“I can’t help but feel that everything would be different now, if only I had kissed him back. It would link us together somehow.”
“He can’t be as cocky as you say, if one rejection would cause him such an upset.”
“I didn’t say cocky. I said confident.” I aim my droopy wrist at her for emphasis.
“Perhaps it was your sense of esthetics kicking in. The man tried to kiss you in a toilet!” She does a little flourishy gesture with her hand, like a game show girl presenting a prize. I’m not sure if this is part of the form and I should imitate it, or if it’s just Careen punctuating her thoughts.
“That sounds like something Dylan would say. It wasn’t in a toilet. It was in the area just outside the rest rooms.”
“It was rather brash of him to kiss you at all. Perhaps this will knock him down a peg or two.”
I point out that George Emerson spontaneously kissed Lucy Honeychurch in a field of violets in A Room With A View, and that kiss changed everything. It set events in motion that sealed their fate.
“All your references in life are from books.”
“That’s exactly why I left Princeton!” I snap open my palms, in commendation of Careen’s profundity.
I give up on White Crane and sit cross-legged tearing up blades of grass and gazing in the distance. The house behind
Careen’s, with its square four stories of lavender shingles, reminds me of my childhood friend, Lilliana. Lilliana lived directly behind us; she taught me Spanish songs that I can still recite today.
Careen and I retire to the kitchen for lunch, when her husband appears. “Stop talking. I’m coming,” he warns, because we always suspend our girly subjects when he enters a room. We try to be discreet about it, but our silences are always so abrupt that he’s on to us. He rummages for something in the cabinet. Careen sets an arame salad before me. It looks like something that washed up on the beach. She places tiny tomatoes beside it.
“My wife is convinced she can cheat death one tomato at a time,” the meat and potatoes man warns me. “Okay, give me thirty seconds to get out of earshot, then carry on.”
“Mr. Palmer, you are very droll!” Careen teases him, a line lifted straight from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. He earned the nickname from us years ago, due to his affinity for dry and amusing commentary, just like the character in the novel.
A small posse of bikers assembles outside Careen’s gateway, comrades of Mr. Palmer. “Why do these middle-aged motorcycle men all dress exactly alike? Always the leather jacket, sweaty boots, and pathetic ponytail.” Careen wrinkles her nose in disgust.
“Actually, every Harley comes with a leather coat and clip-on ponytail,” Mr. Palmer deadpans, as he moves to join his buddies on the street.
“Ponytails for men ought to be outlawed after age forty!” Careen hisses into my ear. I point out that the bikers are listening to something classical on their radio, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. “Yes, even Britain’s bikers are genteel,” Careen says, with a sigh.
Careen is a few years older than me. We grew up together in Brooklyn, although when Careen was twelve, her father, a military man, transferred to a base in England. Careen spent the greater part of her life on foreign shores, and, thus, in many ways she is more English than American. She maintains a British accent. My favorite Jane Austen quotes roll with ease off her tongue. But despite her British turns of phrase and penchant for cream tea, the Brooklyn girl is still very much alive and well, which is obvious to me when,--after the seaweed soup--she proposes that we sit outside on the stoop and wait for the ice cream truck so as to buy Italian ices, lemon and cherry, our respective favorites.
There is something about being in the old neighborhood that always unleashes a flood of memories. Careen and I reminisce about our childhoods—the time Dylan tied Careen to a chair and couldn’t undo the knots and she had to walk home with a chair back strapped to her; the time I won a Mr. Softee sweepstakes and, to Dylan’s horror, chose the cheapest thing on the menu, a vanilla cup that cost a dime. Dylan pleaded with me to get him the banana split, promising to buy me the ten cent cup himself.
Careen nods vigorously, but cannot comment due to a mouthful of cherry ice stinging the new fillings in her teeth.
I’ve told Careen almost everything about Evan, but I’ve left out a few details, like the fact that Evan is an actor. Careen is not keen on creative types. Before she married the salt-of-the-earth Mr. Palmer, she was married briefly to a musician/painter/writer, and she is of the opinion that men in the arts are self-absorbed, eternally dissatisfied, and believe the common rules of decency (and employment) don’t apply to them. She has, at last, found happiness with the strong silent “Mr. Palmer,” a carpenter by trade from the quaint English village of Filkins.
