Cheapskate in Love (19 page)

Consequently, although he didn’t express his feelings in
this way, he felt himself to be in a state of harmony with his true God-given
identify and—by the natural extension which exists among all living
things—with the very cosmos itself. In such a state of bliss, which, by
the way, he had entered before after meeting other women for the first time, it
was perfectly normal that he wanted to swing dance.

Going to the console cabinet on which his TV sat, he opened
up the cabinet’s front door. Inside was a turntable, a relic from his teenage
years that still functioned. It produced a sound that seemed warmer and richer
than devices that played digital recordings, but that was not the reason why he
still had it. He couldn’t see the need to buy something new, unless something
broke and couldn’t be repaired inexpensively. After pressing the “on” switch,
he put on his favorite record of big-band swing tunes. There was a scratchy
pause—a poor herald of what was to come—as the needle approached
the first song. Suddenly, the snappy sounds of swing rhythms and melodies
stirred the air, filling his apartment. The glorious music from another era
lived again. Bill was in his spiritual element.

The record contained songs like “In The Mood” and “Boogie
Woogie
Bugle Boy”—happy music, music that gets under
a person’s skin and speeds up the circulation. It was music made for dancing,
composed at a time when dancing was more than people shaking themselves in
place, like disjointed puppets. When people hear this music, as Bill heard it,
their hearts start to pump a little quicker and a little stronger. Their feet
begin to tap along with the beat, and in hardly any time at all, people want to
be up and dancing, just like Bill was doing now in his apartment.

At first, his steps and moves were light and easy, because
he was floating among the clouds, like an amorous bird born up on air, which
mostly glides through space. He was also being careful about his back. There
was still some tightness and mild inflammation around his lower spine, which he
couldn’t forget, despite the height of his ecstatic raptures. But as the music
played on, the pulsing syncopations drew him out, loosening him up, making him
forget his physical limitations, and he really began to swing. He was
stretching and spinning and fast stepping.

In his imagination, he believed he was with Donna, swing
dancing in the grand ballroom of a handsome, old hotel before a live band.
Other couples were dancing around them, twisting and twirling, but he only had
eyes for her. She looked so young and so
swell
. He was
so happy. He pulled her close, squeezed her, and kissed her passionately.

“You’re beautiful, baby doll,” he murmured in her ear. “And
you’re mine. Today and forever.” She smiled like an angel, an angel who knew
something about the corrupting influences of the body.

Again he squeezed and kissed her with all the ardent fervor
of a man violently in love. She melted with passion in his arms, kissing him
madly in return. Their puckering lips were inseparable. They were inseparable.
Nothing could tear them apart.

At that magical, imaginary moment, his Blackberry began to
ring, and the pleasant vision dissipated. He plummeted to earth from the thin,
upper reaches of his mind, where he had been wandering since he had left the
salon. He became aware that he was kissing one of his old and worn-out couch
cushions, which his arms embraced tightly.

He threw the cushion back on the couch and grabbed his cell
phone. He checked the number and then answered the call. His happiness erupted
from him spontaneously, like a geyser. “Marie dear, I’m in love. I’m in love.”

Marie was calling from her kitchen where she sat,
chain-smoking. The sound of her brother being in a good mood and calling her
“dear” was a nasty surprise and gave her a coughing fit, preventing her from
hearing what else he said. When she finished hacking after half a minute of
uncontrollable, unhealthy sounds, and put the receiver back to her ear, she
demanded of him, “What’s that noise?”

“I’m dancing,” he announced in high spirits, undeterred by
his sister’s obvious low ones.

“Turn it down,” she groused. “I can hardly hear you.”

“OK, OK, I’m turning it down,” he said cheerfully. He lifted
the needle off the record, and the music stopped. “There, is that better, sis?”
he asked.

“Don’t call me that. You know I hate it,” she grumbled.
“What’s all that racket for? Have you gone crazy?” It didn’t sound as if she
cared one way or the other. She was in a complaining mood.

“Yes, I’m delirious. I’m out-of-my-senses mad,” he said, and
she could hear the satisfaction, the pleasure with which he spoke. It was easy
for her to perceive this, because he was practically shouting with joy. At
first, she felt a little flutter of jealousy that he could be happy, while she
felt miserable. But then she began to suspect that something was very, very
wrong.

“Are you taking drugs?” she said in a tight, accusing voice.

“Only one, Marie,” he said breezily. “Only one. It begins
with an ‘L.’”

“L
..
.L
..
.L,”
she pondered severely. “Lucifer! Is there a drug on the street called Lucifer?”
she cried. “You work close to Hell’s Kitchen. There has to be some bad stuff
around there. Some drug dealer probably thought it was clever to name a drug
Lucifer, since that place is hell.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” he said sweetly. “I wouldn’t touch
a drug called that.”

“Well, I don’t know of any drug that begins with
an ‘L
,’” she grumbled. “But whatever it is, it sounds
dangerous. It’ll be your undoing. A hundred times worse than these cigarettes.”
She had another coughing fit, but it was shorter than the first one.

“Love is the most wonderful feeling,” he sighed, like
someone who knew, unable to contain the fullness of his feeling from his
unshakeable attachment.

“Love?” she exclaimed, as if a tornado was headed to her
house. “Oh my God. Christ
have
mercy. Not again. Don’t
tell me, please don’t tell me that you met another woman.”

“What do you want me to say?” he asked, completely unruffled
by her unsupportive attitude.

“Did you meet another woman?” Despite what she had said a
second ago, she had to know whether it had happened again.

“The only one for me,” he said, confessing what he honestly
felt. In his mind, he saw Donna again, and his spirits soared, like a rocket
being launched into outer space, never to return to earth. “We were meant to be
together.”

