Don't You Forget About Me: Pam of Babylon Book #2

by Suzanne Jenkins

  It was Steve Marks.

  “Surprise! I got your address from Switchboard.com. Gotta love the Internet!”

  “Go home, Steve, before I call the cops.” Marie was tired of him, but she was also angry. He has a lot of nerve.

  “Don’t be mad at me,” he said. “Let me come up. If you talked to me, you would learn to like me.”

  “Okay, I have about had it with you. If you don’t leave right now, not only am I going to call the cops, but I will report you to my boss in the morning. GO HOME!” she yelled into the intercom.

  There was silence. She wished there was a way she could alert the other tenants so no one would let him in. Suddenly frightened, she got a dining room chair and wedged it under the door handle and then dragged the couch over in front of the chair. He wouldn’t get into her place, even if he got through the front door.

  Seconds later, her phone rang. She picked it up, but didn’t speak. She heard Jeff’s voice.

  “Hello? Marie?”

  She let out a sigh of relief. “Hi, Jeff. Sorry. I’m being stalked by a coworker who showed up at my door tonight, and I was afraid the call might me him.”

  “Oh, how frightening. I would be petrified!”

  Marie looked at the phone in disbelief. Is this guy kidding?

  “Make sure your doors are locked!” he advised.

  “So what can I do for you?” Marie asked, anxious to hang up. She began having suspicions about Jeff.

  “I have a formal affair to attend in town next weekend. Would you be my date?”

  “Can I get back to you?” Marie answered. “Work is crazy right now because of the merger. I’m going to Pam’s tomorrow, though. Are you at the beach or Rhinebeck this weekend?” She hoped he was going to say Rhinebeck.

  “I’m cooking for you at Pam’s Saturday. Won’t that be fun? The weather is supposed to be gorgeous!” The issue was becoming clearer and clearer; she could almost see him simpering. Oh Lord, no. Am I his beard?

  “You’ll be at Pam’s? What? As her date or mine?” Marie was pissed off. Who is this guy, anyway? She had all the male friends she needed. Whatever was going on, she wanted truthfulness out of him.

  Jeff giggled, which fueled her anger. “Both. Neither. I like both of you! Do we need to define our friendship in date terms?”

  So that was it, she thought. He is such a weasel! “Yes! I don’t want to waste my time with someone who I was hoping to be romantically involved with. If you are gay, for God’s sake, say you’re gay! Why the hell are you still in the closet?” She was yelling at him. He has a lot of nerve! She understood why he felt it was necessary to introduce his brother and sister-in-law to a woman. He was hiding who he was from them, and it made her sick. “Wait, I get it. Your family is a bunch of religious fanatics, and you have to keep your real self a secret. Am I correct?”

  There was silence.

  “Answer me, Jeff!” She thought about the wasted weekend where she was force-fed and the trek to Friday’s to meet the family and be cross-examined about her religious beliefs.

  “No, not exactly. I mean they aren’t religious fanatics. They’re just passionate about Jesus.” He didn’t say anything else.

  So this is the way it’s going to be, she thought. She would have to yank everything out of him. “Are you gay?” she asked, more of a statement than a question.

  Waiting for him to answer, she thought of Arthur, how wonderful and honest he was about everything, himself, his friends, life. She found herself wondering if this type of blatant denial was more common than not. And then she calmed down quickly. The poor man was at that cusp of the generation that had to hide who they really were, whose family would disown them if they didn’t measure up in every way. It wasn’t enough that the guy was a successful attorney who had raised two lovely children. She decided to take a different approach. If he had to hide behind her, so be it. He still hadn’t answered her, so she would change tactics.

  “I’m sorry I’m beating you up here, Jeff. I just don’t like to be lied to. I thought there might be something happening between us, and now I see that is impossible. So I will do what I can to help you out when you need it, but if you don’t want at least an honest friendship with me, then forget it.” She listened to his breathing. “Hello?”

