Stay (18 page)

“Sit!” Louis gestured to the kitchen table, which was under a huge fake crystal and gold chandelier. He’d set the table for coffee, and the baklava was arranged on a pretty flowered plate.

Alex and I sat at the table and waited for Louis. Well, I waited. Alex snuck a triangle of baklava off the plate as soon as Louis turned his back. “I’m starving,” he whispered, and popped the baklava into his mouth. I liked how at ease he was in Louis’s house. I wondered how he and Louis knew each other, but Louis was busy pouring the coffee into a thermos pot at the other end of the kitchen, and Alex had his mouth full, so it didn’t seem like the right time to ask.

I looked around the room. The kitchen-living room area was an assault on my eyes. The rooms shared a wall, and the change from kitchen paint to living room paint seemed to have been made arbitrarily- a crooked, hand-painted line from ceiling to floor where foamy orange met mint green. The line from brown kitchen tile to canary yellow shag carpet seemed more planned, and came right before the doorway to the hall, about three inches after the line on the wall, as if Louis had run out of orange paint.

I stared at the wall like it was a piece of postmodern art at MoMA.

“Vannah, you like it?” Louis came over with the coffee thermos. I tried to find something to say about it, as Louis gestured to the living room. I hadn’t noticed the Pepto pink curtains. Luckily, most of Louis’s questions didn’t require answers.

“My first wife, she thought walls should be white, but Greta”-he sighed and gestured around the room-“Greta loved color.”

I wondered if Greta was responsible for the couch. It was brown and bulgy, like a fat old man.

“Vannah,” Louis said, sitting down, “you remind me of Greta. You have color.”

“Thank you,” I said. Alex laughed with his mouth full, and tried to hide it. He was already on his third piece of baklava.

“Takes me two days to make it, and you eat it in five minutes,” Louis said, pretending to scold Alex, but it was obvious he was pleased. He poured each of us a cup of coffee, and passed me the cream and sugar.

The coffee was rich and dark. “This is amazing,” I said.

“Chicory,” Louis said, “and some vanilla. You scrape it off the beans. Not this stuff from a bottle.”

“Louis is an excellent cook,” Alex said. “He’s giving me lessons.” I pictured Alex and Louis in aprons, covered with flour, like a Laurel and Hardy routine.

“A man should know how to cook,” Louis said, holding his index finger up. “None of this ‘man’s work’ and ‘woman’s work.’ A man should cook.” He elbowed Alex. “Women think it’s sexy.”

Alex turned bright red.

Louis looked at me. “Right? Right.”

I laughed. “He’s right,” I told Alex. “I personally speak for all women, and we do think it’s sexy.”

“What do I tell you?” Louis said to Alex. “You listen to old Louis. I know a thing or two.”

“Or three?” Alex said.

Louis shrugged. “Eh, three is pushing it.” He smiled at me and winked.

I loved being with them. I didn’t feel judged. I didn’t feel like I wasn’t good enough. It didn’t matter if I didn’t say the right things, or that I spilled coffee on my jeans. Joe slept happily under the table, with his head resting on my foot. Alex and Louis joked around and told me stories and were elated when I laughed with them. Louis told me about how, when Alex was a kid, he used to try to save all the desiccated worms stretched out on his driveway on a hot day. He collected them in a cup and hosed water on them to “wake them up.”

“I tell him, I say, ‘You leave those worms overnight and in the morning they’ll be fine.’ ” Louis laughed. “I didn’t have the heart-I’d wait until he went home and then I’d dig a bunch of fresh worms to refill the cup.”

“For the longest time,” Alex said, “I was convinced worms could be reconstituted. Before I left for vet school, Louis pulled me aside to tell me about the worms. He wanted to make sure I knew.”

“I didn’t want him to fail Biology,” Louis said.

“I already knew by then,” Alex said.

“Eh.” Louis winked at me. “I’m not so sure.”

I told them about the time I got chased by a goose at Gedney Park and fell in the pond in my Easter dress. “Oh, my mom was so pissed. Like full-name pissed. ‘Savannah Marie Leone! How could you?’ ” I said, copying her Long Island accent.

