Me Times Three

by Alex Witchel

  I picked up my bag and followed him. “Did you just park it?” I asked. He nodded. Silently, we headed for the garage.

  “It’s still Walt, right?”

  He nodded again.

  “It’s okay. We’ll find him,” I said as steadily as I could. “Do you think it was the A section? Or the B section?”

  “B!” he shouted. “It’s B.”

  “Okay, great.” We walked to B, up one row and down the next. He never looked at me. I prattled on about the airplane food, so truly terrible, and how nice it felt to be carrying my coat, not wearing it, because it was so warm out, but he didn’t seem to hear. As we made our way up and down each side of every level, it eventually became clear that Walt was not parked in B.

  He stopped suddenly and announced, “I have to call Sally and tell her we’re late.”

  “Are we meeting Sally?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Um, Sandy, I meant to tell you this before. I’m living with Sally now.”

  I put down my bag. “You are?”

  He nodded again.

  “Then where am I staying?” I asked.

  “Sally’s,” he said. “She has an extra room.”

  “Is that okay with her? She’s never even met me.” He was still nodding, walking off toward a stairwell in search of a phone. I waited awhile, counting Mercedes convertibles, till he came back, smiling.

  “I parked in A,” he said with relief. “Sally told me to park in A, and that’s where I parked, because it would be faster.”

  “Great,” I said. As we headed to A, I tried not to listen to the pounding of my heart or to feel the handle of the bag cutting my hand, and I tried not to turn and run and get on the next flight home. It had barely been two months since Paul told me he had AIDS, and since then we’d talked as often as we always did.

  Whenever I asked how he was, he either said “Fine” or changed the subject. I had no idea things had gotten this bad.

  We walked up and down A. “Walt!” he cried with relief, and he opened the doors and we sank into the low bucket seats. Paul leaned his head back and let out his breath, wiped away the large beads of sweat at his temples, underneath his baseball cap. He turned the key in the ignition, and when he pressed his foot onto the accelerator I could see the spindle of his leg through his corduroy pants.

  “It’s cold out tonight, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “What? Oh, yeah, I guess it is. Listen, should we get some dinner?”

  He looked at me as if I were crazy. “I already told you we’re going to the Ivy for dinner,” he said. “Sally’s meeting us there.”

  “Right,” I said. “I forgot.” He pulled onto the street, out of the airport, and when I asked him how work was, he got so confused that he missed the light where he was supposed to turn, and cursed me.

  I apologized and managed to keep quiet until we had safely arrived at the white picket fence outside the restaurant. A valet took the keys, and we went inside. Paul looked around anxiously until a short woman with clipped, dark hair approached us.

  “Sandy, I’m so glad to meet you,” she said warmly, holding out her hand. “I’m Sally.”

  She looked nothing like her picture, but then again the picture Paul had shown me was years old. The bun was gone, she was thin now, and her short hair was stylish. But it was her eyes that shocked me. Big, chocolate-brown, and ready to cry, just like Paul’s. The two of them looked related.

  “It was really important to Paul that he pick you up himself,” Sally said hurriedly as he excused himself to go to the bathroom and we made our way to the table. “He hasn’t been doing too well, but when I suggested that I go, or that we go together, he refused. I hope it wasn’t too much of a shock for you.”

  “No, no,” I said. The last time I had seen Paul, he was standing lookout on the garbage run to Murray Hill. Everything had changed.

  “He has good days and bad days,” Sally continued. “The agency has been wonderful, and even though he still has his assistant, he hasn’t been going to the office much. It’s hard to predict what the days will be like. The doctor said we should expect that, but it’s been really difficult to deal with.”

  I was just ordering a drink as Paul came back. “I love this place,” he said, looking at the menu.

  “Good,” I answered. “You should eat something. You’re a bone.”

  He looked at me across the table. “And you should eat a salad,” he said sharply. “You are not a bone.”

  Sally looked alarmed, but Paul and I laughed, so she laughed, too. She seemed to be a good sport, actually.

