Alligators in the Trees

by Cynthia Hamilton

  How could I have been so blind to her spitefulness? he asked himself. How did that sweet, uncultured woman turn into such a cold-hearted, condescending witch? It was pointless to try to solve those riddles now; it wasn’t as though anything could be done to make amends at this juncture.

  Even if the miraculous happened and Marianne decided it best to reconcile, he didn’t think he could look upon her the same way as before. He would constantly be second-guessing her reactions to him, wondering what was really going on in her mind.

  Ah, ignorance truly is bliss, he acknowledged, realizing he been living in a fool’s paradise. No woman would jilt her husband just over a business scandal not due to greed or intentional malice on his part. Marianne’s contempt for him had to have been brewing for some time. If he hadn’t been so wrapped up in his own pursuits, he might have seen it sooner.

  He removed the stir from his drink before killing it in one toss. It wasn’t pleasant to discover he couldn’t deposit all the blame at Marianne’s feet. He shook his head and conceded his culpability where his ruined marriage was concerned. After shouldering all the guilt for the collapse, it would’ve been a relief to claim innocence in the breakup of his marriage.

  All right, so he could have been a better husband to Marianne—less preoccupied with his own agenda and more attentive to her needs. But did his shortcomings entitle her to ravage his assets and leave him groveling for even the most basic right of joint custody of his child?

  Even with this fresh serge of culpability, Philip had trouble reconciling Marianne’s greed and hostility. Maybe he was just a stupid oaf when it came to reading people. Maybe her grievances were greater than he realized.

  Philip stared morosely at his empty glass. Here he was, poised on the brink of his first date with Priscilla—which he shouldn’t be classifying it as a date, though it sure felt like one—and all he could think about was Marianne and how furious she had made him.

  He had been looking forward to spending time with Priscilla for months, yet now that he had the chance, he felt filled to his molars with a bilious mix of resentment, contempt, anxiety and fear, garnished with a mere sprig of joyous expectation.

  It should have been the other way around, with the thrill of seeing Priscilla pushing all other emotions to a safe distance in the back of his brain. He found himself longing for another drink, but abstained. The last thing he wanted to do was get soused and end up grousing about his wicked future-ex-wife all evening.

  Philip looked up from his empty glass in time to see Marcello escort Priscilla to his table. His shock at seeing her caused him to spring from his chair, setting it rocking precariously beneath him.

  “There you are,” he exclaimed as she approached. His cloud of dread dissolved with one look at her. Priscilla stood nervously in front of him as Marcello pulled out her chair. Philip reserved all further comments until the maitre d’ had seated her and inquired about a beverage.

  “Just water,” Priscilla said, fidgeting with the handbag that she couldn’t find a home for. She gave up and let it lay on the lap of her expensive, but plain new dress. “On second thought, I’ll have a vodka and tonic.”

  She had given Philip the barest of glances, all she could manage in her over-wrought condition. After the surreal encounter with Tobias Jordan, she had gotten ready in a fugue-like state. The decision to go through with this assignation had been insisted upon by an alter ego, the one that had stepped in to govern her actions when her conscious mind took a powder.

  If she found it disconcerting to be sitting across from Phil in a swanky Italian Ristorante wearing a dress the likes of which she had never felt before, let alone put on, it was no more perplexing than having a famous songwriter appear out of the clear blue sky and purchase all her accumulated works for fifteen thousand dollars. If King Kong had reached through the roof and plucked her out of her seat that very moment, she could not be more astonished than she already was.

  But amazement was a minor component to what she was feeling. The last thirty hours had conjured so many perplexing concerns she could hardly put a name to them all. Besides bewildering disbelief, she sensed growing apprehension over committing to the bargain she had made with Tobias.

  It was still settling in that she had separated herself from the thousands of words she had written in an effort to make sense of her life. In one small corner of her brain, panic was brewing over her rash act. Plus, she was still questioning her decision to abandon New York City in favor of parts unknown.

