Love Sold Separately

by Ellen Meister

  “Lorenzo,” she said. “Even felons get to keep their names.”

  “You’re still seeing him?”

  “What’s a felons?” Wesley asked.

  “It’s a bad man,” Kenneth said. “A criminal.”

  Dana tsked. “It’s a man who made a mistake.” This was a hell of a time to be sticking up for Lorenzo, but she refused to give her father a free pass on his tiresome bullshit.

  Confused, Wesley looked from one parent to the other.

  “A felony is a type of crime,” Brandon explained, “and a felon is a person who commits it.”

  “So he is a bad man,” Wesley said to Dana.

  “It’s a little more complicated than that, sweetie,” Dana said.

  “I liked him actually,” Brandon said.

  Wesley wedged in between his parents on the couch. “You liked a bad man?”

  “Why don’t we change the subject?” Chelsea suggested.

  “Great,” Dana said. “I was going to ask you what I should wear for the elopement this weekend.”

  “She’s kidding,” Chelsea said to the group, and then turned to her sister. “You are kidding, right?”

  Dana exhaled. “It’s not even a serious relationship.” She could have added that, at this point, she wasn’t sure if there was any relationship at all. But she wasn’t going to give her father the satisfaction.

  “Thank God for that,” Kenneth said. “Maybe the young man we in—”

  “Hang on a second, Ken,” Jennifer cut in. “I need to apologize to Dana first.”

  “Apologize?” Dana asked.

  Jennifer let out a sympathetic breath. “I set up this dinner party before I met Lorenzo. Your father had told me you weren’t seeing anyone, and so I suggested he invite a colleague. I’m sorry. I hope this isn’t too awkward.”

  A colleague of her father’s? For her? It was unbearable to even contemplate. She pictured a pasty-faced neurologist. Or maybe some overtanned anesthesiologist he played tennis with. A guy with dyed black hair and capped teeth. A gold neck chain.

  “It’ll be fine,” she said to Jennifer, trying to tamp down her resentment. It could be a long night. “As long as he’s not expecting a love match.”

  “He’s a doctor,” her father pronounced, as if that was all she needed to know.

  “So?”

  “So maybe you should give him a chance.”

  The doorbell rang, and Jennifer went to answer it. At first, Dana assumed the guy standing in the doorway with a bouquet of lilies had the wrong apartment. This couldn’t possibly be a colleague of her father’s. He was young. Very young. A boy. Twenty, maybe? No, not twenty. Maybe twenty-four, with one of those doughy faces that stubbornly refused to mature. His protruding cheeks were smooth, like they couldn’t yet grow a beard. Even so, he wore enough aftershave to smell clear across the room. He was small and round, with thinning hair and a low center of gravity—the kind of guy it would be hard to knock over.

  “Good to see you again,” Jennifer said, giving him a kiss on the cheek and accepting the flowers. She turned to the group. “Everyone, this is Rusty Lindemuth.”

  As they were introduced, Rusty’s eyes lit on Dana and his entire face changed. It was rapture, like he had just seen the Lord. His eyes went wide and wet as he disappeared into his own stunned reverie. Oh, no, Dana thought. Not this. Please, anything but this. A lot of men skimmed over her lanky body without a pause. For them, she was not the kind of girl who made the rocking world go ’round. But there were others—often with arrested development—who projected onto her their thwarted teenage desires. Her gamine silhouette, combined with her womanly sexuality, made her an object of intense desire. She could spot these guys a mile away, and Rusty was only a few feet from her. Dana wished she had made a different wardrobe choice. At the very least, the dominatrix boots were a mistake.

  “Nice to meet you,” she said.

  There was a pause, and then he said, “Oh!” as if awakening. “Hello. Hello, Dana. Nice to meet you, too. Very nice.” He grabbed her hand in his soft, damp palm and shook it vigorously.

  Jennifer steered Rusty into the kitchen to get him a drink, and Dana whirled toward her father as she wiped the kid’s hand sweat on her jeans.

