Just Friends (13 page)

“Someone’s stolen my underwear!”

“I brought it in.”

“
You
took my underwear? Why?”

“Because—because it was dry!”

“So, where is it?”

“I don’t know.” How could anyone think about underwear when the Yankees were in trouble? He forced himself to concentrate. “I—uh, I think I left it in the bathroom.”

“And why exactly did you need to take my underwear into the bathroom with you?” Freya’s voice was suddenly steely.

Jack slammed down his paper. “I didn’t
need
to. I forgot I had the damn stuff. Jesus, Freya, stop looking at me as if I’m a pervert.”

“I’m not!”

“You are!”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Not.”

“Are.”

“Not.”

“For chrissakes, are you ever going to work?”

“Right now. Don’t be so touchy.”

“I’m not.”

“Are.”

“Not.”

“Are, are, are.”

Freya seemed to think this was an amusing game. Jack clamped his lips together, refusing to be caught again. Now Freya was leaving the kitchen. In a minute or two she would be gone.

But she wasn’t. First she brushed her teeth, then she disappeared to her room for what seemed hours, then she came out, went back in, came out, uttered a feminine little
tut!
of surprise as if she’d forgotten something, went back in, came out. Her footsteps clacked across the floor and she reappeared in the doorway, armed with her briefcase, standing as stiff and straight as if she had been frog-marched to this precise spot.

“I just want you to know how much I appreciate your having me here.” She spoke with the cheery spontaneity of a Greek messenger announcing a massacre in Sparta.

Jack grunted.

“Perhaps, as a gesture, I could make you dinner tonight?”

Ohhh, no. She wasn’t going to catch him that easily. “I’m going out.”

“Alternatively, I’ve noticed a number of broken electrical items in my room. If I could assist you by taking them to the repair shop—”

“No.” These women were as cunning as fiends. “I like them that way.”

“You like broken irons?”

“Definitely.”

“And broken alarm clocks?”

“Passionately.”

“And broken—?”

“I like everything except broken records. Stop nagging, Freya. If I wanted a wife, I’d be married by now.”

“
A
wife, singular? You’re slipping, Jack.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to go—like a public flogging?”

Hah! That got her. She tossed her hair, what there was of it, and turned on her heel. She was leaving!
Click-clack, click-clack
went her shoes—one of the five thousand pairs she had felt it necessary to stash in his study. He heard the front door open, the sound of traffic from the street, then . . . nothing. Time ticked by as he awaited the blessed slam of the door. It didn’t come. The pressure in his head became so great he feared his ears might fly off. What was she waiting for? Unable to stand the suspense, he lurched up from the table and strode out to see what was going on.

There she was on the threshold, head down, leg crooked to support a big, lumpy purse in which she was rummaging like a squirrel digging for winter nuts. Why did women buy bags that size if they could never find anything?

“Oh, Jack,” she said in a vague, maddening way, “do you have any quarters for the bus?”

“No. I do not have any fucking quarters for the fucking bus!”

She raised her head. There was an odd, shocked look on her face. He almost wondered if he had hurt her feelings. But then she shouldered her bag, stepped outside, and turned to present him with a phony smile.

“Good-bye, darling,” she cooed. “Have a wonderful day at the office. Aren’t you going to kiss me good-bye?”

Jack slammed the door in her face.

CHAPTER 9

When Freya returned from work that evening, she was relieved to find the apartment empty. After Jack’s deplorable bout of bad temper this morning, she had realized that Cat was right: men and women were simply not designed to live together in harmony. Besides, his absence gave her a chance to make some essential domestic improvements. She carried a large brown paper bag through to the kitchen and banged it down on the counter. From it she took a can of scouring powder, a bottle of toilet bleach, a scrubbing brush, cleaning cloths, rubber gloves. Mess was one thing; a shower cubicle where you could scratch your name in grime was another.

She hurried to change her clothes, not wishing to be caught by Jack in the middle of this demeaning job in case it gave him false notions about the roles of the sexes. The sight of her room was depressing. Small to begin with—a single bed at one end, Jack’s desk under the window at the other—it was now absurdly cramped. Stacks of shoe boxes took up most of the floor space, along with the suitcase she used as a chest of drawers. Her clothes hung high above the bed from a heating pipe. She might as well be nineteen again. Still, this was only a temporary arrangement. Tomorrow she’d get up early so she could buy the
Village Voice
hot off the press and check out the apartment rentals. With luck, she might find a cheap summer sublet.

Within a few minutes she had pulled on a T-shirt and ancient jogging pants and was standing in the shower in a snowstorm of scouring powder. She hefted the big scrubbing brush and set to work. It was surprisingly satisfying. Nothing could be duller than routine cleaning, but visible dirt was a challenge. After half an hour of steamy labor the light and dark gray tiles were revealed to be white and black, the toilet foamed with a sinister froth of chemical blue, and she could read the manufacturer’s name on the whisker-free basin. Since she was now so dirty and the bathroom so clean, it seemed a good idea to market-test her handiwork immediately by taking a shower. She had just finished rinsing shampoo out of her hair when the doorbell rang. It was almost certainly Jack, too lazy to face the effort of getting his own key out of his own pocket. Freya took no notice. She was not his butler, after all. Stepping out of the shower, she dried herself and slipped on her kimono, and was twisting a towel around her hair when the bell sounded again. Freya growled with exasperation. The idiot must have forgotten his key.

