“I wish I could give him to you.”
“Ha,” laughed Catherine. “He’s not ready yet. You need to take care of him. I’m really going now.”
“See you Monday,” said Donna, as she opened the front door.
Catherine was about to leave the house, when she screeched to a halt in the open doorway, overwhelmed by what she saw. There was Bill on the sidewalk, in front of the house next door, approaching. He made an unforgettable sight in his clothes, burdened with his gifts. Bill saw her and wrinkled his face, as if he smelled something bad.
Donna wondered why Catherine was standing there, speechless, so she looked outside and saw Bill, too. When Bill perceived Donna, his dream girl, he broke into a showy smile, like the sun appearing from behind clouds. His smile jabbed Catherine into speech again.
“My God, Halloween came early this year,” she gasped to Donna. “What is he supposed to be?” Bill was too far away to hear what she said.
“Oh, no,” groaned Donna, with a look of horror on her face. She was unaffected by Bill’s smile in any positive way. “Tell me what to do.”
Donna’s misery and desperation restored Catherine’s self-possession. “You can handle this one,” she assured Donna. “You’ve been in far worse scrapes before. I’ll put him in the mood to see you.” Catherine gave her a hearty hug and kissed her goodbye on both cheeks.
“I wish you would take him with you,” Donna sighed.
“Not a chance. That ninny needs to see you first. When he wants me or someone else, he’ll find us.”
With mischief on her mind, Catherine skipped away and went directly toward Bill, who had turned from the sidewalk up the path to Donna’s house. He avoided looking at Catherine for as long as he could. He kept his eyes and radiant smile on Donna, who didn’t know where to look or what to do. She had come out of her house and stood on her spacious, covered front porch. Although the house was large, well-cared for, and built on a big lot, it was only about thirty years old and had no identifiable architectural style or charm. The porch, which was an addition that Donna had built on, did not help give it any.
Catherine and Bill were still a good distance apart, when she greeted him rambunctiously, as if he were her twin, whom she had not seen in a decade. “Bill, what a pleasant surprise! How nice to see you! You look great!”
Since Donna was watching, he felt he had to say something to Catherine. “Hi,” he monotoned, looking at her momentarily. They were separated by less than ten feet now, and he attempted to go around her without any further talk, but she bounced straight up to him, forcing him to stop.
“Is that a new suit you’re wearing?” she asked, her face expressing child-like wonder. The suit was clearly of a previous generation, and Catherine knew it.
“No,” he snipped, feeling ungracious by her imposing upon him. He tried to circumvent her, but she blocked him.
“It’s super sharp with that shirt,” she gushed, delivering her barefaced lies with more passion than any politician. “I’ve never seen a tropical-print, pastel-stripe combination. Very snazzy.”
“Thanks.” Once more she stopped him, as he tried to get past her.
“Such a magnificent, big bouquet. Donna will be impressed. She loves flowers.” Catherine thought the arrangement was the strangest thing to give a date, who was still alive, but she kept that to herself.
“Let me give them to her,” he peeved. Again, she prevented him from moving.
“And you brought her chocolates? There must be a ton in that box. You should give them to me, because she’ll just take them to the salon for us to eat and get fat on. She has self-control, unlike the rest of us. Here, let me take them, since your arms are full.”
As Catherine reached out to rob him, with a bolt of energy Bill sped past her, like someone running from a crocodile. When he had escaped her, he became all smiles once more and gazed intently at his date. “Donna,” he exulted. “I’m so happy to see you. You have a beautiful house.” The finish line and trophy of all his imaginings was within sight, and he rejoiced.
While Bill hustled up the rest of the walk to the front porch, Catherine turned around and said to his back, “Bye, Bill. I hope to see you soon. You should go out with me someday.”
He didn’t respond, except to shudder visibly. Catherine grinned at Donna, gave her a thumb-up sign, and vigorously waved goodbye, before she went to her car and drove away.
