Too Easy (2 page)

“Louise, heroin is a hell of a drug. Good luck.”

“You and Keith did heroin?”

“If you can think it, we did it.”

Louise blows smoke up, making a slow whistle. “Wow.”

“Please. That was then, this is now.”

“Oh, you think you've outgrown him?”

“I should hope so. Listen, I'm almost thirty-one. That three-oh messes with your head, let me tell you. And getting divorced. And something you don't know. Mom's been sick. Little stroke before Christmas. She's all right, but it makes you think. Dad bought it when I was young. Well, you know that.”

“Terrible night.”

“Yeah. Anyway, I thought Mom would be around forever. All of a sudden I'm looking at being the adult in the family.”

Louise leans back in the chair, trying to act sophisticated, the way Kathy is acting. They used to raise such hell together. “You think you've outgrown me, too?”

Kathy grimaces. “Come on, Louise. I'm real busy. New job. I'm working real hard.”

“Like it, huh?”

“Sure. I get it now. I used to think,
Who do these assholes think they are?
Now I know. They think they're bosses. I put myself in their place and I know exactly what they want. I do that plus a little more. Got to move on up, right?”

Louise watches her friend carefully. Kathy is different. The clothes, the makeup, the manner. Gone Manhattan. And there's something else. Not so tough? Happier? Got to be a man.

“Moving up in Manhattan,” Louise says, a little sarcastically. They used to call themselves Jersey girls. Always sneered at the snobby bitches across the Hudson. “So who's the new man?”

Kathy laughs. “Whoa, now you're a psychic. There's no new man. Come on, talk about Keith. Run it through again. He didn't threaten you, did he?”

“No, he just stood there with his insolent, fuck-you Elvis eyes. Got this motorcycle the size of a van.”

“Harley.”

“Right, a Harley waiting in front of my building. And the first thing he says is, ‘Hi, Louise. Still got the best bod in Jersey?' ”

Kathy laughs. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Do you?”

“Is this funny? The man's a lunatic. According to you.”

“But you didn't tell him anything. And he didn't threaten you. Or did he?”

“He's a threat standing there. Looks me up and down, then side to side—”

“Does he ever mention me by name?”

“Once. ‘So how's Kathy?' Something like that.”

“Louise. Please listen to me.” Kathy rubs out the cigarette, then leans over the table. “Don't play games with him. Don't talk to him. Just call the police. Period.”

“Like you said, he's a hell of a man.”

“Pleeeasse. Hey, you want to get out of here? Got enough?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Kathy places a ten and a five on the check. They put on their coats and walk outside into the cold afternoon.

“I just broke up,” Louise says. “Or I think I did. I'm a little tender.”

They walk along 43rd toward Fifth. “I get it,” Kathy says. “My ex looks like a little excitement. Believe me, that's the way he sees himself. Mr. Excitement. Look, all I ask, please don't help him find me. Nothing. Other than that, you're on your own. You want somebody to fuck you for three hours and then say, ‘See ya, bitch,' go ahead.”

Louise laughs. “Three hours?”

“The shit we did! I tell you now, you'll be dripping in the street. I tell you, Louise, he's probably been running drugs. If I'd stayed with him, he'd have me robbing banks.”

“How close did you get?”

“We were in Cleveland, then Cincinnati. Talked about it some. I think he's joking. He's not. Keith's not much for jokes. The things you think are jokes are usually something real important to him.”

The two women walk around the corner onto Fifth. There's a big crowd of people half a block up. An ambulance is backing slowly into the crowd.

“What the hell?” Kathy says. “Somebody got mugged right on Fifth Avenue?”

“This city! Makes me scared.”

They push into the edge of the crowd. Kathy can just make out a body sprawled on the curb. “Makes me mad.”

“Why do you want to live here?”

“Big leagues, it's still the big leagues.” Kathy nudges a man. “What happened?”

He shrugs. “I didn't see it. Car got out of control, ran up on the sidewalk. Got two people.”

“See,” Kathy tells Louise, “not a mugging, after all.”

“Same crazy city. Get you one way or the other.”

Kathy takes her friend's arm. “Come on.” They walk on toward 42nd. The big library across the street. “Could happen anywhere.”