She slapped her way to the front door, leaving a trail of damp footprints. “Yes, suh, Massa Madison,” she croaked, in what she imagined to be a Southern accent. “I’s a-comin.”

But it wasn’t Jack. It was a young woman, whose expertly mascara’d eyes mirrored Freya’s own surprise.

Freya put up a hand to steady her towel turban. “Yes?” she inquired.

“Is—is Jack at home?”

“No.”

“Oh . . . He said to meet him here.”

“What for?”

“It’s Creative Writing night. We’re going together.”

“How sweet. You’d better come in.”

Freya stepped back and opened the door wide. She recognized the girl now. It was Little Miss ABC, Jack’s “student” from the other morning. With her cute, plump cheeks and flirty skirt, she looked about seventeen. As she jiggled past on high-heeled sandals, Freya was easily tall enough to see straight down her cleavage. That would explain Jack’s reference to her fine mind. Freya retied her kimono tightly around herself and followed the girl into the living room, watching her scan the apartment with a proprietary air, as if to check that Jack was indeed out. At length she turned back to Freya and gave her a pert, lip-gloss smile.

“I’m Candace,” she announced.

“The perfect name. I bet Jack calls you Candy, am I right?”

Candace flushed. “Sometimes.” Her little bunny nose twitched. “What’s that smell?

“Cleanliness. Marvelous, isn’t it? And before you ask, no, I am not the maid.”

“Who said you were?” Candace looked ruffled. “I saw you here Saturday. Jack said you were an old friend.”

“What a flatterer is he is!” Freya gave a brittle laugh.

“He didn’t tell me you were
living
here.”

“Men.” Freya rolled her eyes. “They’re so forgetful. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must hobble back to my knitting. Help yourself to anything you want from the kitchen—Diet Coke, lemonade, milk and cookies . . .”

And with that, Freya escaped to her room, cheeks flushed, lips set in annoyance. She disliked being caught at a disadvantage. Why hadn’t Jack warned her? A glance in the mirror showed her unattractively naked face, her turban askew, the fraying silk at the neck of her kimono. A contrasting vision of Candace’s coiffed and perfumed perfection rose in her mind. Candace was short and small-boned, with ripe flesh that swelled and bounced in all the right places. Freya scowled at her reflection. She must look like an alley cat next to a fluffy Persian kitten.

She threw off the kimono and rapidly started to dress in her favorite jeans and a skinny black top. Why did Jack always go for these brainless bimbos? She could barely remember the last girlfriend of his she’d liked. Freya’s face was stern as she slicked her damp hair behind her ears and began to apply makeup. Didn’t he realize how inconsiderate this was—how difficult it was for the rest of them, Larry and Gus and the gang, to have to deal with someone whose earliest cultural references were
Star Wars
and
Wham
? More than one reunion of old friends had been spoiled by some Candy or Mandy or Bonnie or Connie canoodling with Jack, when the rest of them wanted to relax and reminisce. It was time he grew up.

When she returned she found Candace charmingly posed on the couch, head bent over Jack’s copy of Aristotle’s
Poetics
.

“Only me,” said Freya. At least the girl had the book the right way up. Freya fixed herself a bourbon on the rocks and perched on the arm of a squashy chair, swinging one long leg. Candace stared at her warily.

“You’re Frieda, aren’t you?” she said.

“Almost. Eight out of ten. Actually, it’s Freya.”

“Jack said you lived uptown with your boyfriend.”

“I did.” Freya’s smile hardened.

“So, what happened?”

Freya hesitated. She did not need to explain herself to this pinhead. “If you must know, he wanted to get married and I didn’t.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Is that so difficult to believe?”

“No. I admire you,” Candace paused, “for making such a brave decision.”

Freya frowned suspiciously. “What’s so brave about it?”

“Just . . . I mean, at your age . . .” Candace lowered her eyes and shrugged. Her entire upper body seemed to sway and re-form with the movement, like a water balloon. Freya wondered how it would feel to be as massively endowed as that; it must be like having two giant guinea pigs stuffed down your front. Candace probably couldn’t see her own feet when she was standing up.

Freya folded her arms across her own, less seismic, frontage. “Are you implying that’s the last proposal I’ll ever get?”

“I didn’t say that. My Aunt Rochelle didn’t get married until she was forty-two. She never had children, of course. And she’s divorced now.”

“What an inspiring story. Thank you, Candace.”

They sat in silence. Candace looked at her watch. “He’s late,” she said.

“Jack’s always late.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Ten years. And you?”

A holy expression came over Candace’s face. “You can’t measure a relationship in time. Not chronological time, anyway.”

“Oh, well, if it’s
chronological
time you’re talking about . . .”

“I mean, with Jack and I it’s a—a coop de food.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Coop de food. It means, like, love at first sight. That’s French.”

“I see. How wise of you not to attempt the accent.”

Candace wasn’t listening. Her full lips parted in a secret smile, revealing sparkling, tombstone teeth. “When he walked into my first class I almost died,” she confided.

“Almost? That’s a relief.”

“Isn’t he just the handsomest man in the whole world? Those blue eyes . . .” Candace gave an ecstatic shiver. “Plus, I felt so in awe of his talent.”