Whenever You Call (17 page)

I reached the far end of the bar and took a moment to stare into the reception area. I hardly noticed that Ravi was there, her head tucked low over the reservation notebook. I must have spaced out because a droplet of saliva managed to creep from the corner of my mouth, slip down my chin, and fall onto the counter of the bar. Amazed, I looked down and quickly wiped it with my dishtowel. I swallowed the pool in my mouth and licked my lips. I felt my eyelids close, as if in slow motion, and then reopen. A flutter of trembling moved up both arms, from the elbow to shoulder. I looked down and saw that, yes, the skin shook slightly, like a pitter-patter of rain was falling from the ceiling of the Harvest restaurant.

I wasn’t about to faint, but I did feel odd. Something waved at the other end of the bar, and my head turned to look in that direction. Every movement of my body seemed to be happening by an unseen power, as if a puppeteer manipulated the strings attached to me. It was the Poet’s left hand making an arc in the air. From a distance the thought arrived,
He wants to settle his tab.
My feet moved. I heard my high heels clicking on the wood floor.

I ran the Poet’s tab and returned to place it near his empty glass of Dewar’s. I expected him to ask if I was okay. But, no.

He said, “You’re too sharp to be doing this. What’s your story?”

Good question.

“My name is Rose Marley. I’m a novelist of middling fame.”

Gratified, I watched as his mouth dropped. I almost reached over to cluck him under the chin.

“But I think I know you!” he said.

“How auspicious,” I drawled.

He pointed a finger at me. “You were married to Isaac Goldsmith!”

I nodded.

“Why the hell are you bar tending?”

I stared at his round wrinkled face. Normally, I can be quite fond of round, wrinkled faces, but his skin was the color of off-white tissue paper that’s been used to wrap one too many birthday presents. Also, spittle gleamed on his lower lip. Now, I knew this was a clear double-standard since I’d been drooling so badly that my own spittle had landed on a surface nearly three feet below my chin. Despite his attempts to flirt and act upbeat, his eyes radiated misery.

He actually frightened me.

“Change of pace.” I turned and moved away, to where a waitress stood impatiently, one long fingernail tap, tap, tapping on the top of the bar. It had already seemed like a long evening, and my inner clock kept telling me that things should be winding down, but when I glanced at the computer screen, I saw that it was only 7:30. Hours to go, and we probably hadn’t even hit the busiest part of the evening yet.

The waitress, whose name I couldn’t remember, said, “Table four is full of assholes.” I looked over to table four and saw two couples, perfectly coifed and dressed in clothes made from fabric that gleamed ostentatiously, as if woven from money. All of them erupted into loud laughter, but one of the men glanced our way.

“A husband at the table has the hots for you,” I said.

“No way—they’re being as obnoxious as hell.”

“That’s because his wife picks up on it, so he’s trying to throw her off track.”

“They all want vodka martinis, one with Gray Goose, all the others with Kettle One, two with a twist, two with olives, three very very dry, and one medium-dry.”

“Fuck me.”

She smiled. “See?”

I got down to it, and managed to shake out the strange sensations from earlier as I shook, shook, shook the martini shaker. The waitress swept them away on a tray and I watched, admiring, as she moved smoothly, without spilling a drop. By all rights, she ought to get a great tip, but she’d probably be stiffed because the man’s wife wanted to punish her for being young and buxom. She carefully delivered each drink to the correct person. Testing her, and me, they tasted their individual martinis immediately, without even bothering to make a ceremonial clink of their glasses. It was like,
Did the waitress correctly place our requests, and did the bartender follow our instructions?
During these months at the restaurant, I’d discovered that the human race had an insatiable desire to
judge
. And, more often than not, to judge harshly.

This had come as a shock to me because, as a novelist, I was never judgmental of the characters I invented or of my audience, the readers. And I thought this was
good.
I deserved praise for this, didn’t I? But lately I’d begun to wonder about the point of being a peon to nonjudgmental behavior when no one else was. Maybe I’d been avoiding competition, worried that I’d somehow fail to measure up. Waiting to see how the assholes at table four responded to my martinis, I felt bored by my former attitude. I cared, goddamnit. I wanted them to
applaud
my martinis or, better yet, leave me a big fat tip. Suddenly, I ducked under the bar and headed in their direction.

“Hey, everybody,” I said. “Hope your drinks are good. You’re obviously a discerning group—,”

The two husbands stared at me with great interest. The concept of drooling came up for the third time that night.

“Excellent martini,” said one with a gigantic smile. White teeth glittered in the candlelight.

I shifted my weight, so that a hip danced sideways.

A wife said, “Mine was a little
too
dry, but I wouldn’t want to complain.”

“I’d be happy to try again,” I said.

“No, no.” She wrapped her diamond rings and perfect manicure around the stem of the glass.

