Looking for Mr. Goodfrog

by Laurie Graff

  “See for yourself. They’re right over there.” Rhoda, Becky and what was most likely Stanley were across the promenade sitting on dark green deck chairs. Becky waved. We both waved back, but noticed Rhoda give her a quick swat that seemed to say, “Shush! She’s talking to someone male!” The gesture did not get past...

  “What’s your name?”

  “Doug.”

  I liked that name. It was strong, it was simple and it was sexy.

  “Karrie,” I said. “With a K. Derivative of Karen.”

  “But better. Karen once removed.”

  “Just better. I don’t do once removed.”

  Doug laughed. “That sounds very L.A.,” he said. “Are you from L.A.? You look like you could be.”

  So far he thought I could be Brooke’s cousin or someone from L.A. I decided not to tip him off. Not too soon.

  “Lived there once for a couple of years.”

  “For what?”

  “Work.”

  He looked at me. Finish the sentence, said his eyes.

  “Actress stuff.” He didn’t pick up on it, didn’t ask if I was in anything now, and I was glad to move the conversation along. “Where are you from?”

  Doug leaned in seductively. He turned his body as if it were holding on to some great secret it was dying tell. “You have to promise not to hold this against me.” Then he bent over and whispered into my ear, “Queens.”

  “Ohmygod.” Here was a boy from my own heart, harboring the same feeling about the illustrious hometown borough. “Where?”

  “You know Queens?” he asked.

  I nodded. Still not tipping him off. Not completely. Not yet.

  “The armpit of the borough,” Doug said. “Flushing.”

  Oh man, I could not contain myself.

  “I trump you,” I said, pointing a finger at me. “Sunnyside!”

  “You think?” said Doug, my personal intrigue coming to an abrupt end. “You think that trumps Flushing?”

  “I don’t know. Sunnyside Gardens with the wrestling. White Castle hamburgers on Queens Boulevard. Hometown of James Caan. Hmm... Maybe not.”

  “Well, at best it’s a draw.”

  A draw. I liked that.

  “And now?” he asked.

  “Upper West Side.”

  “Uptown girl. Ouch.”

  I tilted my head towards him.

  “Soho,” he said, I think with pride.

  “Got it,” I said, pointing to his outfit.

  “Cool.” With that he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a cigarette. He didn’t even think to offer one to me. No one smoked anymore. Yikes. I hadn’t dated a smoker in...ever! I hated cigarettes. I mean, I hated them. But I didn’t say a word because I already liked Doug.

  As he lit up, I turned my head to avoid the smoke and caught the eye of Susan somewhere behind me on the promenade. Standing next to a balding man with an affable face who had to be her husband, she watched Doug and I talk while waving her right hand back and forth, like, like...forget it? Doug turned and saw her, and she caught herself just in time by screaming to him, “Fox! What’s up?”

  “Later,” he called back. He turned to me, murmuring under his breath, “She’s been after me since junior high.”

  “Why did she call you ‘fox’?”

  “It’s my last name,” he said.

  “Oh. So, it’s not like a weird nickname or something?” I asked, hoping I could deal better with a fox than a frog.

  “But I didn’t go to the same high school as everyone else.” He told me his mother sent him to some artsy-fartsy private school to avoid drugs. “We had all of these special programs. Had to build things with clay and create environments with words and blocks,” he recollected, inhaling deeply and blowing the smoke out over the Hudson.

  “So, now I’m wondering if I can guess how everything you learned in high school impacted what you do for a living today,” I said.

  I was having fun with this guy. Screw the cigarettes. I slid my feet into the bottom of the railing, grabbed the middle bar of it with my right hand and swung myself backward. I felt happy and free.

  “I’m guessing...” The water stretched out for miles in front of me. I had no idea what was I was going to say. “I—bet—that—you—are...” I hung on to the railing, on to each word and on to the miracle of this man standing next to me, loving how the tides had turned.

  “I—think—you—became...” I stretched each word out slowly and deliberately. “A residential architect!” I declared, much like Henry Higgins’ pronouncement that Eliza Doolittle had successfully passed as having been born Hungarian!

