Earth Angel (13 page)

During the weeks I’d gotten to know Jackie, I’d also spent a lot of time coaching Gordon for the inevitable First Date. I
paid for a new haircut and new clothes, which made him look younger and more energetic. He told me he was getting a lot of
compliments at school and that seemed to please him. He walked straighter, had a bit more liveliness in his step, and actually
made a few jokes. I’d also prepped him on Jackie, her likes and dislikes. For example, she’d told me she hated men who chewed
gum. Also, she was a liberal Democrat and an agnostic. She’d been raised in a Mormon family and had a strong aversion to Mormons.
She loved fifties’ doo-wop music and seemed to know the lyrics to every song from that decade. I would tell Gordon these things
and he would nod, sometimes even writing each item down. He never commented on them, so I didn’t know whether he agreed with
her or not. A couple of times, his confidence faltered and he tried to back out of the deal, but each time I talked him out
of it. I had a mission now: I was going to make his life better. I was parting the fucking Red Sea here and he was crossing
over, like it or not!

“I don’t know if you heard,” Gordon said to me one evening when we were laying out our battle plan for the Siege of Jackie.
“My sister was murdered a couple of months ago. A doctor went nuts and shot all these people at the clinic where my sister
worked. She was a nurse.”

“Physician’s assistant,” I corrected without thinking. It was a reflexive defense of Helen, who had worked hard for the extra
training to become a physician’s assistant. I answered Gordon’s quizzical look with, “I read about it.”

He nodded. “I read in the paper today that a woman who was at the clinic during the shooting but survived,
died a couple weeks ago. I guess they just now made the connection.”

“Who?” I asked, half-expecting to hear my own name.

“Lisa Demme. She’d been a patient.”

The amphetamine woman, the one I never saw that night. “How’d she die?”

“Suicide. She survives a mass murderer only to kill herself. It’s crazy.”

“Crazy world,” I agreed.

“Who expects to get shot in a medical clinic? When we were kids Helen and I used to wonder how we’d die. Helen said she wanted
to die in a heroic-but-doomed effort to save an astronaut who was tangled up on the exterior of a space station. She’d go
out in her space suit with her jet-pack, untangle him, and start to bring him back when something would go wrong and they
wouldn’t be able to make it back into the space station. She and the astronaut would look at each other and instantly agree
on how they wanted to die. They’d set the jet-pack for full speed, aim it at the earth, and burn up in flames of glory as
they reentered the earth’s atmosphere.” He smiled at the memory. “I just wanted to die in my sleep of old age.”

I’d looked at him and silently vowed to redouble my efforts with Jackie on his behalf. Goddamn it, I had to make it work.
Jackie would be his.

“Tennis is for wimps,” Jackie said as we headed for her car. “Who are these guys again and why should I give a shit?”

“Gordon Moore. He teaches ESL at your school. Tall, handsome.”

She shrugged. “I’m adjunct. I come in, teach, go home. I’m like a mercenary, I don’t really get to know the locals.”

“He’s an old friend. From high school.”

She wiggled her eyebrows and grinned lewdly. “Hanky-panky?”

“Just friends. He’s very attractive and intelligent, but I’ve known him so long I just can’t think of him that way.” Then
quickly added, “But lots of other women do.”

She drove without saying anything for a while. Then when we pulled into the parking lot of the tennis club she shut off the
engine and turned to me. “This isn’t a setup, is it?”

I tried not to have any expression. “What do you mean?”

“Is your friend Gordon setting you up with his friend? Who’s the fourth for tennis?”

Actually, there was no fourth, that was part of our ploy. “An old college pal of his, I don’t know him.”

“Oh.” She got out and popped the trunk. We gathered our rackets. “It’s just that you won’t go out with any of the guys I know,
so I was hoping your friend Gordon might be on the case.”

“I don’t have a case,” I said, annoyed. “What’s the big deal? I’m not dating anyone right now. That’s not exactly a terminal
condition.”

“It can be, if you’re not careful.”

“You’re not dating anyone either.”

“Yes, but I’m getting laid. It may be fast food, but at least I’m eating
something.
“ She laughed and walked ahead of me, even though she didn’t know where we were going.

