Sliding Past Vertical (21 page)

Chapter 34

Once again Daisy stayed over
on a Saturday night. Once again Emerson put off his writing plans until Sunday.
Not that he minded much—he’d take the company of a pleasant and willing
female over Dirk Blade any night of the week. But he was losing time. The
following day was his first deadline since Dirk’s hiatus, and he still hadn’t
written a word.

He’d told Daisy this, and
after a cup of coffee she putted off in her baby-blue Beetle, promising to come
back later to see how much he’d done.

Three hours and two donuts
later, his answer would be absolutely nothing, but his room had never been
cleaner.

He was so amenable to
distractions that when Sarah called and asked if he wanted to meet her for
lunch, he agreed. He knew he was being weak—about his deadline and about
Sarah—but he just wanted to get out of the damned house.

And he could also talk to her
again about Rashid. From the way his housemate had been walking around in a
daze, obviously Sarah hadn’t set him straight. If Emerson absolutely had to, he
would sit Rashid down and tell him Sarah wasn’t in love with him, but he
wouldn’t be doing Sarah any favors by letting her off the hook.

That was what he told her
over chili and onion soup and she nodded, sad and wide-eyed. Maybe she finally understood
that she shouldn’t play with men’s emotions. Shouldn’t start things she wasn’t
willing to finish. Shouldn’t approach the board without planning her entry.

“Okay,” she said. “Enough
with the diving metaphors. I’ll come back with you after lunch and talk to
him.”

* * * * *

“Tell me about your
girlfriend,” Sarah asked, as they were getting into his car.

Emerson stared at her, surprised
by the calm directness of her question. But he’d always liked this facet of
Sarah. Just when he thought he could predict her reactions, she’d come at him
with something from left field, the bleachers, and the parking lot.

She looked especially pretty that
day, too, and she was wearing a new perfume that he liked. When he’d picked her
up he thought about complimenting her but didn’t want to freak her out. He’d
made so much progress in the two months they hadn’t seen each other, and he hadn’t
wanted to slip back into old patterns. The previous week he had almost
regressed, but knowing he would see Daisy later had helped. Then he remembered
how Sarah had stormed out on him at the diner when the fact of Daisy had
surfaced.

“Oh, I don’t think you want
to hear about that,” he said.

“It’s okay.” She strapped
herself in. “I want to know.”

He took a deep breath and
started to turn the ignition but hesitated. “She’s not really my girlfriend.
We’ve only had a couple of dates.”

“Is she nice?”

“Yes.”

“Is she pretty?”

She
looks like you.
“That’s kind of subjective, but—”

“Is she legal?”

“Sarah.”

“Well, the others have been
kind of young.”

“She’s nineteen.”

“Nine-TEEN?” Sarah wailed.

“It’s a mature nineteen.”

“Shut up.” Sarah shook her
head. “Just shut up now, and I won’t have to kill you.”

“You were eighteen when we
started sleeping together.”

“Yeah, but so were you. And
now you’re almost thirty.”

“Your point being...?”

“My point should be obvious.
I just don’t understand what you’d have in common. What you have to talk
about.” She looked out the window and said quietly, “Or maybe you’re not
looking for talk.”

Emerson started the engine.
“We talk.”

* * * * *

They did talk. More
accurately, Daisy talked and Emerson listened. It was a relationship that
played to each of their strengths. On their first date, she talked about her
boyfriend and how awful he was, and all the “funny” things he and his buddies
did when they were drunk, which, having an alcoholic mother and a brother who
had been killed by a drunk driver, Emerson didn’t find funny. Then they ordered
dessert, and she segued into a more pointed conversation about how Emerson
could be better for her, which was followed by sex, during which Emerson had
the distinct feeling he was auditioning.

She talked all the way
through that, too.

She told him she wanted to
write erotica, and he’d weakened, when he could get a word in edgewise, and
told her about his own writing. It seemed to excite her, especially the persona
of Dirk, which was fun on the surface but kind of disturbing when he thought
too hard about it.

Her visit the night before hadn’t
been much different. But he thought he had passed the audition. There had been less
talk of the boyfriend, thank God, more about writing, a lot more about writing
Dirk. And how she could “help” him, should he ever fall short on ideas.