  “You got it! How did you do that?” he asked. Stunned.

  “You’re kidding.” I jumped down from the railing. “That’s wild.”

  “I’m impressed,” he said, giving me a high five.

  Things were going swell.

  It had gotten quieter out there on the terrace, on the promenade. We had both noticed but pretended we hadn’t. However, when the announcements of things happening inside were made, I indicated that we probably shouldn’t miss it.

  “Okay,” he said. “But come over to the bar with me before you go to your table. I need to drink a lot when I come to these things.”

  “Oh! I do know what you mean, but I don’t think they’re so bad,” I said, forgetting all about the girl who had locked herself in the bathroom an hour ago. “Hey, did you know, Brooke had her dog, Mason, come earlier to be in the family portraits?”

  “I hate dogs,” Doug told me, stamping out his cigarette before we went in. “People and their pets. I just don’t get. You have to make too many concessions, you know?”

  “I, uh, have a dog,” I said, stopping Doug in his tracks. “A little guy. Nine pounds. Doesn’t take up much room. Maltese. Very animated. More like a cartoon character than an actual animal.”

  “Oh.”

  Doug got embarrassed, and I thought I should not have mentioned it. But Charlie was my family. I broke the strange moment of silence with complete candor. “I remember feeling afraid of getting him just in case I met someone who might not like him, but I really wanted him. I, uh...I wanted the love.”

  “You did the right thing,” said Doug. “It’s just that I once dated someone who was so tight with her dog, I’d be there feeling like, hey—where do I fit in?”

  “You fit in. But someone has to let you know that,” I said, remembering to remember that.

  We got to the bar just as they asked everyone to put their hands together for the new Mr. and Mrs. Weintraub. Doug asked if I wanted anything to drink and I decided to switch from watered down wine to Perrier. He thought I should load up on alcohol like him, but I said if I drank a lot I wouldn’t remember any of this—would he? And he said I was what he wanted to remember.

  Happy, I scrunched up against the bar next to Doug when a woman rushed up next to me holding a pen and asking for my autograph. She told me her daughter had tickets for my show and everyone at this thing was talking about it. In fact, she had seen it last month when I was only supposed to do it those first few weeks—she actually knew someone at my workshop and had just come—and she was thrilled I had gotten the great article and it continued to run. Her daughter was definitely going to die laughing because she had so many awful dates and had dated so many frogs, just as I had, and it did create a Frogaphobia, and was that how I came up with the title?

  She opened to a page in her little notebook for me to sign, and I felt Doug’s eyes on me the whole time, the whole time she talked, and the bartender shoved a piece of paper in my direction for an autograph thinking I was really somebody. I felt Doug’s eyes still on me while I saw his hand return the paper to the bartender, and then the woman left and I met Doug’s eyes. He stared at me quizzically until he finally spoke.

  “That’s you? You’re in that?”

  “Ummmm... That’s me. Yeah.”

  We walked away from the bar and up a few steps into the ballroom. The band
was now into klezmer music. Out of the corner of my eye I watched as the Morgans, the Weintraubs and the newlywed Weintraubs all sat on chairs that were lifted into the air, everyone dancing around them being thrown up and down. I looked away, grateful not to hear any alarming screams over the next few minutes.

  “I know about that show. I was going to see it. I just read a piece about dating attitudes and someone quoted that show. Why didn’t you tell me?” Doug asked.

  Because I didn’t want to wind up talking about bad dates? Because I was having so much fun talking with him about nothing? Because I was afraid he would think I was only talking to him for material? And who was it that wrote that piece and quoted my show?

  “Well, Doug, you already told me you didn’t like dogs, I figured it could only go downhill from there.”

  He laughed. His laugh was spontaneous and smart.

  Good. Let’s forget this. I hadn’t met anyone I liked in a long time. Today was a complete surprise, and I wanted it to only get better from here.

  “Do you feel like Carrie Bradshaw now?” he asked.

