Bob at the Plaza (13 page)

“When all else fails and you’re facing a real conversation, you trot out those privacy concerns,” I grumbled. “Those worries seem a little far-fetched but, okay, I don’t want to see you sent back to boot camp so I’ll give you some leeway. What happened? I know about boot camp, but why were you so drunk when I saw you at the Round Table? I’ve never seen you like that. Did you even realize I was there?”

“Of course I knew it. You got my hints, didn’t you?”

“What on earth are you talking about?” I stared at him in bewilderment. “You didn’t give me any clues―you drooled and rambled.”

“Think about it, Roz. One of your answers was ‘Merry Christmas’ and I yelled ‘Happy New Year.’ It pointed you in the right direction. Just like I told you to think before you used horticulture in a sentence. Even though I couldn’t come up with hints for everything, at least I helped you out with a few of them. You were great, by the way, with the Round Table. I never got a chance to tell you, but you impressed them. Except, well, maybe Dottie.”

I sat back, stumped. Bob had been conscious? “Why did you pretend to be so out of it, then? You could just have told everyone that you wanted to come back with me. That would have made things a lot easier,” I said with a sharp edge to my voice.

Bob stood abruptly and strode briskly into the living room. “I know you’ve been doing some reading on the Round Table.” He picked up one of the books on the topic I had left all over the house and flashed the cover at me. Flipping open to a random page, he read for a few seconds, and then snorted in disbelief. “Don’t writers today do any research at all? Where do they come up with this nonsense?”

I cleared my throat as a warning. No way would Bob the Trickster get me off topic that easily. He gave me a rueful grin—caught in the act—put the book down, and continued.

“How can I describe what it was like at the Round Table in those days? All these brilliant people, with strong opinions on any topic you could name―half the time they loved you, half the time they hated your guts.” He paused in front of the picture window, gazing at the lake. “It was a pretty complicated time, and a pretty complicated place. We’d all just survived World War I, the ‘War to End All Wars,’ decades, of course, before we knew World War I only began the fiasco. As military veterans, most of the men at that Table felt alternately ecstatic and guilty about surviving. So wrap up all the exuberance at being alive in the middle of the Roaring Twenties with the economy booming wherever you looked and mix it in with the superiority we all felt at living in the most important, vibrant city in the country, probably the world. To boot, most of us worked in creative fields―newspapers, publishing, writing, the theater, films―with a mission of changing the world. We were an insufferable bunch. Some more so than others, I guess,” Bob said softly, studying his hands, as if remembering the writing and typing they’d done for decades.

“Then,” he continued, “you roll in, of course, the romantic relationships. Young, arrogant survivors running on adrenalin and illegal hooch―talk about a messed up stew of hormones.” He turned toward me. “I don’t think we were very happy, to tell you the truth. But there were some brilliant people sitting in those chairs.” He turned back to study the lake. “Anyway, you saw how on edge Dottie was.”

“On edge?” I repeated in disbelief. “Dorothy Parker was awful, Bob. She was very nasty to me.”

“Well,” he said hesitantly, those ghostly ears of his starting to burn their telltale pink, “she sort of had cause to be.”

“Why would Dorothy Parker want to be mean to me? She didn’t know me from a hole in the wall,” I said, even more bewildered.

“Well”—he cleared his throat—“you see, Dorothy and I, umm, we sort of, well, used to be involved.”

“You and that awful woman?” I stared at him, stunned, and studied those flaming pink ears for a minute. “What on earth possessed you to do that, Bob?”

“The usual, I guess. But it wasn’t really what you think. We shared a very tiny office for a while. We just had a very complicated relationship and I’m not sure she ever got over it. So when you showed up, and you wanted me to come back to you, I guess it kind of brought out the worst in Dottie. If I’d been actively on your side, she probably would have made things even uglier. So, I thought if I acted more drunk than normal, and slipped you a few hints, vague as they might be, we’d both make it out of there in one piece.”