Louise studies the other woman. More composed than she remembers. “I got it,” Louise announces.

“What?”

“The reason you won't tell me about the new man.”

“What?”

“He's married.”

Kathy stops and faces her friend. Smiling. They're on 42nd now, the sun slanting down on them. “I've got some plans. That's all I'll tell you. Might jinx it.”

“Oh, don't do it, Kath. Date a married man? Are you crazy?
Never works. They never leave their wives.”

Kathy stops smiling. “Oh, you think I could be some guy's plaything? A little girl lost in the big city? You think that, Louise?”

Louise is taken aback.
“Hey! I'm
just worried about you.”

“Yeah, well, good. But don't think I'm stupid. I'm not.” She softens, pats Louise's arm. “Fact is, the more I hang around here, I realize I'm pretty damned smart. The thing is, Lou, you just have to get in the game and play. Then you find out all the other people are pretty ordinary. Come on, let's lighten up. Walk me back to work. I'll pay your cab back to Hoboken. Fair? Really, I appreciate you coming over here. And don't even think about messing with Keith.”

Kathy laughs to herself.

“What?” Louise asks.

“Just thinking. Look, I'm not apologizing for anything I've done. Screw it. I'm not ashamed of anything. That doesn't mean I want to do it over. I don't want to be twenty again. Not even twenty-eight. I've got a new life. I think it'll be a good one.”

Kathy stops herself. No point in bragging, making her friend jealous. But yeah, when she thinks about it, when she looks ahead, things look real good. No guarantees, everyone knows that. But hell, things look good.

Louise is staring at her. Head tilted a little. Questioning maybe. Doubting.

“Louise, listen. You've got good instincts. Being a nurse must do that. Yeah, there's a married man. But he's not
that
married. One of those dead-end marriages.”

Louise challenges her. “How do you know that?”

“Hey, married eight years, no kids. What's that tell you? Look, I've seen them together, some big office party, before Christmas. No chemistry. So what's the point?” Kathy shrugs, smiling intently at Louise. “No point! I really think I'm doing her a favor. She'll get somebody more, you know,
suitable.
Then we'll have four happy people. The way it ought to be, right? Anyway, my guy deserves a lot more.”

Louise laughs nervously. “You?”

“Oh, you know more than that?”

Louise starts to argue. “No, sweetie, put it here.” She raises her hand for Kathy to slap. They laugh, then they hug. “Good luck, girlfriend.” Louise smiles bravely. “I'll keep Keith away.”

“Shoot him. He understands that. Man loves guns.”

Louise stares at her old friend. Her face confused. “You really don't miss him? Come on, Kathy. Really?”

“Another life, Louise. We were married four years and I want to forget all but maybe a week.”

“One great week, huh?”

“Spread over four years? Nothing great about it.”

They laugh some more, crossing Fifth Avenue.

•
 Robert and his wife, Anne, go out to dinner with another couple, Sam and Marie. They're good friends. He's a stockbroker, she's in banking. A pleasant, normal evening. Robert finds it reassuring. Everything in its place. And a long way from the craziness of Manhattan. And from Kathy.

The wives go to the bathroom and Sam says, “You got any problems? No, you don't.
I
took forty thousand of my own money up to three hundred thou, trading options. Losing it all as we sit here. I tell you, man, I go to work like it's death row.”

“Damn,” Robert says, “the whole three hundred thousand? Gone?”

“Hell no. There's fifty or sixty dollars left.” The other man laughs grimly. “And you know what? Marie cuts out coupons. She takes me to the grocery, tells me, ‘Look, dear,
I just saved twelve dollars.' Hard not to strangle her, right there.”

“You can't tell her about the options, huh?”

“You kidding? She just saved twelve dollars! Another world. . . . I
live
to trade. She couldn't understand. Heck, neither could the SEC.”

The two couples say good night in front of the restaurant. A chilly, moonless night. Robert stares at Sam's wife. Sam made a fortune, lost a fortune. She doesn't know word one. It feels strange, somehow lonely, to Robert. That he should know something so personal and she doesn't. He almost wishes Sam hadn't told him. It changed the mood.

