1 Breakfast at Madeline's

by Matt Witten

  Finally, after one last parting comment about the Allentown Ambassadors, Sports Memorabilia moved off. I glanced around quickly, unlocked the gate, and dashed down the back stairs.

  My eyes took a few moments to adjust to the darkness, but then I found the aisle where I had almost sampled Marcie's forbidden fruit. I was in such a hurry to find the application and get the hell out of there, I tripped on a coffee sack and sprawled headlong. Marcie's scent was still lingering in the air, impairing my ability to think straight. As I stood back up, I wondered if my concussion had somehow improved my sense of smell. I couldn't believe Marcie's odor was still so powerful, even though she hadn't been down here for fifteen minutes, maybe more—

  "Hi," Marcie said.

  I jumped, tripped on another coffee sack, and landed back on the floor. Marcie came and stood over me. "Are you all right?" she asked in her husky voice.

  From where I lay, I couldn't help but look up her dress. And her smell was stronger than ever—so that's where it comes from, I thought...

  And then my brain just plain gave out. My synapses exploded.

  Helpless with lust, I reached up to pull Marcie down on top of me. My hands stretched toward hers, my fingertips shivering as they rose through the air.

  21

  "Looking for something?" Marcie asked, her eyes on my outstretched fingers.

  "Yes," I breathed.

  "Here." She brought her hand close to mine.

  I started to grab her. But then I saw she was holding out some sheets of paper in her hand. Huh? I stared blankly at them for a few moments before the lust fog finally lifted enough for me to recognize The Penn's application.

  I blinked up at Marcie, then took the application from her fingers and stood up. The act of standing finally got my brain synapses working again, and I started coming back to myself. I am Jacob Burns, I thought, I'm married with two young children. My mind repeated it like a mantra. I'm married—

  "Jacob, there's something I have to say to you."

  —with two young children. "Sure, yeah," I said, smiling with false cheer that fooled neither of us. "Let's go upstairs, we can talk there."

  I started past her, but she put a hand on my chest. "I'd rather talk down here."

  My lips flopped around for a while, then I found my voice. "Marcie, I know how you feel. But—" But I'm married with two young children, I was about to say, until she interrupted.

  "Yeah, I figured you knew," she said bitterly. "It's in that dumb book he was writing, isn't it?"

  Now my synapses all began firing simultaneously. What is in that dumb book?

  When in doubt, nod knowingly, I reminded myself, just nod knowingly. So I did. I was glad my body was more or less following my brain's instructions again. Though to be honest, my head wasn't the only part of me that was nodding knowingly.

  "It was just a one-time thing," Marcie complained, her baby blues looking pained. Still at sea, I nodded knowingly again. Marcie shook her head, exasperated. "I can't believe he made such a big deal out of it. It didn't mean anything. It would be like if we did it—I mean, you and me. Just a fun thing, you know?"

  Holy cannoli, what was Marcie telling me here? Had she made love to Donald Penn? I was so baffled, I forgot to nod. This seeming lack of sympathy got Marcie even more riled up, and she started whining. "It's just so unfair. I mean, Madeline is my cousin. She's like my sister. I'd never do anything to hurt her."

  Come again? How would Marcie's one-nighter with The Penn hurt Madeline? But then, finally, I started to get a glimmer of understanding.

  Marcie put her hand on my shoulder, and I was surprised that for some reason it didn't turn me on. Strange. "Hey, Jacob, you and I almost made love, right? But that wouldn't have made us bad people. It wasn't something we should be punished for."

  She threw me a desperate look, then started up again. "So did he write down the whole thing? How he heard me and Rob in the basement?"

  Me and Rob in the basement. So my glimmer had been right. I nodded to myself. But Marcie thought I was nodding yes to her question, and she let out a petulant growl. "That pathetic little shit," she spit out, "did he write down about how he was blackmailing me?"

  Whew, this Penn guy was some piece of work. Marcie kept on going, driven by fury. "Every single morning I had to give him ninety-seven fucking cents for a cup of coffee. I had to sneak it in a goddamn envelope and then hide it under the magazines so he could get it when he came in. And it had to be exact change, or the bastard wouldn't accept it!" She swatted a coffee bag angrily. "If anyone ever deserved to die, it was Donald fucking Penn."

