A Changed Man

by Francine Prose

  Why should it bother Bonnie if a guy who drives better than she does goes ten blocks in a Toyota with a hundred and twenty-five thousand miles on it? If you can trust someone to speak at the Brotherhood Watch benefit dinner, if you can take off your glasses and…well, you can trust him to get your vehicle from the garage. Bonnie wishes she’d told Vincent to go straight home. He probably will, on his own. She just wishes she’d made it clear. Would that have insulted him? She can’t always tell. She can never tell what Vincent thinks is going on between them. Bonnie never offers to let him drive the car. How emasculating is that? No wonder the guy wouldn’t fuck her even when she practically asked. What the hell. It’s her van. Vincent is her houseguest.

  Of course, it’s at that moment, when Bonnie is thinking the thought least likely to arrange her features in a confident expression, that tidy, stylish Laura Ticknor sweeps into the room. Where did Laura learn to tie her cashmere sweater in that perfect capelet, both arms lying flat without a bulge or twist? Where does she get her hair streaked? How sloppy Bonnie feels, even though she dressed with such special care that her best high heels are viciously mashing her toes together. She crosses her legs and feels her pressed-down thigh spreading across her chair.

  Laura too pauses by the Wall of Fish, and only now does Bonnie realize that the fish display is not just restaurant design but interactive performance art. Everybody watches everybody else checking out the fish. Were there people observing her search for the squid? Laura takes it all in and, crisp and precise, with her hands slightly out at her sides, like a cross between a little girl and a fifties film star, she swings around and follows the receptionist to Bonnie’s table.

  Bonnie half rises as she and Laura blow kisses at each other.

  “Hi, sweetie, how are you?” Laura says.

  The sweetie means nothing. From the minute Bonnie met Laura, Laura—she has the money, she calls the shots—has acted as if they were old friends. Complaints about her husband and kids, girl-talk about hair and shoes. It’s also semi-ironic, as if intimacy is a joke. Laura and Bonnie will never know each other any better than they do now, or than they did when they met. It was then that Laura said that Brotherhood Watch was Larry’s bribe for her ignoring the bulimic intern he was currently poking. Women like Laura challenge Bonnie to be especially open and sympathetic. Nonjudgmental. Sure, Laura is worth a fortune. But she’s in pain, like everyone else. Her husband doesn’t love her. She supports good causes, instead of just going shopping. Though probably she shops plenty.

  “Great to see you,” Bonnie says.

  “Great to see you,” says Laura.

  “You’re looking great,” says Bonnie.

  “Please,” says Laura. “Let’s not talk about it. Jake turns fourteen next week.”

  Bonnie vaguely recalls some gossip about the lavish Jacob Ticknor bar mitzvah. Forty kids to a Knicks game. Then the Tavern on the Green for the evening. She feels a jolt of possessiveness, as if she and young Jake Ticknor are competitors for Larry and Laura’s money.

  “You do,” says Bonnie. “You look fabulous.”

  Laura twists slightly to gaze back at the restaurant—should Bonnie have gotten up and offered her the seat with the view?—and says, “It’s funny that they think this is authentic Sicilian. Larry and I were just in Sicily, and I guess there were restaurants like this. There was one place in Palermo where we paid New York prices, but the joints where you got the really fresh fish always had a TV blaring up in one corner.”

  Bonnie looks around the room, as if in search of a TV. But the expense-account customers lit by flashes of atrium sun aren’t paying for a television to compete with the deals they’re making. Is Laura suggesting that this place is inauthentic? Bonnie should have listened to the instinct that told her it was obscene to raise money for Brotherhood Watch over portions of fish that traveled first class by jet from Tierra del Fuego.

  “Excuse me, ladies. Can I get you a drink?” The waiter, like the receptionist, is movie-star Mediterranean.

  “Water,” says Bonnie. “Tap water.” Then she thinks better of it, and asks Laura, “Would you like a real drink?”

  “Do you have La Planeta chardonnay?” Laura asks the waiter.

  “Only by the bottle.”

  “Then open a bottle and bring us two glasses.” Laura fixes the waiter with a smile of such serene command that it hardly matters she’s just arrived and is already ordering off the menu. Laura will give the foundation money. The question is, how much?