I stared at him. What a fiasco that whole episode had been. And, puzzling though it had been at the time, he had managed to help me without irritating Dottie even more. In a way, he’d been kind of brilliant. And I’d usually be the last one to admit anything like that.

“You never cease to amaze me, Bob. That was sort of brilliant. And look at this―we both did manage to make it back to the lake in one piece. I hate to say it, but I’m impressed.”

Bob turned back to the lake, preening. “Well, it worked out for the best, didn’t it? But if Dottie ever finds out, there’ll be hell to pay. So let’s keep our mouths shut, okay?”

“No problem on my end. I’ll be delighted if I never see the lady again.”

The next day found Bob and me trying to settle into our old routine. Without much luck.

“You managed to disqualify me again, Bob,” I said, rereading the letter I’d pulled out of its envelope.

“And how, exactly, did I do that?” Bob replied calmly, glancing up from the martini he’d just mixed for himself. “Are you sure you don’t want one of these?” he said, gesturing to it.

“No, I’m taking a break from alcohol for a while.”

“Why would you want to do that? What prompted such a drastic decision?”

“I have too much going on here. Since I’ve decided to sell my house I’ll have to keep it immaculate in case a real estate agent wants to show it on short notice. And I need to make sure my basement doesn’t flood in the meantime. Tess has called me three times this week to handle last-minute projects about their win. I need to keep my wits about me. Besides, in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been trying to get my book published. The one I wrote in my spare time when you were away. I thought I might make a little money from the book, but with all the rejection I’ve seen so far I could be a skid row alcoholic in no time.”

“You mean the one you just finished about you and me? By the way, when can I read that draft?”

“Why would you want to read it?” I asked, avoiding his eyes. “You lived it with me.” Besides, I didn’t think he’d appreciate the candid way I described his thinning hair or spare tire or his over fondness for alcohol.

“Yeah, that book.” I said, getting back to his original question. “I’m calling it
Bob on the Water
. Everyone I’ve sent a query letter to keeps turning it down because you’re a ghost. Like this agent here.” I flapped the letter in front of Bob’s face. “All he did was take my original submission letter, circle the word ‘ghost,’ and then off in the margin he wrote ‘I don’t do ghosts.’ This is the fifth letter like this I’ve received. I must be doing something wrong. The big problem is that my book doesn’t really fit in a comfortable category. We certainly don’t have a traditional romance percolating here”—Bob leered at me, waggling his eyebrows lasciviously—“or a coming-of-age novel, although I might be able to make the case for a ‘finally deciding to grow up’ story, but I’m not sure there’s a big market for those. Maybe I should just forget to mention that you’re a ghost when I submit the manuscript.” I paused and looked out at the lake, thinking about this strategy and then tossing it aside with reluctance. “Although I guess they’d figure it out pretty quick. Besides, there’s no way I’m rewriting at this point. I wonder why people don’t want books with ghosts in them?”

“You should sue them! I’d say you might have a lawsuit on your hands.” All of a sudden Bob projected his voice and began emoting in the round, mellow tones he believed people would use in a courtroom. “Obviously, many people, like these agents and editors, are prejudiced against the ‘other-bodied.’ We ghosts can’t help the way we come into this world,” he said, throwing his shoulders back and drawing air into his lungs preparatory to making an oration. “There should be a ‘Transparent Americans Act.’ I think you should sue them for ‘other-bodied’ bigotry. And I’ll be your prime witness. Why”—Bob started to warm up into one of those spiels I remembered from our long-ago dinners— “I’d be a brilliant witness, now that I think about it. Witty, urbane. Every time the prosecutor closed in for the kill, I’d parry away his point with a cogent witticism of my own, eventually bringing him to his knees in defeat.” Jumping up, Bob started to demonstrate the parry and thrust of a fencer, prowling around my suddenly crowded living room.

“I bet the judge would love me,” Bob continued, obviously carried away by his courtroom vision. “The prosecution would come in for attack”—Bob crouched, pantomiming a stealthy feline—“going for my jugular, but I would stop him in his tracks with my witty repartee”—he parried away his imaginary prosecutor—“winning plaudits from the audience and the judge.”