  When the drinks came, Paul raised his glass of Perrier. “To my fiancée,” he said, beaming at Sally.

  “To mine,” she answered. I lifted my own glass and offered a loud “Congratulations!” while trying to nudge Paul under the table without breaking his leg, but he ignored me.

  “When are you getting married?” I asked tentatively. I was starting to feel a pronounced sense of doom. “Soon,” she said blithely. “We’re planning to do it in Venice. Or Rome.”

  “Or Paris,” Paul said. “We’re going to book the Vienna Boys’ Choir to sing at the cathedral.” His eyes gleamed with sincerity and delusion.

  “Really? I had no idea you could even do that.” When his expression didn’t change, I quickly added, “How fantastic!”

  Sally, seemingly overcome, dabbed at her eyes with her fingertips and, excusing herself, went to the ladies’ room for a tissue. She looked meaningfully at Paul as she left, but he seemed to ignore her.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered across the table.

  “What do you mean?” He looked himself again, at his most innocent.

  “You’re sick, you’re getting married in a foreign country, and not only that, but you’re booking a wedding night full of tricks? Does this girl not realize that you don’t give a shit about the way the Vienna Boys sing?”

  He laughed. That was something, at least.

  “Sandy, she’s been an angel to me, and I adore her,” he said. “She always wanted to get married. What harm does it do?”

  “What do her parents think?”

  “They know that I once had a drug problem. But they’d like us to be married too.”

  Sally’s return put an end to that conversation, so we ordered and ate and discussed only the safest of subjects. Sally talked a lot about her new job, as a fact checker for Beverly Hills magazine.

  Paul’s grilled tuna had to be sent back twice because it wasn’t cooked enough for him. He wouldn’t eat even a piece of bread while he waited, and by the time the tuna came back, he took it to go, since without the necessary padding on his behind, he was increasingly uncomfortable sitting on the hard chair. The cars were brought to the front, and Paul and I followed Sally back to her place.

  “So, Sally checks facts for a living, eh?” I asked sharply. The words hung in the car.

  “Don’t do this,” he said wearily.

  “Why shouldn’t I? And when did you start living together, without even telling me?”

  “A few weeks ago, I guess.”

  “And why were you wearing a baseball cap in the restaurant?”

  “Bad hair day. Listen, Sandra.” He pulled his car into a driveway, right behind Sally’s. She stood there, waiting. “I am not up to this,” he said. “Get it?” He looked angry and hurt. Well, that made two of us. What the hell was going on here? This was my seriously ill gay best friend, planning to marry his girlfriend in Venice while being serenaded by the Vienna Boys’ Choir. I needed a new playbook. I opened the car door and got out, and Sally led me inside.

  The apartment was huge: living room, kitchen, dining room, three bedrooms. This was not, I was certain, being paid for with a magazine salary, but with Sally’s father’s ice-cream fortune. Sally showed me to my bedroom, next to the one she used as an office. Paul headed toward the master bedroom down the hall, dragging his feet on the carpet.

  “Good night!” I called after him with a pronounced t
one of aggrievement. I mean, really. He was engaged, for Christ’s sake, and he was going to bed instead of talking to me about it?

  I heard his softer, exhausted response through the closed door. “Good night.”

  Sally bustled into my room with fresh towels and an alarm clock. “I’m so glad you came, Sandy,” she said, squeezing my arm. “You mean so much to Paul.”

  I thanked her and said good night. This girl was getting on my nerves. She was like a hostess welcoming me to my own friend.

  That’s not fair, Sandra, I thought, getting into bed. You’re just overtired. And overwhelmed. Go to sleep. Things will be better tomorrow.

  Mornings in Los Angeles, when they’re sunny, make you believe you’ll live forever. The colors are so bright, so vivid, you see why someone had to invent Technicolor, just to avoid being outclassed by his own backyard.

  Sally was up and in the kitchen, setting out fresh-squeezed orange juice and a big basket of muffins. A pot of coffee was ready, and a pitcher of milk and a sugar bowl sat beside it.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “Good morning,” she called, closing the refrigerator door. “Did you sleep well?”