  “It’s this terrific wine made by these Sicilian aristocrats who took the family fortune and planted it in grapes,” Laura explains.

  The wine appears in seconds. It’s as if they’re drinking sunlight. A golden aura surrounds them. Bonnie must have been mad to think she could get through this on water.

  Bonnie says, “So…where did you go in Sicily?”

  “We based ourselves in Taormina. Everyone warned us against the San Domenico hotel, but we really liked it.”

  “Oh,” says Bonnie. “How great.”

  The waiter brings them menus they know better than to open. You order from the Wall of Fish. You order it baked or broiled.

  “I’ll have the calamari,” Bonnie says.

  “With the tomato-anise foam?” says the waiter.

  “Sure,” says Bonnie.

  “Baked or broiled?” says the waiter.

  “Umm. Broiled,” says Bonnie.

  Laura says, “I’ll have the Patagonian sea bass.”

  “An excellent choice. Baked or broiled.”

  “What do you suggest?” Laura asks the waiter.

  “Today? Baked.”

  “Baked it is,” says Laura. “And could I also have the coulis on the side?”

  “Certainly. Would you like to pick out your fish?” Why didn’t he ask Bonnie if she wanted to choose her squid?

  “No thanks. I’ll trust you.” Again Laura directs a beam of brilliant cosmetic dentistry at the bedazzled waiter. Then she says to Bonnie, “Larry would insist on going over there and prodding every one of those poor bastard dead fish till their eyes pop.”

  Bonnie says, “So you’ve eaten here before.”

  Laura watches the waiter go. Then she says, “Don’t answer if this is too personal. But do you ever get sentimental about your divorce? Do you ever wish that you and your husband were still together?”

  Bonnie can hardly speak. Did she tell Laura about her divorce? Could Laura’s presumption of intimacy have lured her into confessing? In which case, what did Bonnie say?

  “I don’t know,” says Bonnie.

  “Well, don’t. Don’t romanticize marriage.” Laura sips her wine and smiles conspiratorially over the glass at Bonnie.

  Finally Laura says, “That was some dinner. Scary.”

  Bonnie knows which scary dinner Laura means. But she’s not ready to talk about it. She needs another few minutes of Laura rattling on about Larry’s character flaws. How long does it take to harvest squid and bass from the Wall of Fish and cook it?

  “Scary,” Laura repeats.

  “It was scary,” Bonnie says. “Watching Vincent go down. Not knowing if he was going to pull through…”

  “I never thought he would die,” Laura says. “Maybe that’s just the way I am. An optimist. Despite everything. My therapist says that’s my problem.”

  “He could have died,” says Bonnie, defensively. It’s a medical fact. She needs to put some spin on this, the sooner and harder the better. “The gratifying thing is how people have taken to him, how they’ve got his story. The most hard-boiled reporters, media vets—even they have been deeply moved. Because Vincent knew what was happening and risked his life to finish his speech.”

  Bonnie’s taking a gamble here. She’s telling Laura that the foundation is currently hot. Super-hot. Perhaps she’s making Laura feel competitive with all the newcomers glomming on to Brotherhood Watch. Laura got there first. But it might be good for Laura to feel a twinge of competition.

&nbs
p; Laura says, “So is the guy living with you?”

  “In my house,” says Bonnie. “With me and my kids—my sons.”

  “I meant living living. Are you sleeping with him?”

  “No!” says Bonnie, as if she’s been pinched. “God, no! Why do you ask?” What has Laura intuited? Bonnie longs to find out. The strange thing is how pleased she is to think that Laura might have picked up some sign of romance. Bonnie wants it to be true, even though it isn’t. Unless it is true. You’d think Bonnie would know. Anyway, whatever may have been happening on the night of the dinner definitely stopped happening after that night.

  “No reason,” says Laura. “Curious. Maybe it’s just my fantasy about the divorced and single getting a lot of action.”

