Perfect on Paper

by Janet Goss

  “Wait—what?”

  “Shhh.” He rubbed against me and began to ease my pants past my hips. His dick felt like granite.

  “But why…?”

  “Best thing for death is life. Let me take care of you.”

  I wasn’t about to argue, especially since I agreed with him. Bone-rattling, whiplash-inducing sex was exactly what I needed. I managed to free one leg from my jeans and wrapped it around him while he pounded me into a welcome state of oblivion.

  It went on like that all night. He carried me over to the stairs, then down the hall to the kitchen, and eventually into bed, letting up just long enough for us to catch our breath or gulp water straight from the faucet.

  The sky was just beginning to turn gray when I dozed off—or passed out, I wasn’t sure which. When I came to, the clock read four and Hank was lying next to me.

  “You all rested up?”

  I nodded.

  “Good.” He rolled on top of me, pinning my wrists with his hands. “ ’Cause I ain’t done yet.”

  This was a whole new Hank Wheeler. He’d never been so tireless, or shown such single-minded intensity. Even Dinner, who usually had to be barred from the bedroom prior to foreplay, had taken refuge in his kennel when we’d burst into the kitchen, clothes scattering in our wake. “You’re my girl now,” Hank said as my head banged against the rails of his brass bed. “That’s the only thing you need to be thinking about.”

  I loved it. I couldn’t get enough of him. All my focus was on his body, and the sex, and the moment, and I would have eagerly kept going until I was dead.

  Which I nearly was, by the time I staggered home early Monday morning on weakened knees.

  “Wow,” Elinor Ann said. “I guess he’s not the jealous type.”

  “Or he is, and was on a mission to prove he’s king of the jungle.”

  “So… did it work?”

  “Vive le roi,” I said. “I’m only just now getting full feeling back in my feet.” I thought back to the night before and shivered. “Hank was the perfect boyfriend this weekend,” I told her. “Not every guy would have been so—I guess you could say, sympathetic, even though that was the farthest thing from a mercy fuck I’ve ever experienced.”

  “Well—I’m glad, then. Uh, can we talk about something else now?”

  “Of course. I’m sorry. You know, I’ll never be able to stop thanking you for coming to see me. How was it getting home?”

  She laughed. “I was asleep before we got across the Bayonne Bridge. And it’s a good thing, too—I’ve been cleaning up dog wee-wee around the clock ever since Eddie and Cal brought Lurch home from Phillipsburg.”

  “Lurch? I love it. How’d you come up with that?”

  “Once you’ve seen him walk, you’ll realize it’s the only name for this… creature.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “So are we. God, I’m glad you finally called, Dana. I was really beginning to worry.”

  “What are you talking about? I called as soon as I heard the message you left Sunday morning.”

  “Oh, come on. ‘I’m fine—can’t talk—bye’? You call that a conversation?”

  “I just told you—I was… busy.”

  “Apparently.” She paused. “So… are you feeling a little less sad about Ray?”

  “Yeah. I am. It’s like Hank said—the best thing for death is life.”

  “I like that. And I really am relieved that he turned out to be so… understanding, if that’s the right word for it.”

  It was the right word. Just before I left the brownstone that morning, Hank had walked me to the front door, then looked down at his feet. “So was that guy, like, the love of your life?”

  I saw no point in lying to him. He’d been an eyewitness to my meltdown in the restaurant. He already knew the answer. “I guess you could say that.”

  He leaned in to kiss me goodbye. “Well, maybe you could have two of them.”

  Or three, based on the contents of my in-box, which featured four messages from Billy Moody.

  “What are you doing?” read the subject line from Friday. “Where are you?” had come in Saturday afternoon, followed a few hours later by, “Hope everything is okay.” Finally, on Sunday, he wanted to know, “Was it something I said?”

  “No,” I replied aloud to the computer screen. “It was something Hank did—repeatedly.”