We watch Mr. Palmer fraternize with his British biker friends. Careen bombards me with questions about the night at Delta, but much of it I can’t recall with any clarity.
“Try to remain sober in his presence,” she advises, matter-of-factly. “If for no other reason than to provide a complete recounting of events to me.”
It’s difficult to remain sober, or to maintain any balance whatsoever in Evan’s presence. He is like some cyclone that just blows my skirts and my entire being off kilter. It feels as if the world is speeding up when he’s near, as if my very life might sprint out from under me if I don’t grab hold of it.
“Lust,” she concludes, between slurps of cherry ice. We’re down to the slushy remains, which require a certain skill of squeezing the pleats of the paper cup, and angling it just so.
Careen tells me about her good friend and co-worker, Hazel, who suspects that her husband is having an affair. Hazel uncovered a bevy of mysterious calls at ungodly hours on her husband’s business phone, and traced the calls to a woman who owns a coffee shop in the city, and, to boot, the coffee shop is where Hazel and her husband had their first date years ago, a place that holds significant romantic meaning for them. Careen is already concocting a caper to get to the bottom of it, with a plan to recruit me.
“She is distraught, on the verge of filing for divorce. She hasn’t yet confronted him; she is still doing her own research and planning her strategy. But she’s considering walking away completely, and she wants to tell him to just take everything! Which is the one thing you must never say to a man, because, of course, they will.”
Mr. Palmer’s biker friends have roared off in a cloud of exhaust and windblown tails, and he is now engaged in unsticking a window in the bedroom above us. His head seems to float in the frame. He tosses a tool out the window, where it clatters onto the studded metal cellar board below. “Of course, we don’t mean you, Mr. Palmer, you are prodigiously fair in all matters!” Careen calls, before placing the flattened paper cup of ice whole in her mouth, to suck the remaining juices.
“I told her if it ever comes down to divorce, she must fight for what is rightly hers. He would not be where he is today if it wasn’t for her urging him on at all times. Why, if not for Hazel, he’d never have had the balls to start his own business. I see this kind of thing all the time. It takes a good woman to get behind a man and give him a kick in the knickers. They say it was Wordsworth’s sister who came up with the image of the dancing daffodils. Some say if it wasn’t for Nancy, the President would still be making B movies with chimps, instead of battling the communists.”
Mr. Palmer can bear it no longer. “I suppose Hitler invaded Poland because Eva Braun told him to get the hell off the sofa and do something with his life,” he calls, although all we see is the top of his tousled hair, which the wind has coiffed like Mozart’s periwig, at the window.
“Oh, Mr. Palmer, you are very droll!” we chant together, collapsing into giggles.
~ 6 ~
Bunny In The Big Leagues
Brandon has a part in a one-act play at a theatre over on Sixty-Seventh and Lexington. Dylan and his drummer, Joe, and I step out of Unique Studios onto the sunny street. I’ve completed my pia
no tracks, although Joe’s drum tracks are going to require another session.
“You told Evan you were on the brink of greatness,” Dylan announces, like a bolt from the blue. He lights a cigarette, stubbing it out with a big black loafer.
“I didn’t say that. Did I say that?” I consult Joe, as I recall the brain-altering effects of the blue drink.
“I’m afraid so.” Joe pats my hand, as if I were a child in need of comfort. It must be true if Joe, who wasn’t even there that night, knows about it. They talk sports while I rerun the events of the evening in my mind. I vaguely remember telling Evan about an article about a writer who a book reviewer believed to be on the brink of greatness. Perhaps I scrambled the details?
“I was talking about a writer in the Times book review, not myself,” I offer abruptly. They freeze with blank expressions, like a video put on pause, then, unfazed, resume their conversation.
I quickly formulate a plan, which grows exponentially complex with each passing moment, namely, that I must avoid crossing paths with Evan again at all costs, as it would be too humiliating. Granted, I’ll need the cooperation of Dylan, Brandon, and Joe, which could be tricky. I imagine instructing the three stooges in the seamless execution of my plan, unveiling elaborate sketches of possible scenarios and routes of escape.
