The Sequel (3 page)

She leads him to the Beer Keg Tap on the corner. A broken neon sign over the front promises steaks and chops. But the place hasn't served food in thirty years.

Sunlight disappears as he steps into the long, dark bar, and the aroma of spring is replaced by beer fumes. Two men in blue work overalls are perched at the bar, bottles of Bud in front of them, arguing, their hands slashing the air as they both talk at once. A small TV on the wall above them shows a soccer game with the sound off.

The bartender is a pouchy, middle-aged woman with a red bandana tied around henna-colored hair, red cheeks, a long white apron over a yellow
I ♥ Beer
t-shirt. She leans with her back against the bar, eyes raised to the soccer game.

Zachary and his new friend slide into a red vinyl booth at the back. He sets the laptop on the seat beside him. He gazes at the vintage Miller Hi-Life sign on the wall above her head.

“Maybe I'll just have coffee,” he tells her. “It's a little early …”

“You're a lot of fun,” she says. It takes him a few seconds to realize she's being sarcastic. “Guess what I had for breakfast. Vodka and scrambled eggs. Breakfast of the czars.”

“You're serious?”

The bartender appears before she can answer. “What are you drinking?”

She asks for a vodka tonic. Zachary, a little stung by her sarcasm, orders a Heineken. He suddenly remembers: “I haven't had lunch.”

She smiles. “Then this is lunch.”

At the front, the two men walk out, still arguing.

She pretends to shiver, shaking her slender shoulders. “This is exciting, Zachary. We're the only ones here.”

She's a groupie? An author groupie?

“Tell me about your new book.”

“I told you. There's no book. There isn't a shred of an idea yet. I'm not blocked or anything. At least, I don't think so. I am just so ambivalent about writing a sequel. I think I'm setting up roadblocks for myself.”

The bartender sets the drinks on the table. “Need any nuts or anything?”

“That's okay,” he says. She walks back to the bar, the floorboards creaking under her shoes.

They clink bottle against glass.

Then
what do they talk about?

Here's where the time warp occurs. Zachary can't remember. Yes, he remembers another beer. No. Another after that.

He never was much of a drinker.

He remembers her red-lipped smile and the way those eyes penetrated his brain, like lasers, like he was the only one on the planet and she was determined not to lose him.

But what did they talk about?

And how did they end up in this pink and frilly studio apartment on the East Side? Such a girly apartment with pink throw rugs, and cornball paintings on the wall of children with huge eyes, and shelves of little unicorn figurines, and a pile of stuffed animals, mostly teddy bears and leopards.

Zachary doesn't remember a cab ride here, or a walk through the park. He feels okay, not drunk, not queasy the way he usually does after three or four beers.

He's sitting on the edge of her pink-and-white bedspread. She leans across the bed and starts to pull his Polo shirt over his head.

When did she get undressed?

She's wearing only blue thong underwear. Her skin so creamy. Small perfect breasts tilt toward him as she works the shirt off.

And now she's kissing his chest. Those full red lips moving down his skin, setting off electric charges. She's kissing him. Licking him. Lowering her face as her lips slide down his body.

Is this really happening?

Oh, my God—it is!

Afterwards, Zachary pulls on his clothes. Glances at his phone. He's late. Kristen is at a conference out of town. He has to get home to relieve the nanny. He feels light-headed. The girlish room tilts and spins. He feels as if he's inside a pink-and-white frosted cake.

I've never been unfaithful before.

She watches him from bed, quilted bedspread pulled up to her chin. Her black hair is spread over the pillow. Is that an
amused
expression on her face?

I held that face between my hands as we made love.

“Zachary, my dear, I'm your muse now. No. I'm more than a muse. I'll write that book for you. You can trust me.”

The words rattle in his brain like dice clicking together. He can't line them up to make sense of them. Can he be so wasted from three beers? Maybe it was four.

Why is she talking about his nonexistent book? She can't possibly think she can ghostwrite a sequel for him.

