Goodnight Tweetheart (6 page)

Chapter Six

Friday, May 13—7:01
P.M.

MarkBaynard: What are you wearing?

Abby_Donovan: A spritz of Chanel No. 5 and the ice-blue satin evening gown Grace Kelly wore to accept her Oscar for THE COUNTRY GIRL. You?

MarkBaynard: Harrison Ford’s leather bomber jacket from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and Steve McQueen’s Persol aviator glasses from THE GETAWAY.

Abby_Donovan: Speaking of getaways, I came this close to standing you up, you know.

MarkBaynard: Better offer?

Abby_Donovan: It’s hard for any man to compete with Ben and Jerry.

MarkBaynard: I didn’t know you were into threesomes.

Abby_Donovan: I was going to throw in Mr. Darcy and make it a foursome.

MarkBaynard: Naughty girl! And to think I had you pegged as a Bronte woman! How can you resist Heathcliff’s smoldering good looks and incessant brooding?

Abby_Donovan: Heathcliff was a misogynistic asshole.

MarkBaynard: Could you explain that to my Lit 101 class? I hate to see all those impressionable young females swooning over him like he’s Edward Cullen.

Abby_Donovan: I’ve always been Team Jacob myself. And Team Mr. Rochester.

MarkBaynard: So you don’t mind if a guy keeps his mad wife locked up in the attic?

Abby_Donovan: Not if he puts the seat down after he uses the toilet. So where are we going tonight?

MarkBaynard: I found this charming little cafe in Volterra just a short walk from here. See what you think …

MarkBaynard:
http://twitphoto.com/BM7stf

Abby_Donovan: Oh … it’s darling! Hang on … let me grab my chiffon scarf and trade my heels for some sandals.

MarkBaynard: There’s a cool breeze tonight. How about if I go all Cro-Magnon on you and drape my jacket over your shoulders?

Abby_Donovan: Mmm … thank you. It smells nice … like your aftershave. Is it Michel Germain?

MarkBaynard: Old Spice. I borrowed it from my grandfather.

Abby_Donovan: I wish you’d take off those shades. It makes me nervous when I can’t see a man’s eyes.

MarkBaynard: It would make you more nervous if you caught me staring at your chest while you talked instead of gazing deep into your eyes.

Abby_Donovan: Or if I caught you gazing deep into my eyes when I was hoping you were staring at my chest.

MarkBaynard: Ah, here we are. I reserved a candlelit table on the terrace. Would it offend your feminist sensibilities if I pulled your chair out for you?

Abby_Donovan: Not if you put the seat down after you use the toilet.

MarkBaynard: Do you like the music? I put in a special request.

Abby_Donovan: Very nice! What is it? Puccini’s “O Mio Babbino Caro?”

MarkBaynard: No, Insane Clown Posse’s “Somebody to Smoke Wit.”

Abby_Donovan: OMGee … you are 15, aren’t you?

MarkBaynard: What? Not a big hip-hop/thrash metal crossover fan?

Abby_Donovan: Not a big fan of insane clowns. Haven’t you seen POLTERGEIST? Or read Stephen King’s IT?

MarkBaynard: I prefer the more amiable charms of Ronald McDonald myself. It’s the Hamburgler who creeps me out.

Abby_Donovan: I’m suddenly craving a Quarter Pounder. Maybe we should have just gone to McDonald’s for dinner.

MarkBaynard: There’s one right next to the KFC on the corner. Oops … too late! Here comes the waiter with the specials.

Abby_Donovan: So what are you having?

MarkBaynard: I’m in the mood for focaccia topped with fresh spinach and smoked gouda and the mascarpone ravioli in tomato vodka sauce. You?

Abby_Donovan: I believe I’ll have the Chef Boyardee SpaghettiOs.

MarkBaynard: Let me ask the sommelier which vintage he recommends with those. Price, of course, is no object.

Abby_Donovan: Then I’ll have the 1945 Mouton for $120,000.

MarkBaynard: You heard the lady. She’ll have a Diet Coke.

Abby_Donovan: Cheapskate! I thought you’d pay for my wine with your trust fund.

MarkBaynard: Sorry. No trust fund until I turn 21, remember?

Abby_Donovan: Is this an awkward silence? Are you staring at my chest? I’m not sure what’s supposed to happen next?

MarkBaynard: We get to know each other. Isn’t that what people do on first dates?

Abby_Donovan: I’ve always heard you’ll never have more in common than you do on your first date. Especially if you get married later.

MarkBaynard: I can vouch for that. As can my ex. So … toilet paper … over or under?

Abby_Donovan: I was a staunch “over” until I got up one night and Buffy had unrolled the entire roll with her paws. Ginger or Mary Ann?