  “What the hell, Dad?”

  “Excuse me?” He seemed utterly perplexed.

  “You seriously thought this guy was a match for me?”

  “He’s a nice young man.”

  “He’s twelve.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s a student of mine. Must be in his midtwenties.”

  “He does look pretty young,” Brandon agreed.

  “I was thinking he might enjoy the Dr. Seuss book,” Chelsea added, smirking.

  “My book?” Wesley said, delighted to be a part of the conversation. His mother patted his head.

  Dana stared at her father. “I thought you said he was a doctor.”

  “Close enough,” Kenneth said. “Top of his class at Columbia. His internship starts in the fall.”

  “Dad, I’m twenty-nine years old.”

  “You’re making a big deal out of a few years.”

  “They’re important years,” Chelsea said.

  “Isn’t this what you gals call a double standard?” Kenneth asked. “If the age difference were reversed—”

  “He’s got a point,” Brandon said.

  “He’s just saying that to justify his age difference with Jennifer,” Dana said.

  The conversation abruptly ended when Jennifer and Rusty emerged from the kitchen. Dana picked up a deviled egg and sank deep into the chair, hoping to avoid a conversation with Rusty. She worked assiduously on the canapé, taking tiny, careful bites.

  “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes,” Jennifer announced as she began setting out plates of salad on the table just a few feet away.

  Chelsea asked if she could help and Dana was sorry she hadn’t thought of it first—an excuse to be occupied. But Jennifer waved it off. She had everything under control.

  Rusty took the straight-back chair next to Dana’s. She avoided his eye as she nibbled away, and he pressed his damp fingers on her leg to get her attention.

  “You like eggs?” he said.

  “Who doesn’t like eggs?” she snapped. She hadn’t meant to be rude. But for heaven’s sake, he’d have to be a little less of an idiot if he wanted to have an actual conversation.

  “I like eggs,” Wesley said. “But not these eggs. These are devil eggs.”

  “Deviled,” Brandon corrected, with an emphasis on the final D.

  “What’s that stuff on them?” the boy asked, a small pointed finger hovering close to the food.

  “That’s paprika,” Chelsea said. “It’s a spice. You’d like it.”

  “I’d vomit.”

  “That’s not nice, honey,” Chelsea said. “And you wouldn’t vomit.”

  Wesley stood in front of Rusty, his arms straight down at his sides, his little belly protruding. “My friend Ahmed is allergic to eggs. They could kill him dead.” Abruptly, he put his hands on his throat and let his head fall forward as if he’d been murdered.

  “That’s called anaphylactic shock,” Rusty said.

  Wesley looked at him and then back at his parents. “What is this guy talking about?”

  “It’s a medical term,” Brandon said.

  Wesley contemplated that and turned back to Rusty. “Are you a doctor?”

  Rusty sat up straighter and stole a glance at Dana. “I will be.”

  “You give people shots?” the boy asked.

  “Sometimes.”

  “I’m four,” Wesley pronounced.

  “Oh.” Rusty looked deflated, and Dana could tell he’d hoped to get more traction on the doctor topic.

  “Are you twelve?” Wesley asked him.
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  The mood in the room shifted as Brandon, Chelsea and Dana traded looks. Chelsea opened her mouth to intercede but Rusty responded earnestly before she could get anything out.

  “I’m twenty-five.”

  “That’s more than twelve, right?”

  “Quite a bit.”

  Wesley turned to Dana. “Aunt Dana, he’s not twelve.”

  “You know,” she said quickly, “all this talk about vomiting and anaphylaxis has gotten me hungry.” She stood and turned to Jennifer. “Would you like us to move to the table?”

  They were only seated a few minutes when Dana felt her cell phone buzz in the pocket of her jeans. She surreptitiously pulled it out and placed it on her thigh, glancing down at the screen. It was a text from Lorenzo.

  You free later? Sophia is sleeping at a friend’s.

  Dana mixed her salad around as she decided how to respond.

