Alex just stared at me, looking very pale and moist in the face, perhaps even sickly, and now that I got a better look at him I suspected he might have even had a fever. I wondered if souls really got like that under the flesh, all sickly and diseased.
I finally said: “It’s probably going on three months.”
“You’re a regular priest, aren’t you?” He blotted his forehead with a paper napkin. “That’s not healthy.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that longing and desire is a clue to the true goal of human nature? Why settle on substitutes if you can acquire the real thing?”
“Oh hell, I feel another sermon coming on.”
“I don’t want to preach, but…”
“Good, because I’ve graduated long ago from Peter Pan and the Lost Boys and their home in Narnia or wherever they’re from.”
“It just makes sense to me that if my stomach is hungry, I must satisfy it with food, and…”
“Well, my dick is hungry…for pussy. What does that tell you?”
“What you’re hungry for is intimacy.”
“If I even hear the phrase mother’s fuzzy fur coat…”
“Whenever I find myself swimming through an unquenchable desire, I remind myself that its true satisfaction can only be found in another world. If God created the universe through perfect communion with the Trinity, as it implies in Genesis, it isn't a far stretch of the imagination to say that sex is designed by God so that a man and a woman might create life with the same intimate closeness, which also makes it holy.”
“So what you’re essentially saying is, there’s gonna be lots and lots of horizontal refreshments in heaven.”
“Delilah and I are over.”
“Because you’re saving it for your imaginary girlfriend, that theater chick.”
“Leah isn’t my girlfriend.”
“Of course she isn’t. Romantics like you scare girls like her. Trust me, I know the Leah Bishop’s of the world. They’re on the run from their daddy-issues, and the only way to apprehend them is with your dick, not your heart.”
“Get out of my head!”
It was when I passed into the gloomy morning light of New Jersey that he did exactly that.
14
THE LOCATION OF KLEVON BROWN and Destinee Smith's Weehawken, New Jersey wedding ceremony promised to double as a reception venue, which made performing my tasks and getting around easy. By rule I'd never fly into a wedding on the day before the ceremony. With unpredictable weather patterns and occasional travel complications, two days were mandatory for any long distance gig. But Saturday's wedding in Connecticut had been contracted a year earlier, and flights had already been booked by the time Laquita, Destinee's mother, ever picked up the phone to call me.
I never had a good feeling about her, or the wedding, especially my participation in it. Everything about Laquita was a turnoff. There was this inner voice that kept telling me NO. Even the money wasn't good. But it was money. The gig seemed simple enough, and within reasonable distance of Connecticut. And if I didn't like them I could pack my bags, move on. It was an intimate affair with no more than one hundred and fifty guests expected; exactly the kind of mid-sized numbers that I specialized in; a get-in, get-out sort of operation.
The view of Manhattan across the Hudson River, with a gathering blanket of low bearing clouds that threatened to shroud the tips of the Empire State Building and Sears Tower, was breathtaking. I took note of the missing Twin Towers and wondered how different my life would have been had September Eleventh gone down as any other ordinary day, or if it had happened on the twelfth or the thirteenth instead. I probably wouldn't be a photographer for one thing. I loved my part in wedding photography and yet I despised my involuntary participation in that act of terrorism. Now there's some irony for you. I let that thought marinate while I retrieved my camera equipment from the trunk and moseyed into the reception hall. Something immediately didn't feel right. But then again, what about my life did?
A small Picasso-shaped African-American woman in her early forties, whom I suspected to be the mother of the groom, eyed me uncomfortably as I passed her in the entry. She stood next to an equally small but somewhat less plump woman, and much older, whom I took to be her mother. I nodded courteously in their direction. Neither returned the greeting.
“Hello.” I extended my one free hand, the left one, despite the fact that I was right handed. The younger well-rounded woman didn’t accept it. “I’m the photographer, reporting for duty; permission to climb aboard?”
