The Norma Gene

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The Norma Gene Page 20

by M. E. Roufa


  “Hey, girl,” Shosha said at last, as Norma wistfully reached for her car keys for the umpteenth time. “I think I’m drunk.”

  “Yeah, Shosha, I think so too,” Norma sighed.

  “’Sa funny word, drunk. Because I drunk… so much drink.” Shosha curled in on herself in a fit of snorting giggles, nearly toppling out of her seat. Norma grabbed her arm to steady her, and left out some cash for the tab as she helped Shosha to her feet.

  “No—no,” she waved at the table. “It’s on me.” She made two failed attempts to get into her purse, then gave up. “I owe you,” she slurred into Norma’s ear, her breath hot and moist against the skin. “Don’t forget.”

  Not for quite some time, Norma thought, but managed to keep herself from saying aloud.

  “Say, Norma?” Shosha looked up, doing her best to maintain eye contact. “I think maybe I could use a ride home. Could you do that for a pal?”

  “Sure thing, Shosha,” Norma sighed.

  It took some doing, but somehow she managed to maneuver Shosha into the back seat of her convertible, not expecting her to stay upright through the ride but praying she would at least maintain equilibrium. Butch’s vomit had been enough. Shosha would just have to deal with her own car in the morning. Norma had the feeling it wouldn’t be the first time.

  Halfway home, Norma’s boss was fast asleep in the back and snoring loudly. Norma could have kicked herself. Living the wild life again, she thought. Could this night have gone any worse?

  Which is, of course, when her phone rang.

  46

  Pleasepickuppleasepickuppleasepickup… Just when Abe thought the phone couldn’t ring any more times, when he knew he was about to be shunted to a voice-answering system of some kind and certain recapture, he heard a click. And then a voice.

  Her voice. A bit confused, and more breathy than he remembered, but definitely hers. “Hello?”

  “Hi.” Abe knew he needed to tell her his name, or what he needed, or beg for help, or anything, but her voice—that breathiness, the scent still lingering on the card… he felt like he was back in high school, trying to figure out how to ask a girl out. He didn’t even know this woman. He had only seen her once. His life was at stake at this point, and he was so afraid he would blow it that he waited for her to talk first. Idiot.

  “Hi.” Norma waited. She knew from the voice on the other end that it wasn’t a salesperson, that he wasn’t reading from a card. Not at one in the morning. Plus, no one reading from a card said “Hi.” And the long pause and the caught breath meant it was someone who had met her before, probably someone who liked her a lot. It felt a bit like when boys used to call her back in high school. She liked how that made her feel. It was a seductive feeling that made her toes curl a little. She let the pause linger, for him to say someone else. Maybe tonight would have a bright spot after all.

  “Hi,” he said again.

  This was not Abe’s finest hour.

  Another, longer pause.

  “Um—who is this?” she asked.

  Abe knew without having to be told that she was going to hang up on him if he didn’t say the next thing exactly right. He needed to be casual, not desperate. But he also needed to be commanding. She had to understand that he wouldn’t take no for an answer. That she had to meet with him.

  “This is Abe Finkelstein. We met the other day. You crashed into my car.”

  So much for the bright spot. She hung up.

  Abe looked in all directions. There was no one coming. He was still safe. Roughly half an hour had passed since he had fled from the complex. He had tried going home, but a quick look down his block revealed an unfamiliar nondescript sedan parked across the street and another at the end of the block, both parked in front of the homes of neighbors who he personally knew would never have anything to do with nondescript sedans. If his home was unsafe, then he had to assume his school would be as well. There was next to no chance that the goon-types who had dogged all his previous steps were not already alerted to his disappearance, and therefore likely to arrive at any minute—especially if Brian’s car had any sort of GPS. Abe ditched the car at the corner of the dueling McDonald’s, left the keys in the ignition, and took off at a run, finally ending up in a new suburban division of identical mock Spanish Colonial villas. Each house unique from its neighbor in ways only the homeowners themselves could differentiate—begonias instead of geraniums, a garden gnome in favor of St. Francis, the grass a quarter inch longer in the front.

  Abe didn’t know how long he would have until the cellphone, too, was traced. He knew he could only afford another one, or possibly two, more phone calls. Was it really worth trying her again? He ran through everyone else he could think of that the FBI wouldn’t have thought of already. His students. His old college roommates. The guy who used to walk his parents’ dog, back when they would go to the Keys over the holidays—well, he would certainly be safe. There was no way the FBI would think of searching for him there. But there was also no way for Abe to reach him. He had no idea what his number was, or where he lived, or even his last name. Even his cell phone had had him listed under “B,” for “Bob The Dogwalker.” Besides, none of the people he could think of had Norma’s—such an awful name for such a gorgeous woman—had her lips, her shape… her phone was ringing again please pick up please pick up…

  “Hello?” It was her voice again, but less sultry this time, more edge to it. She knew it was him. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  “No,” Abe responded, honestly. He had no idea. “I’m sorry it’s late. It’s an emergency. You were the only person I could think to call. It’s not about the car. Forget the car. I need to see you. Please. Please.”