  “Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lie,” he confessed. “I’m so used to living behind a veil that I forget that it’s possible to hurt people. I’ll be honest, okay? But I need your discretion. One hundred percent.”

  “One hundred percent,” she echoed.

  He took a deep breath. “Yes, I am a gay man. Yes, I am in the closet. I’ve been celibate, but think it might be time to change that. Just last month I started seeing someone. My children are grown, so my ex-wife can’t use my sexuality against me. I really didn’t know I was gay when we got married. That sounds like a bunch of horseshit, but it’s true. The way I was raised, men were men and women were women, and there was nothing else, no deviation from the traditional roles. The church we were raised in taught that homosexuality was from the devil. Satan. I don’t remember now, but if there were any impulses, I would have squashed them. Just once, just a tiny misstep when I was a boy sent my mother into a tailspin. I’ll never forget it.

  “I was getting ready to go out to play and had taken my Sunday clothes off to put my play clothes on. I was standing in my bedroom in front of my closet in my underwear, with my hand on my hip, looking in, trying to decide what to wear. My older sister came in, and I asked her, ‘Should I wear the plaid shirt with the blue jeans or the green shirt with the khaki pants?’ She reached in to pull out the green shirt and my mother, who must have been standing listening to us, screamed. She ran into my room, grabbed my sister by the arm and pushed her away, and then reached out and slapped my hand off my hip. ‘Don’t ever stand that way again!’ she yelled. ‘Get dressed! Put anything on!’ And then she grabbed my sister again and shook her by the arm. ‘Don’t encourage him!’ she yelled. It was awful. My sister started crying, and my mother shot me the death look and went back to her place in the kitchen.

  “After that, if I slipped up doing the slightest effeminate thing or even what they call metrosexual today, she would slap me and yell, ‘Stop it!’ Of course, this was never in front of my dad. The poor man would have had a heart attack. He was a deacon at the church, for God’s sake!” Jeff laughed. “My mother is still waiting for me to come out of the closet. She was mortified when I went to culinary school.” He stopped, contemplating what he had revealed to Marie.

  Marie was wondering if she needed to come clean with Jeff as well. How much honesty is required? He just spilled his guts at her insistence. Now is it my turn? Is it tit for tat? She waited for a few minutes to give him a chance to regroup.

  “People are stupid; that’s all there is to it. I hate it when they use religion as an excuse to be hateful,” he said. “The funny thing is,” he continued, “I am a Christian. I love God. I believe that Jesus is His Son and reigns with Him in heaven. I do hear the prompting of the Holy Spirit. All of the things I am supposed to do, I do. But, boy oh boy, don’t let my sister-in-law get started on the gay men who work in her gift shop. She spews so much hatred. I can’t believe she doesn’t see the hypocrisy in it.”

  “I have a few confessions to make myself. Do you want me to start now? It’s getting a little late.” She was hoping he would agree and hang up. No such luck.

  “I have time to listen if you need to talk,” he said, his gracious way of giving her the floor.

  “I don’t need to talk, but I need to be truthful about some things up front if we are going to be friends.” She was still hoping for a way out.

  “Go ahead. I’m listening,” he said.

  “Well, for one thing, I’m an anorexic. Always have been, always will be. Your weekend of food was slightly overwhelming, but I did it because I wanted to be with you. If I had known it was a ruse, I would have refused to eat!” She left out the part where she made herself throw up
at the side of the road.

  “It wasn’t a ruse, I swear! I wanted to entertain you because I like your company. Go on, I have the feeling there is something more.” He was interested in knowing more about her.

  “This next part is upsetting because I stayed in your house and used your dishes. I just found out yesterday that I have AIDS.” He didn’t respond, so she went on. “I was in a very long-term relationship, almost thirty years, and the man betrayed me,” she admitted. “I found out that I might be infected when another acquaintance discovered she was ill. The man is dead now, so he isn’t a problem.”

  “Oh, how awful,” he said with compassion. “I’m so sorry. Are you well otherwise?”

