when I went into my next meeting I wasn’t nearly as nervous. Yul Egorov and Raynebeau Jones are like spoiled kids playing in a sandbox. They’re nothing to worry about.”

Bitsy smiles.

“Maybe I
am
being a bit of a coward.”

“No, you’re reacting like a normal person. This media stuff
is
tough to deal with. But it’s fueling your success, Bitsy. It’s an opportunity. See it that way.”

Bitsy nods.

“I’ll do my best. I promise.”

“Good,” Jane says, “Now why don’t I take the two of you out to dinner and we can talk strategy?”

Bitsy shakes her head.

“Will you think me terribly rude if I beg off? I want to compose myself for tomorrow
. Why don’t you and Gordon go and he can brief me in the morning?”

Jane raises her eyebrows at Gordon.

“Are you up to having a meal with me?”

“I think I could
just about stomach that.”

They stand.

“I’d better drive,” Jane says. “You look three sheets to the wind.”

“How quaintly nautical,” he says, as he heads for the door. “You have a nice night, Bitsy. Don’t get your
self
into a knot about tomorrow.”

She waves him away and as he and Jane exit the door he sees his sister standing staring out into the gloom and for a moment—it must be the wine—
Gordon feels the urge to go to her and embrace her.

Of course he does no such thing, just follows Jane to her sporty little rental car, a hint of her scent hanging in the air as he clips himself into the passenger seat.

He sees her hands on the wheel and the stick shift.

Quite lovely,
slender hands he can’t help but notice, with long, neatly painted nails.

When he imagines those nails digging into the flesh of his back he has to look away, out at the fading light.

“Where are you taking me, Gordon?” Jane asks, watching the country road twist in the headlights
, the town ten minutes behind them.

“It’s a surprise,” he says.

“I’m expecting the Headless Horseman to come galloping across the road.”

Gordon laughs and says, “Turn here,” pointing to a
track that leads into the woods.

Jane does as he says, bumping along
the gravel road that winds through the trees.

“My
God,” she says, “we
are
in Sleepy Hollow!”

And it’s true.

There’s even a sign that says so:
SLEEPY HOLLOW COUNTRY HOUSE.

An 18
th
century double story, light blazing from the windows, appears through the trees.

Gordon says, “This place is run by a couple of refugees from
Manhattan. You’ll like them. They serve pretty decent food and there’s a lot less wildlife than at the Sugar Maple Inn. I took the liberty of booking you in here. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Jane says, parking outside the house. “It looks kinda charming.”

Jane gets her overnight bag out of the trunk and they stroll into the lobby of the house where they’re met by a couple in their sixties. She has wild white hair gathered into a ponytail and he has a shaggy beard.

Jane has seen people exactly like them at book launches in
Manhattan, guzzling wine and asking endless questions.

The woman says, “Welcome. I’m Fran and this is Ed. He cooks and I do pretty much everything else.”

“And never stops telling everybody about it,” Ed says, grinning at his wife.

“Just get in your butt into the kitchen and rattle those pots and pans, Chef Ramsay,” Fran says, “while I make our guests feel at home.”

Ed disappears and Fran shows them to a table, then she takes Jane’s bag.

“I’ll put this in your room while you two look at the menus.”

Gordon and Jane are alone in the small restaurant that looks like it was transported in a time machine from the 18
th
century.

Jane leans in close to Gordon
.

“How do they make a living out here?”

“They are open only by appointment. They don’t need the money, it’s a hobby. I hear they made a fortune when they both worked on Madison Avenue.”

Gordon looks up and smiles
as Fran approaches with their appetizers.

When the woman leaves,
Gordon says, “So what’s the latest on Patrick Bateman?”

Jane, forking asparagus into her mouth, is blank for a moment then she says, “Oh, Tommy?”

“Yes.”

She takes a sip of wine.

“Well, there’s been a development.”

“Nothing violent, I hope?”

“No, but I had a squad of cops searching my apartment a few days ago.”

“Good
God, are you serious?”

Jane leans in closer, speaking softly.

“Apparently Tommy had a little after hours gig going, supplying cocaine to his yuppie buddies.”

Gordon stares at her, shaking his head.

“It’s true, Gordon. I can’t believe I was such a dummy, allowing myself to be taken in by that guy.”

“You were his victim, Jane. That’s the only way to see it.”

“I know, but I can’t help feeling that I was somehow complicit . . .”

“How could you have been?”

“I arrived in Manhattan with a to-do list. Get a job in publishing. Meet and, hopefully, marry a handsome and sophisticated professional guy. Tommy was a perfect fit. Or so I allowed myself to believe. In my eagerness to leap from
Little House on the Prairie
to
Sex in the City
I may have worn blinders. Nice little designer blinders.”

When Gordon lifts the bottle to top up her
wine, Jane tries to put a hand over her glass but he gently nudges it away and pours.

“Gordon,” she says, “you’re getting me drunk. And I’m running off at the mouth.”

“Nonsense,” he says, “you’re relaxing.”

Jane takes a very small sip of her drink.

“Anyway enough about me. Let’s hear about you.”

He shrugs.

“You know all there is to know: a failed writer and academic who sleeps on his sister’s couch.”

She shakes her head.

“Don’t be disingenuous, Gordon. What about love? Relationships? You haven’t been in a coma since you were thirteen.”

“Haven’t I?”

“Come on, Gordo, spill. Dish some dirt.”

He laughs.

“There’s very little dirt to dish, sadly. I all too successfully pursued the life of the mind.”

“What
is
that anyway? Sounds like a denial of everything south of the neck?”