Alex snorted. “Oh, you know you’re in trouble when they pull out the full name,” he said.

“She made the dress herself and it was the first thing she’d ever tried to sew. It was hideous and crooked, but she was so proud of it, and she wanted to take Easter pictures. She went to the car to get the camera and came back to me looking like Swamp Thing. She didn’t see it happen, and she totally didn’t believe me. But that goose was mean. Hissing and everything.” I shuddered. “My mom made me pose for the pictures anyway. I had duckweed in my hair, and I was covered in mud. But we had pictures of it. A whole roll of film of me posing by the pond holding a tulip.”

We traded stories for hours. I gave them my best impression of Mr. Wright telling me about the pet weight limit. Alex showed me how he could bend his elbow back farther than anyone rightly should. Louis told us a joke about Dean Martin and the Dalai Lama that made absolutely no sense, but he had us laughing until tears ran down our faces anyway, because of the way he told it-many hand gestures and an absolutely awful Jerry Lewis impersonation.

We drank all the coffee and ate all the baklava, leaving only a sticky mess of honey and walnut bits on Louis’s milk-glass platter. Louis showed me his stamp collection, and wedding pictures from all three of his marriages, while Alex did the dishes, and Joe licked biscuit crumbs off the kitchen floor. I felt like I belonged there, like there was nothing at all weird about hanging out in a kitchen with my dog’s vet and his eighty-year- old friend.

When we were getting ready to leave, Louis noticed the pound cake sitting on the counter. He smacked his forehead and muttered something to himself in Italian.

“I think we’re too full for pound cake now,” Alex said.

“Tomorrow!” Louis said. “You come back tomorrow.”

“Louis, I’m sure Van is busy,” Alex said, sighing.

“No,” Louis insisted. “You can come back, right?” He shuffled us to the door and gave me a hug good- bye. “I have an idea. I have something important.”

“Uh-oh,” Alex said, laughing.

“No! Good!” Louis said. “Good idea. Tomorrow. Promise?”

We made plans to come back for pound cake and whatever Louis had up his sleeve.

Joe bounded out the door as soon as we opened it, and ran laps in the front yard until Alex opened the truck and let him in.

“You speak Italian?” I asked, as we pulled out of the driveway.

“I speak Louis,” Alex said, shrugging. “Sometimes there’s a little Italian thrown in with his English. If you’re around him enough, you just know what he’s saying.”

Joe was wide awake, after his leisurely nap on Louis’s kitchen floor. He sat up and looked out the window, growling, soft and low, whenever he saw a pedestrian or a motorcycle. Alex and I giggled at him.

When we turned down my street, Alex said, “Look, I really appreciate the way you humored Louis. If you don’t want to go back again tomorrow, just say the word. I mean, you thought you were getting a training lesson and the next thing you know you’re having coffee with Louis for three hours. Don’t feel like you have to go tomorrow too.”

Suddenly, I felt silly. Like maybe I’d humored too much or was too accommodating or somehow made it so that Alex couldn’t get on with his day. I mean, Alex had been trying to leave and I was the one who agreed to stay. And maybe I had overstayed my welcome. I started doubting everything. Maybe he hadn’t tried to kiss me at the park. Oh, God, I thought, picturing myself kneeling in the grass with my eyes closed, waiting for him to kiss me, when maybe he was just reaching over to pick some fuzz out of Joe’s fur or something. And maybe taking Joe to the park wasn’t a date. Maybe he was just helping me out of pity. I couldn’t trust my instincts anymore.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Either way, really. It’s fine.” I started playing back all the things I’d said. Everything I’d thought was witty suddenly seemed stupid and inappropriate. That story about the goose and the Easter dress, mimicking my mom’s accent. When I said that I spoke for all women about cooking being sexy. Good Lord!

When we got to my condo, I collected Joe’s new leash and collar from the backseat. “Thanks,” I said, holding them up. “And thanks for helping us.”

“Anytime,” Alex said, but that’s just something people say. He didn’t have to mean it.

I said a weak good- bye and got Joe and myself out of the car and into the house before I could embarrass myself any further.