Then, as they're driving home, Anne puts her face in her hands and starts crying. Robert stares disbelieving at the side of her face. His first reaction is guilt. Something he did, said, thought. . . . How could Anne know? Jesus, just one drink, Anne, that's all we did. Politics, we talked—

“Oh, Robert, I'm sorry.”

“Anne . . . what is it?” He drives with one hand, patting her back nervously with the other.

“Oh, nothing, really. Something at work.”

Robert sighs, a pleasurable feeling of relief. “Oh well,
tell
me about it. Damn. Don't keep it to yourself.”

“It's nothing, really. There's a lot of stress. You know that promotion . . . ?”

“Yes?”

“I'm just sure I won't get it.”

“Now . . . you deserve that.”

“Office politics.” She wipes her eyes, smiles bravely. Turning more toward Robert. He presses harder on her back. “Marie was just telling me how much she wants to have children. Sam hates the thought. He actually hates children. Isn't that strange? I felt so sorry for her. You like children, don't you? I mean, really like them?”

“Yes, I do. I really do. Whenever you're ready . . .”

“I tell you, some days at work, I think, drop it, go home, get pregnant.”

They're driving a winding, back road. Not much light. Houses hard to see. Abruptly a streetlamp shines on Anne's face. Robert can see the streaked makeup. She sniffs a little. He wants to help her, comfort her. . . . Damn. She gets upset too easily. Anne! Come on, be tougher.

Was she always like this? Age is scaring her? The career is too much? Robert isn't sure. She always had a certain reserve, a prim quality. But he thought of it as good breeding, as responsible, adult behavior. Things he thought he wanted in his own life. Maybe he's seeing her a different way now, asking for more. Maybe she hasn't changed at all. But he's seeing her as too well bred, too mature, too fussy.

He glances at his wife, watches her wipe her face. He can't imagine Kathy acting like this. He thinks of Kathy's easy manner, how she seems in control of things. Character, gumption, sass—whatever you want to call it, Robert thinks she's got it. Thank God. So many unhappy people in Manhattan, all whining about one thing or the other. Hard to imagine sometimes how the country ever got built.

Anne snuggles closer. “You're a good man, Robert.”

He hugs her with his right arm, smiling uneasily. She rubs his thigh. In that tentative way she has. He never knows whether they're going to do something or they're not. It never seems quite right to say, “Damn it, Anne, are we screwing or aren't we?”

He reaches their street, then the driveway. Turns the motor off. “Come on, honey. We'll get a nightcap. Something real expensive. You'll feel better.”

She puts her arms around his neck, leans on him. “Sorry I'm so silly tonight. It's just a bad day.”

Robert studies her face. She's pretty in a sensible, no-nonsense way. The blond hair not too long, permed close to her head. Blond? Mousy is more like it. God, that's it, we don't
even have kids, but Anne looks just the way a boy wants his mother to look. Nice but not too sexy.

Robert kisses her nose, then turns to open the car door. Yeah, he thinks, they say you marry a woman like your mother. Or you marry your mother, deep down? How's that go? Never mind. What a downer.

He unlocks the front door to their house. Aware of Anne standing close to him. Maybe they are doing something. Yeah, he wants to. But he's got this dread, already, that he'll fantasize about Kathy. Won't be able to stop himself. But he'll feel guilty and, what the hell, the next thing you know, he'll lose it. . . . Maybe
two
nightcaps.

“Oh, it's so beautiful and cold out here,” Anne says behind him. “Look at it, Robert. All the stars.”

He turns around to look at the sky. Then, off to his right, he notices the huge red glow of Manhattan. Hot and sexy. He wonders what Kathy is doing. . . .

He looks back toward Anne. Oh, damn, he thinks, she's going to dance around on the lawn. Fucking stars just make me feel small. Shrivel a guy's dick permanently. He remembers how morbid he could get at sixteen, looking up at the stars. Knowing they'd still be in the same spots when he was dead, and his children were dead, and their children. Fucking stars.

Anne runs back to him, pushing him through the open front door. “So,” she says, in the accent she uses when she feels playful, “you are feeling perhaps wild and crazy tonight, young man?”