  I’d allay Billy’s fears, but first I had to look over the photos Eddie had sent at my request. Lurch was adorable—mostly white, with a few well-placed brown spots, including one over his right eye.

  “Cutest. Bulldog. Ever,” I wrote back. “Can’t wait to meet him in person.”

  By the time I’d sent off the email, my in-box was fuller by two. Billy again, and… what was this?

  Dear Crossword Tournament Contestant:

  Just a brief note to let you know we received your entry fee and look forward to seeing you in Brooklyn at the end of the month. If you have any questions, please feel free to write back, or visit our Web site.

  I hit Forward and addressed it to Gridmeister, replacing the subject line with “Is this your doing?”

  My cell phone rang so quickly, I simply held it to my ear and said, “Well? Is it?”

  “I had to come up with some way to repay you for rewriting all those clues for my Sunday puzzle, didn’t I? Which, by the way, was accepted.”

  “Uh, that’s great. Congratulations. But what about—”

  “So where should we go to celebrate?”

  “Billy, haven’t I made myself clear by now?”

  “Oh, come on. Valentine’s Day is the day after tomorrow.”

  I was well aware of that. I’d spotted a large pink envelope amidst the stack of mail I’d pulled from my box before going upstairs. My mother never failed to send a card, always signing it, Love, ? + ? Which was thoughtful, if a bit depressing when I found myself alone for the holiday.

  “Billy, I am not going anywhere with you on Valentine’s Day.”

  “I figured you were going to say that.” He sighed. “Guess you spent the weekend with my competition, huh? The least you could have done is check your email, you know. I was genuinely concerned about you.”

  “I’m okay. That’s sweet, though.”

  “I can be a lot sweeter than that if you give me half a chance.”

  “Goodbye, Billy.”

  “See you in Brooklyn, Dana.”

  I hadn’t planned to be home longer than the time it took to feed the cat and pick up a change of clothes. All my painting supplies were at the brownstone, and I’d decided to give Hannah a rest for a week or two while I finished the baluster project.

  But the stack of mail was larger than I’d anticipated, even though the bulk of the correspondence looked to be from my dear friends at corporations like Verizon and Con Edison.

  Maybe I’d start with Mom’s Valentine’s card. I extracted it from the pile, but before I opened it, I happened to glance at the postmark.

  The letter had come from Brooklyn, not Florida.

  Oh god. Ray must have mailed it the day before he died.

  I walked into my bedroom, staring at my name on the envelope in his familiar hand, and flopped on the bed next to Puny.

  It was a simple card, with just the word you on the front of it, rendered in elaborate, flowery cursive. Inside, the word reappeared on five lines, growing larger with each repetition: you, you, you, you, you.

  He’d signed it at the bottom, Luv, Eggs.

  Luv, Eggs?

  Of course.

  I flashed back to a long-ago conversation held just before another Valentine’s Day, between Ninth Street and a pay phone somewhere in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

  “I found you the perfect card,” Ray had said, causing a rush of pheromones to swirl through my system, which was what happened every time he let me know I’d been on his mind.

  “I can’t wait to get it.” He’d gone into a store! And picked out a card!! For me!!!

>   “But you know, Dana, that could be incriminating, your having a Valentine’s card with my name on it.”

  “So sign it X,” I had told him.

  He’d hesitated while I listened to the static of our bad connection.

  “Sign it… eggs? What would I want to do that for?”

  I’d burst out laughing, and so had he, once I’d explained what I’d really said. Three days later the card arrived, depicting an old Chevy with the windows steamed up and rivulets of water running down them. He’d been right—it was perfect. I’d never known passion actually did cause car windows to fog up until I’d spent all those hours kissing Ray good night while we sat in his beat-up VW wagon, idling in front of my building.

  And of course he’d signed it, Luv, Eggs.

  For the first time since Renée’s awful phone call, I was able to smile. He’d remembered. He really had been thinking of me, at least some of the time, during all those years apart. Maybe he really had loved me.

