Tanya pulled herself closer to Leo, as if she was in danger of falling to the floor. “He’s bothering me,” she complained, shouting and pouting at the same time.
“Beat it, buddy,” Leo told Bill.
“But we’re friends,” Bill replied.
The dispute seemed in danger of escalating. Leo stared menacingly at Bill and started flexing his chest muscles under his tight t-shirt. Fortunately, Tanya, who had turned away from Bill, stroked Leo’s face with her finger to calm him. After taking another swig of beer, he kissed Tanya. That kiss led to an extended, theatrical kissing show, as if they were performers trying to prove something to each other and everyone else, which effectively ended the conversation with Bill.
“I just wanted to say hi,” Bill whined, but they weren’t listening. Seeing how he was excluded, he walked away, crestfallen.
At the bar, which was littered with empty bottles and glasses, he nursed a beer alone. Other people were continually coming for drinks and leaving, and he tried to start conversations, especially with the young, attractive women, but everyone looked at him, as if he were a stranger, an unusual stranger. Some responded to him a little. Others smiled wanly. Others kept their distance altogether. After his first beer, he asked one of the barkeepers for another, which he guzzled.
Beer didn’t have the desired effect, as far as he could tell, of speeding up the digestion of what he had eaten, allowing him to enjoy more hamburgers. If anything, the liquor appeared to ferment the contents of his stomach and cause them to fizzle, making him feel more full. Since he couldn’t eat anymore, he decided it was time to dance. He went looking for his gorgeous partner.
Donna was talking to two much younger female friends, when he found her. The two Nats, as they were known—Nat being short for Nathalie—were both in their mid-thirties. Although they were not as attractively voluptuous as Donna, they had the greater attraction and luck of being younger than her. Consequently, they felt themselves to be on equal ground, if not at an advantage, when it came to the chief concern of all three in life: Men. Whenever they met up with each other, they would recount their recent adventures in that all-important realm, exaggerating every salacious detail for optimal storytelling effect.
When Bill came up to Donna, the two Nats stared at him in wide-eyed wonderment, because of the closeness with which he stood next to her. They scanned him from head to toe, as if he was a mannequin, wearing the next season’s new clothing. He was clearly the oldest, most out-of-shape, poorly dressed man at the party. Precisely at the same moment, they turned toward each other, like two parrots in a cage, to share their astonishment at seeing such a man act so familiar with Donna. “Oh my God,” was the alarm sounding in their eyes. “Is she that desperate? Is this the new man she’s seeing? She must be out of her mind and over the hill and telling us bigger lies than we’ve told her!”
Donna could tell what her girlfriends were thinking. She ignored Bill in the fervent hope that he would get the hint and go away. She hadn’t told anyone at the party that she had come with him, because he was too much of a humiliation.
“I’d never go back,” she told them feverishly, trying to make them forget about Bill and focus on what she was saying. “Never. And why should I? He can sit on my couch and cry all he wants to. I like to see that. He’s the one who broke the marriage. Thought he had something better. Like a fool, I shed some tears at first, but not anymore. Men fall over themselves to meet me, and I think the one I found is finally it. He’s...”
Bill thought this was an opportune moment to interrupt, since she was obviously talking about him. “Let’s dance,” he shouted, as suavely as he could, while he pulled at her arm.
“I’m busy,” she barked at him, shaking his hand from her arm. “Go away.” The eyes of the Nats protruded from their heads like frogs’ eyes. They were unsure what to think about Bill: Was he her new boyfriend or not? They were absorbing everything to dissect later with merciless cuts. To them, she said, “He’s better looking...”
“You’ve been talking since you got here,” Bill interrupted again.
“I like to talk. Please go away. Now.” Her voice had turned steely.
Bill, who was not good at reading women’s behavior, because he didn’t pay much attention to what they said or did, thought that the two Nats could help him persuade her. “Tell her she should dance,” he asked them. “Everyone wants to see her beautiful body in motion.”
Those two raised their eyebrows at his bizarre request, looked at each other simultaneously, and burst out laughing.