“Did she say that?” His sister was incredulous. She thought
that if he said yes, if he said that this new woman wanted to live her life
with him, then
she
would need drugs
to cope. Without drugs stronger than cigarettes, she was certain she would go
crazy on account of this totally unexpected development. She was unable to
believe that there was a woman alive anywhere in the world,
who
wanted to be with her brother for the sake of being with him. She herself
couldn’t stand him much anymore. Their boisterous childhood camaraderie had
become bitter distaste and mutual unconcern in adulthood, and the less she had
to do with him, the better she liked it. Was there a woman who honestly liked
him, she asked
herself.

“Not yet,” he replied, confidant that Donna would rectify
the situation in the near future.

Marie was pleased to hear this. It was clear to her that a
familiar pattern was unfolding. “Does this one need a green card like Tanya?”
she sneered.

“No, this one is American. And she has her own business,” he
boasted. “She runs a hair salon for men and women. She worked on my hair, and
it looks great. You should see it.” He decided to leave out any mention of his
facial and massage, so his sister wouldn’t get a wrong idea.

“I wonder what she sees in you,” she said cuttingly.

“Love. True love. We only have eyes for each other.” He
spoke with the simplicity of feeling and fullness of heart that only lovers
have. But there was a tad of arrogance in his attitude, since he chose to speak
for Donna without consulting her first.

“How many times have you seen her?” Marie demanded.

“It was love at first sight,” he replied. “The stars were
aligned for us.”

She perceived an incongruous fact in the celestial order he
described and cried, “You only saw her once?
For how long?
What do you know about her?”

“She’s gorgeous. A knockout,” he exclaimed. “And she’s
divorced.”

“You know her real well, don’t you?” she observed with
scorn. “You got all the important facts, and there’s nothing more to find out.”

“There’ll be time to talk later,” he said. “The most
important thing is, it’s love.”

“I wonder.” Actually, she wondered very little. She doubted
what he said completely. This story was too similar to previous stories he had
told her about other women.

“Next weekend I’m meeting her friends,” he said as
irrefutable evidence of how attached he and Donna were to each other.

“Already?” she questioned in surprise. This was an unusual
bit of information.

“As I keep saying...” he started.

“OK, I’ve heard enough,” she interjected, tired of the
subject. Wishing her brother well was not on her list of things to do. “I’m
calling because uncle Joe had a little stroke.”

“Oh,” he replied.

“Don’t get too upset,” she said, although she knew he wasn’t
upset at all. “It’s just a little stroke. Someone needs to come over every day
while he recovers to run errands, drive him to therapy, make meals. It’s a lot
of work. Can you help out?”

“Just on the weekends,” he said. “I have to work Monday
through Friday. I don’t have a spouse, like you, bringing home a paycheck. It’s
just me here, until my situation changes. That should be soon—we’re in
love—but I can’t say when.”

“He is your uncle, too,” she insisted.

“You know how long my commute is,” he said peevishly. “I
hardly get any leave. I can’t take leave without pay. I could contribute a
little money...”

“He doesn’t need any money. He has plenty. He needs help.”

“Why doesn’t he hire some help?” Bill asked.

“Hired help is not like family,” she said. “They don’t care
what happens to him. Maybe they would care more than you...”

“I can help on the weekends,” he said with a tone of
finality.

“So you’re making me do everything? Do you think that’s
fair?”

“I
said
I
can
help on weekends. That’s what I can do.” He had lost his
air of unconcerned elation, which he had had at the beginning of their
conversation, and was now arguing with her. It was their usual mode of
communication.

“What you mean is, you’ll help when you feel like it, for a
couple of hours, when it’s convenient for you,” she quarreled. “That’s what you
mean. The only person you would make an effort for is yourself. So don’t
trouble yourself. I can help uncle Joe all alone. But just remember this next
time you want something.” With that peroration, she slammed the telephone
receiver in its cradle and puffed angrily on her cigarette, until it was
finished.

Bill paused and spent a few moments in thought after the
phone call. He did not think about his sister and what she would have to do.
Nor did he reflect on the health of uncle Joe and what he might be suffering.
Instead, he wondered how soon it would be until he and Donna were living
together. They had made such rapid progress in their relationship already, he
was sure that the first day of their cohabitation would arrive in the near
future. That would be an event to celebrate, he thought. Maybe he would take
her on a cruise around Manhattan that day to dine. Whatever they did, he would
gladly open his wallet on that occasion. He would even empty it out, which
wasn’t difficult to do, because he rarely carried more than twenty dollars in
it. But on that day he would have more, and he would spend it as if he had won
the lottery. Satisfied with such an optimistic evaluation of his situation and
the upcoming celebration, he turned the big-band music back on and resumed
dancing.

Chapter 21

Fortified with wine, but not over-fortified, Helen and Joan
listened to Sandra’s suggestion. At first, Helen refused to do any such thing.
She didn’t explain her reasoning. Wine had not turned her into a blabbermouth.
She simply said no. Sandra expected this reaction from Helen, so she continued
to tell her why her idea was likely to succeed, that’s what men want to see,
women have to humor the brutes sometimes, and anything else she could think of
to convince her. But Sandra’s explanations, justifications, and comical
rationalizations did not change Helen’s mind in the least. Like most everyone,
Helen did not like being told what she should do, even if she was given
excellent grounds for doing it. She preferred to handle her affairs in her own
way.

But then Joan asked, “Why would anyone put this much effort
into Bill? That’s
who
we’re talking about.
Boring, bawdy, self-absorbed Bill.
If you ask me, and I know
you’re not, he’s not worth any effort. I would never do this for him.
Maybe for another guy, someone cute, someone like Paul Newman, but
for Bill?
Never.”