Which was probably why she’d
promised to come back later.

He forgot what time they’d
agreed upon and mentally sighed in relief when they pulled up to the house and
the Beetle wasn’t parked outside. But neither was Rashid’s car.

“He’s not here,” Emerson said.
“Maybe you should call later. I’ll take you home.”

“I want to wait,” she said,
eyes pleading. “I promise I won’t bother you.”

Emerson remembered saying the
same thing to her, years ago. Groveling just to be allowed into her orbit. How
odd this sounded coming from Sarah. He wanted to put everything on hold and
spend the afternoon talking to her about how the pendulum came to swing too far
the other way.

But he had a deadline. And
Daisy.

Yet when he left Sarah in his
living room and went up to his typewriter, Emerson decided that it was more
important for him to focus on getting his work done than on getting laid. He called
Daisy from the upstairs phone and told her he meant no offense to her creative
abilities, but he had to be alone to write. She was charitable about their
change in plans and pitched a half-dozen story ideas before she let him off the
phone, all starring her and none of which he would dare to put on paper.

This solved one problem for
Emerson but left two others: the deadline and Sarah. It was bad enough that
Emerson had been planning to give Daisy over to Dirk for the
afternoon—with her blessing and bizarre encouragement—without Sarah
waiting just downstairs.

Chapter 35

To stem her nervousness,
Sarah tidied Emerson’s living room. She piled empty coffee cups into the
kitchen sink, accidentally chipping the one with the purple lipstick stain, and
then carved out a spot on the Salvation Army sofa and lost herself in the
New York Times
, the
Syracuse Herald-American
and the
New England Journal of Medicine
. She learned more than she wanted
to know about Michael Dukakis’s chances in the upcoming presidential primaries,
what bars had the best pickled pork hocks in Onondaga County, and the effect of
alcoholism on platelet enzyme activity.

Still, no Rashid.

This
is a complete waste of time
. At her apartment were fifteen thirsty houseplants and a
pile of laundry about to demand voting privileges. And she felt damned
uncomfortable being in the house again. Where Emerson had crushed her. Where
she was about to crush Rashid.

“He’s naive about women, he’s
never had his heart broken,” Emerson had told her at lunch. “So you should let
him down easy.”

Emerson was right, about
that, and her responsibility in leading Rashid on. She made a deal with herself:
after doing what she’d come to do, she would declare a moratorium on all men,
friends included, until she could figure out how to stop ruining everyone’s
lives.

She heard a loud thump from
upstairs and the tooth-grinding rip of typewriter paper from the carriage.
Sarah winced. She wondered what he was working on.

Or whom.

Sarah flung herself off the
sofa. She’d call Rashid later. They could meet somewhere, away from the house,
away from Emerson, away from the girl he was currently not writing about.

Then the front door burst
open.

Rashid was home.

He wiped the fog off his
glasses and removed his hat, which made his hair puff out at strange, adorable
angles.

“Sarah. This is a surprise.”

His gaze darted around the
room. Sarah assumed he was looking for evidence that might embarrass her. As
always, the loyal soldier for his friend. He seemed relieved to find nothing
salacious in sight. “You are waiting for Emerson?”

“No, actually, I came to see
you.”

Sarah swallowed and wished
she’d made the decision to leave ten minutes earlier. Not only could she have
avoided the uncomfortable discussion, but also she could have avoided the
uncomfortable discussion on a day when she’d again dressed for Emerson. The
ensemble included perfume, the sweater that deepened the brown of her eyes,
tight jeans, a pair of earrings he’d given her, and the time she’d spent on her
hair and makeup. To an outsider’s eye, it probably looked like one giant
signal—a beacon—for Rashid, all flashing green.

“That is an even better
surprise,” he said.

He hovered in the living room
doorway, his eyes big and shiny. Signals or not, she couldn’t cut his heart
out. She couldn’t.

“I didn’t hear your car.”

He smoothed a hand through
his unruly hair. “It’s back at the lab. My battery died. Emerson has alligator
cables, I came to see if he could drive them over.”

“He’s writing.” Another rip
came from upstairs. “I don’t think it’s going well.”

