The Love Book

by Nina Solomon

  Philomel was packed with well-dressed couples. It wasn’t difficult for Max to tell which women had been recently dumped by rich husbands for younger versions of themselves; she could pick them out a mile away. They comprised half her clientele. The ones with frozen faces wearing tight-fitting tops to show off their hard, fake boobs and well-toned tanned arms, who laughed at every word uttered by their young male companions, often trainers or aspiring actors in recovery. Max had no sympathy. It was their own fault that they hadn’t seen it coming. No one would ever get the chance to dump her. She was always ready with a preemptive strike. And then there were the ones who acted as if they had no part in their husbands’ leaving. The “victims.” But Max knew better. If a husband left it was either because he’d found someone else or his wife had cheated on him.

  Friday nights, Antoine, the French chef/owner, performed his cabaret act, crooning while women in low-cut tops swooned around the piano. The first time he’d tried to seduce Max, she just laughed in his face. But her rebuffs only egged him on, so she had changed tactics, giving him exactly what he thought he wanted against the tiled bathroom wall until he begged for mercy. Worked like a charm. Always did.

  Her cell phone pinged. It was a reminder about the Soul Mate Soirée tomorrow (why had she agreed to go?) and another of Cathy’s daily inspirational messages: Prepare for your Soul Mate! A twenty-minute salt bath will cleanse the body of psychic intruders!

  She felt like texting Cathy back and telling her there was no tub in her studio apartment, only a stall shower, and she wasn’t about to buy a kiddie pool at the dollar store for the backyard.

  Antoine must have put something in the water because she hadn’t even been working ten minutes before she got her first proposition. A gentleman well into his nineties with a red silk pocket square folded as intricately as an amaryllis and carrying an ivory cane offered her ten thousand dollars to travel abroad with him for six months. Before she could answer, he nodded off.

  Around ten, one of the waiters brought her a club soda with lime and whispered in her ear, “You have an admirer.”

  At the end of the bar was a ginger-haired man with red glasses who reminded her of an older version of a chubby child star who used to do commercials for bologna.

  “Him?”

  “No,” he said, leaning close and pointing to the lounge area. “Him. I hear he’s some hotshot entrepreneur. And loaded!”

  Across the room was a man with perfect hair. A young Robert Redford type. But he was way too tan and his starched white shirt was open one button too many. He raised his glass. Max turned away.

  “He asked me to put a bottle of Clos du Mesnil on ice,” the waiter said.

  “Tell him I’m not interested.”

  “Tell him yourself, he’s coming this way.”

  “I’ve been watching you,” the man said, adjusting his cuffs so that his gold Rolex glinted in the light.

  “And?”

  “I’ve decided that today is your lucky day.”

  “Wow, that’s amazing. You’re absolutely right,” Max said. “Because you’re going to leave now.”

  The man smiled with his perfect teeth. “I could make all your dreams come true.”

  “Fuck off,” she said.

  “You’re rejecting me?”

  “Damn straight, asshole.”

  “It wouldn’t have worked out anyway,” he said, slapping a hundred-dollar bill on the bar. “I don’t date women who curse.”

  Max laughed. “Oh well, then suck my dick.” She walked away.

  Antoine finished his set, told Max to bring a round of Crème de Violette to a table of particularly adoring female fans, flirted with them for a bit, then made the requisite rounds, gracing the ladies with his super-suave French charm.

  By the window, a group of naval officers sat in a booth, celebrating with a bottle of Stoli and caviar. Only one man at the table was not in dress uniform. He was wearing a bomber jacket and chinos. He and Max locked eyes. There was something familiar about him; he reminded her of a photograph of Calvin she’d found stuffed in his army trunk, wearing his khaki battle dress uniform. She sipped her club soda and tried not to look at him.

  Max sensed him approaching without turning around. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and then, like an endorphin rush, she felt a cold euphoric tingling, from her temples to the top of her head. It was a sensation she’d only experienced on rare occasions, when she witnessed something truly breathtaking like a star-filled sky, or a beautiful piece of music, or the sound of her grandfather singing “Waltzing Matilda” in the kitchen.