  And to top it all off, she capitulated to her sense of guilt and honor, spending a ridiculous amount of money on a dress for dinner with a man who had an absurd and unreciprocated crush on her.

  Priscilla took measured breaths and met Philip’s gaze in fleeting intervals, as she waited for her drink to arrive. The taxi ride over had been excruciating, as her emotions tugged her this way and that.

  She had long been accustomed to bobbing along on the prevailing current, wherever it had taken her, but never had she been caught in such daunting, conflicting riptides. So real were the forces bearing down on her she could feel her muscles twitch from the strain.

  “I can’t get over how breathtakingly beautiful you look tonight,” Philip said after an awkward silence. Instead of breaking the tension, his heavy-handed compliment had the opposite effect.

  A waiter placed the vodka tonic on Priscilla’s plate, and she did her level best not to lunge at it. In her most ladylike manner, she took a sip and daintily returned it to its resting place. Once she had performed this sequence several times, she had regained enough composure to make simple chitchat.

  “This is a really nice place,” she managed to say. She was so appalled at the lameness of this remark, she immediately regretted coming. Her anxiety was so palpable, Philip started losing his regained optimism. In an effort to guide the evening away from a crash landing, he asked the waiter to bring the menus.

  Priscilla was grateful for the diversion, yet the menu produced another wave of concern. She studied the italicized type in pale sepia, trying in vain to decipher its meaning. A translation of each dish appeared underneath in a font so small she had to squint to see it. And nowhere on the menu could she find such staples as Fettuccine Alfredo or Spaghetti with Meatballs.

  All she could find were dishes and ingredients she’d never heard of before: Veal Sweetbreads in a Marsala demiglaze; Sunchokes on a bed of braised fennel and radicchio, with a lemon-walnut oil dressing; Tortelloni stuffed with black truffles, served in a foie gras reduction. She suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

  “What sounds good to you?” Philip asked sociably over his menu.

  “Uh…” she replied hesitantly. She had been in the process of striking a deal with herself in which she’d get through this evening by any means possible, her reward being a plane ticket to Miami just as soon as she received her payoff the next day. “Gee, it’s so hard to decide…” she truthfully admitted.

  “Tell you what we’ll do to make it easier—when I can’t make up my mind, I leave it up to the chef. Takes all the work out of it, and you never know what kind of surprises he’ll come up with.” Priscilla smiled blandly, wondering what bizarre concoction she would be forced to consume. Philip instructed the maitre d’ and ordered a bottle of wine, while she drained what little watered-down vodka remained in her glass.

  “Would you like another?” Philip asked as the clatter of ice caught his attention.

  “Only if you’re having one,” she said, setting the glass back down.

  “I think I’ll switch to wine, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  Philip handed the menus to Marcello, who dispatched their request post haste. “Well, that’s settled. Now all we have to do is sit back and enjoy.”

  There was enough activity at their table to make conversation avoidable. The sommelier came with Philip’s wine, followed by a waiter providing an unusual quantity of utensils to accompany the imminent onslaught of c
ourses.

  Priscilla’s first challenge was a pair of tiny crostini, one topped with a mousseline of duck liver, the other with a fried quail egg garnished with flakes of shaved white truffle. She waited until Philip ate his before she tackled her own. The flavors were so strong and foreign, she didn’t dare let them linger on her tongue. She managed to consume both with copious swallows of wine in between, which was harsh and almost burnt tasting to her uneducated palette.

  The second food obstacle was fairly tame by comparison: a small teacup of fish bouillon with threads of zucchini and parsnips and a dollop of langoustine meat. Again, Priscilla took her cues from Philip, who gingerly spooned off the solids before drinking the broth.

  The third course was pan-roasted slices of monkfish served over a bed of braised kale with pancetta. Mistaking the greens for spinach—which she hated—Priscilla picked at the fish, and was forced to concede that it wasn’t so horrible. The fourth course, however, was a different story.

  “Squid in its own ink,” the waiter announced with a proud flourish. Priscilla felt all the peculiar edibles churn threateningly inside her. She turned white with trepidation as she stared at the dish before her.