“We aim to please here at the Harvest,” I said.

As I sashayed back to the bar, a husband called out, “Oh, you do!” I smiled. Despite the wives’ displeasure, I had a feeling that our tips would be fine, indeed. Behind the bar again, I was annoyed to see that the Poet still sat at his place. I picked up my cell phone and checked for messages. Somewhat to my surprise, there was one. I held the phone to my ear and turned my back on the Poet, who was beginning to feel more and more like a pest. Normally, I would have considered it bad form to listen to my phone messages while on duty, but I was trying to teach him a lesson.

A man’s voice, not immediately recognizable, growled.
“Untie me from the bedposts.”

Because I’m an idiot, I laughed out loud. I knew I should be alarmed in some way, and I didn’t need a Jen lecture about how bizarre this was. But it was funny!
Un
tie me from the bedposts! I was so amused that I almost trotted down to the Poet, to do a little Show-and-Tell. Instead, I listened to the message again. When I checked the bar seconds later, I saw that the Poet was gone, and a slew of newcomers were in his place.

I bustled around, though in the midst of all the activity, when I would usually be hyperaware, I drifted away. A balloon whose string has been cut, bobbing around the ceiling of the bar. Everything felt slightly odd and off-kilter again. My body moved like the air was sludge. It didn’t bother me until I started to drool again. Indeed, in some ways, I was deeply efficient.

I swallowed the pools of saliva forming in my mouth, but even so I could feel the damp gathering at the corners of my lips. If I’d had anything to drink, even water, I would have been convinced that I’d been drugged. The rest of my shift that evening passed in this peculiar haze.

I finally woke up when I stepped outside. The warm summer night crept around me, soft and gentle. I literally blinked and saw Al’s car parked in front, waiting for me. Despite the run-around with the bald guy earlier, I was delighted to see him. I dropped into the worn bucket seat, twisted to face him, wrapped my left arm around his neck, and went in for the kill.

I
WOKE UP IN the middle of the night. Al was stretched along the edge of the mattress, with his back to me. Either I needed to pee, or I’d had a bad dream, from which I was escaping. I opened my eyes and looked at Al’s head on the pillow. His blond curls. I reached with my left hand and touched one curl, looping it around my index finger. It reminded me of my kids when they were babies.

I rolled over and gently eased my way out from under the sheet and single blanket, hoping not to disturb him. I didn’t want to start making love again, though it wasn’t something I could really
object
to. I wanted to be alone. I tiptoed downstairs, peed, then pulled on my cotton bathrobe. I almost checked my e-mail, but resisted the urge. Instead, I settled into the corner wing chair. The basement was nearly pitch dark, with only the vaguest suggestion of light coming from small windows at ground level. I crossed my legs beneath me and placed each hand on a knee, palms upward.

Thoughts skittered around, like the balls on a pool table after a shot. I tried not to let it bother me. To quiet their hullabaloo, I listened to the silence, which is a bit like staring into the darkness behind one’s closed eyelids. How can you see when there is no light? How can you hear when there is no sound? Soon enough, I did hear the roar and whoosh of no-sound, like an endless tunnel. I noticed sparkles and flashes of white lights in the darkness of my closed eyes. My head got so heavy that it lolled briefly to the side. An idle thought rose, about possibly straightening it, but then passed. I felt as if I was at some distance from myself, capable of noting all these little things happening, though not really interested by them.

It was all rather mundane, in fact, with the lights randomly glinting and the tunnel of no-noise rushing in fits-and-starts, when I started to notice a tiny blue light dancing around the edges of my visual field. I paid attention to it, and that seemed to make it respond by flitting closer and closer to the center of everything. I became fond of the blue light, willing it to stay still and let me look at it for awhile. But such extreme fondness sent it away, just like when you pay
too
much attention to a man. I actually spoke to the blue light, in my head, “Hey, I’m not saying we have to get married!”

By golly, it came dancing back, even a little brighter. This began to seem quite strange. Why and how was some blue light acting like it could hear and respond to what I was saying? So, naturally, I freaked. My eyelids flew open and my head shot upright. I started to breath a little more quickly, though nothing dramatic. I watched, astonished, at what was dancing around in the middle of the darkened room.

The little blue light.

It reminded me of the bouncing ball in the old sing-alongs at movie theaters, where the words of the song were displayed up on the screen and a little ball bee-bopped along, hitting each word as you were supposed to sing it. Only, in this case, the blue light just hung there, expectant.

Out loud, I said, “What do you want?”

It gave a little jump, which made
me
jump. Involuntarily, my eyes closed and when I opened them, the light was gone. I unfolded my legs and let them drop. Blood rushed down to my toes and set them to tingling. My hands rubbed at my eyes.

