Plan C (38 page)

I wonder what Ben is doing in America just now. My elbows slump against the sink edge and I gaze out at the moon. For him it’s six hours earlier, but would he call my cell when midnight strikes here? Will he call my cell when midnight strikes there? And, if he did, would I finally take the call?

I place some dishes in the sink still gazing out the window. Is Ben staring at the same full moon right now? Does he wish he were kissing me? Is he missing my lips the way I’m missing his mouth, missing his smell? I miss the smell of his breath and the way I’d practically bury my nose under his, halfway between his lips and what felt like heaven.

My gaze picks up a shadow that’s moving in the courtyard below. I’m sure that this time it’s
not
a wild boar. In fact, it appears to be – yes, it is. It’s a man…

Kitty storms through the louver doors startling me from where I stand at the window. With Jacques practically on her heels, she loses her balance, but the kitchen counter saves her. Jacques is giggling. The effects of that last bottle of Cote-Rotie have clearly kicked in. I drop the tail of the curtain through which I’m spying at the man in the courtyard below. I’ve just realized who he is and I’m bursting to tell her…

“Kitty,” I say. “How do I tell you that the British are coming?”

“The British are coming…” interjects Jacques, dumping a gallon of ice from an ice bucket into the sink. He then lifts the trash bag from its barrel. “Excuse me,” says Jacques, knotting it. “I have a date with the downstairs dumpster.” He takes the bag and heads for the front door.

I turn to Kitty. “Listen, Clive said ‘he’s pathetic. A right chancer’ I think those were his words.”

“Clive
said
that about himself?” says Kitty, moving to the louver door.

“Not about himself! About Helmut.”

“Clive’s right,” says Kitty, stopping in the doorway and then turning back to me, “Wait, how do you know all this?”

“I called him,” I say. “After we got out of jail. I thought it was best.”

“No, you didn’t,” says Kitty.

“He knows everything…”

“Everything?”

“Well, almost everything. He saw Helmut’s latest wall on Facebook. All that bragging about signing with a new gallery. Clive thinks Helmut used you and then dumped you.”

“He’s right about that, too.” Kitty stares into the sink at the melting ice cubes as they slide toward the drain.

“Kitty, what I’m trying to say is that Clive is downstairs. I saw him in the courtyard! He’ll be at the door any minute!”

“You mean the Brit is
here
?” Kitty stands up straight. “
Now
?”

“And he said, ‘Helmut’s crazy to up and leave a woman like you. He deserves a good boot up the arse!’”

“That’s nice,” says Kitty grabbing the counter edge for support.

“Yes, it is! I asked him why he’s being so nice after all that you’ve done.”

“What did he say?” asks Kitty.

“Clive said ‘She’s appalling, infuriating, shallow. But I love her.’”

“Love?” says Kitty with a gentle slur, “But that’s so last year.” She lowers her head into the sink and then looks up. “Isn’t it?”

“No. And it’s about to be very this year.”

Kitty considers this for a moment, then lowers herself back to the reassurance of the sink. “I think I’m going to die.”

“Will you get your face out of the sink?”

“Why should I?” she gurgles.

“You can’t drown in less than an inch of melted ice.” I lift her head and she stares at me, a look of disgust coming over her blurry eyes. “Don’t you see how lucky you are, you crazy art dealer?” I say. “Clive is here. Downstairs. He’s been waiting in the wings all along.”

“Here? Omigod!” Kitty begins peeling at the edge of the linoleum counter.

“Kitty,” I say, “You’ve had such a damn hard-on about Clive and your crazy porn notion. The irony is that you’re the one who’s spent the last six months servicing some penis artist!”

“Hey, what’s that smell?” says Kitty lifting her nose.

My nostrils flare. I’m inhaling cinnamon and nutmeg. And chemicals. “It’s my pie in the oven!” I leap to the stove and pull at the door handle. But it won’t open. It’s locked. “Oh my god! It’s a French stove. I couldn’t read the buttons!”

“You’ve got it on self-cleaning mode!”

And down in the courtyard, a clearly intoxicated Clive is fumbling unsuccessfully for the light switch to the staircase. His fingers crawl across the wall, but he’s unable to find it. Mounting the steps very cautiously in the dark, he hears a rustling sound. Somebody is fast approaching. Clive squints and sees a man coming down the staircase carrying a green garbage bag that blocks his face.