Now Bob had sucked me into his imaginary world and I played along. “What would the prosecution say that would get you so riled up?”

Bob stopped lunging around the living room long enough to give that some thought. “Well, after I’d earned a couple of laughs from the audience at his expense, the prosecutor would probably throw out a remark like, ‘So, you think you’re funny, sir,’ and I’d reply, coolly and calmly, ‘Not particularly but obviously they,’ with a broad sweep of my arm Topcompassing the audience, ‘do.’ Which would make him even madder, now that I think about it. That’s a really good one. I should write that down,” he said, frenetically patting his smoking jacket for a pad and pen. “Oh, Roz, you really should. You really should bring a lawsuit for the other-bodied.”

I stared at him, deflated. “I am not bringing a lawsuit against this agent for being prejudiced against the other-bodied. For Pete’s sake, Bob, I don’t have time for such nonsense. I can’t come and play in your imaginary worlds. In case you haven’t noticed, things are really bad right now. Couldn’t you help me out for once instead of getting carried away? I could lose my house and not get a job and wind up living under a bridge somewhere. I’m scared, Bob, and I could use any help you can throw my way.”

All his exuberance drained away and Bob sat on the couch, deflated, and reached for his martini. “I wish I could help you, Roz, but I don’t have a clue what I could do. I can’t shovel shale. I can’t clean the house for the real estate agent. I am what I am and what I’ve always been. All I can ever offer is humor and martinis. Asking more of me is like asking an avocado plant to grow a tomato. You can ask all you want, but I can never be more than I am. Besides,” he asked, hurt, “I thought you liked me this way.”

I slumped too. “Of course I like you, Bob. I’m so sorry I exploded at you. I really do have a lot on my mind right now, but that’s no excuse. Please”—I reached out my hand to his transparent one, resting it a millimeter away— “please, accept my apology.”

Now that I had him back, Bob’s charm, which I had found so endearing for months, seemed somewhat, how do I say this, two-dimensional. Nothing had changed about him, so the change must have happened to me. Probably having David here had reminded me, in so many ways, of how much fun it can be to have a guy around. A guy in every sense of the word. One who had not only a body—and a very nice body I must, in all truth, add—but a good heart and a willingness to help me no matter whether it involved catching a mouse or moving rocks around in frigid cold water. I loved the fun, laughter, and ghostly balls of having Bob here but all of a sudden the prospect was not as fulfilling as it had once been. Drat David, anyway.

“You’re just fine the way you are, Bob. I don’t know what’s wrong with me these days.” The silence between us deepened and, for once, it wasn’t particularly comfortable, so I wracked my brain to come up with a mutually agreeable topic of conversation. “Hey, Bob, did you ever hear of brain teasers?”

He turned toward me with a puzzled look on his face. “Brain teasers? What are those? Why would you want to get your brain all hot and bothered anyway?”

“Sometimes today we do brain teasers to exercise our brains, the same way we exercise our bodies,” I explained patiently.

“You mean like those exercise machines we talked about the first day I got here? The stupid ones?”

“They’re not stupid, but yes, like those exercise machines. So, can I give you a little challenge to work out your brain?”

“Okay, sure,” he said in resignation. “Let’s try to work out my brain. Maybe my boss, Clive, will give me extra credit if I get this right.”

“Here it is,” I said, pausing a minute to run through the question in my head so I could get all of the wording just right. “The words in Samuel Morse’s first telegram were ‘What hath God wrought?’ Without checking a reference guide, what is the present tense of the verb ‘wrought’?”

Bob stared at me with vacant eyes. I could almost see the wheels turning behind them as he thought through the question. The silence lengthened. “Wruft?” he tried.

Then in quick succession, he grunted ‘wroght,’ and ‘wroaft.’ Bob pulled out his notepad and started jotting words down.

Chapter 13

What Hath God Wrought?

“Wruft?” Bob muttered under his breath, pondering on the couch, well into his third martini.