  “Let me know if you find anything good,” Rusty said, pointing to her salad bowl. It was meant to be a joke, but it made her want to stomp on his foot. She didn’t appreciate having her eating habits scrutinized with a running commentary. Dana ignored the remark, but he was unperturbed.

  “Are you a model?” he asked, and she could see how thrilled he was at the thought of it. His eyes danced with joy.

  “I’m an actor,” she said.

  “Don’t you mean actress?”

  “Would you call Jennifer a doctress?” she asked him.

  “Not if he values his life,” Jennifer said.

  Everyone laughed, and Dana managed a smile. “I rest my case,” she said.

  Jennifer began to tell a story about sexism she had encountered at medical school, and Dana stealthily tapped out a reply to Lorenzo.

  Probably not.

  She went back to her salad and her phone buzzed again.

  Why?

  She typed, At dinner party sitting next to a young doctor who wants to fuck me.

  Let him simmer in that, she thought as she went back to trying to pierce a grape tomato with her fork. Her phone buzzed again, which surprised her. She thought he’d go quiet after that.

  I don’t blame you for being mad.

  She responded quickly and sarcastically.

  Big of you.

  Dana was pretty sure everyone at the table knew she was secretly looking at her cell phone, but they were all too polite to say anything. Except Rusty, that is.

  “I guess you have a lot of boyfriends,” he said.

  She landed her fork into the tomato. “Just one.”

  Rusty Lindemuth blinked painfully, as if he were the one being pierced. Dana knew she had hurt him, but damn it, he left her no choice. Her father had undoubtedly led him to believe she was available, and clearly Jennifer hadn’t set him straight when she pulled him into the kitchen. So what was she supposed to do—let him go on believing he had found his soul mate? And anyway, what kind of guy got so instantly besotted? He didn’t know a thing about her.

  “Is it serious?” he asked, his eyes pleading.

  She let out a breath. “I don’t know.”

  The glint returned to his eyes and Dana sank. She hadn’t meant to give him hope. Her phone vibrated again and she glanced down.

  There was a reason I couldn’t tell you what was going on.

  She typed back, Why? Were you robbing a bank?

  She put the phone on her chair and stood to help Jennifer clear the salad dishes.

  “Sit, please,” Jennifer said. “Kenneth will help me.”

  And then, to her complete shock, Dana’s father rose and began clearing the table. In her entire life, she had never seen her father lift a finger to help her mother. Not once. She wanted to break something.

  Dana sat back down and typed out another message to Lorenzo.

  Well?

  Her father came back into the room carrying a platter of lemon chicken, which he set ceremoniously in the middle of the table.

  Another message from Lorenzo came through.

  No, but I was in violation of parole.

  She responded, WTF?

  As Jennifer laid out the side dishes, Dana noticed something that had managed to escape her attention earlier. A brilliant square-cut diamond engagement ring. It caught the light with such dramatic sparkle it was practically alive. Dana looked up to see if anyone else had noticed, but they were all engaged in conversation. When she looked back, Jennifer was seated, her hand hidden beneath the table. Dana looked at her face, and she quickly looked away. She knew Dana had seen it.

  “Dad?” Dana said. “Do you have something to tell us?”

  Chelsea put down her fork. “What? What’s going on?”

  “We were going to wait until after dinner,” Jennifer said. “But I guess the cat’s out of the bag.”

  “Did I miss something?” Chelsea asked.

  Dana conveyed the story to Chelsea with some very simple sign language. She pointed to the place on her own finger where an engagement ring would be and then cocked her head toward Jennifer.

  “Seriously?” Chelsea asked.

  “Is there some sort of secret female communication going on here?” Brandon said.

  “Where’s the cat?” Wesley asked, looking under the table.

  “There’s no cat, honey,” Chelsea told him. “It’s an expression.”

  Dana’s phone buzzed. She glanced down.

  Was in PA overnight. Not supposed to leave the state.

  She wrote back, What were you doing in PA?