  “Sort of. Except she’s TV fiction, and I’m real!”

  “You know,” said Doug. “I’d really love to talk to you to about all this. About why men and women can’t have relationships.”

  Nooooooo.

  “I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and I think you’d be a great person to talk to about why men and women don’t connect,” he said.

  Ohhhhh, noooooo. I didn’t want to talk to him about disconnections. We had just been talking because we were connecting.

  “I already talk about it onstage, and I don’t want to talk about it conceptually. I’ll be happy to talk about it with you, Doug, but only if it pertains to you and me.”

  “But you and I seem to be doing fine, so far,” he said, taking my arm and leading me towards the edge of the dance floor. “We’re connecting just fine.”

  He ran his hand down my bare back. His fingers were so light it felt electric against my skin. Oh, yes, this certainly was a connection.

  Just then Susan danced by, pulling me into the gigantic circle. Doug grabbed the Perrier from my hand, and before I knew it my eyes waved him goodbye while my feet were suddenly jumping and kicking and dancing the Hora.

  “Listen,” Susan shouted over the music, her voice matching the staccato, dissonant, defiant chords that played as she spoke to me with warning. “He’s trouble. He’s dangerous. He doesn’t want a relationship. You better stay away from the Fox!”

  Hava Neranena Hava Neranena, the orchestra responded.

  “Hey, Susan, that means rejoice and be happy. So, I CAN’T HEAR YOU, OKAY?”

  Strappy sandals were not made to dance the Hora. Without missing a beat I threw them off and over to Doug, who caught them with the athletic prowess I knew he possessed and always find so appealing, and pulled Brooke into the center of the circle. Our arms entwined, we circled to the right, and right on back to the left. Everyone clapped while Brooke and I did circles upon circles until the music momentarily stopped.

  I walked back to Doug, grabbing and gulping the Perrier before putting it down on the floor while he handed me back my shoes.

  “How cute you are!” he said looking down. Strappy sandals come with very high heels, and barefoot I was only five foot one.

  “Oh, right. I’m not actually that tall,” I said, looking up.

  “I like it.”

  “Me, too,” I said, deciding to stay that way. Doug touched my hand. Looking down at his hand on top of mine, I noticed that the Perrier glass was perched at the edge of the step next to his left leg.

  “Be careful,” I said, pointing to the glass.

  “How soon it begins,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Here you go,” he said, reaching down and picking up the glass and handing it to me. “Anything else you want?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re already asking me to do things for you!”

  “I just said to be careful,” I said. “I didn’t want you to step on the glass.”

  “Oh,” he said, taking it back from me and putting it down on the floor. He looked a drop sheepish. “Ribbit. Ribbit.”

  “No ribbit. No. A tiny misunderstanding.”

  Was Susan right? I was tallying a list in my head. But in my list of pros and cons the pro column took the lead because I no longer felt a need to explain or defend chemistry.

  Doug walked me over to my table where only one place setting remained. Mine. Sadly, the seats that belonged to Jane and William were not available as I had hoped. He carried my shoes over, and deposited them on the floor while he pulled out my chair and guided me into it with his hand. The touch and tingle of his palm lingered on my back, and would sustain me through the dinner until later. The time we had agreed to meet up again.

  * * *

  I was seated with family. Mainly Mitch’s. First, second and third Weintraub cousins completed our table. Everyone was part of a couple, except me and the fellow on my right. He had been quite attentive as he watched Doug seat me, and now that Doug had moved on this guy felt he was able to move in.

  “Well, hello, there,” he said, breaking his bread and adding a huge slab of butter. “I know who you are!” he said, shoving half of the roll in his mouth and talking to me while he chewed. “I’m Leonard. Call me Leno. Leno Feinstein, Mitch’s mother’s first cousin’s son. I live in Bayside, Queens. I’m in telemarketing, and I know what you do,” he practically sang.

  The cachet of this whole thing had suddenly diminished. I felt like Cinderella running down the steps from the ball. I was afraid the clock might have just struck midnight and panicked that Doug had not kept one of my shoes.