“Why are we just standing here?” I demand, after ten minutes of struggling not to be mowed down by frenetic but fashionable crowds.
“Evan is meeting us,” Dylan announces, with what I could swear sounds like gloating.
Despite my absurd plot to avoid him for the next four lifetimes, my heart flowers at the prospect of Evan’s face appearing suddenly from somewhere in the crowd.
And then there he is, wearing black jeans and an expensive-looking sky-blue sweater and impressive shoes. How can a struggling actor always be so impeccably dressed? Perhaps he stocked his wardrobe when he was still receiving his hefty paychecks from the ballet company? Joe and Dylan observe us as if we are exotic birds suddenly placed in the same cage, as if something interesting may happen between us. Dylan shakes Evan’s hand and I pretend to fuss with something in my sweater pocket, when Evan plants a kiss on my cheek. He smells of his usual clean laundry hanging on a clothesline on a sun-soaked day. The Roomies walk ahead of us, arguing some political point.
“I don’t think I’m on the brink of greatness,” I blurt out, but in a hushed tone so the others won’t hear.
“What?” he says gently, as if his ears have played tricks on him.
“I don’t think I’m on the brink of greatness,” I repeat.
“Okay,” he says, solicitously and then, after a moment, “Do you want to be?” His arm lightly brushes my waist, guiding me around some construction.
“No, I just want you to know that I don’t think that I am.”
“Okay,” he says, looking charmed but confused.
I am wondering now if Dylan was pulling my leg, or if Evan is simply being gracious in pretending that he doesn’t remember.
Evan sips coffee from a Styrofoam cup and offers me some. I apologize for the rim of red gloss that I get on the cup, but he smiles and nods as if it doesn’t matter. When my black sweater with the pink hearts slips off one shoulder, he gently eases it back. On the way to the theatre we chat about books and movies and favorite foods and seventies sitcoms, silly lighthearted things, while all around us the clashing sounds of the city seem somehow to keep at bay, as if we alone float in the crisp and insulated tube of an autumn sunbeam.
We arrive at the Quaigue Theatre. There is a Dramathon running, where aspiring playwrights may showcase their short works. Evan shows his actors equity card and gets in free. The bored-looking box office guy waves me in, perhaps because I’m with Evan, or maybe Dylan has mercifully paid my five-dollar fee. Evan notices that I can’t take my eyes off our ticket taker—he’s just so spectacularly peculiar, with the blackest hair I’ve ever seen, a shimmering spandex striped shirt, and a bendy, Gumby-like physique and wildly expressive gestures. “He looks like a French mime,” I whisper, because Evan looks wounded that I’m staring at another guy.
The theatre is small and dark, and nearly empty. There are five actors onstage. It is a play about a minor league baseball team and their mascot, a bunny, and the conflict is that someone will be chosen to move up to the Majors, but Who Will It Be?
“This plot is so simplistic, you could have written it.” Dylan slaps his palms against his knees and slumps in his chair. It’s only five minutes into the piece and Dylan’s patience has been exhausted.
“Gee, thanks, I think,” I say.
“It’s so obvious that it’s the bunny who’s going to the Majors. And where the hell is Brandon? The play is half over and he hasn’t even made his entrance yet. He said he had a major role.” Dylan can’t sit still, and thumps his leg with the fervor of a cat scratching fleas.
“I think Brandon is the bunny,” I say, hoping to be of help.
“What? No way, Bran can’t be the bunny. He said he had a starring role. Where is the bunny?” Dylan straightens in his seat, leaning out of his violet velvet coat, his silky hair falling over his enviably high cheekbones.
“The bunny is stage left,” Evan Candelier, the actor, offers.
We all observe the guy in the fuzzy white bunny suit. I can tell by the way the bunny’s leg is crossed over the other as he reclines on his chair that this is indeed Brandon.
“Can’t be,” Dylan states.
“Bran is the bunny,” I confirm.
“Bran is the bunny,” Evan agrees.