Immobile and expressionless, Donna watched Bill, holding his large bundle of things, unsteady and tripping, try to get up the two steps to her porch quickly. When he finally arrived, panting, he told her, “You look fabulous, better than ever.” Those cloying sentiments were quite different from what she wanted to tell him. Shifting his burden a little to his side, he leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek.
Donna drew back in distaste and gestured disparagingly at the flowers and chocolates. “Bill, what is all this?”
“A few small gifts for my lovely date,” he replied tenderly. He moved closer to her, and she allowed him a peck on her cheek, before pushing him away.
“You should have given the chocolates to Catherine,” she criticized, bad-tempered as a shrew. “I guess we can take them to the barbecue. I don’t know what to do with those flowers. They belong at a funeral. And where did you find those clothes? You look like a circus clown.”
Exasperated from having to point out such obvious, unpleasant facts, Donna turned around and walked to the front door, leaving Bill slightly stunned at his reception. When she was at the door, she looked back at him. “Are you coming? You can set those flowers up someplace, while I get ready.”
He immediately brightened like a lamp. “Of course. I’m right behind you. Such a beautiful home. Let me put these flowers in your bedroom.”
She rolled her eyes and exhaled heavily, oppressed with the feeling that it was going to be a long, aggravating evening. Bill clumsily followed her into her house, but his feelings were of a different nature than hers. Like a Muslim pilgrim, who has reached Mecca after an arduous, long journey, his heart filled with joy, upon entering the home of his dearly beloved.
Soon after they entered her house, however, the intensity of his feelings began to waver. She told him he could set up the flowers in the living room and watch television, while she changed into different clothes. Without responding to his non-stop stream of compliments about the house, its decorations, and herself, she went upstairs to her bedroom, slammed the door shut, and locked the handle. She remained there for over an hour, until it was six o’clock. During that time, after placing the flowers on the stand in a corner of the living room, he waited patiently at first, sitting, looking around, expecting her to return soon, so they could spend time together. He was not the sort of guy who was upset by a few mean words or hostile actions from a woman, especially a woman who looked like Donna. It would take a lot more than that to shake the romantic fantasy he had planted in his head. Yet the minutes dragged on, and she didn’t reappear. There were only women’s magazines in the room to read, so eventually he turned on the television, which he watched until she came down.
Exchanging few words, they left for the party in her car. Although his feelings were almost as strong and raging as they had been when he had arrived—his juvenile hopes for a successful evening were definitely still the same—he had come to the conclusion that he needed a different wooing tactic. While she had been upstairs, he decided that she was a quiet and reserved type of woman, who didn’t like small talk. To adapt to what he thought was her true character, he began to imitate a strong, silent man, as well as he could.
As she backed her BMW out of her driveway, however, she broke through her calm reserve, which wasn’t reserve at all, but a repressed fury and deep annoyance, to assault his silence. She looked at him sitting in the passenger seat and grimaced. She had changed into flowing linen pants, with a tight-fitting sleeveless top underneath a loose, long-sleeved, lace-like sweater. Everything was white. It was a lovely, casual outfit for s
ummer.
“You can take that jacket off,” she said to him harshly. “No man there will be wearing one.”
He struggled to take off his jacket in the car and eventually succeeded.
“I think you can borrow a pair of jeans, too, where we’re going,” she continued, insulting him further. “They should fit, if your waist isn’t too big. Do you ever go to a gym?”
The only response Bill allowed himself to make was to wince and twist his mouth.
At that moment, Donna drove down the block where Bill had parked his car. It was one of the few vehicles on the street.
“What a pile,” she observed, seeing that car, which she didn’t recognize as Bill’s. “I’m glad it’s not by my house. It ought to be towed to a junkyard. It’s a piece of scrap.”
To him, she now seemed to be more of an assertive person than a reserved person, so he thought he had to say something and assert himself, too. “It doesn’t look so bad,” he said, softly and meekly.