  Kenneth reached over and took Jennifer’s hand. “We invited you here tonight for a reason. We have some news. Jennifer and I are getting married.”

  “I couldn’t be happier,” Jennifer said. She and Kenneth shared a look of pure love before she turned back to the group. “Your father is the dearest man I ever met, and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with him.”

  Her father? A dear man? Dana was tempted to ask Dr. Lafferty if she’d been dipping into the propofol. Another text from Lorenzo buzzed in.

  Interviewing for a job at QVC.

  Chelsea and Brandon rose to offer hugs and congratulations to the happy couple, but Dana remained stuck to her seat. Lorenzo was planning to move to Pennsylvania and hadn’t bothered to tell her. She wondered how long he had been pursuing it and keeping it a secret from her. Hadn’t he said something about being free to move away once his parole ended next month? She felt like an idiot. He’d been planning on leaving all along.

  It was just like his deception about Kitty. He’d kept it from her because he didn’t trust her to do right by him. Dana felt like she’d been played.

  And now this. Her father—who was barely civil to his wife and daughters for their entire lives—had become a tender soul, making a new life with a woman who, Dana had to admit, seemed pretty damned terrific. But where was this man when his mother needed him? Where was he when she needed him?

  Dana stood, choking back a lifetime of hurt, and congratulated the happy couple. Then she picked up her phone and, using her facile thumbs, told Lorenzo to go fuck himself.

  27

  She spent the rest of the weekend ignoring Lorenzo’s texts and studying the second act of Mrs. Woodbridge until she had every line memorized. It was important, because they were blocking the final scenes this week, and she wanted to be sure she was ready. I shouldn’t be involved with someone, anyway, she told herself. I should be concentrating on my work. The job and the play are enough.

  At work on Monday, Dana was with Irini getting into wardrobe when Ollie knocked on her dressing room door and said the sound engineers asked if she could get down to the studio a few minutes early.

  “You need I should leave now?” Irini asked her.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Dana said, because she knew the request had come straight from Lorenzo, who was trying to
get some time alone with her. She still had no desire to hear his excuses.

  “I’ll take care of it, Ollie!” she called, but didn’t go down to the studio until the very last minute.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” Lorenzo whispered as he clipped on her mike.

  “I know.”

  “Maybe after the show?” he asked.

  “I’m busy.”

  “Dana—”

  “Sixty seconds!” the tech director called.

  Lorenzo huffed, and Dana ignored him. He turned on her mike and backed away. She hit her mark, looked straight into the camera and waited, trying to remain focused. Adam was out that day, and Dana was concerned about what might happen without him on set making sure everything was okay. But Sherry had assigned a substitute producer, and Jessalyn had assured her everything was in order. So Dana psyched herself up. It was going to be a great show. The best! It was a Bastina day, after all, which meant the time would fly by, and before she knew it, she would be all finished and on her way to rehearsals.

  And then Dana heard a familiar female voice in her earpiece. It was Emily. At first, Dana thought there must have been some sort of last-minute emergency with the substitute segment producer. But no, Sherry had actually assigned her assistant to the task. What the hell? Producers needed to supervise the entire operation. What did Emily Lauren know about inventory tracking and camera angles and the pressures of live broadcasting? At the very least, if she was going to turn the job over to a rookie, it should have been Jessalyn, who was on set every day and made it quite clear what her ambitions were.

  “Relax,” Emily said. “I have Sherry here, walking me through this. We’ll take good care of you.”

  Great, Dana thought. Just what I need. A neophyte and a fire-breathing dragon.

  But after a couple of awkward moments, the show went smoothly. Bastina made the four hours pass quickly as the two of them chatted and gushed and sold, sold, sold. At last the time ran down, and Dana could hardly wait to take off. She got ready to introduce Vanessa’s show, and glanced at the set to her right, where she expected to see the other host standing by the display. But there was no one there. Dana tapped her earpiece, a signal to Emily that she needed guidance—and she replied that she needed to stretch. Apparently, Vanessa was held up somewhere.