  “I can’t do it,” she said finally, putting the napkin to her lips. “I’m sorry, I just can’t do this anymore,” she said, her voice low and faint. Philip, who was inordinately fond of squid—ink, or no ink—was slow to pick up on Priscilla’s distress. “I’m sorry, Phil—I just can’t stay here,” she said, as she pushed her chair away from the table.

  “Oh…oh, I see. Yes, of course. Let me get the check.”

  Priscilla’s hue had worsened from white to a pale sickly green. She lurched out of her chair as Philip signed his check, heading unsteadily toward the exit. He caught up with her as she passed through the front door, where she paused to take in great gulps of fresh air.

  “I’m sorry, Priscilla. I thought you liked Italian food,” Philip said.

  “It’s not your fault, Phil. I’m just not cut out for this kind of scene. I’m more of a jeans and beer and pizza person. All that exotic stuff—nice as I’m sure it is—is wasted on me.” Philip looked at her, the way she had fixed herself up for the evening, obviously going to great lengths in order to fit into his scheme of things. A wave of shameful regret washed over him.

  “It was wrong of me to bring you here. I completely lost sight of what would make you feel comfortable and happy—”

  “Really, it’s no one’s fault—”

  “Let me make it up to you,” Philip said earnestly.

  “That’s not necessary,” Priscilla said. Now that she had extricated herself from her ordeal by food, she was impatient to have the whole experience behind her. She glanced out at the street, hoping to spot a free cab.

  “I know, but I want to. Let’s go have some pizza—that sounds like a much better idea to me.” Philip’s unwavering optimism was starting to grate on her nerves.

  “No, I couldn’t possibly face food right now,” she said, feeling queasy all over again. The only thing she wanted to do was return home for one final night in her grungy apartment and prepare herself for her life-altering trip to Florida.

  “Well, let’s go have a drink—a beer—somewhere.” There was a tinge of desperation in his voice that made Priscilla clench her teeth.

  “Phil…look, this isn’t going to work. Date or no date, we’re simply not compatible. It has nothing to do with you or me. We’re too different. It was just a bad idea.”

  “How can you say that? You haven’t given it enough of a chance yet.”

  Priscilla snorted and shook her head. “I’ve never seen anyone so devoted to lost causes as you, Phil,” she said. Philip chewed his lower lip; her accusation was more accurate than she could know. “I think we should say goodnight, good luck, have a nice life and chalk it up to experience.”

  “No, I can’t do that.” Philip’s earlier eagerness was replaced with an adamant conviction that Priscilla found hard to debate. “There is something about you I can’t turn away from. I don’t know what it is—chemistry or a sixth sense, or whatever. But I know with every fiber in my body that we are meant to be more than casual acquaintances in a coffee shop.”

  Priscilla looked him steadily in the eye and took his measure. There was zero chemistry on her end, and as far as sixth senses were concerned, he didn’t strike her as the type to have one.

  But on the other hand, he wasn’t a lunatic; she’d bet the farm on that. He wasn’t one of those emotional jellyfish she had encountered so many times in her life, either. He was a man who had made his own way in life, made a success of himself, so he could hardly be classified as a flake. He was merely confused about his feelings for her. It happens. Lord knows, she had made the same mistake herself more than once.

  “Have one drink with me,” he said. “If you still feel uncomfortable with the idea of spending time with me after that, I’ll personally put you in a cab and send you safely home, and I promise to never push myself on you again. Scout’s honor.”

  Priscilla shifted from foot to foot as she debated this offer. It wasn’t like she couldn’t use a proper drink, and she knew she had absolutely nothing to fill that need at her place.

  “One drink,” Philip lobbied.

  Priscilla sighed and consented. “All right. You win. One drink.”

  Philip, attuned to Priscilla’s sensibilities by this time, chose a bar that was neither too uptown nor too low-rent, one in which almost anyone could feel comfortable knocking back a drink or two. There was a good crowd, so it was plenty lively, but it was still possible to be heard when speaking.