  “Now?”

  “Now. Please.”

  The third please won her over. Who says please three times? And he hadn’t even asked it, not like begging, only a request, as if they had known each other for years. He had a gentle voice. Even more than the second please, though, was the “forget the car.” Up till then, she had forgotten the car, had thought the whole thing had gone away, but in a sudden burst of understanding she realized that his insurance company wouldn’t. There was no doubt the accident had been her fault, and if he hadn’t forgotten about it, if it hadn’t gone away—well in that case, if now he was suddenly telling her that he was willing to forget the car, she should definitely meet him to get it to stay gone away.

  “Sure.” She named a coffee place a couple of miles from where she lived. It was almost a twenty-minute drive from where Abe was hiding. “See you there?”

  “I’d love to,” Abe said, breathing out in relief for what seemed like the first time in hours. “But can you pick me up? I have no car.”

  No. Norma thought. There is no way I wrecked his car. The accident wasn’t that bad. “I thought you said this wasn’t about the car,” she said, suspiciously. Her voice regained its hostile edge.

  “It’s not—it has nothing to do with my car. I have nothing to do with my car. Just pretend I have no car.” He tried to hide any hint of exasperation, or desperation, or any other -peration he was feeling from his voice.

  “Why would I go out with a guy who has no car?” Norma teased, immediately regretting she had asked it.

  “Okay—just pretend I had a car, and you crashed into it and wrecked it, and I want you to pick me up and meet with me instead of calling your insurance—”

  He could hear his words petering out into dead silence. Had she hung up on him again? Both of them weighed their options in the momentary standoff, both of them understanding that he needed her. Intrigue over what his reason could be kept the line tethered at her end.

  “I thought you said,” she finally said slowly, “this wasn’t about your car.”

  “It’s not about my car,” he replied, just as slowly, his eyes still darting around him, looking for any passing vehicle that might look out of the ordinary—or in the case of Steve’s car—very ordinary. “Except in the sense that I can�
�t get to it right now, and you’re the only person I could think to call to rescue me, and if you can’t come pick me up soon, there might not be a me to pick up. I know that sounds nuts. I promise I can explain that part. And I only mentioned you hitting my car again because of the guilt factor. I won’t do it again. I promise.”

  “You really do sound nuts,” she said, but there was something about him that still kept her on the line. She tried remembering back to the day, the dress, the frenzied rush, the other driver… what was it about the other driver? There was something about him that had caught her attention at the time; she remembered having thought that. That he was unusual in some way? That he was dressed funny, maybe? Did he have an accent? No, of course not; she was talking to him now. He was tall, she remembered that. Very tall. And he had kind eyes. And she thought she had met him before.

  And he was cute. That was it. Really tall and shy-guy cute.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “Tell me where you are, and I’ll meet you there. But I’m going to need you to help me with something first.”

  He scanned the street signs and gave his best guess as to his neighborhood based on what he had seen on his dash from the McDonald’s. Fortunately for him, the one landmark he had seen—a giant fiberglass cow in a matador outfit advertising some attraction—was one she recognized. That wasn’t a given. In this town, giant fiberglass anythings tended to vanish in one’s memory banks as quickly as they appeared, as lost to the eyes as a single neon sign in Las Vegas. A real cow would have had far more of a chance of drawing a crowd. She estimated it would take her about twenty minutes. Abe could feel the impending time stretched out in front of him like the achingly long line for a new rollercoaster snaking out in a twisting mile. His stomach clenched in a knot with a combination of nausea and excitement and fear. He didn’t know how long it would be before they discovered he had escaped and wasn’t hiding on the premises—didn’t know whether there was already a tracer out on Brian’s car, or on this cell phone…

  “Look,” he said, “You’d better not call me back. And if anybody calls you after this and asks about my calling you, tell them it was a wrong number. Even if—especially if they tell you they’re from the government. Actually, especially if they tell you they’re not from the government.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  “I hope so. This is starting to sound really exciting. I’ll see you soon.”

  “I can’t wait.” Abe said. “I mean, I really can’t wait.”

  He really couldn’t. He tucked and rolled under a nearby RV and prayed the roving sedan with tinted windows that approached and slowly passed by didn’t see him.

  47

  Norma could have kicked herself as she slid her convertible onto I-4, immediately caught up in an unexpected snarl of late-night tourist traffic. Why was she always allowing “cuteness” to be a factor when it came to making crucial decisions? She could see herself caught up in a bank holdup, asked to turn the gun on an innocent fellow hostage to allow the robbers to get away. Captured by the police, and asked to defend her actions, she would only be able to say of her abductor, “He was yummy.”

  It would never stand up in court. Not even if the robber in question looked like Michelangelo’s David, though if that were the case, with enough women or gay men on the jury she could possibly get a less severe sentence. Especially if he wasn’t wearing many clothes. But she knew it was a self-destructive tendency. She knew it verged on being completely irrational, that so many things counted for more than looks, especially when it came to making personal judgments that had nothing to do with dating. But time after time, from the moment her hormones first started to allow her to differentiate between the boys who ate paste and the ones who used it to better define their cowlicks, Norma had an unfortunate tendency to think with her pituitary gland.

