Other Plans

by Constance C. Greene

  “Grace, this is John Hollander. About whom you’ve heard me speak.” Old Grace was really putting on the dog tonight. The whoms were really flying. His collar felt tight. He wondered if he’d zipped his fly.

  “Your name’s Grace, too?” he whispered.

  “They named me after Auntie Grace because they hoped I’d look like her.” The two ladies smirked at each other. It was one of those family anecdotes that should’ve been shot down the first time it was sent up.

  “Well,” he shuffled his feet, “we better get going.” Young Grace mucked about in her Bean boots, hoisting her down coat in the air suggestively, wanting help.

  “You have your key, dear? Uncle Larry and I have a dinner date,” old Grace tossed out, hinting that the house would be empty, the young folks free to come in, make some Ovaltine, get to know each other.

  “You sure you’ll be warm enough?” He waited in his corner while young Grace suited herself up in enough clothing to outfit a family of five. If they arrived late at the movie, the picture would have started, the lights would be dim. No one would recognize him. On the other hand, as he observed young Grace donning her outerwear, tying her scarf up under her eyes, pulling down her knitted hat to meet her eyebrows, then turning up her coat collar to keep out drafts, he figured people might mistake her for a luminary in disguise. His spirits lifted.

  They set out. The night was warmer than the day had been. Young Grace was going to work herself up a good glow before she got where she was going. The sky was very black, a small, moaning wind their only companion.

  “We’re walking?” she said in surprise.

  “Yeah, I’m in training for track.”

  “How old are you, anyway?” she asked, suspicious.

  “What’s your last name?” he countered, setting a brisk pace.

  “I asked you first.” They were two tiny tots, playing together for the first time.

  “Seventeen,” he lied.

  “So am I. I’m going to be a chemical engineer.” He felt her pause, expecting a reaction. Maybe in Seattle they dropped like flies at this announcement.

  “My father’s a chemical engineer, and my brother is into music, so when I told my parents I wanted to be a chemical engineer, my father cried.”

  “Your father cried?” he said, incredulous.

  “Yes. He was so happy. Haven’t you ever seen your father cry?” He felt her peering at him in the darkness.

  He snorted. “The only reason my father might cry is if I got arrested on a drug charge or kicked out of school. Then he’d cry tears of rage. He’s been expecting something like that to happen ever since I hit first grade.”

  “You don’t get along with your parents? My mother and father are my best friends.” Her voice was solemn, and smug.

  He turned to her. “Man, who do you talk to about your sex life, then?” She looked straight ahead and speeded up. As a track star, he had to keep up with her or lose everything.

  “My father’s not my pal, he’s my father,” he panted, catching up. “You can’t be both. If you have a father for a friend, you don’t need an enemy.”

  “I don’t think that’s very nice.”

  “You want me to take you home?”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said, deciding apparently to forgive him. “What do you want to be then?”

  He thought of telling her he was into heavy metal and S-M but he figured they might not have S-M in the Pacific Northwest and it would require too much explaining. Anyway, he’d offended her enough for one evening.

  “Yeah, well, I’m going to be a writer for Woody Allen.” Let her chew on that one. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her retreat into her coat collar. Coming from Seattle, maybe she thought Woody was a logger. “This movie we’re seeing is rated PG,” he said. “But I hear it’s plenty raunchy. The producers figured if they gave it a PG instead of an R it’d make a trillion instead of a billion.” She stomped alongside, offering no comment.

  To break the conversational logjam, he said, “So what’s Seattle got going for it?”

  “Plenty.”

  “What besides fog?”

  She stroked her cheek. “Fog’s good for the complexion. Seattle girls are famous for their English-type complexions. Are you in love?” she shot at him.

  “Sure.” He didn’t break his stride. “With three femmes. I’m only having a relationship with two of them, though. Two is all I can handle at one time.”

  She sucked in her breath. “Are you paying?”

  “For what?”