I settled down to try to get some work done. I checked for an e- mail from my client, but there wasn’t one. I ran out to the mailbox to look for a check from my other client, but there wasn’t one. There was, however, the most obscene credit card bill I’d ever gotten. In addition to the charges for all the dog stuff I’d bought for Joe, there was the actual charge for Joe. Then the wedding charges: the manicure, the hair and makeup, that ugly, ugly dress and the final fitting, those stupid sandals and the elbow- length gloves. Plus, there were my regular charges: groceries, gas, and late- night trips to Wegmans for nonessentials like ice cream, Marshmallow Fluff, and beer. The bill was more than eight thousand dollars. Even if my client did finally come out of hiding and pay up, I wasn’t going to have the money to cover it. I’d just paid off my credit card debt from college, and here I was going under again at the worst possible time. I needed a new home. I needed a down payment and Realtor fees and moving expenses and good credit. And I needed a cushion, because I had no one to fall back on.

I tried to sit at my desk and do the little bit of work I had, but I couldn’t focus. I felt clammy. I rolled a highlighter around on my desk with the palm of my hand, listening to the ridges in the cap clicking against the wood, and I tried to clear my head. I caught myself breathing too much, but I felt like I wasn’t getting enough air. I wrung my hands. I ground my teeth. I got up and paced around. Joe got tired of following me, and collapsed on the floor with a big
harrumph
. I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I needed a distraction, badly. In the absence of one, I started replaying the whole date with Alex in my head, trying to figure out if it was actually a date, or if I just misunderstood everything. He’s been married before, I thought. Sarah Evans. And in my head, I saw Janie and Peter’s wedding all over again, except Alex was the groom, and he wore a red flannel shirt with his charcoal gray tuxedo. I pictured the vows. I pictured the kiss. I felt like my heart would break all over again. And before I knew it, my phone was in my hand, and I was calling Peter.

“Hey,” I said to his voice mail. I knew I’d get voice mail. I didn’t even know if he had international service, or what was involved in international service. And even if his phone did work in Paris or Düsseldorf or wherever he was on this leg of his honeymoon, I doubted he’d pick up. “Just thought I’d check in and say hi. I was thinking about you and just wanted to . . . say hi. So I hope you’re having a good honeymoon, and I guess I’ll see you when you get back, or you can always call me, and maybe we can talk about-” I caught myself. I realized what I was doing. I was panicking about the real things in my real life and I was turning to Peter, like he was actually the cause and the solution. Like maybe he’d finish what he almost said in the carriage house and we’d have this happy ending and all of a sudden everything would be certain and I wouldn’t be worried about stupid real stuff. And then all I could think about was Janie. The way her face crumples when she cries. Her top lip curls and her forehead wrinkles. Her shoulders shake and she sobs so quietly that you can barely hear it. “Say hi to Janie for me,” I said, and hung up.

I stood there staring at my cell phone. The screen said the call had taken fifty-four seconds. In fifty- four seconds, I could have done damage. I could have told him I loved him. I could have told him that when he came to see me in the carriage house, I thought he was about to say that he loved me. What if I’d said something real, that couldn’t be explained away, and Janie checked the message? What if she found Peter’s phone on the dresser and saw that there was a call from me? What if she decided to check the message because she missed me and just wanted to hear the sound of my voice and how my day was going? What if I’d actually said, “I love you. Leave Janie. Choose me.” I wished I could go back to before Peter ever met Janie, when sometimes I just wanted to hear the sound of Janie’s voice, and knowing how her day was going made me feel better.

I ran downstairs, grabbed my purse from the coffee table, and sat down on the couch. Joe jumped up and sat next to me. He pushed his nose into my purse while I tried to sift through old receipts and bent business cards. I pushed him away. He thought it was a game. He pawed at my hand and stuck his nose back in my purse, pulling out a granola-bar wrapper with his teeth. He jumped off the couch and proudly marched it around the living room. I took it away from him and went back to riffling through my purse. I was starting to panic. Joe ran upstairs and came back with his favorite rubber bone, jumped on the couch, and dropped it in my purse. “Stop it!” I yelled. He licked my cheek, completely unfazed. He took the bone back and settled down on the couch next to me to give it a good chew.