MarkBaynard: Oh, definitely Mary Ann. Everybody knows those wholesome, corn-fed Kansas farm girls are easy.

Abby_Donovan: I’m betting you’re a big Dorothy Gale fan.

MarkBaynard: I always preferred the Wicked Witch of the West myself. So passionate. So misunderstood. So green.

Abby_Donovan: What’s not to love about a woman willing to kill for a fabulous pair of shoes? Yankees or Red Sox?

MarkBaynard: Braves. I’m from Oxford, Mississippi, not Oxford, Connecticut. Gilligan or the Skipper?

Abby_Donovan: Thurston Howell III. Any man with that much money can call me “Lovey” and eat crackers in my bed all night long. Dorothy, Blanche, or Rose?

MarkBaynard: Sofia. Betty White will always be da bomb but I like a woman with experience. Angel or Spike?

Abby_Donovan: Spike. I never could resist a jerk with a Billy Idol complex, a Brit accent and a snarky sense of humor.

MarkBaynard: Whew! That’s a relief. At least the jerk part.

Abby_Donovan: Best song of all time?

MarkBaynard: That’s an easy one. The Who’s “Baba O’Riley.”

Abby_Donovan: Oh, I don’t think so. That would be discounting the seminal influence on the pop/rock genre of David Cassidy’s “I Think I Love You.”

MarkBaynard: Do you?

Abby_Donovan: What?

MarkBaynard: Think you love me?

Abby_Donovan: Don’t be impertinent. I’m not even sure I like you yet. Ah … here comes the food! The fresh tomatoes & rosemary smell incredible!

MarkBaynard: Shall we share a noodle like Lady and her Tramp?

Abby_Donovan: Not unless you want to get stabbed in the throat with a fork.

MarkBaynard: You’re such an incurable romantic! (Dodging the serrated edge of yr bread knife, I reach over & gently tuck a strand of hair behind yr ear.)

MarkBaynard: Abby?

MarkBaynard: Abby? Did my charms sweep you off your feet or did a power surge knock you off the Internet?

Abby_Donovan: You caught me off guard. I think I might be blushing.

MarkBaynard: If you want me to keep my hands to myself, I will. I won’t even lean over and lick the dab of marinara sauce from the corner of your mouth.

Abby_Donovan: Good. Because I don’t believe in licking on the first date. Wait … did that sound as bad as I think it did?

MarkBaynard: Worse. Now I’m blushing.

Abby_Donovan: Perhaps we should just move on to the dessert course.

MarkBaynard: Cannoli, biscotti, or tiramasu?

Abby_Donovan: Mmm … cannoli.

MarkBaynard: The waiter wants to know if you’d like your cannoli dipped in chocolate.

Abby_Donovan: If I said that to you, it would sound really dirty.

MarkBaynard: Everything you say sounds dirty to me.

Abby Donovan: What I’d really like is a box of nice hot Krispy Kreme donuts.

MarkBaynard: Now you’re just being a tease. Because I’d never be able to resist licking that glaze from the corner of your mouth.

Abby_Donovan: Or the bottom of the box.

MarkBaynard: Or the bottom of your shoe.

Abby_Donovan: Foot fetishist?

MarkBaynard: No … Krispy Kreme fetishist.

Abby_Donovan: Sigh … I may be falling in love with you after all.

MarkBaynard: If that’s all it took, you just might be easier than Mary Ann. Or Ginger.

Abby_Donovan: Like everyone didn’t know Ginger was diddling the Professor! That’s why he never fixed the radio. He didn’t want to get off that island.

MarkBaynard: If you could take one book on your 3-hour tour, what would it be?

Abby_Donovan: Peter S. Beagle’s A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE.

MarkBaynard: “The grave’s a fine and private place. But none I think do there embrace.” Andrew Marvell

Abby_Donovan: According to Mr. Beagle, Marvell was wrong.

MarkBaynard: How so?

Abby_Donovan: Because in the novel his characters learn to embrace both life and death and to realize it takes one to give the other meaning.

MarkBaynard: Is that what you believe? That life has more meaning because it’s finite?

Abby_Donovan: I sense a note of skepticism.

MarkBaynard: I’m just not convinced the poor schlub who ends his life puking his guts out in a hospital trash can would agree with you.

Abby_Donovan: What about you? What do you believe?

MarkBaynard: That life has meaning simply because it’s … life. You don’t have to go out and wrap your BMW around a tree to find the value in it.

Abby_Donovan: Where does that leave death? Is it without meaning?

MarkBaynard: There are meaningful deaths. And there are absurd and utterly meaningless deaths. Unfortunately, you don’t get to choose which one you get.

Abby_Donovan: Unless you’re Sylvia Plath.

