Donna had a point. Her father was more concerned with finding Loretta a husband than with finding her a considerate, honorable husband.
“So Jewish men make good fathers—”
“And they make good lovers,” Donna insisted. “They take care. They do what they have to to make you happy. This is what all my Jewish clients tell me.”
“Okay, so even assuming Jewish men make good lovers, why does it have to be Josh? Why can’t I find another Jewish man?”
“A bird in the hand, honey.” Donna nudged her upright and draped a towel around her wet hair. “A bird with a great body. Now, you don’t really want me to cut it all off, do you?”
“No,” Loretta admitted. “Just do something with it.”
“I’ll make you look so gorgeous, Josh won’t be able to resist you.”
Loretta sighed and forced a smile as she followed Donna back to the chair, leaving a trail of water drops behind her on the silver and gray tiled floor. She was already irresistible to Josh—except that he’d managed to resist her. But that was her doing. She’d been the one to say no more, and he—being a truly considerate, protective representative of the Chosen People—was honoring her request.
Their friendship wasn’t back to where it had been before, but it was improving. They talked on the phone. Josh had called her the evening after she’d produced Becky’s interview with Phyllis Yellin, and they’d spent an hour discussing what a feisty lady Phyllis was. “She reminded me of one of those fighting roosters,” Loretta said.
“She’s the wrong gender to be a rooster.”
“Yeah, but she’s got the personality of one—ready to snap at opponents, and it was so easy to ruffle her feathers. She kept squawking, too. Her lawyer kept telling her not to talk, but she’s got a real squawky voice.”
“So when are you going to film at the Senior Center?”
“Maybe over the weekend. We’ve got to work all this in around our regular shows. And after we’ve got all the tape, I’m supposed to help Glenn edit it.”
“Do you know anything about editing?”
“I didn’t know anything about trash TV before I took this job. I didn’t know anything about scripting on-the-fly interviews. I’m learning.”
“You’re doing great,” Josh had said, although he’d had no basis for such a claim. It had just been the sort of encouraging statement friends told one another.
Another night, while she’d munched on ice cream, he’d regaled her with news about his client, Henri Charnier. Apparently the man had formed an all-Haitian-American doo-wop quartet so he could surround himself with male voices. They wanted to practice in the basement of the apartment building, in a room adjacent to the laundry room. The landlord was threatening to deport them all. Henri believed that if his singing group could get a gig at the Apollo, the landlord would be so impressed he’d leave Henri and his family alone. “Maybe you could get his group to appear on the Becky Blake Show,” Josh had joked, but Loretta hadn’t laughed. She’d thought it was a damned good idea, actually.
It was easy enough to be friends when all they did was talk on the phone. If they couldn’t see each other, if they weren’t in touching distance, they could handle it. But she missed him. Eating Ben & Jerry’s by herself wasn’t as much fun as sharing it with him, two spoons digging into one container.
Thursday night he’d called and told her he was going to Florida. “I’m flying down on Saturday,” he’d informed her.
“You’re going to visit Melanie?” She’d kept her voice as smooth and cool as the ice cream she’d been shoveling into her mouth.
“Yeah.”
A long silence ensued. What was she supposed to say? “Have fun! Don’t forget to pack your rubbers!”
Damn it, he was going to see his girlfriend and patch things up with her. And if Loretta was as good a friend to him as she claimed to be, she’d wish him a safe trip. She’d be happy he was travelling all that way just to make sure everything was copasetic with his sweetie. She’d told Josh to forget about any romance between them, and that was what he was doing. She ought to be glad.
“It’s going to be hot there,” she’d said.
“That’s all Melanie ever tells me about the place.”
“You’d better bring a swimsuit. And sunblock.” And your rubbers, you asshole.
“I’m not—I don’t know how much swimming I’ll get to do. She doesn’t live on the beach or anything. And really, I’m going down there because she and I need to see each other, face to face.”