  “I did. Did you?”

  “Yes, actually. And it was a good night for Paul, too. He slept right through.”

  “Doesn’t he usually?”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Paul said, walking into the kitchen. He was dressed in a white sweat suit that normally would have set off his dark coloring, but now only heightened his pallor.

  “Do you like it?” He preened and giggled. He seemed in high spirits.

  “Very pure. Good thing you don’t have to worry about white making you look fat.”

  Sally smiled. “Paul and I are going for our morning walk,” she said brightly. “Would you like to come?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m going to have my morning sit-on-my-behind. But thanks.”

  Paul sipped some juice. “So, Sandy, later you and I will go out to lunch,” he said, “and then we’ll go shopping, and then hang out here for a while. Tonight we have reservations for dinner at this Italian place we really like, but first there’s an AIDS service at the Catholic church we go to, which should be great, ’cause there’s a priest there who’s been terrific to me.”

  I nodded. “Sounds good.”

  They turned to go. Even for sweatpants, the pants hung on Paul. I looked closer and saw that there was a tiny red dot on them, directly in the middle of the seat. I won’t say anything, I decided, turning to the newspaper. It would ruin his day if he thought his white outfit wasn’t pristine.

  I read for a while, then looked around the kitchen. Cheery, checkered tablecloth, blond wood cabinets, ladybug magnets on the refrigerator door. But on top of the refrigerator, things were not so cozy. I got up for a closer look. Boxes with Japanese labels sat on top of boxes with French labels. “Attention!” one warned, and even with my crummy French I could figure out that it was some sort of medicine, medicine that apparently hadn’t been approved here yet. I reached up toward the boxes, then pulled my hand back. This was not my house.

  The front door slammed. “Paul?” I called out. He ran past me into the bedroom, slamming that door too, but not before I could see a slash of red across his white behind.

  Sally came in more quietly.

  “He’s bleeding?” I asked, trying not to sound as frightened as I felt.

  She nodded. “It happens,” she said evenly, putting down her keys. “He’ll be okay. He just didn’t want anyone else to see it.” She went to the coffeepot and poured some into a mug.

  “Sally, listen,” I said. “It was right after New Year’s that Paul told me he was sick. Since then I’ve had perfectly normal conversations with him. What’s going on? How can this be happening so fast?”

  She sighed. “He waited too long to be tested,” she said, sitting down at the table. “He knew something was wrong, but he didn’t want to know what, so by the time he finally had no choice, the illness had progressed to the point where now it only seems to gain momentum.”

  “I know he’s taking AZT, but what about those drugs?” I pointed to the top of the refrigerator.

  She shrugged. “They cost a fortune. But the doctors say they’re worth a try, because at this point, anything is worth a try.”

  “Are they what’s making him lose his memory?”

  “They might be. Or it might just be dementia. It’s hard to know for sure.”

  “Are they the reason he’s losing his hair?”

  She looked startled.

  Now I shrugged. “Let’s just say I’ve never known Paul to wear a baseball cap to dinner. Especially someplace like the Ivy.”

  The bedroom door opened. Paul emerged newly showered, wearing navy sweatpants and a T-shirt. “Let’s go shopping,” he said tensely, walking into the kitchen.

  I looked at him. “Why don’t you sit a minute? We have the whole day.”

  His face was set. “No. I want to go now.”

  “Okay.” I got up and turned to Sally. “Can we get you anything?”

  “No, thanks.” She smiled contentedly, as if she were on a sun-dappled porch somewhere. I wondered what kind of pills she was taking.

  Paul drove—well, I noticed—to a nearby mall, where we wandered aimlessly.

  “What do you need?” he finally asked.

  “I don’t know. Nothing, I guess.”

  “Why are you the only girl in America who needs nothing? What about dates? Don’t you need clothes for that?”

  “Well, not exactly.”

  “What does that mean?”