Rashid sighed. “Then I won’t
disturb him. I’ll just borrow his cables and walk back. I’m sure someone at the
lab can give me a jump.” He looked at Sarah as if he were forming an idea.
“Would you like to come back with me? It’s quiet on Sundays. Only a few of us are
there, catching up on things. You can wait inside. There is a brand-new lounge
with coffee and a television, and when we are done, perhaps we can go to the
movies.”

“Sure,” Sarah said. You didn’t
have to talk at the movies.

* * * * *

The sun was out but a stiff
wind blew from the west. They walked briskly toward campus, alligator cables
over Rashid’s shoulder.

“I’m afraid you must have
found me an ungracious guest last weekend,” he said.

She hadn’t exactly been Miss
Manners, wearing her ripped lingerie, pining for another man. “You weren’t that
bad. A little tired, but like you said, you’ve been working a lot.”

“Next weekend I will be
better. I will make you a very special dinner, and we will have a happier time.
By then I hope to have some good news. A surprise. You will see.”

She could only imagine the
surprise.

After crossing Comstock, he led
her toward a square, seven-story brick building, another in a series hastily
retrofitted to follow the classic Roman architecture of the other academic
structures on the quad. The combined effect reminded her of what might result
if Disney created a college campus. It would have no substance, no sense of
history. With plastic ivy hot-glued to plastic stone, everything would be a
clever emulation, right down to the animatronic students.

They climbed two flights of
stairs. “This is where I work.” He opened the door for her, and then he pointed
out the lounge and asked her to wait for him.

But after a while, she felt
too anxious to wait. There was nothing on television except hockey games and
infomercials, and the only reading material was a copy of the
New England Journal of Medicine
she’d
read at Emerson’s house. Already knowing more than she would ever need to about
platelet enzymes, she went off in search of Rashid.

Perhaps she could help with
the car.

She thought she heard his
voice down the hall, higher-pitched and faster than usual, and followed it
until she reached a large room crammed with long black tables and equipment. He
was leaning against a cabinet in the back, conversing in animated Hindi with a
lanky young Indian man in a white laboratory smock.

They didn’t see her until she
was halfway across the room. They both stopped talking. Rashid smiled. The
young man reminded her of a fawn caught in headlights: a jumble of long limbs
and eyes. “I’m sorry, I’ve been delayed. Sarah, this is Jagadhish. One of my students.”

“Hi,” she said.

The young man nodded shyly, turned
to Rashid, and said something in a questioning tone. Out of it, Sarah only
recognized her name. Rashid answered. To this the student gave Sarah a slow
grin and slapped Rashid on the back. The two shared a brief, jocular exchange and
then Jagadhish left.

This infuriated Sarah, the
rudeness of people who intentionally used another language in front of those
who didn’t understand it. Like her grandparents, who spoke Yiddish when they
didn’t want the children to hear. And there had definitely been something dirty
about the conversation.

She turned on Rashid. “What
did he say?”

He hesitated long enough for
Sarah to become suspicious. “That you seem like a very nice young lady.”

Bullshit
. “So are you going to fix
the car?”

“That’s where he’s gone. He
and another student are going to get it started. Jagadhish has asked that I
stay and look very quickly at some of his work. Then we can go.” He lowered his
voice. “I apologize to be speaking Hindi around you. He does not speak English
very well, and his dignity is easily offended.”

She felt less angry, but the
question of what was said still bothered her. “So what does he do?”

“Studies platelets and blood
clotting.” Rashid walked over to a microscope. Sarah followed. He peered into
the eyepiece, moved away, and waved Sarah over.

“Would you like to have a
look?” He guided her with a hand on her shoulder.

Holding back her hair, she
bent toward the eyepiece. “All I see are a bunch of little fuzzy things.”

“Those little fuzzy things
can save a person’s life.” His voice caressed her ear. She smelled his cologne
but didn’t recall him wearing any at the house. He brushed back a lock of hair
that had slipped out of her grasp. Then his hand dropped to her waist. “Come, I
will show you something else. Only it will be easier to see if I turn the
lights out first.”

It was too much—the
touching, the cologne, wanting to turn out the lights. A wink and a nod from his
student and he had left the two of them alone. Dirk Blade couldn’t have set it
up better. She hoped this was all in her imagination but couldn’t be too
careful where Rashid was concerned.