So you can kiss. So you can do to her all those wonderful, wicked face-to-face things you did to me. Loretta had never considered herself a jealous person, but suddenly she was drowning in jealousy, being sucked down by it as if it were a treacherous riptide. She’d once gotten caught in a powerful undertow at Rockaway Beach, but a beefy, sunburned lifeguard had spotted her getting dragged away from the shore and had raced out into the water with a boogie-board. She’d gripped it, then gripped him, and he’d kept shouting, “Put your feet down, put your feet down,” and to her surprise she’d discovered the water was only about four feet deep.
Jealousy seemed much more dangerous. Jealousy because some other woman was going to wind up with the man you’d turned away was not only dangerous but stupid.
Perhaps getting her hair cut was stupid, too. Perhaps it was dangerous. But Donna knew what she was doing, at least when it came to hair. When it came to advice for the lovelorn, Loretta wasn’t so sure.
“I’m only going to give it a little shape,” Donna assured her. “Nothing drastic. I never do anything drastic when a client’s got PMS.”
“I don’t…” Loretta cut herself off. Let Donna think she had PMS. It was better than having her think Loretta was an idiot for wishing Josh a bon voyage as he flew down to Opa-Locka to see his girlfriend.
She ought to act like Phyllis, she thought, strutting around like a fighting cock, sharpening her beak and wearing a blade on her leg. Or like Dora Lee, blunt and unaffected, stating exactly what she meant and requesting exactly what she wanted.
Right. She could be like Phyllis and Dora Lee, settling for half of Josh the way they each settled for half of Solly Hirschbaum. Forget that. She’d rather have nothing than half.
Although nothing seemed pretty pathetic. She was twenty-nine, she was single, she had turned away the best lover she’d ever had and tried to convince herself his friendship would be enough to satisfy her.
God, she was stupid, she thought as Donna lifted her scissors and snipped.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Christ, it was hot. To say it was hotter than hell would be euphemistic. It was hotter than hell multiplied by the temperature at core of the sun.
The air rippled before him as he stood outside the terminal in the waiting area for cabs. Melanie had explained why she wouldn’t be able to pick him up at the airport, but the heat burned away his memory of her reason. If pressed, he might remember his own name, but not much else.
It wasn’t just hot. It was wet-hot. Within ten seconds of his stepping outside, a layer of damp sealed his skin like cellophane wrap. He could scarcely breathe. If a cab didn’t come along soon—an air-conditioned cab—he would suffocate. No, he would drown. He would get poached like an egg. They’d find his soggy, scalded body under the concrete awning, the shade of which failed to moderate the air temperature or humidity. The last thing he would have seen before dying was the precariously tilting royal palms at the far end of the driveway leading away from this terminal of Miami International Airport.
A cab pulled up to the queue, and a lanky fellow with a Spanish accent markedly different from the Spanish accents that abounded in Manhattan waved him over. “You want a cab, señor?”
Josh wanted an igloo, but he managed a nod and wheeled his carry-on over to the cab. The windows were shut. A promising sign.
He swooned into the back seat, slammed the door behind him and gulped in the cool air. Tha
nk you, God, he murmured, although he supposed the cabby deserved some thanks as well. It took him several deep breaths to recover enough to read Melanie’s address off the index card he’d tucked into the chest pocket of his polo shirt.
“Opa-Locka? Shee’, you goin’ all the way to Opa-Locka?” the cabby grumbled. He was a skinny, jive guy with elaborately braided hair. His shirt was constructed of a shiny fabric so brightly colored it hurt Josh’s eyes. Unfortunately, his sunglasses were packed into his carry-on and he lacked the energy to unzip it.
“Yes. I’m going all the way to Opa-Locka,” he said.
“Well, okay, I guess. We got these rates, see—”
“Just take me there, okay?”
“I wanna get it straight up front. We got these rates.”
“I understand. I have every intention of paying those rates.”
“All right, then.” The cabby pulled away from the curb and into the traffic circling madly around the terminal.
I have died and gone to hell, Josh thought as more palm trees loomed into view. Did people actually think palm trees were attractive? They looked like something Dr. Seuss might have designed while under the influence of bad drugs.
