“And what is he doing in my bed?” She turned to me now. “What are you doing in my bed?”
“I’m very sorry.” I wrestled to pull my pants back on, managed one leg, tripped and fell over. “You must be Miranda. I was under the impression that you wouldn’t be home tonight.” I held my hand up from the floor as a peace gesture. She didn’t shake it in return.
“Well, you thought wrong.”
“Chill out, girl. I commanded him to sleep in it. You heard me, commanded. It’s not like he had a choice in the matter.”
“And whose wedding are you here for?” Miranda caught her breath now. “You scared the bejesus out of me. And Leah’s not exactly the marrying type.”
“Mine.” Richie cracked his lips and lifted his chin at the thought of it, potentially as a performance for Mahoney's film. “I’m gonna be the first married gay man in New York City history.”
“You don’t even have a boyfriend.” She tightened the corners of her mouth. “You and Robbie broke up last month.”
“We decided it would be best to see other people. And besides, this is arranged.” His grin widened. “You know what they say about arranged marriages. Commitment comes first, and then the floodgates of love pour in.”
“Uh-huh. And where does this mystery man live?”
Richie turned to me. “Where does he live?”
“The weddings in New Jersey,” I stood up.
“There you have it, the weddings in….” Richie froze. “New Jersey? There must be some sort of mistake.”
Miranda playfully slapped his cheek. “I can’t wait to meet him. Sounds like a keeper. I hope you like your new life in the suburbs. You’ll totally fit in.” And then she turned back to me. “And if I ever catch you rummaging through my underwear unannounced again….”
“Sleeping through your underwear,” Richie said. “There’s a world of difference there, Hun.” And then he thought about it. “Of course, knowing you; maybe not.”
“Whatever…I’ll grab you by the longhorn and titty-twist that screwdriver until the pecker falls right off.”
“Ouch.” Richie held five fingers up to his lips. “Is that how you girls play with it nowadays? No wonder I’m gay.”
Miranda rested both hands on her thighs as she stared up at him. “You’re gay because you have absolutely no clue what to do with the other teams equipment.”
“Don’t believe a word she says.” Richie never lost the grin on his cheeks. “Guys have been caught in her bed before, and trust me, from what I’ve heard out there on the couch….” Miranda tried to cover her hand over his mouth for the last part, but he managed to include it in Mahoney's documentary anyhow. “There's been titty-twisting and screw driving, but absolutely nothing has fallen off.”
8
I SPENT THE REMAINING FIRST NIGHT of the rest of my life in a bathtub with the curtains closed (I’d built it into a padded fort of sorts), uncomfortable as one might imagine, and was rudely awoken at about twelve-thirty, maybe one in the morning, to the realization that somebody was steadily peeing into the toilet. I thought it might be Leah finally home, and if so, I could have listened to it for hours. I tried to imagine her sitting on the other side of the plastic curtain with panties wrapped around her ankles, just as I’d seen my wife so many times before. Then again, she probably didn’t know I was here. I hoped she didn’t pull the curtain back. I didn’t want to be accused of pervert activity twice in one night. Oh hell.
“All comfy?” Richie’s voice said.
“You know, I was enjoying the stream of your tinkle a whole lot better when you were a woman.”
“Well, you’ll be happy to note that the Queen Bee has arrived, safe and sound. She’s getting her beauty rest now as we speak.”
“Leah?”
“Isla Elliot, the one and only,” he said.
“Does she know I’m in here?”
“I gave her the scoop. And I’ll give you fair warning, she’s a stinker.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Let her squat in an open hole on the Enola Gay and she could do more damage than that bomb they dropped on Hiroshima.”
“Lies,” I said.
The sound of his peeing continued in one steady stream.
“If only you knew, Chamberlain.”
“She didn’t even ask about me?”
“I was half-asleep when she came in. Miss Bishop went straight to bed. And then I tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t because I had to pee so badly.”
“How much of that soda did you drink?”
“Hardly any,” he said as the stream continued. I think some of it splattered onto the seat. “I’ve cut back.”