Donna was enraged at being made a fool of. “I’ll be back,” she told her friends, although she didn’t have much kindly feeling for them at the moment. Grabbing Bill by the arm, she jerked him away, pulling him outside.
When they were on the patio, where it was possible to talk to someone without shouting, Donna stopped in a part that was less crowded. She whirled around to confront Bill, bringing her face within inches of his. Kissing was not on her mind.
“Jackass,” she stormed, furious and seething. “Why did you embarrass me in front of my friends?”
“What did I do?” Bill asked, in complete unawareness of any guilt.
“You opened your mouth.” Although Donna was trying to conceal her anger, other guests could see she was upset.
“All I said is that you have a beautiful body.” Bill thought a woman should appreciate being referred to as a good-looking object. Most women, in his view, were not.
“Who asked you to?”
“Should I have said ‘and the face of an angel?’”
“Oh, shut up. You shouldn’t say anything. Since you don’t know what to say, don’t say anything. And don’t do anything. You don’t know what to do. You don’t know what to say. You don’t know how to dress. You don’t know anything. You’re an embarrassment.”
“Tell me what you want. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”
“I’ll dance one song with you. Then I want you to disappear, until I’m ready to go.”
“Two songs.”
“One. That’s it.”
“I’m a good dancer.”
“I don’t care if you’re the reincarnation of Fred Astaire and dancing on Broadway. One dance is it.”
“That’s not much fun. What kind of party is this, if you only dance one song?”
Donna was finished arguing with him. She had told him what she would do, and there was nothing more to say. She was smoldering with anger, but she controlled herself. Without waiting for him, she strode directly to the portion of the very large patio that had been set aside as a dance floor. When Bill had seen that area earlier in his hunt for food, it had struck him as a perfect place for his dancing exploits to come later that evening with Donna. Lights had been strung over that section of the patio, so dancing could continue into the night. Speakers around the area provided enough sound. But now, dejected and still not knowing what their argument had been about, he wasn’t in the mood to dance. He followed her to the dance floor anyway.
Chapter 32
Pretending as if nothing was bothering her, Donna walked to the center of the dancing area and began to move to the beat of the rock music, without waiting for Bill. Like most of the others dancing, she responded to the music as if she had entered her own unregulated world, where she was unrestrained by any formal dance steps and unmindful of any partner. She shook, stepped and flailed her arms at will, her eyes half shut.
Although Bill was feeling harassed and beaten down a bit, when he saw Donna dancing, he recovered at once. The visions that he had had the past week of them together in a ballroom, out-dancing the competition, madly happy and wildly in love, were no longer puffs of electrical currents in his heated brain. They had begun to materialize. One of them was already dancing. Soon there would be two.
With springy feet and soaring spirits, he bounded onto the dance floor, despite the amount he had eaten, and grabbed her hands. Trying as she was to melt into the mental ind
olence and passivity that is the primary effect of loud, throbbing rock music, she wasn’t aware of his approach or the presence of anyone else. With his hands firmly holding hers, he stepped in close, pulling her tight, and then stepped far backwards, extending his arms, as he started to swing dance.
Donna was jolted out of her private world of rock sensations. Her eyes flashed wide open. “What are you doing?” she hissed at him, trying to remain cool.
“Can’t you swing dance?” he asked, pulling her close to him again.
“This is rock music,” she said, resisting his pull.
“So we swing faster,” was his logical response, as he stretched his arms and stepped back again.
“Stop it,” she ordered. Breaking free of his grasp, she went back to rock dancing, keeping a safe distance from his hands.
For a moment, Bill stood still, wondering what to do. He wanted to swing dance. He didn’t like or listen to rock music—those songs all sounded the same to him—but still he thought it was possible to swing dance to it, although big-band tunes would be better. In his view, rock dancing was more like staging a controlled convulsion than real dancing. Yet Donna was here, and he wanted to be with her, so he awkwardly tried to make his body move to the repetitive, pounding beat. He started to jerk his arms around in a kind of clumsy, freestyle movement and paced back and forth in the same place, with a lame two-step.
