Mr. Love: A Romantic Comedy

by Sally Mason

  “I’d like to rent a car please.”

  She stared at him and for a moment he thought she was going to refuse him, then she smiled and said, “Of course. I’ll need your driver’s license and a credit card.”

  Gordon handed these over and within fifteen minutes he was on his way to New York City.

  For that was where he had decided to go.

  What point was there returning to East Devon, and the inevitable media barrage that would await him?

  There was one person he wanted to make things right with: Jane Cooper.

  Gordon drove for an hour and just after 9 A.M. he pulled into a roadside diner.

  He ordered breakfast and while it was being prepared he used the pay phone to track down the telephone number of the Blunt Agency in New York.

  The call was answered by a woman with an almost British accent.

  “Jonas Blunt Agency, how may I help you?”

  “Jane Cooper, please.”

  There was a slight pause, then the woman said, “I’m afraid Ms. Cooper is no longer with the Blunt Agency.”

  Gordon felt a stab of guilt.

  He’d cost Jane her job.

  “Do you perhaps have her cell number?”

  “I’m not at liberty to make that available, sir.”

  “Look, it’s very urgent that I reach Ms. Cooper.”

  “Is this call business related? If so I will connect you with one of our other agents.”

  “No,” he said. “I need to speak to Jane. Please, help me out here.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t, sir. That would be in violation of agency policy.”

  “For God’s sake you’re not the damned CIA,” he said to a dead line.

  Gordon hung up the phone and went back to his table where he picked at his toast and eggs. He forced himself to drink two cups of bitter coffee and then got back on the road.

  And now it’s after lunch and he’s on the streets of Manhattan, desperately trying to remember where Jane’s apartment is.

  He knows it’s in the Meat Packing District, but he has no idea of the street.

  After negotiating a nightmare of gridlocked one-ways, Gordon finally finds himself on Manhattan’s Lower West Side, not far from the Hudson.

  For an hour he crawls the streets, incurring the wrath of cab drivers and buff bike messengers who pound on his car roof before a cop car gets in behind him and an amplified voice yells at him to keep moving.

  Gordon, accepting the reality that he will never find Jane, is accelerating away when he spots the lobby where he grappled with Jane’s crazy ex-fiancé.

  Parking illegally at a hydrant, Gordon hurries into the building.

  A chunky guy in soiled overalls is busy mopping the lobby.

  “Excuse me,” Gordon says. “Do you know Jane Cooper?”

  The man shakes his head, not looking up from his mop work.

  Gordon sighs and takes a five dollar bill from his wallet.

  “Does this jog your memory?”

  The man glances at the bill, then shakes his head again.

  Gordon adds a ten.

  “And now?”

  The guy snags the notes and they disappear into his overall.

  “Yeah, I know her.”

  “Can you tell me her apartment number?”

  “57b. Fifth floor.”

  Gordon is making his way to the elevator when the janitor says: “Ain’t no use goin’ up there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ms. Cooper left here in a real hurry about twenty minutes ago. Got me to flag her down a cab.”

  “Where was she going?”

  The man stares at him, then shakes his head.

  “Can’t say I recall.”

  Feeling like an ATM Gordon fishes another ten from his wallet and hands it over.

  “LaGuardia. Terminal C,” the janitor says.

  Gordon sprints for the door and barrels down the sidewalk.

  He finds his rental car gone and looks up in time to see a tow truck dragging it around a corner.

  Gordon spots a cab and dashes for it, cutting in front of an old woman with a Zimmer frame.

  “LaGuardia,” Gordon says to the driver who is wearing a fez and some kind of shawl. “There’s fifty bucks in it for you if haul ass.”

  To the sound of Arabic rap the cab takes of with such velocity that Gordon is flung back against his seat and when the car nearly collides with a bus he closes his eyes and mutters a prayer.

  49

  Since her mother’s call Jane has been on autopilot.

  She can barely remember getting back to her apartment, booking a flight to Indianapolis on-line and throwing clothes and toiletries into her wheely suitcase.

  She hasn’t allowed herself to think, to confront the enormity of what has happened, deliberately losing herself in preparations for the trip home.

  But now, in the cab to the airport, reality hits her and all the events of the past days (the end of her engagement to Tom Bennett, the whole Ivy fiasco and the loss of her job) is swamped under a wave of grief.

  What cracks her armor is a memory of little Jane, maybe five or six years old, with her father, performing Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” sketch in the living room of their house for a bunch of her dad’s cronies, who were smoking cigars and drinking beer and laughing their asses off.

  Her father was doing Bud Abbott’s straight man lines, feeding them to Jane who was getting all the laughs with Lou Costello’s crazy replies.

  The memory is so intense, so heartbreakingly vivid, that Jane can’t stop the tears as she rests her face against the cool glass of the cab’s window, watching Manhattan blur by.

  And, finally, Jane allows herself to feel the devastation of the loss of the man who was her mentor, her greatest supporter and best friend throughout her life, his, good, brave heart giving out on him last night while he slept.