  “So far we’re just good friends. Sometimes we stay up talking all night. He’s a really interesting guy. He’s had a difficult life. It’s amazing, how much he’s changed.” If Laura wants a romantic fantasy, Bonnie will give her one: that charged moment of pure potential, when you’re “good friends” with a man, and anything might happen. The last thing Laura wants is for Bonnie to confess that they are days past the point at which Bonnie took off her glasses and Vincent turned her down.

  “I’m sure he’s had a doozy of a life.” Laura widens her eyes unnervingly.

  Maybe it would feel terrific, spilling it all out to Laura. Bonnie hasn’t told anyone about her feelings for Vincent. It horrifies her that she doesn’t have one friend she can call and ask what it means when a guy acts a certain way. She used to have plenty of friends. All those years with Joel, then the kids. Somehow she lost touch.

  Laura Ticknor is not that friend, not the forgiving soul with whom Bonnie can share the secrets of her heart. It would be a terrible error to indulge in the luxury of confessing to Laura, who would make her pay for it with fake pity and real contempt. The buck would stop, like the check for lunch, at the foundation. Bonnie’s glad she has the common sense to keep from soliciting advice about the fact that Vincent apparently doesn’t want to have sex with her.

  “Don’t ask me,” says Laura, as if she’s read Bonnie’s mind. “I have zero experience. I’ve been married fifteen long years. And I’ve been faithful to Larry. If you can believe it. That’s the tragedy of my life.”

  “I believe it,” says Bonnie. How will they progress from this to the question of how much Laura might give Brotherhood Watch? “So tell me: What is Jake interested in?” A safe enough question that usually works. Women love talking about their kids. Bonnie hopes Laura doesn’t ask about her kids. What are their interests? TV? Bonnie promises herself she’ll spend more time with them. They’ll go somewhere this weekend.

  Unfortunately, she’s missed Laura’s reply, and so can only smile, hoping that Laura hasn’t said her son was into Ecstasy and Internet porn.

  God must be on Bonnie’s side. The waiter brings their food.

  Bonnie should have known that the calamari would be a mistake. Probably one reason it’s so cheap is the social challenge it offers, sawing through those squirmy legs and rubbery bodies without spraying tomato foam all over the table. You could pick the tiny squid up in your hands if you were having lunch with a close friend. But not with Laura Ticknor.

  Laura touches her fish with a fork and it flakes into perfect bitesized chunks of pearlescent flesh.

  “How’s your sea bass?” asks Bonnie.

  “Heaven,” says Laura.

  They eat for a while, Laura savoring her bass, Bonnie battling her squidlets. Laura picks up her fork and, gently waving the chunk of bass speared on the tines, punctuates the interior conversation she seems to be having before she repeats it aloud.

  “It is amazing,” she says. “Here’s this guy who could have gone in any direction, who falls into the hands of these lowlife racists and gets brainwashed into buying their party line. And then he spends a few months with you guys, and he’s a changed man. A new, improved, model human being. I don’t know what you and Meyer did with the guy, what kind of magic you worked, but basically, Meyer’s right. You can take one guy, one woman, one Israeli, one Palestinian, one heart at a time. You really can make a difference. Or at least you can try. Which is what you guys are doing, trying to make a difference. And you never see that. Courage, generosity. You never see anyone thinking about anything besides their own miserable selfish self!”

  Bonnie lifts her wineglass. Laura nods, accepting the tribute. The fork completes its arc to her mouth. Laura chews and swallows.

  “This is so great.” She means the bass. For this golden moment, in Laura’s mind, the greatness of the fish melds seamlessly with the greatness of the foundation. If you’ve got money, you can have both. And why not? Why not feed your body and your spirit? And someone else’s body and spirit. Bonnie dreads becoming the kind of puritan who believes it’s wrong to spend your money on delicious, costly fish. On the other hand she does believe—and it’s what she’s doing here—that for every dollar you spend on fish, you should spend a hundred on your fellow humans.

  “It’s worth it,” says Laura. “Worth anything.” Laura’s off the subject of fish and back on the foundation. “That’s why I want to support it. What better way to use Larry’s money? Whatever project Meyer was talking about, that outreach thing, for other guys like Vincent. Not that I would imagine there are many guys like Vincent. But hey, it worked once. Let’s try it again.”