  I stared at Marcie, wondering something, and I guess you know what it was. But Marcie was wondering something else. "So what are you gonna do?" she asked, with a hard stare.

  I didn't know, so I nodded knowingly. I figured that would provoke her into talking some more, like it had before. But it didn't. She just stood there, her hard stare icing over. So I sighed thoughtfully, then nodded noncommittally, then tried raising my eyebrows questioningly, but nothing seemed to work. Marcie's glare was so fierce it definitely made me think she was capable of murder, but she still wasn't saying anything. Finally I gave in and broke the silence first. "What do you think I should do?"

  "Just shut the fuck up!" Then she pulled herself together, and softened. "Look, I know you're a serious writer and everything, and I respect that, and you probably don't want to interfere with that asshole's artistic integrity or whatever the hell you call it when you get his book published"—she paused for breath, and to bat her big blue eyes at me—"but would it be so hard to just, you know, leave out the part of the book that's about me and Rob?"

  I took a moment to try to frame an answer, and Marcie started to cry. Her tears would have been more effective if I hadn't suspected that she knew the same actor's trick for making yourself cry that I did. "Jacob, you gotta understand, if Madeline finds out he slept with me while he was engaged to her, it'll just kill her. She's so old-fashioned, white wedding dress and all that stuff, I mean Rob is only, like, the second guy she ever slept with." Marcie wiped away a tear. "Please, Jacob, Madeline doesn't deserve this. You can do anything you want to me, but not to poor Madeline," she ended melodramatically.

  You can do anything you want to me. My chest sagged.

  So that's why Marcie had been so eager to wiggle out of her clothes. It wasn't because I was so incredibly desirable and sexy, it was because she wanted to buy my silence.

  Or maybe blackmail my silence. Maybe she was tearing a page out of Donald Penn's book, as it were. Man, what a comedown. Here I'd been burning with insane ballbusting desire, and the whole time the woman was just playing me like a kazoo.

  I would have felt worse, except for one thing: as I looked at Marcie's mute pleading face, I realized that my crush on her had dissipated somehow. Maybe because in the last few minutes Marcie had transformed from a gorgeous fantasy queen with perfect smile, perfect breasts, and even perfect coffee, to a regular person who pleaded, sighed, and got self-centered and furious just like everyone else in the world. Now that I'd seen the reality of her, it only took a short mental jump for me to picture Marcie as a harassed thirty-something married woman with young children, nagging her husband to change a damn diaper every once in a while.

  In other words, I belatedly understood, Marcie was not all that different from my wife. Except, of course, that I love my wife.

  I allowed myself a small smile. I felt like I had dodged a bullet tonight.

  "What are you smiling about?" Marcie broke into my thoughts.

  "Nothing," I answered, and quickly shifted gears from 90s sensitive guy back to 30s private dick. What was the score now: one murder, two burglaries, assault, arson, following me around town, throwing bricks through windows... It seemed like too much for Marcie to pull off alone. But what if she'd conspired with Rob? "So was The Penn blackmailing Rob too?" I asked.

  "No, I made him promise not to tell Rob. That was part of our deal." She sighed. "Se
e, it wasn't really Rob's fault we slept together. I seduced him."

  Suddenly she surprised me with a girlish giggle. "I couldn't help it. I mean, I worked right next to him for ten whole months, just dying to sleep with him, and I couldn't stand it anymore." She gazed up at me, her eyes getting that familiar lewd twinkle. Her nostrils flared a little, and she moistened her lips. "Just like I've been watching you every morning for two years. And getting hotter and hotter for you every single day."

  Our eyes locked. My head pounded. Maybe she meant it. Maybe not.

  But one thing I was sure of: I wanted coffee right now more than I had ever wanted coffee before in my life. Maybe more than I had ever wanted sex. "Marcie," I said, "let's go upstairs."

  She didn't miss a beat. "What about Penn's book? Will you take out the part about me and Rob?"