When I crawled back into bed with Al, I gently wrapped and pressed my body against his. He stirred and let out a funny little groan. I lay very still, not wanting to arouse him. For a moment, I hallucinated the little blue light, twinkling above Al’s body, but then it disappeared.

Not so Al’s erection. My sexual connection to him existed without seeing or touching his penis. I
knew
he was hard. Or maybe it was
he
who sensed
me
. I’d thought I didn’t want him to wake up, but perhaps I did. Because now, as I experienced his excitement. I felt the faint, delicious stirrings of desire. My legs fell open and I moved my hips against his butt. Slow and languorous. The image that always rose in my mind at this stage in lovemaking was a spoon lifting from a jar of honey, falling thick and golden in a steady stream. My legs, heavy, pinned me.

He turned towards me in a fluid twist of his body so that we seemed never to disengage or fumble or wonder. My hands rested on his shoulders, then crept to his head where my fingers grabbed his long hair. He slid into me. One minute I was empty. The next, filled by him. Our quiet breathing slowed and seemed, if anything, to die. I leaned into his face and pressed my cheek to his. I imagined I could feel the scar I’d put there, transferring from him to me.

AS a little girl, I was a bit of a monkey, hanging by my knees upside down from the parallel bars, scrambling backwards up the slide or, conversely, sliding down head first. Of course, I was covered by bruises and scars from hurling myself around. I was particularly taken with climbing trees. A tall furry pine tree stood outside my father’s office on the Smith College campus. I would clamber high enough so that I perched at the same level as his window. Then I would spy on him.

My fascination for my father was endless. He was a man unto himself, which automatically conferred mystery, but mostly it was because he was crippled. He got polio during the last epidemic, in 1954, just before the breakthrough discovery of the Salk vaccine. He walked with crutches, though he didn’t use braces on his legs.

The truth was that I couldn’t see all that much from the tree, and I certainly didn’t overhear his conversations. In the summer, with his windows wide open, there were more opportunities for eavesdropping, but then there were no students and fewer visitors. Apparently, though, I was quite fascinated by the back of his head. I can’t understand, when I think about it now, what I found so riveting. My spot on the tree was fortuitously comfortable, with a big broad branch beneath my bottom, and an even thicker trunk for me to lean against. But, after all, he was a friggin’ academic, who spent hours at his desk reading and writing. He didn’t even go to the bathroom much; he probably limited his fluid intake because the effort for him to actually get himself to the toilet was significant, or significant compared to the rest of the non-crippled world.

Maybe, in fact, I fell asleep in the tree. That would explain why I fell out one fall afternoon. I remembered being midair, or mid-flight, to put a more positive spin on it. I was astonished to find myself launched in the air. I wasn’t afraid. Instead, I felt like my flying dreams had finally come true, though in my usual dream I was always running down the road, my legs circling madly, faster and faster, until, bam, liftoff! So, out of the tree, I did what came logically. Or, perhaps I was still half-asleep.

I spread my arms and flapped.

Of course, it worked. I flew. Not for long. But I stayed aloft and then I rose. Was it my child’s imagination, like seeing Santa Claus
for real
? I didn’t think so. Eventually, I plummeted. Something about the brief flight, or my outspread arms, helped me. I landed with my legs pedaling, and I ran for several feet before tumbling forward and smashing my cheek into the ground. It felt like my brain crashed against my skull. Then, asleep again. I woke up to find a small clutch of students around me.

“It’s Professor Marley‘s kid,” one of them said.

I began to cry and pretty soon, my Dad was there. He tossed his crutches to the ground and collapsed next to me.

“Rose?”

I opened one eye. “My head hurts.”

He nodded. “An ambulance is coming. Don’t move and keep your eyes open. Talk to me, honey.”

I cried some more.

“You’re fine,” he said. His hand stroked my back. “Tell me what happened.”

“I flew.” I peeked at him with the one eye not tucked into the ground.

He tried to bite back his smile. “Was it fun?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think maybe flying once was enough and you won’t try it again?”

I ended up with a mild concussion, but nothing else. They kept me overnight in the hospital, though I remember nothing of that. Just the flying and the way my cheek slammed into the earth. I should have broken every bone in my body.

AL whispered, “You cunt.”

“Fuck-head,” I said back.

“Pussy.”

I started to laugh and he moved faster, oiled and slick. I came first, in a burst of laughter. He guffawed, and I thought for a moment that that would prevent his own orgasm. Nope. We couldn’t stop laughing. I stuck my head in his armpit and while he tried to squirm away, I licked whatever was closest, underarm hair or skin. Al ducked his head to my neck and slobbered there, bringing me to hysterics.

Calming down, he still kept his legs wrapped around me, holding me tight. He said, “It’s never been like this with anyone before.”

“Never?” I tried to shift away from him. He didn’t allow it and I was glad.