Nearby on the dance floor were Tanya and Leo, rubbing their bodies together in strange, animalistic contortions, like two snakes in a mating ritual. They had both seen the fracas between Donna and Bill. When it was over, out of the corner of her eye, Donna observed Tanya whisper something in Leo’s ear, which made them both laugh and kiss each other. Donna was roused into a rage again, because she knew they were laughing at her. Yet she tried to ignore them as much as she was ignoring Bill. There was a history, however, of mutual animosity between her and Leo, and Leo was not willing to let Donna’s difficulty pass without some further, public remark. He was not a gentleman.
“Hey, Donna,” he hooted. “Is that your new boyfriend?”
“No,” snapped Donna, who was not a gentlewoman. “If you’re tired of your illegal alien, you can have him.”
“Looks like you finally want to play with your own age group: Senior citizens,” he said, mocking her again. He and Tanya laughed like hyenas at this joke.
“Go beat him up,” Donna screamed at Bill.
“What?” Bill asked, confused. He had never been told to beat someone up before. He wasn’t even sure if he had ever bullied someone before, except maybe his sister, when they were children.
“Beat him up,” she screeched. “Do you have a gun?”
Bill was astonished by her question and didn’t know what to say or do. He had never held a gun in his life. He had never wanted to touch one. He didn’t even know where to find one.
“That tropical flower couldn’t harm a fly,” said Leo in scorn. Unlike Bill, he looked like he had a gun somewhere and knew how to use it very well.
“The fly would hurt him,” taunted Tanya. She and Leo laughed like hyenas again.
“Don’t just stand there,” Donna fumed at Bill. “Teach him a lesson.” She gave him more encouragement by shoving him violently at Leo.
Bill was caught off balance by Donna’s shove, and though he tried to catch himself, he fell into Leo, who was less than eight feet away.
“Watch it, buddy,” Leo warned him.
“You should apologize to Donna,” Bill said. Although Donna owed Bill an apology for pushing him, Bill practiced an old-fashioned form of chivalry with his dates, even when ladies like Linda, Tanya, and Donna showed themselves to be undeserving of such gallant treatment. He was going to try and protect them, defending their dignity and persons, even when his need for protection was much greater.
“Well, I’m not,” Leo answered, as he thrust Bill back into Donna.
“Don’t let that mobster push you around,” Donna yelled at Bill, and she shoved him back at Leo. “He just talks tough.”
Bill was too alarmed to hear that Leo might be part of the mob to say anything to him this time when they bumped together. Bill wondered if he had literally fallen into some serious, dangerous trouble.
“Tell your old lady to get some manners,” Leo grunted and tossed him back.
“And better taste in men,” Tanya sneered. She knew who was buttering her bread.
“Get them,” Donna screamed at Bill, sending him on his way again.
Like a volleyball, Bill was smacked back and forth between Donna and Leo, with Tanya now joining in her team’s effort. With each sally from the opposing sides, Bill became increasingly queasy, as the contents of his stomach churned in agitation. A crowd had gathered when the contest had first broken out, and the more they saw Bill being lobbed from one side to the other, the more their enjoyment at the spectacle intensified. When it seemed as if Leo and Tanya were going to win the match—Bill came close to toppling Donna to the ground with him one time—a few eager hands flew to Donna’s aid. With their assistance, she was able to throw Bill harder than ever at Leo. Hit off balance by Bill’s stronger impact, Leo stumbled backwards a few steps.
“Punch him!” Donna bellowed. “Punch him! Knock him out!” She wanted Bill to capitalize on their side’s momentary advantage.
The well-heeled Hamptons crowd lit up with excitement. Seeing a pushing contest escalate into a real fight would be the indisputable highlight of their evening.
Leo had regained his footing, and he strode toward Bill with a grim, hostile demeanor. “Let me show you how,” he told Bill, who was quivering like a lamb before a butcher, ignorant of how to fist fight. Grabbing hold of Bill’s right arm with his left hand to render him defenseless, Leo slammed his right fist into Bill’s gut.