“Of course, there will be a price, Zachary,” she is saying. “Everything has a price, right?”

He nods in agreement. “Okay,” he says. “You write it.”

Later, he realizes he wasn't as delirious as he acted. He just didn't want to admit to the reality of what he had just done.

And he didn't want to face the truth of what he was giving her permission to do.

“Yes. Okay, okay. Write the book for me. I don't want to write it. You write it.”

“You understand it isn't for free?”

“Yes. You write it.”

He tells himself there will be time to let her down easy when her manuscript is unacceptable. Meanwhile, the project will keep her close to him. Yes, he wants to see her again.

I've never been unfaithful before.

He sits on the edge of the bed to tie his sneakers. The room suddenly feels steamy, swampy. His skin prickles.

He stands up to leave. He feels unsteady, but not as unsteady as he'd like. If only he could blame his bad decisions on his dizziness. The little unicorns gaze up at him.

She's so beautiful. She didn't hypnotize him but she could have. He knows he's fallen under some kind of spell, just being near a creature so perfect.

She doesn't lift her head from the pillow. Just lies there watching him, her hair fanned out beneath her head. “Give me a kiss,” she says, pleading, teasing.

He bends down to kiss her. She wraps her hands around his neck and holds him down for a long, thrilling kiss. “I'll see you at the library,” she says when she finally lets him go.

He starts to feel more like himself as soon as he is out of her apartment. The late afternoon air feels cool on his hot face. Long blue shadows slant across the sidewalk as the sun slowly lowers itself behind the tall apartment buildings across the street.

Where is he? Zachary doesn't recognize the neighborhood. He walks a few blocks, past a Gristedes supermarket, past a Duane-Reade, past a shoe repair store, until he finds a street sign. Surprised to find himself on 2nd Avenue. 2nd and 83rd Street?

How did I get way over here?

He steps off the curb to hail a cab. Several pass with Off-Duty lights on their roofs. It's change-over time. Most daytime drivers are heading to their garage. It might be hard to find a cab.

Zachary suddenly becomes aware of a figure standing in the deep shadow of a building at the next corner. He doesn't have to focus to know it's Cardoza.

A shudder of fear snaps Zachary from any remaining cloudiness of his mind. All is clear now. The sight of this frightening pursuer makes Zachary alert, every muscle tensed for action.

He is stalking me. He is determined to frighten me.

He sees Cardoza begin to lumber toward him. The big man's fists pump at his sides, as if he's warming for a fight.

Zachary turns, considers running. He doesn't need to. A taxi pulls to the curb. Zachary darts to it, pulls open the door, and dives inside.

He breathlessly tells the driver his address. The taxi begins to bump down Second Avenue. Zachary turns and peers out the back window. Cardoza stands with his meaty hands on his waist, still as a statue, watching … watching Zachary escape.

Zachary slumps in the seat, struggling to catch his breath, to slow his hummingbird heartbeats. Someone has left a water bottle on the floor of the taxi. It bumps Zachary's foot. He makes no attempt to set it aside.

Stalking me.

How did he attract these two new people in his life? One accuses him of stealing his book. The other wants to write the next book
for
him.

Zachary turns and stares out the back window again. He has to make sure he has left Cardoza behind. When he is satisfied that he has escaped, Zachary turns back, settles into the seat—and utters a gasp.

He slaps the seat with his palm. He twists his body and looks behind him on the seat.

No. No.

His laptop.

No. It isn't here.

He left it in her apartment.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Z, how's it coming along?”

“And how are
you
, Eleanor? How was your day?”

“I'm hoping you will improve my day, Zachary. I need a yes from you.”

“Eleanor, do you ever take a break to be a human? Do you ever stop working?” Zachary balances the baby in one arm, the phone in his other hand. Emily is just the right nestling size. He loves her lightness, the way her round bald head feels on his shoulder.

“Stop working? I don't think that would be fair to my clients.”

Zachary laughs. “Just saying. The way you always cut right to business. Sometimes I wonder if you have a life.”