In Florida less than a half-hour, and already he was homesick—and not just for the trees of his hometown. What he missed most were the people back in New York. One person in particular. All he had to do was close his eyes and her face loomed into view in his mind. Her face and her long legs and her dark, dark eyes. Judgmental eyes. Condemning eyes. And a mouth that had told him, more than once, that she was not interested in a romance.
He was doing the right thing, damn it. He was here to see Melanie, to tell her he’d met someone else—who might have no interest in building a relationship with him, but that didn’t change his understanding of the fact that his relationship with Melanie was over. Any other man would have sent her an email or left a phone message—or not left any message at all, just cut off all communication. Any other sane man would have handled it that way. But Josh had chosen to be honorable.
Actually, he hadn’t really had a choice. He’d been so swamped with guilt that the only way he could end his relationship with Melanie was the hard way. It had to be inconvenient for him if it was going to count. It had to be painful. If breaking up with her didn’t make him at least as uncomfortable as a case of weeping poison ivy, he’d never be able to overcome his guilt.
The cab cruised past stucco buildings, shotgun shacks, low, rectangular structures that sat in clusters along the highway like the landscape painting of a cubist who’d run out of every color of paint except the palest pastels. It cruised past tall palms, short palms, scruffy palms and shrubby palms. It cruised past grass that had shriveled in the heat, past vivid turquoise swimming pools, past billboards featuring pictures of towering hotels beside curving white beaches, and restaurants offering early-bird specials, and voluptuous women in skimpy swimsuits and no visible tan lines.
Did Melanie wear skimpy bikinis like those on the billboards, with push-up bras and thong bottoms? Did she sunbathe nude? Might he see her, glowing an even, all-over copper, and forget what he’d come to Florida to do? He was only human, after all. He was only a man, which placed him among the lower order of Homo sapiens. A sexy woman with a gorgeous, sun-darkened complexion—in a thong bikini—well, he might not be able to control himself.
He closed his eyes against the merciless midday sunshine, rested one arm atop his suitcase to keep it from sliding into him as the cab zigged and zagged among the highway lanes, and tried to remember everything Solly had told him. “Everyone here,” he’d said, gesturing toward the others sharing the lounge with them at the Senior Center where they’d been playing chess, “they all love Melanie. They adore her. And no question, she’s a fine girl. She did a wonderful job when she was here. Speaking of which, Phyllis has been banned from the Senior Center, pending. She’s very upset about this. You think you could pull some strings?”
“Me? What strings could I pull?”
“You and Melanie were an item, Josh.”
“But Melanie isn’t here anymore. She doesn’t make the rules. Pending what, by the way?”
“Pending, how did they put it? The resolution of her case? Something like that. So, you could talk to the new director, Francine, and tell her maybe she could let Phyllis back in.”
“Why would Francine listen to me? I’ve never even met her.”
“One, you’re a lawyer. Two, you and Melanie. I should warn you, Josh, you don’t want to move your knight there. You move it, and you’ll regret it for the rest of this game—which won’t last much longer.”
Josh gave the board an intense scrutiny and released his knight without moving it. He already regretted enough in his life. “I don’t know what I’d say to Francine.”
“Say something legal. Heretofore. Nolo contendre. You’ll think of something.”
“Do you really think Phyllis should be back at the center? She nearly killed Dora Lee.”
“Assuming she pushed her. This is America. Innocent until proven guilty.”
“Wait a minute.” Josh leaned back in his chair and gave Solly an even more intense scrutiny than he’d given the chessboard. “You’re living with Dora Lee and defending Phyllis. How can you play both sides so easily?”
“Who said any of this is easy? My heart is breaking, Josh.” Solly looked about as heartbroken as a Yankee ace after pitching a shutout. “Two wonderful women, and I care for them both.”
“Not to mention your ballerina friend.”
“Not to mention her,” Solly agreed. “I’m not playing both sides. I’m playing no sides. I want all my women to be happy.” Solly smiled sadly. “What do you think? I’m a meshugena old man?”
“I don’t think you’re a meshugena old man. I think you’ve got some unrealistic goals.”