  “Oh, really?” I said, looking down at the soup and the salad that must have been served while Doug and I were still outside. I chose to skip the soup that was now cold, and go straight for the salad. I reached for my napkin. Leno sat and stared.

  “So tell me some of your frog stories,” he said, watching while I stabbed two teardrop tomatoes with my fork, noticing that little pieces of bread were stuck between two of Leno’s teeth.

  The Jewish wedding had turned into a Jewish singles event. The tomato felt like a lump in my throat, and I only wished Susan wasn’t married so I could cut to the chase and send Leno her way. No one else was talking to me. I got the feeling the table had anxiously been awaiting the arrival of the person who belonged to the vacant chair, and when Cousin Leno’s drab eyes lit up, everyone felt it best to let him take the lead.

  “Maybe later,” I said, pushing the finished salad off to the side, and retrieving the curried corn crab soup that tasted just great cold. I ate. Leno watched. Well, actually, Leno was also waiting. For later.

  “So now you can tell me one of your frog stories,” he said, after the entrée had been served and he attacked the roast chicken, while I nibbled on the duck, a leg and a breast drenched in sweet, peachy compote.

  Leno regaled me with tales of how he didn’t take the hang-ups personally in his line of work, it was kind of numbers game, just like dating. I didn’t know why anyone ever thought that love was a numbers game. Love caught you off guard, it compelled you, it was emotional. If I were to meet another hundred Lenos, the hundred and first would not inspire anything more than a complete nervous breakdown.

  “Just one story, okay?” he practically begged. “Just tell me your worst frog story.”

  Could I tell him I was devising it as we spoke?

  “Ummm...okay,” I conceded. “Once there was this guy and he called me to go out on a date and he was very excited about seeing me and he made a big deal about it on the phone, and then he never followed through and he never called.”

  Leno contemplated. “He just didn’t call?”

  “Nope. He just didn’t call.”

  “Oh.” Leno pondered. “So what do you think? You think something happened to him?”

  “I think,” I said, turning to Leno for dra
matic effect knowing I was going to use my punch line, “I think the guy must have burst from anticipation!”

  Leno thought this over. “You think? You really think that’s what happened to him?”

  “Oh, yeah, Len. That’s what I think happened. Just like a big balloon.”

  “Oh.” No further reaction. “So tell me another one of your stories. Or do you want to dance?”

  Given the choice I chose to be a moving target.

  Everyone from our table had vanished, and when we made our way to the dance floor it seemed that practically everyone from the wedding was on it. I located Diane, who was dancing with a few women. Keeping myself a safe distance from Leno while we danced, I made a face to Diane, who had figured out the back story. Leno got creative in his moves, pinching his nose while he wiggled downward like he was trying to keep above water. I smiled a frozen one that alternated with the real ones that emerged every time I caught Diane’s eyes.

  “You like this dance?” he shouted over the music.

  “Yes!” I shouted back. “It’s pretty interesting!”

  “My sister taught me this dance. You know what it’s called?”

  “What?” I couldn’t wait to hear.

  “The Frog.” Leno squiggled his body up and down in a dance movement that indicated that he might have drowned, but then like a tadpole swimming upstream, suddenly came back to life. To prove the success of his resuscitation he cried out, “Croak. Croak.”

  Diane also heard, and we lost it. But Leno thought he had done something really good.

  “Croak, croak,” he said again, leaping to another part of the dance floor. “Croak, croak,” he blurted out when he leaped back.

  Croak, croak was right. I couldn’t wait for the dance to end. Later, for Doug and me, would be dessert, and I hoped that was just around the corner.

  “You’re a very fancy dancer, Leno Feinstein! Great moves! Just like a real frog.”

  Feinstein. The Frogstein.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw my would-be prince having a blast dancing with some pretty girl he had obviously met during the entrée. A frog by any other name can still smell prey! I was getting out of this swamp and leaping back to the other pond. By the time dessert was served I was seated next to Doug, who was perfectly charming and even managed to brush his hand on my knee when he bent down to retrieve a fallen napkin.