“
You
are my life, Z. Enough about me. Now let's talk about the Howard Striver sequel. I need a yes from you today. I wasn't kidding about that million dollars.”

“Yes,” Zachary says.

“Yes? Did you just say yes?”

“Yes, I'll do the sequel.”

Silence at the other end. She's speechless for once. He can
see
the surprise on her face.

“Well, good,” she says finally. “I'll let them know. We can have a lunch and discuss delivery date, etcetera.”

Emily starts to cry, soft gulps at first, then full-out blasts. He sits down and shifts her to his knee. “Got to run, Eleanor. Baby's crying. I think she's hungry.”

“I know the book will be a winner, Mr. Z. And maybe a sequel will help get the movie out of development hell. You never know.”

Did she ever congratulate him or compliment him on the baby? He can't remember her ever acknowledging this new addition to his life.

She really
isn't
human.

He clicks off the phone and tosses it onto the couch. He carries Emily to the changing table. Maybe that's why she's crying.

I wish Kristen would get home.

He feels a flash of guilt.

And then more than guilt. He's just promised a new book, and he doesn't even have his laptop. And in a moment of sheer insanity, he told a woman, a total stranger, she could write the book for him.

How crazy was that?

If he could undo the day …

Maybe he still can.

When the nanny arrives the next morning, he hails a taxi and returns to 83
^rd
and 2
^nd
. It shouldn't be difficult to find her building. He passes the shoe repair store, the supermarket, the drugstore. He stops at the corner, shielding his eyes from the low morning sun.

Was it the redbrick building across the street? It doesn't look familiar. He turns and gazes at a tall white apartment building on the east side of 2
^nd
Avenue. Cars are parked in a short, circular driveway that leads to the entrance.

He doesn't remember a driveway in front of her building. But the other buildings don't look familiar, either.

He can't ask for her, he realizes. He doesn't know her name.

I never even asked her name.

He doesn't know her name and he doesn't know where she lives. And, of course, he was too dazed and besotted to get her phone number.

Classic stupidity. But then the word
library
flashes into his head.

“Whoa. Yes,” he murmurs. “The library.”

She will return to the library and bring his laptop. Why did he go into such panic mode? Well, can you blame him? Writers don't like to lose their laptops (or leave them with total strangers).

Zachary feels a stab of fear as a large man in a pale blue business suit rapidly crosses 83
^rd
Street. Cardoza? No. Another broad-shouldered, sandy-haired man taking elephant strides.

You're going to have to confront Cardoza. You can't be afraid every time you leave the apartment.

He studies the apartment buildings again. It's useless. He takes a taxi back across town to the library on Amsterdam. The reading room is empty. He nods to the librarian at the front desk, who doesn't look up, and makes his way downstairs to the children's room.

Zachary glances around. No sign of the young woman. The room is empty, as before. A very slender man with tall spiked blond hair over a frog-shaped face, and square, black-framed glasses approaches him. “I'm the children's activity director. Can I help you?”

“Well …” Zachary hesitates. He plans to stay down here and wait for the young woman with his laptop. But it might be awkward sitting by himself in the children's room. “I'm doing research on fairy tales,” he says. “Can you direct me to the right shelves?”

He doesn't realize this is only the beginning of a very long week.

For five days, he waits at the table in the children's room, a stack of fairy tale books in front of him. He reads every collection, fairy tales from a dozen countries. He becomes an expert on witches and elves and princesses, evil spells, cauldrons of poisoned soups, power-mad queens, orphans lost in the forest, dragons and angels and talking owls. He spends the week in this terrifying otherworld, and the young woman doesn't show up.

Should he forget about her? Chalk the whole thing up to a crazy, weird experience? Buy a new laptop and get back to his life?

He admits to himself that he really wants to see her. He wants to see her beautiful, almost perfect face and hear her whisper-smooth voice. Yes, he has sexual fantasies about her all the time. But he just wants to see the blue eyes, the red lips, the angel-white skin …