  “For the movies. Aunt Grace gave me money in case this was going to be Dutch. Out home we go Dutch lots of times. Plenty of women’s libbers pay their own way. I don’t care. I’m not that much of a women’s libber, although I do believe in equal pay for equal work.” She said it as if she’d invented it.

  “My mother’s footing the bill,” he said crassly. “On account of she’s a buddy of your aunt’s. My mother’s loaded. She has a trust fund,” he improvised. “She hands me a couple of C-notes a week, sometimes more. Depending on the market.” He was having a good time lying to her. He was a pretty good liar when the scenario called for it.

  She tucked her arm cosily in his and he reminded himself, too late, that the mere mention of money frequently acted as an aphrodisiac. Another of Keith’s nuggets. He stepped up his pace, hoping to shake her off.

  “Two,” he panted at the box office, “on the aisle.”

  The girl in the ticket booth didn’t look up at him. “Aisle seats are all taken,” she said, “and no smoking anywhere in the theater. Plus,” she raised her head, “the management frowns on making out except during intermission.” He felt himself blush.

  “Don’t mess with the big girls, sonny,” the ticket puncher whispered in a friendly way. Actually, John thought, he might like her. Maybe next time he’d ask her to the flicks. On her night off. If she could break away from her husband and three kids waiting at home in front of the TV.

  “Quiet please, the show’s already started.” The pimply usher had obviously let his uniform get to him.

  “Wait here until I get some popcorn,” he said.

  “None for me. It’s too fattening. I’m on a diet.” Terrific. He bought two bags, one for him, the other for him, too. Giant popcorn pigout tonight.

  They settled into their seats. He clutched one bag of popcorn between his knees for safekeeping and dove into the other. This wasn’t all bad. A free movie and two bags of free popcorn. So she looked like the Elephant Man done up for a turn in the park. There were worse things. He slid down in his seat. The popcorn was delicious; crunchy, hot. Nice and greasy, the way he liked it. He polished off the first bag while watching some dame dressed in a slip, showing lots of belle poitrine, being worked around the head and shoulders by old Burt, who was behaving in his usual lovable fashion. The dame screamed now and then, but you could tell she had the hots for Burt’s bod and it was just a question of where and when.

  He dipped into the second bag and touched bare flesh. Young Grace was trolling in there already. Her hand moved with admirable skill, as if it had had plenty of practice. She was light-fingered and sharp-toothed, he realized with dismay, listening to her chomping away.

  “I thought you said you didn’t eat popcorn!” he hissed at last, unable to contain himself. The man in front turned a furious profile aad said, “Shhhhh!” spraying spit indiscriminately.

  “I don’t,” young Grace whispered back, wrist deep in butter and salt.

  What could he say. Old Burt scored a couple more points, the popcorn disappeared, and the next thing he knew the show was over. The lights went on. Music swelled as they rolled out the interminable list of credits. He slid lower in the seat. He needn’t have. There was no one there he knew.

  Once more out into the night they went.

  “I’m thirsty,” young Grace announced.

  No wonder. All that salt would give a horse a thirst.

  “How about if we get a soda or something?
” she said. “My treat.”

  A modern woman, after all.

  “We could go to Alfie’s,” he suggested. “It’s this really raunchy joint down by the tracks. Full of weirdos. Around this time of night they usually start punching each other out.” She looked interested. Very.

  Belatedly, he realized he’d painted a too-attractive picture. “You wouldn’t like it,” he said hastily. “We better head for home. Every once in a while, the cops raid Alfie’s.” He wagged his head and assumed a lugubrious expression. “Your aunt and uncle would never let you go out with me again if I had you in there when there was trouble.”

  That last was genius, pure and simple.

  “The local blab publishes a list of the people who’re in the joint when it’s raided. It could get very embarrassing.”

  Young Grace didn’t demur. Instead, she became somewhat kittenish and snuggled under his arm for protection as a mastiff bared its teeth at them.

