Excuse Me for Living

by Ric Klass

“Dear, dear. The kind of help one gets these days. Nice boy, but not all that bright,” Frederick says a might too loudly.

  “Does he really think I’m a dunce?” Chip wonders, hustling to the kitchen.

  “What brings you to my humble domicile, Karen?”

  “Well, at college I played squash, but I don’t know where they’re any good public courts in the city, so I thought maybe Chip and I would take a walk.”

  “You play squash? One can’t play a set in public courts, can one? You’re welcome to play at my club, my dear woman. The University Club. I’ll call to reserve a court for you. You’ll have to wear whites, of course. Club rules, you know.”

  “You’re a member of the University Club? I can’t accept your generosity.”

  “Tut, tut.” Then he calls loudly, “Chip, you worthless servant. I’m going to arrange some squash court time for you and your friend. Get the load out and bring drinks and scones,” the sloshed household manager castigates his supposed servant.

  Chip finally wends his way to the kitchen and back. Maybe this charade wasn’t such a famous idea.

  “Do you play, Chip? I played varsity at Brown.”

  “He plays a little, Miss,” Frederick says, waiting for her response.

  “Only a little? Well I could teach you. What do you say? Are you chicken?”

  She’s not familiar with the term “a little squash” on the private club circuit, I see, thinks Frederick.

  “I don’t think. . . ,” says Chip, not wanting to be recognized there by friends.

  Frederick crocodile smiles, “Tut, tut, lad. You must. As my employee, you cannot refuse my generosity.”

  “Thank you, Freddy, Sir,” Chip says with a note of irony on his way out with Karen.

  Did I a detect a certain tone from young Mr. Siegel? Better pour myself another mimosa to be sure, the lubricated manservant concludes. The normally sedate butler takes the one-liter carafe of mostly champagne with a dash of orange juice and quaffs it down in a single gulp. But the tipsy man’s still thirsty. What the deuce, he exclaims. The fridge has been emptied of OJ. “I’m going to have to let him go, I suppose,” he mutters in a bit of a haze. For the moment he’s completely forgotten that he’s only pretending to be Chip’s employer.

  A knock at the front door. Miriam Gutfreund from down the hall is lonesome and waits outside the apartment to pretend that she needs to borrow a cup of sugar. The unfortunately widowed, albeit rich and still handsome London-bred woman was just informed that her grown son Kent can’t make his customary Sunday call. A little conversation with anyone would cheer her up. Anyway, she’s curious to see who purchased the cavernous co-op on the floor – the one with the just fabulous view of Columbus Circle and beyond.

  Though the fashionable Mayfair-district transplant has on a delicate organdy robe – and she didn’t forget to put on a little lipstick and the four-carat brilliant-cut diamond pendant her late betrothed gave her – she looks downs and decides that it won’t do to go calling next door with her long black negligee on display. She turns to go back.

  “Ah, an adjoining inhabitant,” the gentleman’s gentleman opens the co-op portal and welcomes her before she can decamp. He tries not to ogle the surprised lady but noticeably fails in the attempt. He does manage to stand nearly upright.

  “Would you be so kind as to lend a cup of sugar to a neighbor? We’re just down the way,” and points to her own door down the hall.

  “Won’t you join this bachelor in his modest home for some refreshment, dear lady? I’m home alone, and my servant has left me for the day. Freddy Smithfield’s the name,” forgetting again he’s not the master of this big-bucks bungalow.

  “Well. . . .”

  “Please do. It’s the least I can do for a fellow countryman. From Gloucestershire, myself. My guess from your fetching smile is that you’re a Cheshire-born woman.”

  Perhaps it was his familiar refined English accent, or that she’d seen the distinguished-looking man on the floor before, but she accepts his invitation. First she offers, ”I have some pastry baking in the oven. Why don’t we share it?”

  “How generous. But before you go, Mrs . . . . . ”

  “Please call me Mimi.”

  “Mimi, it is. Could you spare some orange juice for our refreshment, Mimi? My worthless manservant finished off the entire lot.”

  “Of course. It’s so hard to find good help these days,” and leaves to retrieve the delicacies. Frederick couldn’t agree more.