  Not maybe—of course he had. I was holding the proof in my hands.

  At that moment, I knew I would somehow come to terms with never seeing Ray again, just as I knew I would never, ever part with that Valentine’s card.

  But I hadn’t managed to do it yet, as Tom-Tom’s call soon made clear.

  The phone rang just as I was getting ready to leave. “Okay, we’re all set,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “I’ve lined up our flights for the Thomas Mayo, Senior, birthday extravaganza. And I hope you don’t mind, but I thought we deserved a little decompression time after the festivities.”

  “So you booked us a suite at the Shores.”

  “You’re psychic.”

  “No, I’m your half sister. When have you ever visited the Estates at Waterway Village without reserving a suite at the Shores?”

  “Hmm. Never. Oh dear. I had no idea I was so set in my ways. Now I’m going to have to take up… capoeira, or some such life-altering activity.”

  I tried to picture Tom-Tom swooping and kicking to the rhythmic strains of a berimbau. The image failed to materialize. “You know, I hear capoeira is pretty strenuous.”

  “Fine—mah-jongg. Now, on an unrelated note, I hope you’ve had time to get to that replacement Hannah that Graciela’s been panting for.”

  I hadn’t. But it didn’t matter anymore. I looked over at the canvas, still wrapped in the brown paper I’d used to transport it to the dive bar for my date with Ray, and took a deep breath.

  “As it turns out, you can have the original,” I said in a shaky voice.

  My tone made Tom-Tom pause before he spoke. “Oh, sweetie. When did he die?”

  “Friday.” I took another deep breath, determined to get through the conversation without crying. “But how did you know…?”

  “He never would have stood you up. Not after all this time.”

  But he had stood me up. Permanently.

  I needed to get back to the brownstone immediately.

  I gave Ray’s Valentine a prominent position on the bulletin board over my desk, then walked out the front door—and straight into Vivian.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Elsewhere.” I didn’t owe her an explanation. And the last thing I wanted to do was waste time talking to her when Hank Wheeler was just two blocks away, ready to take care of me.

  “I’m still waiting on that third painting, you know.”

  “Yeah—about that. It seems Hannah’s come down with a bad case of pneumonia.” Let Vivian wait. I needed a break—from her especially, but also from the canvases, and my apartment, and anything else that had the potential to upset me.

  “Pneumonia? What are you talking about? You owe me!”

  “Well, you’re just going to have to sit tight. I’m working on a project right now that takes precedence.”

  “It can’t!”

  I almost laughed out loud. “What are you going to do about it?”

  And why had it taken me so long to realize that the answer to my question was, “Not a damn thing”? Vivian was at my mercy. If I wanted to give Hannah a case of pneumonia so I could spend time with my boyfriend, well, then, that was what was going to happen.

  “Don’t worry—she’ll probably recover,” I called over my shoulder on the way to Seventh Street.

  Hank and I soon settled into a routine: balusters, paint stripping, takeout, and sex. Mostly the latter. Valentine’s Day came and went, marked by a bouquet of pale pink roses and very little hoopla, which was just the way I wanted it. By that point I didn’t need proof of his devotion. I just needed him to stick around until I regained my equilibrium.

  After about a week, he regarded me from his perch on the ladder to where I sat near the top of the staircase, finishing up the second-to-last baluster. He smiled.

  “There you are.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re back.”

  Huh. I guess I was back. I was still thinking about Ray, but that was nothing new. I’d been thinking about Ray for twenty-one years. But lately the pain wasn’t quite so searing. He’d died a day too soon—well, decades too soon—and that was sad, but that was what had happened, and I couldn’t change it.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better, Dana.”

  “I am feeling better. I guess you fixed me.”

  He grinned. “I’m real sorry you needed fixing, but I can’t say I minded putting in the labor.”

  Naturally, I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I borrowed Hank’s laptop one afternoon to clandestinely visit the crossword tournament’s Web site.