Bill bent forward in intense pain, inches from Leo’s body, and an arc of vomit exploded out of his mouth onto Leo’s chest. Leo released Bill, and he tried to step back from the fountain of filth. But grossed out and stunned, he tripped and fell on his butt in front of Bill, who remained where he was hunched over. Puke continued to shoot out of Bill, covering Leo with undigested hamburgers, soaked in beer and bile.
“I’m going to kill you,” Leo shouted. “I’m going to kill you! You’re dead! Damn you. You’re dead.” There was more anguish and helplessness in his shouts than terrifying threats.
Leo tried to stand up and move away from Bill’s spewing mouth, but Donna had quickly grabbed Tanya’s arms from behind when Bill had started to vomit. Now Donna pushed Tanya, who was screaming like a maniac and struggling, as if she was being deported back to the Ukraine, on top of Leo. Tanya knocked him back down and lay on him. Bill’s stomach was still emptying itself, and his barf coated her as well. Although it didn’t help her situation, Tanya couldn’t stop raving like a crazed lunatic or try to get up. She could only scream and writhe like an eel on Leo’s body.
“Get off me!” Leo exclaimed. “Shut up and get off!”
He tried to push her off, but she started to beat on his chest with her fists, although that made the puddles of vomit splatter in their faces.
“Idiot!” she shouted. “Why did you bring me here? I hate you and your stupid friends! You have the cheapest, ugliest Rolex!”
“Leo, you have such good taste in women,” remarked Donna smugly. Without waiting for an answer, she sailed into the house to freshen up. She was immensely satisfied with her performance on the dance floor.
The last heaves had shaken Bill’s body, and there was nothing left in his stomach to shower Leo and Tanya with. Weak and exhausted, he straightened up. “I think I ate too much,” he said, to no one in particular. Although he now had the room in his stomach he had hoped for earlier, he had no desire to eat. The rows of tasty hamburgers beckoning him nearby offered a unique, unforgettable opportunity to sate his greed and gluttony, but he didn’t want to see them. He didn’t want to dance anymore either. He wanted to leave. He followed Donna into the house.
Donna’s reflections in the ladies’ room, while she freshened up, were very different from Bill’s reflections in the men’s room. After she wiped a few drops of perspiration from her forehead, she checked for stains on her clothing. “Thank God, they didn’t ruin this outfit,” she said to herself, finding none. While she fluffed her hair, she gazed at her image, with a contented smile. “Those kids are no match for me,” she thought. “I’m better looking, smarter, and stronger. By any real measure, I’m younger. I certainly need a younger boyfriend than Bill. That old goat, what a joke.” Leaning closer to the mirror to gaze at her beauty in more detail, she thought, after a minute of examining different sections of her face, “Monday I’ll have to call in for another Botox treatment.”
In the men’s room, Bill washed his face and neck again and again with cold water, as if he was trying to remove the memory of what had happened to him and arise in a new time and place. The delightful, romantic fantasy he had fashioned in his imagination during the previous week—happy chatter, electric dancing, passionate embraces—had been the empty thoughts of a fool. He knew that now too well. Instead of a fantasy come to life, the evening had been a phantasmagoria, in which he had been continually haunted, harassed, ridiculed, and hurt by evil characters swirling around him. Although it would seem that Bill’s train of thoughts should lead him to blame himself for what happened, as he should, that was not where his cogitations took him. A profound knowledge of human nature, even a scant acquaintance with it, tells us that humans seldom take responsibility for the predicaments they put themselves in. Bill was no exception. He blamed Donna for his night of misfortunes. Staring at himself in the mirror, feeling tired, sore in his stomach, and out of place, he thought, “Donna’s too old for me. I need a young girlfriend, not someone who only looks young. All she wants to do is stand around and talk to her friends. Or spend hours getting dressed. I need a young woman, who likes to dine, dance, and have fun.” The wrinkled, fleshy face in the mirror, which would have benefited from several Botox treatments, nodded in agreement.
Cheapskate in Love Page 22