“We should go.” Sarah backed
away from the microscope. “If we want to make the movie.”

He sighed. “All right.
Another time.”

Another
lifetime,
she thought.

* * * * *

It was a forgettable movie,
even more so because Sarah had spent it thinking about how to have the
conversation with Rashid. But it had to happen.

A preemptive breakup would be
a first, for her.

“I don’t like surprises,”
Sarah said. She and Rashid were sitting in his car, in the driveway, next to
Emerson’s old Honda. A new rust spot bled into the front quarter panel. She wondered
if Emerson was upstairs, looking out the window. She wondered if he was
jealous. “What’s the big news?”

He gave her a cryptic smile.
“Now what’s the point of a surprise if I tell you what it’s going to be?”

“Does this have anything to
do with your wedding?”

Rashid looked suddenly glum.
He picked at his steering wheel cover.

“There’s not going to be a
wedding, is there?”

He fell silent for a long,
uncomfortable moment.

“Have you told her?”

“Not yet,” he said. “But I
will. That was to be my surprise.”

“That you’re breaking some
girl’s heart? That’s your happy news?”

“There is no heart to break,
Sarah. She doesn’t love me. I don’t love her. We are complete strangers to each
other. Why should we get married?”

“You told me love would grow.
You’d build a life, a family...”

He answered sharply. “I don’t
want to spend my life with a woman I don’t love when I can—” He fell back
against the headrest. “Never mind,” he breathed. “It’s all wrong.”

“It’s not wrong to want to be
in love when you get married,” Sarah said.

“It’s easy for you to say
this. You were raised to believe in romantic love. But it’s not what I’m
supposed to be doing. My family expects me to—”

Without thinking, she whacked
her hand on the seat and said, “Screw what you’re supposed to be doing. It’s
your life. What do you want?”

He looked like he was about
to hyperventilate. “I want to get married!” He clamped a cold hand over the top
of hers. “But I want to marry you.”

* * * * *

Emerson sat in front of his
typewriter, staring at the white sheet of paper. He’d typed nothing more than
“SISTERS OF MERCY,” which, if followed to its logical conclusion, would ban
Emerson from half his magazines, promote him to mythic hero in the others, and
at the very least, earn him eternal damnation and the worst accommodations in
hell.

Thank
God for pseudonyms,
he thought, fingers poised on the keys.

But it wasn’t him.

It wasn’t even Dirk.

Not even he would sink that
low.

He ripped the paper out of
the carriage, wadded it up and tossed it behind him. He typed a few more
titles, with equal results, until a mob of paper balls piled up like a flock of
evil ducklings, snapping at his heels. He paced around the room, kicking at
them, raging.

Stories used to flood out of
him, like from Daisy. He’d never been at a loss when it came to Dirk. When
everything else in his life was in the crapper, when he had no money and his
job sucked and Sarah had another new boyfriend, he knew that he could sit at
the typewriter and pound it out. It wasn’t literature but it was there,
accessible to him, with beginnings, middles, and ends, and a check after the
magazine went to press.

And
now, nothing.

Just when everything had
started to pick up, this part of his life was failing him.

Dirk was failing him.

* * * * *

Sarah remembered joking with
Emerson about marriage, the neurotic children they would make. And in the
bowels of Jay’s worst hangovers, he had alluded to their future in the vaguest
of terms, probably designed to keep her from leaving him. But never had a man
out-and-out and with great seriousness said that he wanted to marry her.

Sarah already knew the
answer, and Rashid must have known it too. But she was in no hurry to say the
words. She wanted to let the possibility dangle in front of her for a few moments
to see what the concept of someone wanting her forever felt like.

“You are not laughing at me, so I gather that what
I’ve said is not totally ridiculous?”

Rashid’s voice was as soft as
fresh
paneer
over Sarah’s frothy
reverie of a six-year-old’s princess dreams. Of the luminous seed pearls on her
mother’s wedding gown, pawed with carefully washed fingers. She smiled at him
through her sadness, mentally putting the wedding gown back in the moldering
box she had no business opening, and touched his cheek.