Jacques lowers the bag, but Clive still can’t make out who he is. Is this bloody Helmut? Clive pokes an unsteady finger under Jacques’s nostril. His breath heavy with whiskey, he mutters, “I may know fuck-all about art, but I’m English. So I’m not going to make a fuss…”

Clive launches himself at Jacques, shoving him against a wall.

Jacques cries out, misses the wall, and tumbles down the last few steps into the courtyard, the over-filled garbage bag cushioning his impact on the cobblestones. Clive dives toward Jacques but misses, instead slamming his head on the cobblestones.

“Fuck!”

No idea who his drunken attacker is, Jacques stumbles to his feet, kicks the garbage bag out of his way and scurries through the back door of his restaurant, searching desperately for a weapon. He seizes the first large object he can find – a foot-long wooden pepper grinder. He swings it, just missing Clive, who is rising from the cobblestones, blood dripping from his eyelid to his nose.

“Well, we’ll just see about that!” says Clive lunging and missing Jacques again. Jacques drunkenly calculates Clive’s next move, holding the pepper grinder over his head and ready to swing again. Clive circles toward the backlit kitchen door and grabs
another
pepper grinder, even larger than Jacques. Like twin Musketeers, they circle each other, swinging and missing, swinging and missing, looking like complete fools.

“This is your big chance to get your man back,” I say to Kitty, holding her elbows firmly. “He’s come all this way to get you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Kitty, who always seems like she was born without tear ducts, begins to cry. But it’s me who’s now gushing like an opened fire hydrant. “Women want to be heard. Clive hears you loud and clear!” I say, wiping my eyes and sniffling. “So let’s practice how you’re going to behave and what you’re going to say, because here’s the deal… the past is past. This is your
big
moment.” I’m not sure what I just said made sense. I am drunk, after all, but Kitty’s nodding between whimpers, so somebody is buying it.

I suddenly find myself wondering what Emma Thompson would do? You know the actress… She’s been in so many of these situations in romance movies and usually with Brits.

“History doesn’t have to repeat itself unless you let it,” I say, very Emma Thompson in a petticoat and bonnet, and Kitty nods. Listen to me, doling out drunken advice that I ought to be taking for myself. If only Ben would come after me... “Now Kitty, you’re going to march into that room and let Clive in. Whenever he gets here. Lot of stairs…. And you’re not going to be a bitch. You’re not going to
interpret
or
interrupt
anything he says. Basically, you are
not
going to be Kitty for at least, five - well, no, let’s say ten minutes. Do you think you can do that?”

Kitty shrugs. “Yes,” she says. “I think I can do that.”

“Is this the booze talking?” I ask.

“Oh, stop,” says Kitty wiping her eyes. “I’ve learned a lot. And besides, this is no time for jokes.”

“Good. Now are you ready? Let’s practice this.”

“I said I don’t need to practice.” Kitty waves me away. “I’m going to be nice. I
am
capable of being nice. Even to the Brit.”

“Kitty…”

“Fine,” she says, and then correcting herself. “I mean I’m capable of being nice to Clive. My husband.”

“Good girl.”

Suddenly we become aware of slamming and muffled yells coming from the courtyard below. At the window we can’t see who they are but we can see their weaponry because the wildly-swinging pepper grinders reflect in the lamppost light.

As amazed as we are, we are even more amazed when we see, seconds later, the silhouette of a third Musketeer jumping from the bottom two steps, running to the restaurant’s kitchen door and emerging with yet
another
pepper grinder. Though this one is only six inches tall. Even the dog, General Patton, is completely out of control, jumping, nipping and barking ferociously at the grinder squad.

Kitty peers into the darkness attempting to recognize the scoundrels. She can’t. So she does what any drunken, slightly insane, damsel-in-distress would do. She throws open the window sash and screams into the blackened night: “Police! Police!”

I run to the front door and flick on the upstairs lights to illuminate the courtyard below. Like cat burglars caught in a spot light, the three men freeze, their grinders raised about their heads. They stare up to Kitty and me.

“Clive?” Kitty screams out the window. “What the
fuck
is wrong with you?”

“Great, Kitty,” I say, “Just like we rehearsed.”

Clive and Jacques lower their pepper grinders. “I was going to kill the bastard,” says Clive.

“Kill who?” asks Kitty.

“Helmut!”

“That’s not Helmut, that’s Jacques!”