  The rules were byzantine. Each word in the grid received a score, with points deducted for errors, for a solving total. Perfect puzzles received bonus points, which were also allocated for each minute a crossword was completed in advance of the time allotted—which differed, based on difficulty and size.

  Most daunting of all, I discovered there were six puzzles to complete over the course of Saturday, with a seventh to solve at the ungodly hour of nine o’clock Sunday morning.

  This was supposed to be fun? I hadn’t been forced to use my brain cells that early since I’d taken the SATs. Maybe I didn’t need to match wits against hundreds of other contestants.

  Or maybe I was scared. Maybe I didn’t want to compete and discover how bad I was at one of the things I did best.

  Or maybe I was scared for a different reason. I’d sent an email to Billy, asking if people went into training for this sort of thing.

  “Some do,” he’d replied. “I know one guy who solves a hundred puzzles a day for the two months leading up to this weekend.”

  Are you serious? You could train for a decathlon in less time than it takes to solve a hundred puzzles a day. And why do they have to schedule that final puzzle so early on Sunday morning, anyway?

  D.

  If you’re worried about getting to Brooklyn in time for puzzle #7, you don’t have to be. I’ve booked a room right upstairs for Saturday night, and it’s got a nice, comfy, king-sized bed in it.

  W.W.W.

  Swell, I thought, dispatching the message to the junk folder before I was tempted to respond. Not only were my brain cells going to be put to the test this weekend—so were my morals.

  Then Hank made an announcement that further complicated my situation.

  “Spoke to my daughter this morning. Looks like I finally convinced her to come up to the city and visit her old man.”

  “That’s great. I’ve been looking forward to meeting her. When are you expecting her?”

  “She’s driving up with her new husband for the weekend.”

  “This weekend?”

  “There some kind of a problem?”

  “No… Well, there’s this crossword tournament they hold every year out in Brooklyn. I was thinking about competing in it.”

  “No kidding? You got to go, Dana. I never seen anybody do crosswords as fast as you. You’ll win the grand prize!”

  I laughed. “I seriously d
oubt that. Some of the contestants sound awfully… driven. What day are they coming?”

  “She reckons they’ll leave Mullica Hill right after work on Friday and get in around seven o’clock.”

  Maybe my situation wasn’t as complicated as I’d feared. According to the schedule posted on the tournament’s Web site, that evening was given over to game night, which was optional, and registration, which I could put off until Saturday morning. “That’s a relief. At least I’ll get a chance to meet her.”

  But as it turned out, the meeting was anything but a relief, and if I’d thought my situation was complicated before, it was nothing compared to how complicated it would become once I encountered Mrs. Jolene Calhoun Butz.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

  “What could possibly have been so terrible that you had to run out of there?” Elinor Ann wanted to know as I hustled down Houston Street on my way to Second Avenue and the F train stop. All of a sudden I couldn’t wait to participate in game night.

  “Oh my god. You would not believe—”

  But nobody would believe how much could go so dreadfully wrong in just under twenty minutes.

  As soon as Jolene entered the brownstone, she fixed her eyes on my newly completed baluster set and grimaced. “I hope that’s the next thing you’re going to renovate, Daddy.” She hugged him, and he looked over her shoulder at me, visibly mortified.

  “Actually, that’s… here to stay,” he told her. “This here’s my girl—Dana, Jolene.”

  “Real nice to meet you, ma’am.”

  I shouldn’t condemn her based on her taste. She’d grown up differently than I—in the land of be-jeweled and be-riveted denim, as her outfit made clear.

  And I had grown up in Snobville, as my hideously judgmental attitude made clear. What did it matter if our sensibilities were misaligned? We both cared for Hank, didn’t we? She seemed pretty, with her father’s dark hair and blue eyes, but it was hard to tell through makeup nearly as thick as the coats of paint on the crown moldings above our heads.

  But enough of that. “Welcome to New York City.” I smiled and shook her hand. Everything would work out fine, if I could just behave myself—for once.