MarkBaynard: Is that why you have an electric oven? Less temptation?

Abby_Donovan: If I had my choice of overdramatic writer deaths, I’d prefer to walk into the water with my pockets full of rocks like Virginia Woolf. You?

MarkBaynard: Death of choice? Choking to death on a Krispy Kreme. Unless “none of the above” is an option.

Abby_Donovan: Only if you’re a vampire. Which brings us back to Spike. Buffy or Faith?

MarkBaynard: Which brings us back to that threesome.

Abby_Donovan: Throw in Drucilla and you could make it a foursome.

MarkBaynard: I’ve always been more of a one-woman man myself. That’s how I ended up marrying my high school sweetheart when I was only 22.

Abby_Donovan: You know, it just might be bad form to talk about your ex-wife on a first date.

MarkBaynard: Oh, I don’t know. You never know when you might be interviewing your next ex-wife.

Abby_Donovan: How long were you married?

MarkBaynard: 9 years, 11 months and 17 days. Saved me from having to buy an expensive anniversary gift.

Abby_Donovan: Yeah, divorce lawyers are SO much cheaper. Were you the proverbial couple who got married too young?

MarkBaynard: Probably. By the time I was ready to grow up, she was ready to grow apart.

Abby_Donovan: Any kids?

MarkBaynard: A son. Dylan. He’ll be four in November.

Abby_Donovan: I knew it! That’s why you and Tinky Winky and Biff the Bunny are BFFs, isn’t it?

MarkBaynard: Ah, Biff and his beloved hedgehog Henry/ Henrietta. Their unrequited love is truly one for the ages. As long as the age is 3.

Abby_Donovan: Is your son named after Bob Dylan or Dylan Thomas?

MarkBaynard: Dylan from 90210. If we had twins I was going to name them Brandon and Brenda.

Abby_Donovan: Is he traveling with you?

MarkBaynard: No. He’s with his mother at the moment. I hope to see him soon. So have you ever taken a stroll down the aisle?

Abby_Donovan: No. I was going steady for a while after I came to New York but he broke up with me before I could make him Mr. Abigail Donovan.

MarkBaynard: Threatened by your meteoric rise to fame?

Abby_Donovan: Turned out he preferred artists of the starving variety. Dumped me for a sculptor in Soho who had never even had a show.

MarkBaynard: What did she sculpt?

Abby_Donovan: Mostly plaster casts of his penis.

MarkBaynard: Specialized in miniatures, eh?

Abby_Donovan: Now I KNOW I’m falling in love with you.

MarkBaynard: Did he break your heart?

Abby_Donovan: In his defense, I’m not sure I ever really gave it to him. I prefer to keep it in my safe deposit box at the bank.

MarkBaynard: Let me guess. You sleep with the key under your pillow.

Abby_Donovan: I’m beginning to think I might have lost it. Permanently.

MarkBaynard: I know this fabulous locksmith. I’ll give you his number someday …

MarkBaynard: We’re the last ones left in the cafe and I believe the hot-eyed Tuscan maitre d’ is giving us the evil eye. Shall we go?

Abby_Donovan: I’d say “Your place or mine?” but since we’ve already established I don’t lick on the first date …

MarkBaynard: It’s still a lovely night. How about if I just walk you back to the villa where you’re staying?

Abby_Donovan: The 16th-century villa with the marble floors, the frescoed ceiling painted by Michelangelo, and the climate-controlled wine cellar?

MarkBaynard: That would be the one. You are paying for dinner, right?

Abby_Donovan: So (I say as we stroll down a cobbled alleyway), how did you end up teaching English lit? A love of books or of shaping young minds?

MarkBaynard: A love of being tenured before I was thirty-five. The books and young minds were fringe benefits along with the 401K and the dental plan.

Abby_Donovan: I’m not buying your dimestore cynicism, Mr. Baynard. I’m convinced the wounded heart of a romantic beats beneath that sardonic exterior.

MarkBaynard: If you must know, I chose English lit because I wanted to wear one of those houndstooth jackets w/ the leather patches on the elbows to work.

Abby_Donovan: It’ll look fabulous on the dust jacket of your first novel.

MarkBaynard: Plus it was really the only possible vocational choice for a kid who used to carry a briefcase to grade school.

Abby_Donovan: I used to do that too!

MarkBaynard: Yeah, but if you’re a girl they don’t steal your lunch money and give you an atomic wedgie for it.

Abby_Donovan: You never did tell me what book an English lit professor would take on his 3-hour tour?

MarkBaynard: The Kama Sutra, of course. Especially if Ginger and Mary Ann were on board.

Abby_Donovan: And if you had to choose a book WITHOUT pictures? Tolstoy? Dickens? Updike?