  “There you go, Chester,” he showed off, roughing up Chester’s coat. The dog was a friend from paper-route days. “How’s it going, Chester? Don’t take any wooden bones, okay?” Chester practically rolled over and played dead. When they hit the Lerners’ house, young Grace said again that her aunt and uncle wouldn’t be home from their party until late, and that there was plenty of beer in the fridge.

  He hated beer. And he hated this part, the after-the-ball-is-over part. He was never sure of what to do or how to go about doing it, and tonight he had a real live one. He knew lust when he saw it. This girl, woman, from Seattle lusted after him. A first. She looked as if she’d been around the track once or twice and, although he was disinclined to make it with femmes who outweighed him, he was tempted. If the truth must out, most of them outweighed him. He hoped, with time and good nutrition, he would come up in the standings.

  He’d have to be crazy not to go ahead, to pass up such a chance to develop his technique, never mind his libido. And wondered how long it would take to fumble through the layers of clothing to get at the boobs. Suppose the Lerners caught him in flagrante delicto? Old Grace was the kind who’d publish the banns in church next Sunday if she found him fooling around.

  “Here.” Young Grace handed him the front door key. “You do it. It always gets stuck when I try.”

  Under cover of darkness he flashed his teeth at her to show he understood, and set to work on the door. Under his skilled fingers it swung open, creaking and groaning, a regular Dark Shadows type door. He half expected a couple of bats to fly out.

  “A piece of cake,” he said, giving back the key. In a trice she had him in a hammerlock. “They won’t be home for hours,” she whistled into his ear. He allowed himself to be conducted inside. Without relaxing her grip, she shut the door with her foot. He admired her dexterity. Then, like a plumber’s helper, she attached herself to his neck and began drawing blood.

  A light touch seemed indicated.

  “I knew her before she was a virgin,” he mumbled, quoting Groucho, anxious to bring a smile to her lips to distract them from the havoc they were wreaking on his neck.

  Grace, however, threw him from her as if he’d suddenly broken wind. He fell against a table, sending magazines flying.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she said.

  “It was just a funny,” he said weakly, running a furtive hand over his shoulder, exploring it for possible dislocation. One false move now and she could pull out a Saturday night special and blow him away. “I didn’t mean anything,” he said. “I was only fooling around.”

  Drawing herself up to her full height, she began throwing off garments, one by one, à la Gypsy Rose Lee. She caught him full in the eye with one of her heavy ski gloves, bruising his eyeball, perhaps permanently.

  “All I did was ask you in for a beer,” she said icily. “You Easterners are all oversexed. It’s a known fact.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” It was the first interesting thing she’d said all night. “I never heard that. Maybe you’re right.”

  She made a sudden move and he flinched, thinking she was going to take him by the scruff of the neck and throw him out. No matter what he said from here on in, it would be wrong.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, though for what? He didn’t know what he’d done that he should apologize for, but an apology seemed to be in order.

  She pointed to the door. “You have no couth,” she said.

  “That’s what my mother says.” He went in the direction she indicated. Once outside, teetering on the top step, he listened as she shot bolts, slid locks, and, in all probability, turned on the burglar alarm, if they had one. He walked across the frozen turf and stood on the sidewalk watching as young Grace plastered her nose against a window, watching him. When he blew her a kiss, she thumbed her nose at him and doused the lights.

  He loped homeward through the night, which had turned starry, not completely displeased with the way things had turned out. He’d probably regret it in the morning. But he didn’t care how big the boobs were if there was no sense of humor behind them.

  By morning, the hickey she’d given him glowed back at him in the mirror. It was a beauty, worthy of having its portrait painted by Andy Warhol. How could he keep it in viable shape until Monday morning for locker-room show and tell? Pack it in dry ice, maybe. Plenty of times he’d stood by while guys had exhibited hickeys that paled beside this one. Now it would be his turn.

  You sex maniac, you, he told his image fondly. There’s nothing you can’t do, Hollander. You can do it all. Smiling, scratching his hairless chest, he bounded down the stairs to the kitchen.