“That is so fucked up,” Joe says.
“I guess he does have a Major role,” Evan quips.
Evan is beside me. I made sure that we filed into the seats in such order that Evan would be next to me.
Just then it is revealed that it is the bunny, and not one of the ball players, that has been chosen to move on to the Major Leagues. The bunny rises with a furry grace to inform his teammates of his sudden but shocking good fortune.
Evan nibbles peanuts, raining the shells to the dingy floor, and placing one on my knee. I’m wearing pale ballet-pink tights with a back seam, and a black knit dress that isn’t really a dress, it’s a dance cover-up, and it’s not covering much. Dylan showed up at my dance class and whisked me away to the recording studio with no forewarning. I nibble the nuts Evan gallantly shells for me. Without looking at me he smiles and places another peanut there, sometimes resting his hand a moment on my knee, pretending to see if the peanut is secure.
“You don’t write about bunnies, do you?” he asks.
“She writes about cats.” Dylan answers almost instantly, and I realize that he’s more attuned to my conversation with Evan than the play.
With a mouth full of peanuts all I can manage is an incredulous glare and a hand gesture at Dylan that begs an explanation.
“All your poems are about cats,” he insists, and I want to say, “Not since fifth grade!” but I have a mouth full of peanuts. What is Dylan talking about?
“You like cats?” Evan asks in earnest.
“Cats! Everything is about cats!” Dylan cries, in some mad cat delirium, and I’m wondering if he’s lost his marbles. Perhaps witnessing his best friend morph into a bunny has pushed him over the edge.
“That’s fucked up,” Joe says.
“I don’t write about cats!” I hiss, in a feline fury, gulping the peanuts, and trying to keep a respectful tone for the bunny’s big moment.
The bunny steps into the footlights to deliver his monologue, thanking his teammates for the opportunity they have afforded him to showcase his fine mascot talents, and waxing philosophical on how he won’t ever forget them, how he is confident that when he reflects back on his life, that his years in the Minors will inevitably seem the best years of his life. There is a smattering of clapping. We pick up the slack and offer thunderous applause for our bunny.
Evan spies a book poking out of my knapsack, Winter Trees, a collection of Sylvia Pl
ath poems. He lifts the book out, and asks if I like her work. In answer, I brush the pages rapidly to my favorite passage and point, so that he may read it.
“She stole it from the library.” Dylan rats me out, although earlier that day he commended me on this very act. The book is out of print, and the theft my only chance of owning it.
“Does that make you a cat burglar?” Joe asks.
“Sylvia killed herself. You’re not going to kill yourself, are you?” Evan inquires, with that disarming mixture of earnestness and mockery.
“I just might kill myself if this play doesn’t end soon,” Joe says.
Exiting the theatre, I am ahead of the boys. As I climb the steps ahead of him, Joe reaches out and lightly grips my calf, which is the only part of my leg exposed above my boot and below my footless tights, which are rolled up just below the knee. “Dancer legs,” he says. He does this with the same innocent curiosity as a child having a feel of a woman’s fur coat or a tug at a cat’s tail. I glance at Evan, who, amused, winks at me.
We linger under a yellow awning, all doing a slight jog in place to throw off the chill of the misty air. When Brandon joins us, reeking of wet fake rabbit fur, we offer feedback and encouragement on his performance. “I had fun,” Brandon says, almost apologetically, as if suddenly ashamed of his bunny debut. “Well, as long as you had fun,” is the sarcastic Dylan’s lame contribution to our critiques, as he cups his hands to light a cigarette against the wind.
“Look, Sylvia, there’s your gloom and doom moon.” Evan directs my gaze to the disc that shimmers despite the daylight. I’m wondering how he knows that Sylvia is big on moon imagery.
It’s decided that we’ll head back to the loft that Brandon now shares with two roommates. I follow them reluctantly onto the elevator, and Dylan watches me as the doors close.
“Haley hates elevators,” he reports.
“There are stairs,” Evan offers, moving as if to accompany me, but the doors have shut and we’ve already begun the ascent. I steel myself to remain calm in Evan’s presence, shooting Dylan a withering look.
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