  I told him about my trip to Mexico and the delightful Dr. D’Amico and how I no longer felt that I needed to rush down the nearest aisle and cook lasagna. That I had decided to smell the roses and invest in lingerie. Then I told him about my drinks date with Mark Lewis that had lasted till midnight.

  “So?” Paul asked. “Are we seeing him?”

  “Not really. It’s all about work, for now at least. But he did ask for me to help out on a piece he’s writing in Philadelphia. So I’m going there with him.”

  “Oh, I love that!” Paul exclaimed. “A first-date field trip!”

  “It’s not—”

  But he was off, pulling me toward the nearest store with that mad-shopper look in his eye, the boundless exhilaration that would lead to the inevitable crash of the credit-card statement. There was no stopping him now.

  “I love that you’re dating again! You have to look wonderful!” he exclaimed, charging through the store’s front door, thumbing through a rack of impossibly expensive leather jackets—like I would ever wear one—while I walked to the opposite side of the store.

  Now that I stopped to think about it, why hadn’t I heard from Mark? We had that great night, but afterward he never called—his agent did. He knew I was going to Philadelphia—at his request—but still, nothing. He’s dating like crazy, I remembered Peter Darby saying. Well, what was Dr. D’Amico? An interview?

  Paul came bounding toward me. “How about this?” he asked mischievously, holding up a silver bikini.

  I turned my back. He was not going to rest until I bought something, so after careful consideration of every item in the store, I finally settled on a leather pocketbook, a plain black rectangle.

  “You’re a thrill a minute, Sandra,” Paul said, shaking his head.

  “Why? It’s real leather—unlike the plastic thing I have now—I can use it with or without the strap, and it’s well made, so it’ll last a long time,” I answered practically.

  His mouth turned down; he clearly did not want to think in terms of time.

  “Okay, wait, you’re right,” I said hurriedly. “I need something more fun.” I went to a rack that held a black Lycra dress with a strappy top. “I’ll try this on,” I said. It wasn’t too trashy, actually. It looked like something a cocktail waitress would wear to a funeral.

  Wow, I said to the dressing room mirror. Suddenly I had cleavage. The th
ing was like an Ace bandage, pushing everything around in just the right way. Unprompted, I wouldn’t have tried it on in a million years.

  “Well, what do you think?” I asked, stepping out of the dressing room.

  Paul clapped his hands and hooted. “Very Ava Gardner,” he said approvingly. “Vampy, not trampy.”

  “Sold,” I said. “To the woman going to Philadelphia on a date that’s not a date with a guy who hasn’t called her in three weeks.”

  “He’ll call you when he sees you in that,” Paul said as I went to take it off.

  “Okay,” I said as we left the store, “now that I’ve bought something, why don’t we get some lunch?” Paul insisted he wasn’t hungry. We continued strolling through the mall, but the dress had satisfied him and he had lost the spark to shop. After a while, we headed back to Sally’s. When we pulled into the driveway, I jumped out and turned to find him still sitting in his seat.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  He looked at me, seething with resentment. “I can’t move as fast as you,” he snapped.

  “Sorry.” I knew that, of course. I had just become lulled—had wanted to be lulled—by his seeming normalcy these past few hours. I didn’t want to treat him like an invalid. He was fine. We were fine.

  Once inside I headed to the fridge, found a drawer full of cold cuts, and made sandwiches, which Paul refused to eat. Sally and I had lunch in front of the TV; the only choices seemed to be horror movies or sports. We settled on a horse race, but Paul was oblivious. He was writing something on a pad, something he seemed to be hiding.

  “Romano, what are you doing?” I finally asked.

  “You’ll see later,” he said. I looked at Sally, who just shrugged.

  “And it’s Mix and Match taking the lead!” the announcer screamed.

  “Honestly, where do they get these names from?” I asked. “None of them makes any sense.”

  “I think they do, at least to the people who name them,” Sally said. She turned to Paul. “If you were a horse, what would your name be?”

  “I don’t know, Sally. But I know yours.”

  “What?” she asked, a little anxiously.

  He smiled tenderly. “Good as Gold.”