Rather than taking my hand, she lifted five fingers over her breasts and clutched her neck, as if for safekeeping.
Again I said: “Joshua. I didn’t get your name.”
She declined to give it.
“Is Klevon or Destinee around?”
“Sit down,” she finally said, standing as tall as she could (though barely coming eye level to my collar bones), as if to discourage me with her added height. Her voice was cold and stern, and perhaps, if I was to compare the authoritative tone to her physical demeanor, likely fearful for her own physical safety. She must have seen the news. “Stay right here and I’ll be sure to find someone.”
She started for the hallway. Her mother followed, looking back at me with those tightened eyes of hers, decades of wrinkles jetting out from each of them.
“I know I’ve arrived an hour early, but all the same, if you could direct me to the bride’s dressing room, I’d be more than happy to get started with…”
“Sit down.” Grandmother cut me off, unmistakably stern this time, eyes widening as she said it, and her crooked index finger illustrated the point.
“Yes mam.” I produced something that might be interpreted as a smile.
Both women waited until I preformed the remedial task of plopping my patty-cakes into a chair before disappearing into the hall. Of course, that was the bright side of being a photographer. If I didn’t get along with my employer, which seemed likelier now more than ever, all I had to do was finish my allotted contractual obligations and never see, hear from, or deal with them again. When it came to post-wedding communication, Penny Parker did most of the dirty work. I paid her well enough for it, and I had the feeling that this might be one of those sparing occasions.
The women hadn’t disappeared into the hallway for long when I heard what sounded to be a tangled wasps nest of voices, heralded by the fat one, each spoken in outdoor whispers, which as we know is not much of a whisper. At first I picked up two concerned slurs, and then three or four. I thought I might have heard the pronunciation of Ann Curry. Whatever was happening, I figured they were recruiting their un-welcome party converts, and using Ann Curry's beautiful reporting against me. What next, Brian Williams?
To pass the time I gazed up at the marvelous circular skylight from my chair, except the sun, which normally shined its love equally down on both sides of the Hudson River (despite what New Yorkers led each other to believe), was absent, and the sky remained gray. Rain was inevitable. I stood, crossed the reception hall and studied the outside deck through a set of double French doors. An archway framed the slice of pie known as Greenwich Village (where Leah was likely still sleeping off last night's SoHo hangover), and a cluster of white chairs led up to it. If rain could be avoided the wedding ceremony would likely proceed into a cocktail hour followed by dinner in this reception hall, where elegant white pillars surrounded the circular dance floor and a series of submerged ceiling lights that would, come evening, illuminate the walls in shades of blue and red. Despite the threat of rain, the entire operation would prove a breeze.
A tall handsome woman exited the hallway with a prideful stride about her. She was about the same age as the plump woman who had refused to greet me, mid-forties, but incredibly stern in the face. And when she opened her mouth to speak I recognized her immediately. Laquita, the bride's overbearing mother. Even over the phone she was a threat to the senses. I was sorry I'd come.
“Mr. Chamberlain,” she said with the smile
of a charmed cobra.
“Laquita.” I pronounced her name slowly, met her in the circular center of the room and extended my hand.
She grudgingly took it. But her grip was firm.
“This is sort of embarrassing, but….” She didn't look embarrassed at all. “There was a bit of confusion. We’re just surprised, that’s all. I thought Destinee was supposed to call to let you know. But I guess it was my job.”
“What is it. Is everything alright?”
“We hired somebody else at the last minute.” She held her chin up as she said it. “We thought it would be best under the circumstances and all, and….”
“Under what circumstances?”
“Surely you’ve been following the news.”
“Yes. I’m sorry to say I have.”
“It just wouldn’t be right to keep you, all things considered. Our guests would be confused, and….” She tightened her face. “This is my daughter’s wedding day, goddammit.”
“I'm sorry.”
Five fingers clutched the meaty area around my collarbone. Laquita or the short plump woman had attracted the attention of a security guard, and it was my patty-cakes about to get barreled through the door.