“Another lover?”

“Of course not! He’s a goddamn famous chef, you useless dumb-ass half-wit Brit!”

“Oh I just love it when you’re
saucy!
” says Clive, beaming up at Kitty as if she were Rapunzel. As if he’d take her, throw her over the banister and have his way with her from behind right now, if only he could reach her. English men might not have great teeth but you have to admit, they’re blessed with huge dicks. According to Kitty.

“Are you out of your mind?” screams Kitty.

“Kitty,” says Clive gathering his composure. “I know I’m English and supposed to be well-mannered,
but get your fucking arse down here now.
Please.”

Seeing an opening, Jacques now decides to slam Clive over the head with the pepper grinder, knocking him to the ground. “That’s for ruining my soufflé!” says Jacques.

Clive looks as though he sees birds spinning round his brain. “Oh, blimey…” But he extends a shaky hand to Jacques. “Guess I had that coming. Sorry, mate. I had no idea…”

And then the third man steps from the shadows. It’s Screamin’ J Pepper.

‘Daddy!” yells Kitty.

“Father?” says Clive.

“Clive?” says Screamin J Pepper.

“Clive?” says Jacques. “Clive!”

Jacques brushes pepper off his pants and so does Screamin’ J Pepper brush pepper off his pickled pepper.

Clive, Jacques and Screamin’ J are babbling apologies when a breathless Kitty appears from the staircase and runs to Clive.

“Kitty…” says Clive, “I tried ringing but you don’t answer.”

“I was being aloof.”

“Aloof? Well I take you
very
seriously,” says Clive. “For fuck sake. I just had my
teeth
cleaned for you.”

“So?”

“At a dentist!”

“When a British man goes to a dentist…now that’s love,” says Screamin’ J Pepper.

“I took the first bloody flight I could. I want to sort this all out,” says Clive, sounding sincerely defeated. As well he might. Kitty was American, and he was British. As a country, they’d already lost us once. He didn’t want to lose America twice.

“I do love your honesty,” says Kitty.

“Well, I try to be honest, honestly, and apparently fuck everything up in the attempt…”

“No you don’t,” says Kitty. “I’m the fuckup. Now shut up and kiss me, you fool!” says Kitty, grabbing Clive by the collar, and pulling him in. And I thought I was playing Emma Thompson in this scene….

Watching them kiss, my emotions soar and then dissipate. Remember when the grammar school principal announces a snow day, then changes his mind, but you already had the sled out? It feels like that.

Mrs. Gagne and Princess Janey arrive in the courtyard. Mrs. Gagne makes her way to the restaurant to get a cold cloth and some ice for Clive’s forehead.

“Fancy a reconciliation, Kitty?” says Clive.

“Straightaway,” says Kitty, imitating Clive. The two of them gaze at each other for a heartfelt moment. Then Jacques grabs Clive’s arm. “Tell me, Clive… does Kitty always do what you say?”

“Not a once,” says Clive. “But that’s what I love about her.”

*

We have a lot of lovers in life, but only one true love. And with everything seemingly straightened out, I’m suddenly and acutely aware of the cold air making its way under my red dress and chilling my spine. It hasn’t quite reached my heart, which still beams with holiday colors – red for joy, and green for envy. I’m such a sucker for men who go after the girl. I love that Clive came after his girl. I love that their emotional dynamic excludes begging or proving of points. I love that when life offered Kitty a second chance, she took it. I love that Clive forgave her quickly and is kissing her slow. I
love that she’s ignoring the buzzing Blackberry vibrating in the pocket of her velvet blazer. I love that Clive is oozing with loyalty, chivalry, honesty.

It’s all so British - so “
Pride and Prejudice
” - with a bit of Austin Powers
International Man of Mystery
sprinkled in. Clive is such a guy’s guy - a
real
man. Gosh, I bet he even played rugby in college.

“Let’s go upstairs,” says Kitty to everyone gathered. “It’s cold out here. We’ll discuss everything in the morning.”

Okay, maybe it’s more like ‘
Sense and Sensibility
.’ But why does Kitty get to be that other Dashwood sister and I get stuck as the lonely maiden?

“Yes, back upstairs,” says Jacques. “We’re wasting a fine bottle of Margaux, and the clock is about to strike midnight.”

“The new year can’t be worst than this one,” says Kitty, molding herself into Clive’s side, and then pulling her father into her other arm.