No, Bob hadn’t had a stroke. This had been going on for hours.

Yesterday I’d shared a brainteaser I’d heard in Manhattan with Bob. Since then he’d been quiet and preoccupied, occasionally bleating words like “wrogt?” and “wroaft?” to himself.

I finally broke down and offered, “Bob, I can go online and probably figure it out in five minutes.” But no, he wanted to do it himself. So for a few hours I’d left him alone with his martinis on the couch, where he croaked out imaginary present participles like a frog on a lily pond. I even saw him taking some ghost aspirin.

While Bob gurgled away, I tidied the house for my introductory visit with Penny Mae, the prospective real estate agent David had recommended.

Despite the unremitting rain, the doorbell rang promptly at two. What a shock when I opened it! I’d been expecting a young woman, but certainly not a young Marilyn Monroe. Slender with wavy blond hair, bright-blue eyes, and a figure that would bring most men to their knees. What was this stunner doing out here in the boonies? She could be making a fortune in Hollywood.

She was polite, too, darn it. (The phrase ‘embarrassment of riches’ comes to mind.) “What a lovely home you have,” she gushed as she took off her shoes, unasked, in the doorway. “Oh, I always do this,” she said, gesturing to her high heels on the floor. “I hate tracking mess into people’s homes.” Penny Mae reached into her large handbag and pulled out a pair of embroidered slip-ons. They matched perfectly with her short skirt and casual jacket.

My mind drifted as I found myself wondering if a large assortment of dainty slippers could be written off as a business expense under the proper circumstances. Then I shook myself back to paying attention and found Penny Mae watching me expectantly.

“Oops, sorry, I missed that. What did you say?”

“I said,” she repeated patiently, “that when I did a little research on this house I noticed you moved in only a few months ago. Don’t you like this area?”

“Oh, no, no, that’s not it at all,” I assured her. “It’s gorgeous here. But my job situation has changed and I need to relocate somewhere where there’s more work. I’m friends with David Schuler and he mentioned that your dad had handled his purchase up on Knox Hill so he suggested I contact you for an estimate.”

“My dad was the best.” A quick sweep of sadness added temporary depths to those stunning blue eyes.  “How kind of your friend to remember us. I’ll have to send him a note. So, what kind of work do you do?”

“I’m a writer, a business writer. I’ve telecommuted for a while, but I think it would be better if I got a job at a company instead of freelancing.”

“Pick up a few benefits, huh?” Penny Mae nodded in sympathy. “It’s tough as an independent contractor, that’s for sure.” Penny Mae continued rustling through her bags as we walked down the stairs to the main level. When we reached the living room, with all its lake-facing windows, she paused and drew a breath. “I never get tired of this view.”

“I’m going to miss it,” I admitted. “But we all do things we have to do even when we don’t want to do them.”

“True dat,” Penny Mae said, plopping her bags on the floor by the table.

Gangsta? From my Realtor? Oh, my.

Bob wandered in as Penny Mae got her things settled. Based on his lecherous stare, I’d guess that male ghosts were just as susceptible to a knockout female figure as most male humans. 

“Shall we do a walk-through before I show you some comps I printed out this morning?” Penny Mae suggested, quickly getting down to business. 

“Sure,” I replied.

For the next twenty minutes we trotted through the house, Penny Mae jotting down notes, whipping out a measuring tape now and again, and documenting every room with several digital photos.

“I take pictures just in case you decide to list with me,” she explained as we moved briskly along. “This way we’re ready to go as soon as you say the word, instead of you waiting on me to document everything on a second visit.” I began to understand why Penny Mae was building such a strong reputation on the lake―efficient, savvy business acumen, high energy―and her knock-out looks didn’t hurt either. The whole package. As a crabby, plumpish, worried lady of a certain age, it would be very easy to dislike this bright young ambitious woman, but I fought the tendency. After all, I told myself, she’d be working for me.