  When she arrives back, they lounge on the terrace enjoying the late morning sun. Freddy makes yet another carafe of mimosas. An hour later they’re both dazed and warmed to each other. “How do you like my hot cross buns, Freddy?”

  “My dear, Mimi,” he says with a leer. She had volunteered her nickname what seems years ago to the man. He feels inflamed from the drink and his brief encounter with that athletic girl, Karen, on the terrace and drops his blue-striped bottoms to the ceramic floor, “You’re buns may be hot and delicious, but I certainly hope I won’t find them cross.”

  The lonely Mimi bares witness to his aroused condition and succumbs right then and there to his charms. Thereon begins the infamous Time Warner Tower heiress-and-chauffeur romance which will be gossiped about for months by fellow residents.

  “Whadja Do That For,

  you big fat idiot?” Ally’s mad as a wet Long Island pullet at Terrence O’Connor, a brand new 14-year-old guest who just performed a perfect cannonball inches from her at the LFOD pool, drenching her desert-dry swimsuit. “You must weigh a thousand tons. Just watch it, stupidhead!”

  “Who you calling fat, four-eyes? I have endocrime problems. If you don’t like it, call your mommy. Or go inside like some mama’s girl.” In all, a typical way for early teens of the opposite sex to get acquainted. Terry couldn’t think of a better way to talk to her – no mustard or ketchup bottles to squirt on her were handy – just yet. He sits down on her chaise lounge, tipping it a bit, and purposefully flops his shaggy bear-brown hair over the teen to make her wetter, if humanly possible.

  “Hey, you’re going to break the chair. Who said you could sit there?” She takes off her lenses and affects a womanly tone. “Well, now that my glasses are off I’m not a four-eyes, but you’re still gross.”

  He surveys the nearby, much older guests. “I’m Terry. You’re not that cute, but at least you’re not going to croak on me.”

  “I know what you mean. I’m Alicia, but you can call me Ally.” She looks around at the other guests, “It’s creepy being around these people all the time.” Remembering he scored the last insult, “And what’s so handsome about you, squirrel face?” but she’s still glad to have some company. It’s late Saturday afternoon and Daniel’s nowhere to be found.

  “You mean because I have some whiskers here?” pointing to the half dozen short black hairs just above his lip. “I’m nearly an adult. I’m almost fifteen. How old are you?” he asks, wanting to establish their pecking order.

  “I just turned thirteen.”

  “A kid, huh? Well, don’t sweat it. I can still remember being only thirteen.”

  Ally’s impressed – he’s almost fifteen. “You can? What’s it like to grow old?”

  “Lotta responsibilities. Got to take out the trash to get my allowance, and my grades count for college now that I’m a freshman. If I get even one ‘C,’ dad says I can kiss getting a convertible goodbye when I’m sixteen. I’m here to get help with my medical problem so I won’t eat so much. Why are you here?”

  “I keep trying to kill myself.”

  “Yeah? Cool! How are ya going to do it? With an axe, or shoot yourself in the head? Maybe hang yourself or something neat like that?”

  “No. I just try to drown myself in the tub,” Ally offers half-apologetically.

  “Oh. That’s too bad. You never see that in a video game. Sounds like a kinda boring way to do it. No blood or nothin’.”

  “You really think I’m not cute?”

&nbs
p; “You’re OK for a girl,” he carefully considers.

  “So your endocrimes make you eat too much?”

  “I also have an eating disorder, the psychologist says.”

  “In other words you’re a pig!”

  “Hey! I also get nervous a lot. When I do I could eat a whole loaf of rye bread with butter and cream cheese. Yum. Mom says Dr. Heine can talk me out of doing that if they put me in this dump. He says I’ve got an oppressive-combustive disorder. Very rare. Not just anybody can get it, you know.”

  “Yeah?” Terry succeeded in making Ally a little jealous. “Maybe I’ll catch that, too.”

  “Say, when do we eat around here? I could eat a cow.”

  “Oink oink,” Ally laughs, followed by another tidal wave, courtesy of her plump new friend.

  “Good to See You

  again, Mr. Siegel,” the University Club’s gold-epauletted doorman greets Chip when the now tennis-whites-clad couple enters. “We haven’t seen much of you lately.”