I cleared my throat.
“Okay,” he sighed, “Maybe a lot.”
9
FIVE OR TEN MINUTES LATER another intrusion of tinkling commenced, and from the sounds of it, somebody who could hose the porcelain bowl or put out a fire from great heights; probably not one of the girls. I hoped not one of the girls.
I listened in discreetly for about thirty seconds and finally said: “Richie how is it even possible that you could empty your bladder again so soon…and so much of it?”
Whoever was unloading their tank wasn't expecting my intervention from the tub, because the line of tinkle swiveled from its bulls-eye target to the seat and much further below that, the floor. Some of it probably ended up on the wall.
“Whoa, Momma,” was the voice.
“Mahoney,” I said, “Doesn't anyone sleep around here? What are you doing in Leah's bathroom at one-thirty in the morning?”
“It's two,” he said. His continuous stream of urine continued, and back over its intended target, thank God.
I rephrased my question, same words, only changed one-thirty to two.
“Your pretty Broadway friend, the President's wife, clogged it.”
“Leah?”
“Same one.”
“Lies.”
“And besides, I should ask you the same thing.”
“I'm sleeping here.”
“Hell of a place to sleep.”
“Yeah, well, you were there for my last bed selection.”
“Classic material, man. Hey, you mind if I go grab my camera, come back in, and we can reenact this entire scene? I'll pour a jug of water in, for the sound effect, and you act surprised, just as we rehearsed it.”
“Excellent. I've even got some fresh ideas as to how the scene should end.”
“Yeah, what's that buddy?” His stream of tinkle floundered into several broken up splats.
“You come back in here with your camera. I cram it into the toilet bowl and flush.”
“Hey, slow down, Senorita,” he said, violently zipping up his pants. “How about we let Mr. Cranky Pants get some beauty sleep and then take another swing at it in the morning?”
“Yes, let's do that.”
“Actors,” he said, adding a sheesh to his verbal protest, and then closed the door without ever washing his hands.
10
AT 2:30 I WAS STILL WIDE AWAKE. I know this because I was looking at my cell phone, eyes heavy as two pound cakes, when the time flipped from 2:29 to 2:30, the exact moment that a ghostly chill ran its fingernails across my flesh. Goosebumps rocked my arms. My lips trembled. Breath passed before my face, and I considered the next terrible thought to come along, that I was only so alone that would allow for someone, or something, to stand on the other side of the shower curtain. I thought about the Green Man (that's what Josephine and I called him), who haunted the Sisters Alamo Square home in San Francisco. Not the sort of thing that happened in sitcoms like Full House. This unwelcome presence eerily mirrored his.
Pulling the curtains back, I was right.
The mannequin looked just as real as any actual woman, only crusted and pale as she stood there staring down at me, just as I imagined a dead person to be. Her lips were blue. Purple veins protruded from her face. Eyes spoke of eternal damnation and black holes. Blacken
ed blood had dried around her mouth and under her nose, and it was so thick on one side of her head that her hair was matted to it. I thought her skull might have been sunken in there too. The rest of her was clothe-less, neck to sagging doe-eyes all the way down to her bush, not at all like the dream I'd had of her earlier that night, but those horrific pictures of Gracie rang a bell. Actually, she did look an awful lot like Gracie, almost like her stunt double, which brought all sorts of new interpretations to that sex dream I'd had earlier.
She opened her mouth to speak.
Once more around the block, honey, she said, and raised a single hand.
I didn’t want any more of it. I pulled the curtain back almost as immediately as I had opened it and stared at her silhouette for another couple of seconds before completely clamping my eyes shut, and waited for her presence to drift away from my imagination. At least, that’s what I convinced myself of at the time, that it was all my imagination, because I certainly wasn't dreaming. I even considered asking Elise for a simple psychological explanation. Put that into your movie, Mahoney.
If she ever really left, I never dared to pull the curtain back and look.
Weariness overtook me, and I slept. Thank God.