“You’ve never had it like this with anyone else either.”

I thought about it. “Sex is unique between two people. It’s never the same.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” Now he held me tight with his eyes, wide open and gazing into mine without a hint of discomfort.

“You mean it’s good with us.”

“Uh-huh.” Al’s head nodded up and down dramatically.

“Why?”

“You ask that a lot, the
Why
thing.”

“I gotta pee.” I squirmed away and his legs let me go.

When I stood up, I almost lost my balance. One hand shot out and grabbed the four-poster at the head of the bed. On the way downstairs, I turned on the light and held onto the bannister. The bathroom caught my nakedness in the mirror and I squinted my eyes at the sight. For an older woman, I knew I looked pretty good, but I was still an older woman. My skin shivered and I preferred not to look at my breasts for any longer than was strictly necessary. I felt this way whether or not a man had told me, or better yet,
showed
me that I was desirable.

After I’d peed, I couldn’t resist stopping at the computer, though I knew I was really avoiding the intimacy waiting for me upstairs. Al was, apparently, my ultimate match. He didn’t bore me intellectually, he was fabulous in bed (no, I’d never had sex quite like it before), and he was loving. And let’s not forget: utterly divine to look at.

He puzzled me. Or, my reaction to him puzzled me.

There was an e-mail from Rabbitfish, the first in months. Somehow, given the message left on my cell phone earlier, and even the strange goings-on with that dancing blue light, I wasn’t surprised.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

The man had a disgraceful ability to rev my engines, even when I’d just had terrific sex with a living God, who happened to still be keeping my bed hot. I hit the reply button.

I am.

Upstairs, Al had turned back to his customary position along the edge of the bed. Vague snoring noises whistled in the air. When I lay down, I kept my back to him, but allowed my butt to touch his. I punched the pillow and tucked my left arm under it. The words in my head. Then I fell asleep.
I am, I am, I am
reverberated

I woke up late the next morning and wandered outside in my nightgown to find Al planted under the sweet gum tree, cradling a mug of coffee in his lap. He smiled. “Want me to get you a cup of coffee?”

“Yeah.” I sat on the top step, waiting for him to bring it out to me. The birds were singing and carrying on, and the sun was already so strong that I knew it was going to be a brutally hot day.

Behind me, the screen door opened, then slammed shut. So, he wasn’t perfect. He slammed the screen door. When he handed me my coffee, I realized that he’d been carrying two mugs. Hence, the slamming door. Al sat down next to me, and his left leg fell open so that it leaned against mine. He was wearing boxer shorts and the hairs on his leg twinkled in the sun.

“Wanna get married?” he said.

“Sure.”

I knocked my leg twice against his, acknowledging the joke.

The good news was that I had no desire to get married, even though the relationship with Al was fun. My marrying days were over, I was sure of that.

He said, “I was married once, you know.”

“Really?” I sipped my coffee.

“Umm.” He sighed and brought the mug to his mouth. “You seem so curious.”

I might not have fallen in love with Al, but I was fond of him, and I certainly didn’t want the relationship to end. I said, “I am curious—you took me by surprise, like it was some kind of big secret.”

“Actually, part of the divorce agreement was that I’m never allowed to talk about the fact that we were married.”

I slurped some coffee, not answering. Figured he was kidding.

“She’s an actress, now mortified that she married the likes of me.”

“Are you telling the truth?”

He nodded.

“Is she famous?”

“Yeah.” He lifted the mug to his lips.

“Who the hell is she?”

“That’s the point—I can’t tell you. I’m legally forbidden to talk about it.”

“Why would you sign something so idiotic?”

His leg banged against mine again.

“She paid you off.” I saw his lips curl up briefly before settling back into a straight line.

“You could’ve made more by writing a tell-all memoir.”

He put the mug down and raised his arms in a languid stretch. “That would’ve been morally reprehensible.”

“But it wasn’t to take her money?”

He laughed.

I put my left hand on his thigh and lightly played with the hairs on his leg. Al’s shoulder gave a little shiver.

Obviously, I was compelled to find out the identity of Al’s famous former wife. “If I guess correctly, and all you do is tap your foot, then you haven’t actually said anything.”

“Good plan, except you’ll never guess.”

“If she’s famous, it can’t be all that hard.”

He tapped his foot energetically against the bottom step.

“Hey, no fair!”

Tap, tap, tap went his foot, like a wind-up toy.

“Jodie Foster?”

“She’s a lesbian.”

“Winona Ryder, Alicia Silverstone, Cameron Diaz, Kirsten Dunst, Lisa Kudrow, Liv Tyler, Maria Bello, Courtney Cox, Meg Ryan, Mary-Louise Parker—,”

As I reeled off the names, Al kept tapping his foot. So, naturally, I finally ran out of steam and clamped my mouth shut.