  “So far, so good. I am drinking, which you aren’t supposed to do. French wine, by the way, in honor of you. But what about the dishes and bedding? Aren’t you upset about that?” She was hoping he would express his disgust, but he wasn’t biting.

  “You can’t get AIDs from dishes or sheets, so knock it off,” he responded. “Besides, if you could I would be dead by now. Many of my friends are HIV positive or have AIDS. I’ll tell you the truth; it’s the anorexia that bothers me the most. All kinds of research have been done regarding the importance of nutrition in AIDS.”

  Marie yawned. Oh no, not this. Time to change the subject, she thought.

  “And drinking while taking antiretroviral drugs is not good.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe I’ll join AA,” she said. “Look, I better hang up; glad we had this little chat and all that. I have a brutal day tomorrow, and if I am going to see you at Pam’s Saturday, we can chat then, okay? In the meantime, mum’s the word!”

  They said good-bye and hung up.

  Another gay friend, just what she needed. Maybe she would try Internet dating. Single. White. Infected with AIDS. How would that go over? she wondered.

  Chapter 37

  “So how’d you happen to come to my apartment with reinforcements?” Sandra was sitting in the back of the unmarked car with Tom while Jim drove. They were going to Benny’s Shakes for burgers and chocolate milk shakes. Sandra could smell them—and they got large French fries and giant chocolate milk shakes made with full-fat ice cream and whole milk. She would look pregnant before the week was up if Tom had anything to say about it. He had been so worried about her today. His protective radar was going full blast, which included feeding his conquest.

  “I tried to call you, and when you didn’t answer, I got worried. So I called Jim, who was at work, and he got the uniforms involved. I made it uptown from Brooklyn in less than thirty minutes.”

  She was sucking the ice cream up her straw with all of her might. It was not easy! “How’d he even get out? Bill, I mean. I thought he couldn’t make bail.” Sandra was so glad that he would be put away for a long time.

  “Mom,” Tom answered. She got a big check from some auction house today—an advance on a sale they are going to have. Sadly, she won’t be getting that money back. Gotta love New York law. By the way, Billy sends his apologies. ‘I didn’t mean to scare her,’ he says.”

  Jim was on the phone with his wife, lying about dinner. He was supposed to be eating salad from the cafeteria tonight.

  Sandra was getting ready to stuff the last of her burger in her mouth. Her appetite seemed to increase in the past hour in spite of the trauma she had experienced. “Would you like to come to the beach with me this weekend? I’m going to ask Pam if it’s all right first thing in the morning. The drama is over. Unless Marie tells us she’s going to have a sex-change operation, it should be very peaceful,” she said, surprised at her own cruel words. Then doing an about-face, she told Tom about how Marie had gone out of her way for Sandra that afternoon. She thought it was a gesture of friendship, but her rancor for Marie was still at the surface.

  “You better wait to make any plans. I don’t think you realize the magnitude of what you went through tonight. It will probably hit you later. You’re in shock right now.” Tom was looking at her with concern.

  He’s probably right, she thought. But it wasn’t all that bad. She knew she was lucky Tom and the other policemen got there when they did. What would Bill have done? Would he have killed me? They would never know. “What will the charges be?” she asked.

  “For one thing, he manhandled you when he placed the gag and tied you up, so we have the possibility of battery. Then he held you against your will, and that constitutes kidnapping. And he got into your apartment without your knowledge. On top of his theft charges, breaking parole, and the restraining order violation, he may be gone for good,” Tom said.

  “He won’t get bail again, that’s for sure,” Jim added. “Can I take you two home? I have to get working on the case.” He turned the car around, and they headed back uptown.

  Tom had his arm around Sandra’s shoulders, and he leaned over and kissed her again. She felt like she was a teenager, making out in the back of a car.

  “Don’t look in your rearview mirror, Jim! We’re being naughty back here,” Sandra said.