  50

  Gordon, in the cab hurtling through Queens, thinks: it’s not enough that you’ve written a trashy piece of chick-lit, now you’re a character in a rom-com.

  In the first weeks after he slunk back to East Devon, depressed and defeated—reduced to accepting his sister’s charity and her couch—he’d sat beside Bitsy night after night while she giggled and sniffled through a succession of romantic comedies on DVD.

  All of them seemed to climax with Hugh Grant—an actor Gordon despised—in a taxi, chasing after some woman who was on her way to the airport to fly out of his life forever.

  How life imitates kitsch, Gordon thinks as a jet thunders into the sky from the nearby LaGuardia.

  He should come to his senses, tell the lunatic driver to slow down, do a U-turn and take him back to the city.

  Abandon this fool’s errand.

  But he doesn’t, he sits gripping the upholstery of the seat as the driver swerves around a semi and somehow manages to carve across three lanes of traffic and onto the airport exit.

  The taxi squeals to a halt outside Terminal C and Gordon hands over a wad of money before he sprints into the airport building.

  He has a suspicion that Jane Cooper is en route to Hicksville, Indiana.

  Isn’t that what a small town girl (for, despite her Manhattan veneer of sophistication, that’s what Jane is) will do when her life falls apart?

  Dash home to the solace of kith and kin?

  Back to mom and her proverbial apple pie?

  Hadn’t he done something similar when academia booted him in the backside?

  So, Gordon trots into the massive terminal, filled with harried looking travelers, finds an information board and checks it for flights to Indianapolis.

  There is only one and it’s boarding right now.

  Gordon takes off at speed toward a gate that seems as distant as Timbuktu.

  Jane, having passed through the metal detector at the security checkpoint, gathers her belongings and, as she reclaims her shoes, watch and cell phone she feels a crazy urge to call Gordon Rushworth.

 
Wow, she thinks to herself, what’s this about?

  That guy was the instrument of your destruction . . .

  Stepping into her pumps she decides that perhaps that’s not quite fair.

  That she isn’t without her share of blame.

  After all, sins of omission are just a grievous as sins of commission.

  This realization gets her thumbing the speed-dial on her phone.

  Hearing his voice would be weirdly comforting right now.

  She hears his voice okay, but only on his voice mail.

  Jane doesn’t leave a message and hurries toward the boarding gate.

  Gordon, breathless, is about to sprint past the security checkpoint when he sees Jane on the other side of the glass.

  She stands with her cell phone to her ear.

  He bangs on the glass, shouting her name, oblivious to the stares of the people around him.

  But she doesn’t hear or see him, just holsters her phone, grabs the handle of her wheely and disappears through a departure gate.

  Gordon sinks down on a bench and puts his head in his hands.

  What a loser.

  Hell, even that chinless British wimp Hugh Grant ended up getting the girl.

  51

  “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .”

  The minister, standing at Jane’s father’s graveside, a chilly Fall wind knifing in across the prairie, has the prematurely gray hair and blandly handsome face of a young Steve Martin and Jane imagines him in a white suit, with fluffy bunny ears on his head, going into full wild and crazy guy mode, ala 70s Steve.

  The Steve her father, Jack Cooper, had loved.

  By the time she was six Jane and her dad had pranced through the house—to the annoyance of her mother and the bemusement of her younger brother—like Steve Martin and Danny Aykroyd, doing a word-perfect rendition of their Saturday Night Live Czech Brothers sketch.

  Jane realizes that she has laughed out loud and is brought back to the present by a none-too-gentle squeeze on her upper arm.

  Her mother, Myra, hisses at her, “What is wrong with you?”

  Jane manages to project a more conventional graveside manner during the rest of the eulogy and joins her mother in shaking the hands of the small group of people who have gathered at the Hicksville cemetery.

  Her brother Jimmy, squeezed into an egg yolk yellow sweat suit—the only clothes that fit his massively obese frame—waddles off and hides behind the trees near the line of parked cars, waiting for his mother and sister to join him.

  When Jimmy heaves himself into the rear of the undertaker’s limo the car groans and sinks low on its springs and as they drive through the sad little town—storefronts boarded up, empty houses with unkempt gardens—Jane prays that the car will get them home.

  It does and Jimmy disappears into his bedroom, to his computers and his gaming consoles.

  Jane knows what an ordeal this has been for him: the first time he has left the house in years.

  Jane and her mother set out snacks and tea and coffee for the handful of family friends who arrive to talk fondly of Jack Cooper.

  It’s dark by the time the last of them has left and Jane sits at the kitchen table while Myra opens the refrigerator.

  “Beer?” Myra asks.

  “Why not?”

  Jane is surprised when her mother, a lifelong teetotaler, pops the caps of two longnecks.

  “You’re drinking, Mom?”

  “By way of a send off.”

  She grimaces as she drinks the beer.

  “What are you going to do now?” Jane asks.

  Her mother shrugs.

  “Keep on living here with Jimmy.”

  “That’s kinda sad.”

  “What else am I meant to do?”

  “Put him in care, sell the house and go live in the sun somewhere.”