  I would have reassured her, but I guess I was still pissed off about being a kazoo. So I just said, "I don't know what to say," and led the way upstairs.

  After we got there, it occurred to me that for all of my lustful ogling, I had never once thought to look at Marcie's feet. Must be a shortcoming in my erotic makeup. So I turned and looked.

  Like the rest of her, Marcie's feet were gorgeous. And two other interesting things about them:

  They were medium sized... and they were clad in high-heeled shoes.

  They weren't silver, but they were definitely high heels. This gave me yet another thing to think about as I headed back to Uncommon Grounds with The Penn's application folded up small and stashed carefully in my front pocket. It was 10:50 already and I really should be going home, but I figured Dave wouldn't mind staying a little late. And I didn't feel like going home to my wife right after Marcie.

  Not that I had anything to feel guilty about, I reassured myself. Hell, I'd been a veritable pillar of virtue. Okay, so maybe I did sway a bit, but I didn't fall. The devil thought he had a slam dunk, but I blocked his shot. I had been tested, true, but I'd passed with a C minus.

  I was still thinking up metaphors as I ordered Colombian, headed for an empty table... and practically ran into Madeline and Rob. I was so taken aback, I spilled my drink. Shoot, another java wasted. Fortunately Uncommon Grounds offered free refills, so I was able to get myself another hit of caffeine without forking over my fourth dollar bill of the night. Also, the whole episode gave me time to rearrange my face so I could act nonchalantly cheerful when I passed Madeline and Rob's table again. "Hey guys," I said, "how come you're giving money to your competition?"

  Madeline grinned. "They have better coffee here."

  "No way, Jose."

  "Yo, what about you?" Rob asked. "How come you're not at Madeline's?"

  Because Marcie was playing my kazoo, just like she did yours, I thought. Out loud I said, "Hey, nobody goes to Madeline's anymore, they're too crowded."

  Madeline thought about that one, then laughed. "Hey, good line. No wonder you're a writer."

  Actually I stole that line from Yogi Berra, but I didn't correct her, just shrugged modestly and changed the subject. "So what's that, an invitation list?" I asked, pointing to a long handwritten list of names on a yellow legal pad in front of them.

  Madeline nodded. "How many people did you have at your wedding?" she asked me, glancing sideways at Rob.

  "Including all my great-aunts and my long-lost relatives from Philadelphia, about a hundred and fifty."

  She turned to Rob triumphantly. "You see? A hundred and twenty really isn't all that much."

  Rob looked pained. "At sixty dollars a person?"

  "Don't worry. We can afford it."

  "I just don't feel right. I mean, it's your money."

  "Honey, it's our money. Please, you gotta start thinking like that." She stroked his cheek. "Besides, once you sell your sofa and the rest of your stuff, that'll take care of twenty people right there."

  Rob looked to me for support. "Women," he said.

  "Women," I agreed.

  "What about women?" Madeline asked.

  Rob kissed her on the lips. "Did anyone ever tell you, you look just like Andie MacDowell in Groundhog Day. Except with more freckles."

  I watched as they started cooing and rubbing noses. It did my heart good. Sure, Rob had his moment of weakness with Marcie, but God knows the temptation had been strong, and besides, he hadn't been married yet. One last little premarital fling didn't by any stretch of the imagination mean their marriage was doomed. Far from it. Madeline and Rob truly loved each other, and they were perfect together.

  I just hoped neither of them were murderers.

  Madeline, at least, was in the clear, so far as I knew. She'd told me the truth when she said Penn paid for his coffee; she didn't realize he was blackmailing Marcie for the ninety-seven cents.

  But Rob, on the other hand... He'd been after me pretty hard for The Penn's manuscript. Had The Penn been blackmailing him, too, without Marcie knowing? It didn't make sense, though, because The Penn didn't need Rob for free coffee; Marcie was already supplying it. And besides, Rob started talking about holding a memorial service for The Penn before he even knew that manuscript existed. Why would you kill someone and then want to hold a memorial service for him? Rob might be a frustrated filmmaker, but he wasn't psychotic.

  While I was thinking all these things I beamed at the happy couple, my face on automatic pilot. Madeline took my hand and held it. "Jacob, keep Columbus Day weekend free. You made the list."