  Jim went through a charade of adjusting his mirror so he could see the backseat. The car pulled up to her building, and Tom got out first and offered her his hand. She was surprised at how stiff she felt. The EMTs had tried to convince her to go to the hospital to be checked, but she was afraid her HIV status would become an issue. She’d be okay, she hoped. She stood on the sidewalk, her neighbors walking by, curious about how she came to be getting out of the back of an unmarked cop car while Tom talked to Jim.

  The car sped off as Tom and Sandra went up the walk to her building. She gave him the key to get the door open, telling him how difficult it had been to unlock earlier. He thought Bill had jimmied it. The creepiness factor, someone with his crazy background stalking Sandra and then roughing her up, hit Tom with a force he didn’t recognize. He was glad the man was behind bars now because it meant he was unable to kill him. He understood the potential for police brutality. He’d call in later and make sure the people in charge knew the victim was a police officer’s girlfriend. They’d take care of it for him.

  ~ ~ ~

  Friday. What did Friday mean to me when Jack was alive? Marie thought. She was on a roller coaster again—one minute, glad she was free of him; the next, feeling hopeless. Jeff Babcock had provided a respite for a brief time, a few weeks of hope that she could have a normal relationship with a man. His revelation last night didn’t surprise her as much as it pissed her off. Why? Why do I attract men who aren’t available?

  In the past, Friday meant getting ready for the weekend. She loved going home and preparing for the drive to the beach. She wouldn’t leave until Saturday; her gesture of respect to her sister, allowing Pam and Jack one night of privacy before Marie would come and usurp his attention. Pam had no idea of what was going on right under her nose for thirty years. Jack called her his high-maintenance girl, but the truth was she didn’t need him for much at all by looking at the surface. He was free to live in the city, have affairs, and when he was home, all he had to do was golf and play around with Marie. She put her head down on her desk and fought back tears. What a waste. Then there was a knock on her door.

  “Come in,” she said reluctantly.

  It was Steve Marks. He had a rakish grin on his face, a “you’ll forgive me anything” look. Marie jumped up as he walked through the door.

  “Anyone but you! Get out before I tell my boss about last night.”

  He put both hands up in the air and started walking backward toward her door. “You can’t blame a guy for trying,” he whined.

  “Oh yes, I can! I talked to my sister’s boyfriend, who’s NYPD, and he said I already have a case for a restraining order against you. Stay away from my apartment! And if you continue to bother me here at work, I’ll file a harassment charge against you.” So I told a white lie, kill me.

  He giggled at her. “You’re not serious, right?” He lingered in her doorway until she started walking toward him.

  “Dead serious! Now
get out!” She slammed her door, no longer concerned that other employees or even her boss would hear. She had never caused a second of trouble here; he had better stand behind her and protect her. Or she would take matters into her own hands.

  Chapter 38

  By early Saturday morning, Pam hadn’t heard from either her sister or Sandra about their plans for the weekend. She got out of bed to prepare for Sharon’s arrival and the drama of telling her about her AIDS. Nelda may be dead for all she knew; she went up to her apartment yesterday afternoon and refused to answer her phone. Susan finally left, having a two-hour drive home to Connecticut. She had offered to take Nelda back with her, but Sharon was planning on taking her and needed to be told. She’d have her week with Mom and then bring her back when the kids were home for Labor Day weekend.

  The scene with Nelda exhausted Pam. She went to bed soon after her sister left, thinking she would lie down for a while and get up to eat something later. She ended up sleeping through the night. She woke up without the alarm, lying on her back and looking up at the ceiling. The telltale light of day was already creeping into her room, just over the closed drapes. It must be after seven.

  She was right. She stretched, going to the window to open the drapes. The beach was a clean, white slate, waiting for sunbathers and dog walkers, children with Frisbees, and shell collectors. When she and Jack planned this life, she hadn’t imagined it without him. Does any married couple? Even though he never lived there full time, the thought of him was always foremost in her mind: Jack’s house, his office, his car, his golf clubs, his friends, his children. Her own needs didn’t factor into much of their life or what they did together. It was usually all about Jack.