  The guy leaned close. He smelled like licorice. She thought of the round yellow tin of Cachou pastilles her grandfather always carried in his jacket pocket. “A wise man once told me never to fly JAFO. I have a feeling you don’t either.”

  Of all the pickup lines she’d ever gotten, this was the strangest. The only person she’d ever heard use that expression was Calvin. Promise me something, he’d said to her on her seventeenth birthday, a few months before he killed himself. I don’t care what you do in life so long as you promise never to fly JAFO.

  What does that mean, Calvin?

  You’ll have to figure that out on your own.

  Now she looked this guy straight in the eye and said, “I’m not a fucking anything, but I’m definitely not Just A Fucking Observer.”

  The man smiled and put out his hand. “Garrett.”

  “Max, but I can tell you right now you’re wasting your time.”

  “I never waste anything,” he said. “Especially not time. Your grandfather taught me that time’s our most precious gift.”

  “You knew my grandfather?”

  “I studied with him at MIT. He’s the one who convinced me to join the navy and become an engineer. Calvin was my professor and mentor, but I thought of him more like my spiritual father. I even visited him at the farm, met you once or twice. You look a little different than you did when you were a fifteen-year-old smoker with a shaved head downing martinis.”

  “How’d you know who I was?”

  “I didn’t at first. Your hair’s a little longer than it used to be, at least on this side,” he said, lightly touching her behind her earlobe. “But you have his eyes and you’re wearing his beret.”

  Max touched the maroon Airborne beret on her head, straightened the winged medal pinned to the front. On the back was a rainbow peace sign and a Make Love, Not War patch. He wore it every day, backward. She could still see his sparkling cool blue eyes, the way they lit up when he looked at her, crinkled when he smiled.

  Garrett opened his jacket. The same patch was sewn into the frayed lining. “I hope you don’t mind my asking . . . but how long have you been sober?”

  “Two years,” Max answered. “How could you tell?”

  “Your eyes. They’re as clear as an arctic lake. And nearly as deep.”

  On the subway platform on her way home, she received a text: The left seat is all yours. Pick you up tomorrow at seven. And just like that her weekend plans changed. She knew she didn’t have to bother calling Cathy to cancel. If anyone would understand, she would.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  LOVE GURU

  EMILY HADN’T EXPECTED Barnes & Noble to be so crowded. A smattering of people, perhaps, not standing room only, to hear the author of The Love Book. Apparently soul mates were a hot commodity, very much in demand.

  She spotted a seat and began homing in on it when an unshaven guy in a three-piece suit brushed past. It was the self-obsessed guy from the gym. Finally, he acknowledged her presence in the aisle. She expected him to do the gentlemanly thing, but he just gave her a nod and draped his jacket over the back of the chair. The label was showing. H. Huntsman & Sons, the Savile Row purveyors to the likes of Sir Winston Churchill and the Duke of Windsor. It didn’t take long for Emily to figure out why he was there. What better way to put the law of attraction to good use? He was the only man in a room full of single women. The narcissist!<
br />
  Her feet were already getting sore in her new shoes, an emergency purchase when the heel of her clog broke in half on the way over. It had been slim pickings on the sale rack at Harry’s, at least in her size. She’d settled on a pair of slip-on weatherproof shoes when a pair of red suede Mary Janes with four-inch stacked heels one size down caught her eye. Rarely did Emily feel inspired by a pair of shoes, but they made her look ten pounds thinner, and, though snug and completely impractical in a walking city, she left the dog-walking shoes on the rack and gave in to the impulse. But after fifteen minutes, it was clear that not only were they not walking shoes, they weren’t even standing shoes.

  Finally, there was an announcement: the Love Guru was a no-show. Her publicist, a woman in a white pantsuit with a meringue of white hair who clearly hadn’t seen any action since the early nineties, would read in her stead.

  People got up to leave, but Emily leaned against a bookshelf and opened her notebook. She was on assignment: Love Guru or no Love Guru, she had a deadline.

  Lady Meringue stepped up to the podium, put on a pair of sparkly red glasses, and began reading: “Are you blocking the flow of love? Are you ‘off duty’? Switch your Heart-Light to ‘I’m available!’”