“I’m sorry too.” Laquita said, somehow radiating with more pride than ever. The way she perked herself up reminded me of a peacock. “I expect to have our deposit repaid promptly and in full, sir.”
That wasn't going to happen.
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the security guard said.
“Thank you.” I attempted to brush his hand aside. “But I can show myself out.”
He didn’t let go of my hand.
“After you,” he said. “The Lincoln Tunnel is waiting.”
“Can I at least grab my bags?”
He nudged at them with his chin. “Make it fast. We wouldn’t want you to get stuck in traffic.”
The gossip had apparently grown to over a dozen un-welcome party converts now as men and women, most of Haitian heritage in their early twenties (I suspected them to be bridesmaids and groomsmen), appeared from the hallway to observe the drama as the security guard forcibly escorted me towards the parking lot. A young woman in tight blue jeans and a pink top, whom I suspected to be the bride, Destinee, stood by quietly but with her mother's prideful attitude as I passed, and once outside the guard stood watch, glaring at me like a hawk from its high-place as I made my way back to the rental car.
His eyes never left me until I was gone.
But he wasn't the only one. There was another predator in my rearview mirror, the mystery man in the Nissan Cube, Mister Fedora.
15
I PARKED A COUPLE OF BLOCKS away at the Weehawken Waterfront Park and left the engine idling while I collected my thoughts. The Cube didn't venture so far as the parking lot, but I caught sight of it rumbling alongside the street, exhaust streaming from its tailpipe. I wondered what Great-Uncle Jack would do in this sort of situation. He probably would have been shot in the ass by now. Several smudges of rain clung to the windshield, each in their turn, and I studied the glossy skyscrapers of the city across the Hudson as Judy Garland let me know there was a cottage for sale on Sirius XM satellite radio.
At least twenty messages waited on my cell, all from the press except three from my mother, until all recording space had been filled, not one from Laquita or Destinee giving me the news that I’d been fired, nor Anderson Cooper wanting an interview. There was however Shannon Farris, the bride from my Saturday wedding in Hartford, Connecticut, and she wasn’t happy with the fact that my former intern and I were the talk of the town choir. One of her many Socratic questions included, in her own words, how I could possibly fluke up her wedding like this and don’t even bother coming. Her message seemed straightforward enough despite being somewhat philosophical. I had lost out on plenty of good gigs in my lifetime, but I’d never been fired from a wedding before. Only now there were two of them in one weekend, and there would probably be more before the storm completely blew over.
“Damn you, Alex.” I beat the steering wheel.
A roll of distant thunder, matched with Bessie Smith reminding me that nobody knows you when you’re down and out, responded to my call for eternal damnation. I called Shannon Farris, but she didn't answer. I left a message asking her to get back with me and then contemplated the possibility that my reputation had been permanently tarnished while I waited for a return call, that my career in wedding photography had met its glass ceiling, and that I was through.
And then, pulling out of my parking spot for a return trip through the Lincoln Tunnel, I scoured Sirius for the show tunes station. I found it on channel 72, On Broadway, and was quickly reminded of Monty Python’s command to always look on the bright side of life. At least I could ride into retirement claiming it had never rained on any of my weddings. Because it would probably be raining today, and how did the song title go? Oh yeah, Always Look On the Bright Side of Life.
I'd probably sing that song to Adele over breakfast come Tuesday morning before cordially explaining how I didn't have her rent money again.
16
THE LAST AVAILABLE PARKING SPOT in all of Manhattan was just around the corner from Leah Bishop’s Brownstone apartment. The street had once been cobblestone, and several openings in the pavement attested to that fact. Then again, every open curb in New York City is the last available slot. And the street sweeper wouldn’t roll by until Monday, so I at least had two good things going for me. Count your blessings instead of parking tickets. The Nissan Cube slowed down as it passed and sped up at the corner (almost t-boning a dump truck), probably frantic to find several feet of available curb somewhere on the island before I could slip into a crowd of about eight million.