  So here she was, at one in the morning, on her way to rescue—did he say rescue?—a man she didn’t know beyond the fact that she crashed into his car, all because he was tall, dark and cute. Not even handsome. Tall, dark, and handsome she could understand. Who wouldn’t jump into their car at a moment’s notice for tall, dark, and handsome? She didn’t even know if the guy was single or not, though something in the way he spoke to her told her that he was.

  And she still thought she knew him from somewhere, though she couldn’t for the life of her figure out where. Had he dated one of her friends? She hoped not. Nothing soured the possibility of a new relationship like the knowledge that a guy wasn’t good enough for one of your girlfriends. Especially since that girlfriend was inevitably going to tell you why. Or worse, tell everyone else why. Followed inevitably by, “But if she doesn’t mind it…” with that half-pitying smile of smug superiority. Then again, going out with a man who had dated and dumped one of your friends was even worse, because the fact of his caddishness was bound to be discussed and rehashed over and over again, as a warning sign that you couldn’t possibly want to waste your time on such an obvious bastard. And if the worst-case scenario followed—if he wasn’t a bastard to you, only to your friend—well, that had never happened, but she imagined the aftermath of that would be appalling.

  The traffic was much worse than the time of night warranted. The theme parks had all closed, and for all the after-hours attractions out there catering to the drinking-age set, Orlando was still predominantly a kiddie town. The cars were a mix of kamikaze drivers attempting greater and greater feats of creative cutoffs out of the idealized belief that all the cops were in bed, and overcautious types hoping that if they stayed just under the speed limit, no one would notice their failure to stay completely within their lane. Though she was in no hurry, Norma still tried to drive at a safe medium pace between careful and reckless. The fast speed helped her focus. Thinking about how best to maneuver through the maze of barely licensed retirees and out-of-state looky-loos was far better than planning a romantic future with a man she hadn’t even met other than to exchange insurance information.

  Then again, daydreaming about a mystery man beat thinking about the concrete reality. Another night out drinking with Shosha would be the end of her. Her other girlfriends, her actual friends, were always there for her when she needed them, but they had all started pairing off, getting married and having babies and generally finding perpetual excuses to be unavailable. There was Stuart, the Frog Prince from the other night. He was a real winner. He had called a few times, all of which she had managed to just barely entirely avoid picking up. As in, she saw his name, thought about it, rolled her eyes, decided to let it go to voice mail, panicked that he was still better than nobody, changed her mind, made a last-second dive for the phone, and in the nick of time said “Hello” into the mouthpiece just as the screen said “Missed.” And felt relieved at her rescue. And never called him back.

  And besides Stuart, there was… who? No one, really. Her last few boyfriends had been one disaster after another—no sense in reliving past history. And sure, there were the usual number of men who chatted her up at the perfume counter “for their girlfriends,” then slowly revealed that they didn’t actually have girlfriends. Duh—guys with girlfriends talk to the counter girls, not the spray girls… the spray girls were there specifically to lasso in the unattached and otherwise unmoored. The loser types who could be flirted into making an unnecessary purchase, and who always gave her their cards. In other words, No, thank you.

  But other than that, how did you meet people? How did anyone meet people? She used to ask her friends to fix her up with guys, but it almost always backfired. No matter how many times she told them not to, when asked enough times “What does she look like?” by prospective dates, they would always blurt out some hint of her Marilynity. So the guys would arrive prepped, and from then on everything was downhill if not doomed. They were either disappointed that she wasn’t the blonde bombshell they were expecting, or that she wasn’t interested in becoming just a little blonder, or just that she wasn’t what they expected.
She was too plump for some of them (well hell, Marilyn was full-figured, what did you expect?), and not plump enough for others (well, dammit, I look better in a size 6 and if I can diet my way into one I’m going to if it kills me). And then the less shallow ones had issues that she didn’t particularly care about: the suicide vs. homicide thing, or the JFK thing, or whether she was a good actress or just a great performer. Rita Hayworth once said, “Men go to bed with Gilda, and wake up with me.” It was the same thing for her, except they never made it as far as the bed. No one wanted her to be Norma. No one wanted her to be herself.

  And the worst irony of it was, they all knew it was skin deep. They knew it was. They all apologized and fell all over themselves apologizing and tried to redeem themselves afterwards. Well, not all of them, but the good ones did. They recognized it, and tried to recover from the faux pas, and changed the conversation. Asked about her, about her job, her family, her dreams. Listened. Treated her like a date should. But it was too late for her. Because she would always know that they still saw her for who she wasn’t, and always would. And that they would always know she could be that surface, if she only wanted to.

  People only say “beauty is only skin deep” when they don’t have it. Or when they want you to pretend it doesn’t exist. But if you had a choice to make do with only the beauty within, or have that inner beauty and still get the beauty on the outside too, there isn’t a person alive who wouldn’t ask for the twofer. With any man who had looked forward to meeting her as a Marilyn, she could never, ever, ever feel wholly herself.

 

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