  Emily jotted notes, but was flummoxed by the alleged correlation between soul mates and taxicabs. If there was such a thing as a Heart-Light, hers was on such a low-wattage dimmer that the risk of her being flagged down anytime soon was next to nil. It was true that the timing of her relationship with Nick hadn’t been ideal, but neither had it impeded her in any way. She’d been in transition. He was the one who was unavailable.

  They hadn’t seen each other in months. The last time had been accidental, at a gala opening of the Alexander McQueen exhibit Savage Beauty at the Met. The place had been packed, so crowded that she found herself at various times unable to move, but the dresses in the exhibit were so excruciatingly beautiful, severe, haunting, almost sadomasochistic, that she barely noticed. As she took notes for an article she was writing for an online fashion blog, she’d imagined what it would feel like to wear McQueen’s creations. Like the silk gown that undulated in waves, or the dress appliquéd with real flowers, or the costume of black ostrich feathers with taxidermy hawks holding up the straps, or the one made of iridescent oyster shells. The crowd had eventually begun to thin, migrating to the champagne reception. Emily had lingered in front of a holographic box in which a three-dimensional image of a model twirled in a fluttering white dress. Then, there in the hall of mirrors, she’d seen Nick with his hand on a woman’s lower back. His wife? Another mistress? On either side of the hall, mannequins spun in mirrored cubicles. She had tried to block out her own image, but she was entwined with reflections of Nick and the woman in multiples too numerous to count.

  The white pantsuit lady droned on and on . . . “You are the creator of your own experience.” Yada yada, blah blah . . . “You create your own reality.” Yada yada yawn.

  Emily closed her notebook. If she could create her own reality, she wouldn’t be here listening to a lady who looked like a piece of plastic pie. It was after nine. She needed to call Zach before he went to bed. And that’s when she saw Clarissa, cocooned in a white fur vest, lining up with dozens of eager soul mate seekers, waiting to have their books signed. Her emerald engagement ring flashed brighter than a traffic light as she rummaged in her purse that probably cost more than Charles and Emily’s first couch.

  Trouble in paradise?

  She was in no mood for an encounter with Clarissa, especially when she was in slum mode, in one of Zach’s T-shirts and ripped jeans, so she made a beeline for the escalator. And just her luck. Right behind her was Pretty Boy Who Can’t Shave from the gym.

  “I’m thinking about getting a restraining order,” he said. “There’s a fine line between stalking and manifesting.”

  Manifesting? What the heck was he trying to say?

  She turned, annoyed, but her annoyance was short-lived, short-circuited by his smiling blue eyes. She was surprised that his voice had so much resonance. He was a little shorter than average, but in her new heels she towered over him. Maybe he was an out-of-work actor, a go-to guy for voice-overs.

  “I got the nights mixed up,” he continued. “I thought I was here for a talk about Vietcong opium fields.”

  Three obviously single women, freshly armed with Love Books, rode behind them on the escalator.

  Lowering his voice, he asked, “You’re not . . . one of them?”

  “No,” Emily said, stepping aside to let the women pass. “I’m just writing an article. For a magazine,” she added.

  “Ah, you’re a writer.”

  “I do some freelance.”

  “That makes two of us,” he said.

  She braced herself, accustomed to people trying to use her as a contact, sending her unreadable manuscripts, asking if she knew any agents who handled post-apocalyptic, zombie-inspired bodice rippers. These encounters never ended well.

  “Really?” she said, glancing at her phone.

  “Yes, there’s a potentially toxic concentration of struggling artists in this postal code. We’re worse than kudzu.”

  She buttoned her coat. Another day, another struggling artist. What a tired cliché. “Guess I’ll see you at the gym.”

  “Or here, next week,” he said, pointing to a life-sized poster in the window emblazoned with his photograph.

  “You’re Duncan Lebow?”

  “At least according to my driver’s license,” he said, after pretending to look over his shoulder.

  “I’m so embarrassed.” Emily realized she was slouching the way she used to in junior high when all the boys were five inches shorter than she was.

  “Don’t be. This is New York. Everyone’s someone.”

  “I loved the excerpt of your novel in Esquire,” she now gushed.

  “I appreciate that. What did you respond to most?”