Mister Fedora found such real estate about a block away, the other last slot in the city, and lucky for him, within clear sight of the entry leading up towards Brownstone, and was probably getting ready to pursue me on foot when I knocked on the driver’s side window. He fumbled with a newspaper, as if he'd been reading it all morning; The New York Times. He cleared his throat, choked, and then when he realized I wasn’t going away he collected himself and calmly lowered the window.
I said: “I couldn’t help but notice your blinker isn’t working right. You may want to have someone look at it when you get a chance.”
“It’s not mine. It’s a rental.” My dating game contestant was about medium height, a skinny but not scrawny build, somewhere around the same age of twenty-seven, roughly a hundred and sixty pounds, with a thick curly head of hair, facial features that hinted at a Mediterranean heritage, and his voice was stunningly high for his profession. I could only guess at what that was. “They can fix their own damn turn signals.”
“You know what else is great about a rental? You can make them deal with the parking ticket. And you went with a Nissan Cube.” I wedged my head through the window. “Look at that, it’s got a built-in GPS, XM radio and everything. Plus, I’ve noticed its small compact shape compliments the parallel parking.”
“Hey, I’m kind of busy. So if you don’t mind.”
“When you say busy, I hope I haven’t been keeping you too busy, with my driving habits and all. I did however try to obey all the traffic laws going to and from Jersey. I can’t say the same for your blinkers.”
Mister Fedora widened his eyes, let his mouth hang open, closed it, and then collected himself the best he could. “Yeah, you’ve been a real boy scout.”
“Thanks. It’s nice to be noticed.” I grinned.
“Hey, get lost.”
“Poor choice of words.”
“Then buzz off.” He tightened his lips and eyes, and probably his butt-hole.
“So whom do you work for?”
“Frank Sinatra,” he said.
“I’m detecting a hint of Italian accent there. Fresh off the boat, I like that. It lets me know that America is still the land of opportunity. Maybe later we can take a boat ride out to the Statue of Libe
rty, read some inscriptions and stuff.”
“I’m not supposed to talk with you.”
“Very well then, but if one of Mancini’s customer service reps calls me up asking to fill out a survey on your work evaluation, I’m afraid I won’t be able to give a very good report.”
Frank Sinatra, that's what I decided to call Mister Fedora now, just stared at me, perhaps frozen in place, for lack of a better phrase, and increasingly taking on the appearance of a little lost puppy, not what I was expecting from someone tasked with following me.
“I take it you haven’t been doing this very long.” I extended a hand. “I'm Joshua.”
“I know that.”
“According to Miss Manners, this is the part where you give me your name. Though according to the Geneva Convention, your rank will suffice.”
“Who the hell is Miss Manners?”
“I’ll pretend like I didn’t hear that. Look, we’ve apparently started off on the wrong foot.”
“And Frank Sinatra wants to keep it that way.”
“All I want to know is, did you frantically hail a taxi at JFK and tell your driver to follow that cab?”
“You didn't take a cab. You got a rental, dumb-ass.”
“So I did. Now me, I went with the new Toyota Matrix.” I made a point to study his rental again. “XM radio is definitely a must, but the Matrix has heated seats. I also needed something with a little extra leg room, especially for all those nights sleeping in the back at truck stops.”
“You’re not really doing that, are you?” He seemed genuinely worried. This guy probably hadn’t been accustomed to the idea of going without a shower.
I started across the street, walking in a backwards posture. “I don’t know, Frank Sinatra. We’ll see. It is after all in my line of work. I kind of thought I’d keep you on your toes. You seem nice. And just so you know, I’m going back up to my friend’s apartment now.”
“Like I give a damn,” he opened up The New York Times and ruffled its pages. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Goodnight Sometimes Means Goodbye (Wrong Flight Home, #2) Page 14