  “You know I could never do that. He’s still my baby.”

  “I guess.”

  They sit in silence for a minute, a little uncomfortable with one another without the soothing presence of Jack.

  There has never been the ease, the banter, that Jane shared with her father.

  “How are you doing, Janey?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “How are things in New York?”

  “Good. Really busy.”

  Her mother reaches across and takes her hand.

  Something she hasn’t done since Jane was a toddler.

  “I live in Hicksville not on planet Mars.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I know about this whole book thing and this Mr. Love guy.’

  “Mr. Love?”

  “That’s what everybody is calling him on the Internet.”

  “I haven’t been on-line for a while.”

  “He must be a real piece of work to have lied to you like that?”

  Jane shakes her head.

  “I knew he wrote that book.”

  He mother stares at her.

  “And you went along with his lie?”

  “He never told me. Not exactly. Even though I think he wanted to. But I just knew, somehow, and I pretended I didn’t. I was greedy and I was ambitious.”

  “So you’ve lost your job?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll get another.”

  “No. I’m done with that.”

  “Then why don’t you stay here for a while? Get a little perspective on things?”

  Before Jane can answer the telephone rings and her mother leaves the kitchen to answer it.

  After a minute she stands in the doorway.

  “Talk of the devil.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s him?”

  “Who?”

  “Your Mr. Love.”

  52

  After missing Jane, Gordon had slumped on a bench at LaGuardia until hunger dragged him back into the day.

  He’d found a Starbucks, bought a coffee and a chicken BLT and sat at one of the tables, staring blankly at a wall-mounted TV screen as he ate.

  Suddenly he realized he was staring at himself: video of the moment he’d been outed by his sister as the author of Ivy.

  He looked pale, callow and gormless, making the superimposed caption “Mr. Love” seem even more ironic.

  A braying female voice asked: “Just who is Gordon Rushworth? And, more importantly, where has he gone?”

  Gordon, his appetite gone too, fled the airport and found a taxi back to the city.

  When the driver asked him his destination he said, “The Pierre,” without thinking.

  Why not?

  God knew he had the money.

  When a luggage-free, bedraggled looking Gordon presented himself at the desk of the hotel he expected the clerk to turn him away, but the man smiled and said, “Welcome back, Mr. Rushworth. Would you like the same room as your previous visit?”

  Gordon nodded his agreement and within minutes was installed in the room where he’d had his last conversation with Suzie.

  It was only a few days ago but it felt like years.

  After Gordon showered there was nothing for it but to dress again in his grubby clothes.

  He left the room and headed for Saks on Fifth Avenue where he burned plastic buying a range of men’s wear.

  After arranging for his purchases—and a new suitcase—to be delivered to The Pierre he quit Saks wearing a new outfit: gray pants, a blue shirt under a blue wool blazer, his freshly-stockinged feet inside black leather loafers.

  Next he visited an electronic store and bought a new smart phone and a turbo-charged laptop.

  Taking the phone and the computer he walked the city block to the hotel, booted up the laptop and did a Google search for Cooper, Hicksville, Indiana.

  What he found surprised him and he felt even worse for Jane Cooper.

  The Hicksville Gazette had run a page one obituary for its sportswriter, Jack Cooper.

  The obituary saying that he was survived by his wife Myra, daughter Jane an
d son James.

  Gordon called directory enquiries and found there was only one John Cooper listed for Hicksville.

  Then he sat for a long while on the bed, dredging up the courage to call.

  At last he did and when the telephone was answered by an older-sounding woman he’d asked for Jane.

  “May I ask who is calling?” the woman said.

  Fighting the impulse to kill the call, Gordon told her his name and sat and waited for an eternity.

  Now he hears the sound of footsteps and the scrape of the receiver being lifted.

  “Gordon?” Jane says. “How did you find me?”

  “The number was listed.” A pause. “Jane, I’m so sorry.”

  “Forget about the book, Gordon. What’s done is done.”

  “I’m sorry about your father, Jane. I just found out about his death on-line.”

  He hears her swallow a sob and when she speaks again he can hear how hard she is trying to maintain her composure.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  “I just want you to know that if there’s anything I can do . . .”

  “That’s very kind of you, Gordon, but I’m fine, thank you.”

  “I’m sorry, too, about the whole Ivy fiasco. I should never have lied to you.”

  “I think there were two dancing that little tango, Gordon.”

  There’s a pause, then she says, “I have to go.”

  “Of course.”

  “Goodbye, Gordon.”

  “Goodbye, Jane.”

  And he’s left listening to nothing but all the words he wishes he’d had the courage to say.

  53

  Jane, lying in the bed of her childhood, can’t sleep.

  She’s left insomniac not only by the almost unbearable loss of her father, she also feels dislocated, as if the life she has carefully built over the last ten years—college, making a career in the world of books—is dead, too.

  How can she go back to Manhattan, with no job and no money?

  The pariah of New York City publishing?

  But the thought of staying here with her distant mother and her tragic brother, taking some meaningless job in a town that’s withering away, is so terrifying that she finds herself breathless.