Eventually we huddled over the comps, studying prices of similar houses around the lake that had sold recently and attempted to factor in the relative values of extra half-baths and drive-up access. Penny Mae broke off mid-sentence and looked up, startled, when she heard footsteps upstairs. David had said he might stop by to pick up a few of his things now that he lived full time back at his place.

“Oh, that’s just my friend David, the person who suggested I call you. Hey, David,” I yelled, “Penny Mae’s here. We’re downstairs looking at some real estate comps.”

“I’ll be right down,” he hollered back.

I didn’t think I needed to explain my relationship status to Penny Mae, so I turned my attention back to the comps. A few minutes later, David ran down the stairs and joined us. Introductions and Penny Mae’s thanks for his referral took no time at all, and I invited David to review the comps. After all, the sales price on the house would be public knowledge soon enough. Few secrets existed on the lake―at least when it came to house prices.

Unlike Bob, David appeared immune to Penny Mae’s appeal. No appraising looks or stolen glances. He displayed his usual courtesy, but I couldn’t see any more than that. I wish I could say the same for Penny Mae. She loved having a good-looking man in her orbit and I could feel her animation level creep up a couple of notches until I couldn’t ignore the pheromones swirling around her. But David just studied the comps, oblivious. (What the heck was I doing, suggesting we cool things down? Trust me when I say trying to live by a sense of ethics and fairness is nothing but a pain in the rear most of the time.)

Other than the occasional glance at one of Penny Mae’s many assets, Bob spent his time gazing out the window at the lake, ignoring our discussion of property values. The occasional mumbled ‘wright’ and ‘wroghteting’ told me he still chewed over the present participle dilemma.

After an intense ten minutes—well, intense on my part, anyway—Penny Mae finally told me where she suggested I price the house if I listed it with her. The figure was not as much as I’d hoped, of course, but if she could get fairly close to it I’d be able to pay off the mortgage and have a tiny nest egg left to carry me through for a while on city rent and necessities while I got established in a new job. Although it felt optimistic to hope for new employment in a short time frame, I had to shoehorn a little cheerfulness into this grim scenario somewhere.

As for Penny Mae, I planned to compare her estimate with that of another real estate agent, which I’d made clear when I’d set up our appointment. John Davies, who worked out of Southport, would be here tomorrow. 

After grabbing his fancy corkscrew out of my cabinet drawer, David said a friendly but business-like goodbye and went on his way. I noticed Penny Mae observing the transaction with intense scrutiny.

“What a nice guy,” she observed after we heard the front door close upstairs. She began gathering her papers. From the quizzical look she threw me, I could tell she felt like talking about David and maybe even asking a few questions about our relationship. But I didn’t encourage it and, thank goodness, she was professional enough not to pursue the matter.

“He’s great,” I said briskly, wrapping up the topic. I reminded Penny Mae about my getting a second estimate and told her I’d get back to her, one way or the other, within the next few days. Then I saw her out into the nonstop rain onto her next appointment. As I wandered back downstairs toward the kitchen I poked my head into the bathroom, noticing empty spaces where shaving cream and masculine deodorant used to reside.

“She’s a knock-out, isn’t she?” Bob commented when I walked into the kitchen. “Some things never change, no matter how long you’ve been away from the action.”

“She sure is. She also seems to be very on-the-ball with lake real estate, which interests me the most right now.”

“Penny Mae’s kind of taken with David, I think. She studied him pretty closely there when you weren’t looking.”

Not in the mood to dwell on this particular topic, I tried distracting Bob.

“How’s that present participle thing going?”

“Wruff?”

“That’s about how I feel right now, too.”

Let’s just say John Davies underwhelmed me. Sporting a brown sweater vest and horn-rimmed spectacles, his nose constantly crinkled as if he smelled old fish, the second prospective real estate agent entered my home as if he did me a favor even coming.  Like Penny Mae, he was young. Unlike Penny Mae, he was arrogant.  He’d done no research, took no pictures or notes, and did not bring any comparative sales figures. Probably worst of all, to my mind, he didn’t say any nice things about my home. He spent his time dropping names about prestigious houses he had sold for very large dollar amounts on the lake and gave me the impression he’d be coming down a few rungs to handle my sale. But he’d condescend to handle the listing if I’d get the place into shape, which struck me as a rather odd request since I’d moved in less than a year ago.