11
BETWEEN MIRANDA’S SCREAMING, Richie's peeing, Mahoney's documentary, and a murdered mannequin, not to mention the fact that I was scrunched up in a padded bathtub, I didn’t sleep much that night, but you already know that part, and was thoroughly relieved to rise by six, despite the fact that it was three in the morning in my own time zone. But with the constant sleeping and waking, did I really have a time of my own to claim? I stretched, rotated my neck in a ninety-degree motion, unsuccessfully tried to fix the kink that had been there since Wednesday, courtesy of Hurley and Mello's bed and breakfast, and laced up my jogging shoes.
The door to Leah and Miranda’s bedroom was slightly opened. I peeked in, just to see if the rumor was true, that Leah had in fact returned home from a night out partying. Someone was definitely sleeping in her bed, but the occupant’s identity was still in question since only strands of golden hair protruded from the pillow. A couple of butterflies fluttered to life. The thought occurred to me that I'd left her exactly like that in Boston, passed out in a hotel bed with the promise that she'd call. It also implied that all of this disappointment was worthwhile, even sleeping in a bathtub if it meant being in the same household as Broadway’s favorite leading lady while she slept, and then I asked myself why I was so gullible. I chose not to answer that question.
Next there was the matter of the murder heard around America. Today show news anchors Matt Lauer, Ann Curry, Al Roker and Meredith Vieira were somewhere in the radius of a mile away, as the bird flies, and would likely be reporting on the disastrous controversy that was my life in the seven o’clock hour. I hoped nobody in the streets recognized me. I didn’t think they would, and in fact they didn’t (at least nobody called me out on it), despite two separate cops giving me the stare-down.
Stop being so paranoid, Joshua; I’m only on the run from the media, not law enforcement.
I circled Washington Square Park, felt my way through Chelsea and Midtown West, stretched my strides out as far north as Central Park, and then made my way down Fifth Avenue, coming dangerously close, and within eyesight, of Rockefeller Center. How ironic would it have been, I wondered, if Lauer were questioning my whereabouts at the very moment that I jogged past his window? Some thoughts are better left unanswered.
Leah wasn’t up yet when I returned to her apartment with a dozen bagels and three types of cream cheeses, strawberry, blueberry, and apple cinnamon. Miranda wasn’t either, and Richie, who was wearing an eye mask, seemed cool with the fact that I stretched out on half of his sofa bed (he made room for me, even wedging the remote loose from under his thigh) as I turned on NBC to see if they were indeed talking about Alex or Gracie and the Italian mob. It was twenty minutes after seven, and if they had, there was no residue on the screen.
Both girls were still in bed when I shut the television off at 8am, dressed in a tie and freshly showered. I tried writing poetry from the barstool, not my best work ever. Inspiration was bare. I closed the notebook and waited for the beginning of the rest of my life to begin, and I waited, eating bagels with Richie as I waited. Five minutes talking to Leah is all I needed for the rest of my life to begin. And just to make sure that five minutes of allotted time could be crammed into the schedule, I waited a little longer. When 8:30 rolled around I fished rental keys from the kitchen counter and tugged photography equipment to my Toyota Matrix on Bleecker Street. The rest of my life, it seemed, was still on hold. I had a wedding to photograph. And on the following day yet another would follow. Because after all, that's really the reason I came, wasn't it?
12
AS IT TURNS OUT my phone conversation with Jack Chamberlain didn't produce imaginary shadows and cries of paranoia. The mystery man in the fedora who sat parked out front of my Long Beach apartment on Wednesday night was parked yet again within eyesight of Leah’s apartment and a full frontal comings-and-goings view of its entry doorway to his advantage, only this time he sat behind the wheel of a Nissan Cube instead of a Chrysler 300.
Now that I thought about it, I suspected him of following me through JFK International some fifteen hours earlier. I could reflect back on my east coast landing and feel his presence now, which is strange that I ignored it then, unless you consider the fact that I was feeling my way for Leah instead, fumbling for a light switch in the dark, if you will. Nothing else could have distracted me. I wondered if Elise's inability to detect the presence of EMINOR and his lost boys was anything like this. Hindsight is powerful.