  “Let me tell you what we need,” says Bonnie, mindful of what she’s learned: the rich can be insulted if you ask for a sum that seems too low. Bonnie and Laura put their heads together, two friends, coconspirators whispering over the subject of money, tax credits, and budgets, as if they were having the girl chat that Bonnie imagined earlier. But this is so much better. This was worth holding out for.

  Bonnie can’t believe she’s managed to get from there to here. Here being Laura Ticknor’s offer to donate three hundred thousand dollars over a period of three years to finance the One Heart at a Time program.

  “Will you ladies be having dessert?”

  “I’ll have the cannoli,” Bonnie says.

  “Make that two,” says Laura.

  When the check comes, Laura says, “Please. This one’s on me.”

  Outside the restaurant, Bonnie kisses Laura good-bye, smacky kisses on both cheeks, a warm hug at the end. Bonnie practically runs down the street. She can’t wait to get to the office and tell Meyer what happened. She rehearses several different ways: Guess what happened, guess what happened with Laura Ticknor, guess how much Laura Ticknor is giving us for the One Heart program. Which is how she decides to phrase it as she walks into Meyer’s office.

  Meyer gives her a strangely blank look. An alarmingly blank look. The man is over seventy. Anything could have happened.

  “How much?” asks Meyer.

  “Three hundred thousand,” says Bonnie “Over three years.” Suddenly, it sounds like less than it did at lunch.

  “Excellent.” Meyer’s thoughts have already moved on to something else. “Bonnie. Help me out. Remind me. Who was in the office that first day Vincent came in?”

  “The three of us,” says Bonnie. “You, me, and Vincent. Why?”

  “The most upsetting thing happened today. According to Roberta, someone from Chandler called to ask if Vincent could wear a short-sleeved shirt. They seem to know about his tattoos. Roberta explained that Vincent was sensitive about the tattoos. It was part of how much he had changed. At this point he prefers to keep them covered, and being asked to display them on TV would hardly put him in a mood to show Chandler’s audience the changed man they want to see. The woman from the show said she understood. Then she said it was her impression that I also had a tattoo, from the camp. She said what exciting TV it would be if we both showed our tattoos. Compared them.”

  “That’s disgusting!” says Bonnie. “I mean, doing it on TV.” Though of course, not in private. She remembers it as a powerfully moving moment. “I mean, it was really wonderful that first day Vincent came i
nto the office….”

  Meyer is beyond flattery, which isn’t Bonnie’s intention. “Roberta talked them out of it. She mentioned my wariness about cheapening the Holocaust. Cheapening the Holocaust. Those three words always do the trick. Later I began to wonder if Roberta told the TV people that something like that had happened in my office. And I wondered if she’d been there. Or if someone told her.”

  “I don’t think I told anybody,” says Bonnie, immediately guilty. She remembers telling her kids. Could she have told Roberta? She can’t remember whom she told, and yet her shame is so intense, it’s as if she sold the story to the National Enquirer. She didn’t tell Roberta. Chandler’s people guessed, and guessed right.

  By now she can’t recall what had seemed so important about Laura Ticknor’s pledge. She has to be patient and wait until this Chandler thing blows over. She knows that Meyer is concerned about appearing on the show. But why should a hero like Meyer be worried about TV? This too will pass. The TV show will be over and forgotten, but Laura’s donation will keep the One Heart program alive for years to come. Maybe Vincent can help run it.

  These days, just thinking about Vincent can make Bonnie feel unsettled, as if she’s left the house and forgotten to turn off the stove. Today it’s not just the familiar nagging of general unease, the residual embarrassment from the night of the benefit dinner. Vincent is picking up her van. He should be home already. Did she tell him where the garage is? It’s probably fine. Knock on wood. He’s a guy. He can get there on instruments, flying on male radar. Should she invent some excuse to call? Would he think she was checking up?

  “Bonnie, where are you going?” Meyer says.

  “I need to get home,” says Bonnie.

  BONNIE KNOWS IT’S the second day in a row she’s left work early, but she feels that Meyer’s lukewarm response to her success with Laura has given her license to take off. And she has to make sure that things have gone smoothly with Vincent and her van.