“In order,” John said, “to market this place as a premier property, you’ll need to take care of a few critical items immediately.”

Serious home issues, like touching up the paint job on the spindles of the handrails on my deck. And replacing three floor tiles in the kitchen that had miniscule permanent stains on them. Did he honestly think I would rip up an entire floor for three almost invisible stains? Hardly. I’m sure his arrogant approach would intimidate some into working with him, but it didn’t do anything for me.

So, by process of elimination, I listed the house with Penny Mae.

The rain never let up. It enveloped me, like a constant toothache. Never-ending gray, never-ending damp, never-ending chill. Even pumping up the heat in the house made no difference. The damp penetrated to my bones, the same way it had the winter I studied in England. There must be something about living in close proximity to a good-sized body of water.

Despite the rain, every few hours I’d grab an umbrella and go outside on the deck to peer anxiously at the pounding and ever-rising waves. Between the April showers and the melt-off from the hefty winter snowfall, the water level rose inexorably. Inch by inch, the waves chuckled merrily at my rock barrier and foamily chewed through inches of lakefront until, now, they churned only a few feet from the house. Where once I’d owned a twelve-foot wide swath of lakefront, I now had about four feet of land standing between me and soggy destiny.

Damn, my sense of timing sucked. You can’t put a water-logged home on the market, much less one that’s just washed away in the swirling tides. Of course, Bob didn’t help. He’d peer over the deck rails with me only to drop origami paper boats into the swirling waters and watch them drift along until they smashed against the rocks. Much like my upcoming destiny, I feared.

What to do? I dressed in full rain gear and slogged over to see Stan. I found him sitting at his over-large kitchen table, drinking coffee and thumbing absent-mindedly through an old hunting magazine.

“Hey, sunshine,” he greeted me as I stepped through the door. Without even asking, he poured a cup of coffee.

After a few minutes of chitchat, I got to the point. So far, Stan’s sturdier and taller rock wall hadn’t been breached. Mine, though, had drowned days ago, and I was genuinely starting to panic.

“I just don’t know what to do now, Stan. I keep getting visions of my house washing away and big lake trout swimming around my living room furniture,” I said, warming my hands on the mug.

Stan shook his head and chuckled. “You’re getting carried away, Roz. Don’t forget, your house has been standing for a long time. We’ve had high water on the lake before and it’s never flooded. Besides, even if it did flood a bit, what do you have down in your cellar?”

“Not much,” I admitted, “my furnace and water tank and all kinds of mechanical systems. But it would cost thousands to replace them.”

“You are a worrier, aren’t you?” Stan said in a good-natured way.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before but look, Stan, this house is the only valuable asset I have left. If I lose this, I’m totally wiped out. I’ll have nothing. I’ll be out on the street. And I’m too old and too tired to be out on the street. So please tell me, can I do anything else? I’ll try just about anything to make sure I don’t lose the house.”

“I don’t see any sandbags at your place. Have you tried those?”

“Sandbags? We don’t have any sand here.”

“Come and see.” Stan gestured to me to follow him into his living room. The large bed Mary had slept in for many years had been removed, replaced by a couple of well-worn easy chairs. We walked through to the windows on the far side of the room, and Stan pointed out a miniscule pile of sandbags sitting in the rain. “I’ve been filling those from the shale the waves wash in. If things start getting dicey with my rock wall I plan on piling a few sandbags to stop the breach, so I’ve been getting them ready. I have a bunch of empty bags down in the cellar and I’d be happy to share them. Aaron’s going to be here this afternoon, but I could come over tomorrow and help you start filling them. It’ll be messy, but you could pile them up on the lakefront you have left outside your cellar. It might be worth a try.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ll do anything at this point,” I said fervently. I followed Stan into his surprisingly dry stone cellar, and he counted out twelve burlap bags for me from his pile.