She scowled at him, but said nothing. His comment made her remember where she had seen that car before. She knew to whom it belonged.
Chapter 31
The barbecue party, to which Donna and Bill went, was held at a sprawling mansion of recent construction in the Hamptons, next to the ocean. An outlandish creation of wealth acquired in high finance, the house had more resemblance to a casino than a residence, because the proportions of the building had been so super-sized to accommodate large numbers of people. When the owners weren’t working long hours at their offices, they liked to entertain; they calculated their net worth not only by the sums in their bank accounts, but also by the number of bodies at their house parties.
The couple’s desire to gather and impress a horde within their residence was a natural one for them, since both husband and wife were loud, vain, and ostentatious. They had many so-called friends, such as Donna. Although they were considerably younger than Donna, their attachment to her was stronger than many of their friendships with other people. Similarities in the characters of all three and compatible personal needs created a special symbiotic relationship: With them, Donna could pretend to be younger than she was, while they could imagine that they were more mature.
As soon as Donna and Bill arrived, Donna ran and begged a pair of jeans from the man of the house for Bill. When she had them, she told Bill to go change in the upstairs bathroom and not come down till he had them on. He could find her then on the lower level where the great room was. That’s where everybody would be.
Bill tried to comply with her command. He wanted to please her by wearing the jeans; he thought they might be the key to getting into her pants later on. But when he saw how wide their waistband was, his gut quivered forcibly in resistance, and the idea of fitting into them struck him as hopeless. However, he still tried. In the bathroom, he jumped up and down in the pants in an attempt to tug them over his thighs and fasten them shut. He removed his underwear, in case that might be an obstacle. He even tried lying on the floor and pulling the pants on in a supine position, thinking that gravity might be making his middle section larger when he stood. Nothing helped put those thin jeans on his egg-shaped, overweight body.
Although he was deeply reluctant to disappoint Donna, his desire to join the party had become greater, since he had been kept from the free food long enough. He pulled on his underwear and seersucker pants again and left his tropical-print shirt untucked, in the hope that she would not notice what was covering his legs beneath.
Rock music boomed louder and louder, the further he descended toward the great room. When he was finally on the floor of that space, the music was throbbing in his ears, as if a street was being dug up in front of him with drills. The decibel level prevented much conversation from taking place, since people had to yell to be heard, but he thought that interesting, rational talk did not appear to be the goal of anyone there. All the guests that he could see were in their twenties, thirties, and maybe forties. They were casually dressed, as Donna had said they would be. Earlier in the week, she had told him that five hundred people were invited, but he thought that the number present was closer to two hundred. They were standing, sitting, moving around a little with drinks in hand. Apparently, they had come for the sake of being there and drinking, for when he could hear others try to communicate above the din, the boisterous inanities that they hollered back and forth didn’t seem worth the effort.
Since he wasn’t interested in trying to talk to someone yet, the noise didn’t bother him. He wanted food and lots of it. As he looked hungrily around the great room, which was a vast space, like a hotel banqueting room, he didn’t see any food tables. The bar was located on the opposite side of the room from where he stood, so he thought the food might be near there.
On his way to the bar, he saw Donna from a distance and waved at her with both hands. He acted like someone wearing a Mickey Mouse costume at Disneyland, greeting visitors. There was a big smile on his face. He was happy to see her again. Donna noticed him, saw his pants, and turned her back to him. She was much less happy than he.
At that moment, a hamburger on a plate, which a young man carried, caught his attention.
“Where did you get that?” Bill accosted him.
The young man pointed outside to the huge patio, which was accessible through several sliding glass doors. Bill now saw other guests coming in and going out. Forgetting all about Donna, he hurried outside.
The first table he arrived at on the patio was covered with a wide variety of hors d’oeuvres and salads, which many people were hovering around, complimenting and admiring, trying to decide what to take for themselves. Everything looked fresh and delicious.