  “I liked it all, but particularly the line about revelation being more perilous than revolution. That really stuck with me. I wish I could write with that much muscularity.”

  “That’s one of my favorite lines too,” he said. “I was riffing on Nabokov.”

  The revolving doors spun, letting in the fresh cold night air and disgorging the last of the Upper West Side schlumps with their anointed Love Books. Behind them, like an aurora borealis floating down the escalator, was the lovely older couple she’d seen the other day. How had she missed them upstairs?

  Duncan zipped his Barbour. “If I didn’t have a 6 a.m. flight to Oslo for Nobel week we could continue this conversation. I love to help fellow novelists.”

  “I’m not a novelist,” Emily said. “I write fluff pieces for women’s magazines.”

  He smiled as though he knew some secret. “Call me, I’m in the White Pages.”

  In the middle of the crosswalk, something made Emily stop and turn. Duncan was still standing in the same spot. Horns blared, the light blinked red. He waved, and motioned for her to hurry up and not get hit by the horde of oncoming taxis.

  When she had safely reached the other side he set off in the opposite direction. She may have misjudged him. But Call me, I’m in the White Pages? Who says that? Then she quickly dismissed the thought.

  * * *

  On the way home she stopped at the deli for cookies and unfortunately ran into her neighbor Mrs. Weisenbaum. Adele was notoriously nosy. Probably not even four foot ten, always dressed in animal print and metallic kitten heels, with a Virginia Slim in her mouth, she made it her business to know everybody else’s.

  “I never see you with a man,” she said. “Dating anyone?”

  “Not right now. If it happens, it happens.”

  “My daughter used to say the same thing when she was your age. Now she’s way past her prime. You should try Internet dating. You have to cast a wide net to catch a live one. They have sites for over-forties.”

  “Three black-and-whites,” Emily said to the deli guy. “Thank
s, Adele, but I’m not quite there yet.”

  “You should watch your sweets. Metabolism starts to change when you hit perimenopause. I see the boxes from Magnolia in the recycling bin.”

  “They’re for Zach.”

  Adele squinted her eyes. “And I only pretend to smoke.”

  The deli guy was looking at Emily strangely. Was everybody judging her? She’d only ordered three cookies.

  “You’re that actress,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re that actress in that show.”

  “I’m not an actress,” Emily said.

  “You look just like that lady on Weeds. You know who I mean?”

  “Yes, my nephew says I look like her too,” she said. “But trust me, I’m not.”

  The deli guy persisted, handing her the bag of cookies. “You are her, aren’t you?” he said.

  Emily shook her head. “Sorry, I’m just a writer.”

  “I get it,” he said, winking, as he finished ringing up her purchase. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  Adele gave an impatient sigh. “Who’s he talking about?”

  “Mary-Louise Parker,” Emily answered as she turned to leave the store. “She’s an actress.”

  “I know who she is. You don’t look anything like her. Three packs of Virginia Slims. With matches, this time.”

  Emily was in the elevator when she heard Mrs. Weisenbaum’s raspy voice and heels echoing in the marble lobby. She automatically put her hand out to hold the door.

  “I didn’t get my Women’s Wear Daily,” Adele complained to the doorman. “Can’t you people keep track of the mail?”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Weisenbaum,” the doorman said, “I only work nights.”

  “This is the second time this month. Believe me, this doesn’t happen at the Schwab House. And another thing . . .” Adele said, as Emily quietly pressed Door Close.

  Upstairs, five Brooks Brothers shirts, arms stuffed with pink tissue paper and pinned back like straightjackets, were hanging from the door. Clarissa had been bemoaning the fact that Emily still hadn’t gotten around to changing her name now that the divorce was “finally” final. When and if Clarissa became “Mrs. Charles Andrews,” she wanted to make darn sure there wasn’t another Mrs. Charles Andrews in the same zip code. Emily’s rationale was that it was her professional name, not that her byline had been on more than a handful of articles. Also, she thought it would make Zach feel like she was denying half of who he was. When Clarissa found out that not only the dry cleaner but also the Georgetown alumni association, Charles’s dentist, and the county clerk still thought he lived with Emily, the white fur would fly.