“And you’re a realist?”
“Yeah.”
“Then get real, as my grandson would say. You want Loretta, am I right? One look at you and I see it oozing out of you, all this want. You’re crazy about her.”
“I like her,” Josh allowed. He couldn’t bring himself to admit he was crazy about her. He’d cop to crazy, period.
“She’s a fine girl, too, that Loretta. Not Jewish, am I right?”
“No, she’s not.”
“There are worse things in this world. When I was a young man, my father always said, ‘Those shiksas—woo-woo!’”
“Woo-woo? Your father said woo-woo?”
“I knew what he meant. You know what he means, too.”
Unfortunately, Josh did. And while he wasn’t sure “woo-woo” described Loretta D’Angelo, it came pretty close to describing the way he felt about her.
The cabby performed a death-defying pass before veering off the highway and down a ramp. A red light stopped him, and Josh had to cling to his suitcase to keep it from slamming into the back of the driver’s seat. “What’s that address again?” the driver asked.
Josh read it, his voice betraying none of his tension.
“I gotta tell you, man, I don’t know Opa-Locka real well.”
“Neither do I,” Josh said.
The light turned green, and the cab rolled through the intersection. Not knowing Opa-Locka real well apparently wasn’t going to stop the driver from traveling its roads. As he steered, he pulled a cell phone from his pocket and punched in a number. “Tito? Hey, ’s me. Yeah. Hey, man, you got a road map of Opa-Locka lying around? I need some navigational assistance here and my GPS ain’t working.”
Josh glowered at the cell phone. He should be grateful the driver had one; with Tito’s guidance, the guy might actually deliver Josh to the apartment complex where Melanie lived. But still, on principle… A professional driver ought to know his way around Opa-Locka. If he didn’t, he shouldn’t be licensed to operate a cab.
The driver babbled into his cell phone. “You sure? A right turn? Looks like a one-way street to
me…” followed by gales of laughter. Josh wished he could share the driver’s mirth, but he was entertaining visions of a head-on collision in the middle of that one-way street. He had visions of a head-on collision with Melanie, too. The longer the driver meandered along the steaming roads of this Miami suburb, the more time Josh would have to prepare what he was going to say to Melanie.
Which was…what? Hi, I’m here to break up with you.
Hi, you’re looking great, I’m glad you’re happy, I’m here to break up with you.
Hi, I’m pretty sure I loved you, but you left New York and I met someone else, so have a good life—and enjoy the plural Iglesiases.
Hi, it’s great to see you, I’ve missed you, I slept with another woman but hey, I’m here, it’s been a long trip so what the hell, right? Just this once, for old time’s sake…
Damn. Maybe he ought to have the cabby turn the car around and bring him back to the airport. Then he could fly home and break up with Melanie the way a sane, guilt-free person would: by email, long-distance, without eye contact.
He couldn’t do that, though. It wouldn’t be right. If he felt guilty now, he’d feel twice as guilty ending their relationship the coward’s way.
Besides, there was a chance—a small chance, but still—that he’d see her and remember why he’d come so close to using the word “love” with her as recently as a few months ago. Right around the same time Loretta was getting ditched by her fiancé, Melanie was contemplating whether to accept the job offer in Florida and Josh was contemplating whether to convince her not to accept it by using that four-letter word. Something real had existed between them then. He couldn’t deny it. And he had to see her, in person, in the flesh, to make sure it didn’t still exist.
“You kiddin’? Okay, I’ll do that,” the driver said into his cell phone. “I’m at the corner now. There’s a Mickey D at the corner—that’s right.”
I’m somewhere on Long Island, maybe Westbury. Josh recalled that dimwit on the train, pinpointing her location to the nearest railroad tie for the benefit of someone on the receiving end of her cell phone call. He remembered Loretta sitting across from him during that Sunday evening ride, the wild ripples of her hair, a book open in her lap and her expression a mixture of exasperation and amusement. He recalled thinking, “This cell phone ninny is irritating that dark haired woman as much as she’s irritating me. I bet she’d be impressed if I took action.” So he’d taken action.
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