“Where’s the real food?” Bill asked loudly, to no one in particular. He had pushed himself through the guests around the table to the food and saw that there were only light, low-calorie, vegetable-dense choices there.
Before anyone would answer—they were too busy staring at him, wondering how he had been invited—Bill noticed further away a professional chef in a tall white hat, cooking on a massive grill. There was another table besides the grill, and Bill sped to that location. On top of the second table, he discovered rows and rows of thick, juicy, grilled beef patties sticking out of buns. Also on the table were all kinds of ordinary and exotic toppings to add to the hamburgers, but he was much less interested in those garnishes. He was obsessed with meat.
Shaking with excitement, as if he had stumbled upon a gold mine, Bill grabbed a plate and quickly set three hamburgers on it. He smeared a little ketchup, mustard, relish, and onion on the inner side of each top bun. Unable to wait any longer and drooling from gluttonous cravings, he bit deeply into one prepared hamburger and grabbed three more plain ones from the rows. After garnishing them lightly, as he had the first three, while still trying to chew and swallow the wad of food in his mouth, he lifted his plate, stacked with hamburgers, and looked for a place to sit. The closest vacant chair was at a table otherwise filled in the crowded outdoor seating area. Taking another big bite of a hamburger, he hustled over to it. After confirming that the chair was not taken, he sat down and stuffed himself like a contestant in a speed-eating contest, shoving the six large hamburgers down his throat as fast as possible. People around him stared and whispered, but Bill continued to feast, completely unconcerned about his neighbors. At that moment, he was attending to his stomach and couldn’t be bothered by social niceties.
When he had finished his quick meal, he went back to the burger buffet table, moving more slowly than before, but determined to sate every real and imaginary prick of hunger he had. He took three more hamburgers. When the same few condiments had been applied, Bill chowed, standing by the table, unwilling to waste time by finding a seat. His rate of consumption decreased with each hamburger. He had to push the last of the third one into his mouth to make it disappear, as if he was clearing a clogged toilet with a plunger. He looked longingly and lovingly at the remaining hamburgers on the table, but he had no
more room inside for the scrumptious little mountains of meat. His gorge soaked in bile was already rising slightly in his esophagus from his stomach with a burning sensation. He tried to stretch his waistband, which was digging into his skin, by putting his hands under his shirt and pulling it outwards, but it would not expand. Sadly, he thought it necessary to leave the grill table for now and wash down the heap of hamburgers with a beer to try and create space for more.
Ambling slowly inside on his way to the bar, Bill had the shock of recognizing someone he knew at the party besides Donna: Tanya. She was with her new boyfriend, Leo, a tough-looking creature, who had an abundance of tattoos and a diamond earring. With one hand, he was drinking from a beer bottle, while his other hand was wrapped around her waist. Both of her hands were fully engaged in hanging onto him. What little amount of attention they could spare from each other was spent soaking up the deaf-inducing atmosphere of the great room. Bill was practically in front of Tanya before he realized who she was. He became ecstatic with joy at seeing someone he knew.
“Tanya, you’re here. I thought I’d never see you again,” he shouted.
She looked at him coldly, without any sign of recognition.
“It’s me, Bill. We met on the train. Remember?” He was gesturing, emoting, hyper-animated at this unexpected chance encounter.
“Sorry. I don’t know you,” she said loudly. Her hands were still firmly attached to Leo, like the tendrils of a pea plant clinging to a trellis.
“Sure, you do. You thought I was wearing a Rolex.” Bill held up his old watch to jog her memory.
“I know what a Rolex looks like,” she said to Leo, caressing his wrist on her waist, which bore that brand of watch. Although she may have been an expert in watches, to an untrained eye Leo’s watch looked quite similar to Bill’s inexpensive street model. Both were chunky, charmless, industrial-looking assemblages of metal and glass.
“You sure wanted to know what I had on my wrist, though,” Bill shouted with a big grin.
Cheapskate in Love Page 21