  “Very nice treatment you get here, Chip,” Karen says suspiciously to her date.

  “Professional courtesy. From one doorman to another doorman slash chauffeur. If we’re not cordial to each other then the whole system of service personnel checks and balances breaks down. What next then?” queries Chip, now carried away by his own made-up nonsense. “Will we slam the door in the face of the wine and spirits delivery man? Should we tell our employer not to give a Christmas gift to the poor garage attendant for the stretch limousine? Will we deny little crippled LaMaze, who washes the floor and cleans our luxury cooperative, a new broom? I say no. A thousand times no!” He almost believes himself at this point.

  “The maid’s handicapped?”

  Down to Earth. “Don’t know who cleans the place to tell the truth. I never seem to be around when it’s done. But it’s the principle of the thing.”

  “Uh huh,” she says, signifying that now they both know he’s full of it.

  The two arrive at the squash courts. “Hey, The Chipster’s here,” a panting young man says to his sweaty friend as the two exit the nearest court. They take a seat in the gallery.

  “They know you?” Karen asks Chip.

  “I bring Mr. Smithfield here frequently. Let’s go in,” he nervously replies as he escorts her through the door to the court.

  “Do you play?”

  “A little,” he says.

  “Do you want me to show you how to hold the racquet?”

  “Do I hold it like this?”

  “No. That’s the beginner one-grip system. But you’ll never improve that way. Let me show you.” She moves close to him and then rotates the handle. “The plane of the racquet must be the same as the palm of the hand.”

  Chip moves even closer to her. “That feels much better,” he says, snuggling up. The men in the gallery – some with smirks on their faces – intently watch the two as she gives Chip a lesson.

  “This is the forehand, not the foreplay grip,” she laughs. “Why don’t we just volley? ”

  “It’s a bit like tennis, I recall.”

  “This line’s called the T,” she says and serves the ball, which travels right past him. “Have to hustle more, Chip. Make it hurt. The most important thing is don’t hit me with the racquet. It’s considered very rude if you do. If I’m in the way, just call ‘let’.”

  “Okey-dokey.” He feebly returns the next serve. Karen wants to prove her superiority in the sport. She rushes to the ball and slams him in the face with her racquet when he fails to timely give way. The growing crowd stands and cheers the blow with great enjoyment.

  “Oh my gosh. I’m soooo sorry, Chip.”

  “You’ll have to kiss it and make it better,” he says, offering his cheek. Chip sees she senses the gathered men enjoying the show. “It’s all right – a tradition here, I’m told, to kiss your opponent if you strike him . . . if you’re the opposite sex, of course.” She obliges to huzzahs and wolf whistles from the onlookers.

  After a few more volleys Karen announces to her apparently befuddled opponent, “OK. Let’s play a game.”

  “Ladies first,” Chip says, gives her the ball, and takes a defensive stance. “What do we play to? Twenty-one like in ping pong?”

  “No, silly. Nine points.”

  He returns her serve, but she slams an attacking boast, a drive along the side wall to the front wall that drops before Chip can reach it. The twenty or so men who have gathered in the gallery applaud her shot. Relentlessly, she presses on with point after point until she beats him nine to one.

  “Well, I guess that’s it. Shall we call it a match?” he asks.

  “No way, hombre. We’re just getting started.” Her competitive spirit’s ignited. She wants blood. He, on the other hand, only wants her.

  They play another game with a similar result. Nine to two. “Can we quit now?”

  Karen catches on that her white blouse has turned nearly transparent with perspiration and that Chip can’t keep his eyes off her. “I tell you what, Chip. Since you’re a gambling man and I’m sweaty, if you can win this game we’ll shower together at my place,” she laughs.

  “I forgot to bring my swimsuit,” the dummy tells her. She gives him a look until he says with a red face, “Oh.”

  She fails to notice that they now have the company of almost three-dozen male witnesses who howl at the proposal. And they start placing wagers among themselves as to the winner.

  “What’s going on?” she asks Chip.

  “They’re betting men, too, it seems.”

  Karen serves the ball in a lob that almost dies on the back wall. Chip races to the corner and yells, “Coming around,” as he makes a 180-degree turn and slams the ball into a nick, the juncture between the floor and the wall, at the front.