Street sweeping had come an hour earlier, which meant a fat orange parking ticket greeted me underneath the windshield wiper with a sign taped onto the passenger window that read, and I quote:
I DO MY PART IN BEAUTIFYING THE STREETS OF NEW YORK, all caps and in bold print.
The sarcasm of NYC justice never ceases to disappoint. Of course, the Nissan Cube had the exact same sticker on its passenger door. I crumbled up the rental companies parking ticket (I'd let National deal with it), tossed it in the glove department, started the ignition and pulled into the street.
No surprise. So did the Nissan Cube.
13
“SO, THIS IS THE LINCOLN TUNNEL,” Alex finally said after we left the gloomy morning light of New York State behind. Not that he was actually physically present, but he sipped from the stainless steel thermos of coffee that I often brought along on travel all the same, crinkling his finger through my bag of bagels until he retrieved a cinnamon raisin, already lathered with cinnamon apple cream cheese. “I hear Norway’s got far more impressive tunnels.”
“It’s depression-era, which makes the engineering spectacular. And I thought it would be better than swimming the Hudson River.”
“Did you find out the identity of our stalker yet? If he’s driving a Nissan Cube, it can only mean one thing. He’s a mustache-totting hipster in skinny jeans, probably listening to the music of Modest Mouse.”
I remained silent.
“You’re angry, aren’t you? Why conjure me up if you refuse to make the small talk?”
“I’m not angry. What’s the point of staying angry at a puppy who takes a dump on your rug?”
“Oh, I get metaphors.” He chewed another lasting bite from my bagel. “Look, Joshua, the last thing I want to do is repeat our trip to New York from two weeks ago. I’ll be on my best behavior. No more convincing girls I’m leaving on the first manned trip to Mars, I promise. Boy Scouts oath.”
“You were never in the Boy Scouts.”
“Fine, I didn’t want it to come to this. But if I must…. pinkies swear.” He held a closed fist up with a single pinky finger erected above the rigid fence-line of knuckles.
I studied his pale ghostly presence and sighed.
“It’s from Full House,” he said. “Since your wife’s two aunts, what are their
names again, the hippies whatever live in that row of houses…”
“Nancy and Patty, and it’s the Painted Ladies.”
“Mm-hmm, the fattest two hippies I ever saw. I know what a fan you are of that show.”
“It’s the highest and noblest swear between brothers…. and not to be broken, ever.”
“Exactly,” Alex kept his pinky erected.
I didn’t accept it.
“I spelled out the rules. They were straightforward and simple. And you defiantly broke them.”
“Are you referring to the fact that I’m the leading suspect in a murder case and on the run internationally while you’re towing a probable child molester to Jersey in the Nissan Cube or are we referencing that scrumptious bridesmaid that I played find the Salami with in Boston?”
I remained silent. When I looked through the rearview mirror, the Cube was discreetly hanging exactly one lane over and three cars behind me.
“I hope I wasn’t fumbling you’re A-Game with Savannah. I thought you only had your heart set on that theater chick.”
“Remind me, I may be a little rusty, but I’m pretty sure adultery is a DO NOT on the Ten Commandments.”
“You know, you really make the thought of marriage a total drag. Just imagine, you could have had the most amazing death-defying sex known to man with that sassy Greek flight attendant had you not been walking around with a broom up your ass.”
“I wasn’t ready to give up on Elise yet.”
“A lot of good that did you. Even on the flight over, had you gotten down on your knees and begged, she might have…”
“It did me plenty of good. When I walked away from Delilah’s hotel room, it was one of the greatest feelings I’d ever had. There’s nothing so good as conquering the lies of temptation.”
“When was the last time that you landed a hole in one? I mean, like in any one of a woman’s three glory holes of entry?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Goodnight Sometimes Means Goodbye (Wrong Flight Home, #2) Page 13