  His mother was banging around, flicking her dishcloth like a waitress on the night shift at a diner, anxious for the last customer to leave.

  “John,” she said. No hello, no nothing. “I’ve got some errands I’d like you to run for me today. The cleaners, the—”

  “Hey, Ma. I need some grunts before I tackle the world.” He opened the refrigerator and took out the orange juice, along with a package of day-old doughnuts, his mother’s specialty. He hadn’t had a fresh doughnut in years. They were bad for your teeth, too soft, too spongy, she said. When you sank your teeth into a day-older, you really had something. Besides, they were cheaper.

  “It’s time you had a decent haircut,” she looked at him with narrowed eyes. “With Les coming home.”

  “Give me a break, Ma. I just got up. Les likes me with long hair. She told me she did. Don’t you want to hear about last night? The orgy, I mean.” He couldn’t believe he’d said that. All he’d wanted to do was cheer her up a little. During the night deep lines seemed to have formed on either side of her mouth, aging her.

  “What on earth is that thing on your neck?” She put out an exploring finger and he backed off. “That’s my hickey,” he said. “I’m guarding it with my life.”

  “Your hickey?”

  “Yeah. Grace Lerner’s niece hung it on me. I resisted. I swear I did, Ma. She attacked me. I might’ve lost my head. Not to mention my you-know-what.” He rolled his eyes at her.

  She sat down at last, shaking her head, laughing. “Don’t you know it’s not considered gallant to kiss and tell?”

  “I didn’t lay a hand on her. If she says I did, she lies.”

  “Did you have fun? Is she pretty?”

  He yawned, an exaggerated, simulated yawn. “Let’s just say it was a one-night stand, all right? Where’s Dad?”

  She got up and began flicking her dishcloth again. “John, I just hope you behaved like a gentleman. He’s gone to have some blood tests taken.”

  “How come?” His family were strictly steer-clear-of-doctors types.

  “He thinks he might have a low-grade virus.” His mother had a thing about doctors and hospitals. “I do wish Leslie had said exactly when she was coming.”

  “She said Sunday. How exact do you want?”

  “You know something?” His mother wove her fingers together. “I wish she were coming alone. I get so little chance to
talk to her. When she leaves, I always think of lots of things I wanted to ask her. There never seems to be enough time.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “I’ve got a hair appointment at ten, John. Will you be a good boy and vacuum the guest room while I’m gone?”

  “What for?”

  She looked surprised. “Why, for Leslie’s guest, of course.”

  11

  The hospital was at the top of a hill. He parked his car and walked slowly toward the massive granite pile, wondering what urban planner would consciously put a place of healing in such a spot. A hospital should be built on flat land surrounded by rolling green hills. Or perhaps a prairie or, lacking a prairie, a plain filled with flowers and trees, sweet-smelling, cooled by a shallow stream. Birds would swoop overhead, mostly bluebirds, the birds of happiness. A hospital should be welcoming in its aspect, beckoning the lame, the halt, and the blind to enter. Abandon hope, never.

  An ambulance, siren shrieking, sped up the hill and pulled into the emergency entrance. Another ambulance, quiet as a mouse, drove down the hill aimlessly. I hope I never have to go in one of those things. They scare the hell out of me, he thought. He always averted his head when an ambulance screamed by him, just as he did when a hearse passed.

  He passed through the revolving doors into the lobby. He hadn’t been here since the last time with John. About six years ago, that was. He remembered how brave John had been. He hadn’t made a peep, not even when the doctor had set the broken bone. It had almost finished him when the kid hadn’t made a sound. He’d expected all sorts of crying and carrying on. It made things harder, somehow, when they were heroic.

  The hospital walls were painted green. An unwritten law states that all hospital walls must be painted a particularly bilious shade of green, peculiar to hospitals the world over. He went to the desk, gave his name, his doctor’s name. The nurse checked a list, chewing on a pencil as she did so. That doesn’t look sanitary, he thought.