  "I'm truly honored," I said, and I was. "Well, you guys are getting a little too sickeningly sweet, so I guess I'll leave you alone now."

  I took my Colombian to the empty table and had a sip. No, not a sip, a guzzle; it was the best coffee I ever tasted. Of course, at this point even moldy Sanka would have tasted good. As the caffeine kicked in, I took The Penn's application out of my pocket. If Marilyn Monroe herself came back from the dead and wrapped her legs around me, it wouldn't have mattered; I was going to finally read this damn application, right now.

  But then a shadow hovered over me; Madeline, on her way to the bathroom. Was it my imagination or was she reading over my shoulder as she passed by? I gave her a friendly nod, but pulled the application closer to me.

  Statement of Purpose: I am requesting $5000 to assist me in writing my three-volume work, The History of Western Civilization Careening, as Seen through the Eyes of One of its Primary Practitioners. After working on this book for many years, I am now nearing completion.

  The book's thesis is that love can bring almost unbearable responsibility...

  I was so disgusted I threw the application to the floor. Another version of the preface?! The Penn had made a fool out of me yet again! For this I had committed burglary, almost fried to death, and come within a pubic hair of losing my extramarital virginity? I stood up to go. Then, with an exasperated sigh, I reached down for the application and read on. Dark and snowy night... live our deepest lives isolated... I impatiently skimmed the key words, not even bothering anymore to hide the application from Madeline's eyes when she returned from the bathroom. Clear sky... clister... computer...

  Wait a minute. "Computer?" I backed up.

  I have been somewhat blocked in my writing for the past couple of years. No kidding, pal. You see, I learned when very young the fearsome power of words. Even seemingly innocuous ones like "Have you seen my clister?" can kill. Therefore I rewrite assiduously, which has become both my joy and my bane. I have concluded that the solution to the problem of rewrites is purchasing a computer. Only a computer, I believe, now lies between me and greatness.

  Not the first time I'd heard this sentiment. The screenwriting class I taught in prison was full of guys who were sure that if they only had a computer, they'd become the next Spike Lee.

  Sure, and if I had a tutu, I'd be the next Rudolf Nureyev.

  An artist, like every man, or every woman as one must add in this pseudo-egalitarian age, will grasp for greatness by any means necessary. Six months ago a heartless, malicious bureaucracy decreased my Social Se
curity disability income (or, as I prefer to think of it, my federal writing stipend) by $89.60 per month. Ever since then, I have taken extraordinary measures to insure that poverty will not abate my intake of Ethiopian—believing, as I do, that a steady flow of Ethiopian is imperative to my creative flow. Members of the grant panel are only too aware of some of the extraordinary measures I have taken.

  I read that one twice. Members of the grant panel are only too aware of some of the extraordinary measures I have taken. Like blackmail? Did Penn somehow manage to blackmail the panel members, too?

  So Penn had dirt on Gretchen, the mayor, Marcie, Rob, and now maybe the grant panel. Man, this guy got around. Maybe he was a failure as a writer, but as a blackmailer he was aces.

  At this point in time, mere Ethiopian is no longer sufficient. To fulfill my destiny as official chronicler of the final years of our wobbling millennium, it is necessary that I receive funding for a Power Book 1400 computer; an Apple LaserWriter 12/640, with accompanying toner cartridges and printer paper; and eight ballpoint pens and other items.

  Panel members should know that if my extremely reasonable request is denied, I am prepared to take even more extraordinary measures. Be forewarned.

  Penn's "Statement of Purpose" ended right there. "Be forewarned." Pretty impressive; Penn had gone from blackmailing people for cups of coffee to blackmailing people for expensive computers. A step up.

  What was he blackmailing the grant panel about? Obviously he felt he had something juicy. But even if he did, how could they possibly award him $5000? True, in theory they were permitted to fund requests of up to five grand; but in practice they rarely gave more than twelve or fifteen hundred. The two grand that Bonnie Engels got, and the almost two grand that George Hosey and Antoinette Carlson both got, were probably the biggest grants the panel had awarded this year.