Gordon was waiting for us in the clubhouse, wearing his new, white tennis shorts that I had washed and dried and only touched
up a little with the iron so he didn’t look too Yuppified. The tennis racket was new, too, but I’d whacked it into the side
of his garage a few times to make it look used. I introduced them, and Gordon handled himself pretty well. They talked about
school a few minutes, other faculty members they knew in common. Jackie laughed freely, but I couldn’t tell whether she was
just being polite or genuinely liked him. Then Gordon looked at his watch and said, “I wonder what’s keeping Bob,” and ran
off to phone “Bob.” My plan was that he would return with news
that Bob had an emergency and wouldn’t be able to join us. The three of us would get out on the court, I’d pretend to turn
my ankle or something, and the two of them would play. We’d have lunch together afterward, but I’d make myself scarce by browsing
in the pro shop. All Gordon had to do was, at some point, ask Jackie if she’d like to have dinner with him sometime. I was
already sweating in anticipation. I’d been less nervous the time I performed an emergency appendectomy.

Jackie watched Gordon’s butt as he walked across the lobby to the bank of pay phones near the pro shop. Suddenly she turned
to me. “Bathroom,” she said and started walking away. She walked a few steps then turned and looked at me. I hadn’t moved.
“Coming?” she said in a way that was insistent rather than a request. I don’t like going to the restroom with other women.
First, I don’t really want to hear my friends evacuating their bowels or bladders, nor do I want to share my experience with
them. Second, I don’t want anybody seeing me applying lipstick or makeup because I’m so bad at it that I generally have to
do it twice. Or the woman I’m with will offer to help me, which is even worse.

When we went into the bathroom, a woman was leaning over the sink, applying lipstick. She wore a white tennis outfit. White
tennis panties peeked out from under her skirt; “Love Deuce” was embroidered in pink. Jackie and I exchanged looks and tried
not to laugh.

Jackie went into one of the stalls. I didn’t have to go so I just stood there watching the woman blot her lips. The color
was dark, almost chocolate. When she finished she smiled at me and left.

“We alone?” Jackie asked.

I glanced under the other stall and saw no feet. “Yes. Why? You have the secret microfilm, Comrade?”

She opened her stall door and came out. She couldn’t have had time to do anything in there. There was an odd
look on her face, as if she’d just remembered a childhood molestation. “Okay,” she said, her voice brusque and businesslike.
“We don’t have much time so we’d better get the negotiations out of the way now.”

“Negotiations?” I laughed, wondering what the joke was.

“Right. Exactly how much is it worth to you? Give me a specific sum.”

I had the eerie feeling she thought I was someone else. I even turned to look at myself in the mirror to see if my face had
changed. No, it was me. “What are you talking about, Jackie.”

“About money,
Season
.”

My face ignited and I pressed my hands against my cheeks to cool them.

She leaned back against the stall. “I recognized you that first night you came to my class. Well, I wasn’t a hundred per cent
sure, considering the hair and glasses, but I’ve worked with enough makeup people on films to see past the disguise. What
I couldn’t understand was what you were doing at the same college where Gordon Moore taught. Everyone knows what happened
to his stepsister. At first, I thought maybe you’d flipped, too, and were coming after him.”

I didn’t say anything. What could I say? It was pointless to deny anything. All this time I had been setting her up, she knew
who I was.

“Don’t look so glum, chum,” she said. She washed her hands, lathering up past her wrists. “Anyway, I couldn’t figure out why
you were here. Then when that friend of yours from Chicago called, Daryl St. James, I phoned him back later to do some digging.
I told him I was concerned about you, et cetera et cetera, and he finally shook free with how you tried to give fifty thousand
dollars away to that cousin of the guy your boyfriend killed. That’s when it came together. You were here to
help
Gordon Moore,
only this time you weren’t giving the cash away, not after the trouble you had in Chicago. How am I doing so far?”

“What do you want, Jackie?”

“We’re not talking about what I want here, we’re talking about what you want. As far as I’ve been able to figure, you want
me to go out with Gordon. Am I right? Probably never was a fourth player and he’ll come back from his phone call to tell us
ole Bob can’t make it. Correct?”

I leaned against the sink counter, felt some cold water seeping through the back of my shorts. If she told Gordon all this,
I was doomed. Not only would I not have made his life any better, I would have made it significantly worse. He would know
he’d been conned by the fiancée of the man who murdered his sister. Plus, he would feel awful about all that he confided in
me. Not to mention how mortified he would feel having Jackie, the woman he was nuts about, know what a fool he’d been. If
I’d had a gun right then I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t have pulled a Tim and shot Jackie. Or myself. Or both of us.