  The crowd roars, “Way to go, Chipster.”

  “My serve,” Chip announces.

  “Coming around? Where did you learn that?”

  “I told you. I watch Mr. Smithfield play.” He serves again, but she doesn’t get out of his way and interferes with an easy return. “Stroke to me,” he says, gaining another point.

  “Stroke?” She looks at him suspiciously. “I know you watch other people play. You listen, too, I gather.”

  On the next serve he runs Karen from pillar to post all around the court before driving the ball into the opposite corner. Chip continues to run her ragged with a mix of cross-court volleys, lobs, and drop shots. He whips her nine to zero. The men rise and applaud at the fun.

  One pushes forward and shakes the winner’s hand while staring at Karen. “Good going, Chipster.” Offers his hand to her, “Have we met? You look familiar. I’m Malcolm Bennett. Much better in bed than our friend The Chipster and I stand to earn a million-dollar bonus at Goldman Sachs. One thousand bucks to each of you if I can take the winner’s prize, miz.”

  “No thanks. But I’ll take your word for it.”

  “My word for what?” ask Malcolm.

  “That except for my date, you know how most of the men here are in bed,” she meows.

  “Oooh. Clever girl we have here,” Malcolm says to Chip. “Saw it in the papers, Chipster. Congrats! Old Aunt Lizzie finally bought the farm. I’ve got some great investments for you. Insider stuff for buddies like Siegel family members,” he whispers.

  “Have we met?” Chip asks him and hustles Karen out of the club and hails a taxi before Malcolm can inflict further damage.

  “They seem to know you pretty well here.”

  “Very gentlemanly of them to remember servants’ names, I do say,” says Chip.

  “Uh huh.”

  When they reach her apartment Chip takes a deep breath. “Karen, it was great fun playing. You don’t have to go through with the bet.”

  “I want to,” she insists and pulls off his white shirt and shorts. “Your turn.” He does the same, but more slowly.

  Once in the shower Chip asks in a humorous tone, “Pardon me, Miss, but I’ve been wondering,” and from behi
nd takes a breast in each hand.

  “Yes, you’re correct. They’re not the same size.” Before they’re finished drying off, she leads him to her bedroom. “Let’s check your symmetry now, shall we? And by the way, what year did you win the world’s junior squash championship?”

  “Won it twice, don’t you know.” Young buck-in-headlights looks at her, realizing he’s caught again in a lie.

  “On the way out I saw your plaques on the wall near the squash court. So. In the member clubs, ‘I play a little squash’ means. . . . ”

  “Nationally rated. Otherwise, you’re a gentleman just saying, ‘Not really, but I’ll give it the old college try.’ Unless you’re low enough to hustle for money.”

  “Or sex. Who are you anyhow, Mr. Siegel?” and yanks him under the covers.

  “I Guess We’re All Here,”

  Dan tells the temple group Sunday evening at 7 PM sharp. Laura dropped him off when he was sure the wolfman had left for the day. He’s surprised to see Glen Sobel here after their blowout the other night. No hard feelings maybe. They’re sitting under two green umbrellas around a large, wrought-iron, glass-surfaced table on David Ansterman’s patio next to the Jacuzzi and oval pool. With Morty’s help, the men were convened to this location instead of their usual meeting place.

  David’s wife pleaded with him not to invite them to their home. But they’re friends. We’re taking turns, and now it’s mine. You don’t have to do anything. Yes, I’ll get some food and drinks. You don’t have to even greet them if you don’t want to. Eventually David wins Diane’s reluctant approval despite her violent apprehension. She wants to flee to her bedroom, but nevertheless, with her stomach in knots, she does greet them. Tentatively at first. It’s only polite. The way her mother taught her to be a baleboosteh, a proper homemaker, decades earlier.

  “You’re Harriet’s son?” Diane asks Dan. “I haven’t seen her in ages. We’ve played golf together at the Northeastern Shore Country Club many times.” She even gives Morty a kiss on the cheek after his, “Long time no see, babe.” When the men go outside to the patio, she retreats upstairs.

  “David, ask them if they want something,” Diane calls from her bedroom window.