  They found a booth in the far corner of the main room, which allowed them to observe those around them while gradually becoming accustomed to one another’s company. Philip nursed his double scotch on the rocks while Priscilla settled her nerves with another vodka tonic. Philip made light conversation, intentionally benign enough not to scare Priscilla away. Eventually, she relaxed her guard, and after about half an hour, they had begun to converse almost companionably.

  “So, by the time I was eight, I knew I’d be an architect when I grew up,” Philip said, as he recounted for her the history behind his infatuation with building design. The enthusiasm in which he detailed the chronology of his love of architecture intrigued her. She tried unsuccessfully to imagine having such a concrete sense of purpose.

  “You never thought about doing anything else? Never thought of being a pilot or a Peace Corp volunteer, window washer?”

  “Nope. Never even considered being anything but an architect.”

  “Wow.” Priscilla shook her head in wonder. What a neat, tidy world Philip had. It struck her how abnormal normality was these days. Philip had managed to defy the forces of accident and adversity to stay a course he’d chosen at the age of eight. She could think of no one else she knew who had enjoyed such stability of purpose. She had personally never conceived of an idea that lasted more than a week.

  “How about you? What did you dream of being when you were a kid? I have a hunch it wasn’t waiting tables.”

  Priscilla smirked. She stirred her drink while she tried to recall that far back. “Honestly, I can’t remember wanting to be anything specific—probably a nurse or a princess, or something totally unrealistic like that,” she said, as she thought back to her childhood.

  “I guess I always harbored the belief I’d be a writer or a reporter one day. It wasn’t something I consciously decided to pursue, it was just something I assumed would happen. I suppose that came from the sheer volume of newspapers I’ve pored through every day since I was ten.”

  “Really? What gave you such an interest in reading newspapers?”

  “It wasn’t something I started doing on my own. It was my uncle’s notion of educating me without benefit of the local school system.”

  “Why was that?” Priscilla regarded Philip for a moment before speaking. Conjuring up her uncle’s way of life before Philip struck her as being hila
riously incongruent.

  “My uncle traveled constantly with his band—heavy metal/grunge rockers. I suspect they would’ve been hippies in an earlier era. They lived like hippies, with the converted school bus and the communal living and all that. But the music and the clothes and the attitudes were different.

  “It was a pretty interesting lifestyle for a kid, hanging out with a bunch of crazy musicians, always touring or rehearsing. There was no such thing as a normal schedule. Our lives seemed to revolve around whatever gigs they could line up. Now that I look back on it, I’m surprised we got away with it so long.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Avoiding the school situation. It would have changed everything for my uncle if schooling had been a constant consideration, and I probably would’ve been sent to live with my Aunt Jane a lot sooner. But we managed to duck the issue for six years, until my uncle finally came to the conclusion that dragging me around the country with a bunch of loadies probably wasn’t the most ideal upbringing for a teenage girl. Of course, my aunt agreed whole-heartedly. It turned out she had been trying to track us down for years.”

  “Am I to take it you lost your parents?”

  “Yes. They were both killed when I was ten.”

  “What a tragedy. I’m so sorry,” Philip said softly, his eyes full of sympathy.

  Priscilla shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Was it an automobile crash?”

  “No, it was a freak accident. One of those improbable scenarios only my parents could pull off.” Priscilla hoped no further elaboration would be necessary. Philip, however, was too distracted by her touching revelation to pick up on her discomfort.

  “How did it happen, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  Priscilla shifted uncomfortably in the black vinyl booth, wondering if it was fair to give Philip what he was asking for. She allowed her gaze to drift into middle space, as if she were looking back over a long passage of time.

  “It was one of those completely avoidable errors. The kind of careless mistake you’d assume everyone knew not to do—you know, like sticking your hand in the garbage disposal or whacking open a hornets’ nest.” Already, Philip was watching her with mild alarm. Priscilla tried not to smile as she continued to relate the sad tale of her parents’ horrible demise.