“Don’t worry, Season,” Jackie said. “I’m not going out there to spill everything to Gordon. Not after all the work you’ve
put into this. I kind of admire you and this whole guardian-angel schtick.”

I stared at her, waiting.

“Cut to the chase? Fine. Here’s what I was thinking. You want me to go out with Gordon. Okay, I’ll go out with Gordon. I need
about fifty grand to finish my film and you were willing to give that much to that family in Chicago. You give me twenty thousand
up front and send me another five thousand a month for six months. That way you’ll know I’m still seeing Gordon for at least
six months.”

“Then what? After the six months.”

She shrugged. “Who knows? Picket fence and baby makes three? A bicycle built for two? I’m only promising six months. After
that, leave the rest to chemistry.”

“And what does Gordon get?”

“Specifically? You mean sex? How much, what kind? Oral sex, anal sex? You want me to list positions? Fine. Got a piece of
paper and a pen?”

The door opened and a girl about ten came in. She lugged a tennis racket almost as big as she was. She looked at the two of
us as she walked toward the stall. Jackie and I both pulled out lipstick tubes and leaned toward the mirror. The little girl
peed and left. I turned to Jackie, calmer now, resigned. “Look, there was probably a better way to have gone about this, I
just couldn’t think of it at the time. All I care about right now is that Gordon isn’t hurt.”

“I know that. Christ, I’m trying to tell you that I think what you’re trying to do for him is terrific.”

“Fuck you, Jackie.”

She bowed her head, screwed the lipstick back into the tube. “You think I’m just being a bitch here, Season. Or a whore. But
you’re just being melodramatic. You aren’t Job and I’m not Judas. We’re just a couple of single, thirtyish broads hacking
our way through the jungle, trying not to go crazy from the bugs and heat. Don’t turn it into a holy mission of salvation.
You want to help poor Gordon out, great, so do I.”

“For a price.”

She sighed. “You want to be a savior? Then somebody’s got to provide some sin.”

“Bullsh—”

She stepped right up to me and kissed me hard on the mouth, grinding her lips hard against mine, smothering the rest of my
word. Her lips felt sticky from the fresh layer of lipstick. When she pulled away, she was grinning. “Don’t get excited, this
wasn’t a lesbian thing. I just want you to know, despite my greed, I still like you and I want us to remain friends. I hope
you do, too. After all, nobody’s perfect.” She grabbed a tissue from the dispenser, wiped
the smeared lipstick from her lips, and walked out the door.

I looked into the mirror and tried to decide what color the blend of her lipstick and mine made. Something like a dark house
wine at a moderately priced Italian restaurant. I watched myself wipe it off my lips. Nobody’s perfect, she’d said. It was
the last line from the Marilyn Monroe movie
Some Like It Hot
. Final scene: Joe E. Brown, who for the entire film has been chasing drag-attired Tony Curtis, cuddles up to Curtis. Curtis
whips off his wig and declares, “But I’m a
man
!” Brown smiles lovingly and says, “Nobody’s perfect.”

I thought of Gordon standing out in the lobby, itchy with stagefright, waiting to deliver his rehearsed lines about the missing
Bob. Jackie was probably walking toward him right now. He’d smile at her and say to himself, “Please, God, don’t let me screw
this up.” Maybe he’d wonder what she was like in bed. Maybe he’d imagine her having his child. Right now, Jackie walking toward
him with her breasts and hips and legs and smile had the power that I didn’t; she could make Gordon’s life perfect for the
next six months. Indeed, nobody’s perfect. But in the shuffling, stumbling pratfall of our lives, we all deserve a few perfect
moments.

Savior Seeks Same

I
T WAS A LOT LIKE A CANDY COUNTER AT A MOVIE THEATER, EXCEPT
instead of candy they had guns. Hundreds of them lined up on glass shelves, the butt of one gun curving to the barrel of
the one behind it, the way Tim and I used to sleep together. All the barrels pointed toward the front of the store where the
customers entered and exited. There